Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

Administrative Area

login

password

US Summons Envoy Oren over ‘Unacceptable' Evictions of Arabs
Aug 5th, 2009
Daily NewsArutz Sheva - Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Categories: Today's Headlines;Anti-Israel

 
The U.S. State Department has summoned Israel Ambassador Michael Oren over “unacceptable” and “provocative” evictions of Arabs from Jewish-owned homes in the Sheikh Jarreh neighborhood in eastern Jerusalem. In a possible effort to try to lower the heat on Israel, Assistant Secretary of State Jeffery Feltman, instead of Secretary Hillary Clinton, summoned Oren.

The U.S., like most of the Western world, does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem neighborhoods, including the Old City and the Western Wall (Kotel), that were restored to the Jewish State in the Six-Day War in 1967.

Secretary Clinton earlier this week charged that the evictions of Arabs are “deeply regrettable” and violate Israeli obligations of the American Roadmap plan, although she did not cite any specific reference in the Roadmap to removing illegal residents. Israel has previously expelled thousands of Jews from homes which they owned in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, but these areas also are not recognized by the U.S. as part of Israel.

The State Department did not reply to Oren’s statement that the homes where Arabs were evicted are owned by Jews, who bought them during the British Mandate before the War for Independence in 1948. Arabs claim they bought the properties in 1958 during the Jordanian occupation.

The Obama administration, which has taken aim at all construction for Jews in parts of the capital restored to the city in 1967 as well as in Judea and Samaria, focused on eastern Jerusalem last month when it was revealed that a Jewish owner of the abandoned Shepherd Hotel, also located in Sheikh Jarreh, plans to build 20 apartments on the property.

Oren was not the only envoy to be summoned over the evictions. Sweden, which currently serves as the rotating president of the European Union, rebuked Israeli Ambassador Benny Dagan. In return, the Foreign Ministry summoned the Swedish ambassador to Israel.

Oren recently pointed out that even if Israel were to agree to the American demand to freeze construction for Jews, he is not sure that the Arab world would reach out for talks with Jerusalem.

“So Israel can freeze settlements tomorrow -- we plucked up 21 settlements out of Gaza two years ago, and you know I was there, it was the most traumatic event of my military career, pulling Jews out of their houses -- we did that, and we turned around and got 7,200 rockets fired at us,” Oren told the Atlantic magazine last week.

“Settlements are not the issue,” he added. “The issue is the recognition of the mutual legitimacy of these two peoples, the legitimate claim to these two states. “

Police in Bangladesh Torture Pastor, Two Others
Aug 5th, 2009
Daily NewsCompass Direct News
Categories: Today's Headlines;Persecution;The Church

DHAKA, Bangladesh, August 4  – At the urging of local Muslim leaders, police in western Bangladesh have tortured a pastor and two other Christians for legally proclaiming Christ. Habibur Rahman, 45, pastor of Boalia Spiritual Church (Boalia Ruhani Jamat) in Boalia in Cuadanga district, 220 kilometers (136 miles) west of Dhaka, said he was about to meet with 11 others for a monthly meeting on evangelism at 8 p.m. on June 8 when local police stormed in and seized him and Zahid Hassan, 25, and a 40-year-old Christian identified only as Fazlur. Police blindfolded them and took them to Shamvunagar police camp. “While beating us, police told us there will be no Christian in this area,” the pastor said. “Police hurt our hands, lips, thighs and faces with burning cigarettes. They beat me in the joints of my limbs with a wooden club. They beat us for one hour, and I became senseless at some point.”

Palestinian leaders hold a historic meeting in Bethlehem and they call for the continuation of the armed struggle against Israel
Aug 5th, 2009
News UpdateJimmy DeYoung
Categories: Jimmy DeYoung News

The Palestinian Authority (PA) President, Mahmoud Abbas, opened the gathering of 2,000 members of his political party, Fatah, in Bethlehem recently and immediately praised the shaheeds, the terrorists who became martyrs in the Palestinian struggle to establish a Palestinian state that they hope will replace the Jewish state of Israel.

