Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

The EU Declares Israel As Occupier
Jul 22nd, 2013
Daily NewsThe Balfour Post - Michael Curtis
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

For more than thirty years the European Union (EU) has issued statements critical of Israel, and has been supportive of the Palestinian cause. The EU Venice Declaration of 1980, the first statement it issued on foreign policy, supported the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination; asserted the unacceptability of any unilateral initiative to alter the status of Jerusalem; proclaimed the need for Israel to end its territorial occupation since 1967; and declared that Israeli settlements were an obstacle to peace.

Since the 1990s the EU has been a major aid contributor to Palestinians, though its monetary assistance did not substantially improve the Palestinian economy. This economy suffered from corruption, lack of a satisfactory legal framework and competent administration, absence of democratic practices, and the incompetence of Yasser Arafat, the PLO and the Palestinian Authority leader who instigated the disastrous second Intifada in 2000.

The EU has been critical of many of the activities of Israel, including the alleged treatment of the Arab minority and of the Bedouins, but particularly and unrelentingly about Israeli settlements. On December 10, 2012 the EU issued a statement, “all agreements between the State of Israel and the European Union must unequivocally and explicitly indicate their inapplicability to the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, namely the Golan Heights, the West Bank including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.

The EU discouraged companies from trading with and investing in settlements and suggested banning imports of settlement products.  At the same time Catherine Ashton, the head of EU foreign policy, pressed Israel to cancel the building of 3,000 new settler homes that, in accordance with EU policy, she considered “an obstacle to peace.” That EU policy had been made clear even before the European Commission poll taken in 2003 that the “country posing the greatest threat to world peace was Israel.” It was unclear whether the particular homes to which Ashton was referring are an obstacle to peace in Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, or Iraq, issues with which she seems somewhat unconcerned.

Whatever the answer, this did not prevent the EU decision to implement the December 10 statement by issuing a directive approved on June 28, 2013  and made known on July 16, 2013. This was a decision by the EU to ban all funding, collaboration, scholarships, research grants, and awards to “Israeli entities” in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. All future EU agreements with Israel must have a clause stating that the settlements are not part of the State of Israel.

By its declaration the EU was unilaterally deciding that the borders of Israel did not embrace East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, or the Golan Heights. It was making a distinction between the State of Israel and the “occupied territories” to which the ban on relations on factors such as economics, science, culture, sports, and academia will apply.

This is an extraordinary unwise and unhelpful decision at a time when Secretary of State John Kerry is making his sixth visit in four months to the region in his hope to revive peace talks between Israel and Palestinians. He must be troubled that the EU decision on the borders of the State of Israel may make the Palestinians unwilling to enter into direct negotiations. That unwillingness has been rewarded by the constant EU argument, one that was repeated on the very day that the EU was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, that Israeli settlements are illegal under international law and constitute an obstacle to peace. The EU argument is belied by the reality that facts and the history of the area prove the opposite; Israeli settlement has never constituted an obstacle to peace. Nevertheless, Ashton persists in saying that “settlement activity is detrimental to current peace efforts.”

The EU position makes it more likely that the Palestinian will reject negotiations. If they do agree to enter into direct negotiations, they will certainly continue to insist on a number of pre-conditions, including freezing all settlement construction and acceptance of the ceasefire lines of 1949 as the borders of a Palestinian state.

There are two issues involved in this. One is the bypassing of all international and bilateral agreements on the need for negotiations to decide on the final status of the disputed territories. The Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement of September 28, 1995 is clear on this point.  Article XXXI states, “Neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank or the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations.”  Legally, the demarcation lines between the parties of 1949 are not permanent boundaries; they do not purport to establish definitive boundaries between the parties. All issues are to be negotiated between the parties.

The other is the misapplication of EU activity that should more properly be focused on the development of the Palestinian economy and the introduction of human freedoms, rather on than the disputed settlements. The EU, after all, could be a major player in the Middle East with its own economy accounting for almost 20 percent of world trade and including a considerable number of real democracies among its 27 members. It could be playing a role in helping deal with current  problems: Iran’s nuclear proliferation; Islamist extremism in general; the development of terrorist networks; the recognition of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization; equality for women in the Middle East; and encouragement of human rights and democracy in the Arab countries.

