Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

U.S. Intelligence: Al Qaida Plotting Attacks on U.S. Civilian Jetliners
Aug 2nd, 2013
Daily NewsWorld Tribune
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Al Qaida’s network in Yemen is planning to conduct bombing attacks on American civilian aircraft.

Officials said the intelligence community has traced a plot by Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula to blow up a commercial airliner or cargo plane.

They identified the AQAP planner as Ibrahim Hassan Al Asiri, believed to have taken over the Al Qaida network in Saudi Arabia and Yemen in wake of the U.S. assassination of Said Al Shihri, deemed the deputy commander of the insurgency movement.

True Believers: Bibi, Barry, Kerry, and the Inevitable Destruction Resulting from Fanaticism Wound
Aug 2nd, 2013
Daily NewsCaroline B. Glick
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel;Peace Process

JERUSALEM— Standing next to US Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday morning, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni gushed that through his indefatigable efforts to bring Israeli and Palestinian officials to Washington, Kerry proved that "nothing can stop true believers."

As usual, the cognitively-challenged Livni told us something she hadn't intended to say. The term "true believer" was coined by Eric Hoffer in his classic work The True Believer from 1951, which Livni has obviously not read. Hoffer's epic study of the psychological roots of fanaticism, described a true believer as a person so fanatically committed to a cause that no amount of reality can make him abandon it.

And that just about sums up Kerry, and the man he works for, US President Barack Obama.

Kerry visited Israel six times in the four months leading up to the meetings in Washington this week, during which Americans, Palestinians and Israelis discussed the size of the table they will be sitting around in the coming discussions.

During the same four months, the Syrian regime used chemical weapons against its opponents on multiple occasions. Most recently, they gassed Palestinians in Yarmouk refugee camp outside of Damascus, killing 22 people.

During those four months, al Qaeda strengthened its control over the Syrian opposition groups fighting the regime.

During those four months, the Syrian civil war became a focal point of a wider Sunni-Shiite religious war that has already spread to Lebanon and Iraq. In its post-US withdrawal role of Iranian satrapy, Iraq has allowed Iran to use its territory and airspace to transfer war materiel to the Syrian regime.

During those four months, the Obama administration decided to begin arming the al Qaeda-dominated rebel forces. It has also deliberately raised the risk of a Syrian-Israeli war by informing the media every time that Israel attacks missile sites in Syria.

Also during the four months that Kerry obsessed over convincing PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas to send his representative to Washington, Egypt experienced its second revolution in which, buffeted by millions of demonstrators who filled the squares of Egypt's cities, the Egyptian military overthrew the US-supported Muslim Brotherhood regime.

The Obama administration was quick to jump onto the bandwagon of the first Egyptian revolution in January 2011. That revolution led to the military's ouster of then president Hosni Mubarak, a staunch US ally, and so paved the way for the totalitarian and deeply popular Muslim Brotherhood to rise to power.

When the Brotherhood became subject to its own revolution due to its incompetent handling of Egypt's failed economy and its single-minded focus on transforming Egypt into an Islamist state as quickly as possible, the Obama administration was confounded. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal this week, a senior administration official expressed complete befuddlement at events in Egypt. "None of us can quite figure this out," the official said. "It seems so self-defeating."

And that is the thing of it. In its support for the Brotherhood, the administration was implementing its wholly unfounded, dead-wrong ideological belief that the Muslim Brotherhood is a progressive, "largely secular" organization that is dedicated to good works. And now that the Egyptian military, supported by about half of the Egyptian people have rejected the Brotherhood, their actions are incomprehensible to the Obama administration.

In the face of massive documentary evidence, and facts on the ground, (Egypt has run out of food, and rather than get them some, overthrown president Muhammad Morsi rammed through a totalitarian Islamist constitution), the Obama administration still clings to its ideological belief that the Muslim Brotherhood is a positive, progressive, "largely secular" organization that is devoted to good works for the poor.

So too in Syria. The administration thinks it is okay to fund the Free Syria Army, because its leadership is dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood. Owing to the administration's blind faith in its belief that the reason that the US is hated in the Muslim world is because it has opposed populist Islamist forces, Obama and his advisers think it makes sense to arm those forces in Syria now — so long as the Muslim Brotherhood is able to hide the fact that it is dominated by al Qaeda for a sufficient number of news cycles to sell this fiction to the media.

The administration's faith in Islamist reasonableness holds for the Shiite Islamists just as strongly as it does for the Sunni Islamists. This is why it maintains its commitment to negotiating with Iran's fanatical regime about its nuclear weapons program, despite overwhelming evidence that the Iranians are using the negotiations as a means to develop their bomb in peace.

This week David Albright and Christina Walrond at the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington published a deeply disturbing report. They explained that based on what we know, Iran will reached "critical capacity" in its nuclear program by mid-2014. Albright and Walrond defined critical capacity as "the technical capability to produce sufficient weapon-grade uranium from its safeguarded stocks of low enriched uranium for a nuclear explosive, without being detected."

Albright and Walrond then explained the many ways Iran can speed up the process, and hide its achievement from the international community for long enough to make it too late to conduct military strikes on their nuclear facilities to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

In other words, they told us politely, and diplomatically, if urgently that we have arrived at the moment of decision. Will the US or Israel strike Iran's nuclear installations to prevent it from becoming a nuclear power, or will Iran become a nuclear power? If we wait much longer, we won't have sufficient time to act.

