Mistakes People Make When Studying the End Times
http://www.fulfilledprophecy.com/commentary/what-holly-thinks-mistakes-people-make-when-study/
End-times prophecy is a difficult subject, especially if you don’t know where to start. Avoid these four common pitfalls.
Mistake 1: Not focusing on Israel. Many Christians forget that, in prophecy, the geographical focus is always Israel. For example, some U.S. Christians will speculate endlessly about the United States’ role in prophecy, although there is no clear reference to it in the Bible. From God’s point of view, Jerusalem is the center of the world. He said through the prophet Ezekiel, “This is Jerusalem; I have set her at the center of the nations, with lands around her” (Ezekiel 5:5). God chose to work through the nation of Israel to reveal Himself to the world. Jewish prophets penned the Scriptures, and Jesus, the Messiah came from Jewish lineage. During the Millennium, Jesus will reign for 1,000 years from Jerusalem. So, Bible prophecies focus mainly on Israel and His dealings with Israel through the surrounding nations.
Mistake 2: Ignoring the Old Testament. Many Christians try to figure out the meaning of the symbols in the book of Revelation without looking at the clues given in the rest of Scripture. For example, many Christians have attempted to identify the great harlot – or Babylon the Great – in Revelation 17. Their suggestions have ranged from the Roman Catholic Church to the United States. But they forget that the Word of God must be taken as a whole. The prophecies in the New Testament can’t be correctly understood apart from the Old Testament. So, to correctly determine what Babylon represents, they must go back to where ancient Babylon had its beginning – at the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11. The Tower of Babel was humankind’s first attempt at coming together to build a government without God. So, Babylon the Great appears to involve the nations’ final and most powerful attempt at uniting apart from God. Today, this might be best seen in the efforts of the United Nations.
Mistake 3: Not studying the book of Daniel. Many Christians don’t realize that the book of Daniel holds the keys to understanding the book of Revelation. So, they try to understand Revelation without studying Daniel. Yet, many of the symbols contained in the book of Revelation are first introduced in Daniel. For example, Revelation 13 speaks of a beast with 10 horns. Many people wonder who this beast could possibly be, but they don’t know that this same beast made an appearance in Daniel 7, where the interpretation is given.
Mistake 4: Not seeing the forest for the trees. Some Christians watch for the details of prophecy to be fulfilled and lose site of the larger fulfillments. For example, the Bible tells us that, before the end comes, there will be an increase in the frequency of earthquakes and famines (Matthew 24:7). So, some Christians point to every earthquake or famine as evidence that Christ is returning soon. Yet, they don’t remember that Christ said these are “merely the beginning of birth pangs” (Matthew 24:7-8). It’s true that the Bible gives us many amazing details of the future, but we must keep our eyes on the clear road signs so we don’t go off course. Some of these road signs include the return of Israel as a nation in 1948 and the revival of the Roman Empire in the form of the European Union, beginning with the Schuman Declaration in 1950.
McCain Criticizes Obama Over Iran Comments
http://www.newsmax.com/politics/mccain_obama/2008/05/19/97270.html
CHICAGO -- Republican John McCain accused Democrat Barack Obama of inexperience and reckless judgment for saying Iran does not pose the same serious threat to the United States as the Soviet Union did in its day.
The likely GOP presidential nominee made the criticism Monday in Chicago, Obama's home turf.
"Such a statement betrays the depth of Senator Obama's inexperience and reckless judgment. These are very serious deficiencies for an American president to possess," McCain said in an appearance at the restaurant industry's annual meeting.
He was referring to comments Obama made Sunday in Pendleton, Ore.: "Iran, Cuba, Venezuela _ these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. And yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they were saying, `We're going to wipe you off the planet.'"
A video clip of Obama making the comments was distributed Monday by McCain's campaign.
McCain listed the dangers he sees from Iran: It provides deadly explosive devices used to kill U.S. soldiers in Iraq, sponsors terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East and is committed to the destruction of Israel.
"The threat the government of Iran poses is anything but tiny," McCain said.
Responding to McCain, Obama told a town hall rally later Monday in Billings, Mont., "Let me be absolutely clear: Iran is a grave threat." But the Soviet Union posed an added threat, he said. "The Soviet Union had thousands of nuclear weapons, and Iran doesn't have one."
Obama said the threat from Iran had grown as a result of the U.S. war in Iraq. "Iran is the biggest single beneficiary of the war in Iraq," he said. "John McCain wants to double down that failed policy." If McCain is elected, Obama said, "We'll keep talking tough in Washington, while countries like Iran ignore our tough talk."
The alternative, Obama said, is to follow the example of Presidents Kennedy and Reagan who negotiated with the Soviet Union. Obama called for "tough, disciplined and direct diplomacy. That's what Kennedy did; that's what Reagan did."
Although the Democratic primary race rolls on, McCain and Obama have criticized each other as if they are in the general election campaign. On Friday, Obama called McCain's tough-guy foreign policy "naive and irresponsible;" McCain questioned whether Obama has the strength and judgment to be commander in chief.
At the heart of the dispute between the candidates is Obama's assertion that, as president, he would meet with leaders of these rogue countries without preconditions. Obama insists that direct engagement with the Soviets helped prevent nuclear war and, over time, helped to bring down the Berlin Wall.
McCain strongly disagrees with Obama's position; he argues such a meeting would lend international prestige to U.S. foes.
"An unconditional summit meeting with the next American president would confer both international legitimacy on the Iranian president and could strengthen him domestically, when he is very unpopular among the Iranian people," McCain said.
His remarks were interrupted for several moments by three protesters from the Code Pink anti-war group, one of whom yelled, "No war in Iran!" as she was hustled from the room.
McCain prefaced his speech to the National Restaurant Association with criticism of Obama but then focused mostly on economic issues. He said Obama and his Democratic rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, would raise taxes and regulate businesses "more than ever."
The Arizona senator has been trying to counter the allegation by Democrats that McCain would continue Bush administration policies.
Yet McCain's arguments on Monday _ on tax cuts, trade agreements and farm subsidies _ mirror those of President Bush.
McCain said that letting the Bush tax cuts expire, as the Democrats would do, would raise taxes by a trillion dollars or more. And he said Obama was wrong to oppose the North American Free Trade Agreement, a pact that, though still controversial after more than a decade, resulted in an estimated $17 billion dollars in exports from Illinois alone.
McCain said farm subsidy payments, like those in the farm bill Congress recently sent to Bush, are the biggest obstacle to global trade deals. Like McCain, Bush dislikes the bill and is threatening to veto it.
"Here we are at a time when food prices are at historic highs, and farm income is up by 56 percent in just the past two years," McCain said. "Yet even now, the Congress has voted to give billions of dollars in subsidies to some of the biggest and richest agribusiness corporations in America."
The Illinois Farm Bureau and other farm groups point out that high energy prices have driven up the costs farmers pay to produce their crops.
"Farmers are in the middle of planting the most expensive crop in history," Illinois Farm Bureau President Philip Nelson said last week.
Acknowledging he was in Obama territory, McCain said he agreed with Illinois Democrats that Obama is the right choice to be their senator.
"I couldn't agree more, and I promise to do everything in my power to help him finish his first term in the United States Senate," McCain quipped.
Secret Ballots May End in Union Elections If Obama Becomes President
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,356643,00.html
How would you like elections without secret ballots? To most people, the notion of getting rid of secret ballots is absurd. This is modern-day America. Such an idea could not be seriously considered, right?
People support secret balloting for very obvious reasons. Politics frequently generates hot tempers. People can put up yard signs or wear political buttons if they want. But not everyone feels comfortable making his or her political positions public. Many would rather vote without fearing that their choice will offend or anger someone else.
Secret balloting has solved another potential problem: vote buying, which they essentially ended in U.S. elections. After all, why pay people if you couldn't be sure how they voted?
But if Barack Obama becomes president, secret ballots seem destined to end for at least one type of election: union certifications.
Currently, when 50 percent of workers in a company sign statements to unionize, that merely sets up a second stage, where workers vote by secret ballot to determine if the company would be unionized. Under the new proposal, using a system called “Card Check,” unionization would occur as soon as half the workers had signed cards stating that they favor union representation.
In other words, up until now, a worker could placate union supporters and sign a statement saying that he wanted a union and then vote against the union when he was protected by the secrecy of the voting booth.
While the Bush administration promised to veto the so-called “Employee Free Choice Act,” Obama has made his feelings about the legislation very clear. Last year, Obama promised, “We will pass the Employee Free Choice Act. It’s not a matter of 'if'; it’s a matter of 'when.' We may have to wait for the next president to sign it, but we will get this thing done.”
Many are predicting Democrats will increase their current majorities, but even if they keep them as they are now, there is already substantial support in Congress. In votes last year, almost exclusively along party lines, Democrats in the House easily passed the bill by 241 to 185. The Senate support was closer, with 51 senators supporting it and 48 opposing, but Democrats are predicting that they will gain enough seats to withstand a filibuster.
Why have unions placed this at the top of their legislative agenda? Changing the rules would only make a difference if workers were unwilling to vote in private for unionization, but apparently there are a lot of companies where unions think that this change will make a difference. After all, the AFL-CIO calls the “Employee Free Choice Act” its million-member mobilization.
Unions are making an all-out push to get this passed, planning to spend $360 million on the 2008 election, $200 million more than in 2004 general election. Just one union alone, the Service Employees International Union, plans on spending $75 million this year, much of it to help the Democratic presidential nominee. Compare that to the $83 million that John McCain will be able to spend during the fall general election.
That's not all. The Service Employees International Union is already committed to making 10 million telephone calls early next year to congressmen to ensure this bill gets enacted.
Unions are understandably desperate to increase membership, as membership has been declining for decades, the share of private-sector workers who are union members falling from around 35 percent in the 1950s to 8.2 percent in 2007. Public-sector union membership has declined, but much more slowly, still representing 36 percent of government workers in 2007. The decline has continued under both Democratic and Republican presidents.
Obama has promised in many ways to help unions and protect their workers from competition. He wants to renegotiate the NAFTA agreement signed under President Clinton. He opposes free trade agreements with such strong American allies as Colombia. He has long been opposed to educational vouchers, something teachers’ unions also strongly oppose. But despite all his troubles with working-class voters, it is hard to think of much else that Obama could promise unions.
Obama claims that strengthening unions is good because unions will “lift up the middle-class in this country once more.” But protecting teachers unions from competition comes at the expense of students. Protecting workers from trade competition comes at the expense of customers and even other workers (e.g., if you protect steel workers from competition, the prices of American-made cars rise relative to foreign-made ones).
Unionization virtually always raises some workers' salaries at the expense of other workers. If unions insist on increasing worker pay by threatening strikes that shut down companies, firms reduce the number of workers they hire. Some workers gain higher wages, but only at the expense of causing other workers to lose their jobs. Possibly this last point explains why unions want to scrape secret ballots.
It is hard to believe that Obama and Democrats really think that eliminating secret ballots is a good idea. Surely, they are not going to start proposing we start getting rid of secret ballots all together and let voters simply sign cards? But their desire to impose unionization, whether workers really want it, is overriding their common sense. Their proposal will make the country and most workers poorer.
