Shalom friends,

Being pressed by legal and other means to be politically correct, too often results in being biblically incorrect. Israel constantly faces this problem, but as a Jerusalem intercessor recently said, Israel is the only nation whose very existence in the eyes of the world is not politically correct.

Israel's restoration & Yeshua's return

Chuck was recently asked to give three clear scriptural proofs for his assertion that the restoration of the Jewish people to God's land and to their Messiah indicates that Yeshua's return is near. Here they are.

1. When LORD [YHWH] shall build up Zion, He shall appear in His glory.

   Psalm 102:16

   Obviously, when Messiah Yeshua first appeared it was not in fulfillment of this verse. He appeared in His humility and was despised and rejected (Zech. 9:9; Isa. 53:3; Phil. 2:5-8). Today, God is building up Zion literally and spiritually. Psalm 102 also says (18a), This shall be written for the generation to come..., literally, the last generation.

2. Matthew 23:37-39 - Yeshua says to Jerusalem, Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For...you shall not see Me again until you say, Blessed is He that comes in the name of [YHWH]. When you consider the horror of Church history toward the Jewish people, for a Jew to declare this phrase to "Jesus Christ" must mean that he knows Yeshua as Messiah and Lord of all (Acts 10:36). For Jerusalem, representing the nation, to confess that Yeshua is Messiah and invite Him back (what the verse Yeshua quoted from Psalm 118:26 indicates), would mean that Israel had already met her Messiah.

   Although many Jews in exile and in Israel are coming to know Yeshua, scripture describes a "day" when Israel as a nation is saved in their own land (Ezek. 36:23-30; Zech. 12:10-14; Rom. 11:26-27). For this to happen, Jews must be living in the land of Israel. Zechariah 12:10 sees the Spirit of grace and supplication poured out on Jews living in Jerusalem and Judea. Ezekiel 36 says God saves all Israel after He brings them back to the mountains of Israel, which are symbolic for all of the land (36:4). Note the progression in verses 24-28: aliyah (immigration to Israel), then yeshuah (salvation). There are other places where we see this same progression, for example: Jeremiah 30:18-22; 32:37-44; 33:7-9.

3. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people...For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle...

   Zechariah 12:2-3a; 14:2a

   This sets the stage for the return of Messiah (see 14:2-4a).

   Whether this Jerusalem represents Israel's government, her physical capital, or both, the nations are being stirred against her. Thank God for giving us a government bold enough to proclaim that, because Jerusalem is Israel's eternal capital, it will not be divided [see below]. Massive pressure will increase against Israel to make her obey the will of the world.

   Who is behind this? The Creator (see 12:1) is challenging the world with Jerusalem, and testing the hearts of nations with His nation Israel. Why? So that His Word is fulfilled (Rev. 17:12-17) and His Son returns. Then shall LORD [Yeshua] go forth, and fight against those nations... (Zech. 14:2-4a; cp. Rev. 19:11-21).

"Arise Shine; for your light has come..."

...and the glory of LORD is risen upon you. For the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but LORD shall arise upon you, and His glory shall be seen upon you. (Isa. 60:1-2) This chapter speaks to Israel while she is being restored from exile - exactly what we see today. This verse was the theme for January's Intercessors for Israel Prayer Conference and we also saw it applicable when US President Barak Hussein Obama gave a speech in Cairo, Egypt on June 4^th, and Israeli Prime Minister [PM] Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv, Israel, on June 14^th.

The darkness - Obama's untruths

For a lie to be swallowed, it must be coated with truth. While we must not judge Obama's heart, we must judge his words. Below are direct quotes from his speech, with our comments in brackets.

As the Holy Koran tells us, Be conscious of God and always speak the truth. That is what I will try to do, to speak the truth...

[Obama, saying he wants to speak truth, repeatedly calls the Koran holy. There are many books holy to men, but only one that is holy to God. The Koran is a blatant distortion and rejection of the Bible. Islam teaches that the Bible has been corrupted by Jews and Christians.]

