Olive Tree Ministries - prophetic signs, current issues, and the Messianic Jewish movement.

News Watch: Topical

Jews Move Towards Their Temple
--> Posted to Israel for July, 2008

Another step on the long road towards the restoration of Temple Worship in Jerusalem was reportedly taken Monday with the opening of a new workshop in which robes will be manufactured for practicing priests.

According to a report in The Jerusalem Post Wednesday, a number of Kohanim, (Jews in the Cohen family line who trace their ancestry back to Aaron, the first High Priest) have already had measurements taken for the biblically-described vestments.

One of them is the well-known chief rabbi of Efrat Shlomo Riskin.

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The Presidential Candidates and Israel
--> Posted to Israel for June, 2008

The Presidential Candidates and Israel

By Joseph Puder
FrontPageMagazine.com | 6/16/2008

Beyond the platitudes showered upon Israel and AIPAC by the presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama at AIPAC's Annual Policy Conference held in Washington D.C. June 2-4 looms the question of whether the candidatesâ€™ words will be translated into policies? The only real measure of their intentions might be revealed in their choice of advisors.

While McCain and the Republican Party have been solidly pro-Israel and have stood firmly on preventing a nuclear Iran, the names of James Baker (noted for having said F-k the Jews, they donâ€™t vote for us anyway), former Secretary of State under President Bush Sr. and Brent Scowcroft, National Security Advisor in the Ford and Bush Sr. administrations, have been mentioned as potential Secretaries of State and/or Middle East envoys and should raise serious concerns among pro-Israel activists and potential Jewish voters.

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Temple Mount 100% Islamic--WND
--> Posted to Israel for June, 2008

Temple Mount '100% Islamic'

Warning: 'Any action that offends holy site will be answered by 1.5 billion Muslims'

By Aaron Klein

WorldNetDaily

JERUSALEM â€“ Jerusalem and the Temple Mount belong to the Muslims and any Israeli action that "offends" the Mount will be answered by 1.5 billion Muslims, declared the chief of staff for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

"Jerusalem is Muslim. The blessed Al Aqsa mosque and Harem Al Sharif (Temple Mount) is 100 percent Muslim. The Israelis are playing with fire when they threaten Al Aqsa with digging that is taking place," said Abbas' chief of staff Rafiq Al Husseini.

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Israel's Staticide
--> Posted to Israel for May, 2008

Israel's Staticide

By Frank J. Gaffney Jr.
FrontPageMagazine.com | 5/28/2008

There is a Greek tragedy unfolding today in the Middle East. In response to past mistakes and as a result of hubristic political calculation, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is setting in motion forces that promise to lead inexorably to grief for his nation. The result could be staticide, the destruction of the Jewish State, with incalculably serious repercussions for the Free World in general and the United States in particular.

In the pursuit of peace with its neighbors, Israel has made one strategic concession after another. In 1979, it surrendered the Sinai to Egypt when Anwar Sadat promised peace and then was murdered for doing so. In 1993, Israel adopted the Oslo accords, legitimating one of its most virulent enemies, the PLO terrorist chief Yasser Arafat, and setting the stage for Palestinian control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

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Olmert: It is Delusional to Believe in "Greater Israel"
--> Posted to Israel for May, 2008

ISRAEL TODAY

Olmert: It is delusional to believe in â€˜greater Israelâ€™

It is delusional, in the current situation, to cling to a vision of â€˜Greater Israel,â€™ according to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert who spoke to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday, shedding light on his reasoning for discussing the giveaway of the Golan Heights and West Bank.

â€œToday we face the choice between Greater Israel and a Jewish nation â€“ the two are mutually exclusive. They only exist together in the minds of deluded fantasists who misconstrue reality,â€ he said.

The prime minister said secrecy was of the utmost importance surrounding talks such as ceding control of 91 percent of the West Bank to the Palestinians and giving the Golan Heights to Syria.

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Israel's Economy Most Successful in World
--> Posted to Israel for May, 2008

ECB chief: Israel's economy most successful in the world

Market triumphs odds, marks 5.4% growth in first quarter. European Central Bank head 'amazed by Israeli market's performance,' says local market in best position to profit from globalization while avoiding pitfalls of credit crisis

The Israeli market noted a surprising 5.4% growth in the first quarter of 2008, the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) reported Monday.

The growth, though lower than the one noted in 2007's third and forth quarters, exceeded expectations, especially when considering the various recession warnings heard around the world and in Israel since the beginning of the year.
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The September War--Hal Lindsey
--> Posted to Israel for May, 2008

The September War

Exclusive: Hal Lindsey sees pieces in place for battle between Israel, her neighbors

Posted: May 23, 2008

By Hal Lindsey

According to a number of sources, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is planning to bring his first reactor on line sometime in September 2008, which is just about in line with what the Israeli Mossad had estimated back in 2003 when the full extent of Iran's secret nuclear program became known.

The Iranian announcement came on the heels of a surprise announcement by the government of Israel confirming it had entered into third-party peace talks with Syria's Bashar Assad. The surprising confirmation on Wednesday was the first acknowledged contact between the two parties in eight years, which will be mediated by Turkey. Equally surprising was a statement from the United States saying it had no objection to the talks. Previously, the U.S. had rejected any peace overtures toward Syria as long as it was sponsoring Hezbollah and Hamas. In fact, President Bush seemed to have been blindsided by the news.

According to transcripts of an interview he granted to the Jerusalem Post, Bush responded to the news by stammering; "I expect an explanation, but I'm â€“ he made a decision that he made â€“ or no decisions have been made, except the idea of trying to get some dialogue moving, which is â€“ and I know him well, and know that he is as concerned about Israeli security as any other person that's ever been the prime minister of Israel. And so I presume the decision is made."

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Arab Journalist Admits Israel not to Blame for Palestinian Refugees
--> Posted to Israel for May, 2008

ISRAEL TODAY

Another Arab journalist admits Israel not to blame for Palestinian refugees

A top Palestinian journalist wrote last week that it is the Arab world, and not Israel, that is to blame for the so-called Palestinian "refugee crisis."

Jawad al Bashiti, a Jordan-based correspondent for the Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam, noted in his May 13 editorial that during the "first war between Arabs and Israel...the 'Arab Salvation Army' came and told the Palestinians: 'We have come to you in order to liquidate the Zionists and their state. Leave your houses and villages, you will return to them in a few days safely."

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Dear Mr. President
--> Posted to Israel for May, 2008

JERUSALEM NEWSWIRE

Please allow me, as a - like you - professing Christian, as an American descendant, and as a distant relative (I believe we are cousins some eight times removed), to thank you for coming to congratulate the miraculous little land of Israel and its extra-ordinarily plucky people on the 60th anniversary of their national resurrection.

While other world leaders also visited last week, you - unlike them - did not come merely to attend a conference. With your lovely First Lady at your side you were here for nearly three days, sparing no expense and giving a great deal of your valuable time to assuring the Israelis that the special relationship between your country and theirs is as strong and as important as ever.
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Israel: Role Model for America--WND
--> Posted to Israel for May, 2008

The plucky Jewish state can teach the U.S. a thing or two about cultural and creedal survival. Israel has endured to celebrate its 60th birthday in so small part because it has rejected American-style immolation by immigration.

Despite Israel's protestations to the contrary, it is neither a multicultural state, nor a free-for-all pluralist pottage with open borders Ã la post-1965, Immigration Act America. Rather, Israel upholds the right to retain its religious and cultural distinctiveness and its Jewish majority. It therefore controls immigration and guards its borders
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Israeli Success Story--NRO
--> Posted to Israel for May, 2008

Israeli Success Story

By the Editors

Just 60 years ago, David Ben-Gurion declared that, after a lapse of two millennia, the state of Israel had resumed its existence. There was dancing in the streets of this revived state. At the time, the Nazi Holocaust had just dealt Jews what was virtually a death-blow, and survivors might have been expected never to recover. In a magnificent, perhaps desperate, assertion of human vitality, they instead came together to create their own state of Israel. Jews were at last in a position to take their future into their own hands. An ancient identity, complete with its long since unspoken language of Hebrew, acquired a modern expression. There is no other example in history of a national comeback like this.
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Thank You, Israel
--> Posted to Israel for May, 2008

Thank You Israel

By Dan Rabkin
FrontPageMagazine.com | 5/14/2008

As we mark Israelâ€™s 60th birthday today (May 14), people across the world can, once again, breathe a collective sigh of relief thanks to the Jewish State. Last September, a handful of Israeli fighter jets conducted a pre-dawn raid in which they destroyed what the Israelis claimed was a nuclear facility in the Deir ez-Zor region of Syria close to the Turkish border. Recently, CIA Director Michael Hayden confirmed that the facility, termed Al Kibar, was mere weeks away from being operational and could have, in the first year of operation, â€œproduced enough plutonium for one or two weapons."