Presidential Power-Tripping
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,356630,00.html
The most important issue in this November's presidential election isn't Iraq or terrorism or the economy, though it plays into all three. The most important issue is presidential power.
In our history and civics classes, we're taught that the genius of the Constitution is the checks and balances it imposes on the three branches of government. The founders understood that each branch — the president, the Congress and the courts — would seek to expand its power. They then set up a system that not only acknowledges man's desire to accumulate power but also one that harnesses that desire and uses it to keep any one branch from becoming too influential.
That system has mostly served us well. But an important new book details how the delicate balance of power in the federal government has been unraveling for nearly a century now, and underscores how important it is that we elect a president this November who understands the constitutional boundaries of the office.
Unfortunately, that isn't likely to happen.
"The Cult of the Presidency" by the Cato Institute's Gene Healy (I should disclose that Healy is a friend and former colleague) provides a history of the office of the presidency. It's a fascinating narrative of how the office that was meant to be little more than an administrator of the nation's laws (George Washington referred to it as "chief magistrate") has grown into the equivalent of an elected monarch.
It's a curious thing in America that each July we celebrate how the founding fathers threw off the shackles of an oppressive monarchy, that we favorably compare our republican system of governance with the world's tyrants, dictatorships and monarchies (and rightly so) -- and yet we then celebrate those American presidents who most behaved like tyrants, monarchs and dictators.
Presidents like Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman are regularly put at the top of lists of America's greatest presidents. This is true when both historians and the American public at large are polled. Yet these are presidents who did everything they could to expand the power of their offices, to extend the sphere of influence of the federal government and to bully through policies that met inconvenient hurdles otherwise known as checks and balances.
Woodrow Wilson ran for president on a peace platform, then dragged us through the bloody trench carnage of World War I. Oh, and he imprisoned thousands of critics and war protesters in the process. Teddy Roosevelt once lamented that he didn't have a war during his administration to make him great, and compared the stakes of his third-party run for the White House to the rapture and second coming of Jesus Christ.
Franklin Roosevelt broke the tradition set by George Washington of serving just two terms. When the Supreme Court rebuffed his attempts to pass unconstitutional legislation, he tried to expand the number of justices on the Court to ensure a friendly majority. Harry Truman was the first president to pull America into a protracted war without first consulting Congress. He then sought to nationalize private companies to ensure that war was properly outfitted.
These are odd men to call heroes.
Inexplicably, the presidents who knew and understood their constitutional limits, who respected those limits and who generally took a more laissez-faire approach to government get short shrift — even derision — from historians.
Men like Calvin Coolidge, Warren Harding, Rutherford B. Hayes and Grover Cleveland merely exhibited what Healy calls "stolid, boring competence." Historians loathe them, Healy writes, because they had the audacity to "content themselves simply with presiding over peace and prosperity" and not seek to remake the world in their own image. The nerve of them.
Today, the president oversees 1.8 million federal employees. The federal government is America's largest employer. Moreover, we today expect much more from the president than merely to enforce the nation's laws. We expect him to console us in times of tragedy or natural disaster, to inspire us in times of war. Some even look to the president for spiritual guidance. The enormity of the office grows more unsettling when you consider the set of skills and traits it takes to get elected. As Healy explains, the long, brutal, expensive primary and general election process selects people with massive egos, people willing to subject themselves to all sorts of abuse in the pursuit of power and people willing to accept favors from all sorts of interests as they ascend from office to office — favors from people who generally expect to be repaid.
George Washington set perhaps the most important precedent in the history of the idea of a constitutional republic when he declined to seek a third term. He could have been a king if he'd so chosen. Despite achieving myth-like reverence and adulation while still in office, Washington had the humility and the foresight to understand the importance of leaving power on the table. Doing so not only limited his own power but began the voluntary two-term tradition that lasted 140 years.
While both Barack Obama and John McCain have in some way acknowledged that the Bush administration has dangerously pushed the limits of executive power, neither has indicated exactly what powers, if elected, he would give back or what steps he'd take to make sure those powers aren't later invoked by a successor.
Perhaps it's too much to hope for another George Washington. Instead, this November, it looks as if our choices are a man who styles himself after John F. Kennedy and a man who idolizes Teddy Roosevelt.
That doesn't bode well for the next four years, or for the imperial presidency's continuing threat to American democracy.
Christian Defense Coalition Calls for Apology from Governor Huckabee in Reference to Comments Regarding Senator Obama
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07195.shtml
WASHINGTON, (christiansunite.com) -- The Christian Defense Coalition calls for Governor Huckabee to apologize for his thoughtless, insensitive and troubling remarks about Senator Obama.
At a National Rifle Association convention in Louisville today, CNN and Associated Press reported that Governor Huckabee quipped that a loud noise backstage was Senator Obama dodging a gunman.
Governor Huckabee's quote was, "That was Barak Obama, he just tripped off a chair, he's getting ready to speak. Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor."
The Coalition finds it reprehensible that a major and respected political figure like Governor Huckabee would make such a disturbing statement.
It is critical for Governor Huckabee, who is as a devoted person of faith, to apologize immediately to Senator Obama and ask for forgiveness.
This statement reinforces the public misconception that republicans are "mean spirited" and a angry party.
Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, Director of the Christian Defense Coalition, "I have great respect for Governor Huckabee. That is why I was so stunned to read about his thoughtless and troubling remarks about Senator Obama. These comments were not humorous and funny but were disturbing and outrageous.
"There is no context one can talk about someone aiming a gun at Senator Obama and having it be anything but reprehensible. My hope and prayer is that Governor Huckabee will personally call Senator Obama to apologize and ask for his forgiveness.
"In a time when politics is getting nastier and more vicious, statements like this must be unequivocally condemned by all. Governor Huckabee's comments are even more offensive when it has been reported over the past several months that Senator Obama has received numerous death threats."
Pelosi 'trusts all presidential contenders on Israel'
http://www.jnewswire.com/article/2450
When it comes to how they will relate towards Israel if and when they get to the White House, US Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi says she is sure all the presidential contenders will do "the right thing."
Pelosi, a Democrat, is best known in Israel for having flown into the region in April 2007, a few months after her ascension to what has been described as the second most powerful position in the United States, to meet with terrorist-sponsoring Damascus dictator Bashar el-Assad.
She is currently visiting Israel at the head of a delegation to mark the 60th anniversary of the rebirth of the Jewish state.
According to a columnist in the leftist Israeli daily Ha'aretz, Pelosi "has faith in both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the members of her own Democratic party who are chasing the presidency, and even the candidate from the opposing Republican party, John McCain. Everyone, everyone will support Israel."
The American also believes Israel will be around "forever."
In an exclusive interview to The Jerusalem Post, Pelosi sought to also address Israel's concerns about a nuclear-seeking Iran.
The speaker said Washington must assert to the rest of the world that if they want to be friends with America, they need to do more to keep Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, said the Post.
Her solution to stopping the Iranian juggernaut is limited, however, to diplomacy. She will not brook a military response to the threat.
"[US President George W] Bush consistently said he supports a diplomatic resolution to differences with Iran and I take him at his word," an Associated Press report quoted Pelosi as saying.
"At the same time, I do believe that Congress should assert itself, though, and make it very clear that there is no previous authority for the president, any president, to go into Iran."
As election year in the US gathers steam, many expect the Democrats - who already control Capitol Hill - to move into the White House early next year.
With their anti-Iraq-war and talk-to-terrorists platforms, a Democrat win will be seen by many in Israel as dealing a sever blow to the security of the Jewish state.
Justices: Child Porn Not Protected Speech
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/377802.aspx
CBNNews.com - It is still a crime to promote or present material as child pornography, the Supreme Court ruled Monday.
Monday's 7-2 ruling upheld part of a 2003 law that also prohibits possession of child porn. That law had replaced an earlier law against child pornography that the court struck down as unconstitutional.
Violators could be sentenced to a five-year mandatory prison term for promoting child porn.
Real or Not Real?
Originally, the 2003 provision was struck down by the 11th U.S. Circuit of Appeals. The lower court said it makes a crime out of merely talking about illegal images or possessing innocent materials that someone else might believe is pornography.
Opponents argued that the law could apply to movies like Traffic or Titanic that depict adolescent sex.
But Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, said it does not cover movie sex.
There is no "possibility that virtual child pornography or sex between youthful-looking adult actors might be covered by the term 'simulated sexual intercourse,"' Scalia said.
Likewise, Scalia said First Amendment protections do not apply to "offers to provide or requests to obtain child pornography."
Justice David Souter, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, dissented.
Souter said promotion of images that are not real children engaging in pornography still could be the basis for prosecution under the law. Possession of those images, on the other hand, may not be prosecuted, Souter said.
"I believe that maintaining the First Amendment protection of expression we have previously held to cover fake child pornography requires a limit to the law's criminalization of pandering proposals," Souter said.
The Case in Question
The case involves Michael Williams, convicted in a Florida federal court for promoting child pornography on the Internet. Authorities arrested Williams in an undercover operation aimed at fighting child exploitation on the Internet.
A Secret Service agent engaged Williams in an Internet chat room, where they swapped non-pornographic photographs.
After the initial photo exchange, Williams allegedly posted seven images of actual minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct.
Agents who executed a search warrant found 22 child porn images on Williams' home computer.
Williams also was convicted of possession of child pornography. That conviction, and the resulting five-year prison term, was not challenged.
The case is U.S. v. Williams, 06-694.
Christians Argue over Global Warming
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/376084.aspx
CBNNews.com - Some evangelical groups have said it's a Christian's duty to fight global warming.
But a number of Christian Conservatives who gathered in Washington Thursday disagree.
They presented a moral case for slowing down the climate change fight.
Hold On a Second!
"Many hundreds of scientists are saying 'Wait a minute. What we're seeing as the consensus or what's purported to be the consensus really isn't a consensus of scientists. That there is uncertainty, there is disagreement,'" climatologist, Dr. David Legates, said.
Sen. James Inhofe says he used to believe in global warming until he really started to study the science. Now he no longer buys what pro-climate control groups like the National Academy of Sciences and the United Nations claim.
"Just keep in mind they're the same guys who back in the 1970s were saying another ice age is coming and we're all going to die," he said. "So we thought we'd really look at the science and we did."
Inhofe states the science is flawed and schemes like the Kyoto Treaty and others will cost hundreds of billions of dollars and send food and energy prices soaring. And who gets hurt the worst by that?
"It disproportionately hurts the poorest of poor people," he explained.
"We're simply going to increase the hardship that the poor and vulnerable in this country and around the world are already experiencing," said Dr. Barrett Burke of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Burke went on to explain that Christians do have a duty to be wise stewards of the earth and its resources.
"We're not anti-earth. It isn't as though we think the earth is here to be abused. It's not. This is God's creation. We have a responsibility to care for it," he said.
But he pointed out unproven solutions to an unproven crisis like man-made global warming goes against Christians' high calling to care for the poor.
"It's certainly is an unbiblical response to how we have a responsibility to help care for, meet the needs and lift the poor out of their poverty," Burke said.
