Pat Robertson: Jerusalem is sacred
Pat Robertson: Jerusalem is sacredIsrael News Photo

Christian preacher Pat Robertson has warned that the Biblical prophecy of the Battle of Armageddon will take place in Jerusalem if the next government agrees to divide the city to allow the Palestinian Authority to take over the eastern sections.



The Biblical references to Armageddon are subject to wide interpretation but have become a central theme in Christian thinking. The reference is commonly thought to be above the plain of Megiddo, in the Lower Galilee between the Mediterranean Coast and the Jordan Valley.



Christians prophesy that the "Battle of Armageddon" will come at the "end of times" and will herald its concept of the messiah.



Robertson said on the Christian Broadcast Network (CBN) this week that the Battle of Armageddon is "not going to be fought at Megiddo" but will be the "Battle of Jerusalem" when "the forces of all nations come together and try to take Jerusalem away from the Jews."



He predicted that the world will demand that Israel give up its sovereignty over the city and that the government of Israel will refuse. "Jews are not going to give up Jerusalem - they shouldn't," he said.



Robertson also revealed that he has been in contact with Likud party chairman Binyamin Netanyahu, who is favored in the polls to lead the next government. He said that Netanyahu reiterated his promise that the capital is non-negotiable.



Netanyahu, a former prime minister, recently warned that terrorists would target the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in eastern Jerusalem if Arabs were to take control of the area, which Jordan closed off to non-Muslims when it occupied the area until the Six-Day War in 1967.



Dividing the city will "incur a chain reaction we can't even envision," Netanyahu said. "We will witness an escalation of religious conflict above and beyond the regional conflict we have now."

 

CBN also interviewed former Jerusalem Police commander Mickey Levy, who stated, "Read the Bible. Three thousand years ago, Jerusalem belonged to us as a nation. It is our capital. It is the Jewish heart. It belongs to us. We can't live without Jerusalem."



Levy warned that giving part of the capital to the Palestinian Authority would lead to "something like what is happening right now in Gaza."