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Bush: Face to Face with the Word of the Lord
--> Posted to Israel for May, 2008

Bush: Face-to-face with the Word of the Lord Posted on Tuesday 13 May 2008

Although he almost certainly does not fully realize the ramifications, US President George W. Bush, who is due to arrive in Jerusalem Wednesday morning on a three-day visit, is set to come face to face with the Word of the Lord concerning the restoration of Israel.

Bush has been scheduled a private viewing Thursday evening of a 2000-year-old scroll containing the entire book of Isaiah.

Virtually every one of Israelâ€™s ancient prophets foretold the dispersion (Diaspora) of the Jews, centuries before it happened in AD 70 and 135.
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Israel at 3,500+
--> Posted to Israel for May, 2008

The Jewish State's only hope and future

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Today is the 60th anniversary of a marriage that has lasted more than 3,500 years. This may sound like a paradox but this is the inescapable truth about the land of Israel and the Jews.

No marriage has been so long, so deep in its commitment and so overwhelming in its love as the one between the Jews and their homeland. But no marriage has been so painful nor so tragic, for the partners were forced apart by the Roman Empire nearly 2000 years ago.

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Israel's 60 Year Test--WSJ
--> Posted to Israel for May, 2008

Israel's 60-Year Test

May 6, 2008

Sixty years after its birth, Israel continues to test the proposition that reality counts for more than perception.

The Web site eyeontheun.org keeps a running tally of all United Nations resolutions, decisions and reports condemning this or that country for this or that human rights violation (real or alleged). Between January 2003 and March 2008, tiny Israel â€“ its population not half that of metropolitan Cairo's â€“ was condemned no fewer than 635 times. The runners-up were Sudan at 280, the Democratic Republic of the Congo at 209, and Burma at 183. North Korea was cited a mere 60 times, a third as many as the United States.

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Israel's Predicament at 60--Pipes-
--> Posted to Israel for May, 2008

Israel's Predicament at 60

By Daniel Pipes
FrontPageMagazine.com | 5/6/2008

Two religiously-identified new states emerged from the shards of the British empire in the aftermath of World War II. Israel, of course, was one; the other was Pakistan.

They make an interesting, if little-compared pair. Pakistan's experience with widespread poverty, near-constant internal turmoil, and external tensions, culminating in its current status as near-rogue state, suggests the perils that Israel avoided, with its stable, liberal political culture, dynamic economy, cutting-edge high-tech sector, lively culture, and impressive social cohesion.

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60 Years on the Map--J.Post
--> Posted to Israel for May, 2008

60 years on the map

THE JERUSALEM POST May. 5, 2008

Israel's major accomplishment in 60 years of independence is surviving - staying on the map as a sovereign state, with equal status among the nations of the world. The many economic and cultural achievements have helped to contribute to this survival, while the desire for peace with our neighbors remains unfulfilled, but the triumph is that we are here.

The primary goal of Zionism was and remains the re-establishment of sovereignty and self-determination for the Jewish people in our homeland. In addition to fulfilling the 2,000-year-old desire to return to Eretz Yisrael, the history of persecution (particularly in Christian Europe), expulsions, and pogroms culminating in the Holocaust demonstrated the dangers of dependence on others.
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Israel's Gift to the World
--> Posted to Israel for May, 2008

Israel's Gift to the World

By Alan M. Dershowitz
New York Post | 5/5/2008

As Israel celebrates its 60th birthday, the world should recognize the enormous gifts the Jewish state has given the world. Israel has exported more lifesaving medical technology to the far-flung corners of the earth than any nation of comparable size. It has done more to protect the environment, to promote literature, music, the arts and sciences, to spread agricultural advances and to fight terrorism within the rule of law.

Israel has created a legal system that is the envy of the world, with a Supreme Court that is open to all with few, if any, restrictions on its jurisdiction. As America's most liberal Supreme Court Justice William Brennan observed when he visited Israel in 1988:

"It may well be Israel, not the United States, that provides the best hope for building a jurisprudence that can protect civil liberties against the demands of national security.
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Israel Offers 35 Concessions--Kinsella
--> Posted to Israel for April, 2008

Israel Offers Thirty-Five Security Concessions to Palestinians

Condi Rice Said To Be 'Amazed'

Israel - Middle East
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Staff

Ynet cites an Israeli source as saying that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was 'amazed' by Israeli concessions offered to Palestinians during a three-way meeting with defense minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad.

During the meeting, the US secretary of state received a 35-page booklet in English, prepared by Barak's assistants in three days. Barak had demanded that the booklet include a series of real gestures, which would "manifest Israel's seriousness" but "without harming the security of Israel's citizens." Ynet reported that the Israeli "gestures" include establishment of a city near the West Bank city of Ramallah, to be financed by a Jordanian businessman. View Full Article

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The Two-State Non Solution
--> Posted to Israel for April, 2008

A Two-State Non-Solution

By Moshe Dann
FrontPageMagazine.com | 4/7/2008

In a bold critique of current Israeli policy, Gen (ret) Giora Eiland, former head of Israel's National Security Council, said that negotiations to achieve a Declaration of Principles based on the "two-state-solution" plan were unrealistic.

Eiland, one of Israel's top strategic and intelligence advisors, was responsible for implementing Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. Today, however, he readily admits that it was a mistake.
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I Will Remember the Land
--> Posted to Israel for February, 2008

JERUSALEM NEWSWIRE

All mankind is out to rob the Jewish people of half of what they have of their ancestral homeland, and give it to the Arabs who already have 22 states of their own.

As 2008 began, George W. Bush came to Jerusalem to add his personal weight to the momentum he generated just over a month earlier at the â€˜International Conference for the Creation of Palestineâ€™ in Annapolis.

Speaking in Jerusalem, he repeated his full, personal commitment to helping bring this Arab state into being before another 12 months have passed.

The entire international community supports this land theft and is willing to gamble with Israelâ€™s existence by exacting this price from the universally-despised, yet peace seeking, Jewish leadership, instead of demanding payment for peace from the aggressive and antisemitic Arab regimes.

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Did the Church Replace Israel?
--> Posted to Israel for January, 2008

DID THE CHURCH REPLACE ISRAEL?

1. The Nation of Israel will NEVER cease to exist!
Jeremiah 31:35-37; Matthew 24:34-35

2. God has NEVER forsaken Israel!
Isaiah 41:8-9, 17; 43:5-7; 45:25; 49:13-16; 54:6-8; Romans 11:1-2

3. The promise of a LAND is based on an everlasting covenant!
Genesis 15:18; 17:7-8; Psalm 105:8-11
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Israel Will Have to Stop Iran--John Bolton
--> Posted to Israel for January, 2008

'Israel will have to stop Iran'

JPost.com Staff , THE JERUSALEM POST Jan. 22, 2008

"The questions come to Israel, whether it will use military force to stop Iran," former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton said Tuesday.

Speaking at the eighth Herzliya Conference, in a special session devoted to the Iranian nuclear race, Bolton said: "The United States used to have a policy on Iran and recently there was a new push to create a new policy [sic] but sadly, due to the direction American policy is going, it seems that for the next few years the United States will be a bystander to the process."

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Bush's Leap of Faith--Weekly Standard
--> Posted to Israel for January, 2008

Bush's Leap of Faith

Democratic progress in the Middle East will require more than just elections.

