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Christina Lin

Netanyahu and an undivided Jerusalem

In 1998, Dr. Robert Mawire, co-founder of Ariel in Israel, stood before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and said, “The day you negotiate land for peace, your government will collapse.”

Mr. Netanyahu laughed quietly, and in October 1998 negotiated the Wye River land-for-peace deal in the West Bank with Yasser Arafat.

By 1999 Netanyahu’s government collapsed and he was out of the office.

On 16 April 2001, Netanyahu met Robert Mawire again along with Ron Nachman from Ariel, at a church in Florida where Bibi would speak .

Dr. Mawire stepped forward and handed Netanyahu a plaque with these inscriptions:

“The God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob has chosen you to be the “Father” of His people and to restore the Tabernacle of David. You will once again become Prime Minister of Israel, and God has appointed Ron Nachman to be your right hand man, as it was with Joshua and Moses.

If you honor His covenant that He made with Abraham, Issac, and Jacob regarding Israel, He will honor you and exalt you. But if you disregard His covenant and give away His land, He will dishonor you.

Be strong and of good courage: for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give them. Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest. Have I not commanded thee? Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest” (Joshua 1: 6-7, 9 [KJV]).

–From the Servant of God, Robert Mawire, Fort Worth, Texas, 2001

Mawire then spoke to Netanyahu: “God is not done with you. You will be prime minister again at a critical time in history. Don’t ever negotiate land for peace again.”

In 2009, Netanyahu became Israeli prime minister once more.

This story is recounted by Ron Nachman and Robert Mawire’s mutual friend, Ray Bentley, in his 2014 book The Holy Land Key.

Can this explain Benjamin Netanyahu’s stance of not dividing Jerusalem and giving concessions in the West Bank?

While Issac Herzog is open to dividing Jerusalem, Netanyahu is firm in his belief that not giving Israeli land for peace is vital for national security and survival.

In his 2001 speech, Netanyahu recalled an earlier conversation with then Chinese president Jiang Zemin, as they discussed the endurance of Chinese and Israeli cultures, with the Chinese and the Jews representing the two oldest civilizations on earth dating back four to five thousand years.

President Jiang said there were 1.2 billion Chinese and about 1 billion Indians, but was surprised when Netanyahu told him there were only twelve million Jews in the world.

Netanyahu pressed his point that China and India kept their lands, but “we Jews lost our land and were flung to the far corners of the earth, and from this dispersion came all our calamities and all the exiles and pogroms and massacres leading down to the greatest massacre of our time, the Nazi Holocaust.”

He continued that “for thousands of years we have been trying to do one thing: rebuild our lives as a free, proud, independent people capable of defending ourselves…we will not be suckered into giving up our lives and our land and our independence. We will never give up Jerusalem.

This is where King David walked, where the kings of Israel walked, where the great prophets walked. This is where the Maccabees fought. This is the site of the holy Temple Mount. Jerusalem is mentioned in the Bible seven hundred times. This is our land, our city; it is ours by rights.”

In the Book of Psalms it is said, “Exaltation comes neither from the east, nor from the west nor from the south. But God is the Judge: He puts down one, and exalts another” (Psalms 75:6-7).

So whether Netanyahu or Herzog is exalted as the next Israeli prime minister, it should be interesting to see whether a collapse of the next government would follow an effort to divide the land of Israel.

About the Author
Dr. Christina Lin is a US-based foreign policy analyst specializing in China-Mediterranean relations. She has extensive US government experience working on national security issues and was a CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear) research consultant for Jane's Information Group.
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