IDENTIFYING THE KING REFERRED TO IN DANIEL 11:45

The exegesis of Luke 21:24 which holds that the year 1980 marked the completed fulfillment of Jesus' Own Prophecy has been amply confirmed as correct by history and current events. The one remaining major prophecy to be fulfilled as a sign that intercession for humanity by Jesus Christ in the Heavenly Sanctuary is about to end is Dan. 11:45. It is a certainty that Satan does not want any human being to understand any prophecies; least of all those that enable believers to correctly interpret the closing events of earth's history. He has other plans. Regrettably, there is a confusion of interpretations of Dan. 11:45 in contemporary Seventh-day Adventism. No doubt the devil seeks to obscure the significance of current events in Palestine, Jerusalem, and the Middle East which point to the coming fulfillment of the prophecy. Exegetically it is clear that the papacy is "the King" of Dan. 11:36. It follows logically that the "he" and "him" of Dan. 11:40-45 must be the papacy. This is so obvious when reading Dan. 11:36-45 in context as written in the Bible that it seems a mystery why so many in Seventh-day Adventism insist that the pronouns refer to the "King of the North." This is perplexing, because it is probably a majority who also incorrectly identify the "King of the North" as the papacy. Is recognizing the papacy as the one prophesied by Daniel to "plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain" a saving factor even though the papacy is mistakenly identified as the "King of the North?" - a serious question for those who cannot see that Dan. 11:36-39 flows logically right into verse 40. It is then crystal clear that both the King of the South and the King of the North battle against this third King, who is the actor in verse 45. Wrongly identifying the papacy as the King of the North could be a fatal mistake. It is difficult enough to read the significance of current events with a correct understanding that "the King" of verse 36 is the "he" and the "him" of verses 40 and 45.

THE HISTORICAL RECORD

There is overwhelming evidence in the historical record that events in Palestine have been wholly consistent with the identification of the papacy as the central figure of Dan. 11:45. It is the papacy which with single-minded determination has focused its own and the world's attention on Jerusalem. Rome's objective came closest to achievement in 1993. Negative developments have followed in succession over the years since then, beginning with Benjamin Netanyahu's defeat of Peres for the Premiership of Israel in 1996.

INTENSIFYING ATTEMPTS TO OBSTRUCT

With the recent major event of America's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and the opening of the Embassy on May 14, 2018, prospects for the papacy's plan seem more remote than ever (Cf. Republicans celebrate opening of US embassy in Jerusalem). Netanyahu seeks to cap it off by luring the embassies of the world's nations to Jerusalem:-

From [D]@gmail.com:

Israel to Build Diplomatic Compound in Jerusalem Despite Uproar

Israel is advancing plans for a 25-acre (10-hectare) diplomatic compound to house embassies it expects will move to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv following the relocation of the U.S. mission in May.

The area, located near the U.S. Embassy, will be able to accommodate several missions as well as nearby housing for staffers, according to a Construction and Housing Ministry statement on Wednesday. . .

Guatemala transferred its embassy to Jerusalem shortly after the U.S. move, and Brazil and Australia have signaled their intention to do so, too. Paraguay moved its embassy after Guatemala did, then recanted.

World leaders from the Vatican to Tehran, who consider Jerusalem contested territory due to Palestinian claims on its eastern sector, denounced the U.S. transfer, and the Palestinians have cut off ties with Washington.

More on the ambitious plan:

Israel preparing Jerusalem compound for embassies

In hopes other countries follow US example, Housing and Construction Ministry leads plan for 'diplomatic quarter' built over 25 acres in East Talpiot; 'Hurry up, the best spots are running out,' Minister Galant tells international community.

The Housing and Construction Ministry is planning a secure diplomatic complex in Jerusalem to house embassies that Israel hopes would follow the US and Guatemala's lead and move to the capital.

The plan, which was initiated by Minister Yoav Galant, will see the construction of a quarter that will include embassies, residential buildings for embassy employees and residences for ambassadors.

The embassies complex will be built over 100 dunams (25 acres) in the neighborhood of East Talpiot, close to the new American Embassy and some 1.5 kilometers (1 mile) from the separation barrier.

If more embassies move to the capital and the need arises for another complex, it will be built in the Rekhes Lavan neighborhood. . .

"I'm convinced many additional countries will move their embassies to Jerusalem," Minister Galant said. "Therefore, I've instructed the professional ranks in the Housing and Construction Ministry to create appropriate solutions for a location for the embassies in the future, among other things in a special 'diplomatic quarter.'"

