Prophecy and Current Events

Yesterday in Germany, Israel's closest European ally, Sharon heard concerns from Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder over the issue of Jewish settlements. Ever sensitive to Germany's relationship to Israel in light of the Holocaust, Schroeder said his suggestion of "greater flexibility" on the settlement issue was only a friendly piece of advice, not a request or demand. Sharon also attended a memorial service with Schroeder atthe suburban rail station at Gruenewald, from where Berlin's Jews were deported to the gas chambers under Hitler. "The experience of the Holocaust makes clear the importance of our right to self-defense and to control the destiny of our people," Sharon said after laying a wreath at the station. "We must remember that the Jewish people have one small state in which we have the right and the power to defend ourselves with our own forces, and we must daily thank the Almighty for this. It is the right of the Jewish people, after years of suffering and privation, to be the masters of our fate and to let no one control the fate of our people. We will preserve this right more than anything...I am committed, as a man, as a Jew, and as the Prime Minister of the State of Israel, to ensuring the future of the Jewish people, of each and every Jew, in the country and around the world. I do not forget, even for a moment, that every time we find ourselves obliged to realize our right to defend our security_we will do so vigorously and with courage."

Both Secretary of State Colin Powell and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan have blasted Israel for its policy of targeted killings of Palestinian terrorists, affirmed by the Cabinet on Wednesday. "We continue to express our distress and opposition to these kinds of targeted killings and we will continue to do so," Powell said. "Our well-known opposition to this kind of action is intact." A spokesman for Annan said he "is deeply disturbed by the reported decision of the government of Israel to continue the practice of what have become known as 'targeted assassinations. The secretary-general appeals to the government of Israel to stop this practice forthwith. There is no alternative to a political settlement of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians." Annan's spokesman said the policy violated general principles of law as well as international law and human rights law in particular. "If not halted, it is bound to further aggravate the crisis of confidence between the parties and make an already extremely fragile situation even more precarious," the spokesman said. The tough statement was another sign of traditional UN bias toward the Arabs. Annan has not seen fit to condemn the daily Palestinian shootings and bombings which forced Israel to reinstate the policy of targeted killings in self-defense. Sharon said he told French President Chirac that "if [Arafat] is not taking steps, then Israel is unfortunately forced to take action."

Israelis are extremely pessimistic that the US-brokered cease-fire will hold, according to an opinion poll published today. A Gallup poll of 600 Israelis that appeared in the Hebrew daily "Maariv" showed a whopping 82 percent doubt a complete cease-fire can be reached soon, while 13 percent believe it is achievable. A majority_56 percent_believe Israel should freeze Jewish settlement construction in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip as part of a US peace plan. Fifty-eight percent said they approved of Prime Minister Sharon's performance since he took office four months ago. That_s down four percent from a poll taken a month ago.

Despite months of denials, it has now been confirmed that the United Nations has a videotape containing information about the abduction of three Israeli soldiers by Hizbollah guerillas on the Lebanese border in October. Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told reporters that "a senior UN representative, during a meeting in my office on Wednesday last week, insisted [no cassette] existed...On Friday evening, to my astonishment, the same senior representative telephoned me and after apologizing profusely, said there is a cassette!" Ben-Eliezer said he has written a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan demanding that the tape be handed over. The video was taped 18 hours after the abduction of the three soldiers on October 7, said Timor Goksel, spokesman for UNpeacekeepers in south Lebanon. It contains footage of abandoned vehicles Hizbollah used in the attack, Goksel said. He added that he had not considered the tape important because it was made many hours after the abduction. Two still photos, said to be from the tape, were shown on Israel television last night. They showed the two vehicles, including a white Toyota four-wheel-drive car similar to those used by the UN in south Lebanon. The other vehicle was black. Neither had UN insignia. Inside the vehicles, UN peacekeepers found UN insignia, uniforms and license plates along with weapons and explosives, Goksel said. The pictures seem to confirm Israeli media reports at the time of the abduction that the terrorists used UN vehicles and uniforms in the operation. It appears that the UN tried to cover up the pictures to avoid the embarrassment that Hizbollah terrorists disguised themselves as UN peacekeepers, right under the noses of the peacekeepers themselves!