Obama mentions the tension between Islam and the West, and states:

Violent extremists [i.e., Islamic terrorists] have exploited these tensions in a small but potent minority of Muslims.

[With over one billion Muslims worldwide, if this potent minority is only 5% - then only 50 million Koran believing Muslims believe to attain Paradise they must convert or kill everyone else! He calls this a small minority? And why is it potent? Because it operates like the Mafia.]

Throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.

[Koranic Islam demands conversion or death for all pagans. Jews and Christians, "respected" as people of the Book, need only pay jizya, a special tax, then can live as dhimmis, 2^nd class citizens. Dhimmis cannot build places of worship, nor marry Moslem women, yet their young women will be taken and forcibly converted by marriage to Muslims. Muslims are killed if they convert to another religion. Islam promotes many other similar barbarities, yet Obama calls this religious tolerance?]

I consider it part of my responsibility as US President to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam...

[What if those negative stereotypes are true, such as the defenselessness of their women, or that the Holy Koran calls Jews descendants of monkeys and pigs and says that infidels must convert or be killed?]

...America is not...at war with Islam. We will, however, relentlessly confront violent extremists who pose a grave threat to our security. Because we reject the same thing that people of all faiths reject: the killing of innocent men, women, and children.

[Does Obama really believe that all faiths reject killing the innocent? "Good" Moslems do not reject killing of innocents, as long as they are "infidels." Infidels, you see, are never innocent.]

America's strong bonds with Israel... [are] based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history...

[Wrong! Our aspiration is not for something we never had before. It is to return to what was given by God, taken by God, and promised to be returned by God. That tragic history just proved how much the Jews needed to realize that they had only one home.]

...the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust... Six million Jews were killed...Denying that fact is baseless, ignorant, and hateful. Threatening Israel with destruction - or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews - is deeply wrong...

[Speaking at the major Islamic University in Cairo, Obama deserves credit and shows much courage for stating this. But his next sentence makes a false comparison.]

...it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people...have suffered in pursuit of a homeland.

[This equivalence of the Holocaust and Palestinian suffering is totally unbalanced.]

For more than sixty years they have endured the pain of dislocation.

[This is not Israel's doing. The Arab nations rejected the creation of a Palestinian State alongside a Jewish State in 1947-48, and instead attacked new-born Israel.]

Many wait in refugee camps in...neighboring lands...

[Why don't their oil-rich Muslim Arab neighbors help them to start a new life - like Israel did for around one million Jewish refugees forced out of the Arab nations in the years following 1948?]

[Palestinians] endure daily humiliations...that come with occupation.

[Wrong! They endure daily humiliations because of Palestinian terror attacks - both attempted and successful - that Israel has endured over the past sixty years. By the way, turning the other cheek is meant for individuals, not nations.]

...the only resolution is...two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security.

[If that Palestinian state is not on the land God has promised over 200 times in the Bible to the Jewish people - even we would agree. But if Obama tries to force Israel to divide God's land, it's disaster for America. The valley of Jehoshaphat lies just ahead. (Joel 3:1-2)]

The US does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.

[In Samaria, Judea and Jerusalem - exactly to where God says He will return us. (Jer. 31:5; Zech. 8:1-8; 12:2-9)]

All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when...the Holy Land of three great faiths is the place of peace God intended it to be [Which God? The Bible's or the Holy Koran's Allah?]; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews, Christians and Muslims, a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the [Moslem] story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed (peace be upon them) joined in prayer.

[Is Obama equating Jesus with Mohammed and Moses? Doesn't he know that Yeshua is God the Son? Is he not born again?]

Obama ends this all-religions-lead-to-God new age speech by equating the Koran and the Talmud with God's Word!