It serves no useful purpose to insist that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the main security problem in the Middle East. It is one thing to propose two states as the only feasible solution to the conflict, even if there is disagreement on the issue. It is another to attempt to resolve the conflict by putting direct economic and political pressure on Israel. The EU has done a great disservice to the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, and indeed has been counterproductive by making it less likely to come into effect.

Palestinians Say Peace Talks Might not Happen, After All
Jul 22nd, 2013
Daily NewsIsrael Today - Ryan Jones
Categories: Today's Headlines;Peace Process

While American and Israeli leaders are already patting themselves on their respective backs over the reported resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, the other party to the talks, the Palestinian Authority, is saying everyone should instead hold their respective horses.

Israel is already setting up negotiating teams, and the Obama Administration is praising itself over ostensibly "closing the gaps" that had previously seemed like insurmountable obstacles.

But on Sunday, two of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' most senior advisers said it was by no means certain that bilateral peace talks would take place in the coming weeks, as claimed by US Secretary of State John Kerry.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh and Yasser Abed Rabbo, official spokesmen for Abbas, said the Palestinian leader had merely agreed to send a team to Washington to continue the low-level preliminary talks that had already been taking place.

Both Rudeineh and Abed Rabbo would likely be on any official negotiating team. But they aren't heading to Washington, because official negotiations are not on the schedule.

Both men said that from the Palestinians' point of view, the talks scheduled in Washington next week are aimed at convincing Israel to meet the remainder of Palestinian preconditions so that official negotiations can resume at some future date.

Kerry's announcement that official peace talks are about to resume would seem, at best, premature, in light of this clarification.

Let the Headlines Speak
Jul 22nd, 2013
Daily NewsFrom the Internet
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Palestinians: Kerry gave written guarantees to Abu Mazen
According to the sources, the letter stated that the parties will not make moves that would endanger the success of the talks - Israel will not publish tenders for new construction in the settlements and the Palestinians will not carry out diplomatic measures against Israel.  

Benjamin Netanyahu vows to hold referendum on peace deal
Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to stage the first referendum in Israel's 65-year history to give voters the final say on any peace agreement reached with the Palestinians.  

America No Longer Has a Functioning Judicial System
The Department of Justice told a federal court this week that the NSA’s spying “cannot be challenged in a court of law”. (This is especially dramatic given that numerous federal judges and legal scholars – including a former FISA judge – say that the FISA spying “court” is nothing but a kangaroo court.)  

Geothermal tests trigger Swiss earthquake
"The quake is probably directly linked to trials and stimulation activities during the drilling involved in a geothermal project at St Gallen, where several mini-quakes have already been recorded in recent days," the EPFZ statement said. "The quake was widely felt in the region," it added.  

India probes 'UFOs' after drone denial
India has turned to its astrophysicists to explain a ‘UFO’ mystery on its Himalayan border with China. Since the end of last year its security services have been investigating sightings of ‘yellow spheres’ rising over its highly militarised border. They initially suspected them to be Chinese unmanned aircraft or drones deployed in the cat and mouse game played by the two sides on their contested frontier.  

Russian Orthodox Leader Condemns Gay Marriages, Warns of Apocalypse
Head of the Russian Orthodox Church warned Western governments on Sunday against legalization of same-sex marriages what he called a sign of approaching end of the world. Patriarch Kirill said during a service at Moscow’s major cathedral that the recent initiatives in a range of countries to legalize same-sex marriages “is a dangerous and apocalyptic symptom” that should not spread over to Russia, according to Russian media reports.  

EU declares Hizbollah a terrorist organisation
European Union governments have agreed to declare the military wing of the Lebanese party Hizbollah a terrorist organisation, in a major reversal of policy driven by concern over the group's activities in Europe. The move followed a campaign spearheaded by Britain after the group was accused of involvement in last year's attack on Israeli tourists in Bulgaria.  

French police, youths clash after veil incident    About 250 people hurling projectiles clashed with police firing tear gas west of Paris, in apparent protest over enforcement of France's ban on Islamic face veils. Five people were injured and six detained in the violence, authorities said Saturday. The interior minister urged calm and dialogue, insisting on both the need for public order and respect for France's Muslims.  

Pope Criminalizes the Reporting of Sex Crimes
According to the new laws, revealing or receiving confidential Vatican information is now punishable by up to two years in prison, while newly defined sex crimes against children carry a sentence of up to twelve years. Because all sex crimes are kept confidential, there is no longer a legal way for Vatican officials to report sex crimes.  