"I turn to the international community and say: Moving your embassies to Jerusalem, our eternal capital, is the right thing to do. Hurry up, the best spots are running out," he added.

The right-wing Zionists in Israel are riding high; evidently believing that expansion of the State of Israel to include all of the Palestinian occupied territory can be achieved. In this they are supported by a powerful religio-political movement:

Christian Zionism, by Dr. Ninan Koshy

Christian Zionism is a modern theological and political movement that embraces the most extreme ideological positions of Zionism, thereby becoming detrimental to a just peace within Palestine and Israel. The Christian Zionist programme provides a worldview where the Gospel is identified with the ideology of empire, colonialism and militarism. In its extreme form it places an emphasis on apocalyptic events leading to the end of history rather than bringing Christ’s love and justice today. (Sabeel) (1)

The origins of Christian Zionism lie in the theology of dispensationalism, an approach to biblical interpretation that emerged in 19th century England, largely through the efforts of Anglican ministers Louis Way and John Nelson Darby. Dispensationalism is a form of pre-millenialism, which asserts that the world will experience a period of worsening tribulations until Christ comes. Darby added several unique features to Way’s teachings including the doctrine of “Rapture” whereby “born-again Christians” would be literally removed from history and transferred to heaven prior to Jesus’ return. Like many other Christians, dispensationalists believe that Christ’s return is foretold in Old and New Testament prophecies and that the return of Jews to Palestine is a key event in the pre-ordained process that will lead to the Second Coming. . .

The founding of the state of Israel in 1948 gave new vigour to the dispensationalist movement. Perhaps more important than this was the Six-Day War in 1967 which the leaders of the movement say was a “miracle of God”. These two events are the historical touch-points for the Christian Zionist movement. Dispensationalists interpreted Israel’s seizure of all of Jerusalem and the West Bank (which like Israel’s Likud Party they refer to as Judea and Samaria) as the fulfillment of the Old and New Testament Prophecies. These “signs” encouraged them as fulfillment of part of the prophecy as they understood. Christian Zionists sensed that ‘end times’ were coming. . .

Christian Zionists oppose a two-state solution or any other form of territorial concession to the Palestinians. They denounce any division of the land. On the eve of Anwar Sadat’s breakthrough visit to Jerusalem in 1977, evangelical groups published advertisements in major newspapers saying that they viewed “with great concern any effort to carve out of the Jewish homeland another nation or political entity”. In 1996, the Third International Christian Zionist Congress resolved that ‘the Land which He promised to His people is not to be partitioned…It would be further error for the nations to recognize a Palestinian state in any part of Eretz Israel”

This would make impossible any resolution for just peace with the Palestinians, including the two-state solution that is the basis of all peace plans of the past decades. Christian Zionists also tend to overlook or even excuse the blatant and well-documented acts of violence of many Jewish settlers against Palestinians. What makes this even more problematic and hurtful from a Palestinian point of view, particularly to Christian Palestinians who expect a more sympathetic response from fellow Christians, is that Christian Zionists for the most part project a ‘maximalist’ stance on the issue of land ownership. They insist that the boundaries of the Jewish state should conform to a biblical map that includes not only the present state of Israel, but the whole of the Occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip as well, territories they call ‘Judea and Samaria”. In this Christian Zionists have adopted, which is considered even by many Israelis to be the most extreme and problematical position viz. the occupation – that of the militant settler movement.

PREVAILING FRUSTRATIONS CONFRONTING ZIONISTS

In spite of the Zionist power bloc's views on Jerusalem and "Eretz Yisrael," attempts to establish embassies in Jerusalem have faltered in the past, with skittish governments moving embassies to the City only to reverse themselves:

Trump, Take Note: How Jerusalem Went From Hosting 16 Embassies to Zero

The U.S. and a handful other nations are moving their embassies to Jerusalem. But in the past other countries – including Chile, the Netherlands and Kenya – sent ambassadors to the city, and then left.

Just two days after the festive rededication of the U.S. Consulate in the neighborhood of Arnona as the new U.S. Embassy, Guatemala will also transfer its embassy to the capital, and Paraguay is expected to follow suit by the end of the month. Honduras, too, has announced plans to transfer its legation to Jerusalem.

For Guatemala, however, the move to Jerusalem will actually be a return. In fact, there was a period in Israel’s short history when it was one of at least 16 states that had their ambassadors stationed in the city.

