President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority has submitted a request for formal recognition of a Palestinian state at the United Nations. Shortly before his address to the UN General Assembly on Friday, Abbas handed UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon a letter, said to contain a concisely worded statement requesting full recognition of a Palestinian state along pre-1967 lines. Before the conference commenced, Abbas reiterated his refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

Quote: “"They talk to us about the Jewish state, but I respond to them with a final answer: We shall not recognize a Jewish state," Abbas said in a meeting with some 200 senior representatives of the Palestinian community in the US, shortly before taking the podium and delivering a speech at the United Nations General Assembly.

Abbas delivered an impassioned speech to the General Assembly. It makes for very twisted reading. In his speech Abbas accused Israel of carrying out a policy of “ethnic cleansing” in Jerusalem, by refusing building permits to Israeli Arabs, while extending its settlement construction in east Jerusalem. This coming from the man who remarked not so long ago that no Jew will be permitted to live in a Palestinian state. Abbas recently stated that he "would not agree to having Jews among the NATO forces, or that there will live among us even a single Israeli on Palestinian land". And the only Jew living in the Gaza Strip is being held hostage. He added that Israel continued to “target Palestinian civilians by assassinations, air strikes and artillery shelling” in the Gaza Strip. Israel has never targeted civilians in assassinations in the Gaza Strip. Rather it is Hamas who continues to target Israeli civilians on a daily basis by indiscriminately firing Kassam and Grad rockets into Israeli towns. And he accused Israel of continuing “incursions in areas of the Palestinian National Authority through raids, arrests and killings at the checkpoints”. In reality it is Israeli soldiers and civilians who have come under attack from Palestinian terrorists at the checkpoints. Regarding the request that the Palestinian Authority recognize Israel as a Jewish state in accordance with UN resolution 181, Abbas accuses Israel of trying to drag it into a “religious conflict” by threatening “the future of a million and a half Christian and Muslim Palestinians” living in Israel. The stipulation, forwarded by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, was intended to indirectly redress the issue of the return of Palestinian refugees to Israel and remove the threat of future claims of sovereignty by the Palestinian Authority over all of Israel. But Palestinian Christians are under threat, not from Israel, but from Hamas and Fatah, who continue to persecute them, and who will be forced to pay the Jizya, a discriminatory tax imposed on non-Muslims under Islamic law, should a Palestinian state be declared.

So many lies have been told about this conflict that it is very hard to discern what is true and what is false any more. The Palestinians claim that they are the original inhabitants of 'Palestine' in order to circumvent the historic Jewish claim to the land of Israel. But according to the Bible, the original inhabitants of the land were Canaanites, who were descendants of Noah's son Ham (Genesis 9:18). The Arabs are descendants of Shem through Ishmael. The Philistines, Israel's ancient enemy, were also Greek in origin. They were not Arab or Semitic. After the Jewish rebellion, the Romans named the region Syria-Palestina, in an effort to erase the name of Israel. So there is no ethnic 'Palestinian people'. There has never been a 'Palestinian people'. From the destruction of the state of Israel, the land has been occupied by one empire after another. It has never been an independent state, and Jerusalem was only ever the capital of a Jewish state. Yes, there have been Arabs who have lived in the land of Israel throughout the centuries. But they have as much right to be called 'Palestinians' as the Jews of that same region do. In fact the Jews that lived in the region were known as Palestinians before the state of Israel was established. So you can see the deceit now being fabricated, that 'historic Palestine' belongs to the 'Palestinian people', and that Israel is a “colonial military occupation of the land of the Palestinian people” in the words of Abbas himself. It is a blatant lie.

There is no doubt in my mind that we have now taken a massive step in relation to end time prophecy being fulfilled. Within some weeks or months, in the will of God, the entire world will be asked to decide whether they are for or against the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the division of God's land. Just as the Bible predicted, the city of Jerusalem will eventually be redivided (Zechariah 12:2, 14:2, Revelation 11:2), and the time of Jacob's trouble will commence. Satan's goal is to destroy the Jewish people and the land of Israel, thus preventing Christ's return to set up His promised Kingdom upon earth (Daniel 2:44). And if he cannot do that, to take over the city of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, the place where Christ is to reign from in a coming day (Isaiah 24:23). The Bible says Jesus Christ is coming back. And that He will judge those nations that have scattered His people and divided His land.

Joel 3:1-2
For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.

The first verse of this passage, the restoration of the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, has already been fulfilled. Judah and Jerusalem were restored to Israel in 1967. The fulfilment of the second verse is imminent. Jesus Christ is coming back. Don't wait until it is too late. Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation today.

Source YNet News, Ahram, YNet News