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Save us from our own foolishness

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By Zalmi Unsdorfer

9/24/2014, 8:09 PM

Zalmi Unsdorfer

Zalmi Unsdorfer is a Religious Zionist and Chairman of Likud-Herut UK....

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Tonight as we dip our apples in the honey, let us reflect on the slaughter that was planned for our people in the south of Israel this night. How hundreds of terrorists would have burst out of tunnels far behind the IDF watchtowers and how they would have invaded countless Jewish homes and left each one looking like the Fogel family’s charnel house in Itamar.  Think of how many IDF reservists would have been forced to watch their families being killed before being dragged back into the tunnels as hostages for future prisoner releases.
All these plans were foiled by one simple event: three yeshiva boys decided to hitch a ride home on a Thursday night. The kidnapping provoked so much prayer all around the world and the heartrending discovery of their bodies provoked millions to ask “Why?”
Well, by now we all know the answer to that question.
This is only the latest in a series of divine interventions where the Almighty is protecting us, his children and our promised land from our own folly.
Part of that folly comes from the hubris and complacency of having the best army and intelligence resources in the world. Another part is the complete fantasy that there can ever be any genuine peace with these so-called ‘Palestinians’ who are sworn to the destruction of our people and our state. Yet another perennial piece of foolishness is the doctrine of ‘land for peace’.  Whilst the Gaza withdrawal should have finally discredited that idea, it still holds traction with far too many naïve Israelis. Dreamers all.
So if there were an Avinu Malkeynu that said: “We beseech You - save us from our own foolishness” that would be a good thing to say with the greatest sincerity. We could also say it with immense Hakarat Hatov (gratitude) for the open miracles we saw this summer both in the discovery of the tunnels and the almost supernatural performance of Iron Dome.
The best way to repay these divine kindnesses is to stop treating pieces of Eretz Yisrael as bargaining chips to trade for worthless agreements with our enemies and empty praise from Western leaders who’ve now been so pathetically exposed on the world stage as emperors with no clothes.
Our leaders should start talking and behaving as if it’s really and truly our land. Then we shall certainly keep every dunam with the help of G-d.
Shana Tova to all.

We give You thanks, O Lord God Almighty, the One who is and who was and who is to come, because You have taken Your great power and reigned.  the nations were angry, and Your wrath has come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that You should reward Your servants the prophets and the saints, and those who fear Your name, small and great, and should destroy those who destroy the earth." Rev 11:18

Looking For the Signs of His Coming

Rosh HaShana 2014

by Virginia Labounty

Today was this year's Feast of the Memorial of Trumpets, renamed by the orthodox Jews as “Rosh Hashana”. In a typically human move, men have taken the focus of this day....the first day of the seventh month, away from trumpets being blown to dipping apples in honey!

I think Satan doesn't want us listening or watching for those trumpets. I am ashamed to admit that only yesterday, after years of reading the Bible did I notice that Paul in 1 Corinthian 15:52 writes specifically, “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the LAST trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”

Last, trumpet.....memorial of trumpets. “What is God annually reminding us of,,” I wondered. Where else in the Bible does it talk about trumpets? In Revelation, of course, chapters 8-11. Seven trumpets are mentioned and at the last trumpet a loud voice from heaven declares, “The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!”

I looked back through the other six trumpets and sighed. We have a lot to go through before that last trumpet, brothers and sisters. I believe God wants us aware of the results of those other six trumpets because we will be here to see them. We probably won't hear those trumpets until that last one is blown, but we will see the results if we look for them.

We may have to look very hard to see them. We live in a world where a Christian is killed every 5 minutes simply because they believe in Jesus Christ......approximately 100,000 a year and it is being done almost silently. Most people who do not live in Arab dominated countries are quite unaware of it or are indifferent to it. The western church is so clueless about this that many are still pushing the doctrine of a pretribulation rapture. Dear ones, 100,000 of your brothers and sisters being, decapitated, crucified, raped, burned and otherwise tortured to death per year is a tribulation and one that I fear will very soon be at our door.

A world that can cover up mass murder like that is not going to admit on front pages that 1/3 of the fish in the sea have died, or that 1/3 of the fresh water in the world is so polluted that it is making people sicken and die if they drink it. We need to open our eyes, open our Bibles,believe God and be ready to either die for the one who died for us or to endure to the end when that last trumpet sounds.

I was thinking today about the birth of Jesus. How many people were watching for that event? How many studied the scriptures and watched the skies for signs of his coming like the Magi, Simeon and Anna? How many people lived through those amazing 33 years and never even knew that the son of God had come? Sadly most of the world's population did not know a thing about it, yet he came, lived, died for all of mankind and rose again anyway.

God has told mankind events that will happen in the Bible. No matter how little it is understood or studied or how preposterously it is twisted and misinterpreted, God events will take place in His order and time. They do not need us noticing them to be fulfilled. I personally find that a very unnerving thought. That I could live through many of the amazing events of Revelation and be as totally unaware of it as the majority of the Jewish people were unaware of the birth, life and death of their Messiah!

I don't want to be surprised when Jesus shows up. I don't want to have to say to him, “Gee, you are already here? All those things you said would happen before you came already have happened? I guess I wasn't sufficiently interested in you to notice.” God forbid. I am so longing for him. I can't wait for the day he arrives. It is this that compels me to study the scriptures, especially the prophecies. As it is written in Revelation 22:7 “Behold, I am coming quickly! Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.”

