Road Map to Armageddon
Israel is in more danger today than at any time since its 1948 War of Independence. The “road map to peace” conceived by the UN, United States, European Union, and Russia ignores the fact that Islam requires all Jewish people to be killed before the “last day.” It also forgets that, according to Islam, Israel may not possess any part of “Palestine,” which Islam claims (despite Gen. 17:15–21 to the contrary) was given to Ishmael and his Arab descendants, not to Isaac and his Jewish descendants.
Unfortunately, Israel’s past leaders share the blame for today’s crisis. Accepting Yasser Arafat’s promises, they agreed in 1993 to recognize him and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as “partners in peace.” Why would anyone, especially Israelis, believe any promise from a man notorious for forty-five years of lying, mayhem, and murder?
A far worse desecration of justice is the honor the world and Israel have accorded Arafat, whose terrorism far surpasses that of Osama bin Laden. In 1995 Ariel Sharon said, “I don’t know anyone since Nazi times who has as much Jewish blood on his hands as Arafat.” Yet this worst mass murderer and terrorist was given the Nobel Peace Prize.
Arafat and his PLO hold every terrorist record: the most passenger aircraft blown up: 40; largest ransom collected: $5 million from Lufthansa; the most hostages taken at one time: 300; largest number of people shot in an airport attack: 31; largest total number of victims killed and wounded: hundreds of thousands; widest variety of targets: ocean liners, passenger planes, children’s schools and school buses, consuls, embassies, airports, shopping malls—even 11 Israeli athletes by PLO’s Black September faction at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Yet the PLO was invited to compete in subsequent Olympics.
Although the entire world watched live on TV the PLO attack on Israeli athletes, Arafat was invited to address the UN General Assembly on November 13, 1974. Moreover, early in 1973, the National Security Agency (NSA), Israeli intelligence, and others had recorded Arafat from the Black September radio command center in Beruit directing Khalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad) in the Khartoum office of the PLO’s al-Fatah in the unusually brutal murder of U.S. Ambassador Cleo A. Noel, Jr. (America’s highest-ranking black diplomat); chargé d’affaires, George Moore; and Belgian chargé d’affaires, Guy Eid.
Defying the United States and Belgium, Arafat brought to the UN three members of Black September (Abu Marwan, Abu Tariq, and Farouk el-Husseini), who were directly involved in the Khartoum murders. Also in his entourage was Ali Hassan Salameh, Black September’s leader of the Khartoum incident, clearly visible with Arafat on media TV. As former NSA employee, James J. Welsh, who heard Arafat’s radio transmissions to Khartoum, has said,
This message of a humiliated US was heard loud and clear by the terrorists who have continued to inflict insult upon injury on the US; 9-11 is but one episode [resulting from] the US non-reaction. . . . I often wonder why Yasser Arafat’s . . . continued presence on the world scene is more important than simple justice for [three] dedicated diplomats who were murdered.
In his 1974 UN speech, Arafat referred to Israel as “the Zionist entity.” He then called for support in doing away with “imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism and racism, the chief form of which is Zionism.” The response to his call for “doing away” with Israel was a standing ovation. In fact, for the UN (or the U.S. Justice Department) to fail to arrest this master terrorist was a violation of international law.
Israel—Always the Exception
A year later the UN overwhelmingly voted to condemn Zionism as “a form of racism.” It wasn’t “racism” for any other people to live in their own country. But it was “racism” for Jews to desire to live once again in the land God gave them and where their forebears have lived for centuries.
Sixteen long years later, over stiff objections from Arab countries, the UN repealed the shameful “Zionism is racism” decision 111 to 25. But on the same day, it voted 152 to 1 (the U.S. abstained) to demand that Israel not use Jerusalem as its capital. Every other country in the world picks its own capital—Israel is the lone exception. The General Assembly has recorded about sixty thousand individual votes cast against Israel, fulfilling God’s Word that in the last days Jerusalem will be “a burdensome stone for all peoples” (Zech. 12:3).
For decades the International Federation of the Red Cross has honored Islam’s Red Crescent but refused to recognize Israel’s Magen David Adom. For opposing this fraud, Bernadine Healy was forced to resign as president of the American Red Cross. Nor is Israel granted membership in the 53-member UN Commission on Human Rights, currently chaired by Libya. Members include such other “champions” of human rights as Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Zimbabwe.
Recently the Organization of Islamic Conference told the Commission that September 11 had “brought about an increase in the gravity of Muslims’ suffering.” The Palestinian spokesperson blamed September 11 on a failure to heed Palestinian “warnings” that Palestinian demands come first. Of course, Israel is never seen as suffering any abuse.
Many exceptions apply to Israel, some fulfilling the prophecy that Israel “shall not be reckoned among the nations” (Num. 23:9). Of the 189 members of the United Nations, 188 (including terrorist nations, such as Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria) are allowed to serve in rotation as members of the Security Council. Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, is excluded.
