Understanding The Threat To Israel's Biblical Heartland

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The world calls it the West Bank. But the 350,000-plus Israelis living here
use the region's biblical name: Judea and Samaria.

According to a recent
United Nations report, international law calls for Israel to evacuate all
existing settlements and dismantle Jewish communities in the eastern half of
Jerusalem.

The U.N. considers all the neighborhoods in Judea and Samaria
"illegal" settlements that will one day be included in a Palestinian
state.

Global pressure to hand this territory over to the Palestinians is
mounting against Israel by the day, including tough words from the Obama
administration.

A Thriving Community

Yet on a recent tour of Judea
and Samaria, CBN News found a much different picture than what is often
portrayed in the media and world forums.

"The Jewish communities here in
the Shomron are thriving, are building, are growing," David Ha'ivri, spokesman
for the Shomron Regional Council in Samaria, told CBN News.

"The
population is growing. We're growing at four times greater, five times greater,
than the national average in Israel," he said.

Haivri said a growing
number of Israelis are relocating to the area for the same reasons Americans
move from the city to the suburbs: family friendly communities, fresh air, and
land at affordable prices.

"Young families who wish to establish
themselves and raise children look around and say, 'Where are we going to get a
good standard of living?'" Ha'ivri said. "It's beautiful scenery. We're out here
on the mountains. It's great weather. It's cool in the summer."

"But
aside from that, and even more important, there's a godly process of fulfilling
prophecy that's beyond explanation," Ha'ivri told CBN News. "The prophets
promised that the children of Israel would return to these mountains and rebuild
these Jewish cities and Jewish towns. And that's what happening."

While
Ha'ivri, like many here, is an observant Jew, 60 percent of those living in
Samaria are secular.

Ariel University is the region's educational hub and
its 16,000 students come from all backgrounds. Arab students here are free to
wear Muslim religious attire and they study alongside Jews.

CBN News
found a similar story at the nearby Barkan Industrial Park, home to some 150
businesses where Israelis work side-by-side with their Palestinian
neighbors.

An Arab working in these businesses makes double or three
times as much, in some cases, as he would make working for the Palestinian
Authority in the Palestinian areas.

Palestinian workers at Barkan also
receive full benefits, full vacation time and the ability to move up the ladder
into a supervisory or management position.

Targets for Terror

Life
here is not without its challenges. The Jewish communities of Samaria are
frequent targets for Palestinian terror attacks.

The 2011 massacre of Udi
and Ruth Fogel and three of their small children in the Samarian town of Itamar
was one horrific example. They were murdered in their sleep by two local
Palestinians.

Further south, in the Judean city of Hebron, the situation
is also difficult.

"There are security threats, security problems we have
to deal with here," David Wilder, spokesman for Hebron's small Jewish community,
told CBN News.

"During the second intifada [armed Palestinian uprising],
we were shot at for two and half years here. There are still terrorist attacks
here," he said.

Hebron, which is mostly Palestinian Arab, is home to
Judaism's second holiest site: the Cave of the Patriarchs, also known as the
Cave of Machpela. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Rebecca, Sarah, and Leah -- the
patriarchs and matriarchs of the Land of Israel and of the Bible -- are all
buried in Hebron.

It was also the city where King David ruled for seven
years before moving his kingdom to Jerusalem.

"You cannot let terrorism
determine how you live and where you live if you know that this is your home and
this is where you are supposed to be. What can be more normal for a Jew than
living in the city of Hebron?" Wilder said.

In withdrawing from Judea and
Samaria, Israel would not only be giving up a huge part of its past, it could be
harming its future.

"God forbid, Palestinian terrorists, Hamas
terrorists, would be standing here," Yuli Edelstein, Israel's minister of Public
Diplomacy, said. "They would basically be in total control. And they won't need
long-range missiles. They could reach basically to every town and city in this
area."

Edelstein, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's
cabinet, lives not far from Jerusalem in the Judean town of Gush Etzion, another
area the U.N. wants cleared of Jews.

"I know that strategically, many
things have changed in modern war," Edelstein told CBN News. "But on the other
hand, without our total control here in these areas, I don't think we'd be able
even to run a normal country."

A Warning for the US

Edelstein told
CBN News some of the same forces that oppose Israel's presence in these areas
are also hostile to the United States.

"If the bad guys can do it to
Israel as a democracy and turn us into demons and apartheid and fascists, you
name it -- basically, they can do it to every democracy, United States
included," Edelstein said.

President Obama will make his first
presidential visit to Israel in March. Discussions over the future of Judea and
Samaria are sure to be on his agenda with Israel's prime minister.

These Settlers are the very ones that Christ warns about. When they see the end of the daily sacrifice and the AC set up abomination in the Temple, then they will have to flee.

Living side by side with the palestinians in this place will at some point become deadly. All it will take is the word of the AC and Hamas will rise to slaughter the jews in Judea. They will not be able to live safely in a Hamas controlled, Palestinian controlled, rather, city.

This was the subject of the Star Trek, TNG, episode, The Journey's End and another example of "Everything I ever needed to know, I learned from Star Trek"