BUSH : “PEACE IN A YEAR”

April 2008 article by David Sanders

“The establishment of the state of Palestine is long overdue,” President Bush said. “The Palestinian people deserve it.” These words have been echoed before by the previous President Bill Clinton. Very little appears to be happening on this front after the fanfare and publicity of the Middle East Road Map instigated by Bush and Blair. President Bush is near to the end of his tenure as leader and it has taken him 7 years as president to make his first visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories. Much focus in America is on who is going to be the next President of the USA. Unfortunately for Mr Bush he is very unpopular at the moment because of the Iraq war and very little is being done with the Israeli/

Palestinian issue, so a timely visit to the Middle East was long overdue.

The international community however thinks that if you throw enough money at the problem, you will eventually solve it. In business it occasionally works but with international and complex issues as the Middle East it is a different scenario. Since the Oslo Accords of 1993 the International community has poured $15 billion into the Palestinian Authority and still the infrastructure hasn’t been put in place and there appears to be no transparency of where the money is being spent. Just recently at an international donors’ conference in Paris it pledged $7.4 billion to strengthen the Palestinian government of Mahmoud Abbas. Does this make sense? Would you consider this as a good investment? Would you personally invest money in this venture?

President Bush is trying to show the world that he really cares about this problem and like most political leaders is full of platitudes and words as he said on his visit to the region, “I believe it’s going to happen, that there will be a signed peace treaty by the time I leave office.” What kind of peace treaty will it be? How long will it last for if it actually happens? From past experiences these treaties haven’t worked out at all. But Mr Bush is still focused on what shape this treaty should be taking, but will it happen knowing the volatile situation we have there? A Palestinian state must be “contiguous” unlike today’s autonomous islands surrounded by an Israeli sea. “Swiss cheese isn’t going to work when it comes to the outline of a state" he said. So how is it going to work? It simply isn’t. There is one major stumbling block – JERUSALEM.

This problem has been catalogued and traced throughout the Bible, as also is the solution. God through the Prophet Zechariah tells us:

“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. 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 people of the earth be gathered together against it.”

Jerusalem is the most besieged city in the world and it will be besieged yet again in the very near future when Almighty God will bring His plan together, for it is, as Matthew records for us: The city of the great King. Jerusalem has no King yet, for the King has yet to return to that city he wept over nearly 2000 years ago.

The Lord Jesus is about to return to set up God’s Kingdom on earth with Jerusalem as the capital city.

If you want to know more about this exciting time just look at our web site for meeting details and learn more about the gospel message.