Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

Sweden Outlaws Home Schooling
Sep 5th, 2009
Daily NewsOneNewsNow
Categories: Today's Headlines;Persecution

Mike Farris says that Sweden will ban all home schooling except for children with medical exemptions and foreign workers with the appropriate work visas.
 
"That's it. People who have religious convictions or are home schooling for religious reasons will not be given one of these very rare exemptions," he points out. "And so for all intents and purposes, home schooling is going to be banned in Sweden. They're following the German statute, following the German model."

In Germany, parents face stiff penalties if they are caught illegally home schooling their children. The Romeike family recently left Germany and is seeking asylum in the U.S. after facing stiff fines and the potential loss of custody rights for home schooling their children.

Suddenly, Netanyahu is Popular and Obama is not
Sep 5th, 2009
CommentaryHaaretz.com - Aluf Benn
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel;Peace Process

Later this month, between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, U.S. President Barack Obama will take the podium at the United Nations General Assembly and, flanked by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, declare the resumption of the Middle East peace process.

He will set an ambitious goal: to achieve, within two years, a "comprehensive regional peace" that will end the Israeli-Arab conflict and replace it with new and friendly relations between the states and peoples of the region. In contrast to his immediate predecessor, George W. Bush, who instructed the parties to talk and asked only that they report to him on the results, Obama intends to be involved: His emissaries will sit in the conference room and put forward compromise proposals and solutions.

Obama will have to work hard to persuade people that with him it will be different, that peace is possible, that a Palestinian state will be established, that the Syrians will return to the Golan Heights and Israel will dwell in the region in safety - and all of this by September 2011. After another decade of wars and disappointments, it's tough to sell the "New Middle East" in a new wrapping to cynical populations that have long since lost all belief in impassioned speeches promising peace and change. But Obama's declaration will have immediate strategic importance. By presenting a two-year timetable for the peace agreements, the president will make it clear that dealing with Iran is more urgent than establishing an independent Palestine alongside Israel.

That will be a major diplomatic achievement for Netanyahu. In his visit to the White House in May, the prime minister's main aim was to persuade Obama of "Iran first and the Palestinians afterward." It was convenient at the time for Obama to present a disagreement with Netanyahu in order to strengthen U.S. credibility in the Arab world. One hundred days later, it turns out that on the crucial issue - setting the foreign affairs agenda - Netanyahu's view prevailed.

Next year, 2010, will be the "year of Iran." The Palestinians will have to wait their turn and pass the time in empty talks until Iran is restrained. Under the quid pro quo principle, in return for advancing action on Iran, Netanyahu agreed to freeze construction in the West Bank settlements for a period of nine months, according to leaks from his talks with U.S. envoy George Mitchell.

Netanyahu will have to play a delicate political game with Israel's right wing. It's a safe bet that the dismantling of outposts will be removed from the agenda, on the grounds that preserving internal cohesion against Iran is far more important than violent, media-intense spats with the settlers on the West Bank hilltops.

Back in May, Obama seemed like the messiah heralding historic change in America and in its relations with the world in general and Muslims in particular. Obama projected hope and change, while Netanyahu looked like a throwback, a musty, right-wing nuisance who was wasting the president's time talking about "natural growth in the settlements."

This week the Washington columnists competed with each other to write the gloomiest forecasts of the political hell awaiting the president when he returns from his vacation in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. As the summer progressed, Obama had a serious marketing slip: He lost his focus. His astonishing ascension to power rested on a clear and focused message: I represent change, I don't look like Bush or talk like him. Now, though, despite the signs of economic recovery, Obama is plunging in the polls even faster than previous presidents this early into their terms.

In regard to the two main issues on his agenda - national health care and the war in Afghanistan - Obama is struggling to explain his goals to the American people. His rivals are conducting an effective campaign against health care reform. The president will address Congress next week in an effort to save his initiative and not reprise Bill Clinton's failure in trying to expand health insurance. The situation in Afghanistan is no less desperate. The polls show that most Americans don't understand the purpose of the war and don't believe victory is possible. The mounting casualty rate is rapidly eroding public support for continuation of the war.

