Betrayal of Israel

By Dr. David R. Reagan
Lamb & Lion Ministries



Our nation’s betrayal of Israel began in 1990 when the Communist government of Russia decided to open its doors to allow Jews to emigrate to Israel. During the year that followed, 3,000 Russian Jews arrived each day in Israel, forcing the nation to absorb a population equivalent to the United States absorbing the entire population of France in one year’s time! Needless to say, the tiny nation of Israel was overwhelmed.

Israel’s Prime Minister, Yitzhak Shamir, applied to the World Bank for a loan of $10 billion to cope with the needs of the refugees. He was told that the loan would be granted only if the United States would guarantee it. When he then turned to the first Bush Administration, he was told that the guarantee would be supplied only if he agreed to start negotiating with the Palestinians. This resulted in the Madrid Conference in October of 1991. In short, we forced Israel to start down the suicidal path of trading land for peace.

President Clinton pursued the same policy of trying to force Israel to give up its heartland of Judea and Samaria. He almost succeeded at the Camp David Summit in July of 2000 when he pressured the most liberal Prime Minister in Israeli history, Ehud Barack, to surrender the West Bank. But Yasser Arafat wanted much more, so he walked out of the negotiations.

The second Bush Administration continued the intense pressure on Israel resulting in the so-called “Road Map to Peace” in 2002 when President George W. Bush became the first president to call for the establishment of a Palestinian state. He also engineered the disastrous Israeli pull-out from the Gaza Strip in August of 2005.

In May of this year, America’s betrayal of Israel reached a new level when President Obama called for the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 lines. The implementation of those lines would render Israel indefensible since it would be only 9 to 11 miles wide in the Tel Aviv area.

President Obama is begging for the wrath of God to be poured out on himself, his administration, and this nation.

I will bless those who bless you [Israel], and the one who curses you I will curse. - Genesis 12:3

I will gather all the nations, and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat. Then I will enter into judgment with them there on behalf of My people and My inheritance, Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations; and they have divided up My land. - Joel 3:2

. . . he who touches you [Israel], touches the apple of His [God’s] eye. - Zechariah 2:8

Related Links

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U.S. Designates Israel as Country That Tends ‘To Promote, Produce, or Protect’ Terrorists - CNS News
The Obama Administration Opens Formal Contacts With the Muslim Brotherhood - National Review Online
Republican hopeful targets Obama's Israel policies - Globes
Israel Through The Eyes Of Scripture - SpiritandTruth.org (Tony Garland)
Presidentially, Perry urges U.S. to halt Gaza flotilla - Houston Chronicle

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The Major Prophets

By Jack Kelley
GraceThruFaith.com



Q. Am I correct in saying that three of the four Major Prophets (except Isaiah) came during the time of the Babylonian Captivity? Also, I cannot find any scriptures relating to how any of the four Major Prophets died. Can you help?

A. Daniel, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah all served the Lord during the time of the Babylonian conquest which began in 605 BC and was followed by the destruction of Jerusalem in 586. The first of the major prophets, Isaiah, lived about 150 years previously, but among other things prophesied about the Babylonian Conquest as well.

Tradition holds that Isaiah was sawed in half in Jerusalem by King Manasseh, hinted at in Hebrews 11:37. He’s buried in northern Israel.

Daniel likely died of natural causes in Persia, and is revered today by the Iranians. His grave is most likely in Susa, in modern Iran.

Jeremiah was taken to Egypt at age 70 following the conquest of Israel. (Jer. 43:4-7) He was reportedly murdered there by people angered by his prophecies.

Ezekiel died of unknown causes and is probably buried in al Kifl, in modern day Iraq.


Related Links

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The Major Prophets - Bible.org (J. Hampton Keathley, III)
Tomb of Daniel - Wikipedia
Book of Jeremiah - GotQuestions.org
Video: Ezekiel’s Tomb In Iraq - New York Times
Map of The Babylonian Captivity - Bible-History.com

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Is 'Flotilla 2' Really on a Humanitari​an Mission?