The Holy Koran tells us, O mankind! We have...made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another. The Talmud tells us: The whole of the Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace. The Holy Bible tells us, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

("Pres. Obama Addresses Muslim World in Cairo," Washington Post, 4 June 2009)

Righting Obama's untruths

Israel Today said Obama's Islamic audience, were left to believe Obama views the Palestinian plight in the same light as the Holocaust, and sees little difference between Nazi death camps and Palestinian 'refugee' camps. That the Palestinians' situation has been brought on largely by their own violence, while Jews did nothing to provoke the Nazis but be Jews, was conveniently glossed over. ("Obama does not recognize Israel land claims, security needs," Israel Today, 4 June 2009)

Referring to Obama's statement that Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's, Dr. A. Lerner asks, Where is it etched in stone that a Palestinian 'autonomous state', where Palestinians enjoy self rule but are denied the means to destroy the Jewish state is not acceptable? ("Some quick observations regarding...Obama's Cairo Address," IMRA Commentary, Dr. Aaron Lerner, IMRA, 4 June 2009)

The Zionist Organization of America's President M. A. Klein, after noting some of Obama's positive comments about Israel, then said:

Overall, however, this was...a strongly biased speech, inimical to Israel, supportive of false Palestinian and Arab claims against Israel, and blatantly factually inaccurate...

For example, Obama falsely claimed Palestinian Arabs were 'displaced' by Israel in 1948; falsely claimed Palestinian Arabs have been suffering trying to establish their state for 60 years (they could have had a state in 1937, 1948 or in 2000, but turned down each opportunity).

Although Obama declared that he would be totally 'honest' in discussing ME issues, he...used the Palestinian apologetic term of 'resistance' to discuss terrorism, implying a legitimate basis for violence. He also never asked the Arab countries or the PA to put Israel on their maps - something which none of them do.

Obama spoke much about legitimate Palestinian aspirations to statehood, but said little about illegitimate Palestinian aspirations, like eliminating Israel or carrying out suicide bombings. He never called on Arabs to accept Israel as a Jewish state.

Obama praised the Arab Peace Initiative, which requires Israel to go back to indefensible 1967 borders and allow Arab refugees and their millions of descendents to move into Israel. He made no demand to abrogate this refugee issue which, if implemented, would destroy Israel as a Jewish state...

We repudiate the proposition that Jews...may not move to or live in Judea and Samaria, the religious, historical and political heartland of the Jewish people... [No] peace can be built on the notion that the biblical, historical and religious heartland of the Jewish people, or any territory for that matter, must be judenrein.

Obama's speech is also significant for what it did not contain - any serious discussion of the looming threat posed to most of the world, by Iran's drive to obtain nuclear weapons. ("Obama...May Become Most Hostile President to Israel Ever," M. A. Klein, ZOA, 5 June 2009)

A JP editorial said:

However one chooses to understand Jewish civilization - as sacred history, or through the modern lenses of secular history and archeology - the ancient bond between the Jews and their land is indisputable...Every day we prayed...for our return to Zion. Every day...for 2,000 years...

When Obama implies Jewish rights are essentially predicated on the Holocaust...he is dooming the prospects for peace. For why should the Arabs reconcile themselves to the presence of a Jewish state, organic to the region, when the US president keeps insinuating Israel was established to atone for Europe's crimes?

("Why Obama is wrong on Israel & the Shoah," JP Editorial, 7 June 2009)

In the Arab and Moslem world, Obama is making a name for himself by becoming the first US president in modern history who is not being accused of bias toward Israel, and who is being hailed for his 'balanced' approach to the Israeli-Arab conflict.

One Palestinian woman said, When I heard Obama speaking, I felt as if I were listening to the head of an Arab or Islamic state.

Even the leader of the Hamas terrorist group, heaped praise on him, because Obama had refrained from calling 'resistance attacks' against Israel 'terrorism'.

