Israel - God's Timepiece

[HisDaughter]

Great articles HisDaughter - thanks for sharing with us. It would appear that the center stage of Israel could become more active at any minute. It is in fact a time bomb that will most definitely go off - I believe soon.

I agree with you Brother Tom.  In fact, I get up every day with expectancy wondering if this is the day that something major will happen in Israel and /or will the Rapture happen today.  I can't help it that it is first and foremost in my mind.  I know some of my family think that I'm absolutely obsessed with it and I guess I am.

[nChrist]

I agree with you Brother Tom.  In fact, I get up every day with expectancy wondering if this is the day that something major will happen in Israel and /or will the Rapture happen today.  I can't help it that it is first and foremost in my mind.  I know some of my family think that I'm absolutely obsessed with it and I guess I am.

That also describes me. We are to anxiously await His Glorious Appearance, and that could be today.

[HisDaughter]

Walid Shoebat is in Seattle!  I missed him last time.  He is speaking at a church very near me tomorrow night.  I'm really going to try and go.  My dad is here from Georgia.  He got in last night and is staying at a motel.  He is going to come and take me out for breakfast this morning and then I'll see what his plans are.

[HisDaughter]

Why Is the World Expecting Israel to Make Peace With Hamas?
foxnews.com

Imagine this nightmare. Instead of sending a team of SEALs to ice Usama bin Laden, President Obama sent a team of negotiators to see if we could talk the terror lord into promises of peace. All he had to do was say the right words, and we'd say 9/11 and all the threats about destroying the Great Satan were forgiven, and gee, let's be friends.

It's a sickening scenario, yet it's not far from what the world, including the United States, is asking Israel to do with Hamas. The Israelis are expected to break bread with the people who still threaten to wipe them off the face of the earth and regularly fire rockets into towns and cities.

The Palestinian terror group, which gets its funding and weapons from Iran and its joy in murder from Al Qaeda, has signed a "unity" compact with Fatah, the main Palestinian faction. The groups have waged a low-grade civil war for years, with Hamas controlling Gaza while Fatah controls the West Bank. They now say they're joining forces and will hold winner-take-all elections in a year.

It's far from clear the truce will hold, and the jockeying for power has begun. Yet pressure is already building on Israel to make a deal that will lead to a unified Palestinian state, despite the fact that Hamas has not met the American and European demand that it renounce violence and accept Israel's right to exist.

Indeed, one top Hamas leader told Al Jazeera this week that Hamas would never recognize Israel and "the rule of Poles and Ethiopians in their land." Another denounced the killing of Bin Laden and called him "an Arab holy warrior" and martyr.

Those sentiments are hardly a surprise, but what is surprising is that the Obama administration doesn't see them as red flags. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton swatted away concerns, saying, "We are going to be carefully assessing what this actually means, because there are a number of different potential meanings to it, both on paper and in practice." She said the United States has not changed its demands on Hamas, but would make a decision when "we actually see what unfolds."

That's the wrong answer. As Elliott Abrams writes on his blog at the Council on Foreign Relations, "The United States needs to be far clearer: we cannot and will not support any government where Hamas has a real influence and the security forces stop fighting terror."

A deputy national security adviser for Mideast affairs under President George W. Bush, Abrams adds that "we must certainly not fund such a government."

That's got to be the American bottom line, but by taking such a wait-and-see attitude, the White House is doing something far worse than merely kicking the can down the road. It is effectively giving a green light to letting Hamas join, and maybe run, the Palestinian government without giving up its charter, which calls for the elimination of Israel. Coming as Israelis celebrate their 63rd anniversary of independence, it's a mighty strange gift.

Alarmed by the White House approach, 27 Democratic senators wrote to Obama, reminding him that the U.S. cannot legally provide aid to any government that includes Hamas, which is a listed terror group. It also cited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's warning that Fatah can have "peace with Israel or peace with Hamas" but "there is no possibility for peace with both."

The letter, signed by both New York senators, Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, has the right tone of urgency and makes all the right points. But it is distressing that the issues needed to be spelled out for the president, because they are so obvious.

