Benjamin Netanyahu is on a mission. Over the next several months, Israel’s new prime minister aims to convince world leaders of the imminent danger Iran poses to Western civilization. Shortly before he was sworn in on Tuesday, Netanyahu told the Atlantic that besides fixing the economy, Washington’s other primary imperative must be to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

“You don’t want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs,” Netanyahu said of the Islamist theocracy.

Should the Obama administration fail to stop Iran, Netanyahu said, Israel might be forced to preemptively strike the Islamic Republic.

Since the Bible affirms that Europe—not Israel or the United States—will ultimately smash the Iran-led “king of the south” (Daniel 11:40), in some ways, Israel’s hawkish threats against Tehran might distract us from other, far more consequential events, prophetically speaking.

The Bible says the spectacular clash between the European “king of the north” and radical Islam will primarily revolve around Jerusalem. It’s the division of Jerusalem, not Iran’s quest for nuclear power, that will trigger the next worldwide war.

The Inevitable Clash

“Behold, the day of the Lord cometh,” Zechariah wrote in a prophecy for the end time. “For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city” (Zechariah 14:1-2).

In the vision, the prophet begins with the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and then works his way back to describe events that immediately precede the Messiah’s appearance on Earth. Before all nations gather to fight against Christ at His return, Jerusalem “shall be taken”—conquered by the European conglomerate. This event, signaling the beginning of what the Bible calls the Great Tribulation, occurs shortly after Europe’s whirlwind attack against radical Islam.

Shortly before that clash between the kings of the north and south, Zechariah says half of Jerusalem will “go forth into captivity,” indicating the city will be divided by some kind of violent struggle. What this prophecy indicates is that a Hamas-dominated Palestinian insurgence, backed by Iran, will take half the city of Jerusalem captive.

The Israeli-Islamist clash over Jerusalem is what we need to be watching for next.

For the past decade, at times it appeared as if Israel would willingly give up East Jerusalem at the negotiating table. In December of 2005, a poll published by Yedioth Ahronoth found that about half of Israelis supported the idea of giving up parts of Arab East Jerusalem if it would solidify a peace deal with the Palestinians.

Even before he became prime minister, Ehud Olmert had said that Israel “would eventually have to relinquish the dream of an eternally united Jerusalem under Jewish sovereignty” (Jerusalem Newswire, Dec. 13, 2005). After one month in office, one of Olmert’s colleagues in Kadima told the Associated Press that Olmert’s government was devising a plan for dividing Jerusalem.

Compare that with where we suddenly are today. What a difference three years makes, as Pierre Atlas wrote last week, contrasting Israel’s new government with Ehud Olmert’s. In 2006, Atlas wrote, most Israelis supported the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and much of the Knesset favored withdrawing from parts of the West Bank. At the time, the right-wing Likud party, which opposed unilateral withdrawals, suffered most as a result of the electorate’s mood. It lost 26 of its 38 seats in the 2006 parliamentary elections.

“No one could have imagined then that, three years later,” Atlas wrote, “Netanyahu would be forming the next Israeli government.”

Actually, shortly before those 2006 elections, as our regular readers know, our editor in chief mentioned on his weekly Key of David television program that Benjamin Netanyahu would likely return to power in Israel because of the prophecy in Zechariah 14:2. He said half of Jerusalem is “going to be taken by force, and you need to realize that. Now, that might also indicate that the Likud, or the conservative party, will get in power.” (Check out the video excerpt above from that Jan. 6, 2006, program.)

With a right-wing coalition now in power in Israel, that brings us one giant prophetic leap closer to the inevitable clash over Jerusalem.

The Fight for the City of David

In sharp contrast to his predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu campaigned for prime minister on keeping Jerusalem united. Earlier this year, at a campaign stop at the Regency Hotel on Mt. Scopus, Netanyahu said, “If we gave up half of Jerusalem, there would be an Iranian base right near this hotel.”

International scorn for this harder-line stance has intensified in recent weeks. In early March, for example, Israel was blasted for its proposal to expand an archaeology park in the City of David, which would require the demolition of dozens of Palestinian homes that have been constructed there illegally over the past 20 years. Under the plan, the delinquent residents would be given generous compensation packages, which would include relocation land.

During her March visit to the region, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said any plan that calls for the demolition of Palestinian homes would not help the peace process.

Nir Barkat, Jerusalem’s new mayor, criticized Clinton for being duped by Palestinian propaganda. The Palestinian Authority has accused Israel of “ethnically cleansing” East Jerusalem in order to “Judaize” the city.

The European Union has also harshly criticized Israel. According to a confidential EU report that was leaked to the media in March, EU officials have accused Israel of “actively pursuing the illegal annexation” of East Jerusalem (emphasis mine).

Mayor Barkat, like Prime Minister Netanyahu, supports keeping Jerusalem united and is working to make various improvements to the city. In an interview with the Jerusalem Post, Barkat defended the municipality’s plans for the city by saying, “I would like to see what [New York Mayor Michael] Bloomberg would say about illegal building in Central Park. Would he give up Central Park because there is illegal building there?”

The battle for the City of David, located in the Arab neighborhood of Silwan, is a microcosm of a larger struggle that will soon thrust the entire city of Jerusalem into a boiling cauldron of hatred and violence. This will result in the prophesied division of Jerusalem, which is the trigger that will set off a rapid-fire sequence of events culminating in the return of the Messiah to the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem (Zechariah 14:4).

We are drawing near to the Earth-wide rule of Jesus Christ!