These groups who want the world to slow down before it rushes off willy-nilly to fight global warming are asking Christians who agree with them to do something. They're hoping to get a million Christians to go to the new Web site, We Get It, and sign a statement saying the science needs to be settled before governments take draconian action to control climate.
They think they'll do particularly well with conservative Christians. They cite a recent study by the Barna Group that found just 33 percent of evangelicals think global warming is a major challenge. Of 10 groups polled, evangelicals were by far the most skeptical about global warming.
The Evangelical Climate Initiative
But both sides in this debate have their own statistics.
Christians gathered under the title Evangelical Climate Initiative released a poll late last year showing 84 percent of evangelicals want laws to reduce man-made global warming, and that 54 percent of evangelicals are more likely to support candidates who'll work to reduce global warming pollution.
When that poll came out, one of the Evangelical Climate Initiative's leaders spoke with CBN News. David Clark, a former chairman of the National Religious Broadcasters, took on the worry of many conservative Christians that mandatory controls to slow down global warming would also slow down the American economy.
Clark said, "This is not an anti-business movement. In actual fact, it could generate many new businesses over time. You've got people like GE and GM and many others…Walmart…who have said 'we need to address this issue.'"
And Rick Warren, author of The Purpose-Driven Life, signed on to a letter by the Evangelical Climate Initiative that asks government to step in and control carbon dioxide emissions that may add to global warming.
"We can't be all God wants us to be without caring about the Earth. I think that is kind of a no-brainer," Warren said.
But Christians on the other side of this debate say too much is still unproven, and until the science on global warming is rock-solid, it's too soon to go ahead with solutions that will radically alter life for billions of people, especially the poor.
Radio talk show hostess Janet Parshall at Thursday's news conference pointed out that God loves people most of all and He considers them the crown of His creation.
She said, "We want real science so we can get real answers, not supercilious science built on political platforms. We want them to be answers that will be, number one, biblical; That, number two, are sound in their science; That, number three, do not break the back economically of the crown of God's creation."
Go Green, Not Gullible
The Family Research Council's Tony Perkins says he doesn't want his generation remembered as naïve Americans "who surrendered our national sovereignty and the income of families to pursue science that is speculative at best."
He said, "You can be green without being gullible."
31,000 Scientists Debunk Al Gore and Global Warming
http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/al_gore_global_warming/2008/05/19/97307.html
An incredible 31,072 Americans with university degrees in science, including 9,021 Ph.D.s, have signed a petition that flatly denies Al Gore’s claims that human-caused global warming is a settled scientific fact.
Gore calls scientists and others who question the reality of human-caused global warming “deniers” and claims they are a tiny minority among the scientific community who he insists almost universally agree that the planet is being threatened by the alleged warming of the earth.
Gore told CBS’ Leslie Stahl on "60 Minutes" recently, "I think those people are in such a tiny, tiny minority now with their point of view. They're almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the world is flat."
These 31,072 scientists do not believe the world is flat, and they say there is no convincing scientific evidence that so-called greenhouse gasses are causing catastrophic heating of the earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the earth’s climate.
On Monday, Dr. Arthur Robinson of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, (OISM) announced the results of a drive asking scientists to sign a petition stating: “We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto Japan in December 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limit on greenhouse gasses would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.”
The petition went on to say, “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the earth.”
Robinson explained that the purpose of OISM’s petition project is to demonstrate that the claim of “settled science” and an overwhelming “consensus” in favor of the hypothesis of human-caused global warming and consequent climate damage is wrong.
Despite Gore’s extravagant claims, the petition shows that no such consensus or settled science exists.
In 2001, OISM circulated what was known as the Oregon Petition, and according to Lawrence Solomon, executive director of Energy Probe and author of “The Deniers: The World-Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud,” that effort, spearheaded by Dr. Frederick Seitz, past president of the National Academy of Sciences and of Rockefeller University, gathered an astounding 17,800 signatures.
To establish that the effort was bona fide, and not spawned by kooks on the fringes of science, as global warming advocates often label the skeptics, the 2001 effort was spearheaded by Dr. Seitz, a towering figure in the world of science.
Solomon wrote, “The Oregon Petition garnered an astounding 17,800 signatures, a number all the more astounding because of the unequivocal stance that these scientists took: Not only did they dispute that there was convincing evidence of harm from carbon dioxide emissions, they asserted that Kyoto itself would harm the global environment because increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the earth.”
According to Dr. Robinson, “As indicated by the petition text and signatory list, a very large number of American scientists reject this hypothesis.”
Solomon asked, “How many scientists does it take to establish that a consensus does not exist on global warming?”
California High Court Decision Striking Down Marriage Underscores Need for Congress to Pass AFM's Marriage Protection Amendment
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07198.shtml
WASHINGTON, (christiansunite.com) -- The Alliance for Marriage Foundation urged the people of California to constitutionally protect marriage in their state, while calling upon Congress to pass AFM's federal Marriage Protection Amendment in the aftermath of a California Supreme Court decision striking down marriage.
"In the most populous state in the Union, radical activists have convinced judges to ignore the will of the people and to follow the destructive lead of the Massachusetts courts in striking down the common sense definition of marriage," said Matt Daniels, president and founder of the Alliance for Marriage Foundation. "California is now ground-zero in the Battle to Protect Marriage, and the fight in California must now be joined in the Congress."
Recently, California voters delivered over 1.1 million signatures to protect marriage with a constitutional amendment. The signatures are being verified by county election officials for the constitutional amendment to be approved for the November 2008 ballot.
"The future of marriage in California should be determined among the 36 million residents of the State of California -- not by the personal, closed-door deliberation of seven judges," said Rev. Sam Rodriguez, Jr., an Advisory Board Member of the Alliance for Marriage Foundation. "For several decades, America has been wandering in a wilderness of social problems caused by family disintegration. Tragically, as bad as our current situation may be, today's decision by the Court can only make the situation dramatically worse."
"Given the continuous attacks upon marriage in courts across the country, AFM's Marriage Protection Amendment is clearly the only hope for the American people to determine the future of marriage under our laws," Daniels added.
"Americans want our laws to send a positive message to children about marriage, family and their future," said Daniels.
The Alliance for Marriage is a non-partisan, multicultural coalition whose Board of Advisors includes Rev. Walter Fauntroy -- the former DC Delegate who organized the March on Washington for Martin Luther King Jr. -- as well as other civil rights and religious leaders, and national legal experts.
California Supreme Court Betrays 'We the People' on Marriage
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07197.shtml
WASHINGTON, (christiansunite.com) -- The California Supreme Court imposed, through judicial fiat, so-called same- sex marriage on Californians, thus totally disregarding the sanctity of marriage and the will of the people. In 2000, Californians adopted Proposition 22 to protect marriage and maintain its definition as a union between one man and one woman, and expressly prohibiting the state from recognizing same sex marriages.
To ensure that marriage is protected and the voice of the people is heard, a constitutional marriage amendment must be placed on the November ballot and national efforts need to be made to generate a federal constitutional marriage amendment. The decision must be removed from the hands of judicial activists and returned to the rightful hands of the people.
Matt Barber, CWA Policy Director for Cultural Issues, said "The California Supreme Court has engaged in the worst kind of judicial activism today, abandoning its role as an objective interpreter of the law and, instead, legislating from the bench. It's absurd to suggest that the framers of the California state constitution could have ever imagined there'd be a day when so-called 'same-sex marriage' would even be conceptualized, much less seriously considered. If anyone then had suggested the ridiculous notion, early Californians would have laughed their smocks off.
"So-called 'same-sex' marriage is counterfeit marriage. Marriage is, and has always been, between a man and a woman. We know that it's in the best interest of children to be raised with a mother and a father. To use children as guinea pigs in radical San Francisco-style social experimentation is deplorable.
"The majority of Americans recognize the fact that legitimate marriage and family are cornerstones of a healthy society. Reasonable people have had enough and are refusing to allow radical extremists to redefine marriage and family into oblivion. So-called 'same- sex marriage' is a ridiculous and oxymoronic notion that has been forced into popular lexicon by homosexual activists and their extremist left-wing allies.
"If people who engage in homosexual behavior want to dress up and play house, that's their prerogative, but we shouldn't destroy the institutions of legitimate marriage and family in order to help facilitate a counterfeit.
"On a positive note, the Court's decision today will likely serve as a wake-up call to both Californians and their fellow Americans across the country. I'm certain this decision will help fuel a California marriage amendment and re-ignite debate over a federal amendment which would protect marriage as between one man and one woman."
Concerned Women for America is the nation's largest public policy women's organization.
Group Launches 'Narnia' Bible Study
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/377896.aspx
CBNNews.com - The new Chronicles of Narnia movie has the top spot at the box office.
Prince Caspian brought in more than $56 million over the weekend in the U.S. and Canada, and an additional $20 million overseas.
That is the second best opening for a movie this year.
For many Christians, Prince Caspian is more than just a movie.
Like The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, this C.S. Lewis classic is providing an opportunity for evangelism.
Just as the new Disney film opens in theaters nation-wide, a Christian group, Outreach Incorporated, is launching a massive Bible study program based on this C.S. Lewis classic.
"With Prince Caspian, we wanted to produce some tools that would make it really easy for churches to reach out and to share some of the spiritual themes that were in the movie," said Scott Evans, president of Outreach Incorporated.
The strong biblical lessons of Prince Caspian drive home spiritual truths, Evans said.
"If we go back to The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, when the kids left Narnia, Narnia was a place of faith. And Aslan was present. When we fast forward and they go back into Narnia a year later it's been 1,300 Narnia years," Evans said.
"During that 1,300 years when the kids go back, there is no more faith," he added.
With that in mind, the Outreach developers came up with The Faith Journal book.
"If people could learn how to write down what God's doing in their lives, what's happening, they can look back and see where God's been active in their lives," Evans said.
"There's also a section to (write down) prayer requests and answers. And a Bible reading checklist to help people read through the Bible."
Their Web site - Outreach.com - also provides free Prince Caspian materials to help churches reach out to others, including sermon ideas and a Vacation Bible School curriculum to download.
"This movie is a great way to be able to build bridges, to be able to have a dialogue, a conversation about faith and to be able to help people grow in their faith," Evans said.
Metal Storm Conducts Electromagnetic Interference Tests on Its 40mm Munitions
http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/industrials/metal-storm-conducts-electromagnetic-interference-tests-mm-munitions/
BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA, May 19, 2008 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) ----Defence technology company Metal Storm Limited (ASX: MST: 6.00, +0.00, +0.00%) (NASDAQ: MTSX: 1.10, -0.03, -2.65%) is pleased to announce that is has conducted successful Electromagnetic Interference (EMI: 12.30, +0.05, +0.40%) Testing on its 40mm ammunition tail propulsion system.
The tests conducted at a National Association of Testing Authorities (NATA) accredited facility in Melbourne were the most rigorous yet undertaken on a key piece of Metal Storm technology and revealed the selected energetic was well configured to pass more stringent EMI tests in the next 12 months.
Metal Storm CEO Dr Lee Finniear said the tests showed no significant flaws in the Metal Storm tail technology, giving the company a high degree of confidence in progressing the testing to a full military specification test regime without significant risk of failure.