01/16/2008

PRESIDENT BUSH MARKED "Religious Freedom Day"--celebrating the 1786 adoption of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom--by acknowledging that the right to worship freely is fundamental to America's democratic creed. "My administration continues to support freedom of worship at home and abroad," he said this week. "We recognize the importance of religious freedom and the vital role it plays in spreading liberty and ensuring human dignity."

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The Theological Background of Christian Zionism
--> Posted to Israel for January, 2008

The Theological Background of Christian Zionism

Part I - Reflection
By: Mikael Knighton
Christians Standing with Israel

Synopsis

Over the centuries, Christian support of the state of Israel has been looked upon with a suspicious and vigilant eye. In fact, history will clearly show that the essence of pure evil, operating under the guise of â€œChristianityâ€, has facilitated a complete and justifiable collapse in Judeo-Christian relations. Only recently has the relationship between the Jewish people and Christians become fruitful, and the "mending" process, albeit positive, continues to evolve.
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Against All Odds
--> Posted to Israel for December, 2007

In 2008, Israel will celebrate the 60th Anniversary of its miraculous rebirth. That it has survived to reach this year must really stick in the craw of the devil and of all those who have sought to be useful to him in trying to bring about the destruction of the Jewish state.

Some people think Israel is spelled I-S-R-A-E-L and Jew is spelled J-E-W.

Theyâ€™d be wrong on both counts. Both â€œIsraelâ€ and â€œJewâ€ are spelled: M-I-R-A-C-L-E.

There is no getting away from it. That the Jews still exist as a nation; that Israel still exists as a state flies in the face of all probability.

They survive against all the odds.

Take the Jews:

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Israel's Shattered Trust
--> Posted to Israel for December, 2007

Israelâ€™s Shattered Trust

By P. David Hornik
FrontPageMagazine.com | 12/20/2007

Is Israel standing up for itself at last? The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iranâ€”particularly its lead sentence that â€œWe judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons programâ€â€”has caused wall-to-wall consternation in Israel, whose intelligence community is convinced that Iran has never, except possibly for a brief intermission, stopped working on its bomb.

On Saturday Public Security Minister Avi Dichter, member of Prime Minister Ehud Olmertâ€™s Kadima Party and previously head of Israelâ€™s domestic security agency, called the NIE an â€œAmerican misconception concerning Iranâ€™s nuclear weapons, which is liable to lead to a regional Yom Kippur [War] where Israel will be among the countries that are threatened.â€

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US Intelligence, Iran, and the Israel Factor
--> Posted to Israel for December, 2007

US intelligence, Iran and the Israel factor

December 9th, 2007

Like many others, I was initially shocked when I read last week that US intelligence had determined with â€œmoderate confidenceâ€ that Iran abandoned its quest for nuclear weapons in 2003. Hadnâ€™t US intelligence determined just 11 months earlier with a far greater degree of confidence that Iran was determined, despite the potential consequences, to develop nuclear military power?

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Peace and Pieces
--> Posted to Israel for December, 2007

Peace and Pieces

By Joseph Puder
FrontPageMagazine.com | 12/10/2007

The high sounding statements about an Israeli-Palestinian peace at the Annapolis conference last week deserve some historical context. Moreover it requires a distinction between peace â€“ the reality Israel and the America seek â€“ and a piece of Israel, one which would ultimately lead to the Jewish Stateâ€™s dissolution â€“ a goal that the Arabs and Palestinians seek.

Despite having suffered huge losses in the surprise attacks staged by Egypt and Syria during the Yom Kippur War of October 1973, Israel emerged victorious. In the aftermath of the war, the Palestinian Liberation Organization came to the realization that Israel will not be defeated by military onslaughts.
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America: On a Collision Course with Zechariah 12
--> Posted to Israel for December, 2007

"America: On a Collision Course with Zechariah 12"
by Mikael Knighton
Christians Standing with Israel

It has been stated, â€œIf you want to watch bible prophecy unfold in this day and age, watch the Middle East; watch Israelâ€. Although you may be hard-pressed to find a Christian who would disagree with such an assertion, the process of interpreting biblical propheciesâ€”whether they are fulfilled, unfulfilled, or unfoldingâ€”may, at times, be a little difficult when attempting to apply them to the events currently unfolding on the worldâ€™s stage.
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Israel's Right to the Land
--> Posted to Israel for November, 2007

Israelâ€™s Right to the Land

By Sean Gannon
FrontPageMagazine.com | 11/30/2007

The view that the Middle East peace process, the latest phase of which kicks off in Annapolis this week, is essentially a mechanism for the vindication of Palestinian rights over the West Bank and Gaza is widely held here in Western Europe, where an awareness of Israelâ€™s legitimate claims and entitlements has been a casualty of the predominantly left-wing mediaâ€™s embrace of the Palestinian cause. Whereas Arab prerogatives are exhaustively documented, the Jewish right to this land is almost entirely ignored. The anniversaries this month of three of the founding documents of the modern Middle East present an opportunity to redress the balance and reassert the Israeli case.

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Four Quick Points on Israel-Palestinian Agreement
--> Posted to Israel for November, 2007

Analysis / Four quick points on Israel-Palestinian joint statement

By Shmuel Rosner in Annapolis

Tags: Mideast peace process, Israel

Timing: Promising to conclude the peace negotiations within a year is the headline of this document. It is a challenge that should not be taken lightly.

Both sides remember that deadlines are not sacred in the Middle East, and were rarely met in similar occasions. Nevertheless, they will try to meet this goal, paying Bush for his vision (the Palestinians) and support (Israelis).

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Why Israel?
--> Posted to Israel for October, 2007

Why Israel?

In Israel we find the greatest example of Godâ€™s unmerited favor ever revealed. God wants to be known, and through His dealings with Israel he has made Himself known to the nations!

By Don Boyd

After living in the Holy Land for nearly eight years, I was recently asked by a dear Christian brother, â€œWhy Israel?â€

What this particular friend had in mind was a question many Christians worldwide are exploring these days with greater determination:

â€œWhat importance, if any, does the modern State of Israel hold in relation to the the Church and life as a Christian?â€

Has God given up on Israel? Has He ceased to identify himself as the God of Israel today?

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Syria Raid Targeted Unfinished Reactor--J.Post--Oct. 14
--> Posted to Israel for October, 2007

The IAF air strike in Syria last month targeted what US and Israeli intelligence analysts believed was a partially constructed nuclear reactor modeled on a reactor used by North Korea to create its stockpile of nuclear weapons fuel, the New York Times reported on Sunday morning.

While the attack was reminiscent of the IAF raid on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981, the facility that Israel struck in Syria appears to have been much further from completion, the Times quoted American and foreign officials as saying.

The Times quoted a senior Israeli official as saying that the strike was intended to "reestablish the credibility of our deterrent power."

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Ahmadinejad's Strategy for Destroying Israel
--> Posted to Israel for October, 2007

Ahmadinejad's Strategy for Destroying Israel
by Shalom Freedman

The military options are being built.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is obsessed with one subject, the destruction of Israel. His strategy for doing so combines political and military elements. His aim is to delegitimize Israel in the eyes of the West and cut it off from US support.

On the political side, he is an insistent propagandist who has no problem ignoring fact and evidence to boldly lie and repeat false claims. He is an insistent propagandist.
with the origin of the modern State of Israel. View Full Article

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A Divided Jerusalem?
--> Posted to Israel for October, 2007

A Divided Jerusalem?

By P. David Hornik
FrontPageMagazine.com | 10/12/2007

Josephâ€™s Tomb in Nablus in the West Bank, a Jewish holy site where some believe the biblical Joseph is buried, was in the news early in the Second Intifada when a Palestinian mob ransacked it after an Israeli troop withdrawal. These days Josephâ€™s Tomb is doing even worse, having been turned by the Nablus Palestinians into a garbage dump.

Such treatment should not surprise anyone who knows the fate of the Old City of Jerusalem while it was under Jordanian rule from 1948 to 1967: Israelis were denied access to the Western Wall and the Mount of Olives, gravestones on the Mount of Olives were used to make latrines in Jordanian army camps, and 58 Jerusalem synagogues were ruined or destroyed.

