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The prophet Zechariah’s end-of-days foretelling that Israel will eventually be surrounded by and hated by all nations comes more fully into focus in considering the United Nations’ Durban II anti-racism draft document--a document in which Israel is alluded to as a "racist" and "apartheid" power.
The proposed instrument is being debated in Geneva, Switzerland by 190 U.N. representatives, supposedly to oppose and deal with world racism. Durban II is a follow up to the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, which took place in Durban, South Africa. The final draft of Durban II is scheduled for presentation this April in Geneva. Just as most every nation represented in the U.N. these days looks at Israel as a key problem in the Middle East, and as a hold-up to the peace process, the 190 representative nations in the Durban II conference aim their accusatory language at the Jewish state. The same tone of anger against Israel dominated the first Durban meetings.
Excerpts from the following report further expose the surreptitious nature of this world forum ostensibly dedicated to “anti-racism.”
“The draft document for the United Nations anti-racism conference, dubbed Durban II, is problematic both for Israel and western democracies in general, Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva Roni Leshno Yaar told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.While the draft document doesn’t name Israel directly as the culprit of the U.N. Durban II collective’s focus against anti-racism, the language within the instrument makes Israel’s implied guilt manifest.
Besides issues relating to Israel, the draft has problematic paragraphs regarding free speech, defamation of religion and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, he said.
‘At this stage it is not possible to say what in the text would improve, if at all. In fact I expect the text to get only worse on all issues which are important for western democracy,’ Leshno Yaar said in a telephone interview from Geneva…
Israel and the United States walked out of the 2001 conference to protest its disintegration into an anti-Semitic and anti-Israel hate-fest. Israel and Canada have already announced they do not intend to participate in this April's conference in Geneva.
The United States has yet to announce whether it will participate, but it has been present in Geneva this week with an eye toward helping to produce an acceptable draft…” (“Durban II draft document ‘getting worse,’” 2/23/09, Tovah Lazaroff and Abe Selig , The Jerusalem Post).
“The initial draft of the Durban II text, posted on the United Nations website, spoke of the suffering of the Palestinians under occupation. ‘A foreign occupation founded on settlements, laws based on racial discrimination with the aim of continuing domination of the occupied territories,’ it adds, is a ‘contemporary form of apartheid and a serious threat to international peace and security’” (ibid.).With so many profound signals now in daily headlines, it must be considered more than coincidence that practically every United Nations vote that involves Israel and Palestinians–and/or Israel and any other issue, for that matter—finds the Jewish state on the losing end of the vote by overwhelming majority.
And this returns us to Zechariah’s prophecy for Israel at the end of the age, and during the tribulation era. The current movement toward marginalizing the heirs of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is staggering, when considered in the light of God’s prophetic Word.
“The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it” (Zech. 12:1-3).The storm clouds are gathering for the tribulation tempest. All nations of earth will ultimately be judged for the way they have dealt with God’s chosen nation. The Lord, through His prophet, forewarns how He will deal with those who come against Jerusalem and the people whose capital, in God’s view, is the “apple of his eye.”
“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. Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle…We urge caution to the new U.S. administration in considering involving America in the Durban II process. Judgment will fall against anti-Semites within the world’s nations. God will pour His wrath upon those who have falsely accused Israel of being the racist state that should be marginalized, with the intention of removal.
And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth. And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.
And Judah also shall fight at Jerusalem; and the wealth of all the heathen round about shall be gathered together, gold, and silver, and apparel, in great abundance” (Zech. 14:2-3, 12-14).
Israel, as has been pointed out many times, is God’s prophetic timepiece. We see in the U.N. body’s maltreatment of the Jewish state, by way of the Durban II process, the quickening countdown to Christ’s return.
