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The following is the transcript continuation of a commentary given by Hal Lindsey in May of 2001.

JERUSALEM: WAR OR PEACE
TRANSCRIPTION:
The situation in the Middle East is heating up as the seven year anniversary of the Oslo Agreement approaches. The Middle East peace process now hangs on a single issue. The final status of Jerusalem. What does it mean both now and for the future? We will examine this most perplexing political problem of this age. Both the Israelis and the Palestinians claim the city of Jerusalem as their God given inheritance. Who is right?
Islam's entire claim to Jerusalem is based on the Koran. Despite the fact that Jerusalem isn't mentioned even once in that entire book. By contrast, Israel's religious and historical claim is well documented. The city figures prominently in the Old Testament being mentioned more than six hundred times. On the other hand the Muslim claim to the city is based on the Koran 17:1, which refers ambiguously to Al-Quds, which means "the furthest mosque". This passage in the Muslim bible reads, "Glory be to Allah who did take his servant for a journey at night from the sacred mosque to the furthest mosque." Many Muslim, especially in the north African countries do not even know the name Jerusalem. They call it Al-Quds. All Islam claims to Jerusalem is based on this one reference to the furthest mosque. But what is the evidence to support the position that either the Dome of the Rock Mosque with the gold dome, or the Al-Aqsa Mosque both located on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is the Al-Quds, or furthest mosque referred to in the Koran?


