Any student of the Bible will recognize the name of the city of Jericho. It was the first city that the Children of Israel captured as they entered the land that God has promised to give them after 40 years of wandering in the wilderness some 3500 years ago. In 1994, Jericho was the first city in Judea and Samaria given to the newly created Palestinian Authority under the late Yasser Arafat and this surrender to the Palestinian people of this ancient Jewish city marked the beginning of the surrender of other strategic areas for the Palestinian people like Ramallah and the Gaza Strip.
Now there is an Israeli group made up of mostly religious Jews that want to bring a Jewish presence back to this Biblical city not just an occasional gathering of in Jericho but a permanent return to Jericho.
Jimmy's Prophetic Prospective on the News
An Israeli group of religiously active Jews who want a permanent Jewish presence today in Jericho sets the stage for Bible prophecy to be fulfilled.
Until 1993 and the signing of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinian people, there was a large presence of Jews in the Jericho area of Israel near the northern end of the Dead Sea in the Jordan Valley. The Oslo Accords created the Palestinian Authority, the political body of the Palestinian people, and allowed the late Yasser Arafat to go to Jericho on his first return visit to Israel in many many years. Jericho has for years, almost 3500 years, marked the beginning of the Jewish people receiving the land that God had promised to them. The phrase from the Oslo Accord, "Jericho First" seemed to reverse God's plan for the Jewish people in the past and present and contradicted the Lord's future plans for the Jews. In fact, the land the Jews captured 3500 years ago and live in today is only 10% of all the land that God has promised to the Jewish people.
In 38 chapters of the Bible one can find the true Biblical borders of the total land the Jews will one day receive according to these passages and the Land Covenant found in Deuteronomy 30. That total amount of land included half of Egypt today, all of Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan, three quarters of Iraq, and three quarters of Saudi Arabia which is the basis for the Middle East conflict today.
But remember, Bible prophecy will be fulfilled.