Shana Tova

Global Drought Conditions Are Drying Out Several Regions And Sparking Food Production Concerns

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  Australian grains farmer Ridley stands over his failed wheat crop on his farm near West Wyalong. Reuters
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  A visitor walks near the receding waters at Folsom Lake, which is 17 percent of its capacity, in Folsom, California January 22, 2014. Reuters
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  A worker steps over the cracked ground of Jaguary dam in Braganca Paulista, 100 km from São Paulo in January 2014. January was the hottest on record in parts of Brazil, and the heat plus a severe drought fanned fears of water shortages, crop damage and higher electricity bills. Reuters
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  Truck tires are shown in the mud at the bottom of Folsom Lake, in California, which is at 17 percent of its capacity, Jan. 22, 2014. Reuters
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  The red portion is classified under "extreme drought," while the darker red portion is classified under the worst drought condition, "exceptional drought." EIA

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The American West is locked in what’s likely to be recorded as the worst drought in U.S. history as farmers and industry from Texas to California despair over conditions so severe that California is expected to introduce statewide mandatory water restrictions for the first time ever.
But the U.S. isn’t alone, as severe drought conditions are also plaguing Australia and some regions in Africa, threatening to cause food shortages in some of the poorest nations on earth and higher prices across the world.
In South America, a drought in northeastern Brazil has wreaked havoc among coffee growers and spiked coffee prices around the world.
According to the latest available data from the Global Drought Information System,

In June 2014, short-term global drought conditions remained relatively constant with degradation mainly in Asia and Africa. Asia saw drought intensify, particularly on the Indian subcontinent, in north-central Russia, on Japan, and in the Middle East. Conditions in Southeast Asia have remained constant or improved.  Drought intensified in equatorial Africa and on Madagascar, as well as in South Africa. In North America, drought remained entrenched in the West while conditions in the North have improved. In South America, drought remained consistent around the equator and in areas of Brazil. In Europe, drought continued to improve throughout the Mediterranean and Black Sea region and in the Central parts of the continent. In Australia, drought eased slightly in intensity but spread to cover more of the East. Other areas of Oceana, to the east of Australia, saw a slight degradation in drought conditions, while to the north of the continent, conditions have improved slightly.

And according to UNICEF, The United Nations Childrens’ Fund, these countries are facing drought conditions:
Country-by-country overview
Ethiopia: An estimated 8 million of Ethiopia's 60 million people are at immediate risk due to drought. UNICEF estimates that 1.4 million of those at risk are children under five. (See Ethiopia: The hardest hit and the Ethiopia Donor Update.)
Eritrea: Successive years of drought, combined with the border war with Ethiopia, has created major food shortages. Nearly 1.3 million people are at risk, including an estimated 1 million who have been displaced by the war. (See the Eritrea Donor Update.)
Somalia: Due to seven consecutive poor harvests coupled with chronic insecurity in some regions, food stability is deteriorating, affecting as many as 1 million people, including 300,000 children aged under 5 years. The drought has been made worse by sudden torrential rains and flash flooding. (See the Somalia Donor Update.)
Sudan: An estimated 2.8 million people in the south face food insecurity in the coming months.
Uganda: About 550,000 people face food insecurity.
Afghanistan: Large parts of the south are severely affected, where 60 to 80 percent of livestock have died. Almost 2.5 million people, or 10 percent of the population, are at risk and many of them will need assistance for at least the next 12 months.
China: In the northern Shanxi province, nearly 3 million people don't have enough water. About one-third of the province's wheat crop has been hit by the drought and more than 60 percent of its soil lacks water.
India: The government has mobilized massive relief efforts in several regions. Madhya Pradesh, along with the western states of Rajasthan and Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh in the south, are in the grip of a severe drought following the failure of last year's monsoon rains. Nearly 130 million people living in 12 states have been seriously affected by what some officials call the worst drought in 100 years. (See India page.)
Iran: The government has informed the United Nations office in Tehran that it is ready to accept international aid to help meet losses estimated at $1.7 billion from the drought. Iran needs about $200 million to provide water tankers and water purifying units for drought-hit areas.
Morocco: The government has launched a $633 million contingency plan to combat the worst drought for a decade. About 70 percent of the country's arable land has been affected.
Pakistan: Government officials estimate that nearly 3 million people - mostly villagers - face possible starvation. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled Pakistan's southern Thar Desert. The drought has devastated crops and livestock in the desert, home to 1 million people, sparking fears of a massive humanitarian crisis.

"The first angel sounded: "and hail and fire followed, mingled with blood, and they were thrown 'to the earth' and a third of the trees burned up and all green grass was burned up."  Rev. 8:7

Fukushima: The Ticking Nuclear Bomb. Over 800 Tons of Radioactive Material Pouring into Pacific Ocean

