Dear SirShalom from Jerusalem, where we have returned after a busy month in the United States. We are so thankful for the time we were able to be with you - it was definitely the highlight of our week of meetings in and around Washington DC. Thank you again for your courtesy and graciousness in hosting us.
As we prayed in your office, and have prayed since - including today: May the Lord continue to use you mightily for His purposes for your nation, and may He bind us together as, like you, we seek to stand on His Word concerning this crucial relationship between Israel and the United States.
We would like to share the following points regarding the recent developments in Gaza, and in the light of tomorrow's meeting between Prime Minister Olmert and President Bush. I know you have a great deal of insight into these issues already, but if our perspective from "closer to the ground" can add to yours as you seek to alert your countrymen to what is happening in the Middle East, then we'd certainly want to send you some pointers as critical issues develop.
We believe Israel and America's apparently instinctive reaction to Hamas' coup in Gaza - to rush to the aid of Abbas and his emergency PA government in order to bolster them against a Hamas takeover in the "West Bank" - is the wrong move. The following reasons show why it is short-sighted and extremely dangerous for Israel.
The Palestinian Arabs in the PA areas in Judea and Samaria will NOT have been repulsed by what Hamas did – they will be impressed. This is the traditional Arab response to those who demonstrate strength, even brutality. This means that Hamas will now enjoy even greater support on the "West Bank" (we believe this will be shown to be true in the coming months), and it is a support base into which the Islamist group will tap when the time is right, in order that Hamas can do in Judea-Samaria precisely what it did in Gaza.
Olmert and Bush may believe they will be bolstering Abbas, but it is Hamas that will finally benefit – as it did in Gaza – from the weapons and other equipment that will now be sent to flood the "West Bank."
If this flood of aid to Abbas includes a fast track towards handing him the entire "West Bank" in order to jumpstart the "peace process" because Israel "now has a partner" – which is how Olmert and US administration officials have indicated they see this – then that vital territory will soon be lost to Israel, in political terms – forever. The high ground overlooking Israel's populated coastal plain will be in the hands of the Palestinian Arabs who will then have de facto achieved every goal in this phase of the PLO’s multi-stage plan to destroy Israel- whether “Hamastan” in Gaza and “Fatahstan” in the "West Bank," or “Hamastan” in all those areas.
The United States will then have played an active and direct role in "dividing up God's land" and gravely endangering Israel – the consequences of which, we know as Bible believers, will be fearful for the nation you – and we – love so much.
As we watched the Gaza Strip implode last week, our thought was that God was fighting for Israel by allowing that situation to unfold. From where we stand, it certainly does seem as if He is giving Israel reason after reason for fully justifying its need to abandon the whole land-for-peace process.
Israeli leaders can already point to the failure of the unilateral withdrawal approach – last summer's war with "Hizballahstan" in southern Lebanon, and the incessant Kassam attacks from "Hamastan" in Gaza. Now the Hamas coup has provided an extremely sound reason for halting all cooperation with the implementation of President Bush's "two-state solution."
We need to strengthen the hands of Binyamin Netanyahu and any US senators or congressmen who have recognized the bankruptcy of this whole approach and who can see that it is gambling with the very existence of Israel.
May God help us,
Yours for Zion's sake
Stan Goodenough, Assistant to Jan Willem van der Hoeven, Director
INTERNATIONAL CHRISTIAN ZIONIST CENTER
Sha'ar Binyamin
Israel
