May 17, 2011
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CURRENT PROPHETIC HEADLINES
5/17/11
· US to push Israel for shared capital
· Palestinian Authority presents terms to resume negotiations with Israel
· Netanyahu: Israel willing to 'cede parts of our homeland' for true peace
· Abbas urges UN: Recognize Palestinian state, pave way for legal action against Israel
· Arab uprising to strike Israel next?
· Israel: Border rampage an Arab Spring diversion by 'radical axis' of Iran, Hizbullah
· Netanyahu: Conflict is about 1948, not 1967
· Israel-Turkey ties threatened by new Gaza flotilla
· Iran says ball in major powers' court on nuke talks
· 'Die Welt': Iran building rocket bases in Venezuela
· Tanks storm southern city as Syria denies mass grave
· Ex-IAEA official adds weight to Syria atom suspicion
· Obama to get tough with Assad. Syrian-Israeli flare-up expected
· Militant leader says all Russia is a "battleground"
· Guatemala declares 'state of siege' after massacre
· World on course for next crisis, warns Gordon Brown
· Government Is Now Borrowing from Pensions? Are You Serious?
· US official: growing threat from solar storms
· Magnitude 6.1 Earthquake Strikes off Java Island
· Century of disasters — how you can cope
COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS
NOTE: The commentary links below are NOT endorsed by Prophecy Update. They are listed because they relate to current events which MAY have prophetic significance.
US to push Israel for shared capital - Jason Koutsoukis - www.smh.com.au
JERUSALEM: In an address on the Middle East tomorrow, the US President, Barack Obama, is expected to ask Israel to accept a Palestinian state that matches, as closely as possible, the armistice lines before the Six-Day War of 1967.
After urging Israel and the Palestinians to return to direct negotiations, Mr Obama is also expected to announce US opposition to a Palestinian plan to seek the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state through the United Nations in September.
He will also demand that Israel accept Jerusalem as the shared capital of Israel and a Palestinian state - a core issue for Palestinians, and a position the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, says he will not consider.
Advertisement: Story continues below In details of the speech leaked to the Israeli media, Mr Obama will endorse former US president Bill Clinton's plan for a divided Jerusalem in which all Palestinian neighborhoods become part of a Palestinian state, while neighborhoods with a majority of Jews would become part of Israel.
A senior Israeli source quoted in the daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth said that ''texts emanating from Obama's surroundings are extremely unpleasant to Israeli ears, and will be primarily disturbing to Netanyahu''.
On Monday Mr Netanyahu spelt out to the Israel parliament his own vision for peace that appeared to agree, in principle, with the establishment of a Palestinian state structured within the 1967 borders.
By declaring that Israel would hold onto the five large settlement blocks that are built beyond Israel's borders of June 4, 1967, he implied that Israel was prepared to evacuate the more than 100 smaller Israeli settlements built across the Jordan Valley on land that would form the heart of a future Palestinian state.
''The root of the conflict is not the absence of a Palestinian state but the Palestinian opposition to the establishment of the state of Israel,'' he said.
Mr Netanyahu, who is scheduled to meet Mr Obama at the White House on Friday, repeated his opposition to any division of Jerusalem. He said a Palestinian state would have to accommodate the Israeli military along the Jordan River, and that there would be no mass return of Palestinian refugees. He denied Israel would evacuate any settlements.
An Israeli commentator, Ben Caspit, said: ''Benjamin Netanyahu's breathtaking circus act yesterday recorded yet another chapter in the Knesset.
''The Prime Minister succeeded in a single impressive pirouette to wink left and fly to the right at the same time.''
The leader of the Israeli opposition, the former foreign minister Tzipi Livni, criticized Mr Netanyahu for his failure to prevent the scheduled UN vote to recognize a Palestinian state in September. ''Netanyahu has failed to rally international support for Israel's basic principles; he even failed to convince the US to support us,'' Ms Livni said.
A Palestinian Authority spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, said Mr Netanyahu's speech proved that Israel was not interested in peace ''since the preconditions that Netanyahu set are unacceptable to the Palestinians and do not conform to the decisions of the international community''.
Palestinian Authority presents terms to resume negotiations with Israel - Saleh Naami – www.english.ahram.org.eg
Palestinian Authority agrees to resume negotiations in exchange for a settlement freeze and an Israeli announcement that 1967 borders are the basis for discussions
Israeli newspaper Maariv revealed on Tuesday a Palestinian offer for the resumption of negotiations with Israel based on the freezing of Jewish settlement building in the West Bank for three months and the Israeli announcement that the resumption of negotiations will stand on the premise that Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders. This will be in exchange for Palestine postponing for a period of three months its request to the United Nations General Assembly for recognition of a Palestinian state.
