"On that day...I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves" (Zechariah 12:3).

 

On Monday, July 29, US Secretary of State John Kerry, preparing to receive Israeli and Palestinian diplomats in Washington, announced a new Middle East peace envoy.

 

President Barack Obama praised their return to the negotiating table after a three-year hiatus. "During my March visit to the region," he said, "I experienced first-hand the profound desire for peace among both Israelis and Palestinians, which reinforced my belief that peace is both possible and necessary."

 

The new peace envoy is Martin Indyk, who is no stranger to the region, having served as the US ambassador to Israel two different times between 1995 and 2001.

 

US officials apparently do not realize they are playing with fire. Every world leader so far who has tried to force a peace agreement on Israel has wound up getting hurt, or at least has suffered loss of power and dignity. It's not that peace is a bad thing, and most people, of course, want it. But again, the Arabs according to their own words, want something more than peace. They cannot remain faithful Muslims if they do not strive to get rid of Israel. This preconditions the peace talks to failure--something Western politicians don't understand.

 

"Land for peace," has been the rallying cry ever since the talks started several years ago. But Israel has learned that giving up land does not bring peace. It only encourages the Arabs to double their efforts to hurt Israel.

 

For example, at the urging of the Western powers, Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005. What did she get for it? An almost daily barrage of rockets for eight years. The fact that the prime minister of Israel at that time, Ariel Sharon, suffered a stroke soon after and is still in a coma may have nothing to do with it. Still, one can't help but wonder if there could be a connection.

 

Revolving-Door Prisons

 

As a precondition for the new talks, Prime Minister Netanyahu has agreed to release 104 Palestinian and Arab-Israeli prisoners arrested before the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993. They were released because the PA told John Kerry that it would not attend the new talks in Washington unless this precondition was met. Israel used to complain about Gaza's revolving-door prisons, in which prisoners would only be detained a short time before being released. A similar thing happens in Israel, when Israel arrests terrorists, but then has to release them in order to facilitate peace talks.

 

Not everyone in Israel agrees with this policy. Trade Minister Naftali Bennett told Netanyahu: "You don't release terrorists, you kill them."

 

Netanyahu said the decision was one of pain not only for the nation but also for him, having lost his brother to terrorism 37 years ago. Dozens of families objected to the prisoner release by protesting outside the Prime Minister's Residence as Netanyahu and his cabinet were voting on the measure. "We have enough pain and loss. We will not agree that more and more families will be forced to join the ranks of the bereaved families and victims of terrorism," they said.

 

Deputy Foreign Minister Ze'ev Elkin, echoing the views of many of his colleagues, noted: "Experience has taught us that every prisoner release encourages terror, and has never brought peace. It informs the next generation of terrorists that someone will work to release them. All the democracies in the world have learned this lesson. They don't release terrorists even in exchange for captured citizens. They won't even negotiate."

 

"Palestinian Leader A Dictator"

 

The Palestinian state that America and Europe are pressuring Israel to help create by surrendering its biblical heartland will be a repressive dictatorship on a par with the region's worst regimes, according to a leading Palestinian official.

 

"Western statements regarding the peace process always focus on securing freedom, dignity and prosperity for the Palestinian Arabs. But the truth is that the Palestinian Authority itself is doing far more than Israel to deny these rights," said Mohammed Dahlan, a former PA security chief and member of the Fatah Central Committee.

 

Dahlan has filed an international lawsuit against Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, whom Dahlan claims is "out to get him." Dahlan is seen as a potential leadership rival, and has threatened to provide evidence exposing the vast corruption that continues to plague the Palestinian Authority.

 

According to Israel's Yediot Ahronot daily newspaper, Dahlan said, "In practice, government in the Authority is a tyrannical rule of one person-Mr. Mahmoud Abbas-and all of the [PA's] institutes, its budgets and international relations are nothing other than means available to Abbas and his family, and their financial, political and personal interests."

 

In fact, the Yediot Ahronot article continued, that is very much how Abbas' predecessor and mentor, Yasser Arafat, ran the show before his death in 2004. Arafat was widely criticized and even condemned for his less-than-democratic ways, while world leaders, including Israeli President Shimon Peres, continue to heap praise on the "moderate" Abbas.

 

There are mounting efforts to convince the US government and the European Union that they should stop funneling billions of dollars to the Abbas regime in light of both its ongoing corruption, and its refusal to meet basic peace commitments, like recognizing Israel's right to exist.

 

Pastor John Hagee, head of the pro-Israel movement known as CUFI, also recently called for a shut-off of aid to the Palestinians. Over the past year, Israeli lawyer Caleb Myers has appeared before the EU parliament and campaigned in North America to bring a halt to the foreign funding of a Palestinian government that will only perpetuate conflict.

 

"Israel an Inspiration to Islamic World" - Muslim Doctor

 

Qanta Ahmed is a Muslim physician, author, and British citizen. In a recent exclusive interview with United with Israel, she called Israel's achievements in women's and minority rights an inspiration to the Muslim world.

 

Qanta Ahmed is the author of "In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor's Journey in Saudi Arabia".

 

Ahmed said she has traveled virtually everywhere in the Middle East, and has found no other country in the region with the same "level of freedom and integration" as Israel. Based on her experience, she acknowledges Israel as a special and unique country, a fact she believes no one should take for granted.

 

Ahmed recounts, "There was a very powerful sense of national identity in Israel, and in a certain way an acceptance of people wanting to be different. I found Israel extraordinarily liberating, for Muslim men and women. I met with Israeli Muslims...I visited the Beit Issi Shapiro Center in the Israeli-Arab town of Kalansua, where Israeli Arab women were taking care of children with special needs. These women participated in the society, whether veiled or not. They had a role outside [of] the household."

 

Ahmed remarked that during her visit to the Technion, she was amazed by the various programs offered and the strong minority presence on the campus. She noted, "Twenty percent of the undergraduates at the Technion are Arab Muslims and seeing how they were thriving is very different from even the privileged women in Saudi Arabia. There is a different climate. I don't feel in Israel that women are under siege or unequal or victims, but that is a strong feeling in the Muslim world. They aren't fully empowered and they aren't equal. I found Israel very refreshing. I did not find it in any way oppressive."

 

Ahmed was also impressed that Israel provides a safe haven to minority Muslim communities such as the Ahmadi Muslims, who are persecuted in the Muslim world. In contrast, she says the Ahmadi Muslim community in Haifa has "been thriving for the last 100 years." They have their "own mosques, cemeteries funded by the Israeli government, and a school," while in Pakistan "Ahmadi cemeteries are frequently desecrated, Ahmadis are barred from giving the Muslim call to prayer, and it is forbidden to call their holy places mosques."

 

Ahmed concluded, "The Muslim world needs Israel as an inspiration more than Israel needs the Muslim world's acceptance. It is very bleak times, but Israel is extraordinarily hopeful...a hope I really experienced through the Israeli Muslims I met." (From an article written by Rachel Avraham, staff writer for United with Israel.)

 

In an age when racial problems are tearing apart even advanced countries like the United States, Israel's treatment of non-Jews should be an eye-opener, and it should also constitute a beacon of light to a crazy world.

 

"Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth" (Deuteronomy 28:1).