With President Bush, the PA was under tremendous pressure to fight terrorism, end financial corruption, and establish proper governing institutions. But now there is a sigh of relief among senior PA officials...they are no longer facing the same pressure. One leader even boasted that the current US administration has almost endorsed the Palestinian stance on [all] major issues... Another official said, ...Obama is our man in Washington. ("Our man in Washington?," K. Abu Toameh, JP Features, 11 June 2009)

Michael Gerson, in the Washington Post, wrote this frightening analysis.

It is President Obama's defining rhetorical strategy. For every contending thesis and antithesis - Islam vs. the West, Iran vs. America, Palestinians vs. Israel - he is the synthesis. All sides possess a shiny shard of the truth. Obama assembles the mosaic.

...the reaction of Newsweek's Evan Thomas to the Cairo speech was revealing: I mean, in a way, Obama's standing above the country, above - above the world, he's sort of God.

("Clarity for The Deniers," M. Gerson, Washington Post, 10 June 2009)

How easily the anti-Christ will be able to deceive and rule.

The light - Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu speaks truth

Compared with Obama's speech, we thought Bibi's talk was "arising and shining." Our comments again are in brackets.

We are currently facing three tremendous challenges: The Iranian threat, the financial crisis, and the promotion of peace... The greatest danger to Israel, to the Middle East [ME], and to all of humanity, is the encounter between extremist Islam and nuclear weapons.

[Compared to Obama's deceptive rhetoric, this last sentence is at once refreshing and frightening.]

With the world financial crisis, we acted immediately to bring about stability to the Israeli economy.

[Reports from inside and outside Israel show that although she has been hit by the global economic shakings - her economy is in better shape than many other Western nations. Thank You, Lord!]

The third challenge,

...is promoting peace...I call on the leaders of Arab countries to join together with the Palestinians and with us to promote economic peace. Economic peace is not a substitute for peace, but a very important component in achieving it.

[He then listed several projects that would benefit all of the ME - water desalinization, advances in solar energy, creating industrial zones to provide jobs, and fostering tourism to draw millions who want to walk in the footsteps of history...]

He said to the PA,

Let us begin peace negotiations immediately without prior conditions...We want our children and your children to know war no more...to devote our efforts to plowshares and pruning hooks and not to swords and spears.

[One of the things we have prayed for is Israeli leaders who will quote scripture.]

Netanyahu asks, considering the obvious "advantages of peace," and Israel's desire for peace, Why has the conflict been going on for over 60 years? He says,

The root of the conflict has been, and remains, the refusal to recognize the right of the Jewish People to its own state in its historical homeland.

[This is truth - expressed clearly and before a world that really does not want to hear it.]

"In 1947 when the UN proposed the Partition Plan for a Jewish state and an Arab state...the Jewish community accepted it with great rejoicing and dancing. The Arabs refused any Jewish state whatsoever, with any borders whatsoever.

Whoever thinks the continued hostility to Israel is a result of our forces in Judea, Samaria and Gaza is confusing cause and effect. The attacks on us began in the 1920s, became an overall attack in 1948 when the state was declared, continued in the 1950s...and reached their climax in 1967 on the eve of the Six-Day War, with the attempt to strangle Israel. All this...nearly 50 years before a single Israeli soldier went into Judea and Samaria.

A great many people are telling us that withdrawal is the key to peace with the Palestinians. But...all our withdrawals were met by huge waves of suicide bombers.

In exchange for the withdrawal from Gaza, Israel received,

...missiles raining down on our cities, our towns, and our children. The argument that withdrawal would bring peace closer did not stand up to the test of reality.

The fundamental condition for ending the conflict is the public, binding, sincere Palestinian recognition of Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish People.

[This is constantly rejected by all Arab leaders - including both Egypt and Jordan's leadership.]

For this to have practical meaning, we need...to solve the Palestinian refugee problem outside the borders of the State of Israel. For it is clear to all that the demand to settle the...refugees inside of Israel, contradicts the continued existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish People...

