Crossing the line

The U.N. Security Council has just voted Resolution 2334 into law, declaring Israel’s restoration to Jerusalem to be illegal by a vote of 14 to zero. The US represented by Samantha Power abstained on this vote. In 2011 the US vetoed a similar resolution.

What does this vote mean politically, spiritually and biblically? Here are three developing ramifications of this Resolution.

From ‘illegitimate’ to ‘illegal’

A U.N. Security Council (SC) resolution can only be overturned when no other SC member vetoes its reversal. Since enough anti-Israel votes exist among the permanent members of the Security Council, this resolution will not easily be overturned, if ever.

UN Security Council Resolution 2334 (www.timesofisrael.com/full-text-of-unsc-resolution-approved-dec-23-demanding-israel-stop-all-settlement-activity/; https://twitter.com/UN/status/812377925148405764) breaks ground in a few areas.

On November 22, 1967 after the Six Day War the U.N. Security Council adopted Resolution 242, which called for the “withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.”

The US Ambassador at the time Arthur Goldberg explained about the meaning of the legal language used in the Resolution “The notable omissions – which were not accidental – in regard to withdrawal are the words ‘the’ or ‘all’ and ‘the June 5, 1967 lines.’ … The resolution speaks of withdrawal from occupied territories without defining the extent of withdrawal.” In simpler language, Goldberg stated that the intent of the Resolution was not to define how much territory (or if any) should be considered. The vagueness was deliberate, and today’s Resolution violates the sense and context of Resolution 242.

On October 29, 1969, the British Foreign Secretary Lord Caradon told the British House of Commons that the withdrawal envisaged by the Resolution would not be from “all the territories.” When asked to explain the British position later, he said: “It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of June 4, 1967, because those positions were undesirable and artificial.”

Up to today, the US State Department has used the term “illegitimate” to describe Jews living in parts of Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria. But they have not used the word “illegal.” This new Resolution 2334 declares that any Jewish structures in East Jerusalem or Judea or Samaria have “no legal validity and constitute a flagrant violation under international law.”

This legally binding Resolution on the part of the nations of the world crosses a line and throws down a gauntlet.

• If the God of Israel is restoring His Jewish people to their Promised Land according to the words of the Hebrew Prophets in the Bible, then (to use the language of the Resolution) the U.N. has placed itself in flagrant violation of God’s word and its rulings here have no divine validity. The Resolution separates the God of Israel from the people of Israel and the Land of Israel. The stage is set for a showdown between the nations and the God of Jacob.

Cessation and reversal

UN Security Council Resolution 2334 calls for the immediate “cessation of all Israeli settlement activities” and for “affirmative steps to be taken immediately to reverse the negative trends on the ground.” In other words, the nations have issued a legal demand that Israel pack up its bags and leave the Western Wall, the Temple Mount, the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, French Hill, Ramat Eshkol, Ramot, Gilo and Armon Hanatziv – all which lie in East Jerusalem.

Approximately 80% of Jerusalem is Jewish today, and approximately 80% of the population of East Jerusalem is Jewish as well. This Resolution is calling for the removal of Jews from over half of modern Jerusalem, which it defines as “a negative trend.”

These words have a chilling aspect to them which calls to mind the future prophecies of Zechariah 14:1-2.

This Resolution flies in the face of God’s promise to restore Israel to Jerusalem and to her homeland – in spite of what her enemies proclaim.

“Hear the word of YHVH, O nations, and declare in the coastlands afar off. And say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him and keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock.’ For YHVH has ransomed Jacob and redeemed him from the hand of him who was stronger than he. They will come and shout for joy on the height of Zion, and they will be radiant over the bounty of YHVH” (Jeremiah 31:10-12).

Economic sanctions and boycott

Resolution 2334 bares its teeth against the Jewish state, calling “upon all States, bearing in mind paragraph 1 of this resolution, to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967.”

