 |
At the end of last night's segment on CNN regarding former President Jimmy Carter's recent meetings with senior Hamas leaders, Glenn Beck asked me whether there was any Biblically prophetic significance to the meeting. It was an important question (and one not usually asked on CNN). While I only had 30 seconds to answer it, allow me to raise a few points.
First, Hamas's offer of a 10 year peace deal with Israel is a new and startling development. I personally don't believe Hamas really wants peace with Israel. What's more, the founding Hamas Charter explicitly rejects all comprehensive peace treaties with the Jews. This is simply a ruse to get Israel to stop assassinating Hamas terrorist leaders and lure Israel into a false sense of security. But that's not the point. The point is that this the first time in history that one of Israel's primary enemies has suggested forging not a comprehensive peace deal in perpetuity, but a peace treaty of a short and specific time frame. Israel's treaty with Egypt signed in 1979 was not a time-limited agreement. Neither was Israel's treaty with Jordan in 1994. The Oslo Agreements were never time-limited. Nor is President Bush's "Road Map" for Middle East peace. This is a new development. And I suspect the Hamas offer will eventually be taken seriously by the leaders of Israel, the U.N. and the E.U. (perhaps the U.S., too.)
Second, this time-limited peace offer by Hamas is fascinating in that it is completely consistent with Bible prophecy about the last days. In Daniel 9:27, the ancient Hebrew prophet tells us that in the End of Days, an evil leader will make a comprehensive peace deal or covenant with Israel and her many neighbors and enemies. That deal will seem "firm," says Daniel, but it will not be forever. It will be for 7 years. According to the Book of Daniel and Revelation, Israel will accept the deal (fatally flawed though it is), but the evil leader will break the deal after 3 1/2 years, invade Israel, set up a global empire, and eventually trigger the War of Armageddon. Let me be clear: while Hamas leader Khaled Mash'al is without question an evil leader who seeks nothing less that the liberation of Jerusalem for radical Islam and the liquidation of all Jews and Christians in the Holy Land, I am not saying he is the evil leader of which Daniel writes. But Mash'al's proposal has now injected something new and Biblically significant into the Middle East peace process equation -- the element of a time-limited deal. Very interesting.
Third, in my new political thriller, Dead Heat, I write about this exact scenario of a time-limited peace deal between Israel and her enemies. On page 167, my fictional U.N. Secretary General says: "We need to win the Israelis' confidence. We need them to lower their guard. Their Zionist ideology is exhausted. Their political leaders are feckless. Their diplomatic leaders are so desperate to be loved, to be accepted by the rest of the world, they're willing to give away almost anything. But we must not make the ridiculous mistakes of the past. We must not threaten Israel with war. We must invite them to make peace. We must not turn our backs to them. We must offer them an open hand. We must not boycott them....We must shock them. We must offer them a comprehensive peace treaty, the likes of which the world has never seen before. We must lure them into feeling safe and secure. We must lull them into trusting us, into trusting me...And then, when all this has been accomplished, when the time is right, you and I will make our move. We will seize Jerusalem. We will raze the Temple....But not now. We're not ready -- yet." Then, on p. 371 of Dead Heat, my fictional Israeli Prime Minister says: "The world is suddenly very unstable and Israel, I'm afraid, is suddenly very vulnerable. [The U.N. Secretary General] is suggesting we go from Rome to Babylon and have some time alone with [the leader of Iraq]. He wants us to hammer out some kind of fast regional peace treaty -- even a temporary one, something that might last five or ten years, or so....To be honest, given all that's happening, I'm inclined to say yes."
Fourth, watch carefully to see if this concept of a time-limited Arab-Israeli peace deal gains traction. I wrote about a fictional deal like this in Dead Heat because it seemed like a plausible geopolitical scenario to get us to the Biblical prophecy of a 7-year Middle East peace deal. But until this week, no one in real life had ever talked seriously about a limited time frame for a peace deal with Israel. Now Israel's most dangerous immediate neighbor has, assisted by the architect of the Camp David Peace Accords. What's more, President Bush says he is optimistic that an Israeli-Palestinian deal can be struck by the end of 2008. Perhaps prophetic events are moving faster than most Americans think.
[CLICK HERE TO READ THE TRANSCRIPT OF "THE GLENN BECK SHOW"]
CNN Headline News
Monday, April 21, 2008
