Syrian President Bashar Assad received a letter from his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad concerning the latest developments in Lebanon and the region, Syria's official news agency reported.
Iran's deputy foreign minister, Mahammad Rida Baqeri, was visiting Syria and delivered the letter, SANA reported. Its contents were not disclosed.
Baqeri also held talks with Syrian Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa about the "repercussions of the latest Israeli aggression in Lebanon," SANA said. "The (two politicians') views were identical over the importance of maintaining coordination and consultation between Syria and Iran to bring about stability in the region," it reported.
A reporter for the Iranian news agency IRNA in Damascus reported that during the meeting between Assad and Baqeri, the Iranian official briefed the Syrian president on the latest developments in his country's nuclear program, and on Iran's response to the UN's "carrot and stick" proposal, which was delivered earlier in the week.
The meeting was held at the Syrian presidential palace in the presence of the Iranian ambassador to Damascus, Mohammad Hassan Akhtari. It was earlier reported that the Iranian delegation had visited in Egypt and delivered a letter from Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, addressed to his Cairo counterpart, Ahmed Aboul Gheit. The contents of the letter have not been disclosed as well.
Y Net News
08.30.2006
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Just A Reminder
Last year at UCLA, I debated a professor who argued that Israel and the Palestinians were moral equivalents. He is not alone (especially on college campuses) in his lack of understanding of the immoral nature of the Islamic enemies of America and Israel.
Thus it is important to remind people once again about the moral world inhabited by the people we are fighting, whom President George W. Bush calls the Islamic Fascists. Societal examples:
The Islamic Republic of Sudan, in its attempt to force Arab/Muslim rule on the largely non-Arab and non-Muslim population of southern Sudan, has led to the killing of well above 1 million Christians and animists and black (i.e., non-Arab) Muslims, in addition to the widespread enslavement, rape and torture of those people.
No major international Arab or Muslim organization has condemned the Sudanese government's mass murders that border on genocide.
The leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran has repeatedly denied the Holocaust and repeatedly called for the annihilation of Israel. As the 6 million Jews of Israel do not plan a mass exodus from their ancient and modern homeland, such annihilation would in fact mean another Holocaust.
The holy center of Islam, the Muslim country where the holiest Muslim sites are situated, is Saudi Arabia. That country bans the practice of any religion other than Islam, amputates hands of thieves, does not allow women to drive a car, mandates what women wear outside of their homes and is the only country in the world to feature a weapon on its national flag. Women were treated considerably better and had more civil rights in ancient Rome, not to mention ancient Israel, than women living in the holiest cities of Islam today.
Virtually every Islam-based country decrees the death penalty for any Muslim who converts to another religion.
In other words, every country that calls itself "Islamic" is morally inferior to just about every country in North America, South America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, almost every Asian country and many African countries.
No Muslim country treats non-Muslims and their religions anywhere nearly as decently as any Western non-Muslim country (including Israel) treats Muslims. That is why tens of millions of Muslims immigrate to non-Muslim societies and virtually no non-Muslim immigrates to any Muslim society. In every Muslim country, non-Muslims are either systematically persecuted at worst or treated as inferiors at best.
Individual examples (in just the last five months):
"A German court sentenced a Turkish man to more than nine years in jail yesterday for the 'honour killing' of his sister. . . . The murder of Hatun Surucu, 23, who was shot several times at a bus stop in a Berlin suburb last year, shocked Germany. . . . Forced to marry a cousin in Turkey as a young girl, Ms. Surucu later broke with her Turkish-Kurdish family in Berlin and was living independently with her 5-year-old son, to the intense disapproval of her relatives. . . . Public outrage at the murder was exacerbated when some teenage boys at a school with many pupils from immigrant families . . . reportedly openly applauded the killing, condemning the victim for having lived 'like a German.'" (The Guardian, UK, April 14, 2006)
"Men using machetes attacked worshipers in three Coptic [Christian] churches in the port city of Alexandria [Egypt] on Friday morning, killing an 80-year-old man and wounding at least six other people, the police there said." (International Herald Tribune, April 15, 2006)
"An Egyptian state-controlled newspaper praised Monday's suicide attack in Tel Aviv, which killed nine people and wounded dozens, calling it an act of sacrifice and martyrdom." (Jerusalem Post, April 18, 2006)
In Britain, Abdula Ahmed Ali, 25, and his wife Cossor, 23, were arrested in connection with the plot to blow up airplanes flying across the Atlantic. According to Scotland Yard, the Muslim couple planned to take their 6-month-old baby on the suicide mission, using their baby's bottle to hide a liquid bomb. (Daily Telegraph, UK, Aug. 14, 2006)
"We've got Hezbollah fighters running around in our positions, taking our positions here and then using us for shields and then engaging the [Israelis]." — words of a Canadian UN observer written days before he was killed by Israeli bombs (Ottawa Citizen, July 27, 2006)
"Canadian authorities rounded up a group of 17 Muslim men and boys suspected of plotting to bomb major buildings in the Toronto area . . . " (CNN, June 5, 2006)
In Australia, "[Islamist] propaganda has convinced many residents their suburbs are being overrun by Islamic extremists. . . .The Saturday Daily Telegraph revealed an escalation of anti-Semitic behaviour. . . . Jewish university students were targeted and forced to hide their traditional skullcaps beneath baseball caps to avoid abuse, while attacks on synagogues have increased." (Daily Telegraph, Australia, Aug. 26, 2006)
"A third suspect detained in a failed attempt to blow up two German trains is a Syrian national . . . German and Lebanese authorities are each holding one of two young Lebanese men accused of carrying the suitcase bombs onto trains in Cologne station on July 31. . . . Officials say they could have caused many casualties and set the trains on fire." (Newsday, Aug. 26, 2006)
Does all this suggest that we are fighting a billion Muslims? Of course not.
Does all this suggest that all or even most Muslims are bad people? Of course not.
It does suggest, however, that the dominant forces within Islam are bad at this time; that Muslims who see this evil in their midst have not mobilized any counterforce either out of fear for their lives or for some other reason; and that decent men and women around the world — Hindu, Christian, Jewish, atheist, Buddhist and Muslim — are threatened by this powerful, death-loving force.
Muslims who do not acknowledge the threat to civilization from within the Muslim world at least have two excuses — fear for their lives or group solidarity. What excuses do non-Muslims have who deny this threat?
Jewish World review
08.30.2006
Thus it is important to remind people once again about the moral world inhabited by the people we are fighting, whom President George W. Bush calls the Islamic Fascists. Societal examples:
The Islamic Republic of Sudan, in its attempt to force Arab/Muslim rule on the largely non-Arab and non-Muslim population of southern Sudan, has led to the killing of well above 1 million Christians and animists and black (i.e., non-Arab) Muslims, in addition to the widespread enslavement, rape and torture of those people.
No major international Arab or Muslim organization has condemned the Sudanese government's mass murders that border on genocide.
The leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran has repeatedly denied the Holocaust and repeatedly called for the annihilation of Israel. As the 6 million Jews of Israel do not plan a mass exodus from their ancient and modern homeland, such annihilation would in fact mean another Holocaust.
The holy center of Islam, the Muslim country where the holiest Muslim sites are situated, is Saudi Arabia. That country bans the practice of any religion other than Islam, amputates hands of thieves, does not allow women to drive a car, mandates what women wear outside of their homes and is the only country in the world to feature a weapon on its national flag. Women were treated considerably better and had more civil rights in ancient Rome, not to mention ancient Israel, than women living in the holiest cities of Islam today.
Virtually every Islam-based country decrees the death penalty for any Muslim who converts to another religion.
In other words, every country that calls itself "Islamic" is morally inferior to just about every country in North America, South America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, almost every Asian country and many African countries.
No Muslim country treats non-Muslims and their religions anywhere nearly as decently as any Western non-Muslim country (including Israel) treats Muslims. That is why tens of millions of Muslims immigrate to non-Muslim societies and virtually no non-Muslim immigrates to any Muslim society. In every Muslim country, non-Muslims are either systematically persecuted at worst or treated as inferiors at best.
Individual examples (in just the last five months):
"A German court sentenced a Turkish man to more than nine years in jail yesterday for the 'honour killing' of his sister. . . . The murder of Hatun Surucu, 23, who was shot several times at a bus stop in a Berlin suburb last year, shocked Germany. . . . Forced to marry a cousin in Turkey as a young girl, Ms. Surucu later broke with her Turkish-Kurdish family in Berlin and was living independently with her 5-year-old son, to the intense disapproval of her relatives. . . . Public outrage at the murder was exacerbated when some teenage boys at a school with many pupils from immigrant families . . . reportedly openly applauded the killing, condemning the victim for having lived 'like a German.'" (The Guardian, UK, April 14, 2006)
"Men using machetes attacked worshipers in three Coptic [Christian] churches in the port city of Alexandria [Egypt] on Friday morning, killing an 80-year-old man and wounding at least six other people, the police there said." (International Herald Tribune, April 15, 2006)
"An Egyptian state-controlled newspaper praised Monday's suicide attack in Tel Aviv, which killed nine people and wounded dozens, calling it an act of sacrifice and martyrdom." (Jerusalem Post, April 18, 2006)
In Britain, Abdula Ahmed Ali, 25, and his wife Cossor, 23, were arrested in connection with the plot to blow up airplanes flying across the Atlantic. According to Scotland Yard, the Muslim couple planned to take their 6-month-old baby on the suicide mission, using their baby's bottle to hide a liquid bomb. (Daily Telegraph, UK, Aug. 14, 2006)
"We've got Hezbollah fighters running around in our positions, taking our positions here and then using us for shields and then engaging the [Israelis]." — words of a Canadian UN observer written days before he was killed by Israeli bombs (Ottawa Citizen, July 27, 2006)
"Canadian authorities rounded up a group of 17 Muslim men and boys suspected of plotting to bomb major buildings in the Toronto area . . . " (CNN, June 5, 2006)
In Australia, "[Islamist] propaganda has convinced many residents their suburbs are being overrun by Islamic extremists. . . .The Saturday Daily Telegraph revealed an escalation of anti-Semitic behaviour. . . . Jewish university students were targeted and forced to hide their traditional skullcaps beneath baseball caps to avoid abuse, while attacks on synagogues have increased." (Daily Telegraph, Australia, Aug. 26, 2006)
"A third suspect detained in a failed attempt to blow up two German trains is a Syrian national . . . German and Lebanese authorities are each holding one of two young Lebanese men accused of carrying the suitcase bombs onto trains in Cologne station on July 31. . . . Officials say they could have caused many casualties and set the trains on fire." (Newsday, Aug. 26, 2006)
Does all this suggest that we are fighting a billion Muslims? Of course not.
Does all this suggest that all or even most Muslims are bad people? Of course not.
It does suggest, however, that the dominant forces within Islam are bad at this time; that Muslims who see this evil in their midst have not mobilized any counterforce either out of fear for their lives or for some other reason; and that decent men and women around the world — Hindu, Christian, Jewish, atheist, Buddhist and Muslim — are threatened by this powerful, death-loving force.
Muslims who do not acknowledge the threat to civilization from within the Muslim world at least have two excuses — fear for their lives or group solidarity. What excuses do non-Muslims have who deny this threat?
Jewish World review
08.30.2006
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
"Sorry, I Thought He Was A Jew..,”
An Italian named Angelo Frammartino, 25, espoused the typical anti-Israel views of a far-leftist, as he expressed in a letter to a newspaper in 2006:
We must face the fact that a situation of no violence is a luxury in many parts of the world, but we do not seek to avoid legitimate acts of defense. … I never dreamed of condemning resistance, the blood of the Vietnamese, the blood of the people who were under colonialist occupation or the blood of the young Palestinians from the first intifada.
Actively to forward his beliefs, Frammartino went to Israel in early August 2006 to serve as a volunteer with ARCI, a far-leftist NGO, working with Palestinian children at the Burj al-Luqluq community center in eastern Jerusalem.
But on August 10, he was stabbed in a terrorist assault at Sultan Suleiman Street, near Herod’s Gate in Jerusalem, twice in the back and once in the neck. He died shortly after, only two days before his planned return to Italy. The killer, soon identified as Ashraf Hanaisha, 24, turned out to be a Palestinian affiliated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad. A resident of the village of Qabatiya in the Jenin area, Hanaisha apparently planned to attack a Jewish Israeli but made a mistake.
Damage control soon followed. The Palestinian Authority’s news agency, WAFA, carried a statement by the Burj al Luqluq community center condemning the murder in no uncertain terms: “Nothing could describe our emotions for what happened. Our thoughts are with the family and friends of Angelo, they have our deepest sympathy.” Several Palestinian NGOs then organized a vigil in Frammartino’s memory. For her part, Hanaisha’s mother launched an appeal, via the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, for the forgiveness of her son.
In response to this outpouring, Frammartino’s parents did forgive Hanaisha. From the family home in Monterotondo, the father, Michelangelo, said that “he welcomes and appreciates, despite the undeletable sorrow, the plea for forgiveness made by the murderer’s mother” and he expressed a hope that the parents’ gesture “will bring to an end this extremely sad story.” The father went further, telling the Corriere della Sera newspaper that he felt no hatred toward his son’s murderer:
Angelo was working to promote peace. The message he sought to convey is greater than anything else…[T]he circumstances confirm that Angelo was a victim of the war, of the injustice in the world. When we are talking about a situation of tension, absence of common sense dominates. I do not feel hatred because Angelo’s thought, the principles that always motivated him, were definitely not of hatred or revenge.
Comments:
(1) These signals from Qabatiya to Monterotondo and back amounted to a curious and despicable pas de deux, with each side remorsefully implying things would be just fine if only Hanaisha had killed his intended victim: “Sorry, I thought he was a Jew,” reads the headline in La Stampa. The Palestinians conveyed a message of “Excuse us, we did not mean to kill your son,” while the family replied with a “Understood, we accept that you made a mistake.”
(2) Writing in the Jerusalem Post, Barbara Sofer suggests an excellent way to honor the memory of Angelo Frammartino, by having his family join in solidarity with another high-profile victim of Palestinian violence. She notes that the Koby Mandell Foundation, named for another young man brutally murdered by Palestinian terrorists, “provides therapeutic camping experiences for terror survivors or the families of those murdered by terrorists.
It's non-political, hosts Jews and non-Jews, and works on building character.” Sofer suggests that those who want to honor Frammartino's memory “might want to support this camp that works to mitigate the evil brought by those who duped and killed their son.”
(3) Even if he was a political extremist, all accounts portray Frammartino as a gentle soul. If so, that only confirms how much out of depth he was in Jerusalem. As Calev Ben-David points out, also in the Jerusalem Post, his death is a reminder “that outsiders who come to this region, even with the best of intentions, should first understand that they, no less than Israelis - or, for that matter, those in the Arab world who truly want peace – can just as easily fall victim to those here who have only the worst of intentions.”
(4) Put more cruelly, given Frammartino’s idiotic views (“I never dreamed of condemning resistance”), had he survived his knifing, perhaps surviving in a state of total bodily paralysis, would he have seen the attack on him as terrorism? Or would he have learned nothing and still considered it an act of legitimate self-defense?
Front Page Mag
08.29.2006
We must face the fact that a situation of no violence is a luxury in many parts of the world, but we do not seek to avoid legitimate acts of defense. … I never dreamed of condemning resistance, the blood of the Vietnamese, the blood of the people who were under colonialist occupation or the blood of the young Palestinians from the first intifada.
Actively to forward his beliefs, Frammartino went to Israel in early August 2006 to serve as a volunteer with ARCI, a far-leftist NGO, working with Palestinian children at the Burj al-Luqluq community center in eastern Jerusalem.
But on August 10, he was stabbed in a terrorist assault at Sultan Suleiman Street, near Herod’s Gate in Jerusalem, twice in the back and once in the neck. He died shortly after, only two days before his planned return to Italy. The killer, soon identified as Ashraf Hanaisha, 24, turned out to be a Palestinian affiliated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad. A resident of the village of Qabatiya in the Jenin area, Hanaisha apparently planned to attack a Jewish Israeli but made a mistake.
Damage control soon followed. The Palestinian Authority’s news agency, WAFA, carried a statement by the Burj al Luqluq community center condemning the murder in no uncertain terms: “Nothing could describe our emotions for what happened. Our thoughts are with the family and friends of Angelo, they have our deepest sympathy.” Several Palestinian NGOs then organized a vigil in Frammartino’s memory. For her part, Hanaisha’s mother launched an appeal, via the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, for the forgiveness of her son.
In response to this outpouring, Frammartino’s parents did forgive Hanaisha. From the family home in Monterotondo, the father, Michelangelo, said that “he welcomes and appreciates, despite the undeletable sorrow, the plea for forgiveness made by the murderer’s mother” and he expressed a hope that the parents’ gesture “will bring to an end this extremely sad story.” The father went further, telling the Corriere della Sera newspaper that he felt no hatred toward his son’s murderer:
Angelo was working to promote peace. The message he sought to convey is greater than anything else…[T]he circumstances confirm that Angelo was a victim of the war, of the injustice in the world. When we are talking about a situation of tension, absence of common sense dominates. I do not feel hatred because Angelo’s thought, the principles that always motivated him, were definitely not of hatred or revenge.
Comments:
(1) These signals from Qabatiya to Monterotondo and back amounted to a curious and despicable pas de deux, with each side remorsefully implying things would be just fine if only Hanaisha had killed his intended victim: “Sorry, I thought he was a Jew,” reads the headline in La Stampa. The Palestinians conveyed a message of “Excuse us, we did not mean to kill your son,” while the family replied with a “Understood, we accept that you made a mistake.”
(2) Writing in the Jerusalem Post, Barbara Sofer suggests an excellent way to honor the memory of Angelo Frammartino, by having his family join in solidarity with another high-profile victim of Palestinian violence. She notes that the Koby Mandell Foundation, named for another young man brutally murdered by Palestinian terrorists, “provides therapeutic camping experiences for terror survivors or the families of those murdered by terrorists.
It's non-political, hosts Jews and non-Jews, and works on building character.” Sofer suggests that those who want to honor Frammartino's memory “might want to support this camp that works to mitigate the evil brought by those who duped and killed their son.”
(3) Even if he was a political extremist, all accounts portray Frammartino as a gentle soul. If so, that only confirms how much out of depth he was in Jerusalem. As Calev Ben-David points out, also in the Jerusalem Post, his death is a reminder “that outsiders who come to this region, even with the best of intentions, should first understand that they, no less than Israelis - or, for that matter, those in the Arab world who truly want peace – can just as easily fall victim to those here who have only the worst of intentions.”
(4) Put more cruelly, given Frammartino’s idiotic views (“I never dreamed of condemning resistance”), had he survived his knifing, perhaps surviving in a state of total bodily paralysis, would he have seen the attack on him as terrorism? Or would he have learned nothing and still considered it an act of legitimate self-defense?
Front Page Mag
08.29.2006
Monday, August 28, 2006
Prozac And Extra-Thick Tinfoil Hats
Sometimes sorting through the news of the day, one gets that same vague sense of unease one gets when one realizes he has just struck up a conversation with a stranger whose elevator doesn't go all the way to the top floor.
If you live in a big city, you probably have experienced it on a bus, or on a street corner, in an encounter with a homeless person, or some similar situation.
At first, everything seems ok, but then, as it dawns on you the person you are talking to isn't completely in touch with reality, the hairs stand up on the back of your neck a little.
You wonder just how nuts the person is . . . will they suddenly start shouting in your face, maybe even turn violent? It's usually just a fleeting feeling, but it is disconcerting, to say the least.
I've been getting that same feeling of late as I analyze current events . . . a vague, discomfiting sense that everybody is on Prozac but me, and I am bumping into them just as their meds are starting to wear off.
I don't know. You tell me.
When the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict was at its zenith, as bombs and rockets were raining down on both sides, France stepped up to the plate with a plan to create a buffer force that would patrol the Israeli-Lebanese border as part of the UN's overall cease-fire plan.
The French pressed the UN ceasefire plan by promising to take the lead in providing troops, making an initial commitment of at least four thousand, together with a promise to head up the overall peacekeeping effort. Then, suddenly, they backtracked, saying they'd only contribute 200 men to what was supposed to be a 15,000 man force.
It was like Paris collectively took another Prozac. A few days later, as the Prozac reached its half-life, Paris doubled its offer, to 400.
Then, as the last dose of medication started to wear off, they upped their commitment to 2,000. It makes one wonder if, when Paris takes its next happy pill, they'll suddenly forget what they were doing and order their forces to join the Hezbollah side and invade Israel or something.
Then there is the UN's Kofi Annan. Hezbollah invades Israel and kidnaps Israeli soldiers to hold as hostages, and Kofi Annan puts on HIS tinfoil hat to protect him from Israeli thought-control beams before blaming Israel for putting its soldiers too close to Hezbollah's reach.