Responsible adult

While Obama was sinking, Netanyahu behaved like a responsible adult. He refrained from flamboyant military actions that could kindle the region and compel Obama to deal with body-strewn crises. He effectively froze authorizations for new construction in the settlements, and he announced his acceptance of the principle of a two-state solution. He dismantled West Bank checkpoints and toned down his anti-Iran rhetoric (until his Berlin visit last week, when he returned to the analogy between a nuclear Iran and Auschwitz). He even apologized to Israel's "elites" for his inflammatory remarks against them in his previous term as prime minister.

At the same time, to preserve his right-wing base, Netanyahu announced new construction for Jews in East Jerusalem and also quarreled with Sweden. Obama will have to swallow Netanyahu's declarations that Jerusalem is "the eternal capital of the Jewish people." There are few supporters of the settlements in Congress, but the unity of Jerusalem has been an accepted mantra for many years. Netanyahu has entrenched himself in a position that will enable him to recruit supporters in Washington, while avoiding both blatant lobbying on Capitol Hill and publicly embracing the president's rivals, as he did with Clinton.

Under these circumstances, Netanyahu has a chance for a good second round with Obama. The president is hungry for a policy achievement, which Netanyahu can provide to him in the form of a construction freeze in the settlements and the renewal of negotiations with the Palestinians. If Netanyahu sticks to his policy of restraint, focuses on Iran and avoids provocations in the territories and on Israel's borders, he will be received in the White House as a welcome and worthy guest.

But his true test will come when Obama's timetable reaches the critical point. If Israel is perceived as the party that torpedoed the peace process and spoiled Obama's 2012 campaign, Netanyahu will be punished - provided, of course, he manages to survive politically until then.

Israeli Plan for Settlement Building Angers U.S.
Sep 5th, 2009
Daily NewsAP
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel;Peace Process

JERUSALEM – Israel said Friday it will construct hundreds of new housing units in West Bank settlements before any slowdown in building, an announcement that drew harsh criticism from Washington, which demands a complete settlement freeze as a prelude to renewing Mideast peace talks.

Israeli officials painted the move as a concession to the U.S. demand because it might bring a temporary halt to other construction. But since it would also mean building the new units and finishing some 2,500 others now under construction, it looked more like defiance than acquiescence.

Israel's proposal also does not include any freeze in building in east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians hope to make their future capital.

The Obama administration's response did not mince words.

"We regret the reports of Israel's plans to approve additional settlement construction," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement Friday. "As the president has said before, the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement expansion and we urge that it stop."

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also slammed the Israeli plan.

"For us, this idea is completely unacceptable," he told reporters after meeting French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris. "We are asking the Israelis to freeze the settlements and to go towards the next phase of peace talks."

Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat went further, saying, "I think the only thing that will be suspended by this announcement is the peace process."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be trying to keep his right-leaning coalition together by building in the settlements while at the same time trying to placate the U.S., which has made halting settlements a cornerstone of its Mideast diplomacy.

In recent weeks, however, the Obama team has appeared to back down somewhat from its earlier insistence that Israel halt all building in the settlements, hinting that a less than complete moratorium might be acceptable. The issue has the potential to seriously damage Obama's credibility in the Arab world, since he came out so forcefully in the beginning of his presidency in favor of a complete freeze.

At the very least, Friday's announcement looked likely to either force the U.S. into a fresh showdown with Israel or into admitting that it no longer hopes to achieve a full halt to Israeli settlement building on lands the Palestinians claim for a future state.

Peace talks have been suspended since shortly before Netanyahu's election, but there are expectations of a first meeting between Netanyahu and Abbas at the U.N. General Assembly in New York later this month.

Abbas, however, hinted Friday that such a meeting would not take place while settlement construction continues.

"Everything will depend on the decisions that will be taken concerning the freezing of the settlements," he said.

Two Netanyahu aides said that in the next few days, the Israeli leader will approve the construction of hundreds of new apartments in the West Bank.

They did not give a specific number, but said these units would be in addition to the 2,500 that are already under construction and will continue to be built. The construction will be centered in the main settlement blocs, areas Israel hopes to retain after any peace deal.

The two Netanyahu aides spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the government has made no official announcement. The information also appeared in major Israeli media Friday and was clearly intended for public consumption.

In exchange for a settlement suspension, Netanyahu would expect the Arab world to take steps toward normalizing relations with Israel, the aides added. The U.S. has been pressing Arab countries to make moves toward normalization, an effort that so far has enjoyed only limited success.