This is a call for the world economy to boycott Israeli good produced in Jerusalem, in Ariel, in the farms and vineyards of the Golan or Judea and Samaria. As the Nazis boycotted Jewish businesses in Germany in the 1930’s, so the U.N. has declared open season on Jewish businesses in Israel which are connected in any way to East Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.

• We are living in days which are sickeningly similar to the rise of Nazism. And the U.N. is officiating at this upcoming attack on the economic survival of the Jewish state.

“The whole head is sick” (Isaiah 1:5)

What the God of Israel once spoke about the spiritual condition of His beloved Jewish people is now a propos about the nations of the world. An international decision to label God’s restoration of the Jewish people as illegal, negative, and to be opposed – this indicates spiritual rebellion against the Most High God.

“When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of man, He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel.  For YHVH’s portion is His people. Jacob is the allotment of His inheritance. He found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of a wilderness. He encircled him. He cared for him. He guarded him as the pupil of His eye” (Deuteronomy 32:8-10).

The God of Israel says that He sets the boundaries and limitations of the nations based on His heart and strategic priority for the Jewish people. Full rebellion takes this principle and reverses it. That is what the U.N. was busy doing today.

“Why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against YHVH and against His Anointed, saying, ‘Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us!’ He who sits in the heavens laughs. YHVH scoffs at them. Then He will speak to them in His anger and terrify them in His fury, saying, ‘But as for Me, I have installed My King upon Zion, My holy mountain’” (Psalm 2:1-6).

Choosing the Sabbath and Hanukkah as the Day of Reckoning

During the days of the Maccabees the Greeks from Syria attacked the Jewish guerilla forces on the Sabbath, knowing that the religious Jews would not fight back on the commanded day of rest. After several terrible slaughters, the decision was made on the part of the Hasmoneans that one could fight back and defend one’s homeland on Shabbat.

This Resolution was passed on the eve of the Sabbath – a Sabbath which opens up into the Feast of Hanukkah. The timing of Resolution 2334 connects the dots between the Greeks who tried to destroy the fledgling Jewish state 2,165 years ago and the modern nations of the world who (through action or inaction) are raising their hand against the Jewish state and sticking their finger into the apple of God’s eye (see Zechariah 2:8).

This planet has suddenly grown darker. Events are kicking in to a higher gear, regardless of the holiday season.

Times and seasons

2017 is a significant year and it is nearly upon us. This year sees the celebration or remembering of significant historical events regarding the Jewish people and the Jewish state:

• 2017 is 100 years since October 31, 1917 saw the ANZAC forces capture the Beersheba region, winning a decisive and telling victory which swung WWI toward an Allied victory. This led to the establishment of the Jewish Yishuv under the British Palestine Mandate, and laid the foundations for the modern State of Israel.

• 2017 is 100 years since November 2 1917 saw the issuing of Britain’s Balfour Declaration, a statement by a Great Power calling for the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.

• 2017 is 70 years since November 29, 1947, the ratification by the United Nations of Resolution 181(II), known as the Partition Plan for Palestine. This was the basis for the legal establishment of the State of Israel.

• 2017 is 50 years after June 1967’s Six Day War, when Jerusalem was once again re-united under Jewish control and the areas of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) were returned to their rightful owners according to the San Remo Conference of 1920.

The spiritual strategy that the enemy is using (and that lies behind Resolution 2334) is to reverse each one of these ‘points of restoration’ regarding the redemption of the Jewish people.

How should we then pray?

• Pray for repentance and clear revelation for the leaders of all countries who have voted for this Resolution.

• Pray for the United States of America, whose leadership refused to veto this Resolution

• Pray for the believers around the world, that they might understand what is happening to Israel and what judgment is coming on the nations of the world as a result

• Pray for the leadership of Israel to receive divine wisdom and strategies on how to defend the Jewish state and respond pro-actively

• Pray for the protection, strengthening, revelation and salvation of the Jewish people, and that they may lean on Him who can keep them from all evil and all destruction

Your prayers and support hold up our arms and are the very practical enablement of God to us in the work He has called us to do.

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

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