But for Kerry, and his fellow true believers the most urgent priority was to convince the Palestinians to sit in the same room as Israelis. And this week they scored a great victory for US foreign policy by achieving their goal.

In her brief remarks, not only did Livni inadvertently tell us that Kerry is a fanatic. She also told us that she is a fanatic.

Livni said, "[I]t took more than just a plane ticket to be here today. A courageous act of leadership by Prime Minister Netanyahu that was approved by the Israeli Government made this visit here and the beginning of the negotiation possible."

The "courageous act" she referred to was the government's decision to release 104 "Palestinian prisoners" from Israel's prisons. The demand for their freedom was the obstacle Abbas placed in the way of Livni acquiring her long sought after plane ticket to peace talks and five star receptions at Kerry's Washington mansion.

The 104 "prisoners" are made up of Palestinians and Israeli Arabs. They are not car thieves or pickpockets. They are monsters with human faces. All 104 are serving life sentences for murder or attempted murder. Their crimes were gruesome acts of barbarism marked by demonic cruelty.

Yusef Said al-Al and Ayman Taleb Abu Sitteh stabbed David Bubil and Haim Weitzman to death and mutilated their bodies, cutting off their ears as souvenirs.

Three other "Palestinian prisoners" hacked four teenagers to pieces, killing them with pitchforks, hatchets and knives.

13-year old Oren Baharmi was raped and murdered by Amad Mahmad Jamil Shehada.

And the list goes on and on, and on.

There was nothing even vaguely courageous about Netanyahu's decision to release these monsters. There was nothing even vaguely courageous about his cabinet members' decision to vote for their release. Theirs was an act of utter cravenness. They dishonored the victims, the victims' families and the nation as a whole.

And they endangered the country. According to Almagor Victims of Terror organization, from 2000-2500, 180 Israelis were murdered by Palestinian terrorists released by Israel in previous "deals." And those terrorists had been imprisoned for non-lethal actions, (i.e., without blood on their hands).

The fact that Netanyahu and his ministers passed this decision simply to provide a sufficient payoff to Abbas for him to send Saeb Erekat to Washington to talk about nothing with Livni, makes their actions, not only craven, but insane.

Livni's obscene characterization of this cowardly, life-threatening injustice as a "courageous act," exposes her as well as a true believing fanatic. Only a fanatic could say such a thing.

In his remarks, Kerry said that the talks about the size of the table are going to bring about a situation where Israel will achieve, "not just the absence of conflict, but a full and lasting peace with the Arab and Muslim nations."

Like Kerry's demand that Israel free the terrorists, this statement bespeaks an underlying fanatical dementia. Regarding the "Arab and Muslim nations," in Syria, neither the al Qaeda forces nor the regime have mentioned anything about putting down their weapons if Israel coughs up Jerusalem and Elon Moreh. The same goes for Hezbollah, Iran and their friends and enemies warring for power throughout the region.

As for the Palestinians, if they were interested in "lasting peace" with Israel, they wouldn't demand freedom for terrorist murderers. Moreover, while Kerry was exulting in his brilliant success, Abbas announced that in his version of "lasting peace," Jews will be wiped off of the map of Palestine.

As Abbas put it, "In a final resolution, we would not see the presence of a single Israeli — civilian or soldiers — on our lands."

So again, while Kerry and Livni see rainbows and unicorns, Abbas sees a Jew-free Palestine, with the 600,000 Jews of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria rendered homeless refugees to make room for his anti-Semitic fiefdom.

It is not surprising that Kerry, Obama, and Livni are going along with this obscenity. It is not surprising that fanatics who pray to the god of the two-state solution think it is courageous to free Jewish baby killers. It is not surprising they think the most important thing on the international agenda is to secure Israel's surrender of land, our legal rights, and our ability to defend ourselves to a terrorist group that hates Jews so much they require all of us to be gone before they will do us the favor of accepting sovereignty.

What is surprising — and frightening -- is that Netanyahu, who is not a true believer, and knows that they are true believers, is going along with this.

Netanyahu knows that Israel cannot survive without Judea and Samaria. He knows what the Muslim Brotherhood is. He knows the nature of the Iranian regime. He knows that the PLO is no different from Hamas. Their goal is the same — they want to destroy Israel.

Netanyahu knows that Obama is hostile to Israel and that he will not lift a finger to block Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

So why is he going along with their insanity?

In bowing to US pressure and approving the release of 104 terrorist murderers from prison, Netanyahu behaved like a coward. In bowing to US pressure not to bomb Iran's nuclear installations, Netanyahu is being a coward.

The most important question for Israel today then is whether our leader is capable of being anything else.

The Name of Jesus Has Become a Dirty Word in Politically Correct America
Aug 2nd, 2013
Daily Newsendoftheamericandream.com
Categories: Today's Headlines;Persecution

In the United States today, there are very few words that provoke as much outrage as the name of Jesus. 

It is being banned from graduation ceremonies, chaplains all over America are being forbidden from using His name in their prayers, and many school officials all over the nation have become absolutely fanatical about eliminating every trace of Christian expression from their schools. One elementary school in North Carolina even ordered a little six-year-old girl to remove the word “God” from a poem that she had written to honor her grandfathers. 

Political correctness is spreading like a cancer in this country, and our “freedom of religion” is rapidly being transformed into a guarantee of “freedom from religion” for those that hate the Christian faith. Without a doubt, there is a war on the Christian faith in America today. It is being waged in classrooms, courtrooms and churches all over the nation.

