Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

Zawahri: Israel must be wiped off map
Aug 4th, 2009
Daily NewsJpost
Categories: Today's Headlines;Anti-Israel

Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaida's second-in-command, said on Monday that Israel should be wiped off the map and described the Jewish state as a crime against Muslims.

Zawahri also accused US President Barack Obama of conducting a policy on Israeli-Palestinian issues that was bound to end in failure for the Palestinians, Reuters reported, saying that Obama wanted a Palestinian state that would serve as "an extension of the CIA."

"Israel is a crime that should be removed," the news agency quoted Zawahri as saying in an interview with al Qaida's media arm As-Sahab, posted on an Islamist website on Monday.

Al-Qaida has repeatedly lashed out at Obama since he was elected, a move some analysts believe indicates the terrorist organization is worried he will be effective in improving the US image in the Muslim world.

"His bloody messages were received and are still being received by Muslims, and they will not be concealed by public relations campaigns or by farcical visits or elegant words," Zawahri said of Obama's speech in Cairo in early June.

He went on to say Obama's decision to come to Cairo showed the US had not given up its alliances with dictatorial and corrupt Mideast governments.

"It is a clear message that America does not stand with reform and change and other lying American propaganda, but it stands with the continuation of the existing tyrannical, rotten regimes," said Zawahri.

Zawahri criticized Obama's trip to Israel before he was elected president and his visit to the Western Wall, where he wore a yarmulke.

"The White House said that Obama will send a message from Egypt to the Islamic world, but they forgot that his messages have already been received by the Islamic world when he visited the Wailing Wall, put on his head the Jew's cap and prayed their prayers, though he claims to be Christian," said Zawahri.

Catholics alarmed by EU equal rights law
Aug 4th, 2009
Daily NewsEUOBSERVER - ANDREW RETTMAN
Categories: Today's Headlines;Moral Decline

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Atheists could attack galleries for showing religious art and witches could claim the right to use church halls under a draft EU equal rights law, the Roman Catholic church has warned.

The EU bill aims to curtail discrimination on grounds of religion, disability, age or sexual preference in social situations not covered by existing labour law, such as renting properties.

The directive could enter into force in 2011 if member states give unanimous approval in discussions planned for November by the Swedish EU presidency.

The criticism was put forward in recent days by the Roman Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales as part of a British government consultation procedure.

The bishops' group "commends" the EU effort to protect "the innate dignity of every person."

But it calls for the legal text to soften a clause against creating an "offensive environment" and to add an exemption to let religious organisations "function in accordance with [their] ethos."

"There is a risk that practical implementation may effectively turn the directive into an instrument of oppression against one or other group," the church paper, signed by bishops' conference general secretary Monsignor Andrew Summersgill, says.

"Homosexual groups ...may declare themselves offended by the presentation of the Catholic Church's moral teaching on homosexual acts; Catholics may declare themselves offended by a 'Gay Pride' march; an atheist may be offended by religious pictures in an art gallery."

"It is not clear whether [the bill] would apply to the activities of a Catholic priest, if, as recently occurred, he were to refuse to take a booking for a Church Hall from a group of witches," it adds.

The European Parliament passed the draft law in April by 363 votes against 226. Left-leaning and liberal MEPs championed the bill. But centre-right deputies said it will create too much red tape.

'Israel soon to be larger than Diaspora'
Aug 4th, 2009
Daily NewsJpost
Categories: Today's Headlines;Prophecy;The Nation Of Israel

'Israel soon to be larger than Diaspora' | Jerusalem Post

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu welcomed a planeload of olim on Tuesday at Ben Gurion Airport, telling them "we're close to a tipping point."

According to the prime minister, "for the first time in 2,000 years, there are going to be more Jews in Israel than outside it."

Speaking to a terminal full of olim from the United States and Canada, who came with Nefesh B'Nefesh on the organization's 38th chartered aliya flight since the first one in July 2002, Netanyahu noted that Israel's Jewish population was nearing the six million mark.

It is hard to gauge the number of Jews in the Diaspora. In the largest community - the Untied States - the only effective tool is a telephone poll. Nevertheless, Diaspora Jewry is usually estimated at between six and seven million, though some demographers and scholars consider this a low figure.

Netanyahu told the 238 new immigrants that aliya to the state of Israel had given the Jewish people "our ability to control our fate and our destiny."

In particular, he welcomed the "professionalism in work and the [drive] to excellence, and the antipathy to bureaucracy" which North American olim bring with them to the Jewish state. He called on the new Israelis to work to make Israel "the most advanced country in the world."

Tuesday's flight, carried out in conjunction with the Jewish Agency and the ministries of the interior and immigrant absorption, contained a cross-section of American Jewish society, from religious to secular, from bearded rabbis to 55 young singles slated to join the IDF in the coming weeks.

The new olim were greeted at the airport by scores of singing and dancing well-wishers, including delegations of Israeli youth movements, family members and public figures. the latter ranged from Netanyahu, Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky and MK Uri Orbach to mayors from cities that will be receiving the olim, including Beit Shemesh and Modi'in.

Nefesh B'Nefesh co-founder Tony Gelbart noted in the ceremony that Israel "is the only country where the prime minister and heads of the government come to meet new immigrants."

North American aliya is expected to rise in 2009 due to the worldwide economic downturn, possibly passing the 4,000 mark. In particular, Nefesh B'Nefesh figures reveal that some 450 young olim will be arriving in Israel this year to serve in the IDF.

Editors Note....The Word of God foretold these days more than 2600 years ago. The prophecies of Israel's return to the Land of Israel are being fulfilled before our very eyes. Our God is a God who writes history before it happens, we can trust all of His promises.

'Continue talks while there's hope'
Aug 4th, 2009
Daily NewsJpost
Categories: Today's Headlines;Anti-Israel

At the opening of Fatah's sixth general assembly Tuesday morning, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said that his people must persist with peace negotiations with Israel "as long as there is a tiny bit of hope." He added that Palestinians must not mar their "legitimate struggle with terror."

Nonetheless, the PA president accused Israel of denying its commitments. According to Abbas, the Palestinians and Israel reached a US-brokered understanding which included east Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley and parts of the Dead Sea, "but now the Israelis are trying to deny this and create facts on the ground in Jerusalem, claiming Jerusalem is united under their sovereignty."

On rival faction Hamas, the PA president spouted condemnations, calling the group "revolutionaries" and "men of darkness." Hamas wrested control of the Gaza Strip from Abbas's Fatah-dominated PA in June 2007.

Abbas also said at the conference that the Palestinians will continue to investigate the cause of former PLO leader Yasser Arafat's death. Fatah's last conference was held in 1989 in Tunis, under Arafat's leadership.

Senior Fatah official Jibril Rajoub said his organization will never abandon the option of armed struggle. "Resistance was and is a tactical and strategic option of the struggle... part of Fatah's policy" which Israel must acknowledge, he said.

Former terrorist Zakaria Zubeidi, a senior member of the Al Aksa Martyrs' Brigades who was released from prison in return for a pledge not to engage in terror activities, said Israel has no desire for peace and that the Palestinians must ready themselves for the possibility that "it is war that Israel wants, and not peace."

The only Israelis expected to attend the conference were MKs Ahmed Tibi and Taleb A-Sanaa (UAL-Ta'al) and Muhammad Barakei (Hadash).