Three of them were African nations – Ivory Coast, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Kenya; 11 were from Latin American countries – Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Panama, Uruguay and Venezuela, in addition to Guatemala – which began opening embassies there as early as the 1950s; as well as the Netherlands and Haiti.

The stationing of their embassies in Jerusalem did not constitute de jure recognition of the city as Israel’s capital: the universal consensus was and remains that the status of Jerusalem must be decided upon by Israel and the Palestinians in negotiations.

Though this seems very far away today, the general expectation has always been that with the establishment of a Palestinian state, both it and Israel would share the city as a joint capital – the former based in the east, and the latter in the west. . .

So how did Jerusalem go from hosting 16 embassies to zero? The first blow occurred after the Yom Kippur War, when Ivory Coast, Zaire and Kenya all severed relations with Israel following a meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement in Algiers in September 1973. Though all three eventually restored relations with Israel – Zaire in 1981, Ivory Coast in 1986 and Kenya in 1988 – ultimately their reopened legations were based in the Tel Aviv area.

The remaining 13 states shuttered their Jerusalem embassies in 1980, following the Knesset’s passage of the Basic Law on Jerusalem, the Capital of Israel, which stated that the city would remain the “complete and united capital of Israel.”

Though the law did not substantially change the situation that had existed on the ground since Israel had reunited the divided city in June 1967, expanding its boundaries by a factor of three, the UN Security Council perceived the move as a provocation and condemned it as a violation of international law. Security Council Resolution 478 in August 1980 called upon member states to remove their diplomatic missions from Jerusalem.

Although both Costa Rica and El Salvador brought their embassies back to West Jerusalem for a spell, beginning in 1984, by 2006 they had once again left the city. (Bolivia broke off relations with Israel altogether in 2009.)

The UN Security Council is clearly not without influence, and there are surely other political forces resisting Israel's efforts to legitimize the idea of Eretz Yisrael and her claim to undivided sovereignty over Jerusalem.

THERE ARE WARNINGS

There have been warnings against overconfidence:

Jerusalem ignores the UN’s forgotten partition plan of 2012 at its peril (A November, 2017, article)

As Israel hails General Assembly’s Resolution 181 as a harbinger of independence in 1947, few note that the same body overwhelmingly endorsed Palestinian statehood 5 years ago

Many Israelis celebrated Wednesday as a “holiday” marking the 70th anniversary of the United Nations Partition Plan. In the eyes of much of the Israeli public, United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 marked the first time in two millennia that the world gave its approval to independence for the Jewish people in its ancestral homeland.

But on November 29 there was another significant anniversary, one that Israelis — and even Palestinians — curiously neglected to mark: Exactly five years ago, the very same General Assembly overwhelmingly recognized “Palestine” as a state, and called for an Israeli withdrawal from all territories it captured in 1967. . .

But in countless statements marking the event, neither Israelis nor Palestinians noted UN General Assembly Resolution A/67/L.28, which was passed in 2012.

Besides according “Palestine” nonmember observer state status in the UN, the resolution reaffirmed “the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to independence in their State of Palestine on the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.” It also endorsed the Palestinians’ desire to become full-fledged members of the UN (though that can only be effected by the Security Council, where so far the US has vetoed all such attempts).

Nearly three-quarters of voting countries — 138 — backed the text; only nine opposed and 41 abstained. . .

Resolution 181 mentions the words “Jewish state” 30 times; the 2012 resolution makes no mention of the concept.

“They have never been willing to accept what this very body recognized 65 years ago,” Prosor said in a speech following the vote.

Israel, on the other hand, continues to believe in partition, he argued, noting Netanyahu’s professed support for the creation of a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

“That’s right. Two states for two peoples,” Prosor said.

Netanyahu never formally rescinded the position, which he first formulated in a 2009 speech at Bar-Ilan University. But since the election of US President Donald Trump last year he has painstakingly avoided re-endorsing it, leaving some to argue he no longer believes in a two-state solution.

Israeli critics of the 2012 resolution posited at the time that a vote at the UN General Assembly would change nothing on the ground. That assertion was only partially correct. Palestine is still not an independent country, to be sure, but the new status conferred on it by the General Assembly opened the door for Ramallah to gain membership in international organizations such as the International Criminal Court (where it continues to pursue charges against Israeli leaders) and Interpol (where it now has access to the agency’s secure global police communications network).