The following is an excerpt from a speech that Rand Paul gave earlier this year…

There is a war on Christianity, not just from liberal elites here at home, but worldwide.
And your government, or more correctly, you, the taxpayer, are funding it.

Evidence of this war on Christianity is everywhere these days. The following are just a few examples…

-The Ohio Statehouse banned Christian pastors from using the name of Jesus when they open up the daily sessions with prayer.

-The use of the name of Jesus was also forbidden in all prayers opening sessions of the North Carolina State-House.

-Last year, a federal appeals court ruled that prayers before commission meetings in Forsyth County, North Carolina that included the name of Jesus were unconstitutional.

-Earlier this year, a Florida Atlantic University student that refused to stomp on the name of Jesus was banned from class.

-A student at Sonoma State University was ordered to take off a cross that she was wearing because someone “could be offended“.

-A teacher in New Jersey was fired for giving his own Bible to a student that did not own one.

-An open air preacher in Illinois was recently threatened with arrest for “scaring people” with the message of the gospel.

-A high school track team was disqualified earlier this year because one of the runners “made a gesture thanking God” once he had crossed the finish line.

-Volunteer chaplains for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department have been banned from using the name of Jesus in their public prayers. Sadly, this is not an isolated incident. Chaplains all over the nation are now being banned from using the name of Jesus.

-In recent months, daredevil Nik Wallenda has walked a tightrope across Niagara Falls and has walked a tightrope across the Grand Canyon, and yet both times the mainstream media has gone out of the way to keep the name of Jesus out of news reports…

Despite Nik Wallenda’s frequent mentions of God the Father and Jesus during his high-wire crossing of Niagara Falls Friday night, an ABC News blog documenting virtually every moment of the achievement makes no mention of his verbal thanks to the Creator.

Wallenda, 33, the great grandson of legendary tightrope walker Karl Wallenda, walked across Niagara Falls on a high wire, as hundreds watched on TV at a block party in his Florida hometown of Sarasota, Fla., and millions of others tuned in for ABC television coverage.

Wallenda was fitted with a microphone during his tension-filled, 25-minute saunter at 200 feet high, and he could be heard praising God numerous times as he walked the length of four football fields from New York to Canada.

A recently released 140 page report entitled “The Survey of Religious Hostility in America” included some more examples of how Christianity is being systematically oppressed in America today…

A federal judge threatened ‘incarceration’ to a high school valedictorian unless she removed references to Jesus from her graduation speech.

City officials prohibited senior citizens from praying over their meals, listening to religious messages or singing gospel songs at a senior activities center.

A public school official prevented a student from handing out flyers inviting her classmates to an event at her church.

A public university’s law school banned a Christian organization because it required its officers to adhere to a statement of faith that the university disagreed with.

The U.S. Department of Justice argued before the Supreme Court that the federal government can tell churches and synagogues which pastors and rabbis it can hire and fire.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs banned the mention of God from veterans’ funerals, overriding the wishes of the deceased’s families.

A federal judge held that prayers before a state House of Representatives could be to Allah but not to Jesus.

Are you starting to get the picture?

And one of the biggest battlegrounds for religious freedom in America at the moment is the U.S. military.
Right now, there are some very powerful forces that are trying to eradicate all expressions of the Christian faith from the U.S. military. It has gotten so bad that a 23 year Air Force veteran was recently ordered to remove his Bible from his desk, and the Air Force recently came out and announced that service members are only allowed to talk about their faith if it “does not make others uncomfortable“.

The U.S. military is a far different institution than it once was. Today, political correctness rules the U.S. military.

If you doubt this, just check out this example…

Lt. Col. Kenneth Reyes is a Christian chaplain currently serving in the U.S. Air Force. He is stationed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska. As an ordained clergyman whose duties are to provide religious instruction and spiritual counseling, he has a page on the base’s website called “Chaplain’s Corner.”

Reyes recently wrote an essay entitled, “No Atheists in Foxholes: Chaplains Gave All in World War II.” This common saying is attributed to a Catholic priest in World War II, made famous when President Dwight D. Eisenhower said during a 1954 speech: “I am delighted that our veterans are sponsoring a movement to increase our awareness of God in our daily lives. In battle, they learned a great truth that there are no atheists in the foxholes.”

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation was absolutely outraged when they heard about this. They demanded that the commander of the base, Col. Brian Duffy, do something about the “anti-secular diatribe” that Reyes had authored.

In the old days, a base commander would have had a good chuckle and then would have told the MRFF where to stick their complaint, but the old days are gone. These days, base commanders cower subserviently before politically correct organizations such as the MRFF. Just check out what happened next…

Nonetheless, only five hours after MRFF’s complaint, the essay was removed from the website. Duffy has profusely apologized to MRFF for not stopping this religious leader from sharing religious thoughts.

But this response—which again appears to be a violation of Reyes’s First Amendment rights—is insufficient for MRFF. They said, “Faith based hate, is hate all the same,” and, “Lt. Col. Reyes must be appropriately punished.” (Emphasis added).

And thanks to the MRFF, special edition Bibles for service members have been banned from being sold on military bases…

Bowing to a complaint from a religious watchdog group, the Pentagon will no longer give consent for a publisher to use the official emblems of the military services on a line of Bibles sold on base exchanges.

The group claimed victory, but an association of former military chaplains is demanding that Congress overturn the Defense Department’s decision.