Dome of the Rock and
Al-Aqsa Mosques
..............The Temple Mount

Dome of the Rock Mosque


The prophet Mohammed died in the year 632 AD. At the time of his death, Jerusalem was under the occupation of the Byzantine empire. When Mohammed died, there were no mosques in Jerusalem. On the Temple Mount stood a Christian church, the church of St. Mary. For Mohammed to have ascended to Heaven on a winged steed, he would have to ride that horse into a Christian church, and ascend to Heaven on a Christian alter. Now that is an unthinkable act to a Muslim.
The Muslims did not capture Jerusalem until 638 AD, six years after Mohammed's death. The gold domed Dome of the Rock Mosque which today stands on the Temple Mount, from which Mohammed supposedly ascended into Heaven, didn't exist until 711 AD, eighty years after Mohammed's death. In fact, the Christian church of St. Mary which stood on the Temple Mount at the time of the Muslim conquest, was restored and was then renamed Al-Aqsa so it would sound like the mosque mentioned in the Koran.
It seems obvious that Mohammed could not have been referring to Jerusalem as the site of the furthest mosque when he compiled the Koran. The mosque didn't exist for a full three generations after his death. In the days of Mohammed, the mosque at Mecca was the most sacred mosque. Whereas the mosque located in Medina was known as the furthest mosque.
In the light of true history, the basis of the Muslim claim to Jerusalem is impossible.
According to history, Mohammed didn't see Jerusalem as a place sacred to Islam. Indeed, he issued a prohibition against the practice of facing Jerusalem in prayer. He had originally instituted the practice as part of an effort to convert Jews to Islam. The effort failed, and on February 12, 624 AD, Mohammed issued an official religious edict forbidding observant Muslims from facing Jerusalem in prayer.
From that February day, Jerusalem never held any sacred status with Islam for the rest of Mohammed's life. The religious super status of Jerusalem didn't appear until it became politically expedient in the twentieth century. In 1917, the British Empire captured Jerusalem from the Muslim Ottoman empire. It is then that the Muslim leader issued the edict declaring Jerusalem the third holiest site in the Islamic religion.
In Europe, the ghettos were beginning to break up under the impact of the scientific revolution sweeping the continent. The ghettos served two purposes in Europe. First they kept the Jews away from the gentiles. It was, after all, the gentiles who forced the Jews into the ghettos to begin with. But it served an important purpose for the Jews. It kept them from being assimilated into their host population. As the ghetto system began to dissolve, their distinct cultural identity was jeopardized. The Jews of Europe had two choices before them – a homeland or cultural extension. For the Jews, any country no matter how hospitable, would be exile. Only Israel could be home.
At the close of the nineteenth century, the old Isralie homeland of two thousand years past, now an Arab state, was perfectly suited for a Jewish state. It was a sparsely populated, marginal province of the dying Ottoman empire. The land was populated by groups from a number of religions and seemed to have no national consciousness of it's own.
As the ghettos began to disappear in Europe, Jews living inside Jerusalem began to rebel against the old religious order. They began to hear the call of the land and started farming communities and to revive the ancient Hebrew language, which was probably one of the most centralizing facts of all. Hebrew returned to the Jews as a living vernacular and a national renaissance started. It was the time as the prophet Isaiah had predicted in 43:5-6. "Fear not for I am with thee. I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west. I will say to the north, give up, and to the south, keep not back, bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the ends of the earth." The land of Israel responded to the touch of the people with a promise. What was desert fifty years ago, today supplies ninety five percent of Europe's oranges, and exports tulips to Holland. The transformation of Israel from desert, from waste land, to the oasis it is today could have taken place anytime within the last 500 years. Years of Muslim rule. Except for this missing ingredient. The land was waiting for the Jews just as Ezekiel 36 promised it would.
On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly passed resolution 181. That resolution forever changed the status of Jerusalem. By passing 181 the UN declared one covenant with Jerusalem, and another covenant with the rest of the world. Israel as a nation falls under the auspices of the UN Charter. Jerusalem, on the other hand, has a special status unique among the cities of the world. It is the only city in the world with such standing. Six months before there was a state of Israel, Jerusalem was established as an international city under the jurisdiction of the trusteeship council.
In 1950, the UN passed a document called The Statute For The City Of Jerusalem. The UN set forth it's objective to protect and preserve the unique spiritual and religious interests located in the city of the three great faiths throughout the world – Christian, Jewish, and Moslem. To this end – to ensure that order and peace, and especially religious peace, reign in Jerusalem.
This shows again how history can be totally changed in the minds of people, and thus becomes more powerful than the truth. The UN is man's attempt to counterfeit the one thousand year millennial reign of Christ as promised in the Bible. It even quotes Isaiah's passage about beating swords into plow shares on it's New York edifice. But Isaiah was talking about the kind of peace that will be wrought by the Prince of Peace. The UN brings peace at the point of a sword, contradicting the very verse they quote by Isaiah. Just as the Serbs, the UN has spent most of the past fifty years trying to enforce, by edict, that which God alone can settle.