[HisDaughter]

Israel’s increasing vulnerability
washingtontimes.com

Although Osama bin Laden’s death has demonstrated America’s re-solve to vindicate our national security, the world is still far from safe. In the Middle East, optimistic predictions that authoritarian regimes would fall like dominoes, ushering in new democracies and greater prospects for peace, are rapidly disappearing. Not only have democratic hopes faltered, but long-time foundations of regional stability are crumbling, to our detriment and that of our friends.

While Israel has been a bystander to the Arab world’s recent turmoil, events are conspiring against it. Early, unrealistic expectations about “democracy now” increasingly resemble experiments with Israel’s security, experiments gone badly wrong. Implacable enemies, notably Iran, are strengthening their positions by exploiting the turmoil.

Israel’s security environment has steadily darkened as Palestinian leaders fritter away two decades of opportunity (since America drove Saddam Hussein from Kuwait) to engage in direct, face-to-face negotiations. Unfortunately, Palestinians have for two years taken their cues from President Obama, who has relentlessly pressured Israel to accept Palestinian preconditions, especially the complete cessation of new West Bank housing construction.

In a further regression to Yasser Arafat’s era, the Palestinian Authority has been exploring how to reinsert its preferred deus ex machina, the United Nations, into the Arab-Israeli dispute. This time, the idea is to have the General Assembly declare a Palestinian state, harking back to 1988 when the PLO declared its “statehood,” and sought membership in U.N. specialized agencies as evidence of its new, enhanced status. These efforts to create political “facts on the ground” come at Israel’s expense, no matter how ephem-eral they invariably are.

Where Palestinian propaganda campaigns do gain traction, however, is among the broader program - in both Europe and the United States - to delegitimize the state of Israel itself. By attacking Israel as racist, by accusing it of aggression and war crimes, and other means, this “law-fare” against Israel has increasingly erased the illusory demarcation between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism and all its ugly implications.

But it is the rapidly deteriorating prospect for near-term democratization in the Middle East that could bring the gravest security risks for Israel. Iran, despite its own internal divisions and rivalries, has moved aggressively to protect its regional allies against democratic change, and to foment trouble more widely. In Syria, the fierce, increasingly deadly resistance of the Assad regime against popular opposition undoubtedly rests on Iran’s iron determination to keep the Ba’ath party dictatorship in power. Iran has too much at stake in its Syrian satellite, perhaps including elements of its nuclear program, to allow President Bashar Assad to fall without a bloody struggle.

Similarly, Iran is determined to sustain the terrorist Hezbollah, which has subverted Lebanon’s democratic Cedar Revolution. And, sadly for Washington, Iraq’s regime of President Nouri al-Maliki seems increasingly deferential to Iran’s will, as evidenced by the recent Iran-Iraq extradition treaty and Iraq’s military attack against an Iranian opposition group’s civilian refugee camp.

Iran has also long supported Hamas terrorists in Gaza and the West Bank. Now, after Hosni Mubarak’s overthrow, Egypt’s military has effectively ended its Gaza blockade, allowing Hamas full and unrestrained contact with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. Moreover, Cairo was central to last week’s reconciliation between Hamas (whose leader condemned America for bin Laden’s death) and Fatah, a match that can only increase the terrorist menace for Israel. And Egypt has recognized the ayatollahs’ government in Tehran - bad news for Israel, but also for pro-U.S. Arab governments, like Bahrain and other Persian Gulf monarchies threatened by Iran.

Moreover, as Egypt prepares for elections this fall, calls are increasing for major revisions to the Camp David Accords, not surprisingly, given Egyptian opinion polls showing widespread opposition to this bedrock of Middle East peace and stability for three decades. During the days of street demonstrations against Mr. Mubarak, the Egyptian army moved substantial forces into the Sinai Peninsula, ostensibly to protect the vital Suez Canal and the natural gas pipeline to Israel. Although those Egyptian units remain, the pipeline is still being subjected to terrorist attacks. And if the Camp David provisions ultimately challenged by Egypt’s new “democratic” government are those effectively demilitarizing the Sinai, Israel’s security fears along that highly vulnerable border will grow exponentially.