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Selling Out Israel on the Installment Plan--Cal Thomas
--> Posted to Israel for October, 2007

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Name one concession Israel has made in recent years that has been reciprocated by its sworn enemies. This is not a trick question. There are none.

That's why next month's announced "Middle East Summit" in Annapolis, Md., should be viewed as one more installment payment in the sellout of Israel and of American interests in the Middle East. While the United States continues to struggle to shore up democracy in Iraq, the Bush administration â€” like administrations before it â€” proceeds in undermining the likelihood that the region's first democracy will endure.
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The Fall Feasts of Israel
--> Posted to Israel for September, 2007

The Fall Feasts of Israel
Holidays and Holy Days

http://www.gracethrufaith.com/selah/holidays-and-holy-days/the-fall-feasts-of-israel

(On September 13, 2007 we began year 5768 on the Hebrew Calendar. As I often do with articles that commemorate annual events, I have updated this study on the Fall Feasts and added new information for your review.)

The fall is arguably the most important time of the year in Judaism. Three of Israel's holiest days are celebrated then, and all in the space of 15 days. They are Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, followed 10 days later by Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and 5 days after that the Feast of Tabernacles. On our calendar they usually fall (no pun intended) some time between mid September and early October due to the differences between the Jewish (lunar) calendar and the western (solar) one.

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Temple Mount May be Price for Peace
--> Posted to Israel for August, 2007

The Palestine Liberation Organization/Palestinian Authority will enter into no peace pact with Israel that does not award the Muslim Arabs who call themselves "Palestinians" full and irreversible control over the site most sacred to the Jewish people.

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Olmert: "The Aim is to Achieve Bush's Vision"--Aug. 12
--> Posted to Israel for August, 2007

Olmert: "The aim is to achieve US President George Bush's vision..."

August 12, 2007 - The Prime Minister of Israel sure has his priorities in proper order. At the top of his list, one would think, should be bringing to an end the daily barrage of Qassam rockets raining down on southern Israel, in towns such as Sderot, or perhaps facilitating the release of Ehud Goldwasser, Eldad Regev and Gilad Shalit--the three IDF soldiers kidnapped last year by "Palestinian" terrorists. To this end, wouldn't a competent prime minister modify his/her diplomacy?
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The Israel Paradox
--> Posted to Israel for August, 2007

HUMAN EVENTS

The Israel Paradox
by Jeff Emanuel (more by this author)
Posted 08/09/2007 ET

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL -- A major idiosyncrasy (to Americans) of Israeli politics is the fact that, though Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert currently enjoys an approval rating solidly in the single digits, he is perhaps more secure in his position at the top of the Israeli government than he has been at any time in his tenure as Prime Minister. Presiding over a broad coalition of parliamentarians, Olmert is sticking to his guns (as inapt a metaphor as can possibly be applied ) and is doing his best to reinvigorate the Middle East â€œpeaceâ€ process by repeating mistakes that made Israelâ€™s position so precarious in the first place.

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U.S. Moves Closer to Arabs, Further from Israel
--> Posted to Israel for August, 2007

The United States of America Tuesday put its official stamp on the Saudi Arabian plan that calls for Israel's surrender for all time of the land returned to Jewish rule in 1967.

According to a report in Haaretz, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wrote her signature alongside those of Egypt, Jordan and six Persian Gulf states endorsing the 2002 plan as a foundation for Middle East peace.

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God's Land
--> Posted to Israel for July, 2007

ISRAEL INSIDER

The time has come when Israel's place in the Holy Land must be confirmed and accepted. It is time to face up to the real issue that lies at the root of Israel's existence, and initiate public discussion about it.

Who does not know that the ancient prophets saw visions of the restoration of Israel? Are world leaders such as George Bush, Tony Blair, George Brown, Ehud Olmert and the pope, ignorant of what the prophets have spoken? Do the Arab leaders not know of it? Can these people be unaware of what was written over 2,000 years ago and is yet still in print? "Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock." (Jeremiah 31:10).
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Israel Deserves Better
--> Posted to Israel for July, 2007

Israelis Deserve Better
By Joseph Puder
FrontPageMagazine.com | July 27, 2007

Few would argue with the characterization of Israelis as tough and generous. Most of those familiar with the inner-workings would also agree that Israelis deserve a better and more accountable leadership.

The ability to survive under the constant threat of war and terrorism has made Israelis tough. The Israeli determination to defend their country in the face of 60 years of constant Arab violence intended to destroy them because they are not Muslim or Arab is either admirable or crazy. The survival of Israelâ€™s 5.5 million Jews surrounded by nearly 300 million Arabs and Iranians determined to annihilate them, is nothing short of miraculous.

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I Want My Country Back!
--> Posted to Israel for July, 2007

JERUSALEM POST

Day after day, I read the headlines and scratch my head in wonderment. How is it possible? How can it be that the once mighty State of Israel, which set the standard for combating international terror, has now become a shadow of its former self? View Full Article

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Olmert: Worth Risking Jewish Lives to Bolster Abbas--July 3
--> Posted to Israel for July, 2007

ISRAEL TODAY

Olmert: Worth risking Jewish lives to bolster Abbas

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday said it is worth risking the lives of his fellow Jews in order to gain the diplomatic benefits he believes will accompany â€œgoodwill gesturesâ€ made toward Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

Speaking before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Olmert was addressing his plan to remove scores of military checkpoints and roadblocks originally established in Judea and Samaria to prevent Palestinian terrorists from reaching Israeli population centers.

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Gaza: And Nobody Saw it Coming??!--Markell
--> Posted to Israel for June, 2007

GAZA: And Nobody Saw it Coming??!

By Jan Markell

www.olivetreeviews.org

The ghost of Yaser Arafat lives on as his successor, Mahmoud Abbas, is simply Arafat in a $1,000 suit. The stripes on a leopard don't change easily. In the Islamic world, they hardly ever do. But to Abbas' credit back in January 2006, while under extreme U.S. pressure to have "free Palestinian elections," Abbas earnestly sought to delay them sensing Hamas would come to power as they did. So the brutal reign of Hamas began, duly elected. The White House and State Department insisted on the elections, sure that the "curative powers of democracy" would solve many issues. Rice later stated, "Nobody saw it coming," meaning the win by Hamas.

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Revising History on June 5, 1967
--> Posted to Israel for June, 2007

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Scientists believe history began 13.7 billion years ago. Proprietors of the newly opened Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky., believe history began 6,000 years ago. Apologists for Arab terrorism and tyranny believe history began a short 40 years ago.
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Israel: Forty Years, Forty Facts
--> Posted to Israel for May, 2007

1. Mayor Uri Lupolianski has 12 children and 30 grandchildren.

2. Before the unification the area of Jerusalem was 38.1 sq.km

3. The word Jerusalem appears 7,910,000 times on Google in Hebrew.

4. The word Jerusalem appears 39,100,000 times on Google in English.

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Israel: Where is the Spirit of 1967?
--> Posted to Israel for May, 2007

40 years after Jerusalem's liberation, when will Sderot be free?

By Noam Bedein May 16, 2007

Today, the 28th of Iyar, May 16, 2007 on the civil calendar, educational institutions in Israel are celebrating 40 years for the liberation of Jerusalem.

Not in Sderot. There is no school today in Sderot, because a Sderot school was hit by a Gaza rocket last night, among the 20 or so rockets that hit the region.

It is as if Sderot is not part of Israel.
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Catastrophe Day
--> Posted to Israel for May, 2007

FRONTPAGE MAG

Today, Tuesday, May 15, is the 59th anniversary of the day Israel was established. For the Palestinians, this day is Nakba (â€œCatastropheâ€) Day. That is, the â€œcatastropheâ€ is not Israelâ€™s conquest of the West Bank and Gaza in June 1967, nor even its victory in the (1948-1949) Independence War and the emergence of the Palestinian-refugee issue, but the creation of Israel itself on May 15, 1948.