"These tests have given us peace of mind about our ability to ultimately certify a unique inductive firing capability and they support the progression of Metal Storm technology to certification and, ultimately, commercialisation," Dr Finniear said.
"The exercise has provided a great deal of technical data about the immunity of the tail propulsion system in an adverse EMI environment. Our ultimate goal is for the Metal Storm tail system to be certified according to current military standards for anticipated operational use."
Metal Storm has fired a wide range of explosive munition payloads from its 40mm weapon systems, which operate at the same muzzle velocity and effective range as other conventional 40mm munitions.
Its munition range includes high explosive, air burst, enhanced blast and less lethal rounds and it has future plans to expand its current range of low velocity munitions into medium velocity and high velocity munitions to extend their range, lethality and capability.
Dr Finniear said EMI compliance was a first order priority in terms of getting Metal Storm technology certified for use within its intended operational environment.
The actual test process was closely aligned with relevant military standards and is a step towards formal military EMI certification for munitions. Furthermore, the chosen EMC (Electromagnetic Compatibility) test facility has the highest commercial EMI capability in Australia.
Dr Finniear said the expected risk associated with the Metal Storm technology within an EMI environment had been significantly reduced as a result of the testing activity and the next round of tests would be conducted at an offshore facility.
MPs back human-animal embryos
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/mps.back.human.animal.embryos/18901.htm
LONDON - Parliament backed on Monday the creation of human-animal embryos which some scientists say are vital to research cures for diseases but religious leaders have argued pervert God's creation.
Human-animal embryo research is banned in a number of other countries including Australia, France, Germany and Italy.
Parliament defeated an amendment to ban inter-species research -- in which human DNA is injected into cells derived from animals -- by 336 to 176 after hours of impassioned debate on ethics versus science.
The human fertilisation and embryology bill prohibits the transfer of the embryos to a human or animal and says they cannot be used for research beyond 14 days.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown supports the creation of human-animal or "admixed" embryos but some Roman Catholic members of his government oppose the research.
"If we want to sustain stem cell research and bring new cures and treatments to millions of people, I believe admixed embryos are necessary," Brown argued in a newspaper article.
MPs were allowed to vote according to their conscience on this aspect of the bill rather than along party lines.
The bill, which updates 1990 laws, is at committee stage when amendments are tabled and will be subject to a final vote in coming weeks.
Two groups of scientists have already been given permission to create human-animal admixed embryos. The bill legalises their research within set guidelines.
Some researchers say allowing admixed embryos would open more avenues as they seek cures for conditions like motor neurone disease or Parkinson's.
They say their creation would help resolve a deficit of donated human eggs, a barrier to embryonic stem cell research.
But other scientists and religious leaders say that creating human-animal embryos is unethical, and using them for research is a blind alley that won't cure disease. One Catholic cardinal called the research "Frankenstein science".
"SAVIOUR SIBLINGS"
Critics say alternatives such as cells from umbilical cord blood are more promising for research and less ethically troubling.
David King, director of the campaign group Human Genetics Alert, said he feared sufferers of Alzheimer's and other diseases were being offered false hope.
"It is very sad that all these patient groups have been hyped up to believe in this stuff. They are going to be very disappointed. It is very unfair," he told reporters.
Parliamentarians will vote later on Monday on whether to allow the creation of "saviour siblings" -- babies born from embyros selected through in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) because they are a tissue match for a sibling with a genetic condition.
Supporters say this will help children who cannot find matching tissue donors, but critics worry about the impact on children who have been created for the sole purpose of improving a sibling's health, particularly if the treatment fails.
The embryology debate will continue on Tuesday when members of parliament will vote on moves to end the need for IVF clinics to consider a child's need for a father.
This would ease restrictions on lesbian couples and single women but opponents argue that a child needs a father.
Parliament will also vote on Tuesday on abortion laws. Some MPs are seeking to lower the 24-week time limit for abortions. Brown favours the status quo.
Poll says rising number of Irish back EU treaty
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyid=2008-05-17T124544Z_01_L17281793_RTRUKOC_0_UK-IRELAND-TREATY-POLL.xml
DUBLIN (Reuters) - A growing number of Irish voters say they will back the European Union's reform treaty in next month's referendum, although nearly half of those canvassed remain undecided, a poll showed on Saturday.
Ireland is the only EU state planning a referendum on the treaty, meaning that a "no" vote could sink the project designed to end years of diplomatic wrangling over reform of the bloc's institutions.
A poll in the Irish Times newspaper found that 35 percent of Irish people said they would vote "yes" on June 12, up from 26 percent in a previous survey conducted in January.
Those who said they would oppose it rose to 18 percent from 10 percent, while 47 percent said they were undecided, down from 64 percent in January.
Ireland, whose rapid economic growth over the past decade has been underpinned in part by EU funding, is generally seen as being among the region's most pro-European countries. But that has not always guaranteed success at the ballot box in the past.
In 2001, Irish voters rejected the Nice Treaty designed to enable EU enlargement, forcing the government to hold a second vote that was widely criticised as undemocratic. A second vote is unlikely to be an option in 2008.
Brian Cowen, who took over as Ireland's prime minister this month, has said approving the accord was a key priority for the government in the next few weeks.
"If we vote yes we remain at the heart of a successful Europe, making our voice heard and continuing to benefit," Cowen said in a campaign speech to voters on Friday evening.
"A no vote will put us on the outside and rejects the policies which have helped us to achieve so much."
Opponents fear the treaty will damage Ireland's military neutrality and its power to regulate its own tax affairs. The government and the accord's supporters say it safeguards those concerns.
The poll on Saturday showed only 6 percent of people had a good understanding of the treaty, which replaces an EU constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005.
The survey was conducted by pollsters TNS mrbi on May 12 and 13 among 1,000 voters across the country, out of an electorate of around 3.2 million people. The margin of error was plus or minus 3 percent.
UK foreign minister mooted for EU job
http://euobserver.com/9/26166?rss_rk=1
The UK foreign office has denied reports in a German newspaper that foreign minister David Miliband is looking to become the EU's next foreign policy chief.
Die Welt am Sonntag yesterday (18 May) reported "high-ranking EU diplomats" as saying that Mr Miliband had the support of France and other countries to become the high representative for foreign and security policy next year.
He would replace Spain's Javier Solana who has been in the job since 1999.
A foreign office spokesperson, quoted by Reuters news agency, said Mr Miliband, who is 42 and is seen as one of the UK governing Labour party's strongest young politicians, was concentrating on his current job.
"The foreign secretary is fully focussed on being foreign secretary," said the spokesperson.
If ratification of the EU's new set of institutional rules, the Lisbon Treaty, is completed this year, Mr Solana is likely to take on the expanded foreign minister role in January to be replaced by someone else when the new European Commission takes office in autumn.
The new post foresees the foreign policy chief being both the vice-president of the commission as well as the permanent chair of the regular meeting of EU foreign ministers. The post would also be backed up an EU diplomatic service.
This scraps the current overlapping situation of having an external relations commissioner as well as foreign policy chief.
Mr Miliband, who is seen as pro-Europe, is said to have a good reputation in several EU capitals. A speech that he was supposed to give im autumn last year and which was toned down for being too European gave him a lot of positive attention.
In addition, putting a Briton in this post could dilute London's opposition to Luxembourg prime minister Jean-Claude Juncker becoming EU president - the second high-ranking post that the treaty foresees beginning early next year.
Britain is seen as opposing Mr Juncker, who has indicated that he thinks that the president's post should be politically substantial rather than purely ceremonial, for being too federalist.
Talks on who should fill all the posts that are coming up next year are expected to start in earnest under the French EU presidency, beginning on 1 July.
Aside from personalities, discussions also have to take into account political affiliation. Mr Juncker is a centre-right politician while Mr Miliband is from the centre-left. Current speculation puts centre-right Jose Manuel Barroso in for a second term as European Commission president.
The role of European Parliament president is also being taken into consideration in the EU cauldron. Parliament officials suggest the five-year post could be split between Jerzy Buzek, a Polish centre-right MEP, and Martin Schulz, a German MEP, currently head of the socialist faction in the EU assembly.
However, this set-up does not yet foresee anything for the liberals, currently the third biggest political family in Europe.
Netanyahu calls for new elections
http://www.jnewswire.com/article/2449
The leader of the Israeli opposition Likud Party, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Monday that the coalition led by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert "must return the mandate to the people to choose another government."
"The Olmert-Kadima government has no mandate to negotiate on Israel’s borders," the former prime minister said, according to Ynetnews.
"This government was elected under different circumstances and times. Most of the public knows that any land we give away will become a terror base for Islam extremists under Iran’s patronage," Netanyahu told a Likud faction meeting, which along with the other parties' Knesset factions was holding its first meeting in six weeks.
"Bibi" - as the Likud leader is widely known - steered clear of exploiting the ongoing criminal investigation into Olmert, who is being probed for having allegedly taken bribes.
Instead he homed in on the inability of Olmert's government to adhere to its basic guidelines as laid out when it came to power on May 4, 2006.
Olmert and his Kadima Party were elected to continue efforts to pave the way for a two-state solution begun when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon executed the "disengagement" [in reality, retreat – Ed] from the Gaza Strip.
The next step, which Sharon was gearing up to perpetrate when he was felled by a hemorrhagic stroke in December 2005, was retreat from Samaria and Judea - the ethnic cleansing of Jews and the destruction of all Jewish towns and cities in those areas in order that a Palestinian state can be created there.
Samaria and Judea comprise the biblical heartland of the Jewish people, the cradle of their nationhood. The Jewish patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph are buried there, and the Old City of Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount and the Mount of Olives are situated in those "occupied territories."
According to "the Basic Guidelines of the 31st Government of Israel" Olmert's administration committed itself to "take action even in the absence of negotiations and agreement with [the 'Palestinians'] on the basis of a broad national consensus in Israel and a deep understanding with Israel’s friends in the world, primarily the United States of America and President George Bush [to establish] Israel’s territory, the borders of which will be determined by the Government [and which] will entail the reduction of Israeli settlement in Judea and Samaria."
In the two years since the government's election, all Israel has learned the price for relinquishing territory:
The Palestinian Arabs turned the surrendered Gaza Strip into a terrorist base from which thousands of rockets have been fired into southern Israel - those attacks continuing to this day - Israeli soldiers have been regularly attacked and Gilad Schalit - the then 19-year-old IDF corporal - was kidnapped and is still being held.
In the summer of 2006 the Lebanese Hizb'allah, using territory unilaterally vacated by Israel, kidnapped Israeli soldiers, triggering the Second Lebanon War which saw thousands of rockets fired into northern Israel, causing more than a million Israelis to flee south.
It is in the light of these painful realities, Netanyahu said, that new elections have to be held.
Israeli state prosecutor: There were no election campaigns when PM received cash envelopes
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5281
As this damaging revelation emerged in the High Court Monday, May 19, prime minister Ehud Olmert’s office announced he would undergo a routine hospital test that night to monitor his prostrate cancer, which was disclosed last October as not life-threatening. The prime minister, 62, decided to postpone surgery at that time.
Police have been waiting three days for Olmert to find an hour to be questioned again.