First published by GR in October 2013
In August this column ran a piece claiming that the Pacific Ocean was being poisoned by radioactive material escaping from Fukushima, two years after the devastating tsunami and meltdown at the Japanese nuclear facility. Three months later, shocking evidence points towards a calamity situation. Silence from the corporate media.
There is growing evidence coming from numerous reports aired on social networks and the so-called social media, among which is the article “Radioactive Water From Fukushima Is Systematically Poisoning The Entire Pacific Ocean” (*), which claimed that every day and for 750 days (now over 800) tonnes of toxic materials have been pouring into the Pacific Ocean.
The toxic substances were identified as Tritium, Cesium and Strontium, being carried far and wide by winds, rain and ocean currents, entering the food chain through seaweed and seafood, building up high levels of toxicity in the fish – and humans – at the top end of the consumption chain.
TEPCO, or Tokyo Electric Power Company, the operator of the plant, admitted in August that between twenty and forty trillion becquerels of radioactive material have entered the Pacific Ocean after a security barrier had been breached. The same operator admitted that in just one week, in August, levels of Caesium-134 rose by 90 times and Caesium-137 rose by 86 times.
Fresh research (**) provides a chilling reminder that this situation is serious, will not go away, is getting worse and cannot be swept under the carpet. This research points to “massive numbers” of sea creatures dying across the Pacific, and that high levels of Cesium-137 are present in “a very high percentage of fish” caught in this ocean “and sold in North America”.
The research then moves on to refer to specific and unexplained incidents. For example, the unexplained death of starfish off Puget Sound off Canada. The animals seem to be melting, a phenomenon observed elsewhere in Canadian waters. Divers spoke of live creatures literally disintegrating in front of them, in “massive numbers”.
On to British Columbia, where abnormal behavior and an unusually high death rate has been observed among killer whales. The vocal communication among the animals has ceased, and in the last two years, seven matriarchs have died.
An Australian traveler sailing from Japan to California, USA, referred that it appeared the entire ocean was dead. All he saw was a whale rolling helplessly in the sea with a tumour on its head, and “for 3,000 nautical miles there was nothing to be seen”. No turtles, no sea birds, no dolphins, no sharks.
On to Alaska, where polar bears, seals and walruses have loss of fur and suffer from open sores on their skin. On to Southern California, where 45 per cent of sea lion pups have died, described by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as “an unusual mortality event”.
Back up to Canada, where the sockeye salmon faces record low numbers, up across the entire west coast of Canada, where fish are dying from bleeding eyes, gills and bellies.
Back across the Ocean, where extremely high levels of Cesium-137 have been found between Hawaii and California. On a test made on 15 dead tuna, all 15 were found to be contaminated with radiation. Of the fish being sold to Canada, in 2012, the Vancouver Sun recorded the number of specimens testing positive for Cesium-137, namely:
100 per cent of monkfish, carp, seaweed and shark; 94% of cod and anchovies; 93% of tuna and eels; 92% of sardines; 91% of halibut; 73% of mackerel.
Fukushima continues to leak, and leak at ever increasing rates and the latest prediction is that this contamination will continue until 2015, at the earliest. Until then, will the Pacific Ocean be poisoned beyond repair (if this has not happened already)? And when will the authorities explain to us what is happening? When our babies are born glowing bright green and blinking at us through seven eyes?


"Then the second angel sounded and something like a great mountain, burning with fire, was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood.  And a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed."   Rev 8:8

10 Water Polution Facts

1. Pollution of surface water is a problem for over half of our planet’s population. Each year 250 million documented cases of water-borne diseases are documented, with roughly 5 to 10 million deaths.
2. Fifty percent of worldwide groundwater is unsuitable for drinking because of pollution and only about .007% of the water on earth is accessible for human use.
3. The world water pollution and sanitation crisis claims more lives through disease than any war can claim through the use of weapons.
4. Every 20 seconds, a child dies from a water-related disease. Children in polluted environments often carry about 1,000 parasitic worms in their bodies at any time.
5. At any given time, half of the world’s hospital beds are occupied by patients with water-borne illnesses.
6. Close to 85% of the total area of Bangladesh has contaminated groundwater, and the most dangerous contaminant is arsenic. Thus, 1.2 million people in this nation are exposed to the deadly effects of arsenic-contaminated water.
7. Asian rivers are considered the most polluted in the world. They have three times as many bacteria from human waste as the global average and 20 times more lead than rivers in industrialized countries.
8. In Ireland, about 30% of the rivers are polluted with fertilizers and sewage, which make them too polluted for swimming, fishing, or aquatic life.
9. One of the most polluted rivers in the world is the King River in Australia. Over 1 million sea birds and 100,000 marine mammals and other creatures have died from the toxins and acidity in this river.
10. The U.N. estimates that by 2025, forty-eight nations, with combined populations of 2.8 billion, will face freshwater scarcity.

"Then the third angel sounded; and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water.  The name of the star is Wormwood, and many  men died from the water, because it was made bitter."   Rev. 8:10-11

World Persecution of Christians Today

Current situation (1989 to present)

According to Pope Benedict XVI, Christians are the most persecuted group in the contemporary world.^[139] The Holy See has reported that over 100,000 Christians are violently killed annually because of some relation to their faith.^[140] According to the World Evangelical Alliance, over 200 million Christians are denied fundamental human rights solely because of their faith.^[141] Of the 100-200 million Christians under assault, the majority are persecuted in Muslim-dominated nations.^[142] Christians suffer numerically more than any other faith groups or groups without faith in the world. Of the world's three largest religions Christians are the most proportionally persecuted with 80% of all acts of religious discrimination being directed at Christians^[143] who only make up 33% of the world's population.^[144]
Every year, the Christian non-profit organization Open Doors publishes a list of the top 50 countries where persecution of Christians for religious reasons is worst. The 2014 list has the following countries as its top 10 offenders:^[145]

1.  North Korea
2.  Somalia
3.  Syria
4.  Iraq
5.  Afghanistan
6.  Saudi Arabia
7.  Maldives
8.  Pakistan
9.  Iran
10.  Yemen

And some Christians are still waiting for a pretribulation  rapture!

Not Christian

De-Christianization, you say?  To which I reply, yes.  When scripture no longer even guides the moral and ethical choices of ‘Christians’ the fact of de-christianization is made plain.  If America were a Christian nation, its citizens would be guided by the teachings of the Bible.  It isn’t.  They aren’t.

The De-Christianization of America

All Things Examined

By: Regis Nicoll|Published: April 11, 2014 4:27 PM

Topics: Church Issues, Life Issues, Politics & Government, Religion & Society, Sexual Ethics, Trends

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Imagine travelling down the expressway, sunroof open, XM dialed in to the “’60’s on 6,” and lost in reverie until you catch a whiff of something—a bouquet with that certain rubbery tang. You glance down and notice the “Temp” indicator is red; you glance back up to catch the first puffs of steam wafting from the hood. You pull over, get out of the car, and raise the hood to an engine belching coolant in gray billows. As you wait for the tow truck, head in hands, the significance of those small puddles of antifreeze on the carport you’ve noticed, but ignored, for the last several days, becomes clear.