Israeli daily Yedi'ot Aharonot unveiled some of the content of President Barack Obama’s upcoming speech at the Jewish organization AIPAC’s annual conference this Thursday. It said Obama was to urge the Palestinian Authority not to unilaterally announce a Palestinian state. He was also to stress the importance of Palestinians abiding by the terms of the International Quartet, including recognizing the state of Israel and renouncing terrorism as well as refraining from taking any unilateral actions.
The daily made clear that it received various drafts of the awaited speech, which also indicated that Obama would in turn urge Israel to withdraw to the 1967 borders with border adjustments to guarantee inclusion of the biggest Israeli settlement clusters. It said that the drafts were procured from top advisor to Netanyahu, Yaakov Amidror, who had just returned from the United States.
On another note, the Israeli media agreed that Obama’s decision to speak at the AIPAC conference is an indication that the president had decided to completely refrain from exerting any form of pressure on Netanyahu during the visit.
Ayala Hasson, Israeli media personality and political commentator, said on Israel’s Channel One that Netanyahu is aware that he is heading to Washington under the best conditions, because Obama will go out of his way to prove to the Jewish organizations on the eve of presidential elections that he is the best choice when it comes to preserving the interests of Israel.
Netanyahu: Israel willing to 'cede parts of our homeland' for true peace – www.haaretz.com
Prime Minister tells Knesset that a Palestinian government that refuses to recognize Israel is no partner for peace; he also says Israel must stop blaming itself for the cycle of violence and start looking at the 'reality' of the situation with 'open eyes'.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that Israel would be prepared to compromise and "cede parts of our homeland" for true peace with the Palestinians, but added that he did not believe the latter was ready to be a true partner for peace.
A Palestinian government that comprises representatives of Hamas, a movement that refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist, is not a government with which it would be possible to make peace, said Netanyahu.
Addressing the Knesset a day after an unprecedented wave of demonstrations marking Nakba Day, on which Palestinians annually protest the creation of the state of Israel, Netanyahu said Israel must stop blaming itself for the conflict and start looking at the "reality" of the situation with "open eyes".
The root of conflict was not the absence of a Palestinian state, said Netanyahu, but Palestinian opposition to the creation of the State of Israel.
"This is not a conflict about 1967 but about 1948, when the state of Israel was established," said Netanyahu. "The Palestinians call this a day of catastrophe, but their catastrophe is that their leadership has not succeeded in reaching a compromise. Still today, they don't have a leadership that is ready to recognize Israel as a Jewish state."
"We cannot bury our heads in the sand," Netanyahu said. "We must look at this reality with open eyes. We must call this child by its name – the reason there is no peace is because the Palestinians refuse to recognize Israel as the national state of the Jewish people."
A Palestinian state should be created only through a peace agreement, Netanyahu said, adding that Israel could not make peace with an entity intent on its destruction.
"I know that a vast majority of the nation understands that it is possible to make peace only with someone who wants to make peace," said Netanyahu. "Someone who wants to destroy us is not interested in peace."
"The Palestinian government, of which half declares daily that it is intent on destroying Israel, is not a partner for peace," added said Netanyahu, referring to the recent reconciliation between rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas and the imminent formation of a unity government. "They need to end the conflict, not continue it."
Netanyahu said he believed that most Israeli people would stand behind a foreign policy based on the following conditions:
The demand that Palestinians recognize Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people; a commitment to end the conflict; a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue that did not require absorption within Israel's borders; the establishment of a Palestinian state only in accordance with a peace deal that did not infringe on Israel's security; that said Palestinian state be demilitarized; the preservation of large settlement blocs within the West Bank; and the insistence that Jerusalem remain the undivided capital of Israel.
But Netanyahu also appeared to hold out the prospect of future territorial compromise if his peace terms - which have drawn Palestinian rejection in the past - are met.
"These compromises, by the way, are painful because it means, in any event, tracts of our homeland. This is not a strange land, it is the land of our fathers and we have historical rights and not only security interests," he said.
Arab uprising to strike Israel next? – Aaron Klein – www.wnd.com
Palestinians plot ways to capitalize on Middle East unrest
JERUSALEM – Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization held a series of local meetings yesterday to discuss the possibility of launching a large-scale uprising, or intifada, targeting Israel, according to Fatah sources present at the meetings.
The Fatah meetings were focused on how to best capitalize on violent Arab riots that gripped Israel this past weekend, including the storming of the Jewish state's borders with Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.
Also, the meetings discussed how to best use the uprisings in the larger Arab world to launch a campaign that would target Israel.
The Fatah sources said the meetings were held by the local Fatah leadership in the cities of Jerusalem, Ramallah, Hebron and Nablus.
The sources said the meetings did not reach any conclusion, but most Fatah leaders present favored an intifada that would focus on protests and rock-throwing in the guise of a popular uprising.
The Fatah leaders felt such a campaign would aid the Palestinian Authority's bid to unilaterally declare a state at the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly in September.