By Dr. Mitchell Bard
MitchellBard.com



For the second time in two years, a group of anti-Israel activists have organized a flotilla under the pretext of bringing necessary supplies to Gaza. The true aim of the organizers, however, is to attract international attention and embarrass and provoke Israel by challenging its policy of preventing the terrorists of Hamas from smuggling weapons into the Gaza Strip. These provocateurs know that Gaza has no shortage of essential goods, that any needed supplies can be transferred through Egypt and that Israel is prepared to welcome ships into its ports and transfer the cargo to the Palestinians provided it is searched for contraband and weapons before being forwarded.

Labeling itself the international "Freedom Flotilla II - Stay Human," this year's convoy will include ships sailing from the United States, Canada, Greece, Ireland, France and Italy and has invited journalists and politicians to join their blockade-busting mission. The U.S. State Department criticized the organizers, declaring that "groups that seek to break Israel's maritime blockade of Gaza are taking irresponsible and provocative actions." American citizens were warned not to participate in the activity, which may also violate American law because funding for the mission was raised illegally in the States. In addition, several countries have taken measures to prevent ships from sailing from their ports. Cyprus, for example, which was used as a springboard for the 2010 flotilla, has banned all sailings to Gaza from its seaports.

Israel already has indications that some of the activists are planning to use violence against Israeli soldiers if they attempt to board the ships or prevent them from landing. Israeli intelligence learned that some of the flotilla participants may be bringing along chemical agents such as sulfuric acid in order to "shed the blood of IDF soldiers." The provocateurs apparently hope to gain the type of notoriety and publicity that activists in 2010 achieved when they brutally attacked Israeli soldiers boarding one of the flotilla vessels.

In 2010, flotilla organizers justified their actions by claiming a humanitarian crisis existed in Gaza. It was not true then and is not true now, as the deputy head of the Red Cross subdelegation to Gaza flatly stated in April 2011 that there is "no humanitarian crisis in Gaza." As recently as June 19, 2011, an aid convoy to Gaza named "Miles of Smiles 3" delivered 15 medical vehicles and 30 tons of medical supplies and milk powder to Gaza through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.

Israel has the right - legally and ethically - to stop and inspect ships that attempt to deliver supplies straight to Gaza. In the past, ships attempting to smuggle tons of weapons into Gaza were prevented from doing so by the Israeli blockade. If the Flotilla 2 activists are truly intending to deliver humanitarian supplies, and not to create a bloody confrontation with Israel, it is possible to do so by following procedures set up by the Egyptian and Israeli governments. By trying to circumvent the avenues provided to them, flotilla participants are demonstrating they are far more interested in self-promotion than the welfare of Palestinians.


Related Links

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Gaza flotilla begins to form as first ship heads toward maritime meeting point - Ha'aretz
Ya'alon: Flotilla participants will try to harm soldiers - Jerusalem Post
Senator Wants US-Israeli Op Against Flotilla - Military.com
Who Is Behind the Second Gaza Flotilla? - Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Gaza flotilla makes Internet splash - Reuters

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Kabul Siege Signals Time to Get Out

By Robert Spencer
Jihad Watch



Details are still unclear, but it appears that as many as six jihad/martyrdom suicide bombers descended upon the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul Tuesday night. As many as ten people have been murdered, and the Taliban is thumping its chest in victory. The death toll could end up being much higher: a Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, exulted:

“Our muj [mujahedin, warriors of jihad] entered the hotel, and they’ve gone through several stories of the building and they are breaking into each room and they are targeting the 300 Afghans and foreigners who are staying.”

The Taliban would kill Afghans as well as foreigners because they consider them to be complicit with the U.S.-backed government of Hamid Karzai. With Barack Obama’s announcement of a drawdown of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, they see an opportunity to assert their presence and power. The American troops will go, and their murder and mayhem will increase. Many will see in this an argument to keep the troops there, so as to preserve order – but what order prevails in Afghanistan today, after eight years of an American military presence there?

The Taliban’s continued ability to commit this murder and mayhem in Afghanistan is testimony to the failure of the American adventure there, the loss of thousands of lives of noble and courageous American military personnel who deserved better from those in command, and the wanton waste of billions of dollars. It was not a failure of power: we were not outgunned or outfought. It was a failure of will, stemming from a misdiagnosis of the problem. Two American administrations have spoken about bringing democracy and freedom to Afghanistan, and yet have not been able or willing to face the fact that the foremost obstacle to those goals was Islam, which respects neither.