Then he accuses Israel of war crimes for retaliating against a Hezbollah action that, according to the UN's own international conventions, IS a war crime.
He takes another Prozac and says Hezbollah started it.
When THAT dose wears off, he rethinks his statement. Kofi suddenly realizes that Lebanon is really an innocent victim of Israeli aggression -- as if Hezbollah and Lebanon were two entirely different entities on opposite sides of the planet.
Kofi speaks into existence a 15,000 man peacekeeping force and then rushes Israel into withdrawing, as if the force was already there. And, even when the force is in place, Kofi says they have no UN mandate to disarm Hezbollah. How's that again?
Without any troops, with no defined mission, no logistical system and no idea who will be in charge, Kofi starts demanding Israel provide a timetable for withdrawal, saying in advance that Israel's unspoken timetable is unsatisfactory.
All the while citing existing UN resolutions requiring the disarmament of Hezbollah as the justification for demanding an Israeli withdrawal as if, somehow, Israel was violating it by trying to disarm Hezbollah.
Another Prozac -- and now Israel is in hot water for trying too hard.
As the warm, Prozac-induced fuzziness takes hold, Annan explains that Israel has violated the 'principle of proportionality' and then he pretends that such a principle is a globally understood principle of warfare.
The rest of the members of the Security Council put on their tinfoil hats and claim the United States is under the influence of Israeli thought control beams.
To rectify this problem, John Bolton is immediately ordered by Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to put on his tinfoil hat, and presto!
"Shazzam," says Bolton. "I must confer with the UN's Human Rights Council."
Bolton wears his winter model, made of extra-thick tinfoil that prevents him from being affected by the June 20 Human Rights Council declaration that makes reviewing Israeli human-rights violations a PERMANENT feature of every Human Rights Council session.
Bolton's special tinfoil hat enables him to look past the fact that Israel's permanent referral is the ONLY mandate that has no year of expiration.
After conferring with Russia, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Pakistan -- bastions of human rights and champions of human dignities all -- double-hatted John Bolton concludes:
"Israel has violated the internationally recognized principle of proportionality in warfare. Something must be done!"
Now that 'something' has been done -- a phantom UN peacekeeping force consisting of nobody and designed to protect Hezbollah from the UN's resolution ordering its disarmament, it is time to tackle the other nagging, but clearly less important problem of the day.
What to do about a mad nuclear-armed dictator that sees the destruction of Israel as his religious obligation?
The Russians (who don't need tinfoil hats) who voted in favor of the UN's legally-binding deadline of August 31 for Iran to either give up their nuclear weapons program or face sanctions, declared that they will reject whatever sanctions the UN imposes, despite Iran's refusal to give up their Russian-supplied nuclear materials.
Moscow explains that the best way to prevent Mahmoud Imadinnerjacket from pursuing his lifelong goal of bringing about the Islamic messiah by starting a nuclear war is to continue the path of negotiations until Iran tests its first working nuclear weapon.
The Security Council expressed surprise that such a bastion of human rights and global cooperation as Moscow would reverse itself so abruptly.
Why would Moscow, who built Iran's nuclear reactors -- over global objections -- and with billions of dollars to lose if Iran gives them up -- not want to put pressure on Iran to get Tehran to cut loose Moscow's cash cow?
Why? Why? And what to do now?
There is only one thing they CAN do. And thankfully, the Security Council is up to the task. It directs Kofi Annan to ask John Bolton to recommend his hat-maker.
Kofi then instructs everyone else to double their Prozac until the extra-thick tinfoil hats can be constructed by contented Chinese concentration camp inmates who joyfully leap at the opportunity to help out.
In the meantime, Cuba and Saudi Arabia will monitor Israel to make sure they don't violate Palestinian human rights by interfering with Hamas when they fire their home-made rockets into Israeli day care centers.
Now everybody is on the same page except Israel.
Somehow -- and I don't know how they did it yet -- Hezbollah managed to sneak into Jerusalem, kidnap Ehud Olmert and his entire cabinet, and surgically implant tinfoil hats on each of them before sneaking them back into the country, each equipped with a flesh colored intravenous Prozac drip prescribed by that humanitarian pediatrician, Doctor Ayman al Zawahiri.
So equipped, the Israeli cabinet voted to withdraw Israeli forces before things get out of hand and they accidently disarmed Hezbollah or killed all the innocent Lebanese Hezbollah fighters dedicated to Israel's destruction.
THAT would give Israel nothing to do tomorrow.
The rest of Israel's citizens, unable to get their tinfoil hats on over the helmets they wear to protect themselves from incoming Hezbollah rockets, head back to their bomb shelters to see if the Tooth Fairy left any Prozac under their pillows.
Alas, there is now a global shortage of Prozac, but the UN offers to send in enough RU-486 for everybody except the Israeli Arabs.
Makes sense to me.
"Hey, you got any more Prozac? I'm not Jewish."
By Jack Kinsella - Omega Letter Editor
If you live in a big city, you probably have experienced it on a bus, or on a street corner, in an encounter with a homeless person, or some similar situation.
At first, everything seems ok, but then, as it dawns on you the person you are talking to isn't completely in touch with reality, the hairs stand up on the back of your neck a little.
You wonder just how nuts the person is . . . will they suddenly start shouting in your face, maybe even turn violent? It's usually just a fleeting feeling, but it is disconcerting, to say the least.
I've been getting that same feeling of late as I analyze current events . . . a vague, discomfiting sense that everybody is on Prozac but me, and I am bumping into them just as their meds are starting to wear off.
I don't know. You tell me.
When the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict was at its zenith, as bombs and rockets were raining down on both sides, France stepped up to the plate with a plan to create a buffer force that would patrol the Israeli-Lebanese border as part of the UN's overall cease-fire plan.
The French pressed the UN ceasefire plan by promising to take the lead in providing troops, making an initial commitment of at least four thousand, together with a promise to head up the overall peacekeeping effort. Then, suddenly, they backtracked, saying they'd only contribute 200 men to what was supposed to be a 15,000 man force.
It was like Paris collectively took another Prozac. A few days later, as the Prozac reached its half-life, Paris doubled its offer, to 400.
Then, as the last dose of medication started to wear off, they upped their commitment to 2,000. It makes one wonder if, when Paris takes its next happy pill, they'll suddenly forget what they were doing and order their forces to join the Hezbollah side and invade Israel or something.
Then there is the UN's Kofi Annan. Hezbollah invades Israel and kidnaps Israeli soldiers to hold as hostages, and Kofi Annan puts on HIS tinfoil hat to protect him from Israeli thought-control beams before blaming Israel for putting its soldiers too close to Hezbollah's reach.
Then he accuses Israel of war crimes for retaliating against a Hezbollah action that, according to the UN's own international conventions, IS a war crime.
He takes another Prozac and says Hezbollah started it.
When THAT dose wears off, he rethinks his statement. Kofi suddenly realizes that Lebanon is really an innocent victim of Israeli aggression -- as if Hezbollah and Lebanon were two entirely different entities on opposite sides of the planet.
Kofi speaks into existence a 15,000 man peacekeeping force and then rushes Israel into withdrawing, as if the force was already there. And, even when the force is in place, Kofi says they have no UN mandate to disarm Hezbollah. How's that again?
Without any troops, with no defined mission, no logistical system and no idea who will be in charge, Kofi starts demanding Israel provide a timetable for withdrawal, saying in advance that Israel's unspoken timetable is unsatisfactory.
All the while citing existing UN resolutions requiring the disarmament of Hezbollah as the justification for demanding an Israeli withdrawal as if, somehow, Israel was violating it by trying to disarm Hezbollah.
Another Prozac -- and now Israel is in hot water for trying too hard.
As the warm, Prozac-induced fuzziness takes hold, Annan explains that Israel has violated the 'principle of proportionality' and then he pretends that such a principle is a globally understood principle of warfare.
The rest of the members of the Security Council put on their tinfoil hats and claim the United States is under the influence of Israeli thought control beams.
To rectify this problem, John Bolton is immediately ordered by Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to put on his tinfoil hat, and presto!
"Shazzam," says Bolton. "I must confer with the UN's Human Rights Council."
Bolton wears his winter model, made of extra-thick tinfoil that prevents him from being affected by the June 20 Human Rights Council declaration that makes reviewing Israeli human-rights violations a PERMANENT feature of every Human Rights Council session.
Bolton's special tinfoil hat enables him to look past the fact that Israel's permanent referral is the ONLY mandate that has no year of expiration.
After conferring with Russia, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Pakistan -- bastions of human rights and champions of human dignities all -- double-hatted John Bolton concludes:
"Israel has violated the internationally recognized principle of proportionality in warfare. Something must be done!"
Now that 'something' has been done -- a phantom UN peacekeeping force consisting of nobody and designed to protect Hezbollah from the UN's resolution ordering its disarmament, it is time to tackle the other nagging, but clearly less important problem of the day.
What to do about a mad nuclear-armed dictator that sees the destruction of Israel as his religious obligation?
The Russians (who don't need tinfoil hats) who voted in favor of the UN's legally-binding deadline of August 31 for Iran to either give up their nuclear weapons program or face sanctions, declared that they will reject whatever sanctions the UN imposes, despite Iran's refusal to give up their Russian-supplied nuclear materials.
Moscow explains that the best way to prevent Mahmoud Imadinnerjacket from pursuing his lifelong goal of bringing about the Islamic messiah by starting a nuclear war is to continue the path of negotiations until Iran tests its first working nuclear weapon.
The Security Council expressed surprise that such a bastion of human rights and global cooperation as Moscow would reverse itself so abruptly.
Why would Moscow, who built Iran's nuclear reactors -- over global objections -- and with billions of dollars to lose if Iran gives them up -- not want to put pressure on Iran to get Tehran to cut loose Moscow's cash cow?
Why? Why? And what to do now?
There is only one thing they CAN do. And thankfully, the Security Council is up to the task. It directs Kofi Annan to ask John Bolton to recommend his hat-maker.
Kofi then instructs everyone else to double their Prozac until the extra-thick tinfoil hats can be constructed by contented Chinese concentration camp inmates who joyfully leap at the opportunity to help out.
In the meantime, Cuba and Saudi Arabia will monitor Israel to make sure they don't violate Palestinian human rights by interfering with Hamas when they fire their home-made rockets into Israeli day care centers.
Now everybody is on the same page except Israel.
Somehow -- and I don't know how they did it yet -- Hezbollah managed to sneak into Jerusalem, kidnap Ehud Olmert and his entire cabinet, and surgically implant tinfoil hats on each of them before sneaking them back into the country, each equipped with a flesh colored intravenous Prozac drip prescribed by that humanitarian pediatrician, Doctor Ayman al Zawahiri.
So equipped, the Israeli cabinet voted to withdraw Israeli forces before things get out of hand and they accidently disarmed Hezbollah or killed all the innocent Lebanese Hezbollah fighters dedicated to Israel's destruction.
THAT would give Israel nothing to do tomorrow.
The rest of Israel's citizens, unable to get their tinfoil hats on over the helmets they wear to protect themselves from incoming Hezbollah rockets, head back to their bomb shelters to see if the Tooth Fairy left any Prozac under their pillows.
Alas, there is now a global shortage of Prozac, but the UN offers to send in enough RU-486 for everybody except the Israeli Arabs.
Makes sense to me.
"Hey, you got any more Prozac? I'm not Jewish."
By Jack Kinsella - Omega Letter Editor
Sunday, August 27, 2006
PA: Kidnappers To Fee Fox Newsmen
The kidnappers of the two Fox News journalists abducted in Gaza City on August 14 have promised to release them unharmed, Palestinian Authority officials said on Saturday night.
According to the officials, the PA has managed to establish contact with the kidnappers, who promised to resolve the affair peacefully.
PA Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said he had personally received assurances from the kidnappers that the two, reporter Steve Centanni, from the US, and cameraman Olaf Wiig, from New Zealand, would be released unharmed and unconditionally.
PA Interior Minister Said Siam, who is in charge of part of the PA security forces, announced that significant progress had been achieved in efforts to secure the release of the men.
"There are encouraging indications that the two will be released soon," he said, refusing to elaborate.
Ghazi Hamad, a spokesman for the Hamas-controlled PA government, also said that he was "very encouraged" that the two would be released soon. "I believe they will be released soon because of a breakthrough in the negotiations with the kidnappers," he said.
A previously unknown group calling itself the Holy Jihad Brigades claimed responsibility last week for the abduction and issued a three-day ultimatum to the US to release all Muslim prisoners held in America.
However, Hamas officials told The Jerusalem Post that the kidnappers belonged to one of the armed wings of PA President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party.
The deadline set by the kidnappers passed midday Saturday.
Haniyeh was quoted shortly afterward as voicing optimism on the issue. "There is progress regarding the case of the kidnapped journalists," he said. "There are also promises that they won't be harmed."
Jerusalem Post
08.27.2006
According to the officials, the PA has managed to establish contact with the kidnappers, who promised to resolve the affair peacefully.
PA Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said he had personally received assurances from the kidnappers that the two, reporter Steve Centanni, from the US, and cameraman Olaf Wiig, from New Zealand, would be released unharmed and unconditionally.
PA Interior Minister Said Siam, who is in charge of part of the PA security forces, announced that significant progress had been achieved in efforts to secure the release of the men.
"There are encouraging indications that the two will be released soon," he said, refusing to elaborate.
Ghazi Hamad, a spokesman for the Hamas-controlled PA government, also said that he was "very encouraged" that the two would be released soon. "I believe they will be released soon because of a breakthrough in the negotiations with the kidnappers," he said.
A previously unknown group calling itself the Holy Jihad Brigades claimed responsibility last week for the abduction and issued a three-day ultimatum to the US to release all Muslim prisoners held in America.
However, Hamas officials told The Jerusalem Post that the kidnappers belonged to one of the armed wings of PA President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party.
The deadline set by the kidnappers passed midday Saturday.
Haniyeh was quoted shortly afterward as voicing optimism on the issue. "There is progress regarding the case of the kidnapped journalists," he said. "There are also promises that they won't be harmed."
Jerusalem Post
08.27.2006
Saturday, August 26, 2006
In Search Of A Happy Ending...
I understand that the movie 'Old Yeller' is available for sale on DVD. I saw 'Old Yeller' as a kid and it made me cry when Tommy Kirk's character shot Old Yeller at the end. (I thought it was Tim Considine, but was deluged by readers correcting my gaffe)
I think I'll buy it and watch it again. Maybe THIS time, it will have a happy ending. If not, I'll go buy another copy from a different story and try watching that one. Maybe he won't shoot the dog.
If not, there are other stores . . . I know it sounds silly, but if I do it often enough, and talk about how often I do it, I may be offered a job as a UN diplomat.
It sounds like a fun job. Lots of travel, a big expense account, and I understand that the more meaningless your efforts are, the further you can advance up the ladder.
Who knows? If my work is irrelevant enough, I might even get elected Secretary-General where I can help the down-trodden and victimized of this world by rewarding the victimizers and blaming the victims and be the recipient of global accolades for my far-reaching irrelevance.
If not, there's always Disneyland. I hear they have a whole section called Fantasy Land that is evidently dedicated to training UN Secretary-General wannabes.
Or maybe I can enroll in the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad School of Genocidal Cultural Sensitivity. Or the Yasser Arafat Memorial School For Jewish Advancement.
I just want to make the world a better place, and the most expedient method is evidently by helping the Jews make the transition from this Jerusalem to the Big Jerusalem In the Sky.
At the very least, I might get a job offer from Hezbollah or Hamas. Or a nice 'thank you' card from the Big Kahuna himself, Osama bin Laden. . . .
In 1948, the combined forces of the Arab world converged on Israel following her declaration of statehood, vowing to annihilate the infant state while still in its crib.
The UN remained silent, fully expecting the Arab war machine to overrun the unarmed and unorganized Jewish state and put an end to the Jewish Question without having to endure another Adolf Hitler or another world war in order to accomplish it, while keeping a clear conscience in the meantime.
After all, the Germans were Europeans and Europe was much too cultured to countenance another Holocaust on its soil. On the other hand, the attacking forces in this case were all Arab Muslims. And killing Jews is what Arab Muslims do.
Nobody can blame them for that, anymore than one can blame a cat for killing mice. So the UN accepted Israel's declaration, granted it admission to the UN, and sat back to enjoy the fireworks.
To the UN's surprise, the ragtag Israeli Defense Forces beat back the combined armies of Transjordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Saudi Arabia and acquired an extra 2000 square miles of territory beyond that granted by the 1947 Partition Plan.
This forced the United Nations to impose a cease-fire on Israel, before the Israelis took over the whole durned Islamic Middle East.
In 1956, a new war between Israel and Egypt's Gamal Abdul Nasser broke out after the armies of Jordan, Egypt and Syria were consolidated under Egyptian leadership in a second effort to eradicate the Jewish State.
Israel's Operation Kadesh, commanded by Moshe Dayan, lasted less than a week; its forces reached the eastern bank of the Suez Canal in about 100 hours, seizing the Gaza Strip and nearly all the Sinai Peninsula.
Panicked, the UN General Assembly imposed a cease fire against Israel, forcing the Jewish State to give back all the territory it had gained during the second war of annihilation against the Jews in the space of eight years.
The hard-headed Israelis refused to surrender to the UN at first. It took several more resolutions and pressure from the United States before Israel withdrew in 1957 to its original, indefensible borders to wait for the next invasion.
Even then, the Jews wouldn't withdraw without security guarantees, so the UN established a United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) to stand between Israel and the Arab world.
It took ten years before the Arab world sufficiently recovered to mount a third attempt to annihilate the Jews.
In June, 1967, when the Arab forces were fully prepared and Cairo has massed sufficient troops along Israel's border, UNEF pulled out and let Jordan, Syria and Egypt have another go at them.
Six days later, Israel had destroyed the Arab Legion's air force, kicked Syria off the Golan Heights, took back all of Jerusalem, threw Jordan out of the West Bank and took the Gaza Strip away from Egypt.
Israel's annexation of Sinai, Gaza, Arab East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Golan Heights, shortened its land frontiers with Egypt and Jordan, removed the most heavily populated Jewish areas from direct Arab artillery range, and temporarily increased its strategic advantages.
Aghast, the United Nations imposed another ceasefire on Israel [Resolution 242] before the Islamic world's war-making abilities were completely destroyed.
In 1973, Egypt tried again, supported by Syria and financed by Saudi Arabia. The sneak attack was scheduled for October 6, as Israeli forces were at home with their families celebrating Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.
The UN's major powers, including the US, Russians, French and the UK all knew of the attack several days in advance, but, in the spirit of fair play, let Israel discover it when Egyptian and Syrian tanks began rolling over Israel's border cities.
When it became clear that, instead of being finally destroyed, the Israelis had started to win [again] the UN forced another ceasefire and stationed another UN force between Israel and the Arabs to oversee Israeli compliance. [Resolution 338]
The Arab governments finally realized that they couldn't defeat Israel by conventional means, so they went underground, offering material support and training to Islamic terror groups, including Yasser Arafat's al Fatah and later, to Hezbollah.
In the thirty years since, the UN has passed more resolutions 'condemning' Israel, 'deploring' Israel, 'strongly condemning' Israel, imposing conditions on Israel and subsequently 'deeply regretting' Israel for ignoring them than it has against the rest of the world combined.
Twenty-six percent of all UN resolutions passed by the General Assembly since 1948 expressly condemn Israel. Of the 175 resolutions passed between 1948 and 1991, 97 – more than half – were aimed at Israel. Four were against an Arab state.
A month ago, Hamas infiltrated Israeli territory, killing several Israeli soldiers and kidnapping one young Israeli corporal to hold hostage, demanding the release of 1200 Palestinian terrorists held in Israeli jails as ransom.
The following week, Hezbollah invaded from the north, killed eight Israeli soldiers and kidnapped two more, announcing its intention to ransom its hostages for terrorist prisoners held by Israel.
The United Nations approved a document entitled “International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages” in December, 1979. Article 1 of this document defines the crime:
“Any person who seizes or detains and threatens to kill, to injure or to continue to detain another person (hereinafter referred to as the "hostage") in order to compel a third party, namely, a State, an international intergovernmental organization, a natural or juridical person, or a group of persons, to do or abstain from doing any act as an explicit or implicit condition for the release of the hostage commits the offence of taking of hostages ("hostage-taking") within the meaning of this Convention.”
Article 3 expressly gives the state whose citizen was taken hostage carte blanche to do what is necessary to recover such hostages.
“The State Party in the territory of which the hostage is held by the offender shall take all measures it considers appropriate to ease the situation of the hostage, in particular, to secure his release and, after his release, to facilitate, when relevant, his departure.”
Since the UN has not invoked [or even alluded to] its own conventions on hostage taking, one can only conclude that, under UN rules, 1) an Israeli hostage is not a 'person' and, 2) Israel is not a 'state'.
