Learn what will happen during the tribulation period from beginning to end
Your comments and questions are always welcome. To send comments and questions please click here to go to our main page. Mon Jun 24, 3:57 PM ET By BARRY SCHWEID, AP Diplomatic Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush urged the Palestinians Monday to replace
Yasser Arafat as their leader and adopt "a practicing democracy" that
could produce an independent state within three years. "Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership so that a
Palestinian state can be born," Bush said at the White House. In his long-anticipated speech, Bush said "reform must be more than
cosmetic changes or a veiled attempt to preserve the status quo" if the
Palestinians are to fulfill their aspirations for a state alongside Israel. Elections should be held by the end of the year for a legislature with normal
authority and there also must be a constitution, Bush said as he set stiff
conditions for a Palestinians state. "When the Palestinian people have new leaders, new institutions and new
security arrangements with their neighbors, the United States of America will
support the creation of a Palestinian state, whose borders and certain aspects
of its sovereignty will be provisional until resolved as part of a final
settlement in the Middle East," Bush said. Senior administration officials said they envision the Palestinians being
able to reach provisional statehood within 18 months and full permanent
statehood in as soon as three years. The president made his remarks in an afternoon speech in the Rose Garden,
where he had announced in April that his administration would try to mediate the
Israeli-Palestinian crisis. Bush leaves Tuesday for a meeting in Canada with
leaders of the world's other major industrialized democracies. Bush also demanded that Israel withdraw to positions it held on the West Bank
two years ago and to stop building homes for Jews on the West Bank and in Gaza.
Ultimately, he said, Israel should agree to pull all the way back to the lines
it held before the 1967 Mideast war. Terms of a provisional state and its international functions were left for
negotiations between a reformed Palestinian leadership and Israel. Bush said the United States, European Union, World Bank and International
Monetary Fund stand ready to help oversee reforms in Palestinian finances. "And the United States, along with our partners in the developed world,
will increase our humanitarian assistance to relieve Palestinian
suffering," he pledged. Secretary of State Colin Powell already was in consultation with Arab and
Palestinian officials as the Bush plan was developed and is likely to return to
the region for direct talks, a senior administration official said. Bush will discuss his initiative with leaders of industrialized democracies
at a G-8 meeting this week. Meanwhile, with intense conflict in the Middle East,
the idea of a peace conference is being put on hold, another senior official
said on condition of anonymity. In the meantime, the administration renewed its support for Israel's
self-defense, even as Israeli tanks encircled Arafat's badly damaged
headquarters in Ramallah, on the West Bank, and Israel went on the offensive
against Hamas militants in Gaza. "Israel has a right to defend itself," State Department spokesman
Richard Boucher said. He also repeated the standard admonition that
"everybody has to be aware of the consequences of their actions." In a precursor of the Gaza action, rockets from Israeli helicopters killed
six Palestinians, four identified as activists of Hamas, which has claimed
responsibility for a recent suicide bombing and is branded a terror group by the
State Department. Boucher reiterated the long-standing U.S. position against
such targeted killings. Within the Bush administration, there had been reservations about announcing
a plan for Palestinian statehood. Some officials questioned going ahead while
Israel was smarting from terror attacks and had its forces on the offensive.
Others were skeptical that Arafat could harness the Palestinian militants who
brought the region to a boil with suicide bombings. On April 4, Bush became the first president to endorse statehood for the
Palestinians. Yet he has shunned Arafat and has questioned his leadership and
his motives repeatedly. The limited statehood possibility irked some Palestinians and other Arabs. "A state is a state, and you cannot be provisionally pregnant, and you
cannot have a provisional state," Nabil Shaath, a senior member of Arafat's
Cabinet, said Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition." END Unfortunately, President Bush’s speech failed to give anyone hope for a
peace plan to take hold in the Middle East.
In fact, it inflamed many Arabs as a one sided rebuke of the Palestinian
leadership. It is my belief that the U.S. has failed in their attempt to bring peace to
the Middle East at this juncture of the talks.
I do see a suicide bombing coming in the very near future as a sign of
defiance and protest of his speech. I think you will see the European Union take a bigger role in the near future
and eventually bring about peace (with the help of the U.S.).
When I say “with the help of the U.S.”, I mean they will be involved
in the financing and the provision of resources that will be needed to make this
possible. It should also be stated
that this plan will have the much needed blessing of the U.S. and Arab world. This plan could take form while we as Christians are
still here or during the time between the rapture and the beginning of the
tribulation period. As I said in
the previous article, many things can happen and change during this time period.
I believe the world will change dramatically and will never be the same
from that day forward.
Pastor Malone