The High Court’s three-judge panel heard a petition submitted by his lawyers against the Jerusalem District Court’s decision to hear pre-trial testimony from the Long Island financier Morris Talansky regarding the money he gave Olmert in previous years. The prime minister’s attorneys argued that this preliminary testimony given in open court would prejudice his right to a fair trial. It would have the effect of putting the prime minister in the dock and force the prosecution to put him on trial.
The State Prosecutor Moshe Lador said preliminary testimony must be taken from Talansky without delay because he refuses to stay in Israel after May 26 and may not return.
The prime minister has claimed that donations he received were campaign funds. Lador told the court that they were handed over at times when he was not running for election. They were passed to him “in cash, in dollars, in envelopes,” on his visits to the US and at home through his office manager, Shula Zaken.
The suspicions against him of accepting illicit moneys refer to the periods when he served as trade and industry in the Sharon government and earlier, during his two terms as mayor of Jerusalem and before that as health minister. He is being investigated for disposing of donations for purposes other than stated.
Lador said the prime minister has not disclosed how the money was used and Zaken has maintained her right to refuse to answer police questions.
The court agreed to hand down its decision without delay.
Opposition leader Likud’s Binyamin Netanyahu called for new elections. Olmert’s Kadima must return its mandate to the people.
DEBKAfile adds: Hanging over the Knesset summer session which began Monday are several no-confidence motions and demands for the prime minister to be declared incapacitated for the duration of the investigation. Several lawmakers on both sides of the house want him suspended in view of the gravity of the suspicions against him and because his defense will keep him too busy for the competent conduct affairs of state, especially urgent matters of national security.
Olmert skeptical of cease-fire, but going along for Mubarak
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1210668678697&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Israel is skeptical that a cease-fire with Hamas will be reached and, therefore, the IDF is preparing for a large-scale military operation in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said in recent closed-door meetings while adding that he is letting the process play out in order to show respect for the Egyptian leadership.
On Monday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Intelligence Minister Omar Suleiman in Sharm e-Sheikh and presented them with Israel's proposal for a cease-fire in Gaza - a two-stage deal that would first include a cessation of military operations and terror activity and then a lifting of the siege over Gaza in exchange for the advancement in negotiations over the release of kidnapped soldier Gilad Schalit.
Barak told Mubarak that the continued Kassam rocket attacks against Israel would speed up an escalation on the Gaza front and an Israeli military invasion.
On Tuesday, Suleiman will meet with a Hamas delegation, led by Moussa Abu Marzuk, deputy head of the group's Damascus-based political bureau, in Cairo and present them with Barak's two-stage proposal. Israeli defense officials said it was likely that Hamas would accept the new terms.
During their meeting, Barak also stressed Israel's position that Schalit's release must be part of any cease-fire deal with Hamas in Gaza.
A cease-fire, he said, would only be accepted by Israel after a complete cessation of terrorist activity by Hamas and other terror factions, as well as a stop to the smuggling of weapons from the Sinai into Gaza.
Kadima MK Shai Hermesh said Monday that Olmert told him in a closed-door meeting last week that while he was "very skeptical" about the chances of reaching an Egyptian-mediated cease-fire, he is letting the process play out in order to show respect to Suleiman.
Hermesh lives in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, where resident Jimmy Kedoshim was killed by mortar fire two weeks ago. He said he told Olmert about the suffering of his neighbors and Olmert responded that if Israel's demands were not met in the talks, there would be a military operation in the Gaza Strip that would be "difficult and painful."
Olmert's spokesman denied that Olmert would say he was very skeptical of the talks or that they were intended to please Mubarak. But he said Olmert's threat to take action in the Gaza Strip was real and serious.
The prime minister told the Kadima faction repeatedly on Monday that "decision time was approaching" regarding whether there should be a major operation in the Gaza Strip.
"The perpetual threat has reached a climax," Olmert told the MKs. "Israel cannot allow the current situation in the South to continue."
Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter and Vice Premier Haim Ramon all urged Olmert in the meeting to expedite an operation in the Gaza Strip.
"We know who the address is and who is leading [the attacks on Israeli civilians]," Mofaz said. "I very much hope the time has come to change the policies and change the situation. We don't need to make deals with terrorist organizations."
Dichter, who lives in Ashkelon, warned that tragedies would soon outnumber miracles in his city. Ramon acknowledged that Israel is conducting negotiations with Hamas - contrary to the government's own policy on the matter, even if those talks are held via Suleiman.
"Negotiations are being conducted with Hamas in contrast to the government's decision, which has determined that it will only be possible to deal with Hamas after it accepts the conditions of the Quartet," Ramon said. "We aren't fighting against a terror organization, but rather a state of terrorism. A terror organization has an area under its control and Israel cannot, in my opinion, make peace with a Hamas state on the southern border."
Dear Mr President
http://www.stangoodenough.com/?p=138
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.
Although we are thankful to have our capital back after being flooded by your entourage and restricted by your need to move quickly and securely through Jerusalem, Israel will remember your visit, mostly with gratitude and appreciation.
For a nation almost globally bereft of friends, you and your United States are more important and special than you probably know.
Just hours after you left, we watched you embrace the Saudis, then walk hand-in-hand with PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas, and the feel-good atmosphere evaporated, replaced with that old “friend” - uncertainty and unease.
As I am sure you know, some of us - Jews and Christians - have our reservations. Trying to assess your stand vis-à-vis Israel as president and as ally is sometimes like reading two books. In the twilight of your eight-year reign as the world’s most powerful man, it is still hard to pin down exactly where you stand.
This ambivalence - between what you say and do on the one hand, and what you say and do on the other - came across especially clearly in your address to the Israeli Knesset last Thursday.
Your speech, in which you recognized Israel’s ancient origins and its modern achievements, and which included statements and promises of unequivocal US support for Israel, wowed most the Jewish members of parliament, triggering 12 rounds of applause including at least three standing ovations shared by the packed public gallery.
Much of what you said was good; some was less so; and some begs comments and questions. (For a complete parsing of that speech go to Parsing the President.)
I’d like to highlight some things.
You told Israel you saw the rebirth of their national homeland in 1948 as “more than the establishment of a new country. It was the redemption of an ancient promise given to Abraham and Moses and David - a homeland for the chosen people - Eretz Yisrael.”
Your voice, as you outlined the painful history of the nation that had clung to that promise despite all the hatred and persecution they endured, sounded sincere.
“Centuries of suffering and sacrifice would pass before the dream was fulfilled,” you said. “The Jewish people endured the agony of the pogroms, the tragedy of the Great War, and the horror of the Holocaust…” But while “soulless men took away lives and broke apart families…they could not take away the spirit of the Jewish people, and they could not break the promise of God.”
You went on to link the political with the spiritual: The alliance that exists between your country and the nation of Israel, you said, “is grounded in the…bonds of the Book (the Bible).”
Continuing, you applauded Israel’s absorption of Jewish refugees, its forging of “a free and modern society based on the love of liberty, a passion for justice, and a respect for human dignity.”
Israel has “worked tirelessly for peace and fought bravely for freedom,” you said.
You commended Israel’s “pioneer spirit that worked an agricultural miracle and now leads a high-tech revolution” and its “world-class universities and global leadership in business, innovation and the arts.”
Waxing almost poetic, you said that Israel has a resource “more valuable than oil or gold; the talent and determination of a free people who refuse to let any obstacle stand in the way of their destiny.”
Timbre entered your voice as you looked out from the podium at the upturned Jewish faces and emphatically declared to all the “citizens of Israel” that, as proclaimed in oath by graduating officers in the IDF, “Masada shall never fall again and America will be at your side.”
That bold annunciation of America’s determination to fight for Israel’s survival was followed with more bold words:
“As we go forward, our alliance will be guided by clear principles - shared convictions rooted in moral clarity and unswayed by popularity polls or the shifting opinions of international elites.”
Well, this all seems quite clear to me, Mr President. You say you believe the Jewish people are back in their own land in accordance with God’s promise to them, a promise to which they clung through ages of persecution, and which has finally been realized. And you say that that God’s Word, the Bible, is the rock upon which the alliance between Israel and the United States is grounded.
The heart of what you accurately called “Eretz Yisrael” (the Land of Israel) which according to your words you believe was promised to the descendants of Abraham, the Chosen People - i.e. the Jews - is, of course, Judea and Samaria. The Book you referred to tells us that God preordained the return of the Jews to Eretz Yisrael, and that He predestined the restoration of Eretz Yisrael to the Jews.
You acknowledge that Israel has fought bravely, not to take someone else’s land, not to expand its borders and oppress another people, but for freedom.
And you praise Israel for working tirelessly for peace - an assertion Israel’s leaders have repeatedly made, but which the rest of the world has disparaged.
Surely your credentials as a true friend and ardent admirer of Israel are impeccable. Surely those who have questioned your principles, your faith and your moral courage as a Christian have been dreadfully mistaken?
But how is it then, Mr President, that despite all that you say, all that you apparently believe, you still remain “personally committed” to prying this land away from its rightful owners, and giving it to those to whom my God and yours never promised possession of it?
In the case of your words in the Knesset and your deeds in the White House pertaining to Israel, one plus one simply does not equal two.
Do you see them as your fools - those Israelis who drank deeply of your words and applauded every time you made mention of their inheritance and their God?
Are you in fact, as some charge, an evil man bound to evil societies and organizations, working to dupe and falsely lull the Jews into a sense of security even as you help those who conspire to destroy them? Are you wooing with hope and flattery in order to seduce and take Israelis off their guard?
With all due respect, Mr President, are we not way past the time when you should have decided where you stand, and there taken your stand? For too long you have sought to position yourself as an “honest broker” between the Jews and the Arabs - between those who are for peace and those who are for destruction.
What is there to fairly broker between these two sides, and how does the United States help facilitate the wishes of the Arabs when those wishes are fulfilled only at the expense of the Jews?
With your visit last week you once again gave the Jewish people reason to hope.
Sadly, though, you have also given them reason to despair.
David, the great King of Israel and forebear of Jesus, refused to turn his hand against King Saul, even though he had been anointed as king in his place. For David, Saul was “the Lord’s anointed” until God removed him from the scene.
In my understanding you, sir, are God’s anointed to be President of the United States until you leave the White House. Although the hour is late, and your days in office are slipping away, my prayers continue to be joined with the prayers of untold numbers of concerned Christians in your country and around the world.
May your eyes yet be opened to the duplicitous nature of your dealings with Israel, and - while that God-given power is still concentrated in your hands, may you acknowledge the grievous error, the gross injustice, of your “two-state solution.”
May you, even at this late hour, wrench the wheel hard over and set the United States on a different course, one from which whoever succeeds you is unable to return.
Otherwise, I fear, the prayer “God bless America” will increasingly appear to go unheard.
Parsing the President - What Bush told Israel
http://www.stangoodenough.com/?p=137
US President George W. Bush last Thursday brought a special message to the Israeli Knesset to mark the 60th Anniversary of the establishment of the Jewish state.
For those who missed the speech you can read the full transcript (minus the salutation), right here.
Our comments are [below].