Something like that has happened in our nation. The national conscience, which for the better part of 200 years had been informed by Christian principles, developed a leak decades ago. It started as a slow drip, scarcely noticed. Left largely unattended, it progressed from a trickle to a stream to a gush that has led to the de-Christianization of America.

Lost influence
That is not to say that most people don’t identity as “Christian.” They do, although their percentage has declined nearly twenty points since 1960 to 74 percent. Nor is it to say that the transcendent perspective of our founding has been written out of our rule of law—the distinctly Judeo-Christian premises of the Declaration of Independence remain the bedrock of the Constitution. Rather, it is to acknowledge that Christian values no longer shape our moral consensus.
Gallup Politics, documenting the “evolution” of that consensus for over a decade, found that the majority of Americans age 35 to 55 years now consider the following behaviors “morally acceptable”: gay/lesbian relationships (54 percent), non-marital sex (63 percent), divorce (66 percent), out-of-wedlock birth (67 percent), and embryo-destructive research (59 percent) among others.
On the abortion issue, public attitudes are more nuanced. As I pointed out in “Pro-Life Inner Conflict,” although 48 percent of Americans poll “pro-life,” only about one-fourth believe that abortion is morally wrong and that government should pass restrictions on it.
It is a moral slide showing no signs of braking. With 18 to 34 year olds polling up to 20 percentage points higher in moral acceptance of homosexual relationships (74 percent) and non-martial sex (72 percent) than for their elders, and with nearly half having no moral qualms with pornography or sex between teenagers, our plunge is poised to continue apace.
Government’s role
It should come as no surprise, then, that only 44 percent of Americans believe that government should promote traditional values. That represents a drop of 15 percentage points over the last decade. However, the notion that traditional (read: Christian) values should have no role in governance would have been unthinkable to our nation’s founders.
Writes Bill Flax in (Forbes,) “All [the Framers] thought the Bible essential for [a] just and harmonious society.” Quoting historian Larry Schweikart, Flax continues, “The founding documents of every one of the original thirteen colonies reveal them to be awash in the concepts of Christianity and God.”
Even Thomas Jefferson, one of the least Christian among the Founding Fathers, is quoted as saying, “No nation has ever existed or been governed without religion. Nor can be. The Christian religion is the best religion that has been given to man and I as Chief Magistrate of this nation am bound to give it the sanction of my example.”
Fast-forward to 1992.
In the majority opinion in Lee v. Weisman—a case involving prayer at public school commencements—Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy remarked that law cannot be based on the “conviction that there is an ethic and a morality which transcend human invention.”
Fast-forward another 20 years and witness a government that:

• --Imposes a health-care law that requires employers, regardless of religious convictions, to provide contraceptives, sterilization procedures, and abortion-inducing drugs to their employees.

• --Argues, in Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC, that it can decide who can serve as a minister in religious organizations.

• --Revokes a grant to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for combating sex trafficking because of their stance against abortion.

• --Removes conscience exemptions for health care workers intended to protect them from being forced to participate in abortions.
• --Is rebranding “freedom of religion” to “freedom of worship.”

Witness also the raft of legal suits and judgments against wedding providers who decline their services for same-sex ceremonies on religious grounds. In one of the most egregious cases, a New Mexico Court ruled that a photographer is obliged to ignore her religious beliefs as “the price of citizenship.”
And such actions aren’t limited to the ruling class. Columbia Law School’s Center for Gender and Sexuality is bringing together a group of “theorists, religious leaders, and activists who are working to contest and reframe the utilization of religious exemptions to civil rights laws.” Those “religious liberty” defenses do stick in the craw of folks yearning to be liberated from standards “which transcend human invention.”
All are the predictable outcomes of the loss of our Christian bearing.
Giving us what we want
Today, Christian teachings on human sexuality, the dignity of life at all stages, and the sanctity of marriage are held and observed by a minority of Americans. And given that the vast majority of Americans who profess to be Christian have rates of divorce, sexual promiscuity, substance abuse, and other behaviors indistinguishable from their non-Christian neighbors, it appears that those teachings hold little sway over “believers” as well.
We complain about a government that has little respect for us or our beliefs—beliefs that stand in the way of its visions for social progress. But if we don’t take our faith seriously, why should anyone else, especially the government?
When Caesar’s subjects neither espouse nor adhere to Christian values, nor want to be ruled by them, what is he to think? What is he to do? Other than give them what they want, what they demand: freedom from “an ethic and a morality which transcend human invention.”
Where do we go from here?
Obviously, we didn’t get to this point overnight. The loss of our moral bearing is the result of decades of de-Christianization that will take decades of re-Christianization to restore, if it can be done at all.
It won’t happen without a new kind of Christian, one whose faith, professed and practiced, matches the faith that Jesus taught and lived. Sadly, that characterizes scarcely 3 percent* of American Christians today. More typical is the spiritual aesthete who wants little more from church than a beautiful building, nice members, a nurturing pastor, uplifting sermons, soul-stirring music, and a 60-minute service.
Producing the “new kind” of Christian will require a new kind of church, radically different from “church as usual”—a church that

• --Is a training center and boot camp, rather than a lecture hall and entertainment venue.

• --Equips its members to send them out, rather than hires professionals to draw crowds in.

• --Understands disciple-making as its raison d’être, integrating discipleship into the whole of church life, rather than relegating it to an optional class or curriculum.
• --Determines its “success” by discipleship outcomes (individual spiritual growth and maturity) rather than marketplace measures (attendance, giving, capital projects).

• --Is process-oriented for spiritual formation, rather than program-driven for church growth. (More about the process-oriented model can be found in “Getting Intentional About Discipleship.”)