The Bibles, branded for each of four services as “The Soldier’s Bible,” “The Sailor’s Bible” and so on, are published by LifeWay Christian Resources’ Holman Bible Publishers, a subsidiary of the Southern Baptist Bible Convention, said Chris Rodda, the senior research director for the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.

The MRFF is a very insidious organization. It is headed up by a man named Mikey Weinstein. He has called Christians “human monsters” and “enemies of the United States Constitution“. Weinstein is convinced that sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ while in the military is “sedition and treason” and should be punished as such.

You would think that people like Weinstein would be dismissed as lunatics, but unfortunately under the Obama administration he has been brought in as a special adviser to the Pentagon.

What a crazy world that we live in.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama himself has remained completely silent as a totally innocent American citizen is being tortured in an Iranian prison. If that prisoner was a liberal activist, Obama would be moving heaven and earth to get him released. But because he is a Christian, we haven’t heard a peep out of Obama, and many Christian leaders want an explanation…

One of the nation’s most prominent evangelical leaders wants to know why President Obama has remained silent as Iran tortures an American pastor held captive in one of the Islamic republic’s most notorious prisons.

Franklin Graham, the president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse, told Fox News the imprisonment and torture of Pastor Saeed Abedini is a blatant example of “religious intolerance.”

“Many in the international community are expressing outrage over this blatant example of religious intolerance,” Graham said. “I ask that our government do the same and demand that Pastor Saeed Abedini be released and allowed to return home to his wife and family in the United States.”

We are rapidly moving toward a time when followers of Jesus will be treated as second class citizens in America. The following are some other examples of this trend…

A War Games scenario at Fort Leavenworth that identified Christian groups and Evangelical groups as being potential threats;

A 2009 Dept. of Homeland Security memorandum that identified future threats to national security coming from Evangelicals and pro-life groups;

A West Point study released by the U.S. Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center that linked pro-lifers to terrorism;

Evangelical leader Franklin Graham was uninvited from the Pentagon’s National Day of Prayer service because of his comments about Islam;

Christian prayers were banned at the funeral services for veterans at Houston’s National Cemetery;

Bibles were banned at Walter Reed Army Medical Center – a decision that was later rescinded;

Christian crosses and a steeple were removed from a chapel in Afghanistan because the military said the icons disrespected other religions

This is not what America is supposed to be about. How quickly we have turned our backs on the values of our founders.

In a recent article, Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin tried to remind us of how far we have drifted from what our founders intended…

It’s a good thing that George Washington is dead and military history effectively banished from our campuses. Otherwise, we might remember the general order Washington issued upon taking command of the embattled Continental Army–and in Boston, no less. 

The general “requires and expects of all officers and soldiers a punctual attendance at Divine services, to implore the blessing of Heaven upon the means used for our safety and defense.” In the same way, any assistant professor of government hoping to achieve tenure will likely skim over certain sections of the first president’s Farewell Address, which reads: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports.”

Will America be able to stand if we continue to try to push every shred of the Christian faith out of public life?

The Five Flaws of Kerry's Mideast Peace Process
Aug 2nd, 2013
Daily NewsIsrael Today - Noah Beck
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

Here is a list of reasons why Secretary Kerry's Mideast peace process is unfairly flawed in ways that endanger Israel.

1) No Palestinian reciprocity at the outset. Israel agreed to release 104 convicted terrorists just to get the Palestinians to talk peace. Would the U.S. agree to release 104 Guantanamo prisoners for talks with anyone?

Israel will undoubtedly be blamed if negotiations fail, so it's unlikely that fair judgment by the international community motivated the release. Perhaps it was the price that Israel had to pay for a U.S. promise to prevent Iranian nukes and/or support Israel's efforts to stop them. If so, is the U.S. good for its word (despite Obama's repeated demonstrations that his Mideast "red lines" are meaningless)?

Whatever the explanation for Israel's good-faith opening, there were plenty of ways for the Palestinians to reciprocate: removing anti-Israel incitement from their textbooks and/or official media, recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, promising to "freeze" their anti-Israel diplomatic offensives, etc. But Secretary of State John Kerry preferred to establish that Palestinian reciprocity is optional: if Israel isn't volunteering what the Palestinians demand, they need only threaten to leave the talks and Kerry will compel the Israelis to comply.

2) No Palestinian good faith. The Palestinians will be represented by Saeb Erekat and Mohammad Shtayyeh. Shtayyeh’s Facebook page displays a map of Israel's internationally recognized borders, plus the West Bank and Gaza – all emblazoned with the Arabic letters for “Palestine." So the person entrusted with negotiating a "two-state solution" openly admits that his Mideast map has room for only a Palestinian state. Just as alarming, during a recent sermon attended by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas and broadcast on Palestinian television, Religious Endowments Minister Mahmoud al-Habbash compared the PA's decision to negotiate with Israel to the Prophet Muhammad's Treaty of Hudaibiya (in the year 628 CE): “in less than two years, based on this treaty, the Prophet returned and conquered Mecca. This is the example. It is the model.”

