The Omega Letter Intelligence Digest
 

Vol: 34 Issue: 2 - Friday, July 02, 2004
"And All The Trees . . ."
by Jack Kinsella

Wild celebrations broke out among the hundreds of spectators after four
gunmen from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, part of President Yasser
Arafat's Fatah movement, shot father-of-two Muhammad Rafiq Daraghmeh, 45,
in Qabatiya.

The terrorists dragged Daraghmeh into the square before assembled
townsfolk and told them: "This man, as you know ... gave information to
Israel on the whereabouts of our fighters. What should his sentence be?"

"Execution!" roared the crowd.

The terrorist execution squad gunned down Daraghmeh seconds later and
residents both young and old cheered and chanted around his prone,
bloodied corpse.

"It was necessary to make (Daraghmeh) an example for others to deter them
from collaborating," said Jamal Abu Rab, local commander of the Brigades
and regarded as the town's strongman.

The Palestinian Authority reacted by shrugging its collective shoulders
and blaming Israel's 'occupation' for the lawlessness. They say they are
'powerless' to enforce law and order as long as Israel remains an
'occupying power'.

Israel is attempting to remove itself as an 'occupying power' by building
a barrier fence around itself. Once the fence is built, the Israelis plan
to pull their troops inside the fence and let the Palestinians have the
rest.

The so-called 'Quartet' powers (the UN, US, EU and Russia), the
Palestinians and the whole Arab world oppose the plan, arguing that it
amounts to an Israeli 'land grab.'

The International Court of 'Justice' at the Hague is expected to rule
Israel's barrier fence is illegal under 'international law' (whatever that
is) when it issues its ruling on July 9.

In December 2003, the UN's General Assembly asked the ICJ, "What are the
legal consequences arising from the construction of the wall being built
by Israel, the occupying Power, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,
including in and around East Jerusalem?"

Assessment:

A glance at the wording of the General Assembly's request for the ICJ's
legal opinion reminds me of the Westerns where the accused is promised a
"fair trial followed by a quick hangin' so we can reopen the saloon."

The wording stipulates that a) Israel is the 'occupying power' and, b)
there exists as fact something that is called 'Occupied Palestinian
Territory' which, of course, includes a place called 'East Jerusalem'.

Israel is under fire for 'occupying' Palestinian territory that was, until
the Oslo Agreement, already completely under Israeli control.  Israel had
annexed the West Bank and Gaza Strip following a defensive war in which it
captured those territories from the Arabs as a buffer zone against further
attack.

In exchange for peace, Israel agreed to give most of it to a people who
had never owned it in the first place.

That the 'Palestinians' got land is obvious. If they didn't, then there'd
be no such thing as an 'occupied Palestinian Territory'.

It is equally obvious that Israel never got anything resembling peace in
return.

The price of the land, set forth at Oslo and agreed upon by both parties,
was peace. The price was never paid.  In any other circumstance, one might
call that stealing.  But the way the world sees it, it is the victim of
the theft who is guilty of the crime.

The land in question, it is important to remember, had never belonged to a
Palestinian 'people'. The 'Palestinians' were either Jordanian or
Egyptians prior to 1967 and had been ever since there had been an Israel.

The land they now claim as 'Palestine' was part of the Ottoman Empire's
province of southern Syria until 1917, and had been for four hundred years
before that.

Consider, for just a second, the logic in play here.

We return to the public murder of Muhammad Rafiq Daraghmeh by members of
Yasser Arafat's own group while cheering throngs of Daraghmeh's own people
spit on his corpse and the Palestinian Authority looked the other way.

These are the people the United Nations, the ICJ, the White House and the
rest of the world are clamoring to grant statehood to.

Israeli efforts to keep mobs like that out of their own country are
'illegal' under some indefinable 'international law' against fences. (Said
'international law' only applies to Israel.  Or else we'd have to take
down the fence along the Mexican border).

The UN's definitive statement that Israel is an 'Occupying Power' or that
there is an 'Occupied Palestinian Territory' demands turning history on
its head, and, incidentally, calls into question the legitimacy of every
Arab border in the Middle East.

(The same Allied Powers that the drew the borders of Iraq and TransJordan
also mapped out the borders of the Jewish State in 1917, twenty years
before there even WAS a UN General Assembly.)

Israel is the only free, Western-style democracy in the Middle East.  To
the north is Baathist Syria, to the east,  Jordan's Hashemite Kingdom, to
the south is Murbarak's Egypt.

And the character of the proposed 'Palestinian' state falls somewhere
between Saddam's Iraq and Assad's Syria in terms of human rights.

There are those who scoff at the identification of Israel as the 'fig
tree' of Luke 21, particularly those who scoff at a pre-Trib Rapture.

When asked of the signs of His coming and of the end of the world, Jesus
said the key to understanding the signs of the times was the fig tree
[Israel] and 'all the trees'.

"And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree, and all the trees;
When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer
is now nigh at hand. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass
away, till all be fulfilled." (Luke 21:29-32)

Is Jesus talking about a literal fig tree?  Or is it a symbol for Israel?
After all, He also mentions 'all the trees' -- and they all blossom, too.

Let's compare that to Jotham's parable;  "The trees went forth on a time
to anoint a king over them; and they said unto the olive tree, Reign thou
over us. But the olive tree said unto them, Should I leave my fatness,
wherewith by me they honor God and man, and go to be promoted over the
trees? And the trees said to the fig tree, Come thou, and reign over us.
But the fig tree said unto them, Should I forsake my sweetness, and my
good fruit, and go to be promoted over the trees?" (Judges 9:9-11)

Clearly, Jotham wasn't talking about literal 'trees' either.  Only nations
require kings to reign over them.

Now let's connect the dots together and see the Big Picture again. We have
'all the trees' opposing the existence of the stable democracy of the fig
tree. Instead, all the trees favor creating a failed state on its
doorstep. The people of this planned failed state don't even exist
historically.

By contrast, Israel's historical connection to the land under 'dispute' is
the most carefully documented claim in human history.  Israel is willing
to give half of its historically documented territory to the people who
gunned down Muhammad Rafiq Daraghmeh in the street for allegedly
'collaborating' with Israel.  All they ask in return is to live in peace.

But today's headlines are about Israel trying to steal land from the
Palestinians with its border fence. They aren't about the murder of
Muhammad Rafiq Daraghmeh by the people that Israel is trying to wall out
to protect themselves from in the first place.

Somebody has turned the Big Picture upside down.  And instead of turning
it back right side up, it is instead being viewed as some kind of modern
art or something.  It doesn't make any sense.

In terms of sheer political madness, it has no equal in modern history.
Why would the 'rest of the trees' demand a new terrorist state at the
expense of a Western-style democratic ally in the MIDST of a global war on
terror?

It defies logic, common sense, and both ancient and modern history. It's
like a spiritual madness gripping the whole planet.

"For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the
whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted
worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand
before the Son of man." (Luke 21:35-36)

"And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up
your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh." (Luke 21:28)