Therefore, Israeli military efforts aimed at recovering its hostages cannot be permitted. Consequently, UN Resolution 1701 imposing an Israeli ceasefire and withdrawal from Lebanon [without its hostages] passed the UN Security Council unanimously.
Secretary Kofi Annan expressed his deep disappointment in the Security Council [read: the United States] for letting Israel run roughshod over the 'innocent' Lebanese (who supplied Hezbollah with both a base of operations and helped them spirit Israeli hostages out of reach.)
Resolution 1701 'tabled' the fate of the hostages until a later time. [No doubt an endless source of comfort and hope for the Israeli hostages and their families]
To ensure a 'lasting peace' Israel must stop killing Hezbollah fighters. [While there are still some left to rearm and regroup]. UNIFIL's mandate to ensure Lebanon's border security was renewed. UNIFIL has been on Lebanon's border for 28 years. It is worth remembering that UNIFIL witnessed the Hezbollah abductions on July 12, but neither prevented NOR REPORTED it.
In its entire 28 year history, UNIFIL has yet to be cited as having prevented a SINGLE cross border incursion into Israeli territory by Hezbollah terrorists.
However, UNIFIL's value as a neutral deterrent force WAS highlighted in 2000. That was when the UN was forced to release photographic evidence of 'dozens' of UNIFIL troops and official UNIFIL vehicles that were PRESENT when Hezbollah kidnapped three other Israeli soldiers.
In that incident, it turned out that Hezbollah fighters were able to get close enough because they were wearing UNIFIL uniforms supplied by Indian elements of the UNIFIL force [in exchange for bribes amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars).
An Indian soldier attached to that UNIFIL unit later testified, "By this stage, there was a big commotion and dozens of UN soldiers from the Indian brigade came around." He testified that they all knew that the men wearing their uniforms were really Hezbollah in disguise.
He also testified that at least four UN soldiers collaborated with Hezbollah, helping them to reach the ambush site and assisted them in locating their IDF targets. When the story broke, Kofi Annan indignantly denied it and refused to investigate or take any action against the UNIFIL soldiers involved.
When Israel discovered the attack had been videotaped by UNIFIL soldiers, it demanded access to it. Kofi Annan and his Special Envoy denied that any videotape existed. Nine months after the kidnapping, July 6, 2001, the UN admitted that it had the videotape but refused to turn it over to Israel.
Kofi Annan demanded a UN 'investigation', which unsurprisingly concluded that there was no evidence that the UNIFIL forces had been bribed, or that the UN had deliberately misled anyone.
Annan nevertheless continued to refuse to let Israel see the tape until after he was forced to by a US Congressional vote [411-4] that tied compliance with Israeli's request to continued US financial support.
In the end, Kofi relented, kinda, but not before doctoring the tape so the perpetrators could not be identified. He also agreed to give the Israelis some, but not all, of the items which the UN had seized from the getaway cars.
On January 29, 2004, the bodies of the murdered Israelis were returned to Israel by Hezbollah, as part of a prisoner exchange.
So clearly, UNIFIL is the PERFECT choice to continue to protect Israel from Islamic terror. Which is why Kofi praised them so profusely in his UN rant following Resolution 1701's unanimous assage.
Resolution 1701 forbids further deployment of 'foreign forces' [like Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Syrian intelligence, etc.] from Lebanon without the consent of Lebanon's government. It forbids the sales or supply of arms and weapons into Lebanon without authorization from Lebanon's government.
Kofi Annan says that should address Israel's concerns about Hezbollah using the ceasefire to rearm itself. And it requires Lebanon's government to obey previous UN resolutions to disarm Hezbollah.
Has anybody ELSE noticed that Hezbollah is an elected PART of Lebanon's government?
As a parting shot, Resolution 1701 “Stresses the importance of, and the need to achieve, a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East, based on all its relevant resolutions including its resolutions 242 (1967) of 22 November 1967 and 338 (1973) of 22 October 1973.”
Strangely, Resolution 1559 calling for the disarmament of Hezbollah and Hamas wasn't mentioned as relevant to "a just and lasting peace."
I could go on, but its too depressing. So I just put Old Yeller in my DVD player. I could use a happy ending.
Jack Kinsella - Omega Letter Editor
08.26.06
I think I'll buy it and watch it again. Maybe THIS time, it will have a happy ending. If not, I'll go buy another copy from a different story and try watching that one. Maybe he won't shoot the dog.
If not, there are other stores . . . I know it sounds silly, but if I do it often enough, and talk about how often I do it, I may be offered a job as a UN diplomat.
It sounds like a fun job. Lots of travel, a big expense account, and I understand that the more meaningless your efforts are, the further you can advance up the ladder.
Who knows? If my work is irrelevant enough, I might even get elected Secretary-General where I can help the down-trodden and victimized of this world by rewarding the victimizers and blaming the victims and be the recipient of global accolades for my far-reaching irrelevance.
If not, there's always Disneyland. I hear they have a whole section called Fantasy Land that is evidently dedicated to training UN Secretary-General wannabes.
Or maybe I can enroll in the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad School of Genocidal Cultural Sensitivity. Or the Yasser Arafat Memorial School For Jewish Advancement.
I just want to make the world a better place, and the most expedient method is evidently by helping the Jews make the transition from this Jerusalem to the Big Jerusalem In the Sky.
At the very least, I might get a job offer from Hezbollah or Hamas. Or a nice 'thank you' card from the Big Kahuna himself, Osama bin Laden. . . .
In 1948, the combined forces of the Arab world converged on Israel following her declaration of statehood, vowing to annihilate the infant state while still in its crib.
The UN remained silent, fully expecting the Arab war machine to overrun the unarmed and unorganized Jewish state and put an end to the Jewish Question without having to endure another Adolf Hitler or another world war in order to accomplish it, while keeping a clear conscience in the meantime.
After all, the Germans were Europeans and Europe was much too cultured to countenance another Holocaust on its soil. On the other hand, the attacking forces in this case were all Arab Muslims. And killing Jews is what Arab Muslims do.
Nobody can blame them for that, anymore than one can blame a cat for killing mice. So the UN accepted Israel's declaration, granted it admission to the UN, and sat back to enjoy the fireworks.
To the UN's surprise, the ragtag Israeli Defense Forces beat back the combined armies of Transjordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Saudi Arabia and acquired an extra 2000 square miles of territory beyond that granted by the 1947 Partition Plan.
This forced the United Nations to impose a cease-fire on Israel, before the Israelis took over the whole durned Islamic Middle East.
In 1956, a new war between Israel and Egypt's Gamal Abdul Nasser broke out after the armies of Jordan, Egypt and Syria were consolidated under Egyptian leadership in a second effort to eradicate the Jewish State.
Israel's Operation Kadesh, commanded by Moshe Dayan, lasted less than a week; its forces reached the eastern bank of the Suez Canal in about 100 hours, seizing the Gaza Strip and nearly all the Sinai Peninsula.
Panicked, the UN General Assembly imposed a cease fire against Israel, forcing the Jewish State to give back all the territory it had gained during the second war of annihilation against the Jews in the space of eight years.
The hard-headed Israelis refused to surrender to the UN at first. It took several more resolutions and pressure from the United States before Israel withdrew in 1957 to its original, indefensible borders to wait for the next invasion.
Even then, the Jews wouldn't withdraw without security guarantees, so the UN established a United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) to stand between Israel and the Arab world.
It took ten years before the Arab world sufficiently recovered to mount a third attempt to annihilate the Jews.
In June, 1967, when the Arab forces were fully prepared and Cairo has massed sufficient troops along Israel's border, UNEF pulled out and let Jordan, Syria and Egypt have another go at them.
Six days later, Israel had destroyed the Arab Legion's air force, kicked Syria off the Golan Heights, took back all of Jerusalem, threw Jordan out of the West Bank and took the Gaza Strip away from Egypt.
Israel's annexation of Sinai, Gaza, Arab East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Golan Heights, shortened its land frontiers with Egypt and Jordan, removed the most heavily populated Jewish areas from direct Arab artillery range, and temporarily increased its strategic advantages.
Aghast, the United Nations imposed another ceasefire on Israel [Resolution 242] before the Islamic world's war-making abilities were completely destroyed.
In 1973, Egypt tried again, supported by Syria and financed by Saudi Arabia. The sneak attack was scheduled for October 6, as Israeli forces were at home with their families celebrating Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.
The UN's major powers, including the US, Russians, French and the UK all knew of the attack several days in advance, but, in the spirit of fair play, let Israel discover it when Egyptian and Syrian tanks began rolling over Israel's border cities.
When it became clear that, instead of being finally destroyed, the Israelis had started to win [again] the UN forced another ceasefire and stationed another UN force between Israel and the Arabs to oversee Israeli compliance. [Resolution 338]
The Arab governments finally realized that they couldn't defeat Israel by conventional means, so they went underground, offering material support and training to Islamic terror groups, including Yasser Arafat's al Fatah and later, to Hezbollah.
In the thirty years since, the UN has passed more resolutions 'condemning' Israel, 'deploring' Israel, 'strongly condemning' Israel, imposing conditions on Israel and subsequently 'deeply regretting' Israel for ignoring them than it has against the rest of the world combined.
Twenty-six percent of all UN resolutions passed by the General Assembly since 1948 expressly condemn Israel. Of the 175 resolutions passed between 1948 and 1991, 97 – more than half – were aimed at Israel. Four were against an Arab state.
A month ago, Hamas infiltrated Israeli territory, killing several Israeli soldiers and kidnapping one young Israeli corporal to hold hostage, demanding the release of 1200 Palestinian terrorists held in Israeli jails as ransom.
The following week, Hezbollah invaded from the north, killed eight Israeli soldiers and kidnapped two more, announcing its intention to ransom its hostages for terrorist prisoners held by Israel.
The United Nations approved a document entitled “International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages” in December, 1979. Article 1 of this document defines the crime:
“Any person who seizes or detains and threatens to kill, to injure or to continue to detain another person (hereinafter referred to as the "hostage") in order to compel a third party, namely, a State, an international intergovernmental organization, a natural or juridical person, or a group of persons, to do or abstain from doing any act as an explicit or implicit condition for the release of the hostage commits the offence of taking of hostages ("hostage-taking") within the meaning of this Convention.”
Article 3 expressly gives the state whose citizen was taken hostage carte blanche to do what is necessary to recover such hostages.
“The State Party in the territory of which the hostage is held by the offender shall take all measures it considers appropriate to ease the situation of the hostage, in particular, to secure his release and, after his release, to facilitate, when relevant, his departure.”
Since the UN has not invoked [or even alluded to] its own conventions on hostage taking, one can only conclude that, under UN rules, 1) an Israeli hostage is not a 'person' and, 2) Israel is not a 'state'.
Therefore, Israeli military efforts aimed at recovering its hostages cannot be permitted. Consequently, UN Resolution 1701 imposing an Israeli ceasefire and withdrawal from Lebanon [without its hostages] passed the UN Security Council unanimously.
Secretary Kofi Annan expressed his deep disappointment in the Security Council [read: the United States] for letting Israel run roughshod over the 'innocent' Lebanese (who supplied Hezbollah with both a base of operations and helped them spirit Israeli hostages out of reach.)
Resolution 1701 'tabled' the fate of the hostages until a later time. [No doubt an endless source of comfort and hope for the Israeli hostages and their families]
To ensure a 'lasting peace' Israel must stop killing Hezbollah fighters. [While there are still some left to rearm and regroup]. UNIFIL's mandate to ensure Lebanon's border security was renewed. UNIFIL has been on Lebanon's border for 28 years. It is worth remembering that UNIFIL witnessed the Hezbollah abductions on July 12, but neither prevented NOR REPORTED it.
In its entire 28 year history, UNIFIL has yet to be cited as having prevented a SINGLE cross border incursion into Israeli territory by Hezbollah terrorists.
However, UNIFIL's value as a neutral deterrent force WAS highlighted in 2000. That was when the UN was forced to release photographic evidence of 'dozens' of UNIFIL troops and official UNIFIL vehicles that were PRESENT when Hezbollah kidnapped three other Israeli soldiers.
In that incident, it turned out that Hezbollah fighters were able to get close enough because they were wearing UNIFIL uniforms supplied by Indian elements of the UNIFIL force [in exchange for bribes amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars).
An Indian soldier attached to that UNIFIL unit later testified, "By this stage, there was a big commotion and dozens of UN soldiers from the Indian brigade came around." He testified that they all knew that the men wearing their uniforms were really Hezbollah in disguise.
He also testified that at least four UN soldiers collaborated with Hezbollah, helping them to reach the ambush site and assisted them in locating their IDF targets. When the story broke, Kofi Annan indignantly denied it and refused to investigate or take any action against the UNIFIL soldiers involved.
When Israel discovered the attack had been videotaped by UNIFIL soldiers, it demanded access to it. Kofi Annan and his Special Envoy denied that any videotape existed. Nine months after the kidnapping, July 6, 2001, the UN admitted that it had the videotape but refused to turn it over to Israel.
Kofi Annan demanded a UN 'investigation', which unsurprisingly concluded that there was no evidence that the UNIFIL forces had been bribed, or that the UN had deliberately misled anyone.
Annan nevertheless continued to refuse to let Israel see the tape until after he was forced to by a US Congressional vote [411-4] that tied compliance with Israeli's request to continued US financial support.
In the end, Kofi relented, kinda, but not before doctoring the tape so the perpetrators could not be identified. He also agreed to give the Israelis some, but not all, of the items which the UN had seized from the getaway cars.
On January 29, 2004, the bodies of the murdered Israelis were returned to Israel by Hezbollah, as part of a prisoner exchange.
So clearly, UNIFIL is the PERFECT choice to continue to protect Israel from Islamic terror. Which is why Kofi praised them so profusely in his UN rant following Resolution 1701's unanimous assage.
Resolution 1701 forbids further deployment of 'foreign forces' [like Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Syrian intelligence, etc.] from Lebanon without the consent of Lebanon's government. It forbids the sales or supply of arms and weapons into Lebanon without authorization from Lebanon's government.
Kofi Annan says that should address Israel's concerns about Hezbollah using the ceasefire to rearm itself. And it requires Lebanon's government to obey previous UN resolutions to disarm Hezbollah.
Has anybody ELSE noticed that Hezbollah is an elected PART of Lebanon's government?
As a parting shot, Resolution 1701 “Stresses the importance of, and the need to achieve, a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East, based on all its relevant resolutions including its resolutions 242 (1967) of 22 November 1967 and 338 (1973) of 22 October 1973.”
Strangely, Resolution 1559 calling for the disarmament of Hezbollah and Hamas wasn't mentioned as relevant to "a just and lasting peace."
I could go on, but its too depressing. So I just put Old Yeller in my DVD player. I could use a happy ending.
Jack Kinsella - Omega Letter Editor
08.26.06
Friday, August 25, 2006
The Blind Leading The Blind
Indians rush to temples to feed "thirsty" idols
LUCKNOW, India (Reuters) - Thousands of people flocked to temples across India on Monday following reports that idols of Hindu gods were drinking milk given by devotees as sacred offerings, witnesses said.
Teenagers, adults and the aged stood in long lines with garlands and bowls of milk to feed the idols of Lord Shiva, Lord Krishna and the elephant-headed Lord Ganesha, they said.
Hundreds chanted hymns in the northern city of Lucknow and the eastern city of Kolkata and went into hysterics when the milk held against the idols disappeared.
"It is amazing, Lord Ganesha drank milk from my hands. Now he will answer all my prayers," said Surama Dasgupta, a middle-aged woman in Kolkata.
The frenzy began late on Sunday in some northern cities and soon spread across the country, including the capital New Delhi, even as rationalists and non-believers called it mass hysteria.
A similar mania gripped the country in 1995 when thousands of Hindus fed milk in spoons to marble idols of Lord Ganesha.
That rumour spread across the globe and there were reports of Hindu deities drinking milk in London, New York and Italy.
"It is very natural for any stone idol to absorb any liquid and the older the stone the more it absorbs," M.P. Singh, a geology professor at Lucknow University, told Reuters.
The "milk miracle" came days after thousands of people in the financial hub of Mumbai drank water from a murky Arabian Sea creek as they thought it had miraculously turned sweet and could cure illnesses.
But police stepped in and stopped people after Mumbai's civic officials said the water could have temporarily lost its salinity due to pollution and inflow of freshwater from a nearby source.
Additional reporting by Prithwish Ganguly in NEW DELHI)
TETO EDITOR'S NOTE:
1 Corinthians 12:1-2
1 Now concerning spiritual things, brothers, I don't want you to be ignorant.
2 You know that when you were heathens, you were led away to those dumb idols, wherever you might be led.
LUCKNOW, India (Reuters) - Thousands of people flocked to temples across India on Monday following reports that idols of Hindu gods were drinking milk given by devotees as sacred offerings, witnesses said.
Teenagers, adults and the aged stood in long lines with garlands and bowls of milk to feed the idols of Lord Shiva, Lord Krishna and the elephant-headed Lord Ganesha, they said.
Hundreds chanted hymns in the northern city of Lucknow and the eastern city of Kolkata and went into hysterics when the milk held against the idols disappeared.
"It is amazing, Lord Ganesha drank milk from my hands. Now he will answer all my prayers," said Surama Dasgupta, a middle-aged woman in Kolkata.
The frenzy began late on Sunday in some northern cities and soon spread across the country, including the capital New Delhi, even as rationalists and non-believers called it mass hysteria.
A similar mania gripped the country in 1995 when thousands of Hindus fed milk in spoons to marble idols of Lord Ganesha.
That rumour spread across the globe and there were reports of Hindu deities drinking milk in London, New York and Italy.
"It is very natural for any stone idol to absorb any liquid and the older the stone the more it absorbs," M.P. Singh, a geology professor at Lucknow University, told Reuters.
The "milk miracle" came days after thousands of people in the financial hub of Mumbai drank water from a murky Arabian Sea creek as they thought it had miraculously turned sweet and could cure illnesses.
But police stepped in and stopped people after Mumbai's civic officials said the water could have temporarily lost its salinity due to pollution and inflow of freshwater from a nearby source.
Additional reporting by Prithwish Ganguly in NEW DELHI)
TETO EDITOR'S NOTE:
1 Corinthians 12:1-2
1 Now concerning spiritual things, brothers, I don't want you to be ignorant.
2 You know that when you were heathens, you were led away to those dumb idols, wherever you might be led.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
The Tragedy Continues
One year ago this month, I was fired from my talk radio job by ABC/Disney for saying on the air — and in these pages — that "Islam is a terrorist organization."
My argument was very simple. Any organization that allows terrorists to operate freely in its name; whose ideology is, rightly or wrongly, used to justify and promote terrorism; and whose membership includes, according to every international poll, hundreds of millions of devotees who support suicide bombing — that organization has a unique problem with terrorism.
That's what I said. ABC ordered me to apologize for it. They insisted I perform community service as a form of penance for it. I told them I would never apologize for telling the truth, and they fired me.
One year later, I'm back on the air and I haven't changed a bit. The problem is, neither has Islam.
One year ago, I reported in horror that approximately one in four British Muslims told pollsters that, if they knew about a terrorist plot targeting their fellow British citizens, they would not report it to the police. "Troubling," I said at the time, but not as bad as actually supporting terrorist attacks.
Now, a new poll shows that about one in four British Muslims support suicide bombings, that the 7/7 attacks in London were justified. Nearly half of British Muslims today believe the 9/11 attacks on New York were a conspiracy involving the US government and Israel.
These are Muslims in Britain. Not Baghdad, not Bangladesh, but living in the heart of the modern, Western world.
One year ago, I mocked an anti-terrorism press conference by "moderate" London imams when the event came to an abrupt, embarrassing end because one imam pointed out that attacks against Jews were, of course, still allowed.
Today, anti-Semitic terrorists fire rockets at Jewish neighborhoods in Israel, and not a single major Muslim leader in the world has condemned them. Hamas receives money from devout Muslims in Saudi Arabia. Hezbollah receives missiles and money from the clerics of Iran.
The leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, even gets a photo-op with the head of the United Nations — in between firing mortars at Israeli schoolchildren.
Kofi Annan had his picture taken with an Islamist terrorist, and he gets to keep his job at the UN. I point out that the guy's terrorism is inspired by his faith, and I get fired. Go figure.
In the twelve months since ABC fired me under threats from CAIR — the Council of Angry Islamic Radi…er the "Council on American-Islamic Relations" — we've seen newspaper cartoonists driven into hiding for drawing pictures of Mohammed. We've seen western politicians and media outlets pressured into abandoning free speech by threats of violence in the name of Islam. And of course, we've seen terrorist plots uncovered in Toronto and Miami, and Jews gunned down in a Seattle office building.