3) No religious freedom in a future Palestinian state. Palestinians insist (ironically) that "peaceful coexistence" means no Jewish settlers in their state. But, on principle, why should Jews be banned from living in a future Palestinian state -- particularly when Muslims constitute over 17% of Israel's population? Will the future Palestinian state be as hostile to religious minorities as other Muslim majority states are? Unfortunately, recent history gives little reason to hope otherwise. Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning, Arab journalist reported the following about a year ago:

According to the Greek Orthodox Church in the Gaza Strip, at least five Christians have been kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam in recent weeks...Church leaders...accused a prominent Hamas man of being behind the kidnapping and forced conversion of a Christian woman, Huda Abu Daoud, and her three daughters. Radical Islam, and not checkpoints or a security fence, remains the main threat to defenseless Christians not only in the Palestinians territories, but in the entire Middle East as well.

While Gaza is ruled by Islamists, the PA has also shown its hostility to Christians. On March 12, 2012, Algemeiner reported that:

"A week after Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told an [international] audience of Evangelical Protestants...that his government respected the rights of its Christian minorities, [PA] officials...informed Bethlehem pastor Rev. Naim Khoury that his church lacked the authority to function as a religious institution under the PA...[T]here is a sense among Christians in Bethlehem that anti-Christian animus has gotten worse in the city...Khoury said.”

A few weeks ago, Palestinians vandalized the Cave of the Patriarchs, Judaism's second holiest site. How safe will non-Muslim holy sites be if there is no more Israeli presence in the West Bank? Will a future peace agreement specifically guarantee protection of and Israeli access to Jewish holy sites?

If Israel's presence in the West Bank has helped to moderate Muslim rule there, will Israel's complete departure mean that West Bank Christians can expect their persecution to worsen to Gazan levels (with abductions and forced conversions)? Palestinian insistence that their future West Bank state be "Judenrein" doesn't bode well for the indigenous Christians there (or for religious freedom).

4) No Palestinian mandate to negotiate peace. There are about 2.1 million Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank and 1.7 million in the Gaza Strip. But Hamas-ruled Gaza vehemently opposes peace negotiations and denies Israel's right to exist. Islamic Jihad and Hamas recently lambasted PA leaders for meeting with Israelis to talk peace. The last time that the PA announced direct talks with Israel, Hamas announced plans to launch terrorist attacks at Israel, in coordination with 12 other Gaza terrorist organizations.

And it's not even clear that West Bank Palestinians favor these talks. Last Sunday, they rallied against peace until PA police violently suppressed the protest. Human Rights Watch has urged the Palestinian government to investigate the police beatings. Moreover, Abbas himself has no legal mandate, as his term of political office expired long ago yet he continues to rule with no elections in sight.

At best, the PA can deliver only half of any peace that it promises, which lets Palestinians have their cake and eat it too: the PA can extract painful territorial concessions from Israel at the negotiating table, while Hamas can continue terrorist attacks to achieve the one-state solution embraced on Facebook by PA "peace negotiator" Mohammad Shtayyeh.

5) Transferring the West Bank could be Israel's geo-strategic undoing. Jordan could collapse any day from a flood of about 500,000 Syrian refugees (and growing daily); severe poverty; popular discontent over corruption, inequality, and lack of freedom; acute water shortages; and/or Muslim Brotherhood action to overthrow King Abdullah's monarchy. These factors make the Abdullah regime's survival increasingly uncertain. After Israel militarily withdraws from the West Bank, will Hamas topple the PA there as it did in Gaza (two years after Israel's 2005 Gaza withdrawal)? What if the Hamas-allied Muslim Brotherhood then takes over Jordan? If Jordanian-Palestinians -- the largest ethnic group in Jordan -- create a Palestinian state there (as advocated by this Jordanian-Palestinian writer), would Palestinians effectively have two states? The range and severity of threats to Israel from the combination of a post-Abdullah Jordan and a Palestinian West Bank state are considerable. Is it even possible to address these Israeli security concerns in a way that leaves Palestinian negotiators satisfied enough to sign a peace treaty?

With so many inherent defects in the current peace talks, why would the U.S. push its most reliable Mideast ally (and the only Middle East democracy) into such perilous waters or inevitable blame? One explanation is the increasingly fashionable idea (promoted by Arab governments) that settlements are blocking a peace deal that would produce Mideast stability. But inconvenient facts completely contradict this idea: Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, Bahrain, and Yemen (etc.) would remain the same conflict-torn mess as they are now after any Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Rouhani: Israel An 'Old Wound' to be Removed
Aug 2nd, 2013
Daily NewsINN - Gil Ronen
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

Iran's new president has called Israel an "old wound" that "should be removed," in comments to reporters published two days ahead of his inauguration.

Hasan Rouhani's remarks about Israel show he is just as full of hatred toward Israel as was his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and no less unbridled in expressing it.

Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency said Rouhani spoke after taking part in an annual “Al Quds Day” rally in Tehran on Friday.

It quoted Rouhani as saying: "The Zionist regime has been a wound on the body of the Islamic world for years and the wound should be removed."

Rouhani won Iran's June 14 presidential election, and will replace Ahmadinejad on Sunday. He has enjoyed the image of a “moderate,” compared to his predecessor, but Israel has warned that he is “a wolf in sheep's clothing.”

Meanwhile, outgoing President Ahmadinejad on Friday warned Israel that a regional storm was on the way to "uproot" the Jewish state.

"I will inform you with God as my witness, a devastating storm is on the way that will uproot the basis of Zionism," Ahmadinejad told crowds at annual Quds Day rallies.

Israel "has no place in this region", he added.

Obama: Action on Iran in Return for Peace Talks
Aug 2nd, 2013
Daily NewsArutz Sheva
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

U.S. President Barack Obama gave a commitment to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, to take action “in the coming months” regarding the Iranian nuclear threat, in exchange for Israel's agreement to renew “peace talks” with the Palestinian Authority (PA), a security source told Arutz Sheva.