Speaking about the vaunted “Arab Spring” a few weeks ago, Barack Obama declared:

“The United States supports a set of universal rights. And these rights include free speech, the freedom of peaceful assembly, the freedom of religion, equality for men and women under the rule of law, and the right to choose your own leaders - whether you live in Baghdad or Damascus, Sanaa or Tehran.”

But not Kabul, apparently. The Bush Administration sponsored the implementation in Afghanistan of a Constitution that enshrined Islamic law as the highest law of the land, such that no law could be made that contradicted it. The bitter fruit of that disastrously short-sighted decision began to appear early on: in 2006 the Karzai government put a convert from Islam to Christianity on trial for apostasy, a capital offense under Islamic law. When an aghast State Department protested, pointing out that Afghanistan’s shiny new Constitution guaranteed freedom of religion, Afghan officials patiently explained to them that it guaranteed freedom of religion within the bounds of Sharia. That meant the institutionalized oppression of women and non-Muslims, the extinguishing of the freedom of speech, and – as was clear from the Abdul Rahman case and other apostasy cases that followed it — the denial of the freedom of conscience. Sanctioned by the Karzai government, not just by the Taliban.

Nonetheless, America continued to pour out her blood and treasure for this repressive state, with no clear objective or mission in view other than a never-defined “victory.” What would victory have looked like? What could it possibly have looked like? Was the Karzai government, or any Afghan government that followed it, ever going to allow women to throw off their burqas and take their place in Afghan society as human beings equal in dignity to men? Was the Karzai government, or any Afghan government that followed it, ever going to guarantee basic human rights to the tiny and ever-dwindling number of non-Muslims unfortunate enough to live within its borders? Absolutely not. The Bush and Obama Administrations, both drunk on the “Religion of Peace” Kool-Aid they have relentlessly peddled to the American people, completely disregarded the nature of Islam as a political system as well as a religion, and hence made no consideration whatsoever of the likelihood that most Afghans would reject the idea of a secular government, free elections, and equality of rights for all people as a blasphemous rejection of the way that a proper Islamic society should be ordered.

And so in Afghanistan today there is no “free speech, the freedom of peaceful assembly, the freedom of religion, equality for men and women under the rule of law, and the right to choose your own leaders” – except within the sharply circumscribed limits of Sharia. The Taliban is so strong that even Karzai has made overtures to it, as has Barack Obama; eight years after it was toppled from power, its claim of Islamic authenticity strongly resonates with the Afghan people, and provides an ever-renewable wellspring of material, financial, and moral support for these vicious thugs as they bomb girls’ schools, music stores, and other outcroppings of jahiliyya – the infidels’ society of ignorance.

With the withdrawal of the American troops, there will be many more Taliban actions like the one at the Intercontinental Hotel Tuesday night. That is unfortunate. But it is nothing that we ever could have definitively and finally stamped out anyway. The mind that believes that the supreme lord and master of the universe promises him a place in Paradise if he kills in his service and is killed in the process (cf. Qur’an 9:111) will not be dissuaded from this conviction by a few bags of rations and a clean new school for his daughters. The mind that believes that no non-Muslim has any right to rule in any part of Allah’s earth, and that it is the responsibility of Muslims to fight against Infidel polities in order to spread Sharia around the world will not be dissuaded by vague and high-toned promises of “freedom.”

The foremost lesson of America’s misbegotten Afghan adventure is that our national unwillingness to face the unpleasant truths about Islam, and particularly Islamic supremacism, costs us lives, costs us money, and makes us even more vulnerable to jihad attack than we already were. It’s time not just to bring the troops home from their foredoomed mission, but to begin a searching and encompassing reevaluation of all our national policies regarding Islam and Islamic states.

But under Barack Obama, that is about as likely as the possibility that he will make his next speech from Jerusalem, proclaiming it Israel’s capital and calling upon the Palestinian Arabs to end their jihad.