Dimitri Diliani, a spokesperson for Fatah, refused to confirm or deny the content of the Fatah meetings.
Diliani told WND that calls for a third intifada "come from people frustrated with the very long peace process that has not translated into any results on the ground."
"These ideas will continue to gather support as long as the peace process is dormant," he said.
Diliani told WND that only Fatah's executive committee, and not local leaders, could take the ultimate decision of launching an intifada.
"There are no local Fatah factions who could even manage such a campaign by themselves," he added.
According to the Fatah sources present at the meeting, the local leaders strongly presented the case for a sustained pressure campaign aimed at Israel's Jewish communities in the West Bank, territory the Palestinians claim for themselves.
Among the ideas discussed were staging mock trials of individual leaders of the Jewish communities in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem.
"All focus must be on attacking the settlement project diplomatically, politically and legally," said one Fatah source.
Netanyahu: Conflict is about 1948, not 1967 - Attila Somfalvi – www.ynetnews.com
Prime minister addresses Knesset plenum following 'Nakba Day' riots, claims Palestinians to blame for failure of peace process over their refusal to recognize State of Israel. Opposition chairwoman warns of establishment of 'Hamastan'
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday addressed the Knesset plenum as part of the Knesset's "Herzl Day" events.
"We must stop beating ourselves up and blaming ourselves," Netanyahu said, "The reason there is no peace is that the Palestinians refuse to recognize the State of Israel as the Jewish people's nation state."
The prime minister added, "This is not a conflict about 1967, this is a conflict about 1948, about the State of Israel's very existence. You must have noticed that yesterday's events did not take place on June 5, the day the Six Day War erupted, they took place on May 15, the day the State of Israel was established."
Netanyahu also addressed the reconciliation agreement between Fatah and Hamas. "A Palestinian government half of which is comprised of those who declare their willingness to destroy the State of Israel on a daily basis is not a partner for peace.
"Anyone who says 'one makes peace with one's enemies' must add 'one make's peace with an enemy who has decided to make peace.'"
He stressed that Israel is ready to make painful concessions for "parts of the homeland" if the Palestinians recognize Israel and denounce terror.
Netanyahu claimed there was wide consensus over his fundamental positions, including his demand that the Palestinian refugee issue be resolved outside Israel's borders and that a Palestinian state be established as part of a peace agreement.
"I believe there is also consensus around the fact that a Palestinian state must be disarmed including Israeli military presence along the Jordan River. We also agree that our people must retain the settlement blocks. Finally I insist that Jerusalem remain the State of Israel's capital."
Netanyahu concluded his speech by addressing the opposition. "In this historic moment, while our very existence is being challenged, we must unite for the state's benefit, and I call members of the opposition – rise above partisan interests, join us and together we shall present a united front."
Livni slams Netanyahu
Opposition Leader Tzipi Livni also addressed the Knesset and rejected Netanyahu's unity proposal.
"With all due respect to you Mr. Prime minister, unity to keep you in your seat after the damage you have inflicted on the State of Israel is not worthy unity. Zionism has always initiated and never left the fate of the Jewish people in the hands of others."
She went on to warn the prime minister "you might yet go down in the history books as the prime minister in whose term the Palestinian state was founded, and I hope not Hamastan."
Livni's speech prompted heckling from coalition members who were cautioned by the Knesset Speaker: "I'll make a clown out of anyone who seeks to make a circus of the Knesset."
'Mideast changes unavoidable'
Before his statements regarding the political process, the prime minister addressed regional uprisings: "These are unavoidable changes. It is quite possible that in the long term these changes will be for the better. Either way I hope they will benefit the people themselves.
"Eventually, if their struggle is crowned with success it will do much to promote the chances of peace and its durability.
"Yet in the short term, in this transformation period, our situation might become more problematic and more challenging. Lebanon is controlled by Hezbollah under the aegis of Iran where only five years ago there was great hope for freedom and progress.
"We also see what happened yesterday along Israel's borders, thousands and thousands gathered on the border fences attempting to invade our territory and sovereignty."
In his opening remarks the prime minister praised Theodore Herzl: "he prophesied clearly that the survivability of the nation demands a Jewish state, that a necessary condition of the existence of the Jewish state was a Jewish army, a strong modern army based on advanced technology."
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The assault on Israel – www.jpost.com
Though some of the tactics are new, Palestinian goals have all-too plainly not changed since 1947.
Sunday’s incidents at the Syrian border near Majdal Shams, across the Lebanon border at Maroun a-Ras and on the border with the Gaza Strip mark a formidable challenge to Israeli security. What is the IDF to do if the same tactic of attempted en masse infiltration is repeated in the weeks and months ahead, but instead of a few hundred infiltrators, the borders are overrun with thousands or tens of thousands of Palestinian “refugees” and their supporters?