What happens in Egypt will invariably affect Jordan, the only other Arab state with a peace agreement with Israel. In effect, Israel could find itself geostrategically back in the 1950s and 1960s, although more existentially vulnerable today as Iran progresses toward a deliverable nuclear-weapons capability. And Moammar Gadhafi’s continuing survival in Libya, although still in doubt, cannot be good for anyone.

As on so many other critical national-security issues, the Obama administration’s policies in the Middle East have been either incoherent or invisible in recent months. And those failings, now combined with the deteriorating regional security environment, gravely endanger Israel’s interests as much as those of the United States itself.

[HisDaughter]

Supporting Israel dangerous in California
onenewsnow.com

The race to replace former Congresswoman Jane Harman (D) in California's 36th District recently took a heated turn, when one conservative candidate was booed and threatened.

Conservative candidate Craig Huey (R) was booed during his remarks at a recent candidates' forum in Venice. All contenders competing for Harman's seat addressed the crowd, which consisted primarily of liberals, progressives, and Hollywood-types. Huey says he was hissed and interrupted every time he spoke or tried to answer a question. And when asked about his stance on Israel, the crowd was outraged.

"The issue of Israel came up, and I talked about [how] there should be no compromise in our defense of Israel, no compromise in keeping the integrity of Jerusalem, not dividing it, [and] that it's the only true democracy in the Middle East," the conservative accounts. "I went on about Israel, and people thought that the audience would get violent."

The business owner and longtime political activist explains that roughly 50 percent of the Venice forum crowd support a liberal candidate who is anti-Israel. Consequently, Huey, his wife, and colleagues were fearful for his physical safety.

"At the very end, what basically happened was my wife and I went out towards the back, and the campaign managers of some of the other candidates came up to us and said, 'You better have security take you outside because it's just not safe for you to go out to your car by yourself," he explains.

The election to replace Harman will take place on May 17.

[HisDaughter]

Hamas Admits 'Peace Accord' is a Prelude to War
israelnationalnews.com

Hamas co-founder Mahmoud Zahar on Wednesday told the Maan news agency Hamas would never recognize Israel.

Saying Hamas would accept a PA state based on the "1967 borders," Zahar made it clear a peace accord would only serve as a prelude to Israel's destruction.

Zahar, who has served as Hamas' foreign minister in Gaza since 2006, said Hamas would not recognize Israel because doing so would "cancel the right of the next generation to liberate the land."

"If the Palestinian state does not encompass all of Israel the next generation will liberate the land," Zahar said.

Zahar added recognition of Israel could lead to a de facto cancellation of the "right of return" - a term Arabs use when demanding that Israel allow millions of Arabs into Haifa, Tel Aviv and the rest of its cities and communities.

"What will be the fate of the five million Palestinians in the diaspora?" Zahar asked.

Zahar told Maan his faction's unity deal with Fatah, which included maintaining a ceasefire with Israel, is "part of the resistance, not a cancellation."

“A truce is not peace," Zahar said.

[nChrist]

Walid Shoebat is in Seattle!  I missed him last time.  He is speaking at a church very near me tomorrow night.  I'm really going to try and go.  My dad is here from Georgia.  He got in last night and is staying at a motel.  He is going to come and take me out for breakfast this morning and then I'll see what his plans are.

Sister, I hope that you and your dad have a nice visit.

[HisDaughter]

Nakba Day clashes are a precursor to declaration of PA State in September
christianpost.com


Israel's current status at the United Nations is at an all-time low, Israel's former UN ambassador, Prof. Gabriela Shalev, said yesterday at a session of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. Also speaking at the meeting, former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy said that peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians are currently impossible.

"Israel has no chance of dealing with the Palestinian move in the General Assembly," Shalev said, discussing the Palestinians' expected declaration of statehood after a UN vote this September. "The United States is not interested in vetoing the UN's recognition of a Palestinian state." Shalev added that the UN is today the foremost place for activity against Israel.

Former Mossad chief Halevy said Israel's "maneuvering space is growing narrower," while the ability of the Quartet - the U.S., Russia, UN and European Union - to "affect the peace talks is diminishing.