God chose Jerusalem long before Satan attempted to exercise his control over the city of God. As Zachariah explained it, "And the Lord said to Satan, the Lord rebuke you, O Satan, even the Lord that has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?" God Himself claims Jerusalem as His holy city. Satan would reduce it to ashes. But it isn't going to happen just that way. God said that it would be as a brand plucked from the fire, rescued from the holocaust Satan has planned for it. And so it will be. The UN declared it a city separate from the rest of the world, but God declared it His, first. And His declaration will, in the end, be the only one that really matters.
One of Arafat most affective weapons is the anti Isralie propaganda campaign. He has been waging this campaign in violation of the Oslo agreement since the day he signed it. Official Palestinian television recently broadcast a play performed by girls in a summer camp. The play shows the Israelis as murderers and thieves of their land.
It begins with the father speaking to his son Sala in the field.
Sala: Why do the settlers take people's land?
Father: These settlers, you can't trust them. They take land in order to build tall houses for themselves and we must move to the street.
Father to Mohammed: What is the settlers' goal regarding your land?
Mohammed: They want to take my land that I plowed and harvested.
Father: Those dogs. The settlers take but don't give.
The father is left alone in the field as a group of armed Israelis enter the stage, one of them dressed as an Israeli soldier.
Father: Get off my land. Get off my land. Stop taking peoples' land.
The Israelis wave a sheet of paper and say: Listen, it says on this piece of paper that this land is ours.
Father yelling and ripping the paper: The land is my property.
Pushing and shoving and blows are exchanged.
Father: Get off my land. I plowed and harvested it.
The Israelis push him to the ground and shoot him and walk away.
The son returns and says: Father, what did they do to you? Why are you fallen like that?
Father: My son Sala, watch over the land because the settlers want to take the land that I plowed.
Yasir Arafat learned his lessons taught by Israel's most successful enemies. This sort of drama is designed to deeply embed a passionate hatred of the Jews in a child's mind. Arafat has the best possible teachers for this sort of psychological conditioning. He is an unabashed admirer of Adolph Hitler and a keen student of his philosophy concerning the Jews. Throughout the 1930's Hitler commissioned hundreds of films and plays like "The Eternal Jew". They were designed to prepare the average German to accept the final solution of the death camps. It worked for Hitler, and Arafat is betting that it will work for him now.
It is obvious, even to an amateur observer that the Palestinians are preparing for war. Just recently, it came out that the Palestinian youth are being trained for gorilla warfare. They recently acquired fourteen platoons, and 50 BTR52 armored personnel carriers. These personnel carriers are military assault vehicles. They are also preparing for heavier armor. They acquired at least 30 flat bed trucks that have only one basic use – transporting main battle tanks into combat areas. They're not used to transport tour busses, I assure you. Egypt has hundreds of modern battle tanks near the border of the Gaza Strip. This could be transferred to the Palestinian army quickly if war began. The above mentioned personnel carriers are armed with multiple 50 caliber machine guns. If these were for police work it would be like hunting mosquitoes with a shotgun. These machine guns pack a punch roughly three times that of the US M16 rifle. The Soviets developed the BTR52 armored personnel carriers from 1950 to 1960 primarily for the Muslim clients against Israel. It's effectiveness was proven by the Soviets in Afghanistan which has conditions very similar to Israel's. It is a perfect fighting vehicle for the terrain and conditions found in Israel. It's speed and fire power make up for it's lighter defensive armor plating. It is especially deadly at night. It is equipped with night vision equipment and can carry 20 assault troops at speeds of up to 75 miles per hour in rough terrain. At the Palestinian Army's unofficial headquarters in Jerusalem, detailed records are kept showing topographical, logistic, military and population information on strategic Israeli targets.
It's certain that all these preparations are not for police work or military parades. Where is the UN protest about this? All of this equipment and training is in direct and specific violation of the Oslo peace agreement. In fact, the whole purpose of the present peace negotiations was to prevent the very thing that is openly going on now in front of our very noses. So where is the UN protest? Where are the condemnations of the western nations? They are all so quick to condemn Israel for infinitely fewer issues. Since Israel has already given ninety percent of what was promised, where is some sign of at least good faith from the Muslims? Maybe it's time to remember that before June 1967 the Arab nations already had everything that they are asking for now. Yet they still launched three wars against Israel. Those facts alone should wake up someone in Israel, and the west as well, to the reality of it all.
Israel's leading spiritual leaders recently conducted a formal hearing to explore an explosive proposal to construct a synagogue on the Temple Mount. At it's monthly meeting the chief council discussed the proposal at the request of the chief rabbi. The proposal as it stands failed to win approval. But it has renewed a debate in Israel that has simmered for 2,000 years. There is currently a ban forbidding Jews to set foot on the Temple Mount. The ban is the result of a kind of circular logic. Jews cannot set foot on the Temple Mount because all living Jews are ritually defiled. The only way to cleanse the defilement under Jewish law requires the restoration of temple worship. The temple doesn't exist, so no ritual cleansing can take place. As momentum grows for Jewish presence on the Temple Mount, so also does support for rebuilding the temple.