Earthquake Sends Kiwis Screaming From Wellington Buildings
New Zealanders ran screaming from buildings in Wellington yesterday as a magnitude 6.5 earthquake blew out windows and caused part of the city’s port to slide into the sea. The earthquake struck at 5:09 p.m. local time and was centered offshore, 57 kilometers (35 miles) south-southwest of the capital city, at a depth of 14 kilometers, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.  

NY food stamp recipients are shipping welfare-funded groceries to relatives in Jamaica, Dominican Republic and Haiti
Food stamps are paying for trans-Atlantic takeout — with New Yorkers using taxpayer-funded benefits to ship food to relatives in Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Welfare recipients are buying groceries with their Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards and packing them in giant barrels for the trip overseas, The Post found.  

Mortar Shells Hit Market in Syria
Government troops fired mortar rounds that slammed into a main market in a town in northern Syria on Sunday, killing at least 20 civilians, activist groups said. The mortar shells struck the town of Ariha, which is held mostly by opposition fighters, a few hours ahead of iftar, the meal that breaks the dawn-to-dusk fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.  

Egypt starts amending constitution despite political divisions
A panel of legal experts started work on Sunday to revise Egypt's Islamist-tinged constitution, a vital first step on the road to fresh elections ordered by the army following its removal of Mohamed Mursi as president.  

Pimco’s Gross Says Fed Will Tighten Policy in 2016 at Earliest
Pacific Investment Management Co.’s Bill Gross said he expects the Federal Reserve won’t tighten monetary policy until 2016 at the earliest. Treasuries had their biggest two-week gain in almost a year as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the central bank wouldn’t slow its monthly bond-buying program unless economic conditions warrant.  

EU to discuss blacklisting Lebanese militants Hezbollah
EU foreign ministers are due to meet to discuss calls to list the military wing of Lebanese militant group Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation. The move requires the agreement of all the EU's 28 member states. If they agree, it will become illegal for Hezbollah sympathisers in Europe to send the group money or for European diplomats to meet its militant staff.  

Japan poll: PM Abe seeks stable government after win
Japanese PM Shinzo Abe says his win in Sunday's upper house elections will help him form a stable cabinet, ending political volatility. Exit polls suggest his ruling coalition won at least 76 of the 121 seats contested, broadcaster NHK says. 

Human - Animal Hybrids: Sick and Twisted Chimeras are Being Created in Labs All Over the Planet
Jul 22nd, 2013
Daily NewsBlacklistnews.com
Categories: Today's Headlines;Warning

Even Palestinians Oppose New EU Sanctions on Israel
Jul 22nd, 2013
Daily NewsIsrael Today Staff
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

Now even the Palestinians are fighting back against the decision by the European Union to boycott any Israeli businesses with a presence in the so-called "occupied territories."

A senior Palestinian Authority official who spoke on condition of anonymity told Israeli media that the European decision was not all that popular in Ramallah, despite ostensibly being made in service to the Palestinian nationalist cause.

"We have a number of officials at the European Union who are trying to reverse the decision," the unnamed source said.

The new directive, which forbids nations in the euro zone from doing business with "Jewish settlers," will not only weaken those Israeli companies, but will have a major negative impact on the Palestinian economy, as many thousands of Palestinian Arabs work for those very same companies.

Expressing the concerns of many, Sammer Darawsha, a Palestinian employee of at a Jewish-owned greenhouse near the settlement of Halamish, said, "The decision affects everyone, whether Jew or Arab. If they (the EU) take away our livelihood, what kind of peace will then prevail here?"

Detroit Surrenders As If It Had Been Invaded
Jul 22nd, 2013
Daily NewsJWR - Mark Steyn
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

By the time Detroit declared bankruptcy, Americans were so inured to the throbbing dirge of Motown's Greatest Hits — 40% of its street lamps don't work; 210 of its 317 public parks have been closed; it takes an hour for police to respond to a 911 call; only a third of its ambulances are drivable; one-third of the city has been abandoned; the local realtor offers houses on sale for a buck and still finds no takers — Americans were so inured that the formal confirmation of a great city's downfall was greeted with little more than a fatalistic shrug.

But it shouldn't be. To achieve this level of devastation, you usually have to be invaded by a foreign power. In the War of 1812, when Detroit was taken by a remarkably small number of British troops without a shot being fired, Michigan's Gov. Hull was said to have been panicked into surrender after drinking heavily.