"The existing situation is a non-starter," he added, saying that what Israel has wanted for the last two years can't now come to fruition: "We can't reach a permanent peace deal because the person who would sign the deal is not the same person who would need to carry it out," Halevy said.

Committee chairman MK Shaul Mofaz warned that Sunday's Nakba Day clashes are a precursor to the events expected in September, when the Palestinian Authority intends to unilaterally declare a state in the UN.

"Israel's government is hiding its head in the sand," Mofaz said. "Without a peace initiative, events like the one on the Syrian border will recur in September.

"The changes here are tectonic," he added. "The events are a precursor to the September events, which could come in waves against Israel's population."

Mofaz said Israel should not have waited for Sunday's clashes to understand that the reality in the Middle East has changed.

"The present government, headed by Netanyahu, isn't initiating anything," Mofaz said, adding that the Israeli government must be prepared for any situation come September.

Former head of the Military Intelligence Maj. Gen. Aharon Ze'evi-Farkash said "the government will negotiate with any government that adheres to the two-states-for-two-peoples principle. The Quartet's principles must be applied to the continued process, building an atmosphere of peace and reconciliation." He said the Palestinians also must accept the principle of one law, one authority, and one army.

The committee said it will ask Defense Minister Ehud Barak and top defense officials to attend a meeting to "explain" the army's failure in dealing with the Palestinians who crossed the Syrian border into Israel on Sunday. 

[HisDaughter]

Muslim Brotherhood seeks end to 'peace' accord with Israel
wnd.com


The chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has called on the country's next parliament to review the 1978 Camp David Peace Accords with Israel, which led to the 1979 peace treaty between the two countries and the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1980, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

In addressing the issue of Palestinians who launched demonstrations on the "al-Naqba," or catastrophe, which they call the creation of Israel, Mohamed Badie urged the Egyptian parliament to review the accords, end diplomatic recognition between the two countries and cancel the natural gas agreement Egypt has with Israel.

In addition, Badie intends to work for the permanent opening of the Rafah crossing point with the Gaza Strip from Egypt in an effort to end the issue of securing the borders of the "Zionists."

The Muslim Brotherhood chairman's appeal comes just as U.S. President Barack Obama intends to give a new message on the Middle East following the death of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden to assure Muslims that the U.S. supports democratic change across the Middle East and North Africa, although some critics question that motive.

The last time Obama gave a speech about Muslims, he presented it in 2009 at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt – where the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is based.

Just as Badie called for ending the Camp David Peace Accords, Frank Gaffney, who is president of the Washington-based Center for Security Policy, warned that if the Brotherhood comes to power in Egypt and in some 13 other countries, there is no chance that U.S. – and by extension Israel's – interests will be served in an Obama outreach to Muslims.

He said that the reality of reaching out to such entities as the Brotherhood can be seen in the "jihadist nature" of the Ikhwan, or brotherhood.

"While some have claimed the organization is non-violent and, in the words of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, even 'largely secular' – the most cursory examination of the Muslim Brotherhood's own words makes clear that such assertions are unfounded, and dangerously so," Gaffney said.

Badie's most recent comments seem to bear out Gaffney's observation but may have popular appeal inside Egypt.

"It represents an ideological position that may appeal to large swaths of the Egyptian population," said Emad Gad, head of the Israeli studies program at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo.

Badie said that the Camp David Peace Accords had lost all credibility and he described them as not complying with the rulings of Islam. He also claimed that they were prone to "disaster" since the text of the accords was "full of uncertainties."

[HisDaughter]

Netanyahu's Moment of Truth is Now
israelnationalnews.com

Predictably no sooner had Barack Obama finished his speech on the Middle East, then Americans for Peace Now, via its CEO Donna Delee, endorsed it on the spot.

It is uncertain whether the greater motivation was Pavlovian salivation over the word 'peace', Obama worship, reflexive Bibi bashing or an equal combination of the three.

What Ms. DeLee overlooked was that the Obama speech went further in the direction of the Palestinians than even the extremely delusional Geneva process mounted by the Israeli left.