Related Links

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Kabul Hotel Attack Will Not Affect Security Transition - Voice of America
Poll: Broad majority of Americans support Afghan drawdown - Hot Air
9 militants, 9 others dead after attack on Kabul hotel - CNN
Officials: Hotel Gunmen Tied to Pakistan-Based Insurgent Group Allied With Taliban - FOX News
U.S. cost of war at least $3.7 trillion and counting - Reuters

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Still Killing Its People, Syria Offers a Smile

By Dr. Chuck Missler
Koinonia House



The battle continues in Syria, where protestors and security forces have clashed for three months over the rule of President Bashar al-Assad. Human rights groups say that more than 1000 people have been killed as the government cracks down on the protests. Because international media have been banned from the country, all information about the goings on come from interviews with refugees or in the form of amateur videos.

Video footage from the town of Hama on Friday showed what looked like tens of thousands of people shouting against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Syrian officers were captured on film shooting at protesters, leaving as many as 20 dead.

Gunfire and tear gas were the response to protests in the Damascus suburbs of Barze and Midan. Witnesses said that officers were making "Mass arrests … taking whoever is standing in the street." Another witness claimed that security forces fired into a crowd in south Damascus, injuring unknown numbers of people.

On June 20, Assad, a clean cut 45-year-old (with a remarkably long neck), spoke to the people of Syria and offered reforms, inviting the opposition to a "national dialogue" including the possibility of allowing competition with his ruling Baath Party. Commentators in the area were not impressed with the too-little-too-late approach, especially since Assad had recently called the protestors "saboteurs" and "germs."

Even those previously friendly to Assad criticized him. "Whoever looks into the reactions to President Bashar al-Assad's last speech would find it hard to find even one positive statement in its favor since almost everyone found it negative on all levels," wrote columnist Mohamed Krichen in Al-Quds al-Arabi, a Palestinian-owned daily published in London. Krichen declared that Assad had "wasted another opportunity." He wrote, "It is not shameful for a leader worthy of that title to show a little modesty, retreat or recognize the mistakes he committed while saying he is willing to assume his responsibilities in full."

Still, there appear to be some steps toward reconciliation. A group of 200 Syrian opposition figures gathered at the Semiramis Hotel in Damascus Monday in order to seek the "peaceful transition to a democratic, civil and pluralistic state." Many activists refused to show up because of the ongoing harsh crackdown. Those that did attend called for the attacks on protestors to end, political prisoners to be released, and the army to pull back from the cities.

The Syrian government sent out an Assad advisor to smile and troubleshoot on Tuesday. Bouthaina Shaaban presented the government's crisis as one against lawless groups of "armed gangs." She said that the president recognized that there were legitimate grievances and declared that the government was not targeting peaceful protestors but extremists.

"It is our ultimate desire, as a government, of course, to put an end to the violence," she said. "But when you have extremists everywhere, going anywhere, killing people, obstructing roads. What do you do? The opposition should come and help, not only criticize."

Shaaban claimed that over 500 officers had been killed, "...sometimes with their families their children. Who is killing [them]? I want an answer from the opposition, they have no answer."

The international community is not ready to dive into Syria the way it did Libya. NATO's intervention in Libya did not result in the exit of Muammar Gaddafi, and nobody wants to get into the sticky mess in Syria.

Russia, which has long sold weapons to Syria, has called on Syria to implement "real" reforms. Russian envoy Mikhail Margelov met with a group of Syrian opposition activists in Moscow, and he said that Russia did not want Syria to descend into a civil war like the one that plagued Libya.

Meanwhile, the European Union added more sanctions to the list against both Syria and Iran, which has been accused of aiding in the attacks against protestors.

Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty gave a passionate speech at the Council on Foreign Relations on Tuesday morning, criticizing the Obama Administration's tolerant attitude toward the Syrian government:

"The Obama ‘engagement' policy in Syria led the Administration to call Bashar al Assad a 'reformer.' Even as Assad's regime was shooting hundreds of protesters dead in the street, President Obama announced his plan to give Assad 'an alternative vision of himself.' Does anyone outside a therapist's office have any idea what that means?"

Related Links

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Syrian Forces Launch Deadly Attack Against Northwestern Province - FOX News
'Warning to Assad: Attack us, we'll hit you personally' - Jerusalem Post
Isaiah 17 - An Oracle Against Damascus - BPB (Jack Kelley)
Obama’s ‘Fantasy’ Rejects Bringing Home Envoy from Syria - Arutz Sheva
Report: Israel threatens to assassinate Syria's Assad - Israel Today (Ryan Jones)

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