The Palestinian National Charter also denies statehood to Israel: “Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of . . . statehood. . . . Jews . . . are citizens of the states to which they belong.” The emblems of the PLO and related terrorist groups, such as Fatah, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the PFLP General Command, and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, each contain a map showing “Palestine” without Israel— as demanded by Islam.
The ‘Peace’ of Slaughter
On March 26, 1979, President Jimmy Carter hosted at the White House the signing of a “peace treaty” by Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. Carter wanted to quote one verse each from the Bible and the Qur’an about peace. There are four hundred such verses to choose from in the Bible. He found only one to quote from the Qur’an: “But if the enemy incline towards peace, do thou also incline towards peace” (Surah 8:61).
Surah eight is titled “Spoils of War.” Other verses in that chapter declare: “Fight them until . . . religion is all for Allah” (39); “O Prophet! Exhort the believers to fight” (65); “It is not for any prophet to have captives until he hath made slaughter in the land” (67).
Arafat quoted the same lone verse December 10, 1994, when he received the Nobel Prize for Peace. The only “peace” Islam offers to non-Muslims is to those who surrender when vanquished by jihad (holy war).
Belatedly, on February 12, 1986, forty-seven senators sent a letter to U.S. Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese, III, recalling the murder of U.S. diplomats in Khartoum thirteen years earlier and declaring that “a warrant for Arafat’s arrest should be issued.” Nothing has been done. Al Gore signed that letter; yet he and then-President Bill Clinton celebrated Arafat as one of their most frequent guests at the White House.
Failure to bring Arafat to justice undermines U.S. integrity, encourages terrorists, and mocks the worldwide campaign against terror. How can we pursue Osama bin Laden while we support Arafat?
The continual political correctness is shameful and harmful to Israel. In December 1988, in Tunis, Tunisia, Robert Pelletreau, the U.S. ambassador to Tunisia, opened direct dialogue with PLO representative Abu Tariq, who fifteen years earlier had emptied his Russian-made assault rifle into Ambassador Cleo Noel, George C. Moore, and Guy Eid.
Arafat’s reinvention as an icon of peace was childishly simple: He vowed to reform—and presto—his heinous crimes of four decades were as though they had never been.
In a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Rabin, dated September 9, 1993, Arafat said,
The PLO recognizes the right of . . . Israel to exist in peace and security . . . commits itself . . . to a peaceful resolution of the conflict between the two sides . . . renounces the use of terrorism and other acts of violence [and] affirms that those articles of the Palestinian Covenant which deny Israel’s right to exist . . . are now inoperative and no longer valid [and] undertakes to submit to the Palestinian National Council for formal approval the necessary changes.
As a reward for this transparent lie, President Clinton promised to pay $500 million to the PLO and its agencies. In exchange, Arafat solemnly swore to comply with all terms of the peace accords.
In fact, Islamic law forbids Arafat or any other Arab leader to sign any agreement allowing Jewish people to rule territory once possessed by Muslims. “Palestine” and Jerusalem were conquered by Muslims in A.D. 641 and cannot be relinquished. Nor may Jewish people (or any non-Muslims) rule over Muslims anywhere—including in the United States. This is not an obscure doctrine but the very foundation and heart of Islam.
Dividing the world into dar al-Islam (the house of peace) and dar al-Harb (the house of war), Islam requires unceasing jihad until “all people” submit to Allah. According to Islamic law, there can never be peace, only a temporary cease-fire, between the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds. All Muslims must observe this rule. As Bosnian Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic recently said, “There can be no peace or coexistence between the Islamic faith and non-Islamic societies.” Such is Islam.
As everyone expected (but pretended not to), Arafat, a devout Muslim and compulsive liar addicted to slaughtering Jews, has violated every “agreement” made with Israel. Not once has he denounced violence or encouraged peaceful coexistence in Arabic. Instead, he has sponsored terrorism and trained and praised those who murder Jewish people. The PLO Charter still denies Israel’s right to exist and pledges to exterminate it. In fact, since that handshake on the White House lawn sealing “peace,” Israelis have been dying at the hands of terrorists twice as fast as before—and more than twenty Americans have become victims of Palestinian terrorists in Israel. Yet the U.S. State Department insists that the PLO is meeting its pledges, and we continue to support Arafat with hundreds of millions of tax dollars.
In pushing Israel along a “road map” toward a Palestinian state, the nations of the world defy God who said, “The land shall not be sold [or traded] forever; for the land is mine” (Lev. 25:23). The false peace that may soon be established is, in fact, a “road map” to Armageddon.
The nations of the world should heed God’s warning:
I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and will judge [punish] them there for my people and for my heritage, Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted [divided] my land (Joel 3:2).