We've seen Muslim voters elect terrorists into office in Gaza and Lebanon. We've even seen pro-Hezbollah protests here in the US, greeted by courageous American politicians like Democratic congressman John Dingell with those rousing words in defense of freedom: "I don't take sides for or against Hezbollah."
OK, so it's not quite "Give me liberty or give me death…"
The tragedy of Islam is not that all Muslims are terrorists, or that one must support violence in order to be a good Muslim. Such notions are nonsense.
Rather, the tragedy is that, nearly five years after 9/11, Osama bin Laden is still a member in good standing of the Islamic faith. He has not been declared apostate. His theology has not been denounced as heresy. The Koranic verses used to inspire his murder have not been reformed or re-interpreted. His supporters have not been cast out of their local mosques.
The extremist violence in the name of Islam continues. And so does the deafening silence from the wider Muslim world.
It's not enough for the moderate Muslim majority to say "I don't agree with Osama," any more than it would be enough for Southern Baptist churches to tell the KKK "Hey, you boys have to sit in the back of the church. And be sure to take your hoods off during the prayer."
Islam, like Catholicism and Protestantism and Buddhism and every other "ism" has a duty to confront evil. To fight it, to oppose with both the force of ideas and, when necessary, the force of arms. Merely clearing one's throat and saying "Well, those terrorists aren't my kind of Muslim, harrumph" isn't enough.
At least, it's not enough for me. Until a majority of Muslims agree, the tragedy of Islam will continue for another year.
Jewish World review
08.24.2006
My argument was very simple. Any organization that allows terrorists to operate freely in its name; whose ideology is, rightly or wrongly, used to justify and promote terrorism; and whose membership includes, according to every international poll, hundreds of millions of devotees who support suicide bombing — that organization has a unique problem with terrorism.
That's what I said. ABC ordered me to apologize for it. They insisted I perform community service as a form of penance for it. I told them I would never apologize for telling the truth, and they fired me.
One year later, I'm back on the air and I haven't changed a bit. The problem is, neither has Islam.
One year ago, I reported in horror that approximately one in four British Muslims told pollsters that, if they knew about a terrorist plot targeting their fellow British citizens, they would not report it to the police. "Troubling," I said at the time, but not as bad as actually supporting terrorist attacks.
Now, a new poll shows that about one in four British Muslims support suicide bombings, that the 7/7 attacks in London were justified. Nearly half of British Muslims today believe the 9/11 attacks on New York were a conspiracy involving the US government and Israel.
These are Muslims in Britain. Not Baghdad, not Bangladesh, but living in the heart of the modern, Western world.
One year ago, I mocked an anti-terrorism press conference by "moderate" London imams when the event came to an abrupt, embarrassing end because one imam pointed out that attacks against Jews were, of course, still allowed.
Today, anti-Semitic terrorists fire rockets at Jewish neighborhoods in Israel, and not a single major Muslim leader in the world has condemned them. Hamas receives money from devout Muslims in Saudi Arabia. Hezbollah receives missiles and money from the clerics of Iran.
The leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, even gets a photo-op with the head of the United Nations — in between firing mortars at Israeli schoolchildren.
Kofi Annan had his picture taken with an Islamist terrorist, and he gets to keep his job at the UN. I point out that the guy's terrorism is inspired by his faith, and I get fired. Go figure.
In the twelve months since ABC fired me under threats from CAIR — the Council of Angry Islamic Radi…er the "Council on American-Islamic Relations" — we've seen newspaper cartoonists driven into hiding for drawing pictures of Mohammed. We've seen western politicians and media outlets pressured into abandoning free speech by threats of violence in the name of Islam. And of course, we've seen terrorist plots uncovered in Toronto and Miami, and Jews gunned down in a Seattle office building.
We've seen Muslim voters elect terrorists into office in Gaza and Lebanon. We've even seen pro-Hezbollah protests here in the US, greeted by courageous American politicians like Democratic congressman John Dingell with those rousing words in defense of freedom: "I don't take sides for or against Hezbollah."
OK, so it's not quite "Give me liberty or give me death…"
The tragedy of Islam is not that all Muslims are terrorists, or that one must support violence in order to be a good Muslim. Such notions are nonsense.
Rather, the tragedy is that, nearly five years after 9/11, Osama bin Laden is still a member in good standing of the Islamic faith. He has not been declared apostate. His theology has not been denounced as heresy. The Koranic verses used to inspire his murder have not been reformed or re-interpreted. His supporters have not been cast out of their local mosques.
The extremist violence in the name of Islam continues. And so does the deafening silence from the wider Muslim world.
It's not enough for the moderate Muslim majority to say "I don't agree with Osama," any more than it would be enough for Southern Baptist churches to tell the KKK "Hey, you boys have to sit in the back of the church. And be sure to take your hoods off during the prayer."
Islam, like Catholicism and Protestantism and Buddhism and every other "ism" has a duty to confront evil. To fight it, to oppose with both the force of ideas and, when necessary, the force of arms. Merely clearing one's throat and saying "Well, those terrorists aren't my kind of Muslim, harrumph" isn't enough.
At least, it's not enough for me. Until a majority of Muslims agree, the tragedy of Islam will continue for another year.
Jewish World review
08.24.2006
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Israel Buys 2 New Submarines From Germany
In the face of Iran's race to obtain nuclear power, Israel signed a contract with Germany last month to buy two Dolphin-class submarines that will, according to foreign reports, provide superior second-strike nuclear capabilities, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
The submarines will be assembled in Germany and provided with a propulsion system allowing them to remain underwater for far longer than the submarines currently in the Israel Navy's fleet.
According to sources close to the deal, the submarines will be operational in the near future.
The Post has also learned that the navy is considering installing a Fixed Underwater Sonar System (FUSS) off the coast to detect foreign submarines.
In 1993, Iran bought two Russian Kilo-class submarines and eight mini-submarines from North Korea, although officials said this was not the only reason the system was being considered. In 2005, Israel spotted a Western submarine snooping off its shore.
The contract signing was said to have come after a long dispute over the price and financing of the submarines. According to the details obtained by the Post, Israel will purchase the two Dolphins, manufactured by Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft AG, for $1.27 billion, a third of which will be financed by the German government.
The navy already has three Dolphin-class submarines. They are the most expensive weapon platforms in the IDF's arsenal. Germany donated the first two submarines after the first Gulf War and split the cost of the third with Israel. The three submarines currently in the navy's possession employ a diesel-electric propulsion system, which requires them to resurface frequently to recharge their batteries.
The new submarines - called the U212 - will be fitted with a new German technology in which the propulsion system combines a conventional diesel lead-acid battery system and an air-independent propulsion system used for slow, silent cruising, with a fuel cell equipped with oxygen and hydrogen storage.
The submarines will also incorporate specifications gleaned from Israeli experience. The Dolphins currently in the navy's fleet were tailor-made for Israel's needs and reportedly have considerable operational capability. They are designed for a crew of 35 and can support 10 passengers. They have a maximum speed of 20 knots, a range of 4,500 kilometers and, according to Jane's Defense Weekly, the capability to launch cruise missiles carrying nuclear warheads.
"With the new German technology," an official close to the deal said, "the new submarines will be able to remain submerged for much, much longer than the older Dolphin models."
News of the impending deal first emerged in November after Der Spiegel reported that chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's outgoing government had agreed to sell Israel two submarines at a heavily discounted price.
Prior to then, the German government had repeatedly turned down the request, supposedly because of reports the navy had outfitted the older submarines with Israeli-made, sea-launched cruise missiles.
Sensitive armament sales need approval from Berlin's Security Council. Several months ago, however, the German government, now headed by Chancellor Angela Merkel, approved the deal after, sources told the Post, no significant public opposition was voiced.
Closure of the deal followed on the heels of a warming in German-Israel ties. In 2005, the countries agreed for the first time to hold joint ground maneuvers. In June, the INS Eilat missile ship participated for the first time in a NATO exercise in the Black Sea, together with German Navy.
Jerusalem Post
08.23.2006
The submarines will be assembled in Germany and provided with a propulsion system allowing them to remain underwater for far longer than the submarines currently in the Israel Navy's fleet.
According to sources close to the deal, the submarines will be operational in the near future.
The Post has also learned that the navy is considering installing a Fixed Underwater Sonar System (FUSS) off the coast to detect foreign submarines.
In 1993, Iran bought two Russian Kilo-class submarines and eight mini-submarines from North Korea, although officials said this was not the only reason the system was being considered. In 2005, Israel spotted a Western submarine snooping off its shore.
The contract signing was said to have come after a long dispute over the price and financing of the submarines. According to the details obtained by the Post, Israel will purchase the two Dolphins, manufactured by Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft AG, for $1.27 billion, a third of which will be financed by the German government.
The navy already has three Dolphin-class submarines. They are the most expensive weapon platforms in the IDF's arsenal. Germany donated the first two submarines after the first Gulf War and split the cost of the third with Israel. The three submarines currently in the navy's possession employ a diesel-electric propulsion system, which requires them to resurface frequently to recharge their batteries.
The new submarines - called the U212 - will be fitted with a new German technology in which the propulsion system combines a conventional diesel lead-acid battery system and an air-independent propulsion system used for slow, silent cruising, with a fuel cell equipped with oxygen and hydrogen storage.
The submarines will also incorporate specifications gleaned from Israeli experience. The Dolphins currently in the navy's fleet were tailor-made for Israel's needs and reportedly have considerable operational capability. They are designed for a crew of 35 and can support 10 passengers. They have a maximum speed of 20 knots, a range of 4,500 kilometers and, according to Jane's Defense Weekly, the capability to launch cruise missiles carrying nuclear warheads.
"With the new German technology," an official close to the deal said, "the new submarines will be able to remain submerged for much, much longer than the older Dolphin models."
News of the impending deal first emerged in November after Der Spiegel reported that chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's outgoing government had agreed to sell Israel two submarines at a heavily discounted price.
Prior to then, the German government had repeatedly turned down the request, supposedly because of reports the navy had outfitted the older submarines with Israeli-made, sea-launched cruise missiles.
Sensitive armament sales need approval from Berlin's Security Council. Several months ago, however, the German government, now headed by Chancellor Angela Merkel, approved the deal after, sources told the Post, no significant public opposition was voiced.
Closure of the deal followed on the heels of a warming in German-Israel ties. In 2005, the countries agreed for the first time to hold joint ground maneuvers. In June, the INS Eilat missile ship participated for the first time in a NATO exercise in the Black Sea, together with German Navy.
Jerusalem Post
08.23.2006
Monday, August 21, 2006
The End Times Chronology
A Bible Study by Jack Kelley
Four major events that will yet occur as we approach the end of the age involve Israel and/or the Church. They are:
The Rapture of the Church
The Battle described in Ezekiel 38-39
The 70th Week of Daniel 9 including The Great Tribulation
The Return of our Lord to judge the world and establish His Kingdom
Four others are intended primarily for the Gentile world:
The Revived Roman Empire
The one world government of antichrist
The unified apostate church
The re-emergence of Babylon
We track some of these in our 7 signs updates, along with others already in some stage of fulfillment. In this study I will demonstrate that I've listed the four that pertain to the Church and Israel in chronological order.
The End times According To Jesus
In the Olivet Discourse of Matthew 24-25 the Lord mentions the Great Tribulation (and by implication the 70th week) and the 2nd coming including His Judgements and the beginning of His Kingdom. He's answering the question, "What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?" by describing events up to and including the beginning of the Millennium.
We in the church see the rapture as a huge sign that the end of the age has come, and for us it will have, but the Lord didn't include it in His presentation. This is further proof of two things; 1. He's speaking through His Jewish Disciples to Israel, and 2. The Rapture of the Church is not directly connected to other end times events.
Nine "time stamps" in Matthew 24:15, 21, 23, 29, 30,and 36, and 25:1, 14, and 31 all refer to the Great Tribulation and His 2nd coming. By this we can infer that the Rapture and the Battle of Ezekiel 38 will have already taken place and the 70th week is half over. But does the Bible give us any direct support for this view?
Let's Take An Easy One First.
Daniel 9 says that in the middle of the last seven year period, antichrist will set up an abomination that causes desolation. In Matt 24 Jesus tells His disciples that when they (Israel) see the abomination that causes desolation spoken of by Daniel the Prophet the Great Tribulation will begin. So the first thing we know is that the70th week is half over when the Great Tribulation begins.
An Overlooked Account
Luke 17:20-37 is a frequently overlooked passage containing discussion on the Coming Kingdom. Since some of the phrases are identical to those seen in the Olivet Discourse passages, it is often viewed as being redundant, but I think it's placed there for a specific reason. Let's dissect it.
In verses 20-21 the Lord is asked by Pharisees about the coming kingdom and tells them it's "within" them. Wait a minute. These were Pharisees, not followers, how could He say "within?" Well, it's one of those fascinating cases of double meaning. The Greek word en is also translated among, and both meanings are in view here.
On one hand He's telling us to look into our hearts to find the Kingdom within. On the other He's directing them to look at Him. The Personification of the Kingdom was among them; He had grown up among them. In neither case were any visible signs present. It was a hint that the Kingdom would come in two phases, and he was talking about the first one.
Another hint follows immediately. In vs. 22-25 He tells His disciples His Day will be like lightning flashing across a dark sky; a sudden spectacular event visible to all simultaneously. But first, He must suffer and be rejected. Here He's obviously referring to the second phase.
As It Was In The Days Of Noah
Next comes vs. 26-27, a repeat of the phrase in Matt 24 about the days of Noah. A careful reading of Genesis 7:1-4 tells us that the Lord gave Noah seven days to make final preparation for the judgement. For the next seven days they herded all the animals into the ark they had built while the people around laughed them to scorn. Then in verse 7:13 we're told that on the very day they entered the ark the flood came, and only Noah, his three sons and their four wives were saved. Many see Noah and his family as a model of the remnant of Israel, preserved through judgement.
From the beginning of the 70th week of Daniel there will be ample signs that the world is being prepared for judgement, and then on the day the believing remnant flees Jerusalem, having seen the abomination that causes desolation, the Great Tribulation begins. (The rapture will have to have occurred quite some time previously, or there wouldn't be any believing remnant to flee.
The church is to be kept from the time, the place and any relation to the judgement, and there has to be time for post-church converts.) Even during the time of the Great Tribulation, people will be trying their best to go about life as usual, ignoring the signs all around of the impending judgement. Then on the day they see the sign of the Son of Man coming on the clouds in great glory, all the nations of the earth will mourn. They'll realize they waited too long.
You Have To Leave, Lot
Verses 28-29 seem to the casual reader to be just another example of the same, but we know better. The story of Lot and his family contains striking differences from the story of Noah. Contrary to being two ways of saying the same thing, they actually describe two different sets of conditions. In Genesis 19:22 the angels tell Lot they are not permitted to do anything until he and his family are gone.
In 1 Thes 1:10 where Paul promises that the church will be rescued from the wrath to come, the word translated from is apo in the Greek. It means from the time, place and any relation to the event. Perhaps Lot is a model of the church; removed from the time, place and any relation to the judgement before it can begin.
Verses 30-33 bring us full circle. Where a man's treasure is, there is his heart. Going back or even looking back is an indicator of his motives. Learn what a person pays attention to, and you'll soon discover what his intentions are.
It's Greek To Me
Verses 34-36 confuse many, because we don't study the Greek. The word translated taken means to receive to oneself, and the one translated left means to send away. This can't be the Rapture because the words don't fit the event. Sure the Church is received to the Lord in the Rapture, but the rest aren't sent anywhere.
This passage explains the disposition of the "sheep and goats" from the parable in Matt 25. Those taken (received) refers to the sheep who go live into the Kingdom and those left (sent away) refers to the goats who are removed to the place prepared for the devil and his angels.Both the sheep and the goats receive the destiny mandated by the intent of their hearts at the end of the Great Tribulation, just at the outset of the Millennium.
The last verse, "where there's a dead body, the vultures will gather" is a parable. A dead body is the object of a vulture's interest. The question, "where, Lord?" pertains to both groups, the taken and the left. The Lord is confirming that the disposition of each will be according to the object of their interest. If the object is not heaven, then by default it becomes hell.
At the end of the age, the Lord will send clear warning that a time of judgement is coming. Many see early signs of that warning in events of today. Prior to executing it, He will make arrangements to preserve a remnant of Israel through the judgement (Noah), and extract His church from it (Lot). Use history as your guide.
A Prophecy Lesson
As a consequence of rejecting their Messiah, Jesus predicted destruction for Jerusalem and the Temple (Luke 19:41-44), and Prophets had earlier spoken of the scattering of the people as well. Within 38 years after the Crucifixion the city and Temple had been destroyed and the scattering begun. The Lord used the defeat of Israel in 70 AD to show He was turning away from them. During that same time period the church was born and became the object of the Lord's focus, and soon Israel disappeared as a nation. All this happened within the lifetimes of the generation into which Jesus was born.
Several Prophets had spoken of a future re-gathering of the people and Jesus said that Jerusalem would be restored when the times of the gentiles were complete. James clarified in Acts 15 that this would happen after the Lord had taken a people from among the gentiles for His own name's sake. The re-gathering became official in 1948, and Jerusalem was returned to Israel in 1967.
The Lord also proclaimed that He will use the battle of Ezekiel 38-39 to prove to Israel and to the nations that He is turning back to them. Therefore, that battle must take place before the 70th week begins. The treaty that ends the battle may in fact usher in the 70th week.
Because we can't know the future, the Bible instructs us to learn from the past. If the events of the 2nd Coming are a mirror image of the First, the Church must disappear, and then the Battle of Ezekiel, the 70th week, the new Temple, the Great Tribulation, and the 2nd Coming all happen within the lifetimes of the generation born between the rebirth of Israel in 1948 and the recovery of Jerusalem in 1967.
Better fasten your seatbelts. we've got an exciting ride ahead.
Copyright © 1999-2006
Gracethrufaith Incorporated. All rights reserved.
Four major events that will yet occur as we approach the end of the age involve Israel and/or the Church. They are:
The Rapture of the Church
The Battle described in Ezekiel 38-39
The 70th Week of Daniel 9 including The Great Tribulation
The Return of our Lord to judge the world and establish His Kingdom
Four others are intended primarily for the Gentile world:
The Revived Roman Empire
The one world government of antichrist
The unified apostate church
The re-emergence of Babylon
We track some of these in our 7 signs updates, along with others already in some stage of fulfillment. In this study I will demonstrate that I've listed the four that pertain to the Church and Israel in chronological order.
The End times According To Jesus
In the Olivet Discourse of Matthew 24-25 the Lord mentions the Great Tribulation (and by implication the 70th week) and the 2nd coming including His Judgements and the beginning of His Kingdom. He's answering the question, "What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?" by describing events up to and including the beginning of the Millennium.
We in the church see the rapture as a huge sign that the end of the age has come, and for us it will have, but the Lord didn't include it in His presentation. This is further proof of two things; 1. He's speaking through His Jewish Disciples to Israel, and 2. The Rapture of the Church is not directly connected to other end times events.
Nine "time stamps" in Matthew 24:15, 21, 23, 29, 30,and 36, and 25:1, 14, and 31 all refer to the Great Tribulation and His 2nd coming. By this we can infer that the Rapture and the Battle of Ezekiel 38 will have already taken place and the 70th week is half over. But does the Bible give us any direct support for this view?
Let's Take An Easy One First.
Daniel 9 says that in the middle of the last seven year period, antichrist will set up an abomination that causes desolation. In Matt 24 Jesus tells His disciples that when they (Israel) see the abomination that causes desolation spoken of by Daniel the Prophet the Great Tribulation will begin. So the first thing we know is that the70th week is half over when the Great Tribulation begins.
An Overlooked Account
Luke 17:20-37 is a frequently overlooked passage containing discussion on the Coming Kingdom. Since some of the phrases are identical to those seen in the Olivet Discourse passages, it is often viewed as being redundant, but I think it's placed there for a specific reason. Let's dissect it.
In verses 20-21 the Lord is asked by Pharisees about the coming kingdom and tells them it's "within" them. Wait a minute. These were Pharisees, not followers, how could He say "within?" Well, it's one of those fascinating cases of double meaning. The Greek word en is also translated among, and both meanings are in view here.
On one hand He's telling us to look into our hearts to find the Kingdom within. On the other He's directing them to look at Him. The Personification of the Kingdom was among them; He had grown up among them. In neither case were any visible signs present. It was a hint that the Kingdom would come in two phases, and he was talking about the first one.
Another hint follows immediately. In vs. 22-25 He tells His disciples His Day will be like lightning flashing across a dark sky; a sudden spectacular event visible to all simultaneously. But first, He must suffer and be rejected. Here He's obviously referring to the second phase.
