Raised up for this purpose

According to a scoop reproduced by the British newspaper, The Telegraph (February 11, 2014), the much discussed framework agreement John Kerry is prepping to present in early March will describe the Arab state the world wants to create in the biblical heartland of Israel as “the nation-state of the Palestinian people.”

And in a second noteworthy nod to Arab demands, the document will recommend that the 1949-’67 ceasefire line that separated Israel from the Jordanian-occupied ‘West Bank’ become the border of this new Arab state.

These major awards to people who have become known in recent history as the Palestinians show how far these Arabs – who have no national history or historic national land ownership in this land – have come.

Using local and international terrorism, intimidation and brutal violence against opponents, and with the military and political backing of the Arab and Muslim worlds, the PLO gang has over decades generated global support for the invention of a homeland on what for millennia has been the native soil of an authentic nation.

Never fear, says Kerry, this bona fide nation will also be recognized in his plan, which will call what will be left of Israel – the Negev, the Coastal Plain and the Galilee – “the nation-state of the Jewish people.”

No kudos to the secretary for this ‘evenhandedness’ that is really a sop to secure Israel’s signature on the plan.

Thankfully, though, it plays right into the enemy’s hands.

And the hand of the Almighty is visible in it all.

The Arab side has made recognizing Israel as a JEWISH state a red line it vows it will never cross. And there is little doubt it will stick to this. As students of the Arab nation (there is one Arab nations, though many Arab states)  have noted down the decades – if there is one thing that the Arab is unbending on, it is his pride.

What has also been said of the Palestinian Arab’s leadership, is that it has never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

In this sense these leaders are become somewhat like Pharaoh of old.

When the God of the Hebrews asked Pharaoh through Moses to let His people go so that they might worship Him in the wilderness, Pharaoh’s pride caused his heart to grow hard, and he rejected the request.

When the Lord showed His power through the first five signs and wonders, the king of Egypt continued to harden his own heart. As the plagues increased in intensity, however, and could perhaps have led Pharaoh to relent – especially as he saw his kingdom being ruined – God stepped in and hardened Pharaoh’s heart Himself, making it impossible for him to give in.

More than this, God had in fact purposely placed Pharaoh in power in the first place in order that the world would get to know the name of the Lord.

As He said: “But indeed for this purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.” (Exodus 9:16)

A strong case can be made that God has raised up the PLO, and the whole Palestinian cause, for the same reason.

When the Arabs of British-mandatory Palestine were offered part of the land for a homeland alongside the Jews they refused it, while the Jews agreed. When the United Nations voted to partition the land between Jew and Arab, the Jews accepted and the Arabs rejected. The last nearly seven decades have seen the Arabs consistently reject any compromise that will see the Jews get anything at all.

In 2000, at Camp David, Yasser Arafat was offered everything he demanded, with Israel asking only that it could retain sovereignty over the ruins of its temples on Mount Moriah. Arafat stormed out and launched the “second intifada.”

Yes, as things stand today, the hate-driven intransigence of the Palestinian Arab leadership will guarantee that Palestine is not spawned this year.

If the past quarter of a century is anything to go by – this Arab rejection of the plan will be followed by a new wave of terrorism against the Jews that, in turn, will lead to increased international pressure on Israel to drop its insistence for recognition as a Jewish state.

Mahmoud Abbas and his spokesmen Sa’eb Erekat and Nabil Sha’ath, along with Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashal may think they are calling the shots – and that they will succeed in keeping Israel on the run until they destroy her; Barack Obama and John Kerry and Catherine Ashton and Vladimir Putin may think they will secure a peace agreement here.

But they are not running this show.

The Lord God has one overriding purpose in His dealings with Israel and the nations: that the Jewish people will know that He is their Savior and Redeemer, (Isaiah 49:26) and that the Gentiles will know that He is YHWH – the LORD – the Holy One in Israel (Ezekiel 39:7).

“Look to Me, and be saved, all you ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. I have sworn by Myself; The word has gone out of My mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, that to Me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall take an oath.

He shall say, ‘Surely in the Lord I have righteousness and strength. To Him men shall come, and all shall be ashamed who are incensed against Him. In the Lord all the descendants of Israel shall be justified, and shall glory.'”  (Isaiah 45:22-23)