War of The Ages - The Battle for Jerusalem
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Tuesday, June 12, 2007
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Forty years ago, on June 7, 1967, Israeli Defense Forces captured East
Jerusalem from the Jordanians at the conclusion of the Six Days War.

I don't want you to miss the significance of this event. In 589 BC, King
Nebucadnezzar of Babylon imposed a siege on the city that lasted for
more than three years:

"And it was in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the
tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzer King of Babylon came, he and
all his hosts, upon Jerusalem, and he encamped upon it and built forts
around it. And the city came under siege till the eleventh year of King
Zedikiah. On the ninth of the month famine was intense in the city, the
people had no bread, and the city was breached…" (II Kings 25).

The city's starving inhabitants were helpless to stop the marauding
Babylonian conquerors from sacking and burning the city of God and His
Temple.

"And in the fifth month, on the tenth of the month… Nebuchadnezzer came…
and he burned the House of the L-rd, and the King's house, and all the
houses of Jerusalem… and the entire wall surrounding Jerusalem was
destroyed… and Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, exiled the
remaining multitude…" (Jeremiah 52).

When the Babylonians left, they took with them the priceless solid gold
Temple treasures, together with the cream of Judah's intelligensia,
craftsman, royal family and the cream of Jewish society, who were
enslaved into the service of the Babylonian king.

 From that day, 586 years before Christ, until June 7, 1967, the Jews
were never again sovereign over either their holy city or the Temple Mount.

Eventually, they were permitted to rebuild the city and Temple, but did
so under occupation by a succession of Empires; Babylon, Persia,
Alexander the Great's Greece and finally, Imperial Rome.

In AD 70, the city and 2nd Temple was again sacked and burned and its
inhabitants were executed or forced into exile -- an exile that lasted
for nearly two THOUSAND years.

During this period, Jerusalem was alternatively fought over and
possessed by various papal armies, Muslim armies and, from 1517 until
1917, by the Islamic caliphate of the Ottoman Empire.

In 1917, Jerusalem was captured from the Ottomans by the British during
the First World War. It was administered under occupation by the British
for the next thirty years before it was turned over to the United Nations.

In 1947, the United Nations declared Jerusalem an 'open' city. During
the 1948 Jewish War of Independence, the Arabs captured Jerusalem and
sealed the roads leading to the city to keep it out of Jewish hands.

The Jewish Defense Forces, (then called the "Haganah') built an
impossible road nicknamed "The Burma Road" through the seemingly
impassible mountains the surrounded the city.

Thus bypassing the main road, the Jews were able to lift the siege on
the city and capture its western half, just days before the UN imposed a
cease-fire.

For the next two decades, Jerusalem was divided between the Jews on the
West and the Arab-held 'Old City' to the East.

When Israel won its independence, the countries to which the Arabs fled,
primarily Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, promptly interned them in 'refugee'
camps.

In early 1965, Yasser Arafat created the PLO and declared the existence
of a 'Palestinian' people out of the Arab refugees who fled in advance
of the Arab attacks in 1948.

He raised up a fighting force from within these refugee camps, and
coordinated terror attacks against Israeli border regions as part of a
pan-Arab strategy known as the 'entanglement theory.'

This involved using sabotage to force Israel to adopt an offensive
position, which in turn would force the Arabs to step up their military
preparedness.

This cycle of action-retaliation-reaction would lead to a gradual
escalation of tension on the borders, and eventually to the Six Day War
in 1967.

On June 1st, 1967, Israel was confronted by an Arab force of some
465,000 troops, over 2,880 tanks and 810 aircraft. The armies of Kuwait,
Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Iraq were contributing troops and arms to the
Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian fronts.

On June 7, 1967, the Jews had recovered the Biblical territories of
Judea and Samaria and, for the first time since Nebuchadnezzar's siege,
were in sovereign control over a united, city of Jerusalem under Israeli
rule.

By every existing tenet of accepted international law, the territory
captured in the process of beating back the 1967 war of aggression was
legally Israel's -- hence the saying, "to the victor go the spoils."

That is how virtually every nation on earth came to be.

For example, the territory of the United States consists of territory
captured from Great Britain, France, Spain and from the indigenous
tribes of the American Indians.

Canada was formerly British and French. Mexico was once Spanish, then
French, then Spanish again before winning its independence as a
sovereign nation.

The Ottoman Empire fell to the Allies to do with as they wished. The
Allies didn't want it, so it was theirs to give away to whomever they chose.

Following the San Remo Conference 1920-1923, the League of Nations
assigned British Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill to draw up new
borders for what was then called "The Fertile Crescent" comprising what
had been known as Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia.

With the stroke of Churchill's pen, the 'Fertile Crescent' was divided
into what is modern states of Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Kuwait, Turkey, Iran,
Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the states of the modern United Arab
Emirates.