As It Was In The Days Of Noah
Next comes vs. 26-27, a repeat of the phrase in Matt 24 about the days of Noah. A careful reading of Genesis 7:1-4 tells us that the Lord gave Noah seven days to make final preparation for the judgement. For the next seven days they herded all the animals into the ark they had built while the people around laughed them to scorn. Then in verse 7:13 we're told that on the very day they entered the ark the flood came, and only Noah, his three sons and their four wives were saved. Many see Noah and his family as a model of the remnant of Israel, preserved through judgement.
From the beginning of the 70th week of Daniel there will be ample signs that the world is being prepared for judgement, and then on the day the believing remnant flees Jerusalem, having seen the abomination that causes desolation, the Great Tribulation begins. (The rapture will have to have occurred quite some time previously, or there wouldn't be any believing remnant to flee.
The church is to be kept from the time, the place and any relation to the judgement, and there has to be time for post-church converts.) Even during the time of the Great Tribulation, people will be trying their best to go about life as usual, ignoring the signs all around of the impending judgement. Then on the day they see the sign of the Son of Man coming on the clouds in great glory, all the nations of the earth will mourn. They'll realize they waited too long.
You Have To Leave, Lot
Verses 28-29 seem to the casual reader to be just another example of the same, but we know better. The story of Lot and his family contains striking differences from the story of Noah. Contrary to being two ways of saying the same thing, they actually describe two different sets of conditions. In Genesis 19:22 the angels tell Lot they are not permitted to do anything until he and his family are gone.
In 1 Thes 1:10 where Paul promises that the church will be rescued from the wrath to come, the word translated from is apo in the Greek. It means from the time, place and any relation to the event. Perhaps Lot is a model of the church; removed from the time, place and any relation to the judgement before it can begin.
Verses 30-33 bring us full circle. Where a man's treasure is, there is his heart. Going back or even looking back is an indicator of his motives. Learn what a person pays attention to, and you'll soon discover what his intentions are.
It's Greek To Me
Verses 34-36 confuse many, because we don't study the Greek. The word translated taken means to receive to oneself, and the one translated left means to send away. This can't be the Rapture because the words don't fit the event. Sure the Church is received to the Lord in the Rapture, but the rest aren't sent anywhere.
This passage explains the disposition of the "sheep and goats" from the parable in Matt 25. Those taken (received) refers to the sheep who go live into the Kingdom and those left (sent away) refers to the goats who are removed to the place prepared for the devil and his angels.Both the sheep and the goats receive the destiny mandated by the intent of their hearts at the end of the Great Tribulation, just at the outset of the Millennium.
The last verse, "where there's a dead body, the vultures will gather" is a parable. A dead body is the object of a vulture's interest. The question, "where, Lord?" pertains to both groups, the taken and the left. The Lord is confirming that the disposition of each will be according to the object of their interest. If the object is not heaven, then by default it becomes hell.
At the end of the age, the Lord will send clear warning that a time of judgement is coming. Many see early signs of that warning in events of today. Prior to executing it, He will make arrangements to preserve a remnant of Israel through the judgement (Noah), and extract His church from it (Lot). Use history as your guide.
A Prophecy Lesson
As a consequence of rejecting their Messiah, Jesus predicted destruction for Jerusalem and the Temple (Luke 19:41-44), and Prophets had earlier spoken of the scattering of the people as well. Within 38 years after the Crucifixion the city and Temple had been destroyed and the scattering begun. The Lord used the defeat of Israel in 70 AD to show He was turning away from them. During that same time period the church was born and became the object of the Lord's focus, and soon Israel disappeared as a nation. All this happened within the lifetimes of the generation into which Jesus was born.
Several Prophets had spoken of a future re-gathering of the people and Jesus said that Jerusalem would be restored when the times of the gentiles were complete. James clarified in Acts 15 that this would happen after the Lord had taken a people from among the gentiles for His own name's sake. The re-gathering became official in 1948, and Jerusalem was returned to Israel in 1967.
The Lord also proclaimed that He will use the battle of Ezekiel 38-39 to prove to Israel and to the nations that He is turning back to them. Therefore, that battle must take place before the 70th week begins. The treaty that ends the battle may in fact usher in the 70th week.
Because we can't know the future, the Bible instructs us to learn from the past. If the events of the 2nd Coming are a mirror image of the First, the Church must disappear, and then the Battle of Ezekiel, the 70th week, the new Temple, the Great Tribulation, and the 2nd Coming all happen within the lifetimes of the generation born between the rebirth of Israel in 1948 and the recovery of Jerusalem in 1967.
Better fasten your seatbelts. we've got an exciting ride ahead.
Copyright © 1999-2006
Gracethrufaith Incorporated. All rights reserved.
Useful Idiots: Islam’s Best Soldiers
Islam enjoys a large and influential ally among the non-Muslims: A new generation of “Useful Idiots,” that Lenin identified as those who lived in liberal democracies and furthered the work of communism. This new generation of Useful Idiots also lives in liberal democracies but serves the cause of Islamofascism—another virulent form of totalitarian ideology.
Useful Idiots are naïve, foolish, ignorant of facts, unrealistically idealistic, dreamers, willfully in denial or deceptive. They hail from the ranks of the chronically unhappy, the anarchists, the aspiring revolutionaries, the neurotics who are at war with life, the disaffected alienated from government, corporations, and just about any and all institutions of society. The Useful Idiot can be a billionaire, a movie star, an academe of renown, a politician, or from any other segment of the population.
Arguably, the most dangerous Useful Idiot is the “Politically Correct.” He is the master practitioner of euphemism, hedging, doubletalk, and outright deception.
The Useful Idiot derives satisfaction from being anti-establishment. He finds perverse gratification in aiding the forces that aim to dismantle an existing order, whatever it may be: an order he neither approves of nor he feels he belongs to.
The Useful Idiot is conflicted and dishonest. He fails to look inside himself and discover the causes of his own problems and unhappiness while he readily enlists himself in causes that validate his distorted perception.
Understandably, it is easier to blame others and the outside world than to examine oneself with an eye to self-discovery and self-improvement. Furthermore, criticizing and complaining—liberal practices of the Useful Idiot—require little talent and energy. The Useful Idiot is a great armchair philosopher and “Monday Morning Quarterback.”
The Useful Idiot is not the same as a person who honestly has a different point of view. A society without honest and open differences of views is a dead society. Critical, different and fresh ideas are the life blood of a living society—the very anathema of autocracies where the official position is sacrosanct.
Even the “normal” spends a great deal more energy aiming to fix things out there than working to overcome his own flaws and shortcomings, or contribute positively to the larger society. People don’t like to take stock of what they are doing or not doing that is responsible for the conditions they disapprove.
The Useful Idiot, among other things, is a master practitioner of scapegoating. He assigns blame to others while absolving himself of responsibility, has a long handy list of candidates for blaming anything and everything, and by living a distorted life, he contributes to the ills of society.
The Useful Idiot may even engage in willful misinformation and deception when it suits him. Terms such as “Political Islam,” or “Radical Islam,” for instance, are contributions of the Useful Idiot. These terms do not even exist in the native parlance of Islam, simply because they are redundant. Islam, by its very nature and according to its charter—the Quran—is a radical political movement. It is the Useful Idiot who sanitizes Islam and misguides the populace by saying that the “real Islam” constitutes the main body of the religion; and, that this main body is non-political and moderate.
Regrettably, a large segment of the population goes along with these nonsensical euphemisms depicting Islam because it prefers to believe them. It is less threatening to believe that only a hijacked small segment of Islam is radical or politically driven and that the main body of Islam is indeed moderate and non-political.
But Islam is political to the core. In Islam the mosque and state are one and the same—the mosque is the state. This arrangement goes back to the days of Muhammad himself. Islam is also radical to the extreme. Even the “moderate” Islam is radical in its beliefs as well as its deeds. Muslims believe that all non-Muslims, bar none, are hellfire bound and well-deserve being maltreated to the utmost.
No radical barbaric act of depravity is out of bounds for Muslims in dealing with others. They destroy precious statues of Buddha, level sacred monuments of other religions, and bulldoze the cemeteries of non-Muslims—a few examples of their utter extreme contempt toward others.
Muslims are radical even in their intrafaith dealings. Various sects and sub-sects pronounce other sects and sub-sects as heretics worthy of death; women are treated as chattel, deprived of many rights; hands are chopped for stealing even a loaf of bread; sexual violation is punished by stoning, and much much more. These are standard day-to-day ways of the mainstream “moderate” Muslims living under the stone-age laws of Shariah.
The “moderate” Islam has been outright genocidal from inception. Their own historians record that Ali, the first imam of the Shiite and the son-in-law of Muhammad, with the help of another man beheaded 700 Jewish men in the presence of the prophet himself. The prophet of Allah and his disciples took the murdered men’s women and children in slavery. Muslims have been, and continue to be, the most vicious and shameless practitioner of slavery. Slave trade, even today, is a thriving business in Islamic lands where wealthy, perverted sheikhs purchase children of the poor from traffickers for their sadistic gratification.
It is a well-established fact that a Jew’s word is his bond. The exact opposite is the case with Muslims. Muslims are taught deception and lying in the Quran itself—something that Muhammad practiced during his life whenever he found it expedient. Successive Islamic rulers and leaders have done the same. Khomeini, the founder of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, for instance, rallied the people under the banner of democracy. All along his support for democracy was not a commitment of an honest man, but a ruse of a true Muslim. As soon as he gathered the reign of power, Khomeini went after the Useful Idiots of his time with vengeance. These best children of Iran, having been thoroughly deceived and used by the crafty phony populist-religionist, had to flee the country to avoid the fate of tens of thousands who were imprisoned or executed by the double-crossing imam.
Almost three decades after the tragic Islamic Revolution of 1979, the suffocating rule of Islam casts its death-bearing pal over Iranians. A proud people with enviable heritage is being systematically purged of its sense of identity and forced to think and behave like the barbaric and intolerant Muslims. Iranians who had always treated women with equality, for instance, have seen them reduced by the stone-age clergy to sub-human status of Islamic teaching. Any attempt by the women of Iran to counter the misogynist rule of Muhammad’s mullahs is mercilessly suppressed. Women are beaten, imprisoned, raped and killed just as men are slaughtered without due process or mercy.
The lesson is clear. Beware of the Useful Idiots who live in liberal democracies. Knowingly or unknowingly, they serve as the greatest volunteer and effective soldiers of Islam. They pave the way for the advancement of Islam and they will assuredly be among the very first victims of Islam as soon as it assumes power.
Frontpage Mag
08.21.2006
Useful Idiots are naïve, foolish, ignorant of facts, unrealistically idealistic, dreamers, willfully in denial or deceptive. They hail from the ranks of the chronically unhappy, the anarchists, the aspiring revolutionaries, the neurotics who are at war with life, the disaffected alienated from government, corporations, and just about any and all institutions of society. The Useful Idiot can be a billionaire, a movie star, an academe of renown, a politician, or from any other segment of the population.
Arguably, the most dangerous Useful Idiot is the “Politically Correct.” He is the master practitioner of euphemism, hedging, doubletalk, and outright deception.
The Useful Idiot derives satisfaction from being anti-establishment. He finds perverse gratification in aiding the forces that aim to dismantle an existing order, whatever it may be: an order he neither approves of nor he feels he belongs to.
The Useful Idiot is conflicted and dishonest. He fails to look inside himself and discover the causes of his own problems and unhappiness while he readily enlists himself in causes that validate his distorted perception.
Understandably, it is easier to blame others and the outside world than to examine oneself with an eye to self-discovery and self-improvement. Furthermore, criticizing and complaining—liberal practices of the Useful Idiot—require little talent and energy. The Useful Idiot is a great armchair philosopher and “Monday Morning Quarterback.”
The Useful Idiot is not the same as a person who honestly has a different point of view. A society without honest and open differences of views is a dead society. Critical, different and fresh ideas are the life blood of a living society—the very anathema of autocracies where the official position is sacrosanct.
Even the “normal” spends a great deal more energy aiming to fix things out there than working to overcome his own flaws and shortcomings, or contribute positively to the larger society. People don’t like to take stock of what they are doing or not doing that is responsible for the conditions they disapprove.
The Useful Idiot, among other things, is a master practitioner of scapegoating. He assigns blame to others while absolving himself of responsibility, has a long handy list of candidates for blaming anything and everything, and by living a distorted life, he contributes to the ills of society.
The Useful Idiot may even engage in willful misinformation and deception when it suits him. Terms such as “Political Islam,” or “Radical Islam,” for instance, are contributions of the Useful Idiot. These terms do not even exist in the native parlance of Islam, simply because they are redundant. Islam, by its very nature and according to its charter—the Quran—is a radical political movement. It is the Useful Idiot who sanitizes Islam and misguides the populace by saying that the “real Islam” constitutes the main body of the religion; and, that this main body is non-political and moderate.
Regrettably, a large segment of the population goes along with these nonsensical euphemisms depicting Islam because it prefers to believe them. It is less threatening to believe that only a hijacked small segment of Islam is radical or politically driven and that the main body of Islam is indeed moderate and non-political.
But Islam is political to the core. In Islam the mosque and state are one and the same—the mosque is the state. This arrangement goes back to the days of Muhammad himself. Islam is also radical to the extreme. Even the “moderate” Islam is radical in its beliefs as well as its deeds. Muslims believe that all non-Muslims, bar none, are hellfire bound and well-deserve being maltreated to the utmost.
No radical barbaric act of depravity is out of bounds for Muslims in dealing with others. They destroy precious statues of Buddha, level sacred monuments of other religions, and bulldoze the cemeteries of non-Muslims—a few examples of their utter extreme contempt toward others.
Muslims are radical even in their intrafaith dealings. Various sects and sub-sects pronounce other sects and sub-sects as heretics worthy of death; women are treated as chattel, deprived of many rights; hands are chopped for stealing even a loaf of bread; sexual violation is punished by stoning, and much much more. These are standard day-to-day ways of the mainstream “moderate” Muslims living under the stone-age laws of Shariah.
The “moderate” Islam has been outright genocidal from inception. Their own historians record that Ali, the first imam of the Shiite and the son-in-law of Muhammad, with the help of another man beheaded 700 Jewish men in the presence of the prophet himself. The prophet of Allah and his disciples took the murdered men’s women and children in slavery. Muslims have been, and continue to be, the most vicious and shameless practitioner of slavery. Slave trade, even today, is a thriving business in Islamic lands where wealthy, perverted sheikhs purchase children of the poor from traffickers for their sadistic gratification.
It is a well-established fact that a Jew’s word is his bond. The exact opposite is the case with Muslims. Muslims are taught deception and lying in the Quran itself—something that Muhammad practiced during his life whenever he found it expedient. Successive Islamic rulers and leaders have done the same. Khomeini, the founder of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, for instance, rallied the people under the banner of democracy. All along his support for democracy was not a commitment of an honest man, but a ruse of a true Muslim. As soon as he gathered the reign of power, Khomeini went after the Useful Idiots of his time with vengeance. These best children of Iran, having been thoroughly deceived and used by the crafty phony populist-religionist, had to flee the country to avoid the fate of tens of thousands who were imprisoned or executed by the double-crossing imam.
Almost three decades after the tragic Islamic Revolution of 1979, the suffocating rule of Islam casts its death-bearing pal over Iranians. A proud people with enviable heritage is being systematically purged of its sense of identity and forced to think and behave like the barbaric and intolerant Muslims. Iranians who had always treated women with equality, for instance, have seen them reduced by the stone-age clergy to sub-human status of Islamic teaching. Any attempt by the women of Iran to counter the misogynist rule of Muhammad’s mullahs is mercilessly suppressed. Women are beaten, imprisoned, raped and killed just as men are slaughtered without due process or mercy.
The lesson is clear. Beware of the Useful Idiots who live in liberal democracies. Knowingly or unknowingly, they serve as the greatest volunteer and effective soldiers of Islam. They pave the way for the advancement of Islam and they will assuredly be among the very first victims of Islam as soon as it assumes power.
Frontpage Mag
08.21.2006
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Annan: UN Won't 'Wage War' In Lebanon
Secretary-General Kofi Annan appealed to UN member states to provide desperately needed UN peacekeeping troops for Lebanon and assured them the UN force would not "wage war" on Israel, Lebanon or Hizb'allah.
"It is not expected to achieve by force what must be realized through negotiation and an internal Lebanese consensus," Annan said in a report to the UN Security Council on implementation of the Aug. 11 resolution calling for an end to the Israeli-Hizbullah conflict.
A key concern of many countries is whether the UN force will be called on to disarm Hizb'allah fighters, as called for in a September 2004 UN resolution. They want to study the rules of engagement and concept of operations for the force, which were distributed Friday, before making a decision on troops.
Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown said countries needed to understand that the force would not be offensive. "It's not going to go in there and attempt large-scale disarmament," he said.
He appealed to European countries to contribute troops to an expanded UN force to balance the commitments from Muslim countries so that both Israel and Lebanon will view the troops as legitimate.
Malloch Brown welcomed Italy's announcement that it will contribute, though it gave no numbers, and Finland's pledge of 250 troops. But he stressed that more European nations are needed for the vanguard force of 3,500 troops that the UN wants on the ground by Aug. 28 to help ensure that the truce between Israel and Lebanon holds.
Annan expressed relief that the parties were generally complying with the cease-fire, and said he was encouraged "by the positive first steps."
"However, I would caution that the situation is still very fragile," Annan said. "I call on all parties to do their utmost to ensure that the cessation of hostilities holds and to transform it into a durable cease-fire."
Assuming the cessation of hostilities does hold, Annan said the next reinforcements for the UN force, up to 3,500 troops, are needed by Oct. 5, and a third and final wave of up to 3,000 troops will be needed by Nov. 4.
The UN resolution authorized up to 15,000 UN peacekeepers to help 15,000 Lebanese troops extend their authority into south Lebanon, which has been controlled by Hizbullah, as Israel withdraws its soldiers. The aim is to create a buffer zone free of Hizbullah fighters between the Litani River and the UN-drawn border, about 20 miles (29 kilometers) to the south.
Annan praised the first meeting in a decade of Israeli and Lebanese generals with the UN force commander and the positive start to Lebanon's phased deployment and Israel's phased withdrawal.
The Lebanese army has deployed more than 1,500 troops in three sectors that Israeli forces have left, and the UN force has set up checkpoints and started patrolling the areas, he said.
Annan told the council that the 2,000-strong UN force, known as UNIFIL, has reported "only a handful of isolated violations of the cessation of hostilities since it came into effect."
Annan called on the Lebanese and Israeli governments "to work resolutely towards a long-term solution and a permanent cease-fire."
"A reinforced UNIFIL is not going to wage war on any of the actors in the theater," Annan said, and it cannot be "a substitute for a political process."
Jerusalem Post
08.20.2006
"It is not expected to achieve by force what must be realized through negotiation and an internal Lebanese consensus," Annan said in a report to the UN Security Council on implementation of the Aug. 11 resolution calling for an end to the Israeli-Hizbullah conflict.
A key concern of many countries is whether the UN force will be called on to disarm Hizb'allah fighters, as called for in a September 2004 UN resolution. They want to study the rules of engagement and concept of operations for the force, which were distributed Friday, before making a decision on troops.
Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown said countries needed to understand that the force would not be offensive. "It's not going to go in there and attempt large-scale disarmament," he said.
He appealed to European countries to contribute troops to an expanded UN force to balance the commitments from Muslim countries so that both Israel and Lebanon will view the troops as legitimate.
Malloch Brown welcomed Italy's announcement that it will contribute, though it gave no numbers, and Finland's pledge of 250 troops. But he stressed that more European nations are needed for the vanguard force of 3,500 troops that the UN wants on the ground by Aug. 28 to help ensure that the truce between Israel and Lebanon holds.
Annan expressed relief that the parties were generally complying with the cease-fire, and said he was encouraged "by the positive first steps."
"However, I would caution that the situation is still very fragile," Annan said. "I call on all parties to do their utmost to ensure that the cessation of hostilities holds and to transform it into a durable cease-fire."
Assuming the cessation of hostilities does hold, Annan said the next reinforcements for the UN force, up to 3,500 troops, are needed by Oct. 5, and a third and final wave of up to 3,000 troops will be needed by Nov. 4.
The UN resolution authorized up to 15,000 UN peacekeepers to help 15,000 Lebanese troops extend their authority into south Lebanon, which has been controlled by Hizbullah, as Israel withdraws its soldiers. The aim is to create a buffer zone free of Hizbullah fighters between the Litani River and the UN-drawn border, about 20 miles (29 kilometers) to the south.
Annan praised the first meeting in a decade of Israeli and Lebanese generals with the UN force commander and the positive start to Lebanon's phased deployment and Israel's phased withdrawal.
The Lebanese army has deployed more than 1,500 troops in three sectors that Israeli forces have left, and the UN force has set up checkpoints and started patrolling the areas, he said.