The source said, however, that Obama did not reach a specific agreement with Netanyahu, but gave only a general commitment. The source added that it was not clear if the commitment was given in exchange for the very fact that Israel-PA negotiations are being held, or if it is conditional on their success.

Netanyahu's agreement to release terrorist murderers from Israeli jails appears to derive from the same agreement. Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon appears to have been hinting at this when he said Monday that “Perhaps, one day, the strategic considerations that stood behind the decision to free the Palestinian prisoners will be revealed.”

In recent months, Obama has been dragging out the process of reaching a decision on a strike in Iran that would damage its nuclear weapons program. This indecision has affected Israel, too, since even a unilateral Israeli strike requires full cooperation from the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. 

The White House released a statement Friday in which it said: "President Obama called Prime Minister Netanyahu today to commend his leadership and courage in resuming final status negotiations with the Palestinians. The President underscored that while the parties have much work to do in the days and months ahead, the United States will support them fully in their efforts to achieve peace. The two leaders agreed to continue the close coordination between the United States and Israel on this and other regional issues."

Meet the Amazing Robots That Can Move Like Animals, Communicate With Humans and Even Dance and Draw
Aug 2nd, 2013
Daily NewsMailonline
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Mammal-like robots with whiskered touch systems,machines powered by slime

and dancing humanoids that can communicate with humans are just a few of the robots invading the Science Museum today.

The International Living Machines conference showcases a wide array of strange machines that not only advance robotics but help scientists understand more about nature’s living organisms by trying to replicate their functions.

Led by the University of Sheffield, the event unites technologists from around the globe to explore the future of biomimetic and biohybrid technologies with a focus on future life-like robots.

Cutting edge machines in the spotlight include robots that move and sense like animals, biohybrid exhibits that mix biological and artificial parts, including an emotionally-expressive robot controlled by slime mould and the latest biomimetic medical devices that draw their inspiration from the natural world.

The conference is concerned with the development of future technologies using the principles underlying living systems and the flow of communication signals between living and artificial systems.

Professor Tony Prescott from the University of Sheffield’s Department of Psychology said: ‘These technologies will have a profound effect on many different aspects of our future lives, posing important ethical questions and practical concerns that this event gives us chance to address.’

Diplomat: Obama Approved Intelligence Leaks on Israeli Air Strikes in Syria
Aug 2nd, 2013
Daily NewsWorld Tribune
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

The U.S. intelligence community leaked information on Israeli air strikes on Syria, sources said.

Diplomats said the administration of President Barack Obama has enabled
the intelligence community to disclose Israeli military operations against
the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. They said the leaks included
unreported Israeli air and naval strikes on advanced Iranian and Russian
weapons that arrived in 2013.

“This is a decision that could come only from Obama,” a diplomat said. “[T]his reflects his dismay over the Israeli operations, which the president believes could result in a regional war.”

Last month, the U.S. intelligence community reported an Israeli air and naval strike on a recent shipment of the P-800 Yakhont coastal defense system.

The diplomats attributed the leaks to the CIA, which first disclosed the July 5 Israeli strike on Latakia and later said the operation was unsuccessful. The Israeli F-16 multi-role fighters were said to have refrained from entering Syrian air space.

“While the warehouse was destroyed, American intelligence analysts have
now concluded that at least some of the Yakhont missiles had been removed
from their launchers and moved from the warehouse before the attack,” a U.S.
official told the New York Times on July 31

Definition of Terms
Aug 2nd, 2013
CommentaryReligious Trojan Horse
Categories: Warning;Contemporary Issues

Sustainable Development: The framework for global governance. Sustainable development is a code term for restraining developed countries through multinational power. The system promotes abortion on demand, population control, socialized medicine, social justice, welfare programs, public housing, and elimination of national sovereignty, parental authority, and religious liberty. One of its tenets is the criminalization of Christianity. A variety of UN-aligned organizations uses sustainable development as the framework for bringing about global governance.

Agenda 21: A nearly 400-page document on how to use “sustainable development” as the framework for global governance. Agenda21 is the global plan to implement a one-world economy, a one-world government, a one-world religious system, and radical environmentalism. Mikhail Gorbachev and Maurice Strong were involved in the 1992 United Nations’ Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, where Agenda 21 was unveiled.

Change agent: A person posing as a “Christian,” evangelical, in order to infiltrate the Church from within. Change agents are rabid haters of Christians, the Gospel, and the Bible and know how to manipulate a church for their own ends. Many change agents co-opt religious organizations and institutions in order to turn them toward pagan spirituality, ecumenicalism, liberation theology, dominion theology, and the creation of a New World Order. A significant goal of change agents is to transform the Church so it is no longer an obstacle to the New World Order but an active participant and builder of it. Rick Warren is a change agent and a trainer of change agents.

Contextualizing the Gospel: Is the idea that the Church must dilute the Gospel to make it more appealing to contemporary culture. Contextualization, as practiced by the false church, does not involve preaching the biblical Gospel that transforms people who live within the culture but is the preaching of a social gospel by people who have instead been transformed by their culture.