The IDF and other security personnel would be under tremendous pressure to do their utmost to avoid causing casualties while at the same time preventing the rampant trampling of Israeli sovereignty. Failing to do either could have dire consequences.
The death of any unarmed rioter would immediately be misrepresented as an Israeli crime, serving to strengthen the anti-Israel “narrative.”
Even on Sunday, many international news outlets lumped all reports of fatalities together and blamed Israel for all of them, even as the IDF was insistent that the reported 10 deaths on the Lebanon border were a consequence of Lebanese army fire. Attention would be directed away from oppression in Arab regimes just as Sunday’s clashes shifted focus away from Syrians being gunned down or thrown into prison in Homs, Douma, Hama, Banias, Daraa and Damascus.
However, allowing angry mobs to forcibly cross over into Israel – as, unconscionably, occurred at Majdal Shams, where the IDF had not adequately prepared for the rush to the fence – compromises Israeli sovereignty and presents a serious security danger by allowing potential terrorist elements to make their way to Jewish targets.
To successfully meet this challenge, IDF soldiers will have to be more effectively deployed, on the basis of better intelligence, and urgently trained and equipped to use non-lethal crowd dispersion techniques such as tear gas, and water and sound cannons. More effective border fencing and other physical deterrents may have to be constructed.
UN peacekeeping missions, positioned in Lebanon for precisely these situations, proved themselves to be completely, predictably, useless.
BUT WHILE the prospect of additional, far greater, “nonviolent” mass border incursions presents daunting challenges, Sunday’s “Nakba” protests were also another reminder of the fundamental opposition to Israel’s very existence. The “Nakba” anniversary those protesters, and those who sent them, are marking is not the “catastrophe” of Israel’s 1967 capture of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. It is, rather, the “catastrophe” of the revival of the historic Jewish state in 1948, a development with which they still refuse to reconcile.
Protests were launched not only in the “disputed” territories that some Palestinian leaders assure the world are their only focus, but also at Israel’s internationally recognized borders with Gaza and with Lebanon. The day’s bleak message: Nothing has changed since 1947, when Palestinians and the Arab states rejected the UN partition plan.
Of late, the official Palestinian leadership has abandoned even the most pro forma gestures toward a negotiated peace. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas entered into a national unity agreement with Hamas, an Islamist organization that vows daily to destroy Israel. And far from Hamas moderating its positions, Abbas seems to be sounding increasingly radicalized.
In recent statements, contrasting with previous remarks, he insists on Palestinians’ “right of return.” And he is not talking only of those who remain from the approximately 700,000 refugees who left Israel before, during and immediately after the 1948 War of Independence, but of their millions of descendants. (Palestinians are the only people in the world whose refugee status can be extended indefinitely – five generations and counting – according to UNRWA criteria.) The Palestinian leadership, now officially including the anti-Semitic terrorists of Hamas, has not paid any diplomatic price for its extremism. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton welcomed the reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, as did leaders from several other Western countries and Russia, and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. If all goes as planned, in September the UN General Assembly will issue a declaration that, albeit nonbinding, recognizes a Palestinian state along the 1949 armistice lines – despite the fact that the core issues of dispute with Israel will not have been resolved. Former ambassador to the UN Gabriela Shalev told a Knesset committee on Monday that the Palestinians’ move toward UN recognition of their state was an “intermediate goal” that seeks “to destroy [Israel] before the international community.”
Over the decades, open warfare gave way to terrorism and then to missile attacks. Now Israel faces “nonviolent” infiltration of its sovereign borders, the uncompromising demand for a “right of return” that would destroy it as a Jewish state, an unholy Palestinian alliance with a terror group openly bent on Israel’s destruction, and a diplomatic campaign for recognition without reconciliation.
Though some of the tactics are new, the goals have all-too plainly not changed since 1947.
Are the Jews the Chosen People? - By Dennis Prager
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | I assume that the type of person who reads columns such as this one has wondered at one time or another why, for thousands of years, there has been so much attention paid to Jews and why, today, to Israel, the one Jewish state.
But how do most people explain this preoccupation? There is no fully rational explanation for the amount of attention paid to the Jews and the Jewish state. And there is no fully rational explanation for the amount of hatred directed at Jews and the Jewish state.
A lifetime of study of this issue, including writing (with Rabbi Joseph Telushkin) a book on anti-Semitism ("Why the Jews? The Reason for Antisemitism") has convinced me that, along with all the rational explanations, there is one explanation that transcends reason alone.
It is that the Jews are G0d's chosen people.
Now, believe me, dear reader, I am well aware of the hazards of making such a claim.
It sounds chauvinistic. It sounds racist. And it sounds irrational, if not bizarre.
But it is none of these.
As regards chauvinism, there is not a hint of inherent superiority in the claim of Jewish chosen-ness. In fact, the Jewish Bible, the book that states the Jews are chosen, constantly berates the Jews for their flawed moral behavior. No bible of any other religion is so critical of the religious group affiliated with that bible as the Hebrew Scriptures are of the Jews.
