Yet again, a storm is brewing in the Middle East, and Jerusalem is at the center of it.

On the surface it involves Israel licensing construction on 1,600 homes in a north Jerusalem neighborhood. The announcement of the deal immediately provoked a conflagration that reminded us all why a functional peace deal is impossible.

It also revealed why Jerusalem is destined to again become a theater of war very soon.

Bible prophecy says it will happen. The Trumpet has been warning about it for nearly two decades. The peace process is always going to break down over the Holy City—until that city convulses in violence that provokes world war.

We reported on the latest scuffle last week. In all probability, if the construction announcement hadn’t come during Joe Biden’s visit to Israel, it wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow. Why? Simply because Israel has never stopped building in Jerusalem. Last November, Netanyahu’s unprecedented 10-month freeze on West Bank construction specifically excluded Jerusalem. Everyone understood that; it was all over the papers. Nevertheless, now the world shrieks as if Israel is grabbing more territory. Even America, under the Obama administration, speaks of this 15-year-old neighborhood inside the city’s municipal boundaries as a “settlement.”

Now—the way Israel is handling the matter is prophetically significant. Benjamin Netanyahu apologized to Washington, but he also made clear that he wouldn’t stop the building. This in spite of President Obama’s angry declaration that it will damage the crucial Israeli-American alliance.

So you can see: This is no trifling issue to the Jews. As pressure grows, they’re not backing down—they’re digging in.

On Monday, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat insisted building in his city won’t let up. “We want to be sensitive to the American administration,” he said, “but I want to make sure people realize there is no [housing] freeze in the city of Jerusalem” (emphasis mine throughout). He proceeded to crank up the intensity of the matter by revealing a blueprint for another 50,000 apartments in the city.

The same day, Prime Minister Netanyahu began a tour of the U.S. by speaking at an American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference. There he reminisced about the Jews’ history of suffering attacks from other peoples, and asserted that the existence of the Jewish state, while it didn’t stop the attacks, “gave the Jews the power to defend themselves against those attacks.” He spoke of the Jews’ historic connection to both the land of Israel and its most hallowed city. “The Jewish people were building Jerusalem 3,000 years ago and the Jewish people are building Jerusalem today. Jerusalem is not a settlement. It is our capital!” he said.

Strong words. Particularly for a man scheduled the next day to meet the American president who called it a settlement.

But Netanyahu is determined to preserve Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem. And he has his people behind him.

Meanwhile, the Palestinians eyeing Washington’s hostility toward Netanyahu’s government recognize an opportunity. They seek to exploit the rift, and to hit Israel while it is isolated. The Obama administration prides itself on its “even-handedness” and kindnesses to Arabs and Muslims, as if this will strengthen America’s position as a broker of peace. In truth, by smacking down Israel, the White House is not only shattering the Jews’ trust, it is stoking the Arabs’ belligerence.

Arabs are rioting in Jerusalem and elsewhere on a scale unseen in a decade. The Gaza Strip has again become the launching pad for lobbing Kassams into Israel; one rocket strike killed a man. Iran—never far from the action wherever nefarious activity is going on in the region—announced its intent to mediate a reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah, the two rival Palestinian factions. “Hamas and Fatah need to turn their guns against Israel and not against each other,” Iran’s foreign minister explained. In the past, Iran worked to keep these two factions separate—but no longer. Stratfor sources say these two are discussing how to present a unified front against the Jews. “The overall goal is thus to exploit the breach in the U.S.-Israeli relationship to reunify the Palestinian leadership and encourage Israeli military action in the territories that would further undermine Israel’s diplomatic efforts in building a coalition against Iran,” Stratfor wrote on Monday.

To think that all this sound and fury is a response to Israel’s plan to build 1,600 homes is ludicrous. Anger over “settlements”—seized upon by President Obama—is just the latest of a string of pretexts the Palestinians have used to try to weaken Israel’s position over the years. In the past it has been land purchases (of unused wasteland) or immigration. If settlements were the real problem, then the Gaza Strip—from which Israel removed every last Jewish resident five years ago—would be a picture of neighborliness and peace.

The Palestinians’ goal is the same as it always was: to eliminate the Jewish state. (Just take a look at the documentation routinely gathered by Palestinian Media Watch.) Settlement freeze or no, that reality won’t change. Curtailing Jewish growth anywhere—whether in “settlements,” or in Jerusalem—is merely a practical step toward the expulsion of Jews. The Palestinians will never negotiate and abide by an agreement to accept Israel’s existence as a state.

This remarkable sequence of events may remind long-time Trumpet readers of a prediction our editor in chief made back in December of 2005, in a letter to Trumpet subscribers and a Key of David program he taped about the same time.

Based on a prophecy in Zechariah, which speaks of half of Jerusalem being taken in what looks to be a violent siege, Gerald Flurry speculated about the political climate that could prevail within Israel in the days before that event occurs. We could soon witness the two sides of the Arab-Jew conflict each shift back toward their respective hard-line camps, he said, driving them apart and pushing the possibility of a peace deal out of reach. He suggested that the Palestinians could be taken over by the radical Hamas movement—while the security-conscious Jews vote in a more conservative government.

An Israeli election was scheduled for March 28, 2006. Based on the biblical evidence, Mr. Flurry believed Netanyahu’s Likud party, then performing poorly, might bounce back and take the election.

Within a short time after those statements, Hamas scored a startling victory in Palestinian elections, snagging 74 out of the 132 seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council. Then, even more shocking, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon—who had planned more unilateral concessions to the Palestinians similar to the Gaza withdrawal that he orchestrated—suffered a massive stroke and was removed from the scene. Suddenly, it looked like Mr. Flurry’s prediction had lurched dramatically closer to being fulfilled. “These two events [Hamas’s victory and Sharon’s departure] will make the conservative position look more attractive for Israelis,” he wrote in the March 2006 Trumpet edition. “Whether or not they elect Netanyahu, it is almost certain the new government will act with more caution toward the Hamas-dominated Palestinian government. That is going to bring the crisis to a head much more quickly.”

The prophesied explosion over Jerusalem, he believed, would likely be precipitated by Arab radicalization, coupled with Jewish inflexibility.

“Zechariah’s prophecy implies that there will be an impasse over the Temple Mount—which the Palestinians ‘resolve’ by taking East Jerusalem by force,” he continued. “That is why I believe the conservatives could regain control in Israel. They have a stronger will to fight for the land they believe belongs to the Jews.”

As it turned out, that prediction was not fulfilled at that time. The Israelis went on to elect the dovish Ehud Olmert, and the Palestinians became preoccupied with infighting. Tension over the fate of the Holy City gave way to other, more immediate concerns.

Now, however, conditions look to be shaping up just as Mr. Flurry predicted. Even Israel’s prime ministership is now occupied by the man he believed it could be. The pressure on Israel is enormous—yet the leader is standing firm on the territorial issue that most resonates with his countrymen. This is fueling Arab anger and impatience, which appear to be building toward violence.

And it all centers around Jerusalem. Just like Zechariah said it would.

The most remarkable thing, though, is the sequence of events Zechariah prophesied would be triggered by the war over Jerusalem. It is the most exciting news you could hear!