President Bush: We gather to mark a momentous occasion. Sixty years ago in Tel Aviv, David Ben-Gurion proclaimed Israel’s independence, founded on the “natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate.” What followed was more than the establishment of a new country. It was the redemption of an ancient promise given to Abraham and Moses and David — a homeland for the chosen people, Eretz Yisrael.
Jerusalem Newswire: So President Bush says he believes God promised Eretz Yisrael (which is all the Land of Israel including the ‘occupied territories’) to the Jews.
Bush: Eleven minutes later, on the orders of President Harry Truman, the United States was proud to be the first nation to recognize Israel’s independence. And on this landmark anniversary, America is proud to be Israel’s closest ally and best friend in the world.
JNW: In a world where virtually every other nation is either hostile towards or excessively critical of Israel, America’s friendship is certainly exceptional and thus extremely welcome. Objectively, however, if you call yourself Israel’s only friend then it is disingenuous to also call yourself Israel’s best friend. Against what do you measure that friendship?
Bush: The alliance between our governments is unbreakable, yet the source of our friendship runs deeper than any treaty. It is grounded in the shared spirit of our people, the bonds of the Book, the ties of the soul.
JNW: Mr Bush believes the Bible is a fundamental source of the friendship that exists between the United States and Israel.
Bush: When William Bradford stepped off the Mayflower in 1620, he quoted the words of Jeremiah: “Come let us declare in Zion the word of God.” The founders of my country saw a new promised land and bestowed upon their towns names like Bethlehem and New Canaan. And in time, many Americans became passionate advocates for a Jewish state.
JNW: Yes they did, but as in the case of William Blackstone and other great Americans, they knew that the Jewish state should be erected where its roots were - in the heartland of Eretz Yisrael.
Bush: Centuries of suffering and sacrifice would pass before the dream was fulfilled. The Jewish people endured the agony of the pogroms, the tragedy of the Great War, and the horror of the Holocaust — what Elie Wiesel called “the kingdom of the night.” Soulless men took away lives and broke apart families. Yet they could not take away the spirit of the Jewish people, and they could not break the promise of God. (Applause.)
JNW: Mr Bush repeats his belief that God promised the Jewish people that they would return to, and take possession of, their ancient land.
Bush: When news of Israel’s freedom finally arrived, Golda Meir, a fearless woman raised in Wisconsin, could summon only tears. She later said: “For two thousand years we have waited for our deliverance. Now that it is here it is so great and wonderful that it surpasses human words.”
The joy of independence was tempered by the outbreak of battle, a struggle that has continued for six decades. Yet in spite of the violence, in defiance of the threats, Israel has built a thriving democracy in the heart of the Holy Land. You have welcomed immigrants from the four corners of the Earth. You have forged a free and modern society based on the love of liberty, a passion for justice, and a respect for human dignity. You have worked tirelessly for peace. You have fought valiantly for freedom.
JNW: Thus Mr Bush acknowledges that Israel has devoted herself to making peace and has fought courageously, not to occupy another nation’s land or to bring another nation into servitude under her, but for the freedom to be Jews in their own land.
Bush: My country’s admiration for Israel does not end there. When Americans look at Israel, we see a pioneer spirit that worked an agricultural miracle and now leads a high-tech revolution. We see world-class universities and a global leader in business and innovation and the arts. We see a resource more valuable than oil or gold: the talent and determination of a free people who refuse to let any obstacle stand in the way of their destiny.
I have been fortunate to see the character of Israel up close. I have touched the Western Wall, seen the sun reflected in the Sea of Galilee, I have prayed at Yad Vashem. And earlier today, I visited Masada, an inspiring monument to courage and sacrifice. At this historic site, Israeli soldiers swear an oath: “Masada shall never fall again.”
Citizens of Israel: Masada shall never fall again, and America will be at your side.
JNW: This is a bold and resounding declaration of America’s willingness, if necessary, to fight alongside Israel in order to ensure her survival. The kinds of weapons and delivery systems Israel’s foes are preparing to launch at Israel, and the ability to wreak massive havoc on the Jewish state’s population centers before the US has any time to respond puts a question mark around the value of this pledge.
Bush: This anniversary is a time to reflect on the past. It’s also an opportunity to look to the future. As we go forward, our alliance will be guided by clear principles — shared convictions rooted in moral clarity and unswayed by popularity polls or the shifting opinions of international elites.
JNW: More brave words: “clear principles,” “moral clarity [that will remain] unswayed.”
Bush: We believe in the matchless value of every man, woman, and child. So we insist that the people of Israel have the right to a decent, normal, and peaceful life, just like the citizens of every other nation. (Applause.)
We believe that democracy is the only way to ensure human rights. So we consider it a source of shame that the United Nations routinely passes more human rights resolutions against the freest democracy in the Middle East than any other nation in the world. (Applause.)
JNW: The United States hosts and, more than any other single nation, bankrolls the United Nations. If Mr Bush truly believes it to be a “shame” then he has the power to close down or otherwise penalize the international organization. His lack of action messages the Israelis that what he is saying is just words.
Bush: We believe that religious liberty is fundamental to a civilized society. So we condemn anti-Semitism in all forms — whether by those who openly question Israel’s right to exist, or by others who quietly excuse them.
JNW: What, then, about those who in any way, shape or form, assist the antisemites by practicing policies that weaken Israel in the face of the threats against her?
Bush: We believe that free people should strive and sacrifice for peace. So we applaud the courageous choices Israeli’s leaders have made. We also believe that nations have a right to defend themselves and that no nation should ever be forced to negotiate with killers pledged to its destruction. (Applause.)
JNW: The PLO Charter with its numerous clauses still pledging that its members will fight to destroy Israel remains unaltered but Mr Bush, like his predecessors, has been pushing Israel to negotiate with PLO chief terrorist Mahmoud Abbas.
Bush: We believe that targeting innocent lives to achieve political objectives is always and everywhere wrong. So we stand together against terror and extremism, and we will never let down our guard or lose our resolve. (Applause.)
JNW: What, then about Mahmoud Abbas’ long history of active leadership in an organization which suckled itself on the life blood of untold numbers of innocent lives - Jewish and American - to achieve the very political objective Mr Bush is working to help it achieve today - the robbery of biblical and historical Jewish lands upon which to build a Palestinian state?
Bush: The fight against terror and extremism is the defining challenge of our time. It is more than a clash of arms. It is a clash of visions, a great ideological struggle.
JNW: In fact, although it is politically incorrect to say so, and would take considerable courage for a man to identify 1.6 billion of the world’s population - among them many Americans - as being on the opposing side, this is a clash of religions - it is a clash over who is God - Allah or the God of Israel. For the One Who is God is the One who has the authority and the right to designate the ownership of the land.
Bush: On the one side are those who defend the ideals of justice and dignity with the power of reason and truth. On the other side are those who pursue a narrow vision of cruelty and control by committing murder, inciting fear, and spreading lies.
JNW: Here Mr. Bush could be accurately describing the PLO. But he has brought that terror group across the line to join him on his side or - we could argue - he is leading the US across the line onto that side by rewarding the PLO for its terrorism.
Bush: This struggle is waged with the technology of the 21st century, but at its core it is an ancient battle between good and evil. The killers claim the mantle of Islam, but they are not religious men.
JNW: Again, while it is politically correct to adopt this position, it is neither truthful nor accurate: The killers are deeply religious men.
Bush: No one who prays to the God of Abraham could strap a suicide vest to an innocent child, or blow up guiltless guests at a Passover Seder, or fly planes into office buildings filled with unsuspecting workers.
JNW: In this instance the president is constructing truth atop a lie: Muslims do not pray to the God of Abraham; they pray to a different god with different characteristics - the ancient Arabian moon god Allah. They can and they did do all the things Mr Bush says they could not do.
Bush: In truth, the men who carry out these savage acts serve no higher goal than their own desire for power. They accept no God before themselves. And they reserve a special hatred for the most ardent defenders of liberty, including Americans and Israelis.
JNW: By disregarding the religious basis behind Jihad, Mr Bush retards his own ability and the ability of the United States to crush the Jihadists. He willfully blinds himself to what motivates them and tries to deal with them within the parameters of what he classifies them to be rather than what they are.
Bush: And that is why the founding charter of Hamas calls for the “elimination” of Israel. And that is why the followers of Hizb’allah chant “Death to Israel, Death to America!” That is why Osama bin Laden teaches that “the killing of Jews and Americans is one of the biggest duties.” And that is why the President of Iran dreams of returning the Middle East to the Middle Ages and calls for Israel to be wiped off the map.
JNW: And that is why Yasser Arafat, with Mahmoud Abbas at his side, repeatedly vowed to “liberate” Palestine and Jerusalem with blood and with fire; to harness the hatred of a million “martyrs to drive the Jews into the sea. And that is why the still-in-force PLO National Charter calls for “the liquidation of the Zionist presence” through “the armed struggle” for which “every individual” Palestinian Arab must be brought up “willing to sacrifice his wealth and his life.”
Bush: There are good and decent people who cannot fathom the darkness in these men and try to explain away their words. It’s natural, but it is deadly wrong. As witnesses to evil in the past, we carry a solemn responsibility to take these words seriously. Jews and Americans have seen the consequences of disregarding the words of leaders who espouse hatred. And that is a mistake the world must not repeat in the 21st century.
JNW: So, what “filter” does the US use to sanitize and allow through the words of PLO terror chiefs, disregarding their rhetoric and their actions but blocking similar words and sentiments expressed by the Hamas and Hizb’allah?
Bush: Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: “Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.” We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history. (Applause.)
JNW: This is blatant hypocrisy: Ever since Jimmy Carter, US presidents have been willing to “appease” the Palestinian Arab organizations. Offering the “Palestinians” a state on Jewish land in response to their unending decades of terrorism and bloodshed is every bit as shameful an act of appeasement as was offering the Sudetenland to the Nazis.
Bush: Some people suggest if the United States would just break ties with Israel, all our problems in the Middle East would go away. This is a tired argument that buys into the propaganda of the enemies of peace, and America utterly rejects it. Israel’s population may be just over 7 million. But when you confront terror and evil, you are 307 million strong, because the United States of America stands with you. (Applause.)
America stands with you in breaking up terrorist networks and denying the extremists sanctuary.
JNW: No America does not stand with Israel in this. America holds Israel to a different standard. When Al Qaeda terrorists in Iraq and Taliban terrorists in Afghanistan attack civilians or US soldiers, the US military carpet unleashes massive firepower against them. When, in response to “Palestinian” attacks on Israeli civilians or soldiers Israel restricts its responses to pinpoint strikes, even placing its own men at risk to try and protect Arab civilians, it is charged with using excessive force and the White House is quick to release statements which, while supporting Israel’s right “to defend itself” also warns Israel to consider the consequences for their actions.
America under George Bush senior and Bill Clinton, and America under George W. Bush do extend sanctuary to terrorists. It’s just that they call them “moderates.”
Bush: America stands with you in firmly opposing Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions. Permitting the world’s leading sponsor of terror to possess the world’s deadliest weapons would be an unforgivable betrayal for future generations. For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. (Applause.)
JNW: It’s not up to the world; it’s up to the United States. The US wears the mantle of supreme world power. The US has the authority and the means to prevent Iran from going nuclear. The US has to use it, defying international opinion and even weathering international outrage if need be. This is the cost of leadership in our world in this age.