Cultural Marxism: The state in which an all-powerful and intrusive government eliminates personal freedoms under the guise of political correctness. Cultural Marxism intends to destroy Christianity in all areas of life because elimination of the Christian worldview will create the chaos necessary for the implementation of socialism (redistribution of wealth). Cultural Marxism was introduced in America when the faculty of the Frankfurt School was welcomed to America by John Dewey in 1933. Dewey and his cohorts specifically targeted education and media as the means by which to inculcate their worldview into American culture. Cultural Marxism is taught through educational programs that emphasize feminism, diversity, multiculturalism, and tolerance.

Deist: A person who believes that God created the world but does not intervene in the affairs of mankind.

Diversity: A masking term for the promotion of homosexuality, bisexuality, transgender sexuality, and the transvestite lifestyle.

Dominion theology: The belief that God gave Adam and Eve a type of legal authority over the earth. The dominion interpretation of mankind’s mandate from God wrongly assumes a legal authority instead of the actual intent that we are to be stewards of the world. Adherents to dominion theology believe they must establish the Kingdom of God on earth before Christ can return. As a result, its proponents work to place Christians in control of every earthly institution and area of influence. This belief is reflected in the “Seven Mountain Mandate”

Dualism: The belief that man has a mind/soul and a body, which are distinct from each other. Christians believe the mind/soul lives forever.

Ecumenism: The merging in spiritual and theological issues with other religions for the accomplishment of certain spiritual objectives. Ecumenicalism often involves Protestants joining in spiritual enterprises with Catholics, Mormons, Muslims, and New Agers. Ecumenicalism was greatly advanced through the 1994 document “Evangelicals and Catholics Together.”

Emergent Church: Although difficult to define because proponents believe truth is subjective (which results in a fluid belief system), the Emergent Church is marked by a rejection of the authority of God’s Word, of the exclusivity of salvation through grace and faith in Christ alone, and of traditional, orthodox Christianity. The Emergent Church embraces postmodernism, existentialism, Gnosticism, and mysticism. Like many liberal, mainstream churches, the Emergent Church rejects the idea of the return of Jesus Christ and His judgment of the world. Instead, they believe it is their responsibility to build God’s Kingdom through utopian ideals of the redistribution of wealth, the social gospel, disarmament, and a world community committed to social justice and pluralism.

“Evangelicals and Catholics Together”: A 1994 document declaring that Catholics and Protestants are both Christian groups, and thus evangelicals should stop trying to convert Catholics. Chuck Colson and two Jesuit priests were the main influencers in drafting this heretical document.

Existentialism: The central tenet of existentialism is that there is no absolute truth. “Christians” practicing existentialism introduced what is called neo-orthodoxy. The American version of this movement grew popular in the 1960s and virtually took over in the ’70s and ’80s. Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche are considered by many to be the most influential promoters of existentialism. Nietzsche applied the idea of subjective truth to the natural world as an atheist, while Kierkegaard applied subjective truth to his brand of spirituality and called himself a Christian.

Fabian socialism: The system by which socialism is implemented through evolution, not revolution (as distinct from communism, which advocates revolution). Fabian socialism started in London in 1883. It is not merely national socialism but globalism. Fabianism dovetails with corporate fascism, the merging of big government and big business. Keynesian economics is tied directly to Fabian socialism and communitarianism. The ultimate goal is global governance, a one-world economic system, and a one-world government. Communitarianism and Fabian socialism are twins, but communitarians are generally not referred to as Fabian socialists because most have never belonged to the Fabian Socialist Society.

Feminism: The belief that women are equal in all ways to men. The primary thrust of feminism, though, is not about gaining equal rights for women but about the feminization of the American male. Feminism is an anti-family and anti-father movement and virtually guarantees the wholesale destruction of the traditional family. The champions of feminism have included Gloria Steinem, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and, most prominently, Betty Friedan. Friedan was the co-founder of the National Organization of Women (NOW), one of America’s most radical feminist organizations. Gnosticism (see definition below) and pagan spirituality are inextricably linked to feminism through the promotion of worshipping the female goddess Gaia or Mother Earth. Gnosticism elevates women to the role of savior of mankind. As a result, the worship of Mary is prevalent in the Gnosticism of the Catholic Church.

Gnosticism: The belief in discovering hidden spiritual knowledge through mystical practices often associated with Eastern religions. Gnosticism holds that salvation is not gained exclusively through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and that truth can be obtained through mystical experience and practices. Gnosticism includes the worship of angels.

Hegelian Dialectic Process: Bringing about social and cultural change through creating conflict between opposites. The thesis, an idea, and the antithesis, an opposite idea, fight, conflict, synthesize, and merge together to produce a third option or Third Way, or a mixture of both. This process is used in many areas—including economics, law, government, and religion—to manipulate the populace. It is not only a favorite tool of communitarians, Fabian socialists, neo-evangelicals, and Marxists but also of the Church of Rome and its Jesuit Order.

Intolerance: Any belief that stems from a morally absolute foundation or worldview. Christianity is considered intolerant because it claims Jesus is the only way to God and that truth consists only in that which is consistent with the character and nature of God as revealed in the Christian Scriptures.

Keynesian economics: A philosophy of economics that calls for the continuous inflation or creation of money. It is named for John Maynard Keynes, who first articulated the system. Keynes was a Fabian socialist, and as a result, Keynesianism is tied directly to Fabian socialism and communitarianism. The creation of fiat money, a cornerstone of Keynesianism, generates inflation which steals people’s wealth or the purchasing power of their money by devaluing currency. Keynesian economics also holds that debt is beneficial and that the dollar (or any other currency) should not be backed by gold or silver, thus allowing the government to print as much money as desired. The alternative economic philosophy is referred to as Austrian or classic economics. A classic economist, among other things, disapproves of debt, believes money should be backed by a hard asset such as gold or silver, and that the market should not be manipulated by a central government.