And none of that can happen until the hearts of God’s people become so burdened for a world wobbling on its axis from sin that they call upon God for a movement of the Holy Spirit, the likes of which have not been experienced for two millennia.
*In 2011, George Barna found that “only about 3% of all self-identified Christians in America have come to the final stops on the transformational journey—the places where they have surrendered control of their life to God, submitted to His will for their life, and devoted themselves to loving and serving God and other people.”

The silent killing of Christians

by David Suissa

July 31, 2013 | 12:45 pm

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The domes of Saint Mark's Church in Cairo. Photo by Andrew A. Shenouda

The Middle East may be a raging wildfire, but the eyes of the world are on the revival of the Israeli-Palestinian peace dance — that all-too-familiar game where the Jewish state makes concessions (such as releasing terrorists) for the privilege of talking to an enemy who demonizes Jews, glorifies terrorists and has already rejected three peace offers.
It’s a testament to the general success of the Israeli state that after returning from 10 days there, I am a lot more concerned with what’s happening in the rest of the Middle East.
After the heady promise of the Arab Spring two years ago, the situation in the Middle East is now more like the Arab Volcano — with sectarian violence erupting in many areas and the Iranian nuclear threat hovering like a dark force. Instead of unleashing the power of democracy, the Arab Spring has cooked up a lethal brew of festering hatred, economic misery and vicious power struggles.
In contrast to that chaos, Israel feels like Club Med.
But hidden in all the chaos is a monstrous injustice that has received very little media attention: The rampant persecution of Christians.
“Few people realize that we are today living through the largest persecution of Christians in history,” Bruce Thornton, research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, wrote on the institute’s Web site. “Estimates of the numbers of Christians under assault range from 100 [million] to 200 million. According to one estimate, a Christian is martyred every five minutes.”
It’s odd that prominent Christians like President Barack Obama and Pope Francis have been utterly silent about this humanitarian tragedy.
As Kirsten Powers wrote recently in USA Today, German Chancellor Angela Merkel asserted late last year that “Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world,” while former French President Nicholas Sarkozy warned in a 2011 speech that “Christians face a particularly wicked program of cleansing in the Middle East, religious cleansing.”
The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg told Powers “he is shocked that American Christians aren’t regularly protesting outside of embassies drawing attention to this issue,” and he called the persecution of Christians in the Middle East “one of the most undercovered stories in international news.”
One Christian who is certainly not keeping quiet is Raymond Ibrahim, a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and associate fellow of the Middle East Forum.
In a review of Ibrahim’s new book, “Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians,” Thornton writes that Ibrahim, who is fluent in Arabic, “has been tracking what he calls ‘one of the most dramatic stories’ of our time in the reports and witnesses that appear in Arabic newspapers, news shows, and websites, but that rarely get translated into English or picked up by the Western press.”
Most of this persecution, according to the book, is by Muslims: “Of the top fifty countries persecuting Christians, forty-two have either a Muslim majority or have sizable Muslim populations.”
By documenting “hundreds of specific examples from across the Muslim world,” Thornton adds, Ibrahim “shows the extent of the persecution, and forestalls any claims that it is a marginal problem.”
Muslim attacks, Thornton writes, “result not just from the jihadists that some Westerners dismiss as ‘extremists,’ but from mobs of ordinary people, and from government policy and laws that discriminate against Christians. … These attacks reveal a consistent ideology of hatred and contempt that transcends national, geographical, and ethnic differences.”
The grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, for example, announced that it is “necessary to destroy all the churches of the region,” which prompted Thornton to ask, in the wake of Western silence: “Is there no limit to our tolerance of Islam?”
“Tragically,” Powers of USA Today writes, “Christians have been forced to abandon homelands they have occupied for thousands of years. Up to two-thirds of Christians have fled Iraq in the past ten years to escape massacres, church burnings and constant death threats.”
According to Powers, in Iran, U.S. pastor Saeed Abedini has been sentenced to eight years in prison for preaching Christianity. In Egypt, Amnesty International blasted the recently deposed Islamic Brotherhood government for its failure to protect Coptic Christians from discrimination and violence. And in Lebanon, once a majority Christian country, the former president complained of a “genocide” against Christians.
“The future of Christians in the Middle East is very bleak,” Neil Hicks of Human Rights First told Powers.
The world media is perfectly OK covering Muslims killing Muslims, as is happening now in Syria. But why does it clam up when Muslims persecute Christians? Are we afraid to appear “Islamophobic” or bring back memories of the Dark Ages?
As a people who know all too well about “dark” ages, Jews should not stand idly by. We shouldn’t shy away from unpleasant truths, just because the media does. Jews who believe in social justice should shine a light on the tragic plight of persecuted Christians.
Maybe if we make some noise, the president and the pope will follow.

Why Is The Media Silent About The Crucifixion Of Christians By Radical Jihadists?

By Michael Snyder, on May 1st, 2014

 

     

Could you imagine the uproar in the mainstream media that we would see if a member of a politically favored class of people was crucified for who or what they are?  There would be front page headlines for weeks.  But because members of a politically favored class (Muslims) are doing it to members of a non-politically favored class (Christians), it is not newsworthy at all according to the media.  In many instances, Christians are being crucified by jihadists that are actually being assisted and funded by the governments of the United States and Saudi Arabia.  Yes, our tax dollars are being used to help arm and supply radical jihadists that are beheading and crucifying Christians.  And yet none of the big media organizations considers this to be news.
How sick and twisted do you have to be to crucify a little child for being a Christian?  Of course you never heard about this from the mainstream media, but that is exactly what happened in Syria recently…

Sister Raghida, former head of a Christian school in Damascus explained the horrific event. “Islam or death” was the choice given to many Christians in Syria on Tuesday during the height of the conflict in Syria. She said many Syrian Christians have been affected by the atrocities taking place in the Christian population of the Middle Eastern country, an area once known for the harmonious coexistence of Muslims and Christians.
According to Sister Raghida, the Muslims came to the two youths and said, “So you want to die as a teacher in whom you trust? Please choose: either to renounce (faith) or you will be crucified!”
The boys both refused to renounce faith in Jesus Christ and were martyred because of it. One of them was crucified in front of his father, who was then killed. The nun went on to tell the radio station that the Jihadists entered the city of Maaloula and started killing men, women, and children.

