Friday, December 15, 2006

EU Wants a Middle East Free of Nukes

This may be the reason advertised for the coutries of the Gog-Magog war of Ezekiel 38 to invade Israel.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/15/AR2006121500005.html

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- The European Union called Thursday for a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction, responding to recent comments by the Israeli prime minister that have been interpreted as acknowledging his country has a nuclear arsenal.
In interview with a Germany television station broadcast Monday, Ehud Olmert appeared to list Israel among the world's nuclear powers. The next day, however, he denied having "outed" his country's nuclear program.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, center, meets with Israeli Paralympians in his office in Jerusalem, Thursday, Dec. 14, 2006. Candid TV footage of Olmert and his Italian counterpart, Romano Prodi, showed Olmert coaching Prodi on what to say at their joint press conference in Rome. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner) (Sebastian Scheiner - AP)
PHOTOS

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- The European Union called Thursday for a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction, responding to recent comments by the Israeli prime minister that have been interpreted as acknowledging his country has a nuclear arsenal.'
Although Israel is widely assumed to have nuclear weapons, it has maintained a policy of ambiguity since the 1960s, refusing to confirm or deny it.
"The position of the European Union is very clear," said EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana. "In the long term, we don't want to have the Middle East with weapons of mass destruction."
Olmert's remarks came when the interviewer asked him about Iran's calls for the destruction of Israel.
"Iran openly, explicitly and publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map," Olmert said. "Can you say that this is the same level, when you are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel, Russia?"
The next day, Olmert insisted that Israel "will not be the first country that introduces nuclear weapons to the Middle East."
Solana has been the U.N. Security Council's point man in negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. The Islamic country says its program is meant only to generate power, but the U.S., its European allies and Israel fear Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
The Security Council could vote next week on whether to impose sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt uranium enrichment, a process that can generate power or create the fissile core of nuclear warheads.
At a summit Thursday, 25 EU foreign ministers urged Syria to play a constructive role in Middle East peace efforts and encouraged Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to keep up efforts to form a coalition government between his Fatah party and the Islamic militant Hamas. Factional violence between Fatah and Hamas has pushed the rivals closer to civil war.


<< Ezekiel 38 >> New American Standard Bible ©

1 And the word of the LORD came to me saying,
2 "Son of man, set your face toward Gog of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him
3 and say, 'Thus says the Lord GOD, "Behold, I am against you, O Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal.
4 "I will turn you about and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you out, and all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them splendidly attired, a great company with buckler and shield, all of them wielding swords;
5 Persia, Ethiopia and Put with them, all of them with shield and helmet;
6 Gomer with all its troops; Beth-togarmah from the remote parts of the north with all its troops-- many peoples with you.
7 "Be prepared, and prepare yourself, you and all your companies that are assembled about you, and be a guard for them.
8 "After many days you will be summoned; in the latter years you will come into the land that is restored from the sword, whose inhabitants have been gathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel which had been a continual waste; but its people were brought out from the nations, and they are living securely, all of them.
9 "You will go up, you will come like a storm; you will be like a cloud covering the land, you and all your troops, and many peoples with you."
10 'Thus says the Lord GOD, "It will come about on that day, that thoughts will come into your mind and you will devise an evil plan,
11 and you will say, 'I will go up against the land of unwalled villages. I will go against those who are at rest, that live securely, all of them living without walls and having no bars or gates,
12 to capture spoil and to seize plunder, to turn your hand against the waste places which are now inhabited, and against the people who are gathered from the nations, who have acquired cattle and goods, who live at the center of the world.'
13 "Sheba and Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish with all its villages will say to you, 'Have you come to capture spoil? Have you assembled your company to seize plunder, to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to capture great spoil?'"'
14 "Therefore prophesy, son of man, and say to Gog, 'Thus says the Lord GOD, "On that day when My people Israel are living securely, will you not know it?
15 "You will come from your place out of the remote parts of the north, you and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great assembly and a mighty army;
16 and you will come up against My people Israel like a cloud to cover the land. It shall come about in the last days that I will bring you against My land, so that the nations may know Me when I am sanctified through you before their eyes, O Gog."
17 Thus says the Lord GOD, "Are you the one of whom I spoke in former days through My servants the prophets of Israel, who prophesied in those days for many years that I would bring you against them?
18 "It will come about on that day, when Gog comes against the land of Israel," declares the Lord GOD, "that My fury will mount up in My anger.
19 "In My zeal and in My blazing wrath I declare that on that day there will surely be a great earthquake in the land of Israel.
20 "The fish of the sea, the birds of the heavens, the beasts of the field, all the creeping things that creep on the earth, and all the men who are on the face of the earth will shake at My presence; the mountains also will be thrown down, the steep pathways will collapse and every wall will fall to the ground.
21 "I will call for a sword against him on all My mountains," declares the Lord GOD. "Every man's sword will be against his brother.
22 "With pestilence and with blood I will enter into judgment with him; and I will rain on him and on his troops, and on the many peoples who are with him, a torrential rain, with hailstones, fire and brimstone.
23 "I will magnify Myself, sanctify Myself, and make Myself known in the sight of many nations; and they will know that I am the LORD."'

