Muscling Into the Mideast
Israel has elected its new leader. Both Britain and France are gearing up for spring elections. Up to now each has been significantly involved in the Middle East peace process. U.S. President George W. Bush is currently enmeshed in his honeymoon period with the U.S. Congress and electorate, while his aids busily search for a clear foreign-policy direction.
Meanwhile, Arabs and Jews still shoot each other in Palestine and the interminable “peace process” grinds on. Hopes of former Israeli leader Ehud Barak claiming success in any dramatic peace initiative by the date of Israeli national elections proved to be empty. And in the midst of all these events, the European Union enters center-stage with that eternal peace dove of two faces, Shimon Peres, following closely behind.
A careful study of the machinations involved in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process reveals the level of intrigue which is threaded through the whole scheme of things involving three principle parties—the Palestinian Liberation Organization (plo), the European Union and the Vatican. It is the EU which, having cranked up its Middle East role commencing last October, is destined to play a critical diplomatic role from here on in the region. And it appears that their principle connection in Israel is none other than a wily old fox of left-wing Israeli politics. Now that Ariel Sharon has gained the leadership of Israel, watch for prominent Labor Party member and former Prime Minister Shimon Peres to take a high profile in a unity government structure involving Labor and the conservative Likud Party of Ariel Sharon.
Power Broker Peres
It was extremely interesting to see Mr. Peres back in the limelight, consorting with Sharon in the run-up to the Israeli elections.
Is this an unlikely partnership?
Sharon is a noted hawk, whose visit to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount was even thought to provoke the recent civil war in Palestine between Arab and Jew. Peres has the image of a dove, even being prepared to lead in giving away the strategic Israeli occupied territories.
Why is it that Shimon Peres has seemingly popped up (either behind the scenes or in many instances leading) in negotiations, sometimes secret, with the other protagonists involved in the tortuous peace process? Simple. Close investigation reveals that Peres is the prime link involved in the negotiations with the Vatican and the EU which are now resulting in the EU seeking to take over as the principle mediator and driving force in the “peace process,” marginalizing U.S. efforts.
Peres’s bona fides were established with Yasser Arafat’s plo in a dirty deal which allowed the plo to dictate the outcome of the 1992 Israeli election. It was Peres who told Arafat, in secret and behind the back of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, that if the plo rallied Arab voters behind Labor, helping it to oust Likud from power, his government would support an “independent autonomous entity” led by the plo—”i.e., something resembling a Palestinian state” (Barry Chamish, Traitors and Carpetbaggers in the Promised Land, p. 25).
Arafat took the bait. “Effectively, the plo decided who was to run Israel” (ibid., p. 26). Ever since, Arafat has sought his pound of flesh in terms of the fulfillment of the promises which Peres made to him. It is no secret that Shimon Peres was the puppeteer who pulled the strings of the assassinated Rabin’s government’s negotiations with the Palestinians. His initiatives led to the exchange of letters between Rabin and Arafat in September 1993 which in turn led to the signing of the “Declaration of Principles of Interim Self-Government Arrangements”—termed the Oslo Accord—signed by Rabin and Arafat in Washington that same year. The Oslo Accord became the foundation upon which the past seven years’ efforts to find a peaceful settlement in Palestine have been built.
Enter the Vatican
But most significantly, it was Shimon Peres who in 1993 brokered the deal with Pope John Paul ii to hand over sovereignty of Jerusalem’s Old City to the Vatican. Although we have observed enough snippets of intelligence here and there to build the picture, author Barry Chamish’s research has done much to expose this traitorous act. French intellectual Mark Halter elaborated on the plan: “The city will stay the capital of Israel but will be administered by the Vatican. The city will have an Israeli mayor and a Palestinian mayor, both under orders from the Holy See. The program was originally submitted to the Vatican by Peres two years ago [1991], just before the Oslo talks began.
“The Vaticanization plan was presented to the plo during the Oslo negotiations. Just before the signing of the Declaration of Principles, Arafat agreed not to oppose the plan. The plan also has the support of a number of influential Palestinian intellectuals who were consulted, including Professor Edward Said [of Colombia University (renowned for his works on the subject of Orientalism)].
“The Peres plan calls for the extraterritoriality of the Old City and the airport at Atarot, which will become an international meeting center” (ibid., pp. 75-76).
The Vatican’s tools in the drive to take over Jerusalem have been Arafat, Peres and the European Union.
As Mr. Flurry states in his booklet Hosea and God’s Adulterous Wife, “Why would the Israelis trust the greatest terrorist in the Middle East, Yasser Arafat, to protect them from terrorism? They have more than enough power to protect themselves. But they lack the will to use it! (Lev. 26:17-19)…. America and Britain have put enormous pressure on the Jews to accept the peace process” (p. 27).
In actual fact that means America and Britain are forcing the Jews to accept the takeover of the Holy City by spiritual Babylon (Rev. 17:1-6, 15)! All of a sudden, the EU is moving in on Israel and the plo to force their will on the “peace process” and ensure an outcome which will move them from their former position of co-sponsor and prime paymaster of the process to its prime leader.