The connection of the Jewish People to the Land has been in existence for more than 3,500 years...The right of the Jewish People to a state in the Land of Israel does not arise from the series of disasters that befell the Jewish People over 2,000 years ...which reached its climax in the Holocaust...

[Netanyahu is correcting what Obama implied.]

The right to establish our sovereign state here, in the Land of Israel, arises from one simple fact: Eretz Yisrael is the birthplace of the Jewish People...

[But] in the heart of our Jewish Homeland, now lives a large population of Palestinians. We do not want to rule over them...In my vision of peace, there are two free peoples living side by side in this land, with good neighborly relations and mutual respect...

We have to recognize international agreements but also principles important to the State of Israel.

[Statements like this - which bring us joy - will also bring the nations against Jerusalem.]

The 1^st principle:

The Palestinians must truly recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people.

The 2^nd principle:

Any area in Palestinian hands has to be demilitarized...Without this condition, there is a real fear that... an armed Palestinian state...will become a terrorist base against Israel, as happened in Gaza. We do not want missiles on Petah Tikva, or Grads on Ben-Gurion international airport. We want peace. To ensure peace we don't want them to bring in missiles or rockets or have an army, or control of airspace, or make treaties with countries like Iran, or Hizbullah...This is crucial to the existence of Israel...

Israel must govern its own fate and security. I told President Obama...if we get a guarantee of demilitarization, and if Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish state, we are ready to agree to a real peace agreement, a demilitarized Palestinian state side by side with the Jewish state.

[After Bibi says what so many Israeli leaders have not said - clearly laying out Israel's conditions - only then does he mention the words, a Palestinian state.]

Whenever we discuss a permanent arrangement, Israel needs defensible borders with Jerusalem remaining the united capital of Israel.

[Thank You, Lord, for giving us a PM who is willing to take a stand for a united Jerusalem under Israeli rule.]

A strong Palestinian government will strengthen peace, if they truly want peace, and educate their children for peace and stop incitement, we...will make every effort, allow them freedom of movement and accessibility, making their lives easier and this will help bring peace. But...Palestinians must decide between the path of peace and the path of Hamas.

I call upon Arab and Palestinian leaders: Let's go in the path of Begin and Sadat, Rabin and King Hussein. Let's go in the path of Prophet Isaiah, who spoke thousands of years ago, they shall beat their swords into plowshares and know war no more...

("Netanyahu's foreign policy speech at Bar Ilan," Ha'aretz, 14 June 2009)

Feedback on Bibi's speech

Israel's Strategic Affairs Minister, former IDF Chief of Staff, Moshe Ya'alon, praised the speech for exposing the true root of the Israeli-Arab conflict: the Arabs' long refusal to accept Israel as the national homeland of the Jews...

C. Glick, interviewed by National Review Online, noted that the Palestinian and Arab reaction to the speech was a rejection of all Netanyahu's conditions and threats of renewed violence. Thus the speech exposed,

...how radical the Palestinian and Arab position on Israel is. Palestinians reacted...with calls to war in retaliation for Netanyahu's demand that they recognize Israel's right to exist. This is not the sort of behavior one might expect from supposedly 'moderate' PA political leaders...

It was absolutely necessary for Netanyahu to respond to Obama's false and hideous assertion that Israel owes its creation to the Holocaust. And in explaining that the Holocaust could only happen because Israel didn't exist at the time, and by setting out the true 3,500-year-old Jewish connection to the land, Netanyahu provided a necessary corrective to Obama's move to write the Jewish people out of the history of the ME.

("Q&A: Caroline Glick on Netanyahu & the World," NRO, 15 June 2009)

Commentator Saul Singer writes, There is something bizarre about the Arab-Israeli conflict. Everyone assumes...it is about Israel giving something that the Palestinians want - a state. But what it really is about is the Arab world giving the Jewish people what it wants - a state.