Much changed between 1947 and 2012. And the world has shifted again in the past five years. But Israelis celebrating UN General Assembly Resolution 181 as a harbinger of Jewish statehood ignore the same body’s 2012 partition plan at their own peril.

Seventy years ago, a comfortable majority of the world’s nations backed a two-state solution accepted by the Jews but rejected by the Arabs. Today, the tables have turned: The Arabs now profess acceptance of a two-state solution, which much of the Israeli government opposes. The international community, however, still overwhelmingly endorses partition, to an even larger degree than in 1947.

Seventy years after it first affirmed the idea of an Arab state existing alongside a Jewish one in the Holy Land, the world is growing increasingly impatient about its implementation. As a consequence, parts of the international community have started calling for sanctions against Israel, such as boycotts and blacklists.

As Israelis extol the UN’s past endorsement of partition, maybe it’s time for them to contemplate whether Israel is still in favor of the idea, and if so, how to go about bringing it to fruition.

ATTEMPT TO PERMANENTLY SABOTAGE THE TWO-STATE SOLUTION

It can reasonably be argued that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has always been a hypocrite about a two-state solution to the conflict in Palestine. At the very time that he declared support for partition he laid down conditions that were certain to provoke rejection by the Palestinians:

Netanyahu Backs Palestinian State, With Caveats

The prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Sunday endorsed for the first time the principle of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, but on condition that the state was demilitarized and that the Palestinians recognized Israel as the state of the Jewish people.

In a much-anticipated speech meant in part as an answer to President Obama’s address in Cairo on June 4, Mr. Netanyahu reversed his longstanding opposition to Palestinian statehood, a move seen as a concession to American pressure.

But he firmly rejected American demands for a complete freeze on Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the subject of a rare public dispute between Israel and its most important ally on an issue seen as critical to peace negotiations.

And even his assent on Palestinian statehood, given the caveats, was immediately rejected as a nonstarter by Palestinians. . .

Netanyahu's policies are seen as having destroyed the prospects for a two-state solution to the Palestine crisis:

We Should Thank Netanyahu for Destroying the Two-state Solution

Netanyahu was the one-state visionary. The struggle for its character lies with those who will follow him

Benjamin Netanyahu must be excoriated. One can understand those who are dying for him to just go away. It’s clear his time is almost up. But one cannot say he hasn’t done anything.

In his dozen years as prime minister he has changed the face of Israel in ways that he considers wildly successful. Some of the changes he’s made could be rolled back if only some worthy liberal leader was given the chance – a hope that for now seems far-fetched.

But there is one big, fateful change, the fruit of Netanyahu’s calculated policy, that is irreversible. Against the stance of the entire world, the United States, the Palestinian Authority and even against the declared position of most Israelis, Israel’s ninth prime minister has managed to remove the possibility of a viable Palestinian state from the agenda. He has irrevocably destroyed the two-state solution. Whether reelected or not, Netanyahu will be remembered as a revolutionary statesman; the man who shaped the country in his image.

It is very easy to detail the damage done by his governments, the destruction they sowed. But don’t say he didn’t do anything and that he was just here to survive. His supreme goal was and is to perpetuate the occupation, preserve Jewish superiority, and eradicate all resistance to both, in Israel and the world.

His success was greater than expected. Contrary to those who claimed the world wouldn’t let him, contrary to those who thought it would lead to awful bloodshed, contrary to those who predicted Israel’s status would be fatally undermined and it would be boycotted, ostracized and isolated, Netanyahu proved otherwise. He showed that Israel can thumb its nose at the whole world, and even at a large portion of its citizens; that the occupation and the settlers are stronger and more determined than any other force. Netanyahu proved it is possible not only to maintain the occupation, but to sabotage the chances of ending it without paying any price.

President Donald Trump appears to have placed his own seal of approval on the destruction of the two-state solution:

Two states? One state? In the end, Trump has destroyed the Palestinian peace process

It is difficult to know what the US president really wants, but so far his actions have spoken much louder than his words

Donald Trump likes to say and do "unpredictable" things. At the United Nations General Assembly meeting last week, he suddenly seemed to perform a U-turn by endorsing a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians. As is frequently the case with Mr. Trump's pronouncements, there may be less here than meets the eye.

The issue is crucial, because his relentless attacks on the Palestinian national movement have seemed to be aimed at obliterating even the notion of Palestinian sovereignty.

Mr. Trump began by vowing to achieve the "ultimate deal", but dropped the traditional American endorsement of a two-state solution. That might have been a crass marketing ploy: if you're selling a shack, call it a palace.