This kind of brutality is absolutely unprecedented!
Who has ever heard of such a thing being done to pregnant women and children?
You would think that crimes of this magnitude would be front page news all over the globe.
But instead, there is mostly just silence.
About the only mainstream news outlet in the U.S. that will even touch this stuff is Fox News.  And even they don’t give it front page treatment.  Usually you have to really dig to find a brief story about the slaughter of Christians that we are seeing all over the planet.
The following is an excerpt from a Fox News story about another incident of crucifixion that just happened recently…

Al Qaeda-backed jihadists are hanging the bodies of executed enemies on crosses crucifixion-style in a town in Northern Syria, according to a Syrian opposition group.
The executions reportedly took place Tuesday in Raqqa, where the extremist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIS, an Al Qaeda-linked network, has taken over the city, according to Abu Ibrahim Alrquaoui, who identifies himself as a founder of a group called Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently.

As I mentioned above, the jihadists that are doing this have the support of Saudi Arabia and the United States.  The Obama administration and the Saudia are desperate to overthrow the Syrian government, and Obama seems to have no problem allying us with some of the most despicable jihadists on the entire planet in order to make that happen.
The brutality against Christians by U.S.-backed fighters has been going on for month after month with very little notice by the outside world.  Just check out what has been going on in one little village in the middle of the war zone…

For a major part of the past year, it was occupied by Islamist Syrian rebels associated with al-Qaida who took advantage of its commanding position over Maaloula to help keep their grip on this Christian village. During the occupation of the village by the Saudi- and U.S.-supported rebels, strict Shariah law was enforced. Those Christians not able to flee were treated as slaves. Several Christian men were beheaded, and many of the women were forced into “temporary” marriages with multiple Islamic fighters.

And of course Syria is far from the only place where we see this kind of brutality on a consistent basis.  For example, Christians are regularly slaughtered by radical jihadists in Nigeria.  The following is just one recent example…

While many of us were enjoying our Friday evenings, a massacre was taking place in Nigeria that left between 100 and 150 Christians dead and around 200 homes burned to the ground.
At around 10pm Nigeria time last night while villagers were asleep, more than 40 Fulani herdsmen attacked the Ungwan Gata, Me-Sankwai and Tekum villages in Manchok (Kaura Local Government), which is located in Southern Kaduna, Nigeria. Southern Kaduna is a predominantly Christian.
These jihadi attackers first set fire to homes and when the Christians attempted to escape their homes, they were shot dead or butchered with machetes. The ones who could not escape their homes burned to death.
No one attacked was spared, including women and children. A pastor, his wife, and their children, of one of the villages, were said to be among the butchered.

Have you heard about that incident before now?
Probably not.
You see, the truth is that the elite control the “matrix” known as the mainstream media, and they don’t consider such stories to be important.
You probably haven’t heard about the young Christian woman that was dragged out of her car and beaten to death by a Muslim mob in Egypt either.  Fortunately, there are some non-mainstream outlets that are covering this…

Eyewitnesses have given a harrowing account of the murder in Cairo of a young Coptic Christian woman, hauled out of her car and beaten and stabbed to death by a Muslim mob, apparently targeted because of a cross hanging from her rear-view mirror.

And to say that she was “beaten to death” doesn’t really capture the full horror of what happened to her…

Protestors climbed onto her car, collapsing the roof, then hauled her from the vehicle, beating and mauling her – to the extent, he said, that portions of her scalp were torn off. She was stabbed multiple times, her throat was slit and when she was dead, the mob torched her car.

This is evil to the highest degree.
But even in the midst of the slowest news year in ages, the mainstream media still won’t touch this stuff.
There is an extreme hesitance in the western world to report anything that will put Muslims in a bad light or put Christians in a good light.
Meanwhile, as Christians are being slaughtered by Muslims all over the globe, the western world is doing all that it can to shut down criticism of Islam.
For instance, the leader of a political party in the UK could be facing up to two years in prison for the “hate crime” of quoting Winston Churchill…

Political party leader Paul Weston was arrested by police and faces up to two years in jail for criticizing the religion of Islam during a public speech in the United Kingdom.

Weston’s “racially aggravated” hate crime consisted of him quoting Winston Churchill.

Weston’s arrest reveals the chilling implementation of thought crime in Britain and how political correctness is being used as a weapon with which to destroy the edifice of freedom of speech across the western world.

The following is what appears to be the quote that got Weston in trouble…

“The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities – but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith.”

And in the U.S., great efforts are being made to make Muslims as comfortable as possible in our schools.  Even as Christian prayers are being banned, entire prayer rooms are being set aside for Muslim students in schools all over the country.  In addition, many school systems are now giving students days off during major Muslim holidays.  In fact, this will soon be happening in New York City…

New York City is moving to close school for two Muslim holidays and the Lunar New Year — but Mayor de Blasio isn’t so sure about the Hindu festival Diwali.
Appearing on WNYC’s “Brian Lehrer Show” on Monday, the mayor said he hadn’t taken a position on whether Diwali, the festival of lights celebrated in India and other South Asian countries, should be a day off from school.
But he said he’d move forward with closing schools for Lunar New Year and for Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, Muslim holy days.

