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The prophet (Zechariah 12.2) spoke about God's latter-day intention to make Jerusalem a burdensome stone and "a cup of poison" (verse 2, AV margin) to all nations that "burden themselves with it". Towards the end of November, there appeared more evidence of the hand of God moving in this direction. It seems that whatever decisions are made by the Israeli cabinet with regard to Jerusalem, they upset one nation or another.

On 17 November, the Israeli government decided to grant initial approval for 900 new homes to be built in Gilo, a suburb of East Jerusalem. Gilo is one of East Jerusalem's oldest Jewish settlements, which was wrested from Israel by Jordan during the 1948 war. It was occupied solely by the Hashemite Kingdom until 1967, when Israel won it back, "restoring Jerusalem to its former unified status as the undivided capital of Israel and the Jewish people".

President Obama immediately "led a chorus of international condemnation" of Israel's decision. He said the development of the Gilo settlement "would only embitter the Palestinians, endangering the wilting Middle East peace process and ultimately Israel's security itself". A US State Department spokesman slammed the decision by saying, "At a time when we are working to relaunch negotiations, we believe that these actions make it more difficult for our efforts to succeed. So we object to this... Our position on Jerusalem is clear. We believe that Jerusalem is a permanent status issue that must be resolved through negotiations between the two parties".

The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, added his voice to the chorus of Western disapproval saying, "I believe such actions undermine efforts for peace and cast doubt on the viability of the two-state solution", and he referred to Gilo as "a settlement built on territory conquered from the Palestinians in 1967".

The British Foreign Office also issued a statement saying, "The Foreign Secretary has been very clear that a credible deal involves Jerusalem as a shared capital. Expanding settlements on occupied land in east Jerusalem makes that deal much harder, so this decision on Gilo is wrong and we oppose it".

On the Palestinian side, the Palestinian Authority chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, claimed "there was little point in resuming peace talks when Israel is still building homes in the eastern part of the capital. It shows that it is meaningless to resume negotiations".

Commenting on the statement by President Obama, Jerusalem's mayor, Nir Barket, said bluntly that he would not halt construction "in any part of the capital, east or west". He added, "Israeli law does not discriminate between Arabs and Jews or between east and west of the city. The demand to cease construction just for Jews is illegal, also in the US and any other enlightened place in the world. It is inconceivable that the US government would demand a construction freeze in the United States based on race, religion or sex, and the attempt to demand this from Jerusalem constitutes a double standard that is unacceptable". He vowed that "the Jerusalem municipality will continue to enable construction in every part of the city for Jews and Arabs alike".

About ten days later, the Israeli government approved Mr. Netanyahu's "painful, but necessary" request for a 10-month construction freeze in Judea and Samaria. This freeze is "not intended to apply to any part of the city of Jerusalem, including the eastern neighbourhoods". Mr. Netanyahu said he was making the proposal "as a part of the efforts to give momentum to the peace talks with the Palestinian Authority... It allows us to place a simple fact before the world. The government of Israel wants to enter into negotiations with the Palestinians, is taking practical steps in order to do so, and is very serious in its intentions to promote peace".

The Palestinian Authority Chairman, Mahmoud Abbas, immediately released a statement saying the freeze in Judea and Samaria "was inadequate because it did not include Jerusalem. Any return to negotiations must be on the basis of a complete settlement freeze, and in Jerusalem foremost".

The US response was also immediate and lukewarm. The Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, "responded within moments of Netanyahu's announcement" by issuing a statement of approval for the decision. Minutes later, the US Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, said that "it falls short of a full settlement freeze, but is still more than any other Israeli government has done before". He made a point of repeating what President Obama had said, "America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements".

Mrs. Clinton said in her statement that Israel's decision would help "move forward toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict", although she made a point of including the list of conditions Israel has yet to meet in order to satisfy the Obama administration's vision for Middle East peace. She believed the parties can "mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognised borders that meet Israeli security requirements. Let me say to all the people of the region and world: Our commitment to achieving a solution with two states living side by side in peace and security is unwavering".

At the beginning of December, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, published a leaked copy of a draft statement on Israel intended for adoption by EU foreign ministers. The report, drafted by European consuls in East Jerusalem and Ramallah, "slams Israeli policy in East Jerusalem and recommends that the EU takes steps to strengthen the Palestinian Authority's status in the city". The text said that peace talks should lead to "an independent, democratic, contiguous and viable state of Palestine, comprising the West Bank and Gaza and with East Jerusalem as its capital".

A week later, the EU issued a statement that is "less provocative than earlier drafts put forward by the Swedish EU presidency, which had called for East Jerusalem to be handed to a new Palestinian state". (There have been "months of mounting tension between Israel and Sweden, which has repeatedly attacked Mr. Netanyahu on the settlement issue"). Despite this, the EU statement "still contains plenty to irk the Israeli authorities". It re-states the position that "the EU will not recognise any changes to the pre-1967 borders including with regard to Jerusalem", and that "it has never recognised the annexation of Jerusalem".

The Luxembourg Foreign Minister epitomised the EU view by saying, "We all recognise that East Jerusalem is occupied. And if it is occupied, then it is not part of Israel". The view of Catherine Ashton, the EU's new foreign relations chief is: "Jerusalem should be the shared capital of two states. I think this is a position which has been stated often enough". EU foreign ministers said in a joint statement, "If there is to be a genuine peace, a way must be found through negotiations to resolve the status of Jerusalem, as the future capital of two states".

The Palestinian Authority welcomed the EU statement saying, "This is a positive step even though we had hoped for something stronger and clearer". An official communiqué from the Israeli foreign ministry said, "Israel regrets that the EU has chosen to adopt a text that, even if it contains nothing new, does not contribute to the renewal of negotiations". The United States described the EU's attempt to set parameters for peace negotiations "an unwelcome intrusion".

As the year 2009 draws to a close, Jerusalem is very much in the news. Signs abound in the earth that events are drawing to the climax proclaimed in the prophetic word. The nations are being drawn into the vortex that will spell defeat. We are commanded to "pray for the peace of Jerusalem" (Psalm 122.6) so that the tables will be turned and the remnant of the nations will "go up, to Jerusalem, from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts" (Zechariah 14.16).