Ophir Pines-Paz, a dovish lawmaker whose Labor Party is part of Netanyahu's coalition, said issuing new building permits was "unnecessary and damaging."

"I fear that issuing new permits will foil the next step — a settlement freeze that would build confidence and allow negotiations to resume," he said.

Israeli settlement activity and the Palestinians' failure to rein in militants are perhaps the biggest stumbling blocks to an eventual peace deal that would divide the Holy Land into separate Jewish and Arab states.

Today, about 300,000 Israelis live among about 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank. An additional 180,000 Israelis live in east Jerusalem neighborhoods built since Israel captured the area in the 1967 Mideast war. Israel evacuated its 8,000 settlers in the Gaza Strip in 2005, two years before the territory was taken over by Hamas militants.

Gaza and the West Bank, located on opposite sides of Israel, are together supposed to comprise a future state of Palestine.

By approving new construction, Netanyahu is eyeing his hard-line allies and trying to "sweeten the pill" of impending settlement restrictions, prominent Israeli columnist Nahum Barnea wrote Friday in the daily Yediot Ahronot.

"But there is one option he should give up: An attempt to have his cake and eat it too. That won't work in Washington. It won't work here," Barnea wrote.

Home - Schooler Ordered to Attend Public School
Sep 5th, 2009
Daily NewsWashingtonTimes
Categories: Today's Headlines;Persecution

A New Hampshire court ordered a home-schooled Christian girl to attend a public school this week after a judge criticized the "rigidity" of her mother's religious views and said the 10-year-old needed to consider other worldviews as she matures.

Ever since the judge's ruling came out in July, the case has aroused the interest of home-schooling groups nationwide, whohave asked why a court has the power to decide whether someone's religious views are too extreme.

The girl's mother, Brenda Voydatch, has engaged the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal group based in Scottsdale, Ariz., to contest the ruling, in which the judge granted a request by the girl's father, Martin Kurowski, that the girl go to a public school.

On Tuesday, the girl, Amanda Kurowski, started fifth grade at an elementary school in Meredith, N.H., under court order. Amanda's "vigorous defense of her religious beliefs ... suggests strongly that she has not had the opportunity to seriously consider any other point of view," District Court Judge Lucinda V. Sadler said.

The case is the latest in a series of disputes this summer which have tested the limits of parents' right to raise their children in line with their religious beliefs.

• Two court cases saw parents who relied on prayer being tried for the deaths of their children. In Wisconsin, Dale and Leilani Neumann were found guilty of second-degree reckless homicide in the death of their 11-year-old diabetic daughter, Kara. In Oregon, Carl and Raylene Worthington were acquitted of manslaughter in the pneumonia death of their 15-month-old daughter, though the father was found guilty of a lesser count, criminal mistreatment.

• The case of Daniel Hauser, a 13-year-old Minnesota boy with Hodgkin's lymphoma, precipitated a national manhunt that dominated the news in May. Mother Colleen Hauser defied legal authorities that ordered the boy to be treated by oncologists and fled with her son, citing family beliefs in traditional American Indian medicine.

But those cases all involved physical danger and the state attempting to prove that parents were acting recklessly. In the New Hampshire case, the court ruled that extreme religiosity by itself constitutes grounds on which to rule against a parent's wishes.

According to court documents filed in Laconia, a small city in the central New Hampshire's Belknap County, Amanda is a well-adjusted childwhose parents were divorced in 1999.

The mother has primary physical custody of Amanda, whom she has home-schooled for several years in math, English, social studies, science, handwriting, spelling and the Bible

Art's Commentary.....It seems that religious freedom is slipping away in America.

Angry Parents Suing California Schools Over Mandatory Gay - Friendly Classes
Sep 5th, 2009
Daily NewsFox News
Categories: Today's Headlines;Moral Decline

A lawsuit in California that was filed last month by angry parents who object to a gay-friendly curriculum they say is being foisted on kindergartners could well become a test case for schools around the country.

Parents in the Alameda Unified School District were refused the right to excuse their kids from classes that would teach all kids in the district's elementary schools about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender alternative families.

The parents say they are concerned about "indoctrination" in the schools, but administrators say the course is needed to protect against sexual discrimination — and that the lessons are protected by laws in California and 10 other states.

Those states, which stretch from Washington to Maine, will now be eyeing the court results in California in a case that warring sides say pits parents' rights against a schools' responsibilities.