Two centuries later, after an almighty 50-year bender, the city surrendered to itself.

The tunnel from Windsor, Ontario, to Detroit is now a border between First World and Third World — or, if you prefer, developed world and post-developed world.

To any American time-transported from the mid-20th century, the city's implosion would be incredible. Were he to compare photographs of today's Hiroshima with today's Detroit, he would assume Japan won the Second World War after nuking Michigan. Detroit was the industrial powerhouse of America, the Arsenal of Democracy, and in 1960 the city with the highest per capita income in the land.

Half a century on, Detroit's population has fallen by two thirds, and in terms of per capita income, many of the shrunken pool of capita have no income at all beyond EBT cards.

The recent HBO series "Hung" recorded the adventures of a financially struggling Detroit school basketball coach forced to moonlight as a gigolo. It would be heartening to think the rest of the bloated public-sector workforce, whose unsustainable pensions and benefits have brought Detroit to its present sorry state (and account for $9 billion of its $11 billion in unsecured loans), could be persuaded to follow its protagonist and branch out into the private sector, but this would probably be more gigolos than the market could bear.

So, late on Friday, Judge Rosemarie Aquilina declared Detroit's bankruptcy "unconstitutional" because, according to the Detroit Free Press, "the Michigan Constitution prohibits actions that will lessen the pension benefits of public employees." Which means that, in Michigan, reality is unconstitutional.

So a bankrupt ruin unable to declare bankruptcy is now back to selling off its few remaining valuables, as I learned from a Detroit News story headlined "Howdy Doody May Test Limits Of Protecting Detroit Assets." For those of you under 40 — OK, under 80 — Howdy Doody is the beloved American children's puppet, in Western garb with a beaming smile and 48 freckles, one for every state, which gives you some idea of when his heyday was.

"The Howdy Doody Show" ended its run in 1960, which would have made sense for Detroit, too. The city's Institute of Arts paid $300,000 for the original puppet — about the cost of 300,000 three-bedroom homes.

Instead of selling him off, maybe they should get him moonlighting as a gigolo and sell it to HBO as Hungy Doody. What else is left to sell? Windsor has already offered to buy Detroit's half of the Detroit/Windsor tunnel, perhaps to wall it up. With bankruptcy temporarily struck down, we're told that "innovation hubs" and "enterprise zones" are the answer. Seriously?

In my book "After America," I observe that the physical decay of Detroit — the vacant and derelict lots for block after block after block — is nothing compared with the decay of the city's human capital. Forty-seven percent of adults are functionally illiterate, about the same rate as the Central African Republic, which at least has the excuse that it was ruled in the '70s by a cannibal emperor.

Why would any innovator open a business in a Detroit "innovation hub"? Whom would you employ? The illiterates include a recent school board president, Otis Mathis, which doesn't bode well for the workforce a decade hence.

One has to conclude that Detroit's Democratic Party makes a far more comprehensive wrecking crew than Emperor Bokassa ever did. No bombs, no invasions, no civil war, just liberal politics day in, day out.

Americans sigh and say, "Oh, well, Detroit's an outlier." It's an outlier only in the sense that it happened here first. The same malign alliance between a corrupt political class, rapacious public sector unions and a swollen army of welfare dependents has been adopted in California, and in large part by the Obama administration, whose priorities are determined by the same elite/union/dependency axis.

As one droll Tweeter put it, "If Obama had a city, it would look like Detroit."

After the Battle of Saratoga, Adam Smith famously told a friend despondent that the revolting Colonials were going to be the ruin of Britain, "There is a great deal of ruin in a nation" — and in a great city, too. If your inheritance includes the fruits of visionaries like Henry Ford, Walter Chrysler and the Dodge brothers, you can coast for a long time, then decline incrementally, then less incrementally, then catastrophically, until what's left is, as the city's bankruptcy petition puts it, "structurally unsound and in danger of collapse."

There is a great deal of ruin in advanced societies, but in Detroit it took only six decades.

"Structurally unsound and in danger of collapse." Hold that thought. Like Detroit, America has unfunded liabilities, to the tune of $220 trillion, says economist Laurence Kotlikoff. Like Detroit, it's cosseting a government class and expanding the dependency class, to the point where bipartisan "immigration reform" actively recruits 50-60 million low-skilled migrants.