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Harsh Truths of Disenagement
--> Posted to Israel for May, 2007

FRONTPAGE MAG

Harsh Truths of the Disengagement
By P. David Hornik
FrontPageMagazine.com | May 7, 2007

Not long ago a bitter debate raged over Israelâ€™s disengagement from Gaza. The more tender-minded proponents argued that once the hated â€œIsraeli occupationâ€ had been removed, Gazans would desist from anti-Israeli violence and turn to peaceful tasks of state-building. The more tough-minded proponents argued that, while the terror against Israel would continue, Israel would now have legitimacy in the worldâ€™s eyes to deal with it.
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The Media's War on Israel--April 24
--> Posted to Israel for April, 2007

When Israel retaliated against Hezbollah during last summerâ€™s war, it was forced to fight two battles: one against the Lebanon-based terrorist organization, and one against a hopelessly biased global media. The first serious study of the mediaâ€™s behavior throughout the conflict has confirmed this impression.

The study, released in February and titled â€œThe Israeli-Hezbollah War of 2006: The Media As A Weapon in Asymmetrical Conflict" (pdf.), was written not by a partisan watchdog organization that would be expected to arrive at these conclusions; rather, it was produced by a respected journalist, Marvin Kalb, a senior fellow at Harvardâ€™s Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.

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A Palestinian "Right of Return"--Medved---April 4
--> Posted to Israel for April, 2007

One of the most annoying quirks of our major media outlets involves their consistently misleading characterization of the current debate about demands for a Palestinian "right of return."

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Worldwide Blitz Against Israel--Feb. 23
--> Posted to Israel for February, 2007

World-Wide Blitz against Israel

(IsraelNN.com) The United Nations, Russia, Arab states and the media have escalated an international broadside against Israel while touting the Hamas-Fatah coalition.

A report by the U.N. Human Rights Council has provided the background for the Arab position, backed by Russia, that the Western-led economic boycott of Hamas must be lifted in order to fight poverty in the Gaza area.

The council report was commissioned to John Dugard, who formerly campaigned against South Africa apartheid and who concluded that the racist policy is similar to that of Israel. He defined Jews as a "race" and charged that the Israeli army is guilty of terror worse than that of Arab terrorists. Dugard's draft is to be published next month in a full report by the U.N.
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Gaza Withdrawal Supporters Admit the Mistake
--> Posted to Israel for February, 2007

Former Mossad chief Meir Amit supported former prime minister Ariel Sharon's internationally-backed ethnic cleansing of all Jews from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

Now he insists that move was a grave mistake.

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Why Europe Abandoned Israel
--> Posted to Israel for January, 2007

Why Europe Abandoned Israel
By Richard Baehr

Why is Israel viewed so differently in Europe than in the United States? To argue as the title of this article does, that Europe has abandoned Israel, is to suggest that it was once in its corner. And in fact, this is true.

Prior to the Six Day War in 1967, it was France which was Israel's primary military supplier, not the United States. In the War of Independence in 1948-49, it was arms smuggled from Czechoslovakia that enabled the Zionists to fight on. Most European nations, including some Soviet satellites, supported the partition resolution in the General Assembly in November 1947. European nations supported Israel at the UN through the late 1960s and in some cases well beyond then.

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Evangelicals: We'll Fight for Israel
--> Posted to Israel for January, 2007

Millions of Evangelical Christians around the world support and constantly pray for the State of Israel , representatives at a meeting of the Knesset's Christian Allies Caucus said Wednesday.

Dozens of Evangelical pastors, parliament members, and leaders from an array of countries gathered at the Knesset in Jerusalem to proclaim their support for the country, during a meeting of the Caucus, which was also attended by Knesset Members from across the political spectrum. View Full Article

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Israel's Vital First Strike
--> Posted to Israel for December, 2006

If you were a Jew in Europe in 1941, and you actually knew that Hitler was developing the means to carry out his threat to exterminate the Jews, what would you do? Dismiss the danger as overstated? Try to arouse the nations of the world to stop him? Or take upon yourself to employ every means possible -- both physically and spiritually -- to avert the catastrophe?

If you are a Jew in 2007, and you actually know that Ahmadinejad is developing the means to carry out his threat to exterminate the Jews of Israel, what will you do?

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Israel: Miracle Still in the Making
--> Posted to Israel for December, 2006

Fifty-eight years ago, in an unprecedented event, the national home of the Jewish people was restored on the map of the Middle East.

Nearly 2000 years earlier, an enraged Roman Empire had directed its military might at erasing that rebellious country, killing two thirds of its people and driving the rest into captivity.

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When in Doubt, Blame Israel--Hanson
--> Posted to Israel for December, 2006

When in doubt, shout about Israel.

Perennially beleaguered Israel, for instance, was hit all summer long with rockets from Lebanon and Gaza, as the world watched and kept score in an absurd new game of proportionality: Israel was to be blamed because its hundreds of air strikes against combatants were lethal, while Hezbollah was to be excused for shooting off thousands of rockets aimed at civilians because of its relative incompetence.

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Olmert a Disaster on All Levels
--> Posted to Israel for December, 2006

A US politician has taken out advertisements in Jewish newspapers across America calling on Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to resign.

According to World Net Daily, Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D. Brooklyn) believes Olmert to be "a disaster on all levels."

In the year since his election the prime minister had "become an expert in failing over and over again."

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Netanyahu: It's 1938 Again
--> Posted to Israel for November, 2006

Netanyahu: It's 1938 and Iran is Germany; Ahmadinejad is preparing another Holocaust

By Peter Hirschberg, Haaretz Correspondent

LOS ANGELES - Drawing a direct analogy between Iran and Nazi Germany, Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu asserted Monday that the Iranian nuclear program posed a threat not only to Israel, but to the entire western world. There was "still time," however, to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons, he said.

"It's 1938 and Iran is Germany. And Iran is racing to arm itself with atomic bombs," Netanyahu told delegates to the annual United Jewish Communities General Assembly, repeating the line several times, like a chorus, during his address. "Believe him and stop him," the opposition leader said of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "This is what we must do. Everything else pales before this."

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Holding Israel to Impossible Standards---Nov. 10
--> Posted to Israel for November, 2006

In a column on August 19, 2005, about Israelâ€™s disengagement from Gaza, Charles Krauthammer asked: â€œWhat about the rockets? . . . For months, Palestinians have been firing rockets from Gaza into towns within Israel proper. The attacks are momentarily in suspension, but with the enhanced ability to smuggle in weapons from Egypt and with no Israeli patrols looking for them, the attacks will resume and get far worse.â€

So far so good. Krauthammer then asked:

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Compelling Reasons Why America Should Support Israel---Oct. 16
--> Posted to Israel for October, 2006

Compelling reasons why the United States should support Israel.

The question of whether Israel is or is not an asset to the United States is one we rarely bother to ask ourselves. Time and again, we see prominent Americans -- presidents of the United States at the forefront -- emphasizing their special relationship with Israel. In polls of American public opinion, Israel scores very high marks, while sympathy for the Palestinians, never very high, continues to drop. Why should we even ask ourselves whether Israel is an asset or a liability to the United States? Isn't the answer obvious?

Most supporters of Israel, when pressed to go a bit deeper, will give two prime rationales for why the United States should back Israel. One is a moral obligation to the Jewish people, grounded in the history of Jewish persecution and culminating in the Holocaust. Israel, so this thinking goes, is something the civilized world owes to the Jewish people, having inflicted an unprecedented genocide upon it. This is a potent rationale, but it is not clear why that would make Israel an asset to the United States. If supporting Israel is an obligation, then it could be described as a liability -- a burden to be borne. And of course, as time passes, that sense of obligation is bound to diminish.

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American Jews and Israel--Glick
--> Posted to Israel for October, 2006

A tiny minority of American Jews is playing a key role in souring ties between Jerusalem and Washington

By Caroline B. Glick

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's speech at the American Task Force for Palestine's inaugural dinner in Washington on Wednesday evening was but the latest sign that America's alliance with Israel is weakening.

Rice's statement that "there could be no greater legacy for America than to help to bring into being a Palestinian state," just about says it all. The secretary of state of a president who was once friendlier to Israel than any of his predecessors now claims that the establishment of a state for a people who have distinguished themselves as the most overtly pro-jihad, terrorist society in the world would be the greatest thing American could ever do.