And of course, any talk about rebuilding the temple is an implicit threat against the existing Muslim mosque now occupying the site of the original second Jewish temple where the new temple must be constructed. That only serves to increase the likelihood of a coming war between Israel and her Arab neighbors over the city of Jerusalem, the third holiest site in Islam. The Bible says that during the seven year tribulation period, the temple, or some form of the temple worship will again take place on the Temple Mount.
Second Thessalonians predicts that the Antichrist will declare himself to be God in the Holy of Holies of the temple of God, thereby committing the ultimate sacrilege. His declaration takes place exactly three and a half years prior to Christ's Second Coming. This act, known in prophecy as the Abomination of Desolation will launch the most horrific war in the history of mankind. According to prophecy this war will imperil the very existence of the Israelites.
It's obvious that such an important prophetic event cannot take place without a rebuilt temple. The third temple need not be restored to it's original grandeur to qualify. Even a quickly erected temporary temple made according to the ancient measurements will qualify. This recent council of Israel's leading spiritual leaders is the first time in modern history that Israel's Rabbinate has even entertained the possibility of an official Jewish presence on the Temple Mount. Bible prophecy clearly reveals that it won't be the last. The prophet Zachariah predicts that in the last days the whole world will gather against Israel because of the dispute over Jerusalem. Any Jewish attempt to reassert sovereignty over this site would eventually cause exactly what Zachariah predicted. So for the first time in history everything is in place to fulfill this prophecy.
Arafat has made it clear that no price short of getting back east Jerusalem will purchase peace between the two peoples. But there is a little known fact – Not every Arab in Jerusalem wants to see the Palestinian authority take control of the old city. Many east Jerusalem Arabs have begun paying up all their debts to the Jewish Jerusalem municipal authority. Many are also bringing their interior ministry documents up to date. If a Palestinian state is declared, they'll be able to claim Isralie citizenship instead of being annexed to an Arab state. Senior Palestinian officials believe that if the question was put to a referendum, an overwhelming majority of Arabs would vote to remain under Israeli control.
This is one of the most amazing facts our study has brought out for this report. And that is that they have prospered under Isralie control, and not really been hampered. Look at the lands that the Israeli now control. It's green, it's fertile, it produces. Look at the way it was and look at now, then look at the Palestinian side. Another interesting point also – we know a few Christian Palestinians who do business and have done business under Israeli control – they don't have to pay the kind of taxes that they would have to pay under the Palestinian control.
This just goes to prove the obvious. Most of the Arabs who demand control of Jerusalem don't live there. Those who do would rather live under an Isralie democracy than under a traditional authoritarian Arab government. This is what makes any negotiation between Israel and the Palestinians all but impossible.
Arafat has to not just represent the Palestinian demands but the demands of the entire Muslim world. And the most vocal demands are from the fanatic Islamic regimes which want absolutely no compromises whatsoever. But the coming battle for Jerusalem won't be about who would govern best. In the majority Muslim world view, no city at all is preferable to a Jewish controlled Jerusalem. That is something that eludes the western diplomats trying to solve a deeply rooted religious problem with political tools. And that all but guarantees that the issue will still be on the table when the false peace maker, the one we know from biblical prophecy as the Antichrist, takes center stage. And I don't believe that's far off.
The battle for Jerusalem is four thousand years old and counting. It's time, whether you're Palestinian, Arab, Gentile, or Jew, to come to the real point, that the solution is not political. It is to come to a personal faith in Jesus Christ. He paid the penalty for all our shortcomings that would qualify us for God's acceptance. So right now, accept the gift of pardon that Jesus Christ paid for you no matter what your racial or ethnic background is. Receive this now and enter eternal life.

SOURCE: http://www.heaven-speaks.com

Well a lot has changed since 2001.

It is true that has a lot changed since 2001 but the fundamental arguements and counterarguments have not changed much on either side. The conflict is an eternal one. Right from the Old Testament of the Christian Bible up till now, Jerusalem has witnessed all sorts of fights. Fights which assume different names and different reasons. The fight will continue, until the Second Coming of Christ. No politician nor religious leader will be able to bring a lasting peace there. Any one who attempts to do that will be a liar, in principle and in reality. The Bible is very clear on that. Many think it is all about US, oil money, the Jewish lobby. What is going on in Mid-East is prophetic in nature.

I know...but the mumu muslims on here don't know fact...they are always ready to defend Arab slave masters.

Brb