Like Detroit, America's governing institutions are increasingly the corrupt enforcers of a one-party state — the IRS and Eric Holder's amusingly misnamed Department of Justice being only the most obvious examples. Like Detroit, America is bifurcating into the class of "community organizers" and the unfortunate denizens of the communities so organized.

One good thing that could come out of bankruptcy is if those public-sector pensions are cut and government workers forced to learn what happens when, as National Review's Kevin Williamson puts it, a parasite outgrows its host.

Beyond that, Detroit needs urgently to make it noninsane for talented people to live in the city, and to cease subjecting its population to a public "education" system that's little more than unionized child abuse.

Otherwise, Windsor, Ontario, might as well annex it for a War of 1812 theme park — except if Gen. Brock and the Royal Newfoundland Fencibles had done to Detroit what the Democratic Party did they'd be on trial for war crimes at the Hague.

'Secret Obama Plan' Forfeits Temple Mount to Palestinians
Jul 22nd, 2013
Daily NewsWND - Aaron Klein
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel;Peace Process

The Obama administration has quietly presented a plan in which the Palestinian Authority and Jordan will receive sovereignty over the Temple Mount while Israel will retain the land below the Western Wall, according to a senior PA negotiator speaking to WND.

The Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism.

The proposed plan is part of the basis for U.S.-brokered talks that are set to resume in Washington next week after Secretary of State John Kerry announced that both Israel and PA President Mahmoud Abbas have agreed to open negotiations aimed at creating a Palestinian state.

Israel has not agreed to the U.S. plan over the Temple Mount, with details still open for discussion, stated the PA negotiator.

The negotiator, who is one of the main Palestinian figures leading the Arab side of the talks, further divulged Kerry’s proposed outline for a Palestinian state as presented orally to Israel and the PA.

He said Jordan has been invited to play a key role in the discussions surrounding both the Temple Mount and Jerusalem while it will be the PA, with some Jordanian assistance, that would ultimately receive control of some of those areas.

WND was first to report in 2007 that Jordan had been quietly purchasing real estate surrounding the Temple Mount in Jerusalem hoping to gain more control over the area accessing the holy site, according to Palestinian and Israeli officials.

Meanwhile, regarding the rest of Jerusalem, Kerry’s plan is to rehash what is known as the Clinton parameters. That formula, pushed by President Bill Clinton during the Camp David talks in 2000, called for Jewish areas of Jerusalem to remain Israeli while the Palestinians would get sovereignty over neighborhoods that are largely Arab. Most Arab sections are located in eastern Jerusalem.

WND previously reported the Palestinians are building illegally in Jewish-owned areas of Jerusalem, resulting in Arab majorities in some neighborhoods.

For the strategic Jordan Valley, Obama’s proposal calls for international forces to maintain security control along with unarmed Palestinian police forces, the PA negotiator said. Israel will retain security posts in some strategic areas of the Jordan Valley, according to the leaked plan.

When it comes to the West Bank, which borders Jerusalem and is within rocket range of Israel’s main population centers, Israel is expected to evacuate about 90 percent of its Jewish communities currently located in the territory, as outlined in Kerry’s plan.

Israel would retain strategic security posts along with the West Bank’s main blocs, Maale Adumin, Ariel and Gush Etzion. In return, Obama is calling for an exchange of territory with the Palestinians in other locations inside Israel, with discussion being open for the Palestinians to possibly receive land in the Israeli Negev in the country’s south.

The PA negotiator further said Israel rejected a Palestinian request that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agree not to place the final peace plan up for referendum in the Knesset.

Indeed, Netanyahu announced today any plan must receive final approval in a national poll.

“I am committed to two objectives that must guide the result … if there will be a result. And if there will be a result, it will be put to a national referendum,” he said at the start of the cabinet meeting.

“Negotiations with the Palestinians will not be easy, but we are entering them with integrity, honesty and hope,” Netanyahu added.

The PA negotiator, meanwhile, said Netanyahu agreed that as a gesture to restart talks, Israel will enact a temporary freeze on all Jewish construction in the West Bank outside the main settlement blocs. According to Israeli sources, such a freeze has largely already been in place for several months now anyway.

The negotiator warned that one of the toughest issues centers on control of water, with Kerry already reaching out to Turkey about the prospect of selling water at a cheaper rate to a future Palestinian state.