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How Odd of God to Choose the Jews--Kristol
--> Posted to Israel for September, 2006

Anti-Judaism
By William Kristol
Weekly Standard | September 12, 2006

"How odd / Of God / To choose / The Jews." Thus the British journalist (and communist) William Norman Ewer, in the early part of the last century. The reply came from Cecil Browne: "But not so odd / As those who choose / A Jewish God / But spurn the Jews."

Browne's riposte may have won the poetic exchange. But Ewer's anti-Judaism prevailed in the next decades in Europe. Buried there after World War II, hatred of the Jews flourished for the rest of the 20th century in the Middle East. Is anti-Judaism now enjoying a broader revival? It would seem so.

University of Chicago political science professor John Mearsheimer came to Washington late last month along with his sidekick, Stephen Walt of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Speaking to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, they attacked the "Israel lobby" (of which they claim I am a part) for its pernicious deeds, and singled out several Jews who served or serve in the Bush administration. These Jews, they explained, have special "attachments" in the Middle East. Their attachment? Their religious belief--Judaism. Bigotry now has an academic cachet.

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Demonizing Israel
--> Posted to Israel for September, 2006

For Amnesty International, "Israeli war crimes" are synonymous with "any military action whatsoever."

The two principal "human rights" organizations are in a race to the bottom to see which group can demonize Israel with the most absurd legal arguments and most blatant factual mis-statements. Until last week, Human Rights Watch enjoyed a prodigious lead, having "found" -- contrary to what every newspaper in the world had reported and what everyone saw with their own eyes on television -- "no cases in which Hizbullah deliberately used civilians as shields to protect them from retaliatory IDF attack."

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Why the World Hates the Jews--Medved---Aug. 10
--> Posted to Israel for August, 2006

Why the World Hates the Jews
By Michael Medved

Many of the bitter controversies in every corner of the globe inevitably raise the same ancient question: why does the world hate the Jews?

Whether itâ€™s the angry international reaction to Israelâ€™s efforts to defend itself in Lebanon, or Mel Gibsonâ€™s drunken rant in Malibu, the age-old specter of anti-Semitism refuses to disappear. With only 13 million Jews in the world â€“ less than one fourth of one percent of the earthâ€™s population â€“ why does this tiny group inspire such bitter, widespread and often violent animosity?

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Understanding the Jihad to Destroy Israel
--> Posted to Israel for August, 2006

As the conflagration in southern Lebanon rages on, open calls for an annihilationist jihad to eradicate the State of Israel are once again echoing across the Muslim world. There is no confusing the intent expressed in such brazen statements:

[Iranian Revolutionary Guardâ€™s Commander] There is a need to topple the phony Zionist regime, this cancerous growth [called] Israel, which was founded in order to plunder the Muslims' resources and wealth.

[Iranian President Ahmadinejad at an â€œemergencyâ€ meeting of the 57 Muslim member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Malaysia] â€¦the main solution is for the elimination of the Zionist regime.

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"I Watch Israel with Frustration"--Daniel Pipes
--> Posted to Israel for June, 2006

In Israel last month to receive the "Guardian of Zion" award from Bar-Ilan University's Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies, Middle East scholar and author Daniel Pipes pulled no punches. In his acceptance speech at the King David Hotel before a distinguished gathering of academics, politicians, business people and the media, Pipes did something that - while perhaps, par for his own lonely course of late - was unconventional to say the least. It certainly strayed from the pro forma podium fare that was the focus of his predecessors' professions of dedication to the Jewish state and its capital. Rather than emphasizing his heart-felt connection to the land and people of Israel, he gave a lecture on "The Muslim Claim to Jerusalem." View Full Article

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Trying to Talk Sense to Israel
--> Posted to Israel for June, 2006

The new Israeli government lives in a cocoon of weakness and denial, typified by recent comments by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. Referring, as paraphrased by Haaretz, to â€œunofficial international processes working toward the delegitimization of Israel as the national home of the Jewish people,â€ she said she

has been acting to reinforce the concept of Israel as the Jewish national home. Israeli representatives overseas have also been directed to reinforce this idea.

At the same time, Israel's diplomatic representatives overseas are also directed to stress the importance of a Palestinian state as part of the framework in which the Palestinian refugee problem would be solved.

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The Fence Hypocrisy--Markell
--> Posted to Israel for May, 2006

The Fence Hypocrisy
Commentary on the News
Jan Markell

Isn't it ironic? Both Israel and America are societies engaged in struggles over their futures due to evil-doers crossing borders. Both are acting in self-defense to stop invaders. Both countries are getting heat from various sources for trying to protect themselves. So both Israel and America are pursuing a security fence and Israel's will be completed this year. And the world, with many Americans chiming in, says "Mr. Prime Minister, tear down that wall."

Opponents of Israel's fence argue that the fence poses undue hardship to Palestinian Arabs by limiting their employment opportunities. As a result, Israel has altered its fence to be more accommodating to the Palestinians. Opponents of a fence along America's southern border insist it will also inflict undue hardship on Mexicans seeking employment.

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Democrats, Republicans, and Israel--Pipes
--> Posted to Israel for May, 2006

Democrats, Republicans, and Israel
by Daniel Pipes
New York Sun

Middle Eastern issues will likely play a role of unprecedented importance in the American mid-term elections less than a half-year away. Three topics head the agenda: the course of the Iraq war, the proper response to Iran's nuclear ambitions, and the soaring price of fuel.

Despite their prominence, these are momentary issues, where voters will make decisions based on transient circumstances and without clearly defined differences between two major parties; what is the Democratic position on Iraq, anyway, or the Republican one on Iran? A fourth Middle Eastern issue, the Arab-Israeli conflict, though less high profile this year, has deeper electoral significance. It is a perennial topic that helps define the two parties.

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At War With Ourselves--Israelinsider
--> Posted to Israel for February, 2006

As elections for the next Israeli government loom closer, acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is holding firm to his pledge: not to cave in to settlers. Settlers? What about terrorists? What about Hamas? No, it is settlers who are the enemy now. An enemy out of necessity.

Our friend's daughter, 17-year old Leora, was in Amona this week for the horrifying events surrounding the destruction of nine permanent homes by Israeli police. She went on an organized bus with 40 girls from her school; a respected school that is in "Israel proper", to join the thousands of "settlers" protesting. Why did she go? She felt it was her responsibility. She is not a soldier, she does not carry a weapon, nor does she strap on bomb-belts in the hopes of (G-d forbid) killing those who would destroy the homes she seeks to protect. She merely had to go.
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Israel: Front Line of Global Jihad--Spencer
--> Posted to Israel for November, 2005

Israel, Front Line of the Global Jihad
By Robert Spencer

Israel has become the worldâ€™s new South Africa: the villain du jour, the universal oppressor, the whipping-boy of the United Nations. Its foes have even applied the South African concept of apartheid to its policies. The global Left eagerly propagates the view that Israel, which has been repeatedly attacked by its neighbors, is by virtue of its very existence actually an aggressor state. The only free Western-style democracy in the Middle East (with the increasingly shaky exception of Turkey on the northern margins of the area) has received more world opprobrium than the brutal regimes of Assad, Ahmadinejad, and even the lamented (at least by Ramsey Clark) Saddam Hussein.

Boosters of the Palestinian cause routinely refer to Israelis and their supporters as Nazis. In January 2005, Iqbal Sacranie of the Muslim Council of Britain reached the apex of moral equivalence. He announced that his group would boycott a commemoration of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp: â€œwe have now expressed our unwillingness to attend the ceremony because it excludes ongoing genocide and human rights abuses around the world and in the occupied territories of Palestine.â€

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Scapegoating Israel
--> Posted to Israel for November, 2005

The â€˜Muslim streetâ€™ and Western intellectuals share a passion for scapegoating Israel

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | It came as little surprise that when a gang of Islamist terrorists blew themselves up in three Jordanian hotels earlier this month, that many in the Arab and Muslim world were quick to blame Israel.