Annan told the council that the 2,000-strong UN force, known as UNIFIL, has reported "only a handful of isolated violations of the cessation of hostilities since it came into effect."
Annan called on the Lebanese and Israeli governments "to work resolutely towards a long-term solution and a permanent cease-fire."
"A reinforced UNIFIL is not going to wage war on any of the actors in the theater," Annan said, and it cannot be "a substitute for a political process."
Jerusalem Post
08.20.2006
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Al-Aqsa: We Learned Missiles Subdue Israel
Abu Nasser, commander of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade in Nablus, encouraged by war results. 'Our brothers demonstrated what we have felt in recent years: Israel falling apart. Next time Iran will be in picture with missiles on Tel Aviv and it will be easier'
The Palestinian terror organizations are looking north and are filled with satisfaction and hope for the next step.
"We learned from Hizb'allah that the tools that make a difference are missiles. If achieve expertise in this field, we won't make do with the simple rockets we have. There is no doubt that we can subdue Israel ," Abu Nasser, a commander in the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Fatah's military wing said.
"Since the Gulf War, missiles were what brought Israel to the negotiation table. The withdrawal from Gaza was also a result of missiles. If we use them correctly in the West Bank, we will get rid of the IDF here too," Abu Nasser explained.
According to him, his organization wasn't surprised by what he defines "the defeat Hizbullah handed to Israel."
He continued on to say that "Hizb'allah has been impenetrable in recent years, working quietly and successfully putting the IDF to sleep. If we adopt these operational patterns, there is no doubt that our turn will come. We learned that with faith and good preparation, you can defeat the Israeli military."
Abu Nasser is not ruffled by the IDF's threats to West Bank towns if they use missiles against Israeli cities. "They threatened to demolish Gaza and Lebanon and we saw that wasn't so terrible. The question is if we, the Palestinian organizations, can withstand the initial fire of Israel. If we succeed in prevent collapsing after the first hit – there is a chance we will win."
According to him, the inability to withstand the initial blow is what defeated the Palestinians in Defensive Shield.
"The operation in Lebanon is similar in scope in terms of the Israeli forces that participated to Operation Defensive Shield. There, except for the refugee camps Balata and Jenin, everything happened immediately. From Hizb'allah we learned that if we build a proper defense system in bunkers, we will be able to sustain the fire in the initial days. There is no doubt that we too will succeed."
'Hizb'allah showed Israel what an army is'
The success of the Israeli security forces to penetrate the terror organizations, which enables the thwarting of terror attacks in their planning stages, is in Abu Nasser's opinion another weak point of the Palestinian organizations in contrast with Hizbullah. "There is no doubt that we need to work on this issue because it explains, in my opinion, 90 percent of their success," he explained.
Abu Nasser claims that they can succeed if they mortally strike down the "army of collaborators" with Israel, just as Hizbullah hit the Southern Lebanese Army. "We need to dedicate a certain time period to cleansing our forces of collaborators. Then there won't be any force that can stand before us, although I won't say it's simple."
The Palestinian organizations conclude after the war in Lebanon that "it is possible to beat and even defeat the Israeli military," according to Abu Nasser.
"Hizb'allah proved what we have already known and felt here in a number of opportunities. The Israelis are lying when they paint their military as unbeatable. A few hundred Hizb'allah fighters showed them what an army is, and how to conduct a battle."
According to Abu Nasser, Nasrallah's organization still hasn't had its last word.
"From our acquaintance with them, there is no way they are going to disarm. The organization has strategic objectives and the current battle proves that if it will decide to initiate another battle – the road is paved. The next time Iran will be in the picture and missiles on Tel Aviv will be part of the game. When this happens, it will be a lot easier for us. We are proud of our brothers, the Hizb'allah fighters. They are inspirational teachers that demonstrated everything we have been feeling in recent years – Israel is falling apart," he said.
Y net News
08.19.2006
The Palestinian terror organizations are looking north and are filled with satisfaction and hope for the next step.
"We learned from Hizb'allah that the tools that make a difference are missiles. If achieve expertise in this field, we won't make do with the simple rockets we have. There is no doubt that we can subdue Israel ," Abu Nasser, a commander in the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Fatah's military wing said.
"Since the Gulf War, missiles were what brought Israel to the negotiation table. The withdrawal from Gaza was also a result of missiles. If we use them correctly in the West Bank, we will get rid of the IDF here too," Abu Nasser explained.
According to him, his organization wasn't surprised by what he defines "the defeat Hizbullah handed to Israel."
He continued on to say that "Hizb'allah has been impenetrable in recent years, working quietly and successfully putting the IDF to sleep. If we adopt these operational patterns, there is no doubt that our turn will come. We learned that with faith and good preparation, you can defeat the Israeli military."
Abu Nasser is not ruffled by the IDF's threats to West Bank towns if they use missiles against Israeli cities. "They threatened to demolish Gaza and Lebanon and we saw that wasn't so terrible. The question is if we, the Palestinian organizations, can withstand the initial fire of Israel. If we succeed in prevent collapsing after the first hit – there is a chance we will win."
According to him, the inability to withstand the initial blow is what defeated the Palestinians in Defensive Shield.
"The operation in Lebanon is similar in scope in terms of the Israeli forces that participated to Operation Defensive Shield. There, except for the refugee camps Balata and Jenin, everything happened immediately. From Hizb'allah we learned that if we build a proper defense system in bunkers, we will be able to sustain the fire in the initial days. There is no doubt that we too will succeed."
'Hizb'allah showed Israel what an army is'
The success of the Israeli security forces to penetrate the terror organizations, which enables the thwarting of terror attacks in their planning stages, is in Abu Nasser's opinion another weak point of the Palestinian organizations in contrast with Hizbullah. "There is no doubt that we need to work on this issue because it explains, in my opinion, 90 percent of their success," he explained.
Abu Nasser claims that they can succeed if they mortally strike down the "army of collaborators" with Israel, just as Hizbullah hit the Southern Lebanese Army. "We need to dedicate a certain time period to cleansing our forces of collaborators. Then there won't be any force that can stand before us, although I won't say it's simple."
The Palestinian organizations conclude after the war in Lebanon that "it is possible to beat and even defeat the Israeli military," according to Abu Nasser.
"Hizb'allah proved what we have already known and felt here in a number of opportunities. The Israelis are lying when they paint their military as unbeatable. A few hundred Hizb'allah fighters showed them what an army is, and how to conduct a battle."
According to Abu Nasser, Nasrallah's organization still hasn't had its last word.
"From our acquaintance with them, there is no way they are going to disarm. The organization has strategic objectives and the current battle proves that if it will decide to initiate another battle – the road is paved. The next time Iran will be in the picture and missiles on Tel Aviv will be part of the game. When this happens, it will be a lot easier for us. We are proud of our brothers, the Hizb'allah fighters. They are inspirational teachers that demonstrated everything we have been feeling in recent years – Israel is falling apart," he said.
Y net News
08.19.2006
Friday, August 18, 2006
Feast of Trumpets / Rosh Hashanna
Here is a summary of 12 reasons why Christians expect to see the Rapture happen on the Feast of Trumpets / Rosh Hashanna
1. All the Spring Feasts were fulfilled at Christ's first coming, and on the exact day of the feast. All the Fall Feasts picture the second advent, and the Feast of Trumpets is the first of the fall feasts, picturing the rapture.
2. The Feast of Trumpets is when the "last trump" of the rapture of 1 Cor 15 is blown.
3. The Feast of Trumpets is known as the Wedding of the Messiah, and the Church is the Bride of Christ, and the rapture is when the Church is caught up to heaven to be wed with Christ.
4. The Feast of Trumpets happens on the "new moon", which is 29.5 days after the last one, meaning it might occur on the 29th or 30th day, nobody knows for sure. "Of that day or hour no man knows" is an expression referring to this feast, and thus, the rapture.
5. "Of that day or hour no man knows, but my Father only" is an expression used by a groom when asked when his wedding will be. He says this because it is his Father that will tell him when his preparations on the bridal chamber are completed and it is time. Again, the wedding pictures the rapture.
6. The "Open Door" of the rapture in Matt 25, and Rev 3, & Rev 4:1 is a symbol of the Feast of Trumpets. [Ezek 46:1] "Thus says the Lord GOD: The gate of the inner court that faces east shall be shut on the six working days; but on the sabbath day it shall be opened and on the day of the new moon it shall be opened.
7. We are told that the new moon and the Feasts of the Lord are a shadow of things to come in Col 2:16,17. Since the Feast of Trumpets is the only Feast of the Lord that falls on a new moon, we should take particular note.
8. There are seven days of awe in between the Feast of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement. These picture the seven years of tribulation. Atonement pictures Satan being defeated and cast away at the end of tribulaion. If you add the two day Trumpets feast, and the day of atonement, the 7 days of awe are "ten days of tribulation" which might be referred to in Rev. 2:10.
9. In the Jewish Wedding, a marriage takes place over a period of time known as the "bridal week". During the bridal week, the groom and bride have sex in the bridal chamber. At the end of the week, there is a marriage supper. Compare Judges 14, Rev. 19, and Genesis 29:22-28 This bridal week will be the tribulation week on earth, while the bride of Christ is in heaven.
10. In the Jewish Wedding, the groom comes for his bride "like a thief in the night" to take (size / rapture) her away and into the bridal chamber for the bridal week at his father's house.
11. The Feast of Trumpets is also known as the coronation of the Messiah, when he will start reigning as king, thus the beginning of the "Day of the Lord", which includes the tribulation.
12. It is also time for the bema judgment, or the judgement of the works of the righteous, and judgement must begin at the house of the Lord. [2 Cor 11:2] For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
Is God A Date Setter? YES! God Is A Date Setter!
1. All the Spring Feasts were fulfilled at Christ's first coming, and on the exact day of the feast. All the Fall Feasts picture the second advent, and the Feast of Trumpets is the first of the fall feasts, picturing the rapture.
2. The Feast of Trumpets is when the "last trump" of the rapture of 1 Cor 15 is blown.
3. The Feast of Trumpets is known as the Wedding of the Messiah, and the Church is the Bride of Christ, and the rapture is when the Church is caught up to heaven to be wed with Christ.
4. The Feast of Trumpets happens on the "new moon", which is 29.5 days after the last one, meaning it might occur on the 29th or 30th day, nobody knows for sure. "Of that day or hour no man knows" is an expression referring to this feast, and thus, the rapture.
5. "Of that day or hour no man knows, but my Father only" is an expression used by a groom when asked when his wedding will be. He says this because it is his Father that will tell him when his preparations on the bridal chamber are completed and it is time. Again, the wedding pictures the rapture.
6. The "Open Door" of the rapture in Matt 25, and Rev 3, & Rev 4:1 is a symbol of the Feast of Trumpets. [Ezek 46:1] "Thus says the Lord GOD: The gate of the inner court that faces east shall be shut on the six working days; but on the sabbath day it shall be opened and on the day of the new moon it shall be opened.
7. We are told that the new moon and the Feasts of the Lord are a shadow of things to come in Col 2:16,17. Since the Feast of Trumpets is the only Feast of the Lord that falls on a new moon, we should take particular note.
8. There are seven days of awe in between the Feast of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement. These picture the seven years of tribulation. Atonement pictures Satan being defeated and cast away at the end of tribulaion. If you add the two day Trumpets feast, and the day of atonement, the 7 days of awe are "ten days of tribulation" which might be referred to in Rev. 2:10.
9. In the Jewish Wedding, a marriage takes place over a period of time known as the "bridal week". During the bridal week, the groom and bride have sex in the bridal chamber. At the end of the week, there is a marriage supper. Compare Judges 14, Rev. 19, and Genesis 29:22-28 This bridal week will be the tribulation week on earth, while the bride of Christ is in heaven.
10. In the Jewish Wedding, the groom comes for his bride "like a thief in the night" to take (size / rapture) her away and into the bridal chamber for the bridal week at his father's house.
11. The Feast of Trumpets is also known as the coronation of the Messiah, when he will start reigning as king, thus the beginning of the "Day of the Lord", which includes the tribulation.
12. It is also time for the bema judgment, or the judgement of the works of the righteous, and judgement must begin at the house of the Lord. [2 Cor 11:2] For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
Is God A Date Setter? YES! God Is A Date Setter!
Thursday, August 17, 2006
WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT SYRIA!
Many of you have inquired about the Bible’s teaching concerning Syria. As we all are watching the news of the war in Israel that has two fronts: Lebanon, where the battle is severe with the forces and weapons of Hezbollah - and still in the Gaza Strip where Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are struggling against Israel. The common goal of these hostile terrorist organizations is the destruction of Israel and they say so frequently in the news and on their web sites.
All that is going on right now has brought the attention to SYRIA, a strong supporter of Hezbollah and a link to IRAN who is the main contributor to the weapons and needs of Hezbollah. Syria has been a “thorn” in the side of Israel for many years. The father of the current leader, Bashar Assad, had always argued against a Palestinian State and the efforts to create a separate people from his own country. The fact is that he was on record of claiming that the only Palestinian State was indeed Syria!
Almost 85% of Syria centers in its capital city of Damascus, one of the oldest cities in the world. Archaeological ruins point to a city that goes back at least 8000 years if not longer. Syria is mentioned frequently in the Bible in its relationships with the Nation of Israel. The Bible usually speaks of Syria in terms of its capital - Damascus.
In Isaiah 17:1-3 we read: “The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap. The cities of Aroer are forsaken: they shall be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid (because the area will be destroyed and deserted). The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith the LORD of hosts.”
Jeremiah 49:23-27 is also an indictment against Damascus and appears to have partial fulfillment in the past - the days of Ben-Hadad. Verse 24 says: “Damascus is waxed feeble, and turneth herself to flee, and fear hath seized on her: anguish and sorrows have taken her, as a woman in travail.” Amos 1:3-5 also speaks of a coming judgment upon Damascus, but once again, the historical context deals with the days of Ben-Hadad.
In the New Testament, we read that Saul received letters from the High Priest to go to Damascus to the synagogues (Acts 9) and capture Jewish believers. But, it was on the road near Damascus that Saul was converted and became the Apostle Paul. It was a disciple at Damascus, Ananias, who ministered to Paul. It was in Damascus where Paul preached that Yeshua was the Messiah - in the synagoguges (Acts 9:20).
It appears from the prophecy of Isaiah 17 that Damascus will be removed from history in the last days. As to when that will occur, we do not know. The greatest burden we should have is to see thousands of Hezbollah and citizens of Syria turning to faith in the Messiah of Israel - our blessed Lord Yeshua! May God give us a burden to pray for the people of Syria that they may be saved!
Copyright © 2005 Dr. David Hocking - Hope For Today Ministries
All that is going on right now has brought the attention to SYRIA, a strong supporter of Hezbollah and a link to IRAN who is the main contributor to the weapons and needs of Hezbollah. Syria has been a “thorn” in the side of Israel for many years. The father of the current leader, Bashar Assad, had always argued against a Palestinian State and the efforts to create a separate people from his own country. The fact is that he was on record of claiming that the only Palestinian State was indeed Syria!
Almost 85% of Syria centers in its capital city of Damascus, one of the oldest cities in the world. Archaeological ruins point to a city that goes back at least 8000 years if not longer. Syria is mentioned frequently in the Bible in its relationships with the Nation of Israel. The Bible usually speaks of Syria in terms of its capital - Damascus.
In Isaiah 17:1-3 we read: “The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap. The cities of Aroer are forsaken: they shall be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid (because the area will be destroyed and deserted). The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith the LORD of hosts.”
Jeremiah 49:23-27 is also an indictment against Damascus and appears to have partial fulfillment in the past - the days of Ben-Hadad. Verse 24 says: “Damascus is waxed feeble, and turneth herself to flee, and fear hath seized on her: anguish and sorrows have taken her, as a woman in travail.” Amos 1:3-5 also speaks of a coming judgment upon Damascus, but once again, the historical context deals with the days of Ben-Hadad.
In the New Testament, we read that Saul received letters from the High Priest to go to Damascus to the synagogues (Acts 9) and capture Jewish believers. But, it was on the road near Damascus that Saul was converted and became the Apostle Paul. It was a disciple at Damascus, Ananias, who ministered to Paul. It was in Damascus where Paul preached that Yeshua was the Messiah - in the synagoguges (Acts 9:20).
It appears from the prophecy of Isaiah 17 that Damascus will be removed from history in the last days. As to when that will occur, we do not know. The greatest burden we should have is to see thousands of Hezbollah and citizens of Syria turning to faith in the Messiah of Israel - our blessed Lord Yeshua! May God give us a burden to pray for the people of Syria that they may be saved!
Copyright © 2005 Dr. David Hocking - Hope For Today Ministries
God's Word Is Being Fulfilled In Israel
3 Planes Of Jewish Olim Arrive-Canada US & UK
Three airplanes filled with Jewish immigrants – from the United States, Canada and England – touched down in Israel Wednesday. The day marked a new record in Aliyah from the West.
The three flights were organized by the Nefesh b’Nefesh Aliyah assistance organization in conjunction with the Jewish Agency.
The plane from the United Kingdom was the first, and marks an expansion of Nefesh b’Nefesh’s operations beyond North America – where the first 18 flights were from. In his speech, Rabbi Yehoshua Fass said that the organization would soon be launching its Aliyah-assistance in Mexico as well.
“You shall inherit the land and you shall settle it,” Rabbi Fass told the crowd of new arrivals. “The moment you step off the plane you inherit the product of many years of sacrifice, blood and tears. Now you must settle the land, loving and embracing it.”
The Re-Engagement war and the days-old cease-fire were on many arrivals’ minds and the decision to come despite the difficult situation was a prominent theme in the welcome speeches by dignitaries. The president of El Al said that some of the pilots who flew the new immigrants to their new home were flying fighter jets in Lebanon just days ago.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert attended the ceremony, saying Aliyah is the greatest expression of confidence in Israel’s future.
Arutz Sheva
08.17.2006
Three airplanes filled with Jewish immigrants – from the United States, Canada and England – touched down in Israel Wednesday. The day marked a new record in Aliyah from the West.
The three flights were organized by the Nefesh b’Nefesh Aliyah assistance organization in conjunction with the Jewish Agency.
The plane from the United Kingdom was the first, and marks an expansion of Nefesh b’Nefesh’s operations beyond North America – where the first 18 flights were from. In his speech, Rabbi Yehoshua Fass said that the organization would soon be launching its Aliyah-assistance in Mexico as well.
“You shall inherit the land and you shall settle it,” Rabbi Fass told the crowd of new arrivals. “The moment you step off the plane you inherit the product of many years of sacrifice, blood and tears. Now you must settle the land, loving and embracing it.”
The Re-Engagement war and the days-old cease-fire were on many arrivals’ minds and the decision to come despite the difficult situation was a prominent theme in the welcome speeches by dignitaries. The president of El Al said that some of the pilots who flew the new immigrants to their new home were flying fighter jets in Lebanon just days ago.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert attended the ceremony, saying Aliyah is the greatest expression of confidence in Israel’s future.
Arutz Sheva
08.17.2006
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Will Cease-fires Never Cease? NO, Not Until Messiah Returns
How many cease-fires have there been in the Middle East — or is the number too large to remember? Over the past half century, there must have been more cease-fires in the Middle East than in the rest of the world combined.
What will this latest cease-fire do? It will give Hezbollah a breather from Israeli retaliation and allow them time to get new shipments of military equipment from Iran, rebuild their military infrastructure and prepare for the next round of attacks on Israel.
Why do these phony cease-fire scenarios keep getting repeated? Because there are too many people, including many in the media, who take the corrupt windbags at the U.N. seriously — so our political leaders have to act as if they take the U.N. seriously as well.
This is a costly charade. Among its costs are human lives. U.N. cease-fires are the ultimate in feel-good decisions made by people who pay no price for the repercussions.
No one in his right mind believes that either the Lebanese army or the U.N. "peacekeepers" will disarm Hezbollah. The track record of both is virtually a guarantee that Hezbollah will be able to resume war against Israel at whatever time and place it chooses.
Most people have no idea how small Israel is — and therefore how vulnerable every part of it is to its surrounding enemies.
New Hampshire is considered to be a small state but it is larger than Israel. So are 45 other states. Lake Erie is larger than Israel and Lake Michigan more than twice as large.
The Middle Eastern places we hear about are very close to one another. From Israel's capital in Jerusalem to Bethlehem in the Palestinian territory is only a fraction of the distance from Washington to Baltimore.
Most people are as uninformed about the history of the Middle East as they are about its geography. Supposedly Jews took over the Palestinians' homeland in order to create the state of Israel.
But there was no Palestinian homeland. That whole region belonged to the Ottoman Empire until the Ottoman Empire was dismembered after its defeat in the First World War.
Christians, Jews, and Muslims had all lived in Palestine for centuries. In the course of carving up the Ottoman Empire to create new nations, the British set aside a small part of it for Jews — and after violent objections from the Arabs, stalled for years on letting this bit of land become an independent nation.