<< Ezekiel 39 >> New American Standard Bible ©

1 "And you, son of man, prophesy against Gog and say, 'Thus says the Lord GOD, "Behold, I am against you, O Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal;
2 and I will turn you around, drive you on, take you up from the remotest parts of the north and bring you against the mountains of Israel.
3 "I will strike your bow from your left hand and dash down your arrows from your right hand.
4 "You will fall on the mountains of Israel, you and all your troops and the peoples who are with you; I will give you as food to every kind of predatory bird and beast of the field.
5 "You will fall on the open field; for it is I who have spoken," declares the Lord GOD.
6 "And I will send fire upon Magog and those who inhabit the coastlands in safety; and they will know that I am the LORD.
7 "My holy name I will make known in the midst of My people Israel; and I will not let My holy name be profaned anymore. And the nations will know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.
8 "Behold, it is coming and it shall be done," declares the Lord GOD. "That is the day of which I have spoken.
9 "Then those who inhabit the cities of Israel will go out and make fires with the weapons and burn them, both shields and bucklers, bows and arrows, war clubs and spears, and for seven years they will make fires of them.
10 "They will not take wood from the field or gather firewood from the forests, for they will make fires with the weapons; and they will take the spoil of those who despoiled them and seize the plunder of those who plundered them," declares the Lord GOD.
11 "On that day I will give Gog a burial ground there in Israel, the valley of those who pass by east of the sea, and it will block off those who would pass by. So they will bury Gog there with all his horde, and they will call it the valley of Hamon-gog.
12 "For seven months the house of Israel will be burying them in order to cleanse the land.
13 "Even all the people of the land will bury them; and it will be to their renown on the day that I glorify Myself," declares the Lord GOD.
14 "They will set apart men who will constantly pass through the land, burying those who were passing through, even those left on the surface of the ground, in order to cleanse it. At the end of seven months they will make a search.
15 "As those who pass through the land pass through and anyone sees a man's bone, then he will set up a marker by it until the buriers have buried it in the valley of Hamon-gog.
16 "And even the name of the city will be Hamonah. So they will cleanse the land."'
17 "As for you, son of man, thus says the Lord GOD, 'Speak to every kind of bird and to every beast of the field, "Assemble and come, gather from every side to My sacrifice which I am going to sacrifice for you, as a great sacrifice on the mountains of Israel, that you may eat flesh and drink blood.
18 "You will eat the flesh of mighty men and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, as though they were rams, lambs, goats and bulls, all of them fatlings of Bashan.
19 "So you will eat fat until you are glutted, and drink blood until you are drunk, from My sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you.
20 "You will be glutted at My table with horses and charioteers, with mighty men and all the men of war," declares the Lord GOD.
21 "And I will set My glory among the nations; and all the nations will see My judgment which I have executed and My hand which I have laid on them.
22 "And the house of Israel will know that I am the LORD their God from that day onward.
23 "The nations will know that the house of Israel went into exile for their iniquity because they acted treacherously against Me, and I hid My face from them; so I gave them into the hand of their adversaries, and all of them fell by the sword.
24 "According to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions I dealt with them, and I hid My face from them."'"
25 Therefore thus says the Lord GOD, "Now I will restore the fortunes of Jacob and have mercy on the whole house of Israel; and I will be jealous for My holy name.
26 "They will forget their disgrace and all their treachery which they perpetrated against Me, when they live securely on their own land with no one to make them afraid.
27 "When I bring them back from the peoples and gather them from the lands of their enemies, then I shall be sanctified through them in the sight of the many nations.
28 "Then they will know that I am the LORD their God because I made them go into exile among the nations, and then gathered them again to their own land; and I will leave none of them there any longer.
29 "I will not hide My face from them any longer, for I will have poured out My Spirit on the house of Israel," declares the Lord GOD.