Singer says Bibi's second condition is the real issue, the Arab world's recognition of Israel as the homeland of the Jews.

Look at the official White House reaction to Netanyahu's speech: The president is committed to two states, a Jewish state of Israel and an independent Palestine, in the historic homeland of both peoples. Isn't this what Palestinians want? No.

A Jewish state, what is that supposed to mean? Abbas asked in an April 27 speech in Ramallah. ...I don't accept it and say so publicly. Egyptian President Mubarak said calls for recognition of a Jewish state are attempts to abort the peace process. Netanyahu Threatens Peace was the headline in the Saudi-owned Al Hayat...

The Arab world has never accepted either part of President Obama's straightforward statement: that Israel is a Jewish state and that it is...the Jewish people's historic homeland.

("The great Arab refusal," S. Singer, JP Op-ed, 18 June 2009)

Peace? Forget about it!

A JP editorial lists Abbas' Five No's revealed in an interview in The Washington Post, ['Abbas' Waiting Game', J. Diehl, May 29]:

Would he negotiate with Netanyahu without preconditions? No. Would he recognize Israel as a Jewish state? No. Would he consider territorial compromise? No. Would he compromise on refugees? No. Would he modify the Arab Peace Initiative to make it a more viable negotiating tool? Absolutely not...

("Paradigm shift," JP Editorial, 31 May 2009)

Praise God who continues to harden the hearts of Israel's enemies. And hallelujah, that there is still no Palestinian State (Isa. 14:29-32).

Jerusalem - the stone of stumbling

Interviewed on America's Meet the Press TV program, Jordan's King Abdullah declared, threats from Iran and Al Qaeda will fade away once Jerusalem is divided. Concerning Iran, he said, the best way of solving that problem is solving the core issue ...the Palestinian problem and that of Jerusalem. ("Jordan: Israel Faces War if It Does Not Agree to Arab Terms," Arutz 7, 27 Apr. 2009)

A recent row over a US demand that Jews not build in certain areas of Jerusalem was met with straight talk from Bibi, who said,

...united Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish people and of the State of Israel. Our sovereignty over it cannot be challenged... We cannot accept the idea that Jews will not have the right to live and purchase in all parts of Jerusalem.

Bibi was also clear that Arab citizens have the same right. ("PM Netanyahu's Remarks at...the Weekly Cabinet Meeting," IMRA, 19 July 2009)

What the world calls Arab East Jerusalem, is where biblical Jerusalem lies, where the Temple was built, where the kings of Israel ruled, what the prophets referred to and where Yeshua said He must die (Luke 13:33). He did die there, was buried, rose from the dead and ascended to heaven from there. And that is where He is coming back to. So Satan fights to obtain that part of the city of the great King (Psa. 48:2; Matt. 5:35), which will soon be known as the throne of the Lord Yeshua (Jer. 3:17; Zech. 14:16).

Final Thoughts

In June's Christian Friends of Israel's Watchmen's Prayer Letter, Frank and Karen Selch wrote:

If the PA receives all its demands, what is left of Israel will be a nation with indefensible borders surrounded by hostile neighbors that have indoctrinated successive generations of their children with hatred and the lies that the Jews are a cancer on the human race and need to be exterminated!

We are therefore of the opinion, that understanding Israel's needs and the Jewish people per se, needs to be more than a cerebral or spiritual exercise for Christians. With the above news in mind, [referring to pressure from the nations on Israel to divide Jerusalem] it is extremely vital that individuals become purposely involved in intercession for Israel and the Middle East.

Amen!

...the prayer of the upright is His delight.

Proverbs 15:8

Chuck & Karen Cohen

Sovereign World Ltd. in the UK has reformatted and republished our book, Roots of Our Faith, under the title Homecoming: Our Return to Biblical Roots.

Intercessors For Israel's new website - www.ifi.org.il

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Chuck's future ministry - Lord willing!

Fall 2009 - USA - Florida & the Kansas City area.