| | |
| |
You may view the 5 minute update this week via audio:
1) Listen to the audio
In this week’s 5 minute update, we focused on:
1) The current status of the Israel / PLO peace process
2) The prospects for war with Syria and Iran
Israel has given its version why the Israel / PLO peace talks held during the month of January in Jordan are now stalled. It consists of the following:
1) Beginning in October when the Quartet tried to start between between Israel and the PLO, the PLO refused to talk with Israel in the same room. The talks in January only happened because of the efforts of King Abdullah of Jordan to convince the PLO to hold low-level talks with Israel beginning on January 3
2) In the Jordanian meetings, low-level talks between Israel and the Palestinians in Jordan ended on January 26 without any agreement to hold future direct talks. The PLO did not offer any new positions on borders and security.
3) The PLO demanded that Israel freeze building Jewish homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem or the PLO would end talks on January 26.
4) Israel wanted the PLO to clarify their position on various issues and the PLO refused to discuss the matter
5) Israel brought a delegation to discuss security issues that included a representative from the Israeli army but the PLO refused to allow him to speak
6) Israel presented to the PLO issues regarding incitement against the Jewish state and the PLO did not want to talk about the issue
Mahmood Abbas plans to present to Israel in the near future a series of demands to start direct negotiations. If Israel refuses to accept the conditions, Abbas plans to ask the United Nations to upgrade their status to a non-member observer.
An agreement to divide Jerusalem and establish a PLO state is a tribulation event.
The link to these articles are as follows:
1) Palestinian obsitnacy led to breakdown of Amman negotiations, Israeli official says
2) Abbas to send Israel message on saving Palestine-Israel peace process: sources
Iran, China and Russia continues to support the government of President Bashar Assad of Syria. Two Iranian warships recently docked at a Syrian port. They were a destroyer and a supply ship. Last week, Bashar Asssad announced a plan to hold a referendum leading to parliamentary elections as a way to resolve the Syrian crisis. China supports the plan. China wants BOTH the Syrian government and the opposition to end the violence. The US, the European Union and the Arab League supports a “Friends of Syria” group that backs the Syrian Sunni opposition to the rule of Bashar Assad. The “Friends of Syria” group plans to host an international conference on the situation. Russia refused to attend the meeting because the Assad government will not be represented. Hamas in the Gaza Strip has announced that they are severing ties with the Assad government. Hamas is mostly Sunni Muslim and the Assad government is a sect of Shi’ite Muslims. Because of the current situation in Syria, the Israeli army fears that Assad may attack Israel in order to try to remain in power.
A war with Syria where Damascus is destroyed (Isaiah 17) is a tribulation event.
The link to these articles is as follows:
1) Iranian warships dock at Syrian port after crossing Suez Canal
2) Analysis: Wishful thinking or faulty intelligence?
3) China backs Assad plan for referendum, election
4) Russia refuses to attend Syria meeting
5) Hamas severs ties with Assad, backs Syrian revolt
6) IDF fears Syria attack as pressure builds on Assad
In order to show Iran’s achievements in its nuclear program, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unveiled nuclear fuel rods, new generation of centrifuges and a number of radioactive medicines. Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Fereidoon Abbasi, said that the move will, to a great degree, speed up the country’s uranium enrichment activities and is a strong response to the Western hostilities. President Ahmadinejad said two years ago, Iran told western countries that if Iran is not provided with the fuel rods for its research reactor, the country will produce its own, the western countries did not believe that, now, the Iranian nation proved that they can. The United States has downplayed Iran’s claims of advances in its nuclear program, saying Iran is feeling the pressure of international sanctions and wants to distract from its growing diplomatic isolation. U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland dismissed the announcements as “hype.” Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Iran’s announcement of new nuclear achievements was exaggerated. Barak said those announcements were meant to create an impression that any action taken by world powers to curb Iran’s nuclear program would be too late. ”They are definitely making progress, but in order to deter anyone dealing with them, or perhaps even to make this seem superfluous, they are priding themselves on achievements that do not yet exist,” Barak said. Furthermore, Barak said that Iran’s nuclear arms program has not yet reached the point of no return. When Israel believers that Iran is nearing the point of no return, it has threatened to take military action against it.
The US weekly news magazine, Newsweek, reports that the US doesn’t want Israel to start a war with Iran in the near future. Israel’s Mossad Chief Tamir Pardo’s made a trip to the US recently and according to a US official privy to matter, “to take the pulse of the Obama Administration and determine what the consequences would be if Israel bombed Iranian nuclear sites over American objections.” Israel, the report said, has essentially ceased sharing a “significant amount of information” with the US regarding its military preparations for a possible strike. Ronen Bergman, an Israeli intelligence and national security analyst for Israel’s largest daily newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth says that he expects Israel to strike Iran within the next 9 months.