This historic conference, the first in twenty years, called for continued resistance against Israel using militant force if necessary, to achieve their goal for the state of Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital city.

The speakers and delegates accepted a Hamas-like platform, a terrorist platform, and indicated by that they are not true peace partners when they said there is only room for one state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea and that is a Palestinian state.

Jimmy's Prophetic Prospective on the News

The Palestinian conference in Bethlehem which called for armed resistance against the state of Israel is a precursor to the prophetic scenario that can be found in Bible prophecy.

For the first time in twenty years, the Palestinian political party Fatah held a major conference in Bethlehem recently and revealed their true colors. Listening to the 2,000 delegates in attendance at the conference and hearing the leaders of the Palestinian people call for ridding the Middle East of a Jewish state through arms struggle is a page out of Bible prophecy.

The Palestinian people of today are the descendants of the twin brother of Jacob whose descendants are the Jewish people of today. You can read much in Bible prophecy about the Edomites, the Palestinians. For example, Malachi 1, Jeremiah 49, the little book of Obadiah and Ezekiel 35.

Ezekiel, the ancient Jewish prophet, wrote 2,500 years ago that in the Last Days, the Palestinians would rise up to kill the Jewish people and to take their land, Ezekiel 35:5, 10. That little prophetic book written by Obadiah reveals that the Edomites, the Palestinian people, will be as if they have never been, a very strong prophecy.

The words and calls for actions against the Jewish people at the Palestinian conference in Bethlehem is indeed evidence that Bible prophecy will be fulfilled.

Jewish Groups Slam Obama's Honoring Anti-Israel Leaders
Aug 5th, 2009
Daily NewsArutz Sheva - Avraham Zuroff
Categories: Today's Headlines;Anti-Israel

 
Two pro-Israel American organizations and the Republican Jewish Coalition lashed out at U.S. President Barack Obama for awarding a Presidential Medal of Freedom to Mary Robinson. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) called on the administration to “firmly, fully and publicly repudiate her views on Israel and her long public record of hostility and one-sided bias against the Jewish state.” 

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) also condemned the decision to award former South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The ZOA pointed out that both Tutu and Robinson “have made statements and presided over organizations and conferences that were viciously critical of Israel.” ZOA’s National President Morton A. Klein said, “It is deplorable that President Obama should have honored two such utterly partisan, vociferously anti-Israel figures like Mary Robinson and Desmond Tutu.”

Klein noted that human rights groups are continuously being controlled by figures that are anti-Israel. He added, "Neither Robinson nor Tutu ever resigned in protest at the direction these bodies have taken, or took anything that could be called a courageous stand in favor of truth. Rather, both have lent their reputations to travesties of the truth and given the bodies on which they served an aura of undeserved legitimacy. By awarding them the Medal of Freedom, President Obama compounds their offense by lending them further underserved legitimacy.”

Republican Jewish Coalition Executive Director Matt Brooks said, "Mary Robinson, who was one of the people responsible for the 2001 Durban conference against racism descending into an anti-Israel propaganda forum, is not an appropriate recipient for one of our nation's highest honors. In fact, awarding the Medal of Freedom to Mary Robinson does great dishonor to the many outstanding men and women who have received it in the past."

Robinson is widely known for the high-profile role she played in leading in what AIPAC calls “the deeply flawed” U.N. Human Rights Commission and for presiding over the U.N.’s Durban Conference on Racism, which the United States boycotted for “its unprecedented hostility to Israel” and its final outcome document that equated Zionism with racism.

In a BBC interview following the passage of the “Zionism = Racism” Durban text, Robinson described the outcome as “remarkably good, including on the issues of the Middle East.”

In April 2002, Robinson’s Human Rights Commission voted on a decision that condoned suicide bombings as a legitimate means to establish Palestinian statehood after Robinson initiated a drive to become a fact finder to investigate the fictitious massacre in Jenin.

Desmond Tutu has claimed that Zionism has “very many parallels with racism” and has called Jews “arrogant. Tutu accused Jews of exhibiting “an arrogance – the arrogance of power because Jews are a powerful lobby in this land and all kinds of people woo their support.”

Editors Note....There has been a consistent note of anti-Israel in President Obama's actions and attitudes. His antisemitism seems to be only limited by what main stream America will tolerate and that toleration seems to be growing. It seems that Obama's growing antagonism to Israel is stimulating a similar growth all around the world. The friend of Israel has become her worst enemy, positioned to do her the most harm.

Hezbollah stockpiles 40,000 rockets near Israel border
Aug 5th, 2009
Daily NewsTimesonline -- Richard Beeston on the Israel-Lebanese border and Nicholas Blanford in Beirut
Categories: Today's Headlines;War

Three years after Israel fought a bloody war in Lebanon against Hezbollah, there are fears that hostilities could erupt again — this time with the militant group better armed than ever.

According to Israeli, United Nations and Hezbollah officials, the Shia Muslim militia is stronger than it was in 2006 when it took on the Israeli army in a war that killed 1,191 Lebanese and 43 Israeli civilians.

Hezbollah has up to 40,000 rockets and is training its forces to use ground-to-ground missiles capable of hitting Tel Aviv, and anti-aircraft missiles that could challenge Israel’s dominance of the skies over Lebanon.

Brigadier-General Alon Friedman, the deputy head of the Israeli Northern Command, told The Times from his headquarters overlooking the Israeli-Lebanese border that the peace of the past three years could “explode at any minute”.

His concerns were due partly to threats from Hezbollah’s leadership. Last month Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, warned that if the southern suburbs of Beirut were bombed as they were in the last war, he would strike back against Tel Aviv, the largest Israeli city.

“We have changed the equation that had existed previously,” he said. “Now the southern suburbs versus Tel Aviv, and not Beirut versus Tel Aviv.”

Hezbollah’s rearming is in the name of resistance against Israel. The real reason, however, probably has more to do with its ally Iran. If Israel carries out its threat to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, the main retaliation is likely to come from Hezbollah in Lebanon.

All sides agreed that the threat was not a bluff. Last month the scale of the Hezbollah build-up was revealed after an explosion at an ammunition bunker in the village of Khirbet Slim, 12 miles from the Israeli border.

Surveillance footage obtained by The Times showed Hezbollah fighters trying to salvage rockets and munitions from the site. Obstructions were placed in the way of Unifil peacekeepers going to investigate.

Alain Le Roy, the head of UN peacekeeping operations, told the Security Council last month that the explosion amounted to a serious violation of UN Resolution 1701, which imposed a ceasefire and arms ban after the war.

“A number of indications suggest that the depot belonged to Hezbollah and, in contrast to previous discoveries by Unifil and the Lebanese Armed Forces of weapons and ammunition, that it was not abandoned but, rather, actively maintained,” he said.

Federal tax revenues plummeting
Aug 5th, 2009
Daily NewsAP - STEPHEN OHLEMACHER,
Categories: Today's Headlines;Warning

WASHINGTON – The recession is starving the government of tax revenue, just as the president and Congress are piling a major expansion of health care and other programs on the nation's plate and struggling to find money to pay the tab.

The numbers could hardly be more stark: Tax receipts are on pace to drop 18 percent this year, the biggest single-year decline since the Great Depression, while the federal deficit balloons to a record $1.8 trillion.

Other figures in an Associated Press analysis underscore the recession's impact: Individual income tax receipts are down 22 percent from a year ago. Corporate income taxes are down 57 percent. Social Security tax receipts could drop for only the second time since 1940, and Medicare taxes are on pace to drop for only the third time ever.

The last time the government's revenues were this bleak, the year was 1932 in the midst of the Depression.

"Our tax system is already inadequate to support the promises our government has made," said Eugene Steuerle, a former Treasury Department official in the Reagan administration who is now vice president of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.

"This just adds to the problem."

While much of Washington is focused on how to pay for new programs such as overhauling health care — at a cost of $1 trillion over the next decade — existing programs are feeling the pinch, too.

Social Security is in danger of running out of money earlier than the government projected just a few month ago. Highway, mass transit and airport projects are at risk because fuel and industry taxes are declining.

The national debt already exceeds $11 trillion. And bills just completed by the House would boost domestic agencies' spending by 11 percent in 2010 and military spending by 4 percent.

For this report, the AP analyzed annual tax receipts dating back to the inception of the federal income tax in 1913. Tax receipts for the 2009 budget year were available through June. They were compared to the same period last year. The budget year runs from October to September, meaning there will be three more months of receipts this year.

Is there a way out of the financial mess?

A key factor is the economy's health. The future of current programs — not to mention the new ones Obama is proposing — will depend largely on how fast the economy recovers from the recession, said William Gale, co-director of the Tax Policy Center.

"The numbers for 2009 are striking, head-snapping. But what really matters is what happens next," said Gale, who previously taught economics at UCLA and was an adviser to President George H. W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers.

"If it's just one year, then it's a remarkable thing, but it's totally manageable. If the economy doesn't recover soon, it doesn't matter what your social, economic and political agenda is. There's not going to be any revenue to pay for it."

A small part of the drop in tax receipts can be attributed to new tax credits for individuals and corporations enacted in February as part of the $787 billion economic stimulus package. The sheer magnitude of the tax decline, however, points to the deep recession that is reducing incomes, wiping out corporate profits and straining government programs.

Social Security tax receipts are down less than a percentage point from last year, but in May the government had been projecting a slight increase. At the time, the government's best estimate was that Social Security would start to pay out more money than it receives in taxes in 2016, and that the fund would be depleted in 2037 unless changes are enacted.

Some experts think the sour economy has made those numbers outdated.

Fatah Convention Opens With Hamas-Like Platform
Aug 5th, 2009
Daily NewsArutz Sheva - Hillel Fendel
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel;Anti-Israel

 
In Bethlehem, some 2,000 Fatah members are taking part in the first Fatah conference in 20 years. The very first sentence of the opening speech honored the “shahids” who killed themselves fighting Jews.

“In the name of the shahids and in the name of Jerusalem, the capital of the Palestinian state, we declare the opening of the sixth convention of our movement, Fatah.” With these words, convention chairman Ahmed Qurei (Abu Ala) – a former Palestinian Authority prime minister and speaker of the PA legislature – introduced the politically-charged gathering.

Shahids literally means “martyrs,” and the reference is to those who killed themselves or were killed in their war of terrorism against Israel.

Photos of fighters against Israel, including a young boy holding a rifle, dot the walls of the Bethlehem hotel hosting the convention. The official Fatah symbol includes a map of all of Israel - not just Judea and Samaria - on the backdrop of a rifle and sword - thus making Fatah indistinguishable from Hamas in their ultimate goals to replace all of Israel.

The convention has been called in order to formulate the Fatah ideological platform and determine the leadership of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority for the coming years. PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) is seeking to retain power for himself and the “old guard,” in the face of a challenge from convicted terrorist Marwan Barghouti and the younger generation.

Barghouti Seeking to Head PA

Barghouti is serving five life sentences in Israel for authorizing and organizing the murder of five Israelis in three separate attacks; he was acquitted “for lack of evidence” of murdering nine others and taking part in 33 other attacks. 

Barghouti once summed up his approach to Israel and peace in the Middle East by saying, "After we attain a Palestinian state [in Judea and Sama, there will be greater things for which to strive...  There is no room for more than one state between the Jordan and the Mediterranean." 

The PA’s Al-Quds newspaper published this week the contents of the message that Barghouti sent to the current Fatah conference. Barghouti outlined his view of the agreement he foresees with Israel: “We are still in the national liberation stage… The main, primary and holiest mission of the Palestinian nation [si in the homeland and in the diaspora is the continued national struggle to bring about the end of the Israeli occupation and the settlements, and [Israel’ full retreat to the June 4, ’67 borders, including from occupied eastern Jerusalem, the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with full sovereignty, with its capital in eastern Jerusalem, the ‘right of return’ [of the millions of descendants of Arabs who left Israel in and the fulfillment of their rights in accordance with UN Resolution 194, and the release of all prisoners and detainees.”