But that is nothing compared to what happened at one high school in Colorado.  As students recited the Pledge of Allegiance, the words “under God” were replaced with “under Allah”…

The principal at Rocky Mountain High School in Fort Collins, Colorado, is facing a hailstorm of criticism from some very angry parents and residents.
The school recites the Pledge of Allegiance weekly, on Mondays. Last Monday, a member of their “Cultural Arms Club” led the student body in an Arabic version of the pledge, replacing the words “under God” with “under Allah.”
Principal Tom Lopez denies any attempt to push an Islamic agenda, saying, “These students love this country. They were not being un-American in trying to do this. They believed they were accentuating the meaning of the words as spoken regularly in English.”

In the U.S., people are bending over backwards to make the Muslim minority feel more comfortable.
But in Muslim countries, Christians are being beaten to death, beheaded and crucified and very few people in the western world even want to talk about it.
Has our society become so “politically correct” that we cannot even denounce great evil when it is happening right in front of our eyes?

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Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images

Kirsten Powers

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World News

09.27.13

A Global Slaughter of Christians, but America’s Churches Stay Silent

Christians are being singled out and massacred from Pakistan to Syria to the Nairobi shopping mall. Kirsten Powers on the deafening silence from U.S. pews and pulpits.

Christians in the Middle East and Africa are being slaughtered, tortured, raped, kidnapped, beheaded, and forced to flee the birthplace of Christianity. One would think this horror might be consuming the pulpits and pews of American churches. Not so. The silence has been nearly deafening.

As Egypt’s Copts have battled the worst attacks on the Christian minority since the 14th century, the bad news for Christians in the region keeps coming. On Sunday, Taliban suicide bombers killed at least 85 worshippers at All Saints’ church, which has stood since 1883 in the city of Peshawar, Pakistan. Christians were also the target of Islamic fanatics in the attack on a shopping center in Nairobi, Kenya, this week that killed more than 70 people. The Associated Press reported that the Somali Islamic militant group al-Shabab “confirmed witness accounts that gunmen separated Muslims from other people and let the Muslims go free.” The captives were asked questions about Islam. If they couldn’t answer, they were shot.

In Syria, Christians are under attack by Islamist rebels and fear extinction if Bashar al-Assad falls. This month, rebels overran the historic Christian town of Maalula, where many of its inhabitants speak Aramaic, the language of Jesus. The AFP reported that a resident of Maalula called her fiancé’s cell and was told by member of the Free Syrian Army that they gave him a chance to convert to Islam and he refused. So they slit his throat.

Nina Shea, an international human-rights lawyer and expert on religious persecution, testified in 2011 before Congress regarding the fate of Iraqi Christians, two-thirds of whom have vanished from the country. They have either been murdered or fled in fear for their lives. Said Shea: “[I]n August 2004 … five churches were bombed in Baghdad and Mosul. On a single day in July 2009, seven churches were bombed in Baghdad … The archbishop of Mosul, was kidnapped and killed in early 2008. A bus convoy of Christian students were violently assaulted. Christians … have been raped, tortured, kidnapped, beheaded, and evicted from their homes …”

Lela Gilbert is the author of Saturday People, Sunday People, which details the expulsion of 850,000 Jews who fled or were forced to leave Muslim countries in the mid-20th century. The title of her book comes from an Islamist slogan, “First the Saturday People, then the Sunday People,” which means “first we kill the Jews, then we kill the Christians.” Gilbert wrote recently that her Jewish friends and neighbors in Israel “are shocked but not entirely surprised” by the attacks on Christians in the Middle East. “They are rather puzzled, however, by what appears to be a lack of anxiety, action, or advocacy on the part of Western Christians.”
As they should be. It is inexplicable. American Christians are quite able to organize around issues that concern them. Yet religious persecution appears not to have grabbed their attention, despite worldwide media coverage of the atrocities against Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East.

It’s no surprise that Jews seem to understand the gravity of the situation the best. In December 2011, Britain’s chief rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks, addressed Parliament saying, “I have followed the fate of Christians in the Middle East for years, appalled at what is happening, surprised and distressed … that it is not more widely known.” “It was Martin Luther King who said, ‘In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.’ That is why I felt I could not be silent today.”

Wolf has complained loudly of the State Department’s lack of attention to religious persecution, but is anybody listening?

Yet so many Western Christians are silent. In January, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) penned a letter to 300 Catholic and Protestant leaders complaining about their lack of engagement. “Can you, as a leader in the church, help?” he wrote. “Are you pained by these accounts of persecution? Will you use your sphere of influence to raise the profile of this issue—be it through a sermon, writing or media interview?”
There have been far too few takers.

Wolf and Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) sponsored legislation last year to create a special envoy at the State Department to advocate for religious minorities in the Middle East and South-Central Asia. It passed in the House overwhelmingly, but died in the Senate. Imagine the difference an outcry from constituents might have made. The legislation was reintroduced in January and again passed the House easily. It now sits in the Senate. According to the office of Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), the sponsor of the bill there, there is no date set for it to be taken up.

Wolf has complained loudly of the State Department’s lack of attention to religious persecution, but is anybody listening? When American leaders meet with the Saudi government, where is the public outcry demanding they confront the Saudis for fomenting hatred of Christians, Jews, and even Muslim minorities through their propagandistic tracts and textbooks? In the debate on Syria, why has the fate of Christians and other religious minorities been almost completely ignored?

In his letter challenging U.S. religious leaders, Wolf quoted Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was executed for his efforts in the Nazi resistance:  “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

That pretty well sums it up.

When Israel attacked Hamas military targets, including some that had mixed uses, it was condemned by the same Arab nations that participated in the joint United States-Arab attack in Syria.

Rubble from US air strike in Syria's Idlib province. (photo credit:REUTERS)

The air attack by American and Arab forces against ISIS and other terrorist targets parallels Israel’s air attacks against Hamas terrorist targets in Gaza.  According to retired General Wesley Clark, the United States air attacks are designed to degrade and destroy the infrastructure of the terrorist groups, including the electric grid, the sources of their finance and other mixed military-civilian targets. 

