Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

U.S. Diplomatic Staff Caught Abusing Israeli Border Guards
Dec 27th, 2009
Israel Today
Categories: Today's Headlines

Tension is again brewing between Israel and Washington, but this time it's not over pressure from US President Barack Obama to meet Arab demands. Rather, Israel is growing fed up with the abuse of its security officials by US diplomatic staff.

The situation neared boiling point on November 13 when the lead car of a 5-car convoy from the US Consulate in Jerusalem allegedly tried to run over an Israeli security guard at a checkpoint in Samaria.

According to an official description of the incident obtained by The Jerusalem Post, the convoy arrived at the Gilboa Crossing and refused to open any windows or provide identification. Israeli officials said the convoy purposely blocked the entire crossing and one of the vehicles lunged at an Israeli guard.

The incident was reportedly caught by security cameras installed at the checkpoint.

It was not the first time Israel has had trouble with US diplomatic vehicles.

Several months ago, a vehicle belonging to the US Consulate in Jerusalem was caught transporting a Palestinian without proper permits between Jerusalem and Palestinian Authority-controlled areas.

In January of 2008, the situation also became very tense when US Security Coordinator Lt.-Gen. Keith Dayton and then-consul-general Jacob Walles refused to roll down their windows or provide identification at a "West Bank" checkpoint.

In related news, major US Jewish organizations on Thursday blasted a senior member of the Obama Administration for criticizing Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren for not attending an event put on by the left-wing Jewish lobby group J Street.

Oren has kept his distance from J Street since taking over the embassy due to strong differences between the lobby group and Jerusalem on issues such as Iran and peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

When Oren turned down an invitation to attend a recent gathering, former J Street board member and current State Department director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, Hannah Rosenthal, said it was "most unfortunate" and that Oren "would have learned a lot."

Alan Solow, chairman of the New York-based Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, noted that it was unacceptable for an administration official to publicly criticize a foreign government for not having a stronger relationship with a US lobby group.

Lieberman Makes It Clear: ‘no to Oslo Illusion and Fantasy'
Dec 27th, 2009
Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu - Israel National News
Categories: Today's Headlines

High Court Demands That Security Fence be Moved in Samaria
Dec 27th, 2009
IsraelINN
Categories: Today's Headlines

Christ: Our Only Grounds for Boasting
Dec 27th, 2009
Thought for the WeekA.W.Tozer
Categories: Commentary;Inspirational

The faith of the Christian rests upon Christ Himself. On Him we repose and in Him we live. Christ gains nothing from any human philosophy, however pure and noble it may be. He owes nothing to Plato or to Aristotle. If these men had never lived the Christ in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily would have been all He ever was and is world without end. His redemptive work was completed centuries before the dawn of modern science, and of course seeks no aid from science. Christ is unique in the only sense that word will bear. He is the mystery of Godliness, a miracle, an emergence of the Deity into time and space for a reason and a purpose. He is complete in Himself. Because we Christians live on two life-levels simultaneously, the spiritual and the natural, we do, as sons of Adam, owe to philosophy and science a lasting debt of gratitude. Music, literature, art, state-craft, economics, learning contribute to our welfare and make the world a more comfortable place in which to live while we wait for the manifestation of the sons of God and the redemption of our bodies. So it is good that we gain all the knowledge we can in the short time that is ours. Whatever we learn that is true will remain our treasured possession in the world to come. For these reasons I believe in education, as full as possible for as many as possible as quickly as possible. That is one thing. It is quite another to try to equate the faith of Christ with Philosophy or science or any other or all of the products of superior human minds. And to make that faith dependent upon these things is in the light of Christs deity not only preposterous but near to sacrilegious. Christ is enough. To have Him and nothing else is to be rich beyond conceiving. To have all else and have not Christ is to be a cosmic pauper, cut off forever from all that will matter at last.

China's Economy Poised to Overtake Japan Sooner Than Expected
Dec 27th, 2009
Chinawnd
Categories: Today's Headlines

Beijing - China is expected to take Japan's spot as the world's second-largest economy sooner than expected, as Beijing revised its 2008 growth numbers upwards.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China's gross domestic product (GDP) in 2008 grew 9.6 per cent, up 0.6 per cent from previous estimates, due to the role of the service sector, which was bigger than originally estimated.

The new calculations show China's GDP in 2008 was 31,405 trillion yuan (4.6 trillion dollars), the China daily reported Saturday.

China expects GDP growth of at least 8 per cent for this year and the next, despite the global downturn, and is set to overtake Japan in 2010 as the world's second-largest economy, after the US.

Japan's GDP of 4.9 billion dollars in 2008 has shrunk in 2009.

According to the latest statistics, China's energy intensity per unit of GDP shrunk more than expected. It used 5.2 per cent less energy, which was less than the 4.6 per cent predicted earlier.

Energy consumption was down 17 per cent since 2005, making China's five-year plan of lowering energy intensity by 20 per cent by 2010 more easily achievable.

'Uprising' Planned to Target West Bank Jews: Amid U.S. Pressure for Israel to Evacuate Territory
Dec 27th, 2009
Aaron Klein, World Net Daily's Jerusalem Bureau / www.WND.com
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

JERUSALEM – The Palestinian Authority has decided to support and encourage a "low-level" popular uprising in the strategic West Bank, according to Palestinian and Jordanian intelligence sources.

The decision comes at a time of increased international pressure, including from the Obama administration, for Israeli-Palestinian talks aimed at an eventual Israeli withdrawal from most of the West Bank. The determination also comes as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government has been enforcing a 10-month freeze on Jewish West Bank construction in line with U.S. demands.

The Palestinian and Jordanian sources told WND the decision empowers local leaders of PA President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization to lead what would be viewed as a "popular struggle" of Palestinians protesting as well as throwing stones, rocks and Molotov cocktails at Israeli soldiers and Jewish residents of the West Bank.

The "struggle" would be concentrated against Israeli West Bank communities, anti-terror checkpoints and an Israeli security fence that snakes alongside the West Bank.

According to the Palestinian and Jordanian sources, a PA committee has been studying how to best support and finance the "popular struggle." The sources said that for now the PA has decided against "higher-level" terrorist attacks, such as roadside shootings or suicide bombings.

Just yesterday, a young Israeli woman was moderately wounded when Palestinians hurled a firebomb at the bus in which she was riding south of the West Bank biblical city of Hebron.

Also yesterday, some 20 Palestinian demonstrators clashed with Israel Defense Forces soldiers stationed in Hebron, with one soldier lightly wounded after a Palestinian protestor bit him.

Last week, Meir Hai, a 40-year-old West Bank Jewish teacher and father of seven, was murdered in a shooting attack on a road near his home, in an area where Israel had recently lifted a roadblock restricting Palestinian movement.

According to sources inside the PA speaking to WND, the Palestinian Authority was against the shooting of Hai, which they said was financed by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.

Indeed, according to Israeli security officials speaking to WND, Israel has specific information that Kais Obeid, a Hezbollah militant in Lebanon, directed and financed Hai's murder. Obeid was also responsible for the 2000 kidnapping of Israeli businessman Elhanan Tannenbaum, who was released by Hezbollah in a 2004 prisoner exchange. Obeid is an Israeli Arab who crossed the border into Lebanon and joined with Hezbollah in the 1990s.

Over the weekend, an Israeli raid killed three Fatah terrorists that Israel says were responsible for Hai's murder and were, according to Israeli sources speaking to WND, directed by Obeid.