Jews lived in Palestine long before there was a state of Israel and even before there was an Ottoman Empire. In 1939, Winston Churchill commented that Jews in Palestine "made the desert bloom." The resulting prosperity of the area attracted both more Jews and more Arabs, including some Arabs whose descendants would later claim that Jews took over their country.
After World War II and the Holocaust, Jews seeking refuge turned to their promised home in the Middle East and battled the British to seize control and proclaim the independence of Israel.
In the face of polarizing hostility and violence in surrounding Arab countries, Jews fled these countries and many were absorbed into Israel. Meanwhile, Arab countries urged Arabs living in Israel to leave before these countries' planned attacks with the aim of destroying the new state.
It was the Arabs, rather than the Israelis, who created a massive Palestinian refugee problem. While Jewish refugees were absorbed into the general population of Israel, Palestinians in Arab countries were kept in refugee camps for generations — promised a right to return after Israel was conquered and the Jews displaced.
After the most complete failure of the many Arab efforts to annihilate Israel in 1967, the Israelis took over lands of strategic value, such as the Golan Heights, in order to prevent them from being used in future military attacks.
In all the years when these lands had been in the hands of Arab states, no one made them a Palestinian homeland. But now it has become a fervent cause to force Israel to create a Palestinian state that the Arabs never created.
None of this matters to those consumed by hate in the Middle East or those in the West wanting feel-good cease-fires, without bothering to think through the actual consequences.
Jewish World Review
08.16.2006
What will this latest cease-fire do? It will give Hezbollah a breather from Israeli retaliation and allow them time to get new shipments of military equipment from Iran, rebuild their military infrastructure and prepare for the next round of attacks on Israel.
Why do these phony cease-fire scenarios keep getting repeated? Because there are too many people, including many in the media, who take the corrupt windbags at the U.N. seriously — so our political leaders have to act as if they take the U.N. seriously as well.
This is a costly charade. Among its costs are human lives. U.N. cease-fires are the ultimate in feel-good decisions made by people who pay no price for the repercussions.
No one in his right mind believes that either the Lebanese army or the U.N. "peacekeepers" will disarm Hezbollah. The track record of both is virtually a guarantee that Hezbollah will be able to resume war against Israel at whatever time and place it chooses.
Most people have no idea how small Israel is — and therefore how vulnerable every part of it is to its surrounding enemies.
New Hampshire is considered to be a small state but it is larger than Israel. So are 45 other states. Lake Erie is larger than Israel and Lake Michigan more than twice as large.
The Middle Eastern places we hear about are very close to one another. From Israel's capital in Jerusalem to Bethlehem in the Palestinian territory is only a fraction of the distance from Washington to Baltimore.
Most people are as uninformed about the history of the Middle East as they are about its geography. Supposedly Jews took over the Palestinians' homeland in order to create the state of Israel.
But there was no Palestinian homeland. That whole region belonged to the Ottoman Empire until the Ottoman Empire was dismembered after its defeat in the First World War.
Christians, Jews, and Muslims had all lived in Palestine for centuries. In the course of carving up the Ottoman Empire to create new nations, the British set aside a small part of it for Jews — and after violent objections from the Arabs, stalled for years on letting this bit of land become an independent nation.
Jews lived in Palestine long before there was a state of Israel and even before there was an Ottoman Empire. In 1939, Winston Churchill commented that Jews in Palestine "made the desert bloom." The resulting prosperity of the area attracted both more Jews and more Arabs, including some Arabs whose descendants would later claim that Jews took over their country.
After World War II and the Holocaust, Jews seeking refuge turned to their promised home in the Middle East and battled the British to seize control and proclaim the independence of Israel.
In the face of polarizing hostility and violence in surrounding Arab countries, Jews fled these countries and many were absorbed into Israel. Meanwhile, Arab countries urged Arabs living in Israel to leave before these countries' planned attacks with the aim of destroying the new state.
It was the Arabs, rather than the Israelis, who created a massive Palestinian refugee problem. While Jewish refugees were absorbed into the general population of Israel, Palestinians in Arab countries were kept in refugee camps for generations — promised a right to return after Israel was conquered and the Jews displaced.
After the most complete failure of the many Arab efforts to annihilate Israel in 1967, the Israelis took over lands of strategic value, such as the Golan Heights, in order to prevent them from being used in future military attacks.
In all the years when these lands had been in the hands of Arab states, no one made them a Palestinian homeland. But now it has become a fervent cause to force Israel to create a Palestinian state that the Arabs never created.
None of this matters to those consumed by hate in the Middle East or those in the West wanting feel-good cease-fires, without bothering to think through the actual consequences.
Jewish World Review
08.16.2006
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Israeli Technology Derives Bio-fuel From Algae
Consumers worldwide are watching with worry as fuel prices steadily climb with no end in sight. The US Department of Energy predicts that by 2025, residential energy consumption will increase by 25% and based upon current trends, the cost of that energy will concurrently rise dramatically.
As fossil fuel resources for petroleum used in fuel processing dwindle, global warming from burning those fossils heats up. Industry experts predict oil production's peak out in 2007 and the race to find affordable alternative energy solutions sprints forward for scientists, environmentalists and politicians worldwide. Everyone is searching for the proverbial golden ticket: affordable, alternative energy sources to take us into the next century. Frontrunners in the alternative arena, Israel's scientists are at the vanguard of finding innovative yet affordable fuel and energy options.
In the ongoing ISRAEL21c series 'The Israeli Energy Alternative,' we'll profile some of the most promising projects and initiatives currently underway in Israel to address growing US and global energy changes.
Part 2 -- Algae as a Fuel Source
Israeli scientists - well acquainted with the energy-producing capacity of algae - are applying that knowledge to fuel the future. Algatech in the southern Negev is turning a collective focus towards algae-derived bio-fuel.
Over 150 species of algae are currently used commercially to provide food for humans and livestock, serve as thickening agents in ice cream and shampoo, and ward off disease in pharmaceutical drug form. Unaltered, algae encompass different groups of living organisms that capture energy through photosynthesis, converting inorganic substances into simple sugars.
Founded in 1999 to develop and commercialize micro-algae-derived products for the nutraceutical and cosmeceutical industries, Algatech's 25-strong production facility based in Kibbutz Ketura will soon begin collaborating with Israeli-US start-up GreenFuel Technologies Corporation to work towards a common goal: developing cost effective, energy efficient fuel made from micro-algae feeding off of carbon dioxide emissions.
"The bio-fuel concept is old," Algatech Research and Development head Dr. Amir Drory, told ISRAEL21c. "It started in the 60s and 70s when people started to look for alternatives. The area caught our attention a long time ago but this was not our major activity or research direction."
Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, GreenFuel is manned by a thirty-person workforce developing algae bio-reactor systems that convert carbon dioxide or smokestack emissions into clean, renewable bio-fuels. The company was founded by Isaac Berzin, an Israeli industrial bio-engineer principally responsible for patenting GreenFuel's approach to efficiently propagating algae on an industrial scale.
Algatech and GreenFuel have been in discussion for at least a year, both sides recognizing that a partnership in which one side provides the algae while the other provides technology for turning it into fuel is a complimentary fit. So complementary, in fact, that in June the Israel-US Bi-National Industrial Research and Development Foundation (BIRD) issued the parties a collective co-research grant.
"This is a project where the technology has its own merit independent of the area," BIRD Executive Director Eitan Yudilevich, PhD told ISRAEL21C. "The partnership is very interesting between a US startup and Israeli company. Many times it's the opposite. When you look at a reason for giving a partnership grant you also look at synergy and theirs is great."
BIRD's board of governors issues grants twice annually to approximately twenty-five Israel-America collaborations and while individual funding details are confidential, overall policy allows for a maximum $1 million capital investment. Commercialization is an expected outcome and BIRD's track record thus far has been successful. Former grantees currently traded on Wall Street include Scitex, Compugen, Elbit and Magic Software.
"From a technology point-of-view, there is no question that using algae to produce ethanol from CO2 is innovative," Yudilevich explains. "These guys have been doing work for more than a couple of years and already have investors that believe in the product."
The product, in this case, is a micro or single cell alga cultivated by Algatech using an optimization and screening process. Made up of lipids, starches and carbs -- nature's basic building blocks or the stuff we eat -- algae goes from starch or sugar form through fermentation to alcohol and protein where it can be eaten or burned.
The major tasks facing Algatech and GreenFuel are culturing the algae, optimizing the process and keeping costs low as compared with conventional fuel or other bio-fuels already on the market.
"We'll make it cost effective," GreenFuel CEO Cary Bullock said. "In the past you couldn?t grow the algae fast enough to justify the cost of building the plant. But with growing improvements and weighing the costs of producing a refined fuel derived from putting a refinery next to a major carbon source, the benefit is dramatic. You knock out the costs of producing, importing, refining and shipping and you're simultaneously reducing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere."
Bullock says there is a fair amount of power plant land in Australia, the US and Western Europe ideal for bio-diesel and ethanol production and notes that ethanol blended gasoline necessitates little to no engine modification. With government incentives such as tax credit subsidies, accelerated depreciation and credits offered to blenders on a per-gallon of ethanol blended fuel basis, it would seem the CO2 derived algae bio-fuel is already seamless.
"There's a lot of work to be done," Bullock cautions albeit optimistically. "It seems too easy because you intuit the process at a high level. But on a basic level, it's very hard. You're working with micro-organisms that not a huge body of research is available on."
Which is part of the reason GreenFuel and Algatech teamed up. Israel has been at the forefront of algae research for years, cultivating, developing and studying different strains of microalgae under ideal climate conditions. Algae can be grown in a wide range of regions, including temperate zones such as Europe, but the Negev desert setting is ideal.
Scientists on both fronts are eager to begin active collaboration expected to extend two to three years and both Drory and Bullock estimate they'll have product to market within the coming decade. Governments and industrialists in the U. and Europe are already watching.
Will shortage be a future factor with which to contend?
"There are about 30,000 species of micro-algae - mostly unexplored," Drory summarizes. "The reserve of micro-algae is huge - it's the same as fungi decades ago before they started looking into antibiotics. We won't face a shortage. We just have to invest money and effort to find very interesting micro-algae to work with."
Israel 21st Century
08.15.2006
As fossil fuel resources for petroleum used in fuel processing dwindle, global warming from burning those fossils heats up. Industry experts predict oil production's peak out in 2007 and the race to find affordable alternative energy solutions sprints forward for scientists, environmentalists and politicians worldwide. Everyone is searching for the proverbial golden ticket: affordable, alternative energy sources to take us into the next century. Frontrunners in the alternative arena, Israel's scientists are at the vanguard of finding innovative yet affordable fuel and energy options.
In the ongoing ISRAEL21c series 'The Israeli Energy Alternative,' we'll profile some of the most promising projects and initiatives currently underway in Israel to address growing US and global energy changes.
Part 2 -- Algae as a Fuel Source
Israeli scientists - well acquainted with the energy-producing capacity of algae - are applying that knowledge to fuel the future. Algatech in the southern Negev is turning a collective focus towards algae-derived bio-fuel.
Over 150 species of algae are currently used commercially to provide food for humans and livestock, serve as thickening agents in ice cream and shampoo, and ward off disease in pharmaceutical drug form. Unaltered, algae encompass different groups of living organisms that capture energy through photosynthesis, converting inorganic substances into simple sugars.
Founded in 1999 to develop and commercialize micro-algae-derived products for the nutraceutical and cosmeceutical industries, Algatech's 25-strong production facility based in Kibbutz Ketura will soon begin collaborating with Israeli-US start-up GreenFuel Technologies Corporation to work towards a common goal: developing cost effective, energy efficient fuel made from micro-algae feeding off of carbon dioxide emissions.
"The bio-fuel concept is old," Algatech Research and Development head Dr. Amir Drory, told ISRAEL21c. "It started in the 60s and 70s when people started to look for alternatives. The area caught our attention a long time ago but this was not our major activity or research direction."
Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, GreenFuel is manned by a thirty-person workforce developing algae bio-reactor systems that convert carbon dioxide or smokestack emissions into clean, renewable bio-fuels. The company was founded by Isaac Berzin, an Israeli industrial bio-engineer principally responsible for patenting GreenFuel's approach to efficiently propagating algae on an industrial scale.
Algatech and GreenFuel have been in discussion for at least a year, both sides recognizing that a partnership in which one side provides the algae while the other provides technology for turning it into fuel is a complimentary fit. So complementary, in fact, that in June the Israel-US Bi-National Industrial Research and Development Foundation (BIRD) issued the parties a collective co-research grant.
"This is a project where the technology has its own merit independent of the area," BIRD Executive Director Eitan Yudilevich, PhD told ISRAEL21C. "The partnership is very interesting between a US startup and Israeli company. Many times it's the opposite. When you look at a reason for giving a partnership grant you also look at synergy and theirs is great."
BIRD's board of governors issues grants twice annually to approximately twenty-five Israel-America collaborations and while individual funding details are confidential, overall policy allows for a maximum $1 million capital investment. Commercialization is an expected outcome and BIRD's track record thus far has been successful. Former grantees currently traded on Wall Street include Scitex, Compugen, Elbit and Magic Software.
"From a technology point-of-view, there is no question that using algae to produce ethanol from CO2 is innovative," Yudilevich explains. "These guys have been doing work for more than a couple of years and already have investors that believe in the product."
The product, in this case, is a micro or single cell alga cultivated by Algatech using an optimization and screening process. Made up of lipids, starches and carbs -- nature's basic building blocks or the stuff we eat -- algae goes from starch or sugar form through fermentation to alcohol and protein where it can be eaten or burned.
The major tasks facing Algatech and GreenFuel are culturing the algae, optimizing the process and keeping costs low as compared with conventional fuel or other bio-fuels already on the market.
"We'll make it cost effective," GreenFuel CEO Cary Bullock said. "In the past you couldn?t grow the algae fast enough to justify the cost of building the plant. But with growing improvements and weighing the costs of producing a refined fuel derived from putting a refinery next to a major carbon source, the benefit is dramatic. You knock out the costs of producing, importing, refining and shipping and you're simultaneously reducing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere."
Bullock says there is a fair amount of power plant land in Australia, the US and Western Europe ideal for bio-diesel and ethanol production and notes that ethanol blended gasoline necessitates little to no engine modification. With government incentives such as tax credit subsidies, accelerated depreciation and credits offered to blenders on a per-gallon of ethanol blended fuel basis, it would seem the CO2 derived algae bio-fuel is already seamless.
"There's a lot of work to be done," Bullock cautions albeit optimistically. "It seems too easy because you intuit the process at a high level. But on a basic level, it's very hard. You're working with micro-organisms that not a huge body of research is available on."
Which is part of the reason GreenFuel and Algatech teamed up. Israel has been at the forefront of algae research for years, cultivating, developing and studying different strains of microalgae under ideal climate conditions. Algae can be grown in a wide range of regions, including temperate zones such as Europe, but the Negev desert setting is ideal.
Scientists on both fronts are eager to begin active collaboration expected to extend two to three years and both Drory and Bullock estimate they'll have product to market within the coming decade. Governments and industrialists in the U. and Europe are already watching.
Will shortage be a future factor with which to contend?
"There are about 30,000 species of micro-algae - mostly unexplored," Drory summarizes. "The reserve of micro-algae is huge - it's the same as fungi decades ago before they started looking into antibiotics. We won't face a shortage. We just have to invest money and effort to find very interesting micro-algae to work with."
Israel 21st Century
08.15.2006
Monday, August 14, 2006
Tells Wallace One Thing - Iranians Another!
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad explicitly called for Israel's “death” - just days before assuring American journalist Mike Wallace that he merely wants to move the Jewish state to Germany.
Mike Wallace, the retired host of the popular “60 Minutes” weekly television program, interviewed the Iranian president last week. Wallace returned from the interview describing Ahmadinejad in glowing terms and insisting he was not an anti-Semite. The interview is set to air Sunday night.
“He doesn't like the United States for the reason that it's supporting the Zionist entity - he doesn't talk about Israel,” Wallace told radio host Sean Hannity.
“So you don't think he's an anti-Semite?” asked Hannity.
“He himself, an anti-Semite, an anti-Jew?” Wallace responded.
“Yes,” said Hannity.
“No, I don't,” Wallace said.
Asked by Hannity what Ahmadinejad meant when he called for Israel to be “wiped off the map,” Wallace said: “Yes, he says ‘wiped off the map,’ and of course I asked him over and over about that. He says in effect, ‘It's perfectly sensible that, if there is a Holocaust - and let's buy the fact that there was a Holocaust – [we ask] where did the Holocaust take place? Did it take place in an Arab neighborhood? Did it take place in Jerusalem? No. It took place in Germany. Then it seems to me, under those circumstances, take Israel, the Zionist entity,’ he called it, ‘move it to Germany. Move it to Europe. That's where it happened.’”
The Iranian President himself, however, when speaking to his own people, seems to have a different sort of end of the Jewish state in mind. Ahmadinejad addressed a large crowd of Iranians just a week prior to his interview with Wallace, in which he not only led a chant of “Death to Israel,” but explained that he was not alone in such a pursuit.
“I hereby declare that this sinister regime [Israel] is the banner of Satan. It is the banner of the Great Satan,” Ahmadinejad is seen saying in a speech broadcast by the Iranian News Channel (IRINN) on August 2. “From the southernmost point in South America to the easternmost point in Asia, all the people are shouting a single cry. With placards in their hands and clenched fists, they shout: ‘Death to Israel.’”
At that point the crowd chants, “Death to Israel. Death to Israel.”
Arutz Sheva
08.14.06
Mike Wallace, the retired host of the popular “60 Minutes” weekly television program, interviewed the Iranian president last week. Wallace returned from the interview describing Ahmadinejad in glowing terms and insisting he was not an anti-Semite. The interview is set to air Sunday night.
“He doesn't like the United States for the reason that it's supporting the Zionist entity - he doesn't talk about Israel,” Wallace told radio host Sean Hannity.
“So you don't think he's an anti-Semite?” asked Hannity.
“He himself, an anti-Semite, an anti-Jew?” Wallace responded.
“Yes,” said Hannity.
“No, I don't,” Wallace said.
Asked by Hannity what Ahmadinejad meant when he called for Israel to be “wiped off the map,” Wallace said: “Yes, he says ‘wiped off the map,’ and of course I asked him over and over about that. He says in effect, ‘It's perfectly sensible that, if there is a Holocaust - and let's buy the fact that there was a Holocaust – [we ask] where did the Holocaust take place? Did it take place in an Arab neighborhood? Did it take place in Jerusalem? No. It took place in Germany. Then it seems to me, under those circumstances, take Israel, the Zionist entity,’ he called it, ‘move it to Germany. Move it to Europe. That's where it happened.’”
The Iranian President himself, however, when speaking to his own people, seems to have a different sort of end of the Jewish state in mind. Ahmadinejad addressed a large crowd of Iranians just a week prior to his interview with Wallace, in which he not only led a chant of “Death to Israel,” but explained that he was not alone in such a pursuit.
“I hereby declare that this sinister regime [Israel] is the banner of Satan. It is the banner of the Great Satan,” Ahmadinejad is seen saying in a speech broadcast by the Iranian News Channel (IRINN) on August 2. “From the southernmost point in South America to the easternmost point in Asia, all the people are shouting a single cry. With placards in their hands and clenched fists, they shout: ‘Death to Israel.’”
At that point the crowd chants, “Death to Israel. Death to Israel.”
Arutz Sheva
08.14.06
Sunday, August 13, 2006
The US-Israeli Suicide Pact
The Iran-Hamas-Hizb'allah axis is fully responsible for initiating the war on Israel, but the Islamists' aggression is the logical product of US-Israeli policy. The longstanding commitment of Israel and America to "diplomatic engagement" with Palestinians and Islamists - a euphemism for appeasement - is suicidal.
For decades, America has urged Israel to placate and surrender to our common enemy. The US-endorsed "Road Map to Peace," like the "Peace Process" and sundry initiatives before it, rationalized Palestinian terrorism as the result of a legitimate grievance. If only the Palestinians' wish for a civilized, peaceful state were fulfilled, Washington deluded itself into believing, terrorism would end. And fulfilling this wish requires not smashing their terrorist infrastructure, but showering them with land and loot.
But the majority of Palestinians actually seek the destruction of Israel and the slaughter of its people. Because they embrace this vicious goal, hordes of Palestinians idolized arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat for waging a terrorist war to wipe out Israel and establish a nationalist dictatorship. They abetted Arafat's terrorism and celebrated his atrocities.
They served as cheerleaders or recruits for terrorist groups, and when they had the chance, they embraced the even more militant religious zealots of Hamas. It is no surprise that, according to a recent poll, 77 percent of Palestinians support their government's kidnapping of an Israeli soldier and that 60 percent support the continued rocket fire from Gaza into Israel.
