Quote: "Outside Israel, the idea of an international force in Gaza is also gaining traction. Michael Williams, the UN’s new special envoy to the Middle East, recently With the PA collapsing, and without an effective and viable military solution of its own, Israel appears ready to welcome international peacekeepers, if only into Gaza and not the West Bank. said that Israel, the Palestinians and the UN should consider an international peacekeeping force in Gaza. In addition, Javier Solana, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, has stated that the EU would discuss a peacekeeping force if Israel and the Palestinians proposed it.

Israel wants peace, perhaps more than ever now, and as Israeli Prime Minister Olmert has previously stated, Arab leaders will be surprised at what he is prepared to give up. The Prime Minister stated today that he was willing to disengage from the Golan Heights, in return for a comprehensive peace agreement with Syria and the severing of its ties with terrorist organizations and Iran. 

Quote: "Bush, the report said, gave the go-ahead and said the United States would not stand in Israel's way, prompting Olmert to convey to Assad several messages through German and Turkish mediators saying he "realizes that a peace agreement with Syria would entail the return of the Golan Height's to Syrian sovereignty". The prime minister expressed his willingness to live up to his end of the bargain if Syria would "gradually dissolve its alliances with Iran, Hizbullah and the Palestinian terror organizations and stop funding and promoting terror". Syria, for its part, has not responded to the offer, apart from a few vague declarations of its willingness to enter negotiations.

But as was reported recently, with Syrian troop levels on the Israeli border at an all time high, I wonder whether the Golan Heights would be worth more to President Assad in Israeli hands? As long as the region remains in Israeli hands, Syria will have a justification for launching a war with Israel. And coupled with Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas, along with the President of Iran, I wonder if getting the Golan back will be more worthwhile to Syria than losing so many anti-Israeli friends? I think even if Israel hands back the Golan, Syria will never end its hostility towards Israel, as Isaiah 17 seems to indicate.

There do seem to be parallels between what is taking place now, and what took place in the weeks after children of Israel left Egypt. When the twelve spies returned from the promised land, ten of them brought back an evil report. They said the land God has brought us to is a land of giants, and that devours its inhabitants (Numbers 13:33-34). Joshua and Caleb brought back a good report, saying it was an exceedingly good land that flowed with milk and honey (Numbers 14:7-9). But the people listened to the evil report and said, "Would to God that we had died in this wilderness!". God granted them their desires, and all the congregation was made to wander in the wilderness for forty years, until all those who had murmured against God had perished.

Numbers 14:34 
After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, [even] forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, [even] forty years, and ye shall know my breach of promise.

When they heard those words the people regretted what they had said, and told Moses they were now going to go and possess the land. But Moses told them not to go, for God was not with them. And they fled before the face of their enemies (Numbers 14:40-45), and were forced to turn back into the wilderness. 

In the same way, Israel could not defeat Hizbullah, for the Lord was not with them. Israel - a third world power and boasting the most advanced airforce in the world - was not able to defeat a few thousand terrorists and their primitive rockets. Why? Israel had disengaged from the Gaza Strip the previous year. The leadership had shown that they no longer believed God's promise, that He would give them this good land. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is once again preparing to hand over more land, the Golan Heights and the West Bank. As a result they have lost their greatest weapon - the Mighty God of Jacob. It was God who delivered them from their enemies in 1967, and caused them to recapture parts of His land. Now they have turned their backs on their God and His promises, and are turning to the Gentiles for deliverance, and I believe this may well signal the beginning of a time of great trouble for the Jewish nation.

Source Globalist, YNet News