All these nations were created out of the 'spoils of war'. The borders
of the Arab states were HANDED to them by the Allied forces who
conquered their land FOR them.

Under the terms of the Balfour Declaration of 1917, a tiny corner at the
confluence the new borders of Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria was
designated as a homeland for the Jewish people.

The Arab states -- that owe their own existence to the largesse of the
conquering Allies -- claim Israel is their land, stolen from them by the
Jews. Such a claim SHOULDN'T pass the laugh test. It shouldn't.

And if it were anywhere BUT Jerusalem, it wouldn't.

The Arab states might CLAIM a land grant from Allah, but their borders
were drawn by Winston Churchill. By contrast, Israel's borders were
drawn by God. And Israel's current borders weren't granted, but paid for
with Jewish blood.

Jerusalem's claim isn't like other national capitals. It centers around
land PURCHASED, in cash, from its rightful owner, a Jebusite named
Ornan, for 600 shekels of gold.

The site of the Temple Mount was Ornan's threshing floor, ALSO
purchased, for an additional fifty shekels of silver.

The purchaser was the King of Israel and the deed is more than three
thousand years old.

It was subsequently stolen, given to others (by conquest) and
reconquered 2500 years later, by its original owners, and paid for, this
time, in blood.

There is no other city on earth like Jerusalem. It is truly the center
of the world. No event in this tiny city (population 740,000) goes
unnoticed on the world's stage.

It is hard to imagine there is a person on earth, no matter how remote
his location, that never heard of Jerusalem. Certainly, there is no city
on earth whose ownership is more hotly disputed by more people.

It's GDP is abysmal ($1000 per year per capita). It has no major
industries. It has neither proven oil reserves nor mineral wealth. It is
neither a major commercial crossroads, an industrial hub nor has it any
ports or other transportation values.

But it is the most hotly contested, and therefore, the most
strategically important city on earth.

There is not a single nation on earth who takes a neutral position on
the question of Jerusalem's ownership. And not a single nation on earth
that unequivocally supports Israel's right to possess it.

In 1967, Israel declared Jerusalem its eternal, undivided capital. Forty
years later, not a single nation on earth maintains its embassy there.
Not one.

The Quartet is preparing to 'impose' a solution on the city. There are
discussions (and even resolutions) DEMANDING the UN re-divide the city
between Arab and Jew, by force, if necessary.

Zechariah predicts that, once Jerusalem is again in Jewish hands;

"Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people
round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and
against Jerusalem." (Zechariah 12:2)

For forty years, Jerusalem has been at the center of global attention.
More UN resolutions contain the name of "Jerusalem" than all the rest of
the world's cities combined.

"And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all
people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces,
though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it."
(Zechariah 12:3)

The US Congress passed the Jerusalem Act in 1995 requiring the US to
move its embassy to Jerusalem. The 9/11 attacks, according to Osama bin
Laden, were a consequence of the West's continued support for Israel and
for Jerusalem.

That is exactly what Zechariah predicted would be the situation when the
Jews regained sovereignty over Jerusalem, and it is exactly the
situation as it exists today.

The 9/11 attack was the event that began the global 'war on terror'
which, when viewed devoid of politically correctness, is nothing less
than a war over the existence of Israel and sovereign control of the
city of Jerusalem. It is a world war that threatens the continued
existence of both civilizations.

Zechariah predicts that Jerusalem will be divided one more time:

"Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in
the midst of thee. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to
battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the
women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and
the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city."
(Zechariah 14:1-2)

The battle lines are being drawn, even as we speak. There is a growing
global consensus that there is only one way to end this war.

Take East Jerusalem away from the Jews and give it to the Arabs. Either
that, or watch the world go up in flames.

It is a foregone conclusion that some kind of solution must be imposed.
Even Washington has come to the same conclusion, although it has not yet
acquiesced to what it knows is the inevitable. All the signs say that it
will.

And this is what Zechariah says will happen next:

"Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when
He fought in the day of battle. And His feet shall stand in that day
upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the
mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and
toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the
mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the
south." (Zechariah 14:3-4)

Zechariah is describing the 2nd Coming of Christ. And before that event
takes place, first comes the Rapture of the Church.

Among the signs given by Jesus of His Second Coming is this cryptic
reference: "and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until
the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. " (Luke 21:24)

He also says, "THIS GENERATION" shall not pass, until all these things
be fulfilled." (Luke 21:32)

Forty years (the commonly accepted benchmark for a Biblical generation)
after Israel ended the rule of the Gentiles over the city of God, the
world is preparing for an all-out battle for Jerusalem.

Which is precisely the scenario outlined by the Hebrew prophets more
than two and a half millennia in advance.