Bush: Ultimately, to prevail in this struggle, we must offer an alternative to the ideology of the extremists by extending our vision of justice and tolerance and freedom and hope. These values are the self-evident right of all people, of all religions, in all the world because they are a gift from the Almighty God. Securing these rights is also the surest way to secure peace. Leaders who are accountable to their people will not pursue endless confrontation and bloodshed. Young people with a place in their society and a voice in their future are less likely to search for meaning in radicalism.
Societies where citizens can express their conscience and worship their God will not export violence, they will be partners in peace.
JNW: This sounds as naive and ideological as did Israeli President Shimon Peres’ much espoused vision for a “New Middle East.” And it insists on refusing to accept that some religions, especially Islam, export violence expressly BECAUSE its god commands it.
Bush: The fundamental insight, that freedom yields peace, is the great lesson of the 20th century. Now our task is to apply it to the 21st. Nowhere is this work more urgent than here in the Middle East. We must stand with the reformers working to break the old patterns of tyranny and despair. We must give voice to millions of ordinary people who dream of a better life in a free society. We must confront the moral relativism that views all forms of government as equally acceptable and thereby consigns whole societies to slavery. Above all, we must have faith in our values and ourselves and confidently pursue the expansion of liberty as the path to a peaceful future.
That future will be a dramatic departure from the Middle East of today. So as we mark 60 years from Israel’s founding, let us try to envision the region 60 years from now. This vision is not going to arrive easily or overnight; it will encounter violent resistance. But if we and future Presidents and future Knessets maintain our resolve and have faith in our ideals, here is the Middle East that we can see:
JNW: Faith in ideals will not bring this peace. Faith in God, and a willingness to go along with His declared purposes, is guaranteed to.
Bush: Israel will be celebrating the 120th anniversary as one of the world’s great democracies, a secure and flourishing homeland for the Jewish people. The Palestinian people will have the homeland they have long dreamed of and deserved — a democratic state that is governed by law, and respects human rights, and rejects terror.
JNW: In all my years here (20) I have not read a single opinion poll or survey carried out among the Palestinian Arabs to indicate that they are dreaming of a democratic state governed by law, respecting human rights and rejecting terror. And they DESERVE a state of their own? At ISRAEL’S expense?
Bush: From Cairo to Riyadh to Baghdad and Beirut, people will live in free and independent societies, where a desire for peace is reinforced by ties of diplomacy and tourism and trade. Iran and Syria will be peaceful nations, with today’s oppression a distant memory and where people are free to speak their minds and develop their God-given talents. Al Qaeda and Hizb’allah and Hamas will be defeated, as Muslims across the region recognize the emptiness of the terrorists’ vision and the injustice of their cause.
JNW: Mr Bush is projecting the hopes and values of Judeo-Christian America on the Islamic Middle East. This is an exercise in futility and self-delusion.
Bush: Overall, the Middle East will be characterized by a new period of tolerance and integration. And this doesn’t mean that Israel and its neighbors will be best of friends. But when leaders across the region answer to their people, they will focus their energies on schools and jobs, not on rocket attacks and suicide bombings. With this change, Israel will open a new hopeful chapter in which its people can live a normal life, and the dream of Herzl and the founders of 1948 can be fully and finally realized.
JNW: Long before this utopia is ever arrived at, the Islamic world will have acquired the weaponry to obliterate Israel, which is being weakened and made vulnerable by the very “peace process” America is heading up.
Bush: This is a bold vision, and some will say it can never be achieved. But think about what we have witnessed in our own time. When Europe was destroying itself through total war and genocide, it was difficult to envision a continent that six decades later would be free and at peace. When Japanese pilots were flying suicide missions into American battleships, it seemed impossible that six decades later Japan would be a democracy, a lynchpin of security in Asia, and one of America’s closest friends.
JNW: The flaw in the president’s reasoning is glaring here: Europe and Japan are prosperous, free and at peace, not because the US exported democracy and ideas to those lands, but because American (and other) men gave their lives in order to militarily crush the aggressors in Tokyo and Berlin, hammering them until they agreed to an unconditional surrender and then overseeing the reconstruction of their economies and societies. Mr Bush has tried to do this in Iraq, but is fighting a losing battle for public opinion and support back home. The US has never, however, allowed Israel to thrash its enemies, to crush their aggression and force them to the table of unconditional surrender. Only when this has happened will the president’s vision of Israel at 120 begin to become reality.
Bush: And when waves of refugees arrived here in the desert with nothing, surrounded by hostile armies, it was almost unimaginable that Israel would grow into one of the freest and most successful nations on the earth.
Yet each one of these transformations took place. And a future of transformation is possible in the Middle East, so long as a new generation of leaders has the courage to defeat the enemies of freedom, to make the hard choices necessary for peace, and stand firm on the solid rock of universal values.
Sixty years ago, on the eve of Israel’s independence, the last British soldiers departing Jerusalem stopped at a building in the Jewish quarter of the Old City. An officer knocked on the door and met a senior rabbi. The officer presented him with a short iron bar — the key to the Zion Gate — and said it was the first time in 18 centuries that a key to the gates of Jerusalem had belonged to a Jew. His hands trembling, the rabbi offered a prayer of thanksgiving to God, “Who had granted us life and permitted us to reach this day.” Then he turned to the officer, and uttered the words Jews had awaited for so long: “I accept this key in the name of my people.”
Over the past six decades, the Jewish people have established a state that would make that humble rabbi proud. You have raised a modern society in the Promised Land, a light unto the nations that preserves the legacy of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. And you have built a mighty democracy that will endure forever and can always count on the United States of America to be at your side. God bless. (Applause.)
JNW: God is to be praised for bringing Israel back to life 60 years ago, and the Jewish people have certainly achieved wonders in the years since then as they have reconstructed and modernized their homeland and done all the many things Mr Bush mentioned early on in his speech. Their goal of being a light unto the nations has yet to be realized, however. The legacy they are currently creating is hardly the one looked for by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Whether or not the United States will be at Israel’s side at the end is increasingly doubtful as Washington’s policies gamble with the security of the Jewish state. As for Israel’s democracy: There, too, Mr Bush is finally wrong. Israel’s future leader will not be a democratically-elected prime minister, but a divinely-appointed King.
Six more arrested in Jerusalem Arab arms trafficking ring
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5280
Jerusalem police have rounded up another 6 Palestinians at the Shufat camp of northern Jerusalem in a second sweep for illicit weapons and explosives. Shufat’s 10,000 inhabitants bear Israeli resident’s IDs with social benefits. In the first raid of the camp on May 5, DEBKAfile disclosed that large quantities of pistols, hand grenades, stun grenades, ammo and military equipment as well as LAW anti-tank rockets were impounded and 7 suspects arrested. The 13 detained men are under investigation for membership of a network set up to sell Palestinian terrorist cells military hardware.
The Shufat camp fringes northern Jerusalem’s main transport hub: highways heading north and out to the Dead Sea and the road connections from the French Hill, Pisgat Zeev and Neve Yaacov suburbs to the city center.
P.A. Demands Regular Army
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/377731.aspx
CBNNews.com - RAMALLAH, West Bank - Palestinian Authority (PA) Chief negotiator Ahmed Qureia has called for the establishment of a regular army for a future Palestinian state, despite all previous accords between Israel and the Palestinians, which stipulate that a Palestinian state would be demilitarized.
Last Sunday, while Israeli and PA negotiating teams discussed security concerns, Qureia dropped the proverbial bomb by informing Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni that the Palestinian state would have to have its own standing army.
Livni, taken off guard by Queria's demand, sought clarification, according to YNet news.
Qureia said he was not referring to the PA police force, but rather to a regular army to defend the state from its enemies.
"This isn't an army intended to launch an attack against Israel," a senior PA official close to Qureia told YNet. "We are not asking for F-16 jets, but rather a force that would be able to defend the nation from threat and realize its basic right to exist in security," he said.
Livni rejected the idea because of the past agreements.
But the PA official said agreements based on the Oslo Accords no longer applied.
"Oslo spoke of an intermediary entity. Now we are talking about a Palestinian state born out of a permanent agreement. There is no clause in any of the understandings that denies the Palestinian state an army to defend itself with, to defend its orders and citizens with," he said.
During her remarks at last week's presidential conference, Livni made mention of the PA's latest demand.
"Yes, it is important to set recognized borders, but that is not clear enough," the foreign minister told conference participants. "We must determine what will be on the other side of that border," she said.
"We are talking about a demilitarized state here [and] we will not stand for a terror state or an extremist Islamic state," she said.
"There are conditions that will have to be met before and after," Livni said.
"I don't hold [to a position of] just tossing the keys over the border and hoping for the best. There will be no agreement over the future territory without satisfactory assurances regarding what its nature will be," she said.
PA sources: Agreement of principles by Aug '08
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1210668661588
Although the discouraging pace of peace talks has led many to doubt the feasibility of US President George W. Bush's goal that a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians could be realized by 2009, Palestinian Authority officials seemed optimistic on Sunday, telling the London-based newspaper, Al-Hayat that an agreement of principles between the two sides would likely be signed by August 2008.
The report, however, went on to quote Jordanian officials expressing concern over the president's visit to the Knesset on Thursday, saying that the tone of his "Zionist speech" demonstrated that the chance for peace might be missed.
Further, Jordanian officials told the newspaper that three weeks ago, an argument erupted between the Jordanian foreign minister and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. According to the report, Livni sparked the confrontation when she attacked the Jordanian position on West Bank settlements, and demanded that her counterpart "stop damaging negotiations with the Palestinians."
The officials were also quoted as saying that an unnamed Jordanian official and Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat drafted an unofficial agreement of principles together, but were prevented from presenting it publicly after the Bush administration voiced its opposition.
Meanwhile, Jordan's King Abdullah II told Livni to set the conditions necessary for peacemaking so that an agreement with the Palestinians can be reached this year.
Abdullah's remarks came in a meeting Sunday with the foreign minister on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in the Red Sea resort of Sharm-e-Sheikh, his royal palace said. The king also held separate talks with Bush.
Abdullah urged Bush to maintain a hands-on approach to peacemaking, while he told Livni that Israel must immediately halt settlement activity in the West Bank and end its crippling economic blockade against the Palestinians.
He said a Palestinian-Israeli peace deal must be reached this year.
'I'll resign if no peace by end of 08'
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1210668666586&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday threatened to resign if there is no peace agreement with Israel this year.
Speaking to former Meretz chairman Yossi Beilin on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Sharm e-Sheikh, the PA president said that the next six months were the most crucial and that if no agreement is reached between the Israelis and the Palestinians within that time, there will be no reason for him to continue in his role.
"Israel will not have a better partner than the group leading the PLO today, which believes the Palestinian interest is a historic reconciliation with Israel and a Palestinian state alongside it," said Abbas, adding that if there is no agreement, "Israel will find itself with no partner at all."
Abbas went on to say that a deadlock in peace negotiations would likely bring the Middle East back to "the tragedy of 2000 which followed the failure at Camp David."