Mr. Trump probably realised early on that a fully accomplished peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians wasn't available in the short term, so his first instinct was to decouple the notion of "peace" from the realisation of a two-state arrangement. That way, he could market some kind of interim agreement as peace and claim his accolades and Nobel Prize.

But soon enough Mr. Trump’s team, led by his son-in-law Jared Kushner, took an increasingly uncompromising, harshly anti-Palestinian approach. When Palestinians reacted angrily to the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital and Mr. Trump's insistence that the issue had been "taken off the table", a campaign of maximum pressure against them was launched.

Every single Palestinian-related civilian project underwritten by Washington has been defunded. Only the Palestinian Security Forces, which Israel relies on, are still supported. In addition to Jerusalem, Mr. Kushner has been trying to strip Palestinians of the refugee issue, seeking to close the UN agency responsible for Palestinian refugees and to redefine the overwhelming majority of them out of existence by removing their legal refugee status.

In case anyone didn't get the message fully, the Trump administration also closed the de facto Palestinian embassy in Washington.

It therefore became increasingly clear that the real goal of this campaign could not be the successful realisation of an interim agreement, let alone real peace. Nor could it be simply a clumsy effort to pummel Palestinians into being more compliant with a forthcoming US plan.

As the Trump administration shattered the logic and infrastructure of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process delineated in the 1993 Declaration of Principles, with its enumerated final status issues (two of which are Jerusalem and refugees), its intentions emerged as entirely destructive.

The real target of all of these measures, it seems clear, wasn't just Palestinian recalcitrance, or Israeli vulnerability on such issues as Jerusalem or refugees. Rather, it targeted the very notion of Palestinian sovereignty as a central theme in peacemaking and a consensus outcome of peace talks.

The US’s close ally, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has long insisted that Palestinians must accept a "state minus" in any peace deal. He reiterated that in an interview after his meeting with Trump.

A FURTHER COMPLICATION

As high as Zionism, Jewish and Christian, has been riding in opposition to the two-state solution and in favor of Eretz Yisrael, there has been a startling and contradictory development in relations between the Israeli government and the Arab Gulf States. This is a de facto alliance against their common enemy, Iran; but it is a complicated picture:

How Far Can Netanyahu Take Israel's Romance With the Arab World?

Despite warm receptions in Oman and Abu Dhabi, Israel shouldn't over-state the strength of its Gulf alliances. A common enemy like Iran can produce photo-ops and covert collaboration - but that isn't normalization

The last few weeks have seen a flurry of apparent breakthroughs in Israel’s foreign relations with the Arab world. A week ago, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Oman, an Arab monarchy with which Israel lacks formal diplomatic ties.

The following weekend, Israeli Culture Minister Miri Regev was present at an international judoka tournament in Abu Dhabi where Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem, was played for Israeli medal winners, a sharp departure from the Egyptian judoka who snubbed the offer of a handshake by his Israeli competitor in 2016.

Days after, Emirati officials accompanied Regev on a tour of their capital’s Grand Mosque, although the UAE, like 29 other Arab and Muslim states, does not recognize Israel. Minister of Communications Minister Ayoub Kara was also in the Emirates, although his trip was for a meeting of a United Nations agency.

Some have leveraged these developments to question the axiom that Israel’s international standing will suffer as the country drifts further and further away from a negotiated two-state solution. The Mitvim Institute’s recently released 2018 Israeli Foreign Policy Index showed that 49 percent of Israelis think a breakthrough with the Arab states is achievable even absent movement on the Palestinian track. On Wednesday, U.S. envoy Jason Greenblatt also praised this apparent progress.

Such sentiment – that Israel's relations with the Arab world are flourishing, rather than being diminished, by the lack of progress in resolving the conflict with the Palestinians - seems to gain traction whenever a Gulf Arab state makes even the most basic gesture toward the Jewish state.

But it was never quite so simple.

Israel’s position in the world is stronger today than it was for most of the country’s history. Netanyahu deserves some credit for this, but the groundwork for this shift occurred over two decades ago. . .

The Arab-Israeli conflict, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict especially, only have an immediate impact on a small number of countries. Israel’s relative isolation during its formative years was reflective of Arab state and Soviet influence, as well as communist, anti-colonial, and non-aligned political commitments in developing nations.