New Apostolic Reformation (NAR): A movement that believes in extra biblical revelation, prophets, apostles, and other similar heresies. NAR proponents include Bill Johnson, Lance Wallnau, Chuck Pierce, C. Peter Wagner, John Arnott, Cindy Jacobs, James W. Goll, and Lou Engle. The New Apostolic Reformation is an outgrowth of the Latter Rain Movement of the 1940s, the Kansas City Prophet movement of the 1980s, and the Word of Faith movement that includes the prosperity gospel (“Name It and Claim It”). The New Apostolic Reformation is helping build the “new order” or “new world order” of the antichrist.

New Religious Right (NRR): Contemporary proponents of what was previously known as the Religious Right. The Religious Right developed in the mid-1970s. Its founders include the late Pastor Adrian Rogers of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee, and former president of the Southern Baptist Convention; the late Dr. D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida; and the late Dr. Jerry Falwell of Thomas Road Baptist Church and Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. New Religious Right leaders, unlike the previous generation, have largely abandoned the original leaders’ commitment to biblical theology and doctrine, and as a result they unite openly with false teachers when it furthers NRR political and cultural goals.

Political correctness: Speech required by the cultural elite that denies the character and nature of God. Related to compromise, collectivism, socialism, tolerance, and moral relativism, political correctness is a masking term for the beliefs and ideas that stem from humanism and socialism; also known as cultural Marxism.

Postmodernism: The belief that truth (and the consequent reality) is not discovered but is created by mankind. A postmodern worldview allows that two opposing truth claims can be equal—unless one of the views is based on a fixed moral standard. An “absolute” view is not seen by the postmodernist as being equal but as being unacceptable because it is “intolerant.”

Reconstructionism: Dr. Tommy Ice defines reconstructionism as the belief that “…God will bless the church’s effort to Christianize the earth. Since God’s kingdom was established at Christ’s first coming, godly dominion will be mediated through the church before the return of Christ. The victory of God’s kingdom on earth will be during and continuous with this present era.”

Secular Humanism: The belief that there is no God. People are the highest order of creature, and there is no such thing as the spiritual world. Only the natural world exists. A Secular Humanist believes people die, and that is it, there is nothing beyond the grave.

Seven Mountain Mandate: The goal of those who believe in dominion theology. They hope to win the culture war by taking control of the power centers of the culture. The seven mountains of influence to be taken by Christians are religion, family, business, arts & entertainment, government, education, and media. They believe through these seven power centers they can legislate “kingdom values.” Many proponents of the Seven Mountain Mandate want to rule the world under Old Testament Law.

Social gospel: Social justice (see definition below) advocated and implemented by the Church. While its proponents call it a “gospel,” the social gospel is simply socialism wrapped in religious terminology and unbiblical theology.

Social justice: A masking term for the economic philosophies of communism and socialism. Social justice promotes the redistribution of income in the name of “the common good.” Among world influencers, “common good” is used regularly by the Vatican and the pope.

Socialism: The belief that the outcome of everyone’s work can and should be equal. Socialism advocates the elimination of private property and seeks to redistribute wealth. It is consistent with the humanist worldview because humanists deny the sin nature of mankind and as a result believe socialism will work if people simply try hard enough to implement its principles. In reality, people are sinful from birth, battling greed, selfishness, pride, anger, bitterness, envy, laziness, and dishonesty. All of these sinful human qualities prevent a system of economics based on equal work, equal income, and shared benefits from working.

Spiritual evolution: A common belief within Fabian socialism, the Emergent Church, the communitarian church-growth movement, and the New Age movement that everything is biologically and spiritually spiraling up to a condition of perfection that will allow mankind to usher in a New Age—a New World Order or God’s Kingdom on earth. Spiritual evolution teaches that mankind can save himself as he discovers and embraces his own divine nature and the common ground in all religions. “The Father of the New Age Movement” was Jesuit priest Teilhard de Chardin, a major promoter of spiritual evolution.

Syncretism: The belief that religious worldviews once thought incompatible can actually merge. The end result of syncretism will be the creation of a one-world religion. Syncretism is possible because modern-day evangelicalism has embraced mysticism and pagan spirituality while rejecting the authority of God’s Word.

'Gay Pride' on the Streets of Jerusalem
Aug 2nd, 2013
Daily NewsIsrael Today Staff
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

Thousands turned out late Thursday afternoon for the annual 'Gay Pride' parade through the streets of downtown Jerusalem.

Following in the footsteps of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem appeared to not only be welcoming such events, but actually encouraging them, as the municipality took the effort to hang the homosexual "rainbow" flag on the street posts traditionally used to hang the flags of visiting foreign dignitaries.

Despite the city's open embrace of the homosexual community, this year's march ended at the Knesset, where participants demonstrated against what they claimed is a lack of legislation protecting and promoting their rights and lifestyle.

The annual event is usually hotly contested by the religious communities in Jerusalem, including ultra-Orthodox Jews, Arab Muslims and Christians of all stripes.

And while direct confrontation with the homosexual marchers is rare, police did arrest three assailants on Thursday, including an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man who hurled a stink bomb at the gay protesters.

Editors Note....It is obvious that Israel is not yet ready for the return of Messiah, judgment must come first.