The terrorist leader further said that the “Palestinian resistance” – Arab-speak for “terrorism” – will end only after Israel’s “occupation” ends and when the national rights of the “Palestinian nation” are realized.

Barghouti said that negotiations must be resumed with Israel only if Israel first stops all settlement activity and agrees to release all PA prisoners within one year. Ironically, Hamas said it would not allow Gazans to travel to the conference until Fatah frees the 1,000 Hamas prisoners it holds in its prisons.

Abbas Against Hamas, Israel

Abu Mazen, for his part, spoke out strongly against his other rival, Hamas, calling them “princes of darkness who divide the homeland and the nation and harm democracy by preventing Fatah members from Gaza to take part in this convention.”

He said that Fatah has long been at the forefront of the PLO – “the same PLO that Hamas tried to conceal, as others have tried to do. But the PLO will continue to exist until our state is established.”

Abu Mazen also attacked Israel for trying to create new facts on the ground in eastern Jerusalem and claim the united city under Israeli sovereignty, even though "understandings reached with the Americans guarantee us Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley, and more."

The convention is expected to include a clause in its platform negating the recognition of Israel as the Jewish State, and calling for “struggle using all means.” Public Security Minister Avi Dichter commented to Israeli media that this means that yet another intifada cannot be ruled out

Daily Commentary
Aug 5th, 2009
CommentaryArt Sadlier
Categories: Exhortation;Apostasy;Warning

Bible prophecy tells us about a counterfeit Christianity that will dominate the world scene in the last days.There will be a world church in union with a world government, (see Rev. 17). We are told that this entity will persecute and seek to destroy the people of God.

In the news today we read about the United Church of Canada persecuting the people of Israel, though today Israel is not yet restored to their lost relationship with God, they are still the people of God, and one day will be restored. The actions and attitude of the United Church is contrary to what God's Word calls us to. It is the purpose of Satan to destroy Israel,(Rev. 12:13). The United Church is siding with Satan against Israel.

One of the anti-Israel resolutions to be put before the General Council of the U.C.C. this Saturday is a call for a comprehensive boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions at the national and international levels. One of the resolutions claims that the Jews have returned to occupy land stolen from the Palestinians. This is a slanderous lie, the United Church has rejected the Word of God and the plain promises of God to Israel.  In Genesis 17:8,  God promised Israel, "And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God". This promise is repeated over and over in the scriptures. The facts of history verify that there has never been Palestinian State in the land of Israel. More recent history reveals that up until 60 years ago it was the Jews and not the Palestinians that lived in the land of promise.

Is the United Church of Canada going be obedient to God and His Word or are they going to continue to line up with enemies of God. Those within the U.C.C. that believe God's Word, should seperate from this apostate organization.

Canada's Top Church Voting on Total Israel Boycotts
Aug 5th, 2009
Daily NewsSimon Wiesenthal Center
Categories: Today's Headlines;Antisemitism

Virulent anti-Israel resolutions will be presented at the United Church of Canada's (UCC) 40th General Council this Sunday, August 9th, including "comprehensive boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions at the national and international levels".

One pending UCC resolution slanders the Jewish people's return to Zion as "built mainly on land ethnically cleansed of its Palestinian owners." This “Big-Lie”, genocidally-charged phrase that Israel is guilty of "ethnic cleansing", is language deployed by the worst anti-Semites.

The calls for boycotts of Israeli academic and cultural institutions - the very contacts that reasonable people hail for the understanding they bring between communities - are promoted today only by the most virulent haters of the Jewish state.

The thrust and language of these resolutions are a slap in the face to the Jews of Israel and her supporters in Canada, and will empower the forces of anti-Semitism and intolerance in Canada and throughout the world.