The end of the Cold War rendered these alliances obsolete, opening Israel to the world. This wasn’t the work of any one Israeli leader, but a side-effect of broader geopolitical events.

But the Arab and Muslim countries remained obstinate. Their quarrel with Israel was direct, not an extension of the East-West superpower struggle. Ultimately, Israel’s victory in the 1967 war removed the Jewish state’s total erasure as an objective for all but the most radical regimes, namely Syria and Iraq (later joined by Iran after the Islamic Revolution).

But it also opened up the question of Palestinian statehood on the newly occupied territories, especially after the 1980s: the catastrophe in Lebanon, the First Intifada, and the Palestinian declaration of independence. Progress on the Palestinian front would yield progress in regional integration. On the flipside, stagnation would keep the Arab world at arms length, and Israel’s ties with Egypt and Jordan would never evolve past a cold peace.

The heady days of the Oslo peace process saw officials in the Labor governments of Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres as guests in many countries that lacked relations with Israel. Like Netanyahu, Peres and Rabin visited Oman, but not just Oman. Morocco and Indonesia also welcomed the Israeli leader. Bahrain hosted an Israeli minister in 1994. As prime minister, Peres also traveled to Qatar.

It’s useful to juxtapose the circumstances informing Israeli foreign policy advancements in the 1990s versus today’s developments. Rabin and Peres were riding the wave of optimism surrounding a reinvigorated peace process. That diplomacy yielded real, lasting improvements. For instance, in 1994, Saudi Arabia and other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council stopped enforcing most elements of the Arab League boycott and ceased urging other countries to do the same.

Thus, in a way, Netanyahu is instrumentalizing the products of a peace process he vehemently opposed two decades ago, and has partly helped upend today.

But Netanyahu has also benefited from regional tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia and its allies. While the confrontation with Iran takes clear precedence over the Palestinian question in terms of immediate impact and importance to the Arab states, it will not last forever and so its benefits for Israel will likely prove ephemeral. A relationship that is a function of present circumstances is the basis for a tactical arrangement, not a lasting peace.

Recall that before Israel destroyed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor, Iran attempted to do the same thing. Israel coordinated its attack on their shared enemy with Tehran, and even continued arms sales to the Islamic Republic into the 1980s - well after the fall of the Shah. Where are the fruits of that alliance today?

A common enemy can produce some meetings and covert collaboration, but only a final status agreement with the Palestinians can inspire normalization. Jordan’s recent termination of leases on two small territories to Israel under the 1994 peace treaty, a concession to the country’s massive anti-Israel movement, is evidence of that. . .

Despite the real gains made by Israel’s government over the weekend and in previous years, Israel’s position vies-a-vies the Arab world is anything but normal. Playing a country’s national anthem at an international sporting event signals the most basic level of decorum, opening a trade office is pretty standard fare, and leaders exchange visits regularly. . .

That right-wing Israeli leaders and their supporters now fawn over the Gulf states for undertaking relatively simple steps only underscores the enormous room for growth that still remains. Israeli leaders could exploit the situation with Iran and recent minor openings to build Arab state support on the back of progress toward a comprehensive agreement with the Palestinians. But absent momentum with the Palestinians, sustainable growth with the rest of the Arab world will remain elusive.

Thus, the improved/improving relations between Israel and the Arab Gulf States rest on an unstable foundation.

OMINOUS THREATS AGAINST ISRAEL

As Israel gloats over her apparent success in defying world opinion, there are threats of boycotts and sanctions against her:

The UN’s resolution on Israel doesn’t include any sanctions. It could hurt Israel’s economy all the same. (December 29, 2016, article.)

It gives the green light to activist groups to accelerate campaigns aimed at striking Israel’s economic interests.

The high-profile United Nations resolution condemning Israeli settlements that passed last week does not impose any kind of financial sanctions or other punitive measures on Israel. What it does do, though, is essentially give the green light to activist groups and countries to accelerate campaigns aimed at striking Israel’s economic interests and weakening its international reputation. And that could potentially prove to be just as damaging.

In the past few years, movements like “boycott, divestment, and sanctions” (BDS), a campaign modeled off the economic activism that helped end apartheid in South Africa, have begun to gain traction in the West. And in November 2015, the European Union issued new guidelines on the labeling of imported goods that distinguish between goods from Israel proper and those from its settlements in occupied Palestinian territories, a policy that’s expected to hurt Israeli exports. Last month, France became the first country to enforce the new guidelines.