The position of the Israeli left at Geneva was that a grand bargain (as if a withdrawal to indefensible lines and making Jerusalem the nation's capital even more vulnerable than Sderot could be considered a bargain) would be struck:

In return for an Israeli territorial surrender of Judea and Samaria, the Palestinian side would accept closure and would sign away its demands for a "right of return " of the perpetual Palestinian refugees to the territory of sovereign Israel. Another assumption of the left was that a Palestinian state would be demilitarized, although we have already seen how effective promises of demilitarization have been in South Lebanon and in the Palestinian Authority.

Now Barack Obama has handed a posthumous victory to Yasser Arafat. Arafat at Camp David in the year 2000 spurned Ehud Barak's grand bargain of total Israeli withdrawal in return for renouncing the right of return in the belief that ultimately he could secure an Israeli withdrawal without conceding anything.

Barack Obama has now prioritized Israeli withdrawal while leaving the Arab refugee issue unresolved. If this would happen, it means that Israel will have surrendered the territories while the Arabs retain a casus belli and can still invoke dead relics such as resolution 194 from 1949 calling for the return of the refugees.

This, as any simpleton knows, is tantamount to Israel's extinction. For the Israeli and Jewish left to endorse this formula proves that the left has no red lines.

Obama's speech also includes a "creative term" that is not recognized by international law. Instead of demilitarization the Obama address speaks of non-militarization. This admits plenty of undefined room for the Palestinians even before their expected evasion of the treaty. Under Oslo, the Palestinians were already allowed a strong police force which became a de facto army of 40,000 men. This was under demilitarization, so what can we expect under the nonexistent term of non-militarization?

I normally accord a great deal of respect to Hagai Huberman's views published in the Hebrew edition and translated here on Israel National News. Huberman advises Netanyahu to wait for a Palestinian rejection because some terms will be rejected by them.

In this case I must disagree with Huberman. Hamas has already rejected the speech but Mahmoud Abbas is temporizing. I expect the Palestinians to endorse it, but even if they reject it so what?

The entire negotiations history, from UN Security Council resolution 242 on, has demonstrated two things: when the Palestinians reject a compromise proposal they are eventually offered an even more attractive deal; when Israel offers major concessions, as Binyamin Netanyahu did in his recent Knesset speech, these are damned with faint praise and the call is for further concessions.

The "price" that the Palestinians paid for rejecting the Clinton proposals in 2000 is an Obama speech that goes further in their direction and does not exact a penalty for their perfidy and launch of the Oslo war a.k.a. the Second intifada.

One should also pay attention to the subtext. "The world is tired of the conflict". It wants a fix - any fix - and since the Arabs won't budge, the obvious policy is to lean on Israel.

Netanyahu has no alternative but to respectfully but vigorously reject the terms of the address. From the roadmap on, words and Israeli policy of yes have eventually become yes with no if's or but's.

Finally, if Netanyahu, in order to create the illusion of harmony refrains from challenging the address and confronting Obama head on, he would be undercutting Israel's allies in the United States. Republican presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty have already harshly condemned the administration sellout of Israel, with Romney calling it "throwing Israel under the bus".

It would be one thing if they were wrong and were merely grandstanding for political gain. But Romney's description is dead right and Israel must back up its friends. What politician will prove willing to stick his neck out in the future, only to see Israel cave in and make him appear ludicrous.

[HisDaughter]

Canada takes firm pro-Israel line at G8 summit 

www.jpost.com

The Group of Eight leaders had to soften a statement urging Israel and the Palestinians to return to negotiations because Canada objected to a specific mention of 1967 borders, diplomats said on Friday.

Canada's right-leaning Conservative government has adopted a staunchly pro-Israel position in international negotiations since coming to power in 2006, with Prime Minister Stephen Harper saying Canada will back Israel whatever the cost.

Diplomats involved in Middle East discussions at the G8 summit said Ottawa had insisted that no mention of Israel's pre-1967 borders be made in the leaders' final communique, even though most of the other leaders wanted a mention.

"The Canadians were really very adamant, even though Obama expressly referred to 1967 borders in his speech last week," one European diplomat said.

A spokesman for Harper would not comment on the line Canada had taken, saying only that the final communique would make positions clear.

In the final communique, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, the leaders call for the immediate resumption of peace talks but do not mention 1967, the year Israel seized the West Bank and Gaza from Jordan and Egypt during the Six-Day War.