A statement issued by Beilin's office quoted Abbas as saying that he "would see no point in continuing in his position" if a deal is not reached.
"I didn't take the presidency upon myself in order to serve the role of president but rather to pursue a mission, and I have no point in continuing in this capacity if it becomes apparent that we can't reach peace," the statement quoted Abbas as saying. He warned that failure to reach a peace deal "would be a tremendous victory to the extremist groups in the region."
Also Sunday, Egyptian security chief Omar Suleiman told Beilin that if he received a green light from Defense Minister Ehud Barak, he could set a time tomorrow for a cease-fire to begin. He said that if Israel agreed to the list of Palestinian prisoners, kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Schalit could be included in the deal.
Suleiman said that due to Israel's opposition to names on the list, negotiations to bring about Schalit's release could only begin after a cease-fire is reached.
Beilin replied that the cease-fire would test Hamas' ability to prevent other groups from attacking Israelis.
Earlier Sunday, during a meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Abbas said that US President George W. Bush's speech in the Knesset Thursday, in which he showered Israel with praise and strongly reiterated its right to defend itself, angered the Palestinians.
"In principle, the Bush speech at the Knesset angered us, and we were not happy with it," Abbas told reporters in Sharm e-Sheikh.
"This is our position and we have a lot of remarks (about the speech) and I frankly, clearly and transparently asked him that the American position should be balanced," Abbas said.
Abbas also expressed pessimism regarding the peace negotiations. "So far, we have not reached an agreement on any issue. Any report indicating otherwise in simply not true," he said.
After meeting Mubarak, Abbas told reporters: "We do not want the Americans to negotiate on our behalf. All that we want from them is to stand by (our) legitimacy ... and have a minimum of neutrality."
Abbas told Bush directly about his concerns with the Knesset speech when the two met on Saturday at the Egyptian resort, according to Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat.
Also in Egypt Sunday, Opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu met with Mubarak, and asked him to close off the Philadelphi Corridor.
"Hamas is a mutual enemy of Israel and Egypt," Netanyahu told Mubarak. "Israel has no choice but to topple the Hamas regime."
Mubarak invited Netanyahu to visit Egypt in an official capacity, not just in the context of the conference. The two men also discussed the threat from Iran, which Netanyahu said prevented any advance in the diplomatic process.
Attack on bus near Mosul kills 11 recruits after 100 al Qaeda arrests
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5282
The Iraqi military bus was attacked west of the northern city Monday, May 19.
Since Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki launched a US-supported military operation to wipe out al Qaeda’s last urban base several weeks ago, more than 1,250 individuals have been arrested in Mosul. One hundred were described as “critical targets” by US Maj. Gen. Mark Hertling. Some of them are very senior – “military emirs, battalion level commanders in al Qaeda.”
A high-value target arrested Monday, May 19, was Abdul Khaleq al-Sabawi, a former general under the Saddam Hussein regime, who became al Qaeda’s military chief in Mosul. He was picked up near Tikrit north of Baghdad Monday. Two hundred wanted terrorists are still at large.
Monday’s attack is one of a falling number of incidents attributed to al Qaeda since the operation began.
Algerian Christian Sentenced for Carrying a Bible
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07199.shtml
(christiansunite.com) - An Algerian Christian detained for five days for carrying a Bible and personal Bible study books was given a one-year suspended prison sentence and a $460 CAD fine on April 29, according to a May 9 report from Compass Direct. A court in Djelfa, 240 km south of Algiers, charged the 33-year-old Christian who converted from Islam with "printing, storing and distributing illegal religious material." The believer, who requested anonymity for security reasons, told fellow Christians in his home city of Tiaret that police pressured him to return to Islam while in custody.
The conviction is the latest in a wave of detentions and court cases against Algeria's Christians. Since January, police and provincial officials have ordered the closure of up to half of the country's 50 estimated Christian congregations.
Pray for the Algerian Christian to find joy and peace in Christ in the midst of opposition for his allegiance to Christ (Acts 5:41). Pray that God will embolden Algerian Christians to spread the Gospel in their nation.
For more information on the persecution of Christians in Algeria, go to www.persecution.net/country/algeria.htm.
OB Relief Brings Hope to Chinese Victims
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/376539.aspx
BEIJING - Rescue workers are still digging in mounds of rubble to find survivors from China's massive earthquake.
The death toll now stands above 21,000, but the Chinese government says the final tally could reach 50,000.
But in the midst of tragedy, there is hope.
Survivors have been straggling down from the mountains in small groups, showing up in the nearby town of Jiangyou with no possessions, no food, and little hope.
They are met by Operation Blessing relief workers, who have been handing out food and water to the victims, with the help of local churches.
For the shell-shocked survivors, the caring words and sympathetic hearts of the Christian volunteers are as vital as the nutrition they provide.
"They really need friends and brothers and sisters to care about them from different places not only materialistically, but more importantly psychologically," one man said.
Miles away, in the town of Beichuan, the hospital is so full, that people with less severe injuries are lined up on cots in the courtyard.
Here, too, volunteers from local churches are working together with Operation Blessing, administering to the needs of the suffering.
"We really hope that people can see God through these brothers and sisters and that they can bring God's love to people who are in need," a woman said.
A spirit of compassion and sacrifice has spread over the communities that are receiving the victims. There is no chaos. Distribution lines move smoothly. And even those who have lost everything can have kind hearts.
"i remember when I sent ham sausages to a family. Actually I didn't know they are a family, so I gave sausages to each of them," the woman said. "Then as I gave them the third package. they said, 'No, we don't need more of this because we are all from the same family and what we have is enough. Save these for others.' So I feel that, although they suffer themselves, yet they think of other victims."
The earthquake was so powerful, that it was felt throughout most of China. Here in Beijing, skyscrapers were rattled by the quake, but its been the emotional aftershocks that have had the greatest impact, bringing an outpouring of compassion and a desire by many people to do anything they could to help the victims.
"I donated 100 RMB Yuan via internet this morning," one woman said. "I even wanted to donate my blood, but my health situation does not allow me to do that. And, what I can do now, I think, is to pray for them."
"I kept thinking about the whole thing. I am praying for them, hope they could be rescued as soon as possible," she said.
Back in the mountains of Sichaun province, the relief workers from Operation Blessing are preparing to move on to another town-one that hasn't been reached yet by relief teams.
They're eager to provide food, fresh water, prayers and comfort.
Lutheran World Relief Pledges Initial $50,000 to Myanmar (Burma) Aid Efforts
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07196.shtml
BALTIMORE, (christiansunite.com) -- Lutheran World Relief today pledged $50,000 to support the response of the global aid alliance Action by Churches Together (ACT) International in the aftermath of the devastating cyclone that struck Myanmar (Burma) on May 3.
The preliminary response will aim to assist at least 10,000 families through water, shelter and cash for work programs. And in the coming weeks, that effort will increase, building on LWR's experience from the 2004 tsunami and our partners' expertise to provide short and medium-term assistance.
While some of LWR's partners in ACT, a global alliance of faith-based aid agencies, attempt to gain greater access to the country, others are already on the ground, prepared to assist the heavily damaged southern region. LWR staff members have also begun exploring other possible partnerships in Myanmar (Burma) that would enable LWR to reach even more of the most vulnerable people.
As the official death toll was raised today to 31,938, experts continued to estimate that as many as 100,000 died in the disaster. The United Nations has said that between 1.2 and 1.9 million people are in dire need of food, water, medicines, and shelter, and relief experts warned that starvation, dehydration and disease could cause a second wave of casualties.
"Relief workers have very little time to head off this health crisis," said LWR's president and CEO, John Nunes. "Our financial support will enable our partners on the ground to quickly procure needed supplies within the country and get them to those who need them most. While we are pleased to provide this initial $50,000 to our partners," he added, "The needs are still great, and more funds are needed to adequately respond to this disaster."
You can help: LWR accepts donations at 1-800-597- 5972, www.lwr.org, and P.O. Box 17061 Baltimore, MD 21298-9832 USA.
WHO IS LWR? Lutheran World Relief, an international nonprofit organization, works to end poverty and injustice by empowering some of the world's most impoverished communities to help themselves. With partners in 35 countries, LWR seeks to promote sustainable development with justice and dignity by helping communities bring about change for healthy, safe and secure lives; engage in Fair Trade; promote peace and reconciliation; and respond to emergencies. LWR is headquartered in Baltimore, Md. and has worked in international development and relief since 1945.
Lutheran World Relief is a ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS), individuals and parish groups in international relief, development, advocacy and social responsibility.
Burmese Christians help aid agencies reach needy
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/burmese.christians.help.aid.agencies.reach.needy/18890.htm
As Burma’s military junta continues to shut the door on large-scale foreign aid, local Christians are doing their part to help foreign aid agencies bring vital relief to the millions who have been left destitute in the wake of Cyclone Nargis.
The official death toll soured over the weekend to 134,000, whilst 2.4 million remain in need of emergency assistance. Yet the Burmese Government has refused to admit large-scale foreign aid for fear that its stranglehold on power will be compromised.
Christian children’s charity Global Care has managed to bypass the Burmese Government’s restrictions on foreign aid workers by sending funds to its partners on the ground in Burma. They are working with local Christian volunteers to bring relief items to their own hard hit communities.
The military junta has given local Burmese Christians permission to distribute aid within the ravaged Irawaddy Delta. The Global Care funds have enabled them to purchase vital food, water and shelter materials, and distribute them to those in greatest need, including orphanages, children’s day centres and schools in the Rangoon area.
Global Care is urging churches in the UK to support its emergency £50,000 Burma appeal.
Ron Newby, CEO and founder of Global Care, said: “With the help of churches throughout the UK we can now directly channel funds to help this ‘consortium’ of Christian believers to significantly increase their relief work in some of the worst-affected areas.
“We thank God for this way through the political complexities that have compounded this disaster, ensuring this vital aid effectively and reliably reaches those who need it the most.”
Although Global Care’s orphanage, day centre and Bible School in Rangoon were destroyed in the cyclone, all the children and students within their care survived.
‘J’, the leader of Global Care’s work in Rangoon, writes: “We are in great terrible need, but praise God that he kept us safe. Please pray for us. Our urgent needs are for clothing, blankets, food and fuel.
“We are now eating just one meal a day of rice soup because we do not have enough money for rice. Medicines are also needed as the disaster has caused us to suffer diseases.”
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon is to visit Burma this week in the hope of securing aid access in a meeting with junta leader Than Shwe, who has refused calls from the UN chief since the cyclone hit two weeks ago.
Britain’s Asia minister, Mark Malloch-Brown, said on Sunday that diplomats had come closer to brokering an aid deal with the junta that could go some way to appeasing their deep distrust of the West.
Aid agencies are warning that the death toll will almost certainly rise considerably unless more aid reaches survivors. The UN’s World Food Programme said it had managed to bring rice and beans to just 250,000 of the 750,000 people it believes urgently need food.
Reports on Burma’s state television showed the 74-year-old Senior General meeting ministers involved in the rescue effort in Rangoon, and touring some of the affected areas.
"It is not insignificant that he has been forced out of his lair," one Yangon diplomat said. "There are obviously some in the military who see how enormous this is, and how enormously wrong it could go without further support."
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