As a New York Times correspondent who was, no doubt, sent out to the pavement of a Jordanian town in search of the mythical "Arab street," discovered, there was no shortage of locals willing to see Israel as somehow at the bottom of a horrific crime committed by Muslims in the name of their interpretation of Islam.

Like the seemingly imperishable canard that no Jews died in the Sept. 11 attacks because their brethren were the perpetrators, it didn't take long for the denizens of the "street" to reassure each other that it was the Jews who massacred a wedding party and other innocent Arabs.

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History of the Middle East up to 1948
--> Posted to Israel for November, 2005

History of the Middle East Ancient times to 1948

Although the Hebrew ancestors of the Jewish people were forced into exile many times, their connection to this land was never abandoned. The land was referred to as Judea, and in parts Galilee, when the Jew Jesus was born and later crucified there by the conquering Roman Empire. The Romans later renamed it â€œPalestina,â€ a Latin form that relates to the ancient Philistines, a people of Greek descent, not Middle Eastern.

In the fourth century A.D., Palestina became the holiest place in the world for Christians when Roman Emperor Constantine accepted Christianity and erected churches and shrines throughout the Holy Land. Less than three hundred years later, the dominant faith changed to Islam when the followers of Prophet Muhammad conquered the region. People sometimes forget that Islam originated in Mecca, where Muhammad was born. It wasnâ€™t until after his death in 632 that Islam spread to what is now Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan by conquering Muslims.

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What is Replacement Theology?--ICE
--> Posted to Israel for October, 2005

Replacement theology "is the view that the church is the new or true Israel that has permanently replaced or superseded Israel as the people of God."[1] Another term, often found in academic circles, for replacement theology is supersessionism. Replacement theology has been the fuel that has energized Medieval anti-Semitism, Eastern European pogroms, the Holocaust and contemporary disdain for the modern state of Israel. Mike Vlach notes: "The acceptance or rejection of supersessionism may also influence how one views the modern state of Israel and events in the Middle East."[2] Wherever replacement theology has flourished, the Jews have had to run for cover.

Definition and Description

Preterist and covenant theologian, Kenneth Gentry defines replacement theology-to which he holds-as follows: "We believe that the international Church has superseded for all times national Israel as the institution for the administration of divine blessing to the world."[3] We dispensationalists believe that the church is the current instrument through which God is working in this age, but God has a future time in which He will restore national Israel "as the institution for the administration of divine blessing to the world." Gentry adds to his initial statement the following embellishment:

That is, we believe that in the unfolding of the plan of God in history, the Christian Church is the very fruition of the redemptive purpose of God. As such, the multi-racial, international Church of Jesus Christ supersedes racial, national Israel as the focus of the kingdom of God. Indeed, we believe that the Church becomes "the Israel of God" (Gal. 6:16), the "seed of Abraham" (Gal. 3:29), "the circumcision" (Phil. 3:3), the "temple of God" (Eph. 2:19-22), and so forth. We believe that Jew and Gentile are eternally merged into a "new man" in the Church of Jesus Christ (Eph. 2:12-18). What God hath joined together let no man put asunder![4]

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Unfashionable Facts About the Middle East
--> Posted to Israel for December, 2004

1. Nationhood and Jerusalem. Israel became a nation-state in 1312 B.C, 2,000 years before the rise of Islam, and was a nation before that.

2. Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a Palestinian people in 1967, two decades after the establishment of the modern State of Israel.

3. Since the Jewish conquest in 1272 B.C., the Jews have had dominion over the land for 1,000 years with a continuous presence in the land for the past 3,300 years.

4. The Arabs conquered Palestine in 635 AD, stealing it from its legitimate Jewish rulers, who had evicted the Byzantines while being led by a woman general, one Hefzibah, who then restored Jewish sovereignty. Palestine was stolen from the Jews by the Arabs and not the other way around. Arab sovereignty over Palestine ended in 1071 when the area was conquered by Seljuk Turks. â€œPalestinianâ€ Arabs never held sovereignty over â€œPalestineâ€ and cannot even pronounce the name of their supposed â€œhomelandâ€. They cannot say â€œPalestineâ€.

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Sacrificing Israel--Krauthammer
--> Posted to Israel for October, 2004

The centerpiece of John Kerry's foreign policy is to rebuild our alliances so the world will come to our aid, especially in Iraq. He repeats this endlessly because it is the only foreign policy idea he has to offer. The problem for Kerry is that he cannot explain just how he proposes to do this.

The mere appearance of a Europhilic fresh face is unlikely to so thrill the allies that French troops will start marching down the streets of Baghdad. Therefore, you can believe that Kerry is just being cynical in pledging to bring in the allies, knowing that he has no way of doing it. Or you can believe, as I do, that he means it.

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Israel: Still God's Chosen People--Dolphin
--> Posted to Israel for October, 2004

The Bible is the revelation of God's will to man. It is a self-disclosure by God giving us information we could not gain from any other source. It begins with the book of Genesis, explaining in just a few chapters, how the human race was brought into existence by the personal activity of the God who created the universe. It shows that the first man and woman were the objects of His love and special attention. They were created "in His image" (Genesis 1:26-27), and were given the privilege of regular communication with Him (Genesis 2:15-17; 3:8) One man and one woman were appointed, not only as the progenitors of our race, but also as God's stewards, His custodians and caretakers over the creation. They were created with the characteristics of mind, emotions, personality, and will. They were made creative, imaginative, inventive, artistic, capable of loving and being loved--and above all, able to worship.

As the account of Genesis continues its simple but profound revelation of God's dealing with our human parents, the problem of evil surfaces. Even though Adam and Eve had been created perfect, they had also been created with the ability to choose, or reject, God's will for them. In theory, they could have chosen to obey God completely, but instead, being tempted by Satan, they partook of the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3). Evil did not begin with man but with a rebellion among the angels. The angelic rebellion damaged the created universe and its invisible angelic government. (Isaiah 14:12ff.; Ezekiel 28:12ff.) It also brought about the possibility that man, too, could choose a course of action contrary to the perfect ways of God. This first human sin alienated our original parents from their creator. Instead of looking forward to walking with Him in the garden, they hid themselves from Him (Genesis 3:8-10).
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Israelis Have Been Had
--> Posted to Israel for August, 2004

Israelis have been had... many times

Yesha Council head Bentzi Lieberman recently said that Israel was supposed to be submitting to the Americans up-to-date aerial maps specifying the precise construction boundaries of each and every Jewish community in Judea and Samaria. "What this means is that not only are we giving up Gaza," Lieberman warned, "but the entire future of the remainder of the settlements is in doubt. As usual, the Prime Minister is hiding certain parts of the agreement, and is in fact deceiving us - and the ministers are ignoring this. Contrary to the impression that he has safeguarded the future of the settlement blocs, they are actually in grave danger," he said, according to a report in Israel National News.

Notwithstanding, PM Sharon assured us that by retreating from Gaza and parts of the West Bank, Israel would ensure its ability to keep the settlement blocs. It now appears that we have been had. But it is not the first time.
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Glaring Double Standards For Israel--Farah
--> Posted to Israel for May, 2004

Glaring double-standards for Israel

Just about the same time the United Nations was condemning Israel for its anti-terrorism operations in the Gaza Strip, the United States found itself under international fire for bombing a wedding party and killing innocent Arabs in Iraq.

Israel is defending itself in Gaza - the source of hundreds of terrorist attacks on Israel and on Jewish civilians who live in territory.

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Not Even One Settlement Should Be Removed
--> Posted to Israel for February, 2004

Not even one "settlement" must be removed

Regarding the issue of removing Jewish communities ("settlements") from so-called Arab territories, there is no legitimate reason whatsoever for removing even one. Moreover, there is every practical reason for leaving each and every one of them in place.

To begin with, the fundamental, underlying motivation for removing Jewish settlements is hopelessly flawed. Why must all Arab territories - disputed or otherwise - be Judenrein (Jew-free) as a pre-condition to any negotiated settlement? Isn't that racism? Doesn't that very premise promote apartheid, rather than serve to heal old wounds? Wouldn't the very same requirement then hold true for "Israel proper," in which over a million Arab Israelis live and work in relative peace?