When Israel attacked Hamas military targets, including some that had mixed uses, it was condemned by the same Arab nations that participated in the joint United States-Arab attack in Syria.  The difference of course is that the threat posed by ISIS is not nearly as imminent as the threats posed by Hamas.  This is certainly true in relation to the United States and may also be true in relation to its Arab partners. 

Among the most hypocritical nations participating in the US attack is, of course, Qatar, which not only condemned Israel for defending its civilians against Hamas rockets and tunnels, but actually funded the Hamas attacks and provided asylum for the Hamas terrorist leaders who ordered them.  Hypocrisy is nothing new when it comes to the double standard applied by the international community against Israel.  The United States and its Arab partners have the right to take preemptive action against terrorist groups without fear of UN condemnation, a Goldstone report, or threats to bring its leaders before the International Criminal Court.  Yet everything Israel does, regardless of how careful it is to minimize civilian casualties, becomes the basis for international condemnation. 

If the US attacks in Syria continue, there are likely to be civilian casualties, because ISIS will embed its fighters among civilians and the many hostages it has taken.  When that happens, American and Arab rockets will kill some civilians.  It will be interesting to compare the world’s reaction to those civilian deaths with its reaction to deaths caused by Israeli rockets hitting human shields deliberately employed by Hamas.  If the past is any predictor of the future, the ratio of civilian to terrorist deaths may be considerably higher in the American lead air attacks than it was in the Israeli air attacks.  In past wars, such as those in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and the former Yugoslavia, the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths was far higher than the ratio brought about by Israeli rockets firing into Gaza where human shields are Hamas’s tactic of choice. 

It will also be interesting to see the reaction of the international community and various NGOs to US led attacks on mixed military-civilian targets, such as electric grid and sources of financing.  The international law on these subjects is vague, open ended and thus subject to selective application.  Doubts are always resolved against Israel and in favor of other nations engaging in similar military actions. 

The joint attack by the United States and the handful of Arab countries may finally persuade the world that the laws of warfare must be adapted to the new realities of terrorism.  If one were to literally apply the words of Section 51 of the UN Charter, no country could defend itself against imminent attacks, either by terrorists or conventional armies.  That section requires an armed attack by an enemy state to have occurred before the right of self-defense kicks in.  That provision was unrealistic when drafted and it is far more unrealistic now in the face of terroristic threats.  The laws of war also require proportionality, which is defined as demanding that the anticipated deaths of civilians be evaluated against the military value of the target.  But it does not take into account situations where the enemy hides its valuable military targets behind human shields. 

It has been easy for the international community to apply these rules rigidly and unrealistically when the only country to which it applies them is the nation-state of the Jewish people.  But now it will have to apply them across the board, and that will require defining them in a sensible and realistic way that does not give undue advantage to terrorist who refuse to comply with the rule of law. 

COSMIC EVENTS of 2014/2015

The rabbis teach that blood moons--known as "lunar eclipses"--are a sign used by God to indicate judgment of the nation of Israel. They also teach that solar eclipses are a sign for the judgments of the nations of the world. The discovery of the lunar and solar eclipses in 2014/2015 in relationship to God's appointed Festivals in Leviticus 23, comes from Mark Biltz, pastor of El Shaddai Ministries, in Bonner Lake, Washington. Click on this picture to watch the 10 minute Mark Blitz video presentation about the "times and seasons," and why we should be watching and anticipating the fulfillment of God's appointed times.

The four Blood Moon Lunar eclipses connected to God's Festivals during 2014-2015, occur as follows:

                                            Passover (1st Feast)                              April 15, 2014

                                            Feast of Tabernacles (7th Feast)             October 8, 2014

           

                                Passover  (1st Feast)                             April 4, 2015

                                            Feast of Tabernacles (7th Feast)             September 28, 2015

The two Solar eclipses connected with God’s appointed times during 2014-2015, occur as follows:

                         Adar 29/Nisan 1 (Beginning 1st Month)                 March 20, 2015

                                     Feast of Trumpets  (Beginning of 7th Month)         September 13, 2015  

It is extremely rare for this pattern of solar and lunar eclipses to fall on both Passover (1 Nisan) and Rosh HaShanah (1 Tishri) seven months later--particularly for two years in a row; then, a lunar eclipse a few days after Rosh HaShanah on Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles) in the same year (2015). Biltz was intrigued with the statement in the Scriptures that connect the second coming of the Messiah with “signs in the heavens,” particularly the signs that “the sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood” before the return of Christ.  

Writing about Mark Biltz's amazing discovery in the May 2008 issue of Prophecy in the News, J. R. Church declares, “This is most unusual.  It is a rare occurrence for four lunar cycles on successive Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot) observances.  It will not happen again for hundreds of years.” He continues in a letter accompanying the magazine issue, “Four lunar eclipses occurring on the Feast of Tabernacles and Passover in two successive years are phenomenal.  But add to them two solar eclipses on the two days that open the Jewish year – Adar 29/Nisan1, just two weeks before Passover, and on Tishri 1 (Rosh Hashannah) – is uncanny.  On each of these six Jewish Holy Days, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give her light.  Will this happen again in the 21^st century?  No.  However, this phenomenon did occur in the 20^th century during significant times in Israel's history; in 1949/1950, the year following Israel’s statehood, and 1967/1968, the year Jerusalem was liberated in the Six-Day War!  Before that, you have to go back to 1493 for four successive lunar eclipses on Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles” (May 2008 letter).  

 

Mark Biltz Video: Eclipses Part I - Signs, Seasons and Convocations" interview at Maranatha Chapel

Mark Biltz Video: Eclipses Part II - Signs, Seasons and Convocations" interview at Maranatha Chapel