"Negotiations are the only way toward a comprehensive and lasting resolution to the conflict," the communique said.

"The framework for these negotiations is well known. We urge both parties to return to substantive talks with a view to concluding a framework agreement on all final status issues.

"To that effect, we express our strong support for the vision of Israeli-Palestinian peace outlined by President Obama on May 19, 2011."

In his speech last week, Obama said pre-1967 borders should be a basis of talks to achieve a negotiated settlement, although he also acknowledged any agreement would ultimately involve land swaps on either side of the border.

That position was rejected by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said Israel would be indefensible if it returned entirely to the borders that existed before 1967.

Canada's strong backing for Israel was cited by diplomats last year as one reason why Ottawa failed to win a rotating two-year seat on the United Nations Security Council.

Harper has made is position on Israel very clear, saying last year: "When Israel, the only country in the world whose very existence is under attack, is consistently and conspicuously singled out for condemnation, I believe we are morally obligated to take a stand." 

[HisDaughter]

Canada takes firm pro-Israel line at G8 summit 

Canada's strong backing for Israel was cited by diplomats last year as one reason why Ottawa failed to win a rotating two-year seat on the United Nations Security Council.

Harper has made is position on Israel very clear, saying last year: "When Israel, the only country in the world whose very existence is under attack, is consistently and conspicuously singled out for condemnation, I believe we are morally obligated to take a stand." 

Hooray for Canada!

[nChrist]

Hooray for Canada!

Yes, and shame on Obama for his stance. Obama is an embarrassment to our country.

[HisDaughter]

Among Israeli Jews, 20,000 embrace Christ  

bpnews.net

White and blue flags rustled in the breeze, and kebabs sizzled on the grill. Ben Martin gathered the group around and offered a prayer of thanks for the food.

"Thank You for this food. Thank You for this nation. And thank You that after 2,000 years, You haven't forsaken Israel."

He hasn't forsaken it -- in fact, Jesus Christ is at work among the Jews more than ever, Martin said.

The crowd at this Israeli Independence Day party was more diverse than one might expect for a get-together celebrating the founding of the Jewish homeland in 1948.

There were Iranian Jews. Iraqi Jews. Russian Jews. American Jews.

"The face of the Jews here isn't what you'd expect," said Martin, a Christian worker among the Jews. "Because of 'the return,' it's a very diverse group."

The return of Jews after 1948 to what is Israel today brought the Diaspora -- Jews scattered worldwide -- back from different countries and cultures. But despite differences, the work among them is expanding all the time, Martin said. Baptist work in Israel started in the 1920s in an Arab town, and the Messianic work among the nation's Jews is a growing phenomenon.

Now there are an estimated 150 Jewish congregations around Israel meeting in different languages. The number of believers is estimated to be around 20,000, growing exponentially from 1948 when 12 Jews who believed in Jesus could be counted, to 1987 when there were 3,000 and 1997 where there were 5,000.

"This is clearly the work of Jesus, because it's very hard for a Jew to become a believer," Martin said.

It's fine for non-Jews to be Christians, but many Jews feel being a Jew by birth and a Christian by belief is inherently impossible, he explained. They feel the two are mutually exclusive. "It's a lie of 2,000 years that the Messianic movement [Jews who believe Jesus is the Messiah] has to fight against."

In the early years of the movement, when the Messianic Jews did street evangelism, they would often find Jews who already believed in Jesus but thought they were the only ones.

"We believe Jews are becoming more open to the Gospel all the time," Martin said.

And not just in Israel itself.

David and Cindy Bufkin spent 21 years reaching out to the people of Argentina before they felt a strong pull to join the work God was doing among the Jews in the South American country. The couple was at the May 10 gathering, as part of the year they are spending in Israel to learn Jewish culture and Hebrew language before returning to work among Spanish-speaking Jews in Argentina.

"We wanted to be able to have the cultural foundation to connect with them and build relationships," Cindy Bufkin said. "It's a wide spectrum of culture among the Jews in Argentina, but they all have [Jewish tradition] in common. We want to be able to connect with them and lead them to the Messiah."