Secondly, the willingness to dismantle existing settlements is and always has been considered a grave weakness in the eyes of the Arab world - a weakness that only encourages the enemy and strengthens their terror infrastructures, including the master terrorist himself, Abdul Rauf el-Codba el-Husseini, aka Yasser Arafat, and his henchmen in the PLO.
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Israel And America Biggest Threats To World Peace
--> Posted to Israel for November, 2003

Threats to world peace

Europeans believe that Israel and the U.S. pose real and imminent dangers to world peace.

A European Commission poll recently revealed that the majority of European Union citizens (59%) view Israel as the primary threat to humankind, placing Israel above Iran, Syria and North Korea. Europeans view the United States as the second most significant threat, polling 53% along with Iran and North Korea.

Is this natural resentment established through economic competition or the start of something more sinister?

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How The West Weakens Israel
--> Posted to Israel for November, 2003

At a time when the issue of the Palestinian Arab "right of return" is so widely discussed, it must be stressed that it is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) that runs the Palestinian Arab refugee camps and determines the "right of return" policies of those camps. As such, the UNRWA is the only UN refugee agency whose purpose is to keep refugees in nomadic tents rather than to facilitate their movement into decent and permanent housing conditions. And fully 95 percent of its budget emanates from the leading democracies in the world.

Canada chairs the committee that oversees the RWG (Refugee Working Group) of 38 nations, which in turn oversees the annual distribution of half-a-billion dollars per annum to UNRWA. The U.S. contributes close to one-third of the UNRWA budget.

Throughout its 52 years of existence, UNRWA has actively promoted the idea that Arab refugees from the 1948 war and their descendents must have the "right to return" to Arab villages lost in 1948, although these villages no longer exist.
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Israel's Re-Birth Unprecedented In Human History
--> Posted to Israel for October, 2003

The re-birth of Israel is an unprecedented phenomenon in human history.

The yearning for the land of Israel never left the Jewish people.

We see it in Psalms that Jews constantly recited: "If I forget you, O Jerusalem ..." or "When the Lord brings about our return to Zion, we will be like dreamers..."

In the statements of the rabbis, such as this one by Rabbi Nachman of Breslav: "Wherever I go I'm always going to Israel."

We see it in Jewish poetry, such as that of Yehuda HaLevi: "My heart is in the East but I am in the most far West."

In holiday rituals: "Next year in Jerusalem."

And, of course, in countless blessings recited daily: "Have mercy, Lord our God, on Israel your people, on Jerusalem, your city, on Zion... Rebuild Jerusalem, your holy city, speedily in our days, and bring us there to rejoice in its rebuilding..."
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Survival Of The Jews: Proof God Is Still On The Throne--Kinsella
--> Posted to Israel for September, 2003

The Omega Letter Intelligence Digest

Vol: 24 Issue: 13 - Saturday, September 13, 2003 - Plain Text

Doing God 'Service'

At the heart of most anti-Israeli or anti-Zionist arguments is the
contention that the modern day Israeli is an imposter. The Zionists of
Israel, say both the Arabs and the Christian replacement theologians, are
not the Jews of the Bible.

The Biblical Jews are lost to history, they say, and the modern claimants
have no standing. The following is from a homily given by Fr. Louis
Campbell in the October, 2002 edition of the Daily Catholic.

"Officials at the Vatican are pretending that the modern state of Israel
can lay claim to the promises God made to Abraham, which would mean that
the Jews have a divine right to claim the whole territory between the Nile
and the Euphrates. John Paul II supports the false claims of Jewish
Zionism, thus contributing to the cause of war in the Middle East.

For if, as the Church has always taught, the Scriptures say that the
promises were fulfilled in Jesus Christ and His Church, how can it be said
at the same time that God promised Jerusalem to the Jews? To affirm one
interpretation is to deny the other. To support the false claims of the
Jewish Zionists is to deny the Church its inheritance and to scandalize
the little ones-faithful Catholics. '…You are a scandal to Me; for you do
not mind the things of God, but those of men' (Mt.16:23)."

To make this theological reason for opposing Israel work, it is necessary
to 'spiritualize' the Jews and thus delegitimize the current claimants to
the literal seed of Abraham. If God is done with the Jews, the thinking
goes, then there are no remaining Chosen People and the state of Israel is
populated by imposters claiming to be historical Jews.

The world denies Israel's claim to the land on a similar basis. Instead of
spiritualizing the Jews out of literal existence, the world denies the
basis for the argument by denying the legitimacy of Scripture.

Here's how the carnal reasoning works. Since the Bible is not true, the
Jews have no legitimate claim to a Jewish state, since there is no
independent evidence of a historical Abraham to receive the Promise or
Moses to lead the Israelites to the Promised Land.

Got all that? It's a little hard to explain it the way they do and sound
convincing. That's because it isn't true, so it takes real artist to make
believable.

The day following the Israeli cabinet decision to expel Yasser Arafat,
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said many calls 'of concern' came
in from governments across the world. "They're asking us to do nothing
against Yasser Arafat," he said.

Then he asked the sixty-four thousand dollar question; "Has the world
turned on its head?"

Assessment:

Indeed, it would appear that it has. The Jew is reviled the world over,
mostly for the crime of killing Christ. What is fascinating is that even
people who deny Christ will justify their antisemitism using the same
libel.

Why do I say it is a 'libel' -- a historical untruth? After all, when
Pilate washed his hands of responsibility for the execution of Jesus,
saying, "I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it,"
the Jewish mob chanted in reply, "His blood be on us, and on our
children." (Mathew 27:24-25)

Jesus was tried and convicted by the Jewish Supreme Court, the Sanhedrin,
in an illegal trial in which no fewer than 13 Jewish laws were broken.
Since the Jews, being an occupied province of Rome, were not sovereign,
their courts could not order an execution. Which is why they took it to
Pilate in the first place.

So, if the Jews themselves, following an illegal trial, had Jesus murdered
at the hands of an unwilling occupation authority who would have preferred
to have released Him, why is it a 'libel' to call Jews 'Christ-killers?'

Jesus told his disciples, "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay
down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I
lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to
take it again." (John 10:17-18)

No man could have TAKEN Jesus' life. Not Pilate, not the Jews, not Satan
or his legions. In the Temptation in the Wilderness, Satan quoted Psalms
91:11-12, which says, "For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to
keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest
thou dash thy foot against a stone." If Jesus alone had the power lay down
His life, and that no man could 'take' it, then the crime cannot be laid
to any human being's charge. Indeed, at the Cross, Jesus cried, "Father,
forgive them; for they know not what they do." (Luke 23:34)

If Jesus pronounced their forgiveness at the Cross for participating in a
pre-ordained and necessary sacrifice in which Jesus VOLUNTARILY laid down
His life as a propitiation for all sin, how then, can the modern Jews be
responsible for the sins of their fathers? Especially when the One against
Whom they sinned had already forgiven them at the Cross for their
participation?

In John 16:1-2, Jesus tells His disciples(all Jews of Israel), "These
things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended. They shall
put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever
killeth you will think that he doeth God service."

What an incredible prophecy! Not only were the Jews put out of the
synagogues at some point in history in virtually every country they had
adopted, the persecution of the Jews was always for the specific crime of
being the 'killers of Christ'.

History is filled with stories of pogroms, confiscations, expulsions,
attempted genocide and persecutions against Jews, all in the Name of
Christ.

But the Jews not only survived with their ancient language, culture,
dietary and religious laws and religious traditions intact, they returned
to the Land of Promise, as the Bible said they would do in the last days.

To the world, the existence of Israel is a thorn in its collective side.
Because Israel is a thorn in the side of the god of this world. He has
thrown everything he could at the Jew for two thousand years, trying to
wipe him from the face of the earth and break God's prophetic promise of
Israel's national redemption in the last days.

The survival of the Jew, and the restoration of Israel to the land is
proof positive that God remains on the Throne, that His Word will NOT
return to Him void, and that all the chaos and terror of the world
notwithstanding, all continues to go according to His plan. And, that
these ARE the last days.

"But these things have I told you, that WHEN THE TIME SHALL COME, ye may
remember that I told you of them." (John 16:4)