So far, the impact of these efforts have been modest, but if they continue to gain momentum with boosts like the UN resolution, real money is at stake: Experts estimate they could lop anywhere from $15 billion to $47 billion off the Israeli economy over the next decade.

That’s a substantial sum of money. But perhaps even more important is the psychological toll such economic pressure would exact on Israel’s government, forcing it to consider how its already beleaguered international reputation could slide even further. That in turn could change the calculations the Israeli government makes about the price it’s willing to pay for its defense of settlements. . .

BDS itself has been around for more than a decade, and it enjoys high levels of support among Palestinians, in part because it seems to have better prospects of effecting change than the divided and anemic Palestinian political leadership. But it’s really in the past few years that it’s begun to gain international prominence, evolving from a fringe movement to an adversary of Israel worthy of harsh criticism from the prime minister himself.

The BDS movement’s accomplishments mainly fit under the “B” and “D” categories — it has been successful in promoting sustained boycotts and divestment — but it hasn’t persuaded state governments, which don’t want to interfere with the Washington-mediated peace process, to impose sanctions on Israel.

In the past few years, scores of universities, pension funds, churches, and unions in the US, Europe, and elsewhere have supported BDS by boycotting Israeli goods and investments. The United Methodist Church’s $20 billion pension board, the biggest pension fund asset manager in the US, blacklisted the five largest Israeli banks. Norway’s $810 billion Government Pension Fund Global, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, blacklisted two Israeli companies over their involvement in settlement building in East Jerusalem. . .

The international impact of BDS is cause for concern in Israel, and inspires hope for the Palestinians:

BDS: how a controversial non-violent movement has transformed the Israeli-Palestinian debate

Israel sees the international boycott campaign as an existential threat to the Jewish state. Palestinians regard it as their last resort.

The movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel – known as BDS – has been driving the world a little bit mad. Since its founding 13 years ago, it has acquired nearly as many enemies as the Israelis and Palestinians combined. It has hindered the efforts of Arab states to fully break their own decades-old boycott in pursuit of increasingly overt cooperation with Israel. It has shamed the Palestinian Authority government in Ramallah by denouncing its security and economic collaboration with Israel’s army and military administration. It has annoyed the Palestine Liberation Organization by encroaching on its position as the internationally recognised advocate and representative of Palestinians worldwide.

In an era of corporate social responsibility, BDS has given bad publicity to major businesses tied up in Israel’s occupation and helped push other large firms out of the West Bank. It has disrupted film festivals, concerts and exhibitions around the world. It has riled academic and sports organisations by politicising them, demanding that they take a stand on the highly divisive conflict. It has angered Palestinian performers and artists who work with Israeli institutions, accusing them of giving Palestinian cover for Israel’s human rights violations.

In the UK, BDS has brought turmoil to courts and local councils, embroiling them in disputes over the legality of local boycotts of settlement goods. In the US, BDS has caused two dozen states to pass bills or issue orders inhibiting or penalising those boycotting Israel or its settlements, pitting Israel’s allies against free speech advocates such as the American Civil Liberties Union. It has ignited debates in Protestant churches in the US, some of the largest of which have divested from companies that profit from Israel’s occupation. It has become the bane of college administrators, forced to adjudicate complaints from BDS-supporting professors and students that their free speech has been stifled, and claims by Zionist faculty, donors and undergraduates that their campuses have become “unsafe” spaces. It has pulled liberals toward greater support for the Palestinians, making Israel an increasingly partisan issue in the US, associated less with Democrats and progressives than with Trump, evangelicals and the far right. . .

For many diaspora Jews, BDS has become a symbol of evil and repository of dread, a nefarious force transforming the Israel-Palestine debate from a negotiation over the end of the occupation and the division of territory into an argument about the conflict’s older and deeper roots: the original displacement of most of the Palestinians, and, on the ruins of their conquered villages, the establishment of a Jewish state. The emergence of the BDS movement has revived old questions about the legitimacy of Zionism, how to justify the privileging of Jewish over non-Jewish rights, and why refugees can return to their homes in other conflicts but not in this one. Above all, it has underscored an awkward issue that cannot be indefinitely neglected: whether Israel, even if it were to cease its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, can be both a democracy and a Jewish state. . .

It is significant, given the Vatican's role in the creation of the European Union, that sanctions against Israel have been considered in the past ('EU report urges sanctions against Israel over Jerusalem policies'.) The BDS movement has become entangled with EU policies, which have included sanctions against Israeli products made in Israeli settlements:

The E.U. vs. B.D.S.: the Politics of Israel Sanctions (A January 22, 2016 report.)