The European Connection
In his capacity as vice president of the European Commission, Manuel Marin states, “The Middle East peace process that was launched at the 1991 Madrid Conference raised great hopes of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors…. The European Union reacted to this historical opportunity by making available the largest international program of economic assistance to the peace process. In parallel, the Union maintained its supportive complementary political role…. Although originally invited to the Madrid Conference by the two co-sponsors as a normal participant, the European Union has gradually expanded its political role in the peace process in line with the establishment of the Common Foreign and Security Policy by the Maastricht Treaty…. Through its intense involvement, the European Union has shown its determination to play a full political role in terms of promoting a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the region” (“The Role of the EU in the Peace Process and its Future Assistance to the Middle East,” EU report, Jan. 26, 1998; emphasis mine here and throughout).
European Union involvement in the Middle East peace process dates back to the Venice Declaration of 1980. Possessing very little political clout at the time, the EU literally bought its way into the peace process. It is by far its largest single donor.
Economic benefits continued to dominate the EU thrust into the Middle East till 1996 and the conclusion of the EU Maastricht Treaty.
“The Maastricht Treaty had given it a common foreign and security policy. A special representative for the Middle East, Miguel Angel Moratinos, was appointed in 1996 to put Europe’s proposals and guarantees to the various parties. On March 26, 1999, the Berlin summit conference of EU heads of state and government explicitly recognized the Palestinians’ right to a state” (“Middle East: The Faultline,” www .monde-diplomatique.fr/en).
With the implementation of a common foreign and security policy, the EU signaled that it was moving from its former position as primarily an economic power toward a federation of nation-states, backed by the power of military force, intent on becoming a major power broker on the world scene. Their public declaration in support of a separate Palestinian state threw down the gauntlet to the tiny, embattled nation of Israel and to the previous prime public peace broker, the United States.
In the meantime, following up on the deal which Peres had brokered with Pope John Paul ii to hand over the sovereignty of Jerusalem’s Old City to the Vatican, and realizing the need to obtain control of its property in the areas which will fall under plo administration, the pope acted by concluding an accord with Arafat last February to regularize relations between the Palestinian Authority and Roman Catholic churches in Jerusalem.
Eight months later, Gerhard Schröder, chancellor of Germany, in a flurry of very direct diplomatic activity—while the Clinton-Gore administration was distracted with the U.S. presidential campaign—visited Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Israel and the Palestinian territories. As a result, the Arab league, the Lebanese and the plo all called for the European Union to raise its level of involvement in encouraging regional peace, particularly in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The same month, EU foreign-policy chief Javier Solana attended an Israeli-Palestinian crisis summit in Egypt, further cementing top-level EU involvement in the peace process.
Current Scenario
By January 2001, what do we see?
“Arafat called on Saturday for the European Union to step into the Middle East peace process. ‘Clinton has now left…. Bush will need time to set up his administration…. In this gap the need for intervention on behalf of the European Union has never been as necessary,’ Arafat told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica” (Reuters, Jan. 27).
On the same day, Arafat panned U.S. Middle East envoy Dennis Ross as useless and publicly declared that the past seven years’ efforts of the Clinton administration contributed nothing to the peace process. The very next day Arafat flew to Davos, Switzerland, for a meeting with that old pariah Shimon Peres, and later with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
Two days later, a radical power group within the EU issued the following statement: “The radical deputies in the European Parliament have launched a signature campaign to commit the EU to carry out immediately a study and operational project aimed at assuring the full participation of the State of Israel in the European Union. [It] reaffirms that the State of Israel, isolated and independent, can no longer assure…for its own citizens, for the Middle East, for the Mediterranean world of which it is a part… rights and freedom in security.” Reuters reported, “The statement said the EU was bound by its ideals and objectives to get more directly involved, politically and economically, in the conflict-torn Middle East region, where it is already the biggest aid donor” (Jan. 30).
Things are moving fast, very fast, in the EU-Israel-plo-Vatican nexus. Miguel Moratinos, the EU’s Middle East envoy, hosted a meeting in January between the protagonists, following which both Barak and Arafat declared they had achieved their closest agreement yet.
No More Delay
Ariel Sharon may be the elected leader of Israel, but watch for one foxy old socialist to slide into the picture as the power behind the throne in a unity government between Likud and Labor. Once again Shimon Peres is set to worm his way back into prime focus as the mediator between Israel, the plo, the EU and the Vatican.
Watch for the U.S. being sidelined in the peace process and for a Vatican-EU-UN combined diplomacy to take over and consummate the Middle East peace process—which will result in the deep wounding of Judah, in direct fulfillment of Gerald Flurry’s prophetic words: “What we actually see here is a great shift in world power. A weak U.S. is being pushed aside by the European Union—the king of the north. Remember, Hosea says Ephraim and Judah go to the Assyrians, or Germans. That’s because America—their past benefactor—is already sick and helpless” (Hosea and God’s Adulterous Wife, p. 29).
Mr. Flurry published those words five years ago. They are now powerfully proven to be prophetic reality—current news! Read the following statement from Mr. Flurry’s booklet on the prophecies of Hosea and know now that you are witness to their fulfillment! On page 30, he writes, “So this is not just a serious slap at Israel. It’s also a strong move against the Israel-American axis. It’s a power move to take over the peace process for Europe’s great benefit. The European Union is moving to be the heavyweight in the Middle East.”