A top Russian military general, Nikolai Makarov, said that he thinks that the US will make a decision by summer whether to attack Iran. U.S. military sources tell WND that the Pentagon has begun preparations for “a number of operational plans and counter-operations,” with a Feb. 22 due date for submitting the plans. There also is a request for identifying U.S. forces “by 1 March with a ‘through’ date of October.” The military sources indicated that U.S. forces will be augmented by an Aegis warship, presumably one of the two in the U.S. carrier task forces scheduled to be in the Persian Gulf. The Aegis combat system on U.S. Navy ships is used to track and guide weapons to destroy intended targets and to act as a protective shield to counter ballistic missile threats.
Lt.- Gen. Ronald Burgess, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the US Senate Armed Services Committee despite international pressure on Iran, the regime is “not close” to giving up its quest for nuclear capabilities. “Iran today has the technical, scientific and industrial capability to eventually produce nuclear weapons,” he said. “While international pressure on Iran has increased, including through sanctions, we assess that Tehran is not close to agreeing to abandon its nuclear program. However,” Burgess said, “The agency assesses Iran is unlikely to initiate or intentionally provoke a conflict.” Meanwhile, the British Guardian newspaper reports that key parts of the Obama administration are increasingly convinced that sanctions will not deter Tehran from pursuing its nuclear programme and believe that the US will be left with no option but to launch an attack on Iran or watch Israel do so. The president has made clear in public, and in private to Israel, that he is determined to give sufficient time for recent measures, such as the financial blockade and the looming European oil embargo, to bite deeper into Iran’s already battered economy before retreating from its principal strategy to pressure Tehran. But there is a strong current of opinion within the administration – including in the Pentagon and the state department – that believes sanctions are doomed to fail, and that their principal use now is in delaying Israeli military action, as well as reassuring Europe that an attack will only come after other means have been tested. The White House has said repeatedly that all options are on the table, including the use of force to stop Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon, but that for now the emphasis is firmly on diplomacy and sanctions. Congressman Dennis Kucinich said that he fears sanctions are less about changing Tehran’s policy than laying the ground for military action. He warned that “the latest drum beat of additional sanctions and war against Iran sounds too much like the lead-up to the Iraq war”.
Finally, the Tehran Times reported that the Iranian oil bourse will start trading oil in currencies other than the dollar from March 20. This long-planned move is part of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s vision of economic war with the west. “Recall that Saddam [Hussein] announced Iraq would no longer accept dollars for oil purchases in November 2000 and the US-Anglo invasion occurred in March 2003,” the Times continued. “Similarly, Iran opened its oil bourse in 2008, so it is a credit to Iranian negotiating ability that the ‘crisis’ has not come to a head long before now.” Iran has the third-largest oil reserves in the world and pricing oil in currencies other than dollars is a provocative move aimed at the United States.
A US war with Iran is a tribulation event.
The link to these articles is as follows:
1) Banking’s SWIFT ready to stop Iran transactions
2) US aide tells Israel sanctions on Iran need time
3) Barak: More sanctions on Iran before military option
4) US-Israel crisis: Approaching nuclear talks with Iran disable sanctions, spark anti-Israel terror
5) Iran Is Ready to Talk
6) IAEA: Tehran talks failed to secure agreement
7) IAEA: Iran steps up sensitive nuclear work
8.) ‘US believes Iran not trying to build nuclear bomb’
9) Nuclear sanctions ‘haven’t worked,’ Iran ‘breaking all the rules’: Israeli PM Netanyahu
10) Crisis in US-Israel relations over nuclear talks with Iran
11) Top White House official arrives for talks on Iran
12) Hard talk with US officials on Iran fails to move Israel from military option
13) Israel to U.S.: Disagreement over attack on nuclear sites serves Iranian interests
14) Tehran Flexes Muscle, Shrugs off Sanctions
15) Iran cuts down to six weeks timeline for weapons-grade uranium
16) Iran warns of preemptive strike if threatened
17) Russia warns: Israeli attack on Iran will bring catastrophe
18) Iran cuts sales of crude to British, French companies
From a Biblical prophetic perspective, the reason why the God of Israel would allow these events to happen is because it will result in the end of the exile of the house of Jacob and the reunification of the 12 tribes of Israel (Ephraim and Judah).
We will to be “watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem” and we will not rest until the God of Israel makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth (Isaiah 62).
Shalom in Yeshua the Messiah,
Eddie Chumney
Hebraic Heritage Ministries Int’l
|
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment