When
President Donald Trump announced that the United States would move its embassy
from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the Muslim world reacted with outrage and threats.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas warned of “dangerous
consequences.” The spokesman for Turkish president Erdogan warned
that the move was a “grave mistake” because “Jerusalem is our red line.” Bekir
Bozdag, the Deputy Prime Minister, said the move would plunge the world “into a fire with
no end in sight.” And Saudi Arabia’s King Salman warned
that the move “would constitute a flagrant provocation of Muslims all over the
world.”
The
leaders of the Western world reacted in similar fashion. Pope Francis, British
Prime Minister Theresa May, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and French
President Emmanuel Macron all criticized Trump’s announcement. Meanwhile, the
patriarchs and heads of the local churches in Jerusalem sent a letter to
President Trump warning that the transfer of the embassy “will yield increased
hatred, conflict, violence, and suffering in Jerusalem.”
But
there is an obvious contradiction here. As Jihad Watch editor
Robert Spencer points out in a recent column, these leaders have a record of
defending Islam as a religion of peace and tolerance, which is being perverted
by only a handful of extremists. Pope Francis, for
example, has said that “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are
opposed to every form of violence.” On another occasion he drew a moral
equivalence between Islam and Catholicism, saying, “If I speak of
Islamic violence, I must speak of Catholic violence.” For over a decade
now, various Church leaders and secular leaders have assured us that violence
has nothing to do with Islam.
But
if that’s what they really believe, why should they worry that moving an
embassy would create – to quote from the letter of the church leaders in
Jerusalem – “hatred, conflict, violence, and suffering.”
By
assuming that Muslims would riot over the announcement, says Spencer, the pope
and other leaders are inadvertently admitting the truth about Islam: “that the
numerous incitements to violence and hatred in the Quran and Sunnah do
lead Muslims to behaving violently at the drop of a hat, or the move of an embassy.”
After
all, we are not talking here about a tiny minority whose actions would be
rejected by the great majority, but about widespread rioting and violence on a
global scale – “plunging the region and the world into a fire with no end in
sight,” as Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister put it.
And,
apparently, the “fire” would be justified because, as King Salman said, the
move “would constitute a flagrant provocation of Muslims all over the world.”
It’s a safe bet that King Salman understands Islam better than do Merkel, Macron,
May, and the Holy Father. Yet he is even more concerned than they.
He
seems to assume that Muslims are highly prone to violence. He understands that
they are easily provoked because their religion and their religious leaders
tell them to be. Moreover, as he must know, almost anything might be considered
provocative. Last July, a “day of rage” resulting in the murder of an Israeli
family was called because metal detectors had been installed on the Temple
Mount as a security measure. Even Pope Benedict’s measured address to an
academic gathering at the University of Regensburg led to global rioting and
killing.
There
is no end to the number of things that offend Muslims. This, along with
numerous other differences, should lay to rest the quaint notion that there is
a moral equivalence between Islam and Catholicism. They are very different
faiths. No one worries about global rioting should Cath-olics be offended by a
slight to their faith. Yet if any group has cause to riot, it is Catholics and
other Christians. Christians in many parts of the Islamic world face daily
persecution and extermination. They are beaten, raped, and decapitated, and
their churches are burned to the ground.
So
on the one hand, Muslim believers are ready to commit mayhem over an academic
talk or the moving of an embassy, and on the other hand, Christians remain
peaceful even though their brethren are being slaughtered and burned alive. How
much longer, we wonder, will Church leaders collaborate in the false assertion
that Islam and Christianity are equally peaceful faiths?
Religious
and secular leaders are caught in a flagrant contradiction. They tell us that
Islam is a religion of peace and justice, yet they warn us not to provoke its
followers in any way. Don’t recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Don’t draw
cartoons that might offend Muslims. Don’t wear religious symbols that might
provoke them. Cover your women and your statutes. Don’t ring church bells in
the vicinity of Muslims. Don’t criticize them for persecuting Christians because,
as Ahmed al-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar University told Pope Francis,
such criticism is a “red line”
that must not be crossed.
“Just stay quiet
and you’ll be okay.” That’s what Mohamed Atta told the passengers on
American Airlines flight 11 shortly before it flew into the World Trade Center.
It wasn’t good advice then. And it’s not good advice now...
Time for Western Donors to Teach the PA a Lesson
Marcus Sheff, Times
of Israel / uc4i.org
On
Dec 10, 2017, Yasin Abu al-Qar’a got up early. He calmly left his home outside
Nablus, traveled to Jerusalem and plunged a knife which he had specially bought
into the chest of a middle-aged Jerusalem bus station guard, Asher Elmaliach.
During his indictment for attempted murder
and as reported
in The Times of Israel, al-Qar’a told his Shin Bet interrogators that he had
identified Elmaliach as a Jew and that his attempt to kill was “based on what
he’d been taught in Palestinian Authority (PA) textbooks”.
The PA curriculum was recently overhauled,
taking three years to write. PA Minister of Education Sabri Saidem touted it as
a curriculum for the Steve Jobs economy. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The sad fact is, rather than grasp the opportunity to teach values of
progress, tolerance and peace, the new PA curriculum is a rallying call to
extremism and martyrdom.
In “Our Beautiful Language”, a grade 3 textbook, the liberation
of all of Palestine is described in a violent poem. Written for 9-year-olds, it
calls for "sacrificing blood," "eliminating the usurper,"
and "to annihilate the remnants of the foreigners”.
As our review and the examples here show, the new curriculum promotes
radicalization to an even greater extent than before. The textbooks groom
school children to sacrifice their lives and they promote hate. Negotiations
with Israel are rejected, with children taught that a Palestinian state will be
achieved only through violence and religious war. Martyrdom is
preached as a life goal. Their reward is in heaven where 72 wives await.
Girls find equality with boys through martyrdom. Dying, they are taught, is
better than living.
Those who risk their lives are championed,
while those who choose a path of nonviolence are denigrated as
cowards. War is considered an eternal state of human nature, while even
science is twisted to teach violence. The stated goal is to conquer Palestine
from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, promoted through an Islamist
and increasingly, a Salafist narrative. The curriculum’s focus is not merely on
demonizing Israel, but to justify war as an ongoing and praiseworthy necessity.
Newton’s Second Law is taught in a Grade 7
science textbook through the image of a boy with a slingshot targeting
soldiers,
to explain power, mass and tensile strength. Asher Elmaliach currently lies in
intensive care as a direct result of the PA Ministry of Education’s carefully
crafted curriculum, which systematically encourages young Palestinians to
become expendable martyrs...
‘Murdering Jews is the Most Lucrative Profession’: The Ofer military court on 29
Dec. 2017 began hearing the defense and prosecution's views on sentencing the
terrorist who killed three members of the Salomon family in July 2017. The
military prosecution demands 19-year-old Omar al-Abed be sentenced to three
life sentences for the murders and a fourth life sentence for attempting to
murder the rest of the family. Photos of the al-Abed in court show him smiling
widely, possibly because he knows that for every month he sits in prison, he
and his family will receive dozens of thousands of shekels in monthly payments
from the Palestinian Authority.
In
addition, al-Abed is aware that as he sits in prison, his colleagues are
planning ways to release him. Potential terrorists know that today, the most
lucrative occupation in the PA is killing Jews. The more Jews you kill, the
more money you'll receive. The Israeli government must understand that the PA's
incentives and indulgences, as well as the terrorists' families' visits, must
cease. (INN) “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put
darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet
for bitter!”
Isaiah 5:20.
Israel Announces “Donald Trump Train Station” In Jerusalem: Israel Railways has
decided to name the final stop on its soon-to-open high-speed Tel
Aviv-Jerusalem line after USA President Donald Trump. The much-anticipated rail
line was originally supposed to terminate at a new station being built adjacent
to Jerusalem's Central Bus Station and the International Convention Center. But
an underground extension was added taking the train to the entrance of the Old
City of Jerusalem. About a year ago, Transportation Minister Israel Katz
proposed another extension, taking the train (again, underground) all the way
to the Western Wall. That final station near the Western Wall is the one Israel
Railways intends to name "Donald Trump Train Station." That honor is
being bestowed in recognition of Trump's decision to finally recognize
Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. (Israel Today) Vision for Israel, PO Box 7265
Jerusalem 9107301,
ISRAEL
The
Muslim King Who Saved Jews During World War II
Source:
Accidental Talmudist
King Mohammed V of
Morocco saved his country’s 250,000 Jews from persecution and death at the
hands of France's pro-Nazi Vichy regime during the Holocaust. King
Mohammed was determined to preserve Morocco's ancient Jewish community, and he
extended his unwavering protection for three long years of Nazi occupation.
Born in 1909, Mohammed ascended to the
throne as Sultan in 1927, when he was only 18
years old. Morocco was a French protectorate, so when Germany invaded France in
1940 and installed a collabo-rationist regime, the North African nation also
fell under Nazi rule.
The
Nazi regime immediate-ly tried to pass laws in Morocco to ban Jews from various
professions, expel them from the best schools, and create a ghetto. The young
king (32 years old) blocked all anti-Jewish legislation. He refused to identify
the nation’s Jews. “There are no Jews in Morocco,” he said, “only
subjects."
He
stood firm against ghettoizing and deporting Moroccan Jews despite constant pressure
from the Vichy authorities. In a proud show of defiance, the king invited all
the rabbis of Morocco to attend the royal throne celebration in 1941.
In
1948, King Mohammed became troubled by anti-Jewish incitement in the Arab world
against the new state of Israel. He issued a stern warning to his subjects not
to hurt Jews, reminding them that Jews had always been protected in Morocco.
Mohammed
V died in 1961, at age 51. For his strong stance against Nazi persecution, he
was honored posthumously by the Institute for World Jewish Studies with the
Reverend King /Rabbi Heschel Award. The December 2015 awards ceremony in
New York was attended by Princess Lalla Hassna, granddaughter of King Mohammed
V. She brought a message from her brother, the current monarch King Mohammed
VI:
"We
are living at a time and in a world in which the collective imagination of our
societies is too often impaired, not to say poisoned, by regression and
archaism. By capitalizing on the depth and resilience of the legacy left by my
revered grandfather His Majesty Mohammed V, we can, together, set out to
recover the lost expanses of reason and mutual respect which have vanished from
many parts of the world.”
Israeli Arabs Have Highest Life Expectancy in Muslim World - 4 Jan 2018 - Israeli Arabs have the highest life expectancy among 21 Islamic or Arab countries, even higher than that of wealthy Gulf States, such as Qatar and Bahrain, according to a study released this week. The study also showed that infant mortality among Israeli Arabs was lower than most of the same Islamic and Arab countries surveyed.
The study conducted by the Taub Center for Social Policy
Studies in Israel noted, “thus, the relative status of Arab Israelis in terms
of life expectancy at birth is good when compared with that of all other Arab
or Muslim populations, and is equal to that of the general United States population.”
The
life expectancy for Arab-Israelis, the report noted, however, “is lower than
that of Israel’s Jewish population, and falls below the average for the 23
developed countries of the OECD, excluding the United States and Israel.”
One
of the factors that contributes to the disparity between the life expectancy of
Israeli Arabs and Jews are the higher infant mortality rate. The report also
suggests that “a relatively high incidence of road accidents and chronic, smoking-related
lower respiratory disease among Arab Israelis” may contribute to the lower life
expectancy of Israeli-Arabs compared to Israeli Jews.
Source:
The Israel Project & Bridges for Peace
Poll: Most Israeli Jews Think Trump is Helping Israel
Jan 4, 2018 | Israel Today Staff
There has been wild speculation that
US President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel
will damage the peace process and ultimately hurt the Jewish state. It's a
scare-mongering tactic that has long been used to coerce Israel into abandoning
its historical claims and red lines.
But
Israelis are no longer buying it. The monthly Peace Index survey released this
week revealed that a firm majority of Israeli Jews believe Trump truly understands
Israel's concerns and is helping the Jewish state, despite hysterical reactions
to the contrary.
According
to the poll, 65% of Israeli Jews believe Trump's Jerusalem declaration was in
Israel's best interests. Roughly the same percentage of Israeli Arabs said the
opposite. A strong 59% majority of Israeli Jews said that in general, Trump
understands Israel's interests and is acting to their benefit.
www.IsraelToday.co.il
Egyptian Scholar Tells Rowdy Arab TAU
Students They Should Thank God for Living in Israel
David
Israel www.jewishpress.com
Rami Aziz, an Egyptian researcher
and political analyst, whose research focuses on the growth and development of
political Islam in Europe, recently responded to a group of Israeli Arab
students who last week left a Tel Aviv University lecture hall after having
interrupted and taunted the lecturer inside. Their victim was Egyptian American
Sociologist and one of Egypt’s leading human rights and democracy activists,
Saad Eddin Ibrahim, who delivered a talk on Israeli-Egyptian relations and ways
to preserve them.
“Millions of students in the Arab world
envy you, you should thank God that you live in Israel, you bunch of hypocrites
and liars,” Aziz said in his angry video, representing a familiar trend in Arab
society these days, which is too busy with its own serious issues, such as the
Iranian threat, to bother with crybaby Israeli Arabs.
“Only in Israel can Arab students shout at
an Egyptian lecturer that he is a traitor for coming to a Zionist university.
And what exactly are they doing at a Zionist university? There is no
limit to the hypocrisy, disgust and aggravation of Israeli Arabs. How much can
you bite the hand that feeds you?” Aziz said.
Netanyahu: UNRWA Needs To Pass Away: PM Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday
7 Jan. 2018 opened the weekly cabinet meeting on the issue of stopping USA
support for UNRWA. "I completely agree with Trump's sharp criticism of UNRWA.
This is an organization that perpetuates the Palestinian refugee problem and
also perpetuates the narrative of the so-called right of return in order to
destroy the State of Israel. UNRWA needs to pass from the world,"
Netanyahu said. There is a UN commission for the treatment of the other
refugees in the world. This absurdity must be stopped." Netanyahu said he
also told the Americans that he believed UNRWA funds should be transferred
gradually to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which deals with refugees
worldwide. (Arutz-7)
As an Israeli Member of Knesset, Einat Wilf, put it:
"No other refugees in the world are afforded refugee status for
generations. Even the charter by which UNRWA was created maintains that it was
supposed to be only a temporary institution.” A report from the Global Research
in International Affairs said UNRWA actually helps promotes terrorism and holds
Palestinians back from rebuilding their lives. It charged UNRWA schools with
becoming hotbeds of anti-Western, anti-American, and anti-Semitic
indoctrination and recruiting offices for terrorist groups. It said also UNWRA
facilities are used to store and transport weapons, actually serving as
terrorist military bases. Indeed, during Israel’s 2014 Operation Protective
Edge, on several occasions Hamas rocket stockpiles were found stored in UN
schools in the Gaza Strip.
By
2040, Muslims Predicted To Outnumber Jews in the USA: Muslims will replace Jews as the
United States’ second-largest religious group by 2040, according to projections
by the Pew Research Center. Muslims currently make up some 3.45 million people
living in the USA, or about 1.1 percent of the total population, while a major
Pew study last year suggested some 6.7 million Americans, or 2.1% of the population,
identify as Jews. But that gap is unlikely to last, the group said in a recent
statement, explaining that “our projections suggest that the USA Muslim population
will grow much faster than the country’s Jewish population.”
The
Muslim share in the overall USA population has grown quickly, from 0.4% of all
Americans in 2007 to 0.9% in 2014, according to a previous 2014 study by Pew.
Jews’ share grew too, but more slowly, from 1.7% to 1.9% in the same period.
The fastest-growing religious identity in the USA is “unaffiliated,” which grew
by 6.7 percentage points in just seven years, from 2007 to 2014, from 16.1% to
22.8%. (Times of Israel) Intercede that increasing
numbers of Jews in the USA will take the steps to make their homes in Israel.
If there is to be a decreasing gap between the Jewish population and that of
the Muslims in the USA, let it be because growing numbers of Jews are making
Aliya.
Vision for Israel, PO Box 7265
Jerusalem 9107301, ISRAEL
Israel:
Palestinian Authority Paid Terrorists $358 Million in 2017
- Lilach Shoval
The Palestinian Authority spent $358 million on payments to terrorists and
their families in 2017, the Israel Defense Ministry said Tuesday, an amount
representing 7% of the PA's total budget. In 2016, the PA spent $322 million on
terrorists' stipends. Terrorists serving a life sentence receive a monthly
stipend of $2,900. To compare, the average monthly salary of Palestinians in
the West Bank is $580.
"The Palestinian Authority pays terrorists and their families over a
billion shekels a year, thus encouraging and perpetuating terrorism," Defense
Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Monday. "It constitutes financing
terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens. Nothing demonstrates the Palestinian
Authority's support of terrorism more. It is our duty to stop it," he
said. (Israel Hayom)
Editor's
Note: The Palestinian Authority also encourages
terrorism in their media and schools. Terrorists are considered to be heroes
and are considered to be martyrs if killed in the act.
In
Jerusalem there is a “Martin Luther
King Street” with a sign stating that he was an “American Leader and
Fighter for Universal Human Rights”. Dr. King and his wife Coretta Scott
King are both memorialized with forests of trees planted in Israel in their memory.
Mrs. King and Reverend Martin Luther King Sr. were among the founding members
in 1975 of BASIC - Black
Americans to Support Israel Committee, which was led by the
legendary Bayard Rustin.
On the occasion of the annual national
Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday the American Zionist Movement, consisting of 25
national Zionist organizations, representing millions of Americans, is proud to
highlight here some of the notable remarks and writings of Dr. King:
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Israel, Zionism,
and the Jewish People
"Peace
for Israel means security, and we must stand with all our might to protect its
right to exist, its territorial integrity. I see Israel as one of the great
outposts of democracy in the world, and a marvelous example of what can be
done, how desert land can be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and
democracy. Peace for Israel means security and that security must be a reality."
"When people criticize Zionists they
mean Jews, you are talking anti-Semitism.”
“The
whole world must see that Israel must exist, and has the right to exist, and is
one of the great outposts of democracy in the world.”
“Israel’s right to exist as a state of
[with] security is incontestable.”
"I solemnly pledge to do my utmost to
uphold the fair name of the Jews -- because bigotry in any form is an affront
to us all."
“I cannot stand idly by, even though I live
in the United States and even though I happen to be an American Negro, and not
be concerned about what happens to my brothers and sisters who happen to be
Jews in Soviet Russia. For what happens to them happens to me and to you and we
must be concerned.”
Source:
AmericanZionistMovement.org
An Orthodox Response to Yeshua
The following comments and responses are from www.chabad.org,
which is the website for the "Ultra-Orthodox" Lubavitch sect of
Judaism. Down below are communications on their website from someone named
Sandy and responses from Tzvi Freeman, a senior editor at Chabad.org, also heads the Ask The
Rabbi team. He is the author who of Bringing Heaven Down to Earth.
Comment from "Sandy":
My dad and my mom are Jews but they converted to Christianity so I am
not a Jew.
Sandy
Rabbi
Tzvi Freeman's response to Sandy:
Sandy, you are a Jew. Your parents are
Jews. 100%. Don't let any-one tell you otherwise. Once a Jew, always a Jew.
Tzvi Freeman
Sandy's
response to Tzvi Freeman:
I accepted Jesus in my
heart. My Dad stopped talking to me.[1] I don’t agree with this
state-ment “ once a Jew always a Jew"! People’s free will is important
too.
Sandy
Rabbi's
response to Sandy :
The man you accepted in your heart was
also a Jew—to the very end. He ate matzah on Passover, fasted on Yom Kippur,
wore tzitzit on his garments and wrapped tefillin. He kept kosher as well. Rabbi Tzvi
Freeman
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/3854897/jewish/Who-Is-a-Jew.htm
Editor's Note: Chabad is a worldwide movement, with Chabad
centers in several dozen different countries. Chabad definitely does not
believe in Yeshua as Messiah. However, Chabad does many wonderful works of charity,
feeding the poor, and bringing wayward Jews back to Torah and to their Jewish
heritage. Also, Chabad is also highly Zionistic, always taking a strong stand
for Israel. (Some of the other so-called Ultra-Orthodox Jews sects such as
Satmar are highly hostile to the existence of Israel.)
Consider a Financial Gift For
God’s Beloved People, Israel: Vision
for Israel continues to impart comfort and provision for many of the nation’s
poor, including terrorist victims and their families, the elderly and Holocaust
survivors. Please give at www.visionforisrael.com
Shalom From Jerusalem,
Israel's Eternal Capital!
email WFJ@IFI.ORG.IL
by Chuck & Karen Cohen,
Last
year ended with political fireworks! On December 6th US President
Trump recognized Jeru-salem as Israel's capital, advancing the fulfillment of Zechariah 12:2-3. Having
often cited these verses, we were not too surprised, but it is im-perative for
us to remember that it is not Trump, or Israeli Prime Minister [PM] Bibi
Netanyahu, or religious Jews or Christian Zionists, who make Jerusalem a
target; it is our Creator God (12:1).
He brings His plans to pass in His time, regardless of man's plans. (Ps. 33:10-11)
"Behold, I, [YHWH],
make Jerusalem a cup of trembling to all the peoples all
around…" Most of Israel's Arab neighbors despise Jerusalem remaining
under Jewish sovereignty. "In that day I will make Jerusalem a burdensome
stone for all peoples. All who lift it shall be cut to pieces, though all
nations of the earth will gather together against it." (Zech. 12:2-3) Today, this
is occurring in the geo-political realm; in the future in actual combat, yet
note God's decree: "And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will
seek to utterly annihilate all nations that come against
Jerusalem." (Zech.
12:9)
Jerusalem as God sees
it
Israel's
reunification of Jerusalem in 1967 was God using His city to challenge the
nations and spiritual powers. This is the place where He has set His name (Deut. 16:11; 1 Ki. 8:29; Isa. 18:7)
and where God the Son, the King of the Jews, died for the sins of the world (Luke 13:33). Here He was
buried and resurrected. From here He ascended to heaven, and to here He will
return (Acts 1:9-12).
God's indwelling Spirit shows us why the god of this age hates this city. As
God's enemy, Satan hates all that God loves – which includes Zion (Ps. 87:2), the nation of
Israel and the Jewish people (Deut.
7:7-8), the true Church (Gal.
2:20; Eph. 5:2) and the unsaved sinner (John 3:16).
Satan, who knows God's Word, knows that Messiah's
return to the Mount of Olives spells the end of his pseudo-reign over the
affairs of man (Zech.
14:2-4; Rev. 19:11-16; 19:21-20:3).
Ultimately, New Jerusalem will descend from
heaven as God's capital city on a new earth. From there King Messiah will reign
with His Bride, the Overcomers (Rev.
21:1-11). That is a surety. How we get from here to there is one
of the reasons He calls us to pray – so that His kingdom comes and His will is
done, with as much mercy as possible (Luke
11:2; Ezek. 22:30).
US President's
recognition
of reality re: Jerusalem
Most
of this Watchmen
issue deals with
the huge global, political and prophetic effects of Trump and his
"Jerusalem decision." Why was world reaction so vehement? Trump made
no decision on the city's final borders, but left that to be decided by Israel
and the Palestinians. Still, the demonic realm was stirred up. There is nothing
new under the sun (Eccl.
1:9b). "When Sanballat…and Tobiah…heard, it grieved them
greatly that a man came to seek the welfare of the children of Israel." (Neh. 2:10)
We rejoice at Trump's words, yet as faith
without works is dead, so are words without actions. We pray for Trump and his
team to follow-up his words with actions in line with God's Word. Senior US
administration officials told reporters before his speech that Trump's
recognition of "Jerusalem as the capital of Israel," is recognition
"of the historical reality that Jerusalem has been the center of Jewish
faith for thousands of years," and is today where all "government ministries,
the Supreme Court and central authorities" are located.
They told the Palestinian Authority [PA],
"Jerusalem has been the capital of Israel for seven decades now…This
recognition of reality should not affect the peace process." ("Trump to recognize Jerusalem,
order embassy move," Arutz
7, 6 Dec. 2017)
Jordan's King Abdullah warned Trump of
"the danger of taking any decision outside the context of a comprehensive
solution that establishes a Palestinian state with its capital in east Jerusalem."
So he has his mind made up. He added, "Jerusalem is the key to achieving
peace and stability in the region and the world." While this is not true
geo-politically, it is true biblically!
("Trump
tells Jordanian King US embassy to be moved," Arutz 7, 6 Dec. 2017)
Trump's speech
relating to Jerusalem
Some
excerpts from his speech, with our main comments in brackets: "In 1995,
Congress adopted the Jerusalem Embassy Act, urging the federal government to
relocate the American embassy to Jerusalem and to recognize" that city as
Israel's capital. Since then every "president has exercised the law's
waiver," thinking that by delaying this, it "would advance the cause
of peace." Yet today "we are no closer to a lasting peace
agreement…It would be folly to assume that repeating the exact same formula
would now produce a different or better result.
"Therefore…it is time to officially
recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel…This is a long-overdue step to
advance the peace process…" [We pray this becomes the death of this
anti-biblical "divide-God's-land-for-peace" process.]
"Israel is a sovereign nation with the
right like every other sovereign nation to determine its own capital."
[Amen! Yet it is not Israel who has chosen Jerusalem; this is God's city which
He has given to His people (2
Chr. 6:6; Psa. 132:13; Zech. 3:2).] .......
|
by William
Kilpatrick FRONTPAGEMAG.COM, January 15, 2018 |
A
frightening glimpse into the European future - and its dire warning to America:
After every Islamic
terrorist attack, whe-ther in
Europe or the U.S., people ask what can be done to prevent it from happening
again. But when the obvious solutions are pro-posed, they are invariably met
with the objection that “you can’t do that,” or “that’s unconstitutional,” or
words to that effect.
Some of the obvious solutions are to close
radical mosques and radical Islamic schools, to monitor suspected mosques, to deport
radical imams, and, of course, to restrict Muslim immigration or ban it altogether.
If you dare to say such things, however, it quickly becomes apparent that—for
many, at least—only politically correct solutions are acceptable. The trouble
is, the politically correct crowd doesn’t have any solutions. In the memorable
words of (former) French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, “France is going to have to live with terrorism.”
Catholics are frequently in the forefront
of those who object to these “drastic” measures for preventing terrorism in the
West. Pope Francis, for example, has made generosity to refugees and immigrants
a hallmark of his papacy. Christians, he has reminded us... should build bridges,
not walls. Others, Catholics among them, have objected that restrictions on
Islamic immigration would violate the freedom of religion guaranteed by the
Constitution—as would surveillance of mosques and Islamic societies.
Catholics are understandably touchy about
the subject of religious liberty. But concerns over Christians being forced to
bake cakes for same-sex weddings shouldn’t be allowed to overshadow some other
basic questions about religious liberty.
One of the questions is this: does a religion
that doesn’t believe in religious freedom for others qualify for First
Amendment protection? Another, related question might be framed as follows: Is
a religion that calls for the subjugation of other religions entitled to the
“free exercise” of that mandate? The underlying issue, of course, is whether or
not Islam really qualifies as a religion. As any number of authorities have
pointed out, Islam is a hybrid—part religion and part a geo-political movement
bent on world domination.
The “world domination” bit, by the way, is
not confined to the fevered imaginations of right-wing fanatics. In a recent
interview with Religion New
Service, Cardinal Raymond Burke said “there’s no question that Islam
wants to govern the world.” “Islam,” he continued, “is a religion that,
according to its own interpretation, must also become the State.”
Here’s what I had to say about the matter four years ago:
Does
this [the 1st Amendment] make the exercise of religion an absolute right to do
anything in the name of religion? Should the
free-exercise clause be extended to protect suicide cults or virgin
sacrifice? The First Amendment also prohibits the establishment of a state
religion, but one of the main purposes of Islam is to establish itself as the
state religion. It can be argued that Islam’s raison d’etre is to be the established
religion in every nation. Hence, another question must be asked: does the First
Amendment protect its own abolishment?
Cardinal Burke is a canon lawyer—a profession
that requires one to choose words carefully. Hence, when he talks about Islam
becoming the State, he should be taken seriously. According to him, “when they [Muslims] become a majority in
any country then they have the religious obligation to govern that country.” As
we have seen, however, long before Muslims become a majority they begin demanding
that their fellow citizens comply with Sharia laws regarding diet, dress, and
blasphemy. Allowing Muslims the full and free exercise of their faith is
tantamount to restricting the freedom of others. Or, as Dutch MP Geert Wilders likes to say, “more Islam” means “more
intolerance” for everyone else.
Wilders is referring to the consequences
that follow upon the mass migration of Muslims into Europe. Although his was
once a lonely voice, numerous polls show that the majority of Europeans now
believe along with him that Islam does not belong in Europe. Pope Francis, on
the other hand, has been in the habit of chiding Christians for their
opposition to accepting more Muslim immigrants. He recently went so far as to
warn them that they will have to answer to Christ at the Last Judgment because he (in the guise
of the migrant) was homeless, and they did not take him in.
But, although charity is the paramount Christian
virtue, there is another virtue that governs the exercise of charity. It’s
called “prudence.” And prudence would suggest that spiritual leaders and
secular leaders should exercise caution when advocating acts of charity that
put the lives of others at risk. In Europe, there are now numerous prudential
reasons for slowing or halting the flow of Muslim immigration: the Charlie
Hebdo massacre, the Bataclan Theater massacre, the massacres at the Brussels
airport and subway, the massacre at Nice, the Munich mall massacre, the axe
attack aboard a German train, the bomb attack on a wine bar in the city of Ansbach,
and the New Year’s Eve sexual assaults which targeted over 1,200 German
women...
Golda Meir was Prime Minister of
Israel from February 1969 to June 1974. The following is an op-ed she
wrote for The New York Times in 1975.
|
by Golda
Meir |
To be misquoted is an occupa-tional
hazard of political leadership; for this reason I should like to clarify my position
in regard to the Palestinian issue. I have been charged with being rigidly
insensitive to the question of the Palestinian Arabs. In evidence of this I am
supposed to have said, “There are no Palestinians.” My actual words were:
“There is no Palestinian people. There are Palestinian refugees.” The distinction
is not semantic. My statement was based on a lifetime of debates with Arab
nationalists who vehemently excluded a separatist Palestinian Arab nationalism
from their formulations.
When
in 1921 I came to Palestine – until the end of World War I a barren, sparsely
inhabited Turkish province – we, the Jewish pioneers, were the avowed Palestinians.
So we were named in the world. Arab nationalists, on the other hand, stridently
rejected the designation. Arab spokesmen continued to insist that the
land we had cherished for centuries was, like Lebanon, merely a fragment of
Syria. On the grounds that it dismembered an ideal unitary Arab state, they
fought before the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry and at the United
Nations.
When
the Arab historian Philip K. Hitti informed the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry
that “there is no such thing as Palestine in history,” it was left to
David Ben-Gurion to stress the central role of Palestine in Jewish, if not
Arab, history. As late as May 1956, Ahmed Shukairy, subsequently head of the
Palestine Liberation Organization, declared to the United Nations Security
Council, “It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern
Syria.” In view of this, I believe I may be forgiven if I took Arab spokesmen
at their word.
Until
the 1960’s, attention was focused on the Arab refugees for whose plight the
Arab states would allow no solution though many constructive and far-reaching
proposals were made by Israel and the world community.
I
repeatedly expressed my sympathy for the needless sufferings of refugees whose
abnormal situation was created and exploited by the Arab states as a tactic in
their campaign against Israel. However, refugee status could not indefinitely
be maintained for the original 550,000 Arabs who in 1948 joined the exodus from
the battle areas during the Arab attack on the new state of Israel.[2]
When the refugee card began to wear thin, the Palestinian terrorist appeared on
the scene flourishing not the arguable claims of displaced refugees but of a
ghoulish na-tionalism that could only be sated on the corpse of Israel.
I
repeat again. We dispossessed no Arabs. Our toil in the deserts and marshes of
Palestine created more habitable living space for both Arab and Jew. Until 1948
the Arabs of Palestine multiplied and flourished as the direct result of
Zionist settlement. Whatever subsequent ills befell the Arabs were the
inevitable result of the Arab design to drive us into the sea. Had Israel not
repelled her would-be destroyers there would have been no Jewish refugees alive
in the Middle East to concern the world.
Now,
two years after the surprise attack of the Yom Kippur War, I am well aware of
the potency of Arab petrobillions and I have no illusions about the moral fiber
of the United Nations, most of whose members hailed gun-toting Yasir Arafat and
shamefully passed the anti-Semitic resolution that described Zionism, the national
liberation movement of the Jewish people, as racist.
But
though Israel is small and beset, I am not prepared to accede to the easy
formula that in the Arab-Israeli conflict we witness two equal contending rights
that demand further “flexibility” from Israel. Justice was not violated when in
the huge territories liberated by the Allies from the Sultan, 1 percent was set
aside for the Jewish homeland on its ancestral site, while in a parallel settlement
99 percent of the area was allotted for the establishment of independent Arab
states.
We successively accepted the
truncation of Transjordan, three-fourths of the area of historic Palestine, and
finally the painful compromise of the 1947 partition resolution in the hope for
peace. Yet though Israel arose in only one-fifth of the territory originally
assigned for the Jewish homeland, the Arabs invaded the young state.
I
ask again, as I have often asked, why did the Arabs not set up a Palestine
state in their portion instead of cannibalizing the country by Jordan’s seizure
of the West Bank and Egypt’s capture of the Gaza Strip? And, since the question
of the 1967 borders looms heavily in the present discussions, why did the Arabs
converge upon us in June 1967, when the West Bank, the Golan Heights, the
Sinai, the Gaza Strip and old Jerusalem were in their hands?
These are
not idle questions. They go to the heart of the matter – the Arab denial of Israel’s
right to exist. This right is not subject to debate.
Source: https:IsraelInstitute.nz
"Oh You
Cross-Worshippers, We'll Kill You All" by Raymond Ibrahim
GATESTONE INSTITUTE, January 15, 2018
Muslim Persecution of Christians
·
A popular Arabic-language newspaper attacked
Morocco's Christian activists for their faith and ended with the message: the
"Koran requires the killing of apostates." — Morocco.
·
Sweden decided to deport a female Iranian
convert to Christianity. When the convert, Aideen Strandsson, pleaded that in
Iran she could face the death penalty as an apostate, Swedish officials told
her, "it's not our problem if you decided to become a Christian, and it's
your problem." Meanwhile, Sweden continues accepting Muslim refugees.
·
In the name of "fighting
terrorism," Bangladesh made changes to a law that forced approximately 200
Christian organizations to shut down.
A document drafted by
members of the global Christian community convening at the 3rd International
Christian Forum, held in Moscow, detailed how over the past ten
years the Middle East's Christian population has shrunk by 80% and warned that
unless current trends are reversed, Christianity "will vanish" from
its ancient homelands in a few years' time. Around the year 2000, there were
1.5 million Christians in Iraq; today there are only 100,000 -- roughly a 93%
percent drop, the document notes. In Syria, the largest cities "have lost
almost all of their Christian population."
Other
experts offered similarly dismal statistics. The Center for the Study of Global
Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Hamilton, Massachusetts,
had predicted that by 2025, the percentage of Christians in the
Middle East — which in 1910 was 13.6% — could go down to around 3%.
Christians
seeking to return to areas in Iraq and Syria liberated from the Islamic State
(ISIS) continue to face discrimination from local Muslim and Kurdish
communities. Andrew White, also known as the "vicar of Baghdad," had said that, "the time has come where it is over, no
Christians will be left. Some say Christians should stay to maintain the
historical presence, but it has become very difficult. The future for the community
is very limited."
Others,
such as Former Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), are more optimistic: "Now is the time. We have an administration
that's open to doing something," he said, indicating the US Trump administration.
Meanwhile, ISIS continued to harbor high
hopes. In a video released by the terrorist organization in August, an
extremist tore up a photo of Pope Francis and Pope Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI,
while saying, "Remember this, you kuffar
[infidels] — we will be in Rome, we will be in Rome, inshallah [Allah
willing]." The narrator of the video also vowed that, "After all
their efforts, it would be the religion of the cross that would be broken. The
crusaders' enmity toward the Muslims only served to embolden a generation of
youth." When asked about this, the pope's top aide said, "Pope
Francis hasn't changed a thing in his agenda, nor is he going to. Furthermore,
he'll continue to foment dialogue, creating bridges, defending peace. With
Muslims and Christians."...
Egypt Tells Palestinians To Accept Trump’s
Jerusalem Decision: In a
hushed, roundabout way, Egyptian
authorities are pressing the Palestinians to accept USA President Donald
Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel as the new reality. A
senior intelligence officer speaking on behalf of Egypt's defense establishment
was taped phoning a number of popular local television talk show hosts to encourage
them to deliver that message to their viewers. The officer, identified as
Captain Ashraf al-Kholi, went so far as to tell one celebrity host, Azmi Megahed,
that if the Palestinians truly want an independent state, they should accept
Ramallah as their capital and give up their insistence on controlling eastern
Jerusalem. "How is Jerusalem different from Ramallah, really?" asked
Kholi, hinting at what many other Muslims in the region have been acknowledging
of late - that Jerusalem doesn't really hold much religious significance for
Islam. (Israel Today)
US
Cuts Contribution to UNRWA in Half, Following Its History of Corruption, Terror
Support
-
18 Jan 2018
The Trump administration announced that it was conditioning roughly half of a periodic contribution to UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East). The administration will transfer roughly $60 million immediately, but the remaining pledge of $65 million has been withheld “for future consideration.” The administration had previously indicated that funding would be withheld in response to a lack of movement towards peace by the Palestinian leadership.
The Hypocrisy of Child Abuse
in Many Muslim Countries
Shaista Gohir, theguardian.com UC4I.ORG
Child
marriage and pederasty are tolerated in Muslim societies where homosexuality is
strictly condemned. Some Muslims
are fond of condemning western morality – alcoholism, nudity, premarital sex
and homosexuality often being cited as examples. But Muslims do not have a monopoly
on morality. In the west, child marriages and sex with children are illegal.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for many Muslim countries.
I
recently saw the documentary on the Dancing Boys of
Afghanistan. It exposed an ancient custom called "bacha
bazi" (boy for play), where rich men buy boys as young as 11 from
impoverished families for sexual slavery. The boys are dressed in women's
clothes and made to dance and sing at parties, before being carted away by the
men for sex. Owning boys is considered a symbol of status and one former
warlord boasted of having up to 3,000 boys over a 20-year period, even though
he was married, with two sons. The involvement of the police and inaction of
the government means this form of child prostitution is widespread.
The moral
hypocrisy is outrageous in a country where homosexuality is not only strictly
forbidden but savagely punished, even between two consenting adults. However,
men who sodomize young boys are not considered homosexuals or pedophiles. The
love of young boys is not a phenomenon restricted to Afghanistan; homosexual
pederasty is common in neighboring Pakistan, too. In my view,
repression of sexuality and extreme gender apartheid is to blame.
And in
the Middle East, it's young girls who are considered desirable and men are able
to satisfy their lusts legally through child marriages. In Yemen, more than a
quarter of girls are married before the age of 15. Cases of girls dying during
childbirth are not unusual, and recently, one 12-year-old child bride even died
from internal bleeding following sexual intercourse. In another
case, a 12-year-old girl was married to an 80-year-old man in Saudi Arabia...
Rape
and Adultery in Islam
religionofpeace Staff, thereligionofpeace.com
Why are rape
victims often punished by Islamic courts as adulterers?
Under
Islamic law, rape can only be proven if the rapist confesses or if there are
four male witnesses. Women who allege rape without the benefit of the act
having been witnessed by four men (who presumably develop a conscience afterwards)
are actually confessing to having sex. If they or the accused happens to
be married, then it is considered to be adultery.
Quran
Quran (2:282) - Establishes that a woman's testimony is worth only half that of a
man's in court (there is no "he said/she said" gridlock in Islam).
Quran (24:4) - "And those who accuse free women then do not bring four witnesses,
flog them..." Strictly speaking, this verse addresses
adultery... However it is a part of the theological underpinning of the Sharia
rule on rape, since strict Islamic law does not recognize rape if there are not
four male witnesses or a confession...
Islamic
law rejects forensic evidence such as DNA in favor of testimony. An interesting
situation thus sometimes develops in cases where a victim alleges rape but the
man denies that sex even took place. In the absence of four male
witnesses, rape cannot be proven. The woman's testimony then becomes a
"confession" of adultery. She can even be stoned, even though the
male is unpunished since he never admitted to a sexual act.
Some
clerics blame rape on the woman. Australian Sheik Feiz recently said a rape victim "has no one to blame but herself. She
displayed her beauty to the entire world... to tease man and appeal to his
carnal nature." Even his successor, who was brought in
to mitigate the backlash, compared unveiled women to "sweet pastries,"
tempting 'hungry' men....
Muslim Brotherhood Fact Sheet
standwithus.com January 19, 2018 UC4I.ORG
... The Brotherhood uses democracy, but once in
power it will replace democracy with fundamentalist shariah law because it is
the “true democracy.” “The final, absolute message from heaven contains all the
values which the secular world claims to have invented....Islam and its values
antedated the West by founding true democracy.” —Former Muslim Brotherhood Supreme
Guide Muhammed Mahdi Akef, Nov. 2007
The Brotherhood’s view of women’s
rights is to subjugate and segregate women: The ideal society would include “a
campaign against ostentation in dress and loose behavior…segregation of male
and female students; private meetings between men and women, unless within the
permitted degrees of relationship, to be counted as a crime for which both will
be censured… prohibition of dancing and other such pastimes." —Muslim
Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, “Five Tracts”
The Brotherhood supports Female Genital
Mutilation: “[the Americans] wage war on Muslim leaders, the traditions of its
faith and its ideas. They even wage war against female circumcision, a practice
current in 36 countries, which has been prevalent since the time of the
Pharaohs.” —Former Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammed Mahdi Akef, 2007
The Thomas More Law Center (“TMLC”), a
national nonprofit public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, filed
a federal lawsuit in the New Jersey District Court against several officials
and teachers of the Chatham Middle School and the School District of the
Chathams, located in New Jersey.
The lawsuit, claiming several violations of
the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, was filed on behalf of Libby
Hilsenrath and her minor son. Seventh-grade students at Chatham Middle School
were forced to endure Islamic propaganda and an explicit call to convert to
Islam through a disturbing set of videos in their World Cultures and Geography class.
TMLC’s affiliated New Jersey attorney, Michael Hrycak, filed the
lawsuit. TMLC staff attorney, Kate Oliveri, the principle drafter of the federal
complaint, observed: “The Board of Education and other Defendants are waging a
war against the religious protections afforded by the First Amendment. They
attack religious liberty by enticing young school children with a direct call
to convert to Islam and providing a step-by-step guide on how to effect that conversion.”
One of the videos, linked in this press release, seeks to
convert students to Islam and is filled with the Islamic religious beliefs presented
as facts, as well as pure Islamic propaganda. This five-minute video ends
with the prayer: "May
God help us all find the true faith: Islam.”
This
video includes the following phrases as facts:
· “Allah
is the one God who created the heavens and the earth, who has no equal and is
all powerful.”
· “Muhammad
(Peace be upon him) is the last & final Messenger of God. God gave him the
Noble Quran.”
· “Lo,
We have sent thee (O Muhammad) with the truth, a bringer of glad tidings and a
warner.”
· “What
is the Noble Quran? Divine Revelation sent to Muhammad (S) last Prophet of
Allah. A Perfect guide for Humanity.”
· “The
Noble Quran: Guidance, Mercy and Blessing for all Mankind.”
· “The
Noble Quran: Without any doubt and an eloquent guide from Allah.”
· “The
Beautiful Quran: Guidance for the wise & sensible.”
· “Islam:
A shining beacon against the darkness of repression, segregation, intolerance
and racism.”
This
propaganda video also contains excerpts from the Quran stating that Islam is
“perfected” religion and the only religion for mankind. And it ends with a call
to conversion: “May God
help us all find the true faith, Islam.”
However, just as shocking is the background music which includes
the poem “Qaseedah Burdah” in Arabic, describing Christians and Jews as “infidels”
and praising Muhammad in gruesome detail for slaughtering them:
· “He
[Muhammad] kept on encountering with them (infidels) in every battle until they
looked like meat put on butcher’s bench (they were the lesson for those who
were willing to encounter with the Muslims)” (parenthetical in original).
· “It
is as though the religion of Islam was a guest that visited every house of
those (infidels and was) extremely desirous for the flesh of enemy. . .” (parenthetical
in original).
·
“(The
Muslims made their) white shining swords red (with the blood of infidels) after
they were plunged; (and the majority of) enemies were having black hair (i.e.,
most of them were young).” (parenthetical in original).
See video:
vimeo.com/252231316/45e5c86977
Clearly,
seventh graders were given a sugarcoated, false depiction of Islam. They
were not informed of the kidnappings, beheadings, slave-trading, massacres, and
persecution of non-Muslims, nor of the repression of women — all done in the
name of Islam.
Richard Thompson, TMLC President and Chief Counsel remarked, “What would people say if
our public schools taught Christianity as the true faith? After watching this
video, I can’t imagine any reasonable person saying this is not Islamic
indoctrination. Chatham Middle School made a mockery of the First Amendment’s
Establishment Clause.”
Continued Thompson, “When Libby
Hilsenrath brought her concerns to the school board’s attention, on Feb 6,
2017, they were disregarded. And when she appeared on the Tucker Carlson Show
on Feb 20, 2017 to express her concerns to the Nation, the school community
pilloried her. Clueless school administrators across our Nation are allowing
this type of indoctrination to take place, and it’s up to vigilant and
courageous parents like Libby Hilsenrath to stop it.”
Because of Libby Hilsenrath’s attempts
to get the Board of Education to remove the videos and end the Islamic
indoctrination of her son and the other seventh-grade students, she was subjected
to a barrage of personal attacks from her own community: “hateful,” “ignorant,”
“intolerant,” “racist,” “closed minded,” and the list goes on. These attacks
significantly intensified after she appeared on the Tucker Carlson Show.
As Democrats’ support for Israel drops,
political scientists debate the causes. A
new poll has revealed a continued erosion of support for Israel among
rank-and-file Democrats. The question political scientists are de-bating is: Why?
|
By Rafael
Medoff, JNS The Israel Group, PO Box 58009, Sherman Oaks CA 91413 |
The new survey, conducted earlier this
month by the Pew Research Center, found that 79%of Republicans sympathize more
with Israel than the Palestinians, while only 27% of Democrats share that sentiment.
Dr. Michael Koplow, policy director of the
dovish Israel Policy Forum, argued in The Forward Jan. 23 that “the drop in
Democratic sympathy has occurred almost entirely in the past two years,” citing
the 16-point decrease from 43% in an April 2016 poll, to 27% in the new survey.
In his view, the decline must be connected to the rise of President Donald
Trump.
According to Koplow, many Democrats “are...
conflating their feelings about Israel with their feelings about Trump,
associating Israel with the American president… Democrats watch the love affair
between Trump and Israel, and immediately decide that their sympathy for Israel
must be misplaced.”
Some earlier polls, however, indicated an
even steeper decline than the 16% cited by Koplow for 2015-2016. A Gallup poll
in February 2011 found 57% of Democrats sympathizing with Israel; that number
dropped to 39% in a December 2012 Pew survey.
A number of political scientists take issue
with Koplow’s thesis. Dr. Richard Cravatts, an author on various political
subjects and president emeritus of the Scholars for Peace in the Middle East
nonprofit, told JNS that the deterioration in pro-Israel sentiment among
Democrats “started not with the election of Donald Trump but as early as 2008,
with [President Barack] Obama’s election and his visible shift away from
unqualified U.S. support for Israel.”
Cravatts said the Obama administration’s frequent
criticism of Israel and “the creation of J Street by Democrats” were “clear
signals to the Democrat base that Israel’s policies and behavior should be
critiqued and condemned, and the Palestinians would receive, for all intents
and purposes, a pass.”
Some experts believe the trend began earlier.
Dr. Daniel Pipes, president of the Middle East Forum think tank, told JNS that
“the Democrat-Republican divide was already apparent in early 2000, during Bill
Clinton’s presidency, and it has steadily widened through his three successors.”
In Pipes’s view, the cause for the divide
“lies not in the specific actions of presidents but the trajectories of the two
parties.” Democrats, he said, “increasingly see Palestinians as underdogs
deserving their support while Republicans increasingly see Israelis as a unique
moral, religious, intellectual, commercial and strategic partner.”
Dr. Miriam Elman, asso-ciate professor of
political science at Syracuse Univer-sity, agrees that the trend is older than
the election of Trump. The reality is that liberal Democrats have been
sympa-thizing less and less with Israel for well over 15 years,” Elman told
JNS.
“A major reason for these shifting
attitudes,” she said, “is the virulent anti-Israel messaging that young people
are being exposed to on many U.S. college campuses and in America’s mainline
churches—where far-left, liberal faculty and clergy dominate and are constantly
casting Israel and Zionism in a negative light.”
Elman also connects the recent Pew findings
to what she calls “the Democratic Party veering closer and closer toward the
far left” in recent years. “It’s not surprising to find dropping sympathy for
Israel as this happens, because for the far left, identity politics dominates
as an overarching world view, in which both Israel and America are cast as
white supremacist, colonialist, and capitalist oppressors of minority rights
and liberties.”
Dr. Mitchell Bard, executive director of
the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise nonprofit, believes the Democrats’
level of support for Israel in the past was never as high as is widely assumed.
He examined 24 Gallup polls since 1975 and found that the average support for
Israel among Democrats was 46%.
“Democratic sympathy for Israel was never
overwhelming and in the last Gallup poll [in February 2017], it was exactly the
same as it was in 1975,” Bard told JNS. The Pew polls have tended to find lower
levels than Gallup of Democratic support for Israel.
“I stick with Gallup because of its
reliability and longer trend data,” Bard said. He believes that the next Gallup
survey on the subject likewise will produce higher numbers on Democratic support
for the Jewish state than the recent Pew poll. “What has changed—and Pew got
this right—is that support among Republicans has skyrocketed,” Bard added. The
gap between Republicans and Democrats on Israel in last year’s Gallup poll was
35 points.
“Critics are quick to blame Israel’s
policies today for the gap,” he said, “but then how do they explain why support
among Democrats was so low before the failure of Oslo, the growth of
settlements, the Gaza blockade and all the other issues typically used
to explain the party’s current dissatisfaction with Israel?”
|
Jan. 22, 2018 |
President
Rivlin, Prime Minister Netanyahu, Speaker Edelstein, Leader Herzog, members of
the Knesset, justices of the Supreme Court, citizens of Israel it is deeply
humbling for me to stand before this vibrant democracy to have the great honor
to address this Knesset, the first Vice President of the United States to be
afforded that privilege here in Jerusalem, the capital of the State of Israel.
And I bring greetings from a leader who has
done more to bring our two great countries closer together than any President
in the past 70 years -- the 45th President of the United States of America,
President Donald Trump. Thanks to the President’s leadership, the alliance
between our two countries has never been stronger, and the friendship between
our peoples has never been deeper. And I am here to convey a simple message
from the heart of the American people: America stands with Israel.
u We
stand with Israel because your cause is our cause, your values are our values,
and your fight is our fight.
u We
stand with Israel because we believe in right over wrong, in good over evil,
and in liberty over tyranny.
During
his historic visit to Jerusalem, President Trump declared that the bond between
us, in his words, is “woven together in the hearts of our people,” and the
people of the United States have always held a special affection and admiration
for the people of the Book.
In the story of the Jews, we've always seen
the story of America. It is the story of an exodus, a journey from persecution
to freedom, a story that shows the power of faith and the promise of hope.
My country’s very first settlers also saw
themselves as pilgrims, sent by Providence, to build a new Promised Land. The
songs and stories of the people of Israel were their anthems, and they
faithfully taught them to their children, and do to this day. And our founders,
as others have said, turned to the wisdom of the Hebrew Bible for direction,
guidance, and inspiration.
America’s first President, George
Washington, wrote with favor to “the children of the stock of Abraham.” Our
second President, John Adams, declared that the Jews, in his words, “have done
more to civilize man than any other nation.”
And your story inspired my forebears to create
what our 16th President called a “new birth of freedom.” And down through
the generations, the American people became fierce advocates of the Jewish
people’s aspiration to return to the land of your forefathers to claim your own
new birth of freedom in your beloved homeland.
The Jewish people held fast to a promise
through all the ages, written so long ago, that “even if you have been banished
to the most distant land under the heavens," from there He would gather
and bring you back to the land which your fathers possessed.
Through
a 2,000-year exile, the longest of any people, anywhere, through conquests and
expulsions, inquisitions and pogroms, the Jewish people held on to this promise,
and they held on to it through the longest and darkest of nights. A night that
Elie Wiesel proclaimed “seven times sealed.” A night that transformed the small
faces of children into smoke under a silent sky. A night that consumed the
faith of so many and that challenges the faith of so many still.
And tomorrow, when I stand with my wife at
Yad Vashem (Israeli Holocaust Museum) to honor the 6 million Jewish martyrs of
the Holocaust, we will marvel at the faith and resilience of your people, who just
three years after walking beneath the shadow of death, rose up from the ashes
to resurrect yourselves, to reclaim a Jewish future, and to rebuild the Jewish
state.
And this April, we will mark the day when
the Jewish people answered that ancient question -- can a country be born in a
day, can a nation be born in a moment? -- as the State of Israel celebrates the
70th anniversary of its birth...
Seventy years ago, the United States was
proud to be the first nation in the world to recognize the State of Israel. But
as you well know, the work we began on that day was left unfinished, for while
the United States recognized your nation, one administration after another re-fused
to recognize your capital.
But just last month, President Donald Trump
made history. He righted a 70-year wrong; he kept his word to the American
people when he announced that the United States of America will finally acknowledge
Jerusalem is Israel’s capital.
The Jewish people’s unbreakable bond to
this sacred city reaches back more than 3,000 years. It was here, in Jerusalem,
on Mount Moriah, that Abraham offered his son, Isaac, and was credited with
righteousness for his faith in God.
It was here, in Jerusalem, that King David
consecrated the capital of the Kingdom of Israel. And since its rebirth,
the modern State of Israel has called this city the seat of its government.
Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. And, as
such, President Trump has directed the State Department to immediately begin
preparations to move the United States Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. In
the weeks ahead, our administration will advance its plan to open the United
States Embassy in Jerusalem, and that United States Embassy will open before
the end of next year...
|
By Morton A.
Klein WWW.ZOA.ORG |
In
his historic speech to the Knesset in Jerusalem, Vice-President Mike Pence
reaffirmed American recognition that Jeru-salem is Israel’s capital, des-cribed
the Jewish people’s 3,000-year-old
unbreakable bond with Jerusalem, stated that the US will transfer the US
Embassy to Jerusalem by the end of 2019, thereby hav-ing chosen “fact over
fiction,” called upon Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority (PA) to return to
the negotiating table, reaffirmed that the US will no longer certify the
“ill-con-ceived” “disaster” of the Iran nuclear deal, and that the U.S. will
immediately withdraw from the deal unless it is fixed.
Pence also solemnly promised that the US
will ensure that the brutal, radical Shia Iranian regime will not obtain
nuclear weapons and that the US will no longer tolerate its involvement in
international Islamic terrorism.
In describing the Jewish connection with
the biblical homeland, Pence referred to biblical milestones — the binding of
Isaac, the consecration of Jerusalem by King David as his capital — in
outlining this millennial connection.
On Israeli/Palestinian Arab negotiations,
Pence affirmed that President Trump strongly urged the Palestinian leadership
to return to the table. “Peace can only come through dialogue … any peace
agreement must guarantee Israel’s ability to defend itself by itself,” he said
Pence spoke of the necessity of fixing or
jettisoning the 2015 Iran nuclear deal (a “disaster”) that has greatly enriched
and emboldened Iran in the region, freeing tens of billions of frozen Iranian
funds and assets, while also enabling Iran to obtain a nuclear weapons breakout
capacity in perhaps as few as ten years.
Pence affirmed that the U.S. would “no
longer certify this ill-conceived agreement” and clarified that President
Trump’s decision to extend a sanctions waiver was done solely to avail the US
Congress and the European countries sufficient time to toughen penalties for
Iranian violations.
He said that “unless the Iran nuclear deal
is fixed, President Trump, the United States will withdraw from the Iran
nuclear deal immediately… Beyond the nuclear deal, we will also no longer
tolerate its support of terrorism [and oppression of its people]. We are your
friends and the day is coming when you will be free from the evil regime that
suffocates your dreams and buries your hopes.”
Strangely, it is the affirmation of the
bonds between the US and Israel — rather than disagreement on specific Trump
Administration policies relating to Israel, the PA and Iran — that has led some
critics on the left to inveigh against Pence’s speech. Yet, on the subject of
the U.S. and Israel, what did Pence actually say?
He said that “America stands with Israel …
because your cause is our cause, your values are our values, and your fight is
our fight. We stand with Israel because we believe in right over wrong, in good
over evil, and in liberty over tyranny…
In the story of the Jews, we’ve always seen the story of America. It is
the story of an Exodus, a journey from persecution to freedom, a story that
shows the power of faith and the promise of hope … as the State of Israel
celebrates the 70th anniversary of its [re]birth.”
In short, Pence avowed the commonality of
values and moral outlook — that of free peoples and their struggles to realize
their highest aspirations. How exactly this reflects, according to Forward writers,
a “fictional Israel” (Jay Michaelson), or is negated by the existence, in the past
and present, of anti-Semitism in America (Jane Eisner) is not explained.
Both liberal and conservative supporters of
Israel over the decades have been emphatic about the great commonalities of
values, outlook and liberty that are reflected in the US-Israel relationship.
Here, instead, the critics are not content to give Pence his due and prefer to
digress on Pence’s Christian beliefs and to mock his concern for Middle Eastern
Christians, which was the original reason for his visit to the region when originally
scheduled last December.
Yes, concern for Christians — endangered as
far a field as North Africa and the Persian Gulf, not only Palestinian Arabs —
motivated Pence, but I don’t recall it ever being stated by anyone that this
means that all Middle Eastern Christians necessarily agree with him on all
issues... In any case, Christians who refused to meet with Pence or to invite
him into their sanctuaries, either because of his support for Israel and Jews
or out of genuine fear of PA Arab/Muslim reprisals, merely underscore the
abiding problem of the Arab/Islamic war on Israel — the refusal to peacefully
accept the legitimacy and permanence of the Jewish State of Israel.
The critics’ biggest problem with Pence’s
speech appears to be that they don’t share his politics and religion, but that
is no good reason not to applaud a speech characterized by moral and strategic
clarity, both of which will be necessary for both countries to face the
enormous challenges that lie ahead.
...We have reached a bizarre point when one
of the most pro-Israel speeches ever delivered by a high US official is greeted
by a segment of Jews with suspicion and misgivings bolstered by red herrings.
Every Israel loving, peace loving, terrorism hating person should be thrilled
by this extraordinary, clear thinking speech.
John Kerry to the Rescue
by Ron
Cantor, roncan@me.com
John Kerry is meddling in the Middle East. He was secretary of
state, during the creation
of ISIS. The Trump administration has defeated ISIS as a state.
But still, Kerry feels the need to involve himself in Middle East politics.
He reportedly (jpost.com) sent word to President
Abbas (the leader of the Palestinians Authority) to encourage him. Just
so you know, Abbas replaced Arafat—the father of modern terrorism. Abbas turned
down a sweetheart peace deal in 2008. He celebrates when suicide bombers kill
Israelis and names streets, squares and schools after terrorists. And Kerry
felt the need to lift up his spirits.
Cursing
President Trump
Since
President Trump recognized Jerusalem (as the capital of Israel), Abbas has been
in full-on rage mode, declaring in public that he doesn’t need America or her
money (the next day, Trump took 65 million dollars in aid off the table) and is
spewing out the wildest conspiracy theories. Of Trump, he said, “May your house be demolished,” the
most venomous curse in Arab culture. The 82-year-old leader is fuming mad.
But Kerry, a failed diplomat, is
encouraging the alleged Holocaust denier, through a confidant, telling him
to:
1.
“Hold on and be strong.”
2.
“Don’t give into Trump. He
will not be in office for more than another year.”
3.
Put your own peace plan
together.
Yes,
an American politician is telling a terrorist supporter to stay strong. And there is little
chance that Abbas will present his peace plan, because war is better for him.
The Palestinian leadership has never shown and real desire for a state of their
own, alongside Jewish Israel.
President Kerry?
It
is also being reported that Kerry told the confidant to tell Abbas that he is
considering running against Trump in 2020.
Saudi-Based Muslim Body Rejects Holocaust
Denial: A Saudi-based Muslim group rejected
Holocaust denial in a letter to the USA Holocaust Memorial Museum. “History is
indeed impartial no matter how hard forgers tried to tamper with or manipulate
it,” said the letter sent 22 Jan. 2018 to the museum by Mohammad Al Issa, the
secretary general of the Muslim World League, five days before International
Holocaust Remembrance Day. “Hence, we consider any denial of the Holocaust or
minimizing of its effect a crime to distort history and an insult to the dignity
of those innocent souls who have perished. It is also an affront to us all
since we share the same human soul and spiritual bonds.”
The letter was posted on the site of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Al Issa suggested the letter was prompted in part by his friendship with the think tank’s director, Robert Satloff, who has written extensively about North African Muslims who protected Jews during the Holocaust. A former justice minister, Al Issa took over the Saudi-funded Muslim World League in 2016. The appointment of Al Issa appears to be a piece of Saudi Arabia’s pivotal westward turn under its new crown prince, Muhammad bin Sultan, Satloff said. “Taking his lead from Moham-mad bin Salman, the current crown prince who has vowed to cleanse his country of extremism and return it to ‘moderate Islam,’ Al Issa seems to have a specific mandate to transform the MWL from an organization synonymous with extremism to one that preaches tolerance,” he said. (INN) Vision for Israel, PO Box 7265
Jerusalem 9107301, ISRAEL
Iran Spends
Billions On Weapons Programs, Terrorism While Ignoring Iranians’ Basic Needs:
A report, issued by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), states
that the Jan. 2018 uprising against the regime was due to what it says are the
“grueling high prices and economic strains on an array of social sectors.” It
claims that this is a result of the regime putting its resources “toward domestic
suppression, warmongering and expansion of terrorism abroad,” which has led to
poverty and deprivation among Iranians. The report states that over the years
Khamenei has taken over the “bulk of Iran’s economy." It claims that the organizations
and institutions, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), show
that Khamenei-controlled-companies make up over 50% of Iran’s gross domestic
product.
The report compares what it calls funding
for “warmongering and suppression” against other state expenditures. It claims
Iran’s total health care budget for 2018 is $16.3 billion, which is a third of
its total war budget. The report also reveals that for the last six years the
total spent on its Syrian activities is around $15-20 billion a year. It describes
how protesters shouted during the January protests, “Leave Syria, think about
us, I dedicate my life to Iran.” The report also compares paltry welfare
payments made to those living under absolute poverty with the larger sums of money
paid to Afghan mercenaries bankrolled by Iran to fight in Syria. According to
statements made by Afghan mercenaries, each mercenary is paid between $600-700
a month. Doing the math, nearly 20,000 Afghan mercenaries cost the regime
$12-$14 million a month. Compare that to the nearly $70 monthly stipend
Iranians living under the absolute poverty line receive, according to the
report. (Fox)