Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just said “No” to the demand of the Obama administration to stop construction of 900 new homes for Israeli citizens in the Jerusalem suburb of Gilo. The 900 homes would be built on land conquered by the Israelis in the 1967 war on the edge of Jerusalem, and that land was long ago assimilated into the Jerusalem metro area. The first link below used the phrase “defying the USA” to describe Netanyahu’s action. The second link notes that Gilo now has 33,000 residents and that while the Israelis will exercise restraint in the regions of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank regions) that policy of housing restraint “does not apply in Jerusalem, our capital.”
The appeasers of the Palestinians in the Western world do not want to acknowledge that Jerusalem is the Israeli capital. Many nations have kept their embassies out of Jerusalem in order to not offend the Palestinians and other Moslems. However, does the Bible say anything about Jerusalem’s connection to the modern Israeli nation? Yes it does!
Zephaniah 2:1-9 prophesies that Judah (the Jews/Israelis) was to have a homeland in the old Promised Land in the time just prior to “the day of the Lord’s anger.” The “day of the Lord” concludes the “latter days” in various biblical prophecies about the end of our age. This prophecy was fulfilled in 1948 when the Jews founded the state of Israel in the old Promised Land along the coastal region of the Mediterranean Sea (just as Zephaniah 2:6 prophesied) and the Israeli nation includes the city of Ashkelon (just as Zephaniah 2:7 prophesied). I have mentioned this before in other blogs, but it keeps needing to be repeated because I get periodic emails from those who doubt the Jews are really the tribe of Judah. I routinely point out this prophecy to people who want to doubt the Jews are Judah. Open-minded people do “get it” when they see God used modern Jews to specifically fulfill prophecies about “Judah” in our age, but serious Jew-haters have minds which cannot see this simple and blatant biblical fact. Indeed, I had an exchange with one person (not on the blogsite) who did see the truth that the Jews really were the tribe of Judah and he told me he would track down every person he’d ever told otherwise that the Jews really were Judah. He is to be commended! It really shows whether the Spirit of God is leading people if they can reverse their viewpoints on this (or other) issues when they see the truth in the Bible. But I digress.
Jerusalem is clearly shown in biblical, latter day prophecies to be the city most closely linked to the nation of modern Judah (the Israelis). Zechariah 12 and 14 are prophecies about “Judah and Jerusalem” in the latter days. They are mentioned as being intimately linked together in the latter days in these prophecies (Zechariah 12:3-11, 14:1-4, 14). This indicates that Jerusalem will be the primary city identified with Judah in the latter days. In other words, it will be Judah’s capital city.
There is a larger issue. All nations of the world are feeling increasingly inclined to say “no” to the USA’s dictates. China says “no” all the time. Japan is taking a new monetary, financial policy which is much more independent of U.S. wishes. Germany’s Prime Minister Angela Merkel openly criticized the policies of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board. Turkey is pursuing an independent policy which rejects U.S. wishes (although Turkey’s policy is very worrisome as it is edging closer to Iran and Syria—as discussed in a recent blog). Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s decision to say “no” to the Obama administration’s wishes is hardly a unique action by other sovereign states. Many other nations are also paying ever-less attention to the wishes of the U.S. Government.
This should hardly be a surprise. The USA is now the most fiscally profligate nation on the earth, and likely in the history of planet earth. The USA is spending money as if it had a $12 trillion surplus instead of a $12 trillion dollar (or greater) debt. One wonders if the White House and the Congress could do anything fiscally responsible to save their lives! The USA foolishly shipped much of its industrial capacity to China and other nations, placing its own national security in serious jeopardy and ending any chance of solving its trade deficit. The USA is wasting ever-more blood, money and military equipment in Afghanistan even though the U.S. Government can’t afford the war at all, is wearing out its own military and can’t articulate a single defining reason why U.S. troops are still there. [Earth to Washington, DC: The Al Queda training camps ceased to exist years ago and there is virtually no chance that Osama bin Laden has remained in Afghanistan when he can easily find sanctuary elsewhere.] Other nations see the chronic inability of the U.S. government to “manage its own house” and wonder “why should we pay any attention to a deadbeat nation that can’t stop its spending and can’t manage its own finances?”
Expect more and more nations to say “no” to the U.S. Government until it “sobers up” in its behavior and shows it can act responsibly again. Let’s hope that happens soon…like after the 2010 U.S. Congressional elections.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091117/wl_nm/us_palestinians_israel_jerusalem_4
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/134465
