Paul Calvert talks with Chuck Cohen from Intercessors For Israel about Donald Trump’s peace deal.
Paul: What do Israelis on the street think about it?
Chuck: Well I don’t talk to Israelis on the street but I can tell you that in the newspapers it’s a real mixed bag. Obviously the left wing newspapers don’t like it because they want to see a Palestinian state everywhere past the 67 line, the right wing papers they like parts of it, there are other parts they don’t like about it. It’s a mixture and according to scripture mixture can be dangerous. There are some really good things that the Trump administration is telling the Palestinians they have to do in order to be recognised as a state and those things are the saving grace because the Palestinians would never do this. Not this generation or the next generation, they won’t give up the right of return. Having the Palestinian refugees coming back and live in whatever is left of Israel, they won’t give up the pay for slay, which is paying the terrorists who are in jail. They will need to change their Palestinian text books where they teach the Palestinian children all about these negative things the Jews have done, how to hate the Jews, how to kill the Jews. They won’t allow a suburb of Jerusalem to be called their capital in Israel, they won’t give up the whole of East Jerusalem. On the other hand, most Israelis, even those who are central left realise that Israel needs to annex the Jordan valley for security purposes and there are consensus on the major settlement blocks, need to be part of Israel.
Paul: You are a messianic believer who understands the Bible, what do you think of it from a biblical perspective?
Chuck: Well when I first heard it I was up on the Golan leading a prayer tour and my initial reaction was, this is terrible. We are not supposed to divide the land, but then I felt that the Lord confronted me with something and basically I felt that the spirit of God challenged me and said to me, “If you were around in 1947 when the UN patrician plan passed, what would you as a fundamentalist bible believer have said to Ben Gurion? Except it or reject it?” and I said, “I would have told him to reject it” and I felt that God said to me, ” I’m glad you weren’t around because look what I have done by accepting it and then he pointed to me Deuteronomy 7 v 22 which says, “I am not going to give you all the land at once, But I am only going to give it to you little by little, lest the beasts multiply and overtake the land.” I realised that the way in modern Israel’s history we have gotten back the land is not all of it at once but a little bit at a time. Now if we can get 30% more of the land annexed and at least have the United States recognise it, just like they have recognised the Golan heights, that would be fantastic. So that part of the deal I love, allowing a Palestinian state to be created, I hate.
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