Forced to Concede a Homeland
Sep 3rd
by Victor Sharpe
“Let me