But even as Palestinians mounted more attacks, Washington pressed Israel for more concessions, and bolstered the terrorist-sponsoring Palestinian Authority with millions of dollars in aid. The US forbade Israel from laying a finger on Arafat, and extended this tender solicitude to Hamas leaders. Washington actually whitewashed the blood-stained Arafat and his crony Mahmoud Abbas as peace-loving statesmen and invited them to the White House. And when Hizbullah now fires rockets at major cities in northern Israel, President George Bush demands that Israel show "restraint."
Depressingly, Israel has continually relented to American pressure to appease our common enemy. It has prostrated itself before the Palestinians, with flamboyantly self-sacrificial offers of land-for-peace; it has withdrawn from southern Lebanon, ceding ground necessary to its self-defense; it has withdrawn from Gaza, leaving its southern cities at the mercy of rocket fire from the Hamas-run territory.
Such US-endorsed appeasement by Israel, across decades, has enabled Hizb'allah and Hamas to mount their current attacks. Yet, America remains undeterred in its commitment to appeasement.
The US is now trying to woo Iran with endless offers of economic "incentives," if only Iran promises to stop chasing nuclear weapons. Evading Iran's lust to "wipe Israel off the map," evading its funding of Hizbullah and Hamas, evading its avowed enmity to America, evading its decades of fomenting and orchestrating a proxy terror war against American civilians - evading all of this, Washington deludes itself into believing that paying Iran off will, somehow, wipe out its hostility. Inevitably, this encourages Iran to continue its aggressive support for terrorists and its fervent quest for nuclear weapons.
Merely by prolonging the negotiations endlessly, Iran gains time to acquire a weapon to wield against its neighbors, to provide to Hamas and Hizb'allah or to other proxies to use against the United States. And were Iran eventually to accept some deal, American aid would merely be sustaining Iran's regime and, inexorably, a covert nuclear program.
We are teaching the Islamic totalitarians in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran that their goal of destroying us is legitimate, that aggression is practical, and that the more aggressive they are, the more we will surrender. US-Israeli policy has demonstrated that we lack the intellectual self-confidence to name, let alone condemn, our enemies, and that we lack the will to deal with threats mercilessly. It vindicates the Islamists' premise that their religious world-view can bring a scientific, technologically advanced West to its knees.
To protect the lives of our citizens, America and Israel must stop evading the nature of the enemy's cause: our complete destruction. We must stop appeasing our common enemy and embrace self-defense as a matter of intransigent principle. To put an end to the current rocket attacks from Lebanon and Gaza, America should urge Israel to annihilate the annihilators: Hamas and Hizbullah. And to thwart Iran's nuclear ambition, America must use as much military force as is necessary to dispose of that catastrophic threat and the regime responsible for it.
Arutz Sheva
08.13.2006
For decades, America has urged Israel to placate and surrender to our common enemy. The US-endorsed "Road Map to Peace," like the "Peace Process" and sundry initiatives before it, rationalized Palestinian terrorism as the result of a legitimate grievance. If only the Palestinians' wish for a civilized, peaceful state were fulfilled, Washington deluded itself into believing, terrorism would end. And fulfilling this wish requires not smashing their terrorist infrastructure, but showering them with land and loot.
But the majority of Palestinians actually seek the destruction of Israel and the slaughter of its people. Because they embrace this vicious goal, hordes of Palestinians idolized arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat for waging a terrorist war to wipe out Israel and establish a nationalist dictatorship. They abetted Arafat's terrorism and celebrated his atrocities.
They served as cheerleaders or recruits for terrorist groups, and when they had the chance, they embraced the even more militant religious zealots of Hamas. It is no surprise that, according to a recent poll, 77 percent of Palestinians support their government's kidnapping of an Israeli soldier and that 60 percent support the continued rocket fire from Gaza into Israel.
But even as Palestinians mounted more attacks, Washington pressed Israel for more concessions, and bolstered the terrorist-sponsoring Palestinian Authority with millions of dollars in aid. The US forbade Israel from laying a finger on Arafat, and extended this tender solicitude to Hamas leaders. Washington actually whitewashed the blood-stained Arafat and his crony Mahmoud Abbas as peace-loving statesmen and invited them to the White House. And when Hizbullah now fires rockets at major cities in northern Israel, President George Bush demands that Israel show "restraint."
Depressingly, Israel has continually relented to American pressure to appease our common enemy. It has prostrated itself before the Palestinians, with flamboyantly self-sacrificial offers of land-for-peace; it has withdrawn from southern Lebanon, ceding ground necessary to its self-defense; it has withdrawn from Gaza, leaving its southern cities at the mercy of rocket fire from the Hamas-run territory.
Such US-endorsed appeasement by Israel, across decades, has enabled Hizb'allah and Hamas to mount their current attacks. Yet, America remains undeterred in its commitment to appeasement.
The US is now trying to woo Iran with endless offers of economic "incentives," if only Iran promises to stop chasing nuclear weapons. Evading Iran's lust to "wipe Israel off the map," evading its funding of Hizbullah and Hamas, evading its avowed enmity to America, evading its decades of fomenting and orchestrating a proxy terror war against American civilians - evading all of this, Washington deludes itself into believing that paying Iran off will, somehow, wipe out its hostility. Inevitably, this encourages Iran to continue its aggressive support for terrorists and its fervent quest for nuclear weapons.
Merely by prolonging the negotiations endlessly, Iran gains time to acquire a weapon to wield against its neighbors, to provide to Hamas and Hizb'allah or to other proxies to use against the United States. And were Iran eventually to accept some deal, American aid would merely be sustaining Iran's regime and, inexorably, a covert nuclear program.
We are teaching the Islamic totalitarians in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran that their goal of destroying us is legitimate, that aggression is practical, and that the more aggressive they are, the more we will surrender. US-Israeli policy has demonstrated that we lack the intellectual self-confidence to name, let alone condemn, our enemies, and that we lack the will to deal with threats mercilessly. It vindicates the Islamists' premise that their religious world-view can bring a scientific, technologically advanced West to its knees.
To protect the lives of our citizens, America and Israel must stop evading the nature of the enemy's cause: our complete destruction. We must stop appeasing our common enemy and embrace self-defense as a matter of intransigent principle. To put an end to the current rocket attacks from Lebanon and Gaza, America should urge Israel to annihilate the annihilators: Hamas and Hizbullah. And to thwart Iran's nuclear ambition, America must use as much military force as is necessary to dispose of that catastrophic threat and the regime responsible for it.
Arutz Sheva
08.13.2006
Saturday, August 12, 2006
The UN Is A Shield For Terror
Israel is faced on its northern and southern borders with two Islamic-fascist terrorist organizations determined to wipe it from the face of the earth. These organizations have operated with impunity as the effective governments in the territories used to launch attacks against Israel while UN observers have stood by and done nothing. Yet the United Nations literally and figuratively shields the Hamas and Hezb'allah terrorist organizations while trying to immobilize Israel when Israel finally decides to strike back.
For example, the UN has facilitated resumption of the financial aid gravy train to Hamas without obtaining a single concession in return. Asked for an update on the financial situation of the Palestinian Authority, a spokesman for Secretary General Kofi Annan noted in a press briefing on August 7th that “a funding mechanism is up and running for the funding of the Authority”. All Kofi Annan ever cared about was to keep the Palestinian government afloat at Western taxpayers’ expense.
The Palestine Authority today is in the grip of the Hamas terrorist organization. It does not matter to the UN that Hamas still refuses to pursue negotiations with Israel over a secure two-state solution, much less recognize Israel’s right to exist. It does not matter to the UN that the Palestinian Authority was already sitting on more than a billion dollars of investments recovered from Arafat that it has failed to tap first to help the Palestinian people before asking for hand-outs. Every dollar that the UN and its cohorts channel to the Palestinian Authority aid program gives Hamas the ability to hoard the money it already has for its war against Israel. In the UN’s world, terrorists are rewarded with more money.
Beyond financial rewards, the United Nations confers legitimacy upon terrorist organizations by giving them a platform for their “issues” and a shield for their terror operations. Denying all sense of reality, the United Nations refuses to acknowledge that Hamas or Hezbollah are part of a dangerous global terrorist network whose common denominator is Islamic fascism.
Here is a revealing exchange with Kofi Annan’s press spokesperson at a daily press briefing back in January 2006 regarding Hamas:
Question: Does the Secretary-General consider Hamas to be a terrorist organization?
Spokesman: The Secretary-General has denounced in clear terms every time any organization has done a terrorist act, including when those acts were claimed by Hamas.
Question: But that doesn’t answer my question.
Spokesman: There is no United Nations label that I know of, of a terrorist organization.
Nothing has changed. In an interview recently with the Financial Times, UN Deputy Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown declared that “it’s not helpful to couch this war [between Israel and Hezbollah] in the language of international terrorism”. They deserve a “settlement which addresses the political issues of their cause as well as the military ones.” He fails to mention that the common cause of all Islamic-fascist terrorists – Hezbollah and Hamas included – is to bring as much of the world as possible under Islamic rule and to destroy Western secular democracies in the process.
Instead, in an effort to make us feel better, Malloch Brown assured us that Hezbollah’s “roots historically are completely separate and different from Al Qaeda.” That is sort of like saying that imperial Japan and Nazi Germany had such different histories that we should never have lumped them together as part of a global fascist axis during World War II.
For good measure, Malloch Brown portrayed Hezbollah’s biggest funder and weapons supplier - Iran - as some sort of Rodney Dangerfield character who yearns for nothing more than “respect.” Malloch Brown opined that Iran’s support of Hezbollah and its nuclear enrichment program were all part of a grand strategy to achieve its most precious wish - “a normalization of its relationships and to be brought back into the international community.” The fact that Iran’s president has repeatedly called for the annihilation of a UN member state and is building a nuclear arsenal to do just that in defiance of the international community does not seem to enter into the UN Deputy Secretary General’s calculation of what it takes for a UN member state to truly earn respect.
Malloch Brown, by the way, was the same individual who publicly lambasted Middle America several weeks ago for being so ignorant about the UN’s valuable role in the world. Every time Malloch Brown opens his mouth, he demonstrates why so many people in America are right to question the UN’s value and the moral compass of its leaders.
Indeed, Kofi Annan has the blood of civilians and UN observers on his own hands, because he failed to take action when he had the chance to save lives. For example, he personally rebuffed an advance warning to the UN from the Israeli Defense Force (“IDF”) that the UN should help remove innocent civilians from certain villages where fighting was expected to ensue. Here is what this self-righteous ‘humanitarian’ said in response to a question at a press briefing on July 30th: “It's not the time to undertake to evacuate villages. And besides, as I said, such requests would normally come from a government.”
Kofi Annan would rather stand on ceremony and wait for a request to help evacuate civilians come through normal diplomatic channels than act immediately to save lives and avert a humanitarian crisis. This is reminiscent Annan’s choice to ignore repeated reports coming from UN personnel on the ground near the Lebanese-Israeli border regarding the dangers they were facing as Hezbollah rockets were being fired from the vicinity of their posts and the IDF bombarded suspected Hezbollah positions in response. Annan refused to remove them from harm’s way until tragedy struck and four UN observers were killed. He blamed Israel, giving Hezbollah a moral victory of sorts by portraying their enemy as the international pariah while also absolving himself of any personal responsibility for what happened.
UN leaders have done everything possible to shield Hezbollah by trying to put Israel into a box. The United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Lebanon, David Shearer, has just called on the IDF to end its attacks on civilian infrastructure and to cease all actions hindering the supply of humanitarian relief supplies to the hundreds of thousands of displaced people across the country.
According to a statement issued by Shearer, bombardments by the IDF have seriously curtailed vital supply routes between the north and south of Lebanon. Meanwhile Hezbollah’s use of the same infrastructure and the same supply routes to re-arm itself, and to conduct its terrorist rocket attacks on Israeli civilians, is simply ignored. By this way of thinking, Hezbollah can mix with the civilian population, hiding among them as shields to launch their rockets against Israeli civilians, and then have their buddies at the UN claim a violation of international law when Israel responds and Hezbollah’s shields are inevitably caught in the cross-fire.
Immediate “cessation of hostilities” is the mantra being circulated in the halls of the United Nations as efforts to put together a Security Council resolution acceptable to all sides continue. The United States and France have proposed a two-step approach, starting with a resolution that would leave Israeli forces in place temporarily but require them to cease any “offensive” operations while Hezbollah also ceases its hostilities. Given Hezbollah’s track record, cessation of hostilities will mean Israel must stop in its tracks while Hezbollah will use any pause in fighting to re-arm and re-position itself for the next attack.
The same UN peacekeepers, who stood by for six years and did nothing to prevent the current crisis, will be expected to monitor this first phase. In any case, Lebanon has already rejected the French-American proposal. Its government mouthed Hezbollah’s unconditional demand for immediate withdrawal of all Israeli troops and offered - six years too late - to send 15,000 of its own troops to southern Lebanon instead. How anyone could seriously believe that these untrained troops would take any actions against the highly trained and armed Hezbollah is beyond belief.
If the French-American proposal should somehow move forward and the first resolution is passed, the second step would involve Security Council authorization of the deployment of an international force to southern Lebanon to enforce the terms of an overall settlement of the conflict.
At that time, Israeli troops would leave Lebanon altogether to be replaced by the international force, the Lebanese army would receive training and Hezbollah would be disarmed. At least, that is the theory. But it ignores the power brokers who have armed and financed Hezbollah all these years and have no incentive today to change course. Unless Iran and Syria are themselves brought under the Article VII enforcement provisions of the UN Charter and immediately subject to tough UN sanctions if they continue to support Hezbollah, the second resolution would solve nothing.
Based on the UN’s track record to date as a useful shield for Hezbollah, Hamas and their state sponsors, the terrorists will have little to worry about as long as the United Nations remains involved.
Frontpage mag
08.12.2006
For example, the UN has facilitated resumption of the financial aid gravy train to Hamas without obtaining a single concession in return. Asked for an update on the financial situation of the Palestinian Authority, a spokesman for Secretary General Kofi Annan noted in a press briefing on August 7th that “a funding mechanism is up and running for the funding of the Authority”. All Kofi Annan ever cared about was to keep the Palestinian government afloat at Western taxpayers’ expense.
The Palestine Authority today is in the grip of the Hamas terrorist organization. It does not matter to the UN that Hamas still refuses to pursue negotiations with Israel over a secure two-state solution, much less recognize Israel’s right to exist. It does not matter to the UN that the Palestinian Authority was already sitting on more than a billion dollars of investments recovered from Arafat that it has failed to tap first to help the Palestinian people before asking for hand-outs. Every dollar that the UN and its cohorts channel to the Palestinian Authority aid program gives Hamas the ability to hoard the money it already has for its war against Israel. In the UN’s world, terrorists are rewarded with more money.
Beyond financial rewards, the United Nations confers legitimacy upon terrorist organizations by giving them a platform for their “issues” and a shield for their terror operations. Denying all sense of reality, the United Nations refuses to acknowledge that Hamas or Hezbollah are part of a dangerous global terrorist network whose common denominator is Islamic fascism.
Here is a revealing exchange with Kofi Annan’s press spokesperson at a daily press briefing back in January 2006 regarding Hamas:
Question: Does the Secretary-General consider Hamas to be a terrorist organization?
Spokesman: The Secretary-General has denounced in clear terms every time any organization has done a terrorist act, including when those acts were claimed by Hamas.
Question: But that doesn’t answer my question.
Spokesman: There is no United Nations label that I know of, of a terrorist organization.
Nothing has changed. In an interview recently with the Financial Times, UN Deputy Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown declared that “it’s not helpful to couch this war [between Israel and Hezbollah] in the language of international terrorism”. They deserve a “settlement which addresses the political issues of their cause as well as the military ones.” He fails to mention that the common cause of all Islamic-fascist terrorists – Hezbollah and Hamas included – is to bring as much of the world as possible under Islamic rule and to destroy Western secular democracies in the process.
Instead, in an effort to make us feel better, Malloch Brown assured us that Hezbollah’s “roots historically are completely separate and different from Al Qaeda.” That is sort of like saying that imperial Japan and Nazi Germany had such different histories that we should never have lumped them together as part of a global fascist axis during World War II.
For good measure, Malloch Brown portrayed Hezbollah’s biggest funder and weapons supplier - Iran - as some sort of Rodney Dangerfield character who yearns for nothing more than “respect.” Malloch Brown opined that Iran’s support of Hezbollah and its nuclear enrichment program were all part of a grand strategy to achieve its most precious wish - “a normalization of its relationships and to be brought back into the international community.” The fact that Iran’s president has repeatedly called for the annihilation of a UN member state and is building a nuclear arsenal to do just that in defiance of the international community does not seem to enter into the UN Deputy Secretary General’s calculation of what it takes for a UN member state to truly earn respect.
Malloch Brown, by the way, was the same individual who publicly lambasted Middle America several weeks ago for being so ignorant about the UN’s valuable role in the world. Every time Malloch Brown opens his mouth, he demonstrates why so many people in America are right to question the UN’s value and the moral compass of its leaders.
Indeed, Kofi Annan has the blood of civilians and UN observers on his own hands, because he failed to take action when he had the chance to save lives. For example, he personally rebuffed an advance warning to the UN from the Israeli Defense Force (“IDF”) that the UN should help remove innocent civilians from certain villages where fighting was expected to ensue. Here is what this self-righteous ‘humanitarian’ said in response to a question at a press briefing on July 30th: “It's not the time to undertake to evacuate villages. And besides, as I said, such requests would normally come from a government.”
Kofi Annan would rather stand on ceremony and wait for a request to help evacuate civilians come through normal diplomatic channels than act immediately to save lives and avert a humanitarian crisis. This is reminiscent Annan’s choice to ignore repeated reports coming from UN personnel on the ground near the Lebanese-Israeli border regarding the dangers they were facing as Hezbollah rockets were being fired from the vicinity of their posts and the IDF bombarded suspected Hezbollah positions in response. Annan refused to remove them from harm’s way until tragedy struck and four UN observers were killed. He blamed Israel, giving Hezbollah a moral victory of sorts by portraying their enemy as the international pariah while also absolving himself of any personal responsibility for what happened.
UN leaders have done everything possible to shield Hezbollah by trying to put Israel into a box. The United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Lebanon, David Shearer, has just called on the IDF to end its attacks on civilian infrastructure and to cease all actions hindering the supply of humanitarian relief supplies to the hundreds of thousands of displaced people across the country.
According to a statement issued by Shearer, bombardments by the IDF have seriously curtailed vital supply routes between the north and south of Lebanon. Meanwhile Hezbollah’s use of the same infrastructure and the same supply routes to re-arm itself, and to conduct its terrorist rocket attacks on Israeli civilians, is simply ignored. By this way of thinking, Hezbollah can mix with the civilian population, hiding among them as shields to launch their rockets against Israeli civilians, and then have their buddies at the UN claim a violation of international law when Israel responds and Hezbollah’s shields are inevitably caught in the cross-fire.
Immediate “cessation of hostilities” is the mantra being circulated in the halls of the United Nations as efforts to put together a Security Council resolution acceptable to all sides continue. The United States and France have proposed a two-step approach, starting with a resolution that would leave Israeli forces in place temporarily but require them to cease any “offensive” operations while Hezbollah also ceases its hostilities. Given Hezbollah’s track record, cessation of hostilities will mean Israel must stop in its tracks while Hezbollah will use any pause in fighting to re-arm and re-position itself for the next attack.
The same UN peacekeepers, who stood by for six years and did nothing to prevent the current crisis, will be expected to monitor this first phase. In any case, Lebanon has already rejected the French-American proposal. Its government mouthed Hezbollah’s unconditional demand for immediate withdrawal of all Israeli troops and offered - six years too late - to send 15,000 of its own troops to southern Lebanon instead. How anyone could seriously believe that these untrained troops would take any actions against the highly trained and armed Hezbollah is beyond belief.
If the French-American proposal should somehow move forward and the first resolution is passed, the second step would involve Security Council authorization of the deployment of an international force to southern Lebanon to enforce the terms of an overall settlement of the conflict.
At that time, Israeli troops would leave Lebanon altogether to be replaced by the international force, the Lebanese army would receive training and Hezbollah would be disarmed. At least, that is the theory. But it ignores the power brokers who have armed and financed Hezbollah all these years and have no incentive today to change course. Unless Iran and Syria are themselves brought under the Article VII enforcement provisions of the UN Charter and immediately subject to tough UN sanctions if they continue to support Hezbollah, the second resolution would solve nothing.
Based on the UN’s track record to date as a useful shield for Hezbollah, Hamas and their state sponsors, the terrorists will have little to worry about as long as the United Nations remains involved.
Frontpage mag
08.12.2006
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