This past Monday, the European Union’s Foreign Affairs Council reaffirmed a November requirement that Israel label products made in the settlements differently from those made in Israel. On Tuesday, the State Department spokesman John Kirby unexpectedly reinforced the E.U. position, saying that “construction, planning, and retroactive legalization of settlements” is illegitimate, and that the U.S. does “not view labelling the origin of products as being from the settlements as a boycott of Israel.”

The E.U.’s action, and the Obama Administration’s concurrence, might seem unremarkable. Their opposition to settlements is long-standing. The E.U. labelling requirement, which would apply to little more than one percent of the fourteen billion dollars in goods and services Israel exports to the E.U., is a practical matter, since settlement products were never subject to a free-trade agreement between the two. E.U. ministers, too, were careful to insist that they don’t consider their action “a boycott of Israel, which the E.U. opposes”; there is an obvious difference between opposing the Israeli government’s policies and opposing the state’s existence.

Predictably, though, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the November resolution with indignation. “The E.U. decided to mark only [goods made by] Israel, and we are unwilling to accept the fact that E.U. labels the side being attacked by terror.” His justice minister, the Jewish Home Party member Ayelet Shaked, called Brussels “anti-Israel and anti-Jewish.” Most senior opposition leaders have toed the government line. The Labor Party leader, Isaac Herzog, conjured a parallel between the E.U.’s decision and the U.N.’s 1974 “Zionism is Racism” resolution, which his father, Chaim Herzog, Israel’s U.N. ambassador at the time, famously denounced. Yair Lapid, another opposition leader, accused the E.U. of “capitulating to the worst elements of jihad”; labelling “is a direct continuation of the boycott movement against Israel, which is anti-Semitic and misguided,” he said.

The near unison reflects growing dread of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (B.D.S.) movement targeting Israel, which is separate from any E.U. measures, but is often considered part of a mounting threat of isolation. Formally, the B.D.S. movement began with a 2005 Palestinian campaign—endorsed by more than a hundred and seventy Palestinian civil-society organizations—to encourage public condemnation in the West of the occupation, the settlements, and, arguably, their ideological roots. Leaders of the B.D.S. movement have also called for “full equality” for Palestinian citizens in Israel proper and endorsed the demand for a Palestinian right of return. Omar Barghouti, a founder of the movement, insists that B.D.S. does not threaten Israel’s survival but rather its “unjust order.” Given the ambiguity of the movement’s demands, this is a reassurance that few Israelis can take comfort in.

Last year the EU strongly condemned an announcement of new settlements as the Palestinians called for sanctions against Israel:

EU blasts settlement homes announcement as Palestinians call for sanctions

State Department refrains from criticizing fresh West Bank building, says Israel taking Trump’s ‘concerns into consideration’

The European Union slammed Israel Thursday over its advancement of plans for more than 1,000 new homes in the West Bank, saying they threaten the establishment of a “contiguous and viable” Palestinian state.

On Wednesday, the Defense Ministry committee responsible for approving settlement construction gave final authorization to build 382 homes, while it also cleared another 620 for a planning stage known as a “deposit.”

“If implemented, these plans would further jeopardize the prospect of a contiguous and viable future Palestinian state,” the EU’s diplomatic arm said in a statement.

The bloc also reiterated its opposition to settlement construction, which it said is “illegal under international law and an obstacle to peace.”

“The European Union will continue to engage with both parties and with its international and regional partners to support a resumption of a meaningful process towards a negotiated two-state solution, the only realistic and viable way to fulfill the legitimate aspirations of both parties,” it said.

The comments came as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Lithuania with the purpose of courting support within the eastern parts of the European Union.

Before taking off from Tel Aviv, Netanyahu said he wanted “to achieve a balance in the European Union’s not always friendly relations with Israel.”

DANIEL 11:45 PREDICTS THAT ROME WILL HAVE THE LAST WORD

Eretz Yisrael is far from a fait accompli, and in watching for the fulfillment of Dan. 11:45 it makes sense to pay close attention to the roles of Europe and BDS as well as the United Nations and other international bodies, upon all of which the Vatican exercises influence.

The Pope and the Vatican appeared to be passive about the US Embassy move to Jerusalem. It is now clear that while Rome is careful not to offend the Jewish and Christian Zionists, she reveals her true reaction through her proxy, the European Union.