As for racism, Jewish chosen-ness cannot be racist by definition. Here is why: a) The Jews are not a race; there are Jews of every race. And b) any person of any race, ethnicity or nationality can become a member of the Jewish people and thereby be as chosen as Abraham, Moses, Jeremiah or the chief rabbi of Israel.
And with regard to chosen-ness being an irrational or even bizarre claim, it must be so only to atheists. They don't believe in a Chooser, so they cannot believe in a Chosen. But for most believing Jews and Christians (most particularly the Founders who saw America as a Second Israel, a second Chosen People), Jewish Chosen-ness has been a given. And even the atheist must look at the evidence and conclude that the Jews play a role in history that defies reason.
Can reason alone explain how a hodgepodge of ex-slaves was able to change history — to introduce the moral G0d-Creator we know as G0d; to write the world's most influential book, the Bible; to devise ethical monotheism; to be the only civilization to deny the cyclical worldview and give humanity belief in a linear (i.e., purposeful) history; to provide morality-driven prophets and so much more — without G0d playing the decisive role in this people's history?
Without the Jews, there would be no Christianity (a fact acknowledged by the great majority of Christians) and no Islam (a fact acknowledged by almost no Muslims). Read Thomas Cahill's "The Gifts of the Jews" or Paul Johnson's "A History of the Jews" to get an idea about how much this people changed history.
What further renders the claim for Jewish chosen-ness worthy of rational consideration is that virtually every other nation has perceived itself as chosen or otherwise divinely special. For example, China means "Middle Kingdom" in Chinese — meaning that China is at the center of the world; and Japan considers itself the land where the sun originates ("Land of the Rising Sun"). The difference between Jewish chosen-ness and other nations' similar claims is that no one cares about any other group considering itself Chosen, while vast numbers of non-Jews have either believed the Jews' claim or have hated the Jews for it.
Perhaps the greatest evidence for the Jews' chosen-ness has been provided in modern times, during which time evil has consistently targeted the Jews:
— Nazi Germany was more concerned with exterminating the Jews than with winning World War II.
— Throughout its 70-year history, the Soviet Union persecuted its Jews and tried to extinguish Judaism. Hatred of Jews was one thing communists and Nazis shared.
— The United Nations has spent more time discussing and condemning the Jewish state than any other country in the world. Yet, this state is smaller than every Central American country, including El Salvador, Panama and even Belize. Imagine if the amount of attention paid to Israel were paid to Belize — who would not think there was something extraordinary about that country?
— Much of the contemporary Muslim world — and nearly all the Arab world — is obsessed with annihilating the one Jewish state.
In the words of Catholic scholar Father Edward Flannery, the Jews carry the burden of G0d in history. Most Jews, being secular, do not believe this. And many Jews dislike talk of chosen-ness because they fear it will increase anti-Semitism; they may be right.
But it doesn't alter the fact that the obsession with one of the smallest countries and smallest peoples on earth, and the unique hatred of the Jews and the Jewish state by the world's most vicious ideologies, can be best explained only in transcendent terms. Namely that G0d, for whatever reason, chose the Jews.
Muslim outreach, Take 2 - By Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | On Thursday, President Obama will "reach out" yet again to what he insists on calling "the Muslim world." Think of it as the 2.0 version of his much-ballyhooed, but seriously deficient, 2009 speech at Al-Azhar University in Cairo.
His message this time, we are told, will be that the death of Osama bin Laden and the outpouring of support for democratic change across the Middle East and North Africa opens a new dawn for Muslims - and even greater opportunities for expanded relations with the United States than he promised two years ago. But will they?
The answer would appear to depend on who actually benefits most from these developments. As things stand now, the answer seems likely to be the Muslim Brotherhood (MB or, in Arabic, Ikwan). If the Brotherhood does indeed come to power in Egypt, Syria, Jordan, "Palestine" (through its local franchise, Hamas) and/or others of the roughly 13 countries in North Africa and the Middle East currently in play, there is no chance that U.S. interests will be served - no matter how much Mr. Obama tries to reach out to Muslims in those regions.
That reality is rooted in the jihadist nature of the Ikhwan and its goals. 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.
Consider the MB's creed: "Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope." Not much non-violent or secular about that.
Then, there is a pregnant quote from a 1991 document entitled the Ikhwan's "Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goals of the Group." The memo was found in a concealed archive in Annandale, Virginia in 2004. It was introduced into evidence in the successful 2008 prosecution of the first group of defendants in the Holy Land Foundation conspiracy, the largest terrorism-financing prosecution in the nation's history.
This strategic plan describes the MB's mission in America as "a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within, sabotaging its miserable house with their [i.e., Americans'] hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions." Secular? Non-violent?
The federal government also has made public another, undated Brotherhood document called, "Phases of the World Underground Movement Plan." It describes precisely how the MB's mission statement is being operationalized within the United States, and provides a progress report (in italics). Highlights of its key passages make for chilling reading given the prospect of an even-more-aggressive Obama outreach campaign to Muslims, one that would inevitably entail parlaying with the Ikhwan:
Phase One: Discreet and secret establishment of leadership.
Phase Two: Phase of gradual appearance on the public scene and exercising and utilizing various public activities. [The Brotherhood has] greatly succeeded in implementing this stage. It also succeeded in achieving a great deal of its important goals, such as infiltrating various sectors of the Government.
Phase Three: Escalation phase, prior to conflict and confrontation with the rulers, through utilizing mass media. Currently in progress.
Phase Four: Open public confrontation with the Government through exercising the political pressure approach. It is aggressively implementing the above-mentioned approach. Training on the use of weapons domestically and overseas in anticipation of zero-hour. It has noticeable activities in this regard.
Phase Five: Seizing power to establish their Islamic Nation under which all parties and Islamic groups are united.
President Obama can try to promote the illusion that the Muslim Brotherhood does not really intend to act on these ambitions. But the rest of us cannot safely ignore what those ambitions are, or the abundant evidence that the Ikhwan is, indeed, intent on realizing them - and disciplined, organized and ruthless enough to try to achieve them.
Finally, there is the strategic alignment of jihadist forces that led up and assuredly contributed to the so-called "Arab Spring." Two co-authors of the Center for Security Policy's new book, Shariah: The Threat to America , former Joint Chiefs of Staff advisor Stephen Coughlin and former FBI special agent John Guandolo, have been warning for months about the following developments:
In July 2010, al Qaeda used its new, English-language Inspire magazine to challenge the Muslim Brotherhood to move from the "Meccan phase" (i.e., stealthy forms of jihad) to the "Medinan phase" (i.e., violent jihad). In October 2010, the MB's recently elected Supreme Guide, Mohammed Badie, issued what amounted to a declaration of war against Israel, the United States and the West. And in January 2011, Al-Azhar University issued a fatwah affirming that offensive operations are a legitimate part of "defensive jihad."
Team Obama missed these ominous developments. In all likelihood its Outreach 1.0 and other missteps actually encouraged them, even before the President called for the immediate removal of one of America's relatively reliable Arab allies, Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak.
Now, Mr. Obama seems intent on compounding his earlier errors by further embracing Muslim Brotherhood operatives overseas and front organizations here at home. Redoubling such efforts now will only serve to embolden our foes, undermine our friends and endanger our country. Enough already.
Will This Ship of Fools Sink May 22? - By Jan Markell - www.olivetreeviews.org
There's going to be a party given by "heathens and skeptics" and I hope you have no desire to attend it. They intend to get together to mock the rapture. After months of enduring the unnerving dogmatism of Harold Camping's billboards, signs, cars, radio commercials and bumper stickers heralding the end of the world as we know it on May 21, American Atheists have announced that they are planning "rapture parties" in Oakland, Houston, and Fort Lauderdale on May 21-22.
The atheists boast of their own billboards which state, The Rapture: You KNOW it's Nonsense. Learn the Truth at our Party." The billboard is designed to knock two millennia of false predictions that the world was about to end. So, they are having a party to celebrate another rapture that wasn't. And the atheists will be more accurate than the Christians because they are going after the date-setters.
So who's behind the latest date-setting nonsense? None other than false teacher Harold Camping who has led a well-organized "We Can Know" campaign for more than a year. Sorry, Harold. We cannot know. The Bible says that in Matthew 24:36.
What can we know for sure will result from Camping's prediction?
• He will be proven wrong.
• He will put all who long for the Lord's return in a bad light.
• This will push many more away from considering end-time issues as they will not want to be lumped into such a questionable category.
• Church pulpits will grow even more silent on this topic right at a time when a countdown has truly begun and it is nearing midnight.
• The mockers and scoffers will grow stronger and more vocal.
Due to natural disasters, economic tumult, efforts at forming a one-world system, and political corruption on overdrive, people instinctively know something is very wrong. American Atheists President, Dave Silverman, says in a statement, "What distinguishes the latest round of warnings is the sheer scale of 'gloom and doom' over everything from the economy to the environment."
Having been proved a fool back in 1994 with a similar prediction, one would think these guys would learn! Instead, Camping now insists that Jesus is coming back on May 21, 2011. On that day, true Christians will be raptured and everyone else will come under the judgment of Christ for a period of five months, ending on October 21, 2011.
But Camping states, "God has given so much information in the Bible about this, and so many proofs, and so many signs, that we know it is absolutely going to happen without any question at all. There's nothing in the Bible that holds a candle to the amount of information to this tremendous truth of the end of the world. I would be absolutely in rebellion against God if I thought anything other than it is absolutely going to happen without any question."
Camping is relying heavily on math and the mathematical formula seems known only to him. But Albert Mohler says, "The Bible does not contain hidden codes that we are to find and decipher. The Bible has been given to us in order that we might know the truth, and the truth is clearly revealed in its pages. We are not to look for hidden patterns of words, numbers, dates, or anything else. The Bible's message is plain and requires no mathematical computation for its understanding. The claim that one has found a hidden code or system in the Bible is an insult to the Bible as the Word of God."
His disciples are all across America. Recently, Christian friends of mine spent a day doing intense evangelism at a secular Minneapolis/St. Paul outdoor event. Camping's followers were there passing out their own doomsday literature. They would not listen. They were convinced they have a week before apocalyptic events begin. They are seduced. They insist, in this case, that the secret things don't belong just to God (Deut. 29:29); rather, the followers of Harold Camping have been let in on a giant secret. But Jesus himself said in Matthew 24:36, "Of that day and hour knows no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my father only." What part of "knows no man" do they not get? Isn't all of this just further proof that biblical illiteracy and deception are raging?
Rick LaCasse, who attended Camping's September 1994 service in Alameda, said that 15 years later, his faith in Camping has only strengthened.
"Evidently, he was wrong," LaCasse allowed, "but this time it is going to happen. There was some doubt last time, but we didn't have any proofs. This time we do."
Would his opinion of Camping change if May 21, 2011, ended without incident?
"I can't even think like that," LaCasse said. "Everything is too positive right now. There's too little time to think like that."
It appears this ship of fools will not sink on May 22, 2011. Camping will likely go back to the drawing board and come up with another sure-fire calculation and some sheep without shepherds will still follow him. But God never rewards the date-setters. If He did, He would show the Bible to be inaccurate and untrustworthy.
Jesus is coming again! But thanks to Harold Camping and friends, on May 22, more may be laughing and scoffing than anticipating. Those of us who long for His appearing can have joy amidst turmoil and expectation in spite of world chaos knowing that it will happen in His perfect timing!
Your reasonable service--A new era of civic responsibility- Bill Wilson – www.dailyjot.com
The headlines today are amazing: Hamas PM: Pray for an end to Israel; Ahmadinejad could become president of OPEC; Iran building rocket bases in Venezuela; IMF Chief held without bail in rape case; Treasury raids pensions to service US debt; US borrows $58,000 a second; Scientists cast doubt on TSA safety claims of full body scanners; China selling Treasury holdings for fifth consecutive month; and there are more. Hamas is the White House's new negotiating partner in Israeli peace; Iran is building a nuclear weapon to use against America and Israel; The IMF controls the world's money policy; The US is going bankrupt; and the government lies about safety.
Trust in the Federal government is at a low as 58% of Americans believe the federal government has too much power, according to a Gallup poll taken the last week of March. A Gallup poll taken in March 2009 indicated that 55% of Americans believed the biggest threat to the country in the future was big government. Gallup's poll taken in January indicated that 56% of Americans were somewhat or very dissatisfied with how well the government works. An ABC News/Washington Post poll taken in January 2010 indicated that 58% of Americans favor smaller government with fewer services, this is up some 24% from 2008.
Do these headlines constitute a trend? Of course they do. The trend is that the United States Government is out of control and the events facing the American people every day are so overwhelming that they cannot focus on one problem let alone dozens. Americans are so busy with keeping their families in order, keeping a roof over their heads, meals on the table and fuel in the tank that they are not able to focus on their civic responsibility. They have left the obligation to hirelings, who have pillaged our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. Many will say, this is God's judgment. Know this: that God's judgment is a result of his people's actions. And God's mercy is also a result of his people's actions.
Romans 12:1,2 says, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." We are fast approaching the time in the country where Christians are going to lose their very freedoms to an overwhelming and overpowering government. We must exercise our reasonable service. The will of God in our lives requires action in making disciples. And if we were doing this one thing, our countrymen would be renewed, and held accountable, and our nation restored.
Storms that Protect – Greg Laurie – www.harvest.org
Immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side, while He sent the multitudes away.
—Matthew 14:22
Sometimes a storm will come into our lives that is protecting us from something worse. This is hard for us to wrap our minds around. Is it possible that a hardship ever could be better than a success? Sometimes it can, because there are things we learn that we would not have learned otherwise.
That is the type of storm the disciples faced when Jesus made them get into a boat and go to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. Trouble was brewing. Jesus had just fed the multitude, and He "perceived that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king" (John 6:15). Effectively the people said, "You are going to be our king whether you like it or not, because you are the kind of king we want. Raising the dead? That's nice. Restoration of sight to the blind? That's good. Free meal? Now we are talking." They essentially were using Jesus.
So He sent the disciples away, because He knew this would destroy them. On more than one occasion, they had argued about who would be greatest in the kingdom. For their own protection, Jesus had to get them out of there as soon as possible. He was basically saying, "Guys, I am delivering you from major success, which only would destroy you at this time in your lives. So get into the boat."
We need to remember that He who stirred up the storm is also the hiding place in it. God will allow calamity in your life to show you His power. Storms will come. There is no getting around them. Jesus knew a storm was coming when He sent the disciple away—but He was with them in that storm. And He will be with you as well.
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“Folks, it's all beginning to unravel. America is in more danger of falling than at any time in its history. But I believe Bible prophecy predicts this very decline. From this point on, we believers have to get serious. We are going to face discouragement, disillusionment and, most certainly, persecution in the time between now and the Rapture. But don't be discouraged or disillusioned. The coming turmoil will provide us unrivaled opportunities to share the good news of the Gospel. So be ready to share your faith and your hope with those who need Christ. We still have time to reap a great harvest of souls for God's kingdom!” – Hal Lindsey
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Some Thoughts On Matthew 24 - By Daymond Duck – www.raptureready.com
Some articles that I have written clearly show that I believe the Pre-Trib Rapture Theory. When these articles got posted on raptureready.com, I received e-mails from people who believe in other theories (the Mid-Trib Rapture, Pre-Wrath Rapture, Post-Trib Rapture, etc.). Many of those e-mails said I am wrong and told me why the writer believes the church will go through part or all of the Tribulation Period. Virtually all of those who disagree with me mention the “elect” in Matt. 24 and say the elect is the church.
Jesus mentioned the “elect” three times in Matt. 24. He said, “And except those days [the Tribulation Period] should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the ‘elect’s’ sake those days shall be shortened” (Matt. 24:22). He said, “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very ‘elect’ (Matt. 24:24). He also said, “And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his ‘elect’ from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (Matt. 24:31).
If I believed the “elect” in these three verses refers to the church, I would have to review my belief in the Pre-Trib Rapture Theory. But I don’t believe the “elect” refers to the church. I believe it refers to those who sincerely express faith in Jesus after the church is raptured (between the Rapture and the Second Coming of Jesus).
It is important to know that the Scriptures identify two groups of “elect:” the “elect” of Israel and the “elect” of the true church. Matthew 24 must be rightly divided to know which group of “elect” is meant. For example, notice Isaiah 45:4a, “For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel mine ‘elect’ . . .” God clearly called Israel “mine elect.” The basis of Israel’s election is God’s everlasting covenant with Abraham and his seed after him in their generations (Gen. 17:7-13; Deut. 10:15).
It can be shown that the Scriptures also identify two groups of “saints” (Israel and the church; see Psa. 79:1-4). These correspond to the “elect,” but for the sake of brevity this is being ignored at this time.
Having said this, it is my opinion that the signs in Matt. 24:1-8 are signs of the Church Age that will have an ultimate fulfillment during the Tribulation Period. For example, famine and pestilence exist today, but the ultimate famine and pestilence will be during the Tribulation Period (Rev. 6:6-9); false Christs exist today, but the ultimate false Christ will be the Antichrist during the Tribulation Period (Rev. 6:1-19:21); earthquakes exist today, but the ultimate earthquake will take place during the Tribulation Period (Rev. 16:18); and wars and rumors of wars exist today, but the ultimate war will be the Battle of Armageddon during the Tribulation Period (Rev. 19:15-21).
Starting at verse 9, Matt. 24 is about Israel. The “gospel of the kingdom” mentioned in verse 14 will be preached in all the world by 144,000 Jews (Rev. 7:4-8), Two Witnesses, at least one of which will probably be a Jew (Rev. 11:3-12), and an angel (Rev. 14:6). The “holy place” mentioned in verse 15 will be in the Temple in Jerusalem in Israel. Those who are in “Judea” mentioned in verse 16 refer to people on the West Bank in Israel. The “Sabbath” mentioned in verse 20 is the Jewish holy day. The “elect” mentioned in verse 22 is Israel (Isa. 45:4). Verse 28 is a parable (see Job 39:27-30) about the Battle of Armageddon in Israel. Basically, it teaches that wherever the dead body (carcass) is the Palestinian Eagle gathers to devour the flesh (Rev. 19:17-18). Verses 29-31 are about the gathering of the Jews to Israel at the Second Coming (Isa. 11:11-12, 27:12-13; Matt. 8:5-13). Verses 32-33 are about the Fig Tree (Israel). Verses 37-41 are about the removal of the lost at the Second Coming not the removal of the church at the Rapture (Matt. 13:36-42, 47-50). The lost were removed from the earth in the days of Noah not the saved.
In conclusion, the verses in Matt. 24-9-51 do not prove that the Pre-Trib Rapture Theory is wrong or that some other theory is right. They contain teachings that are profitable for the church, but they are about Israel not the church.
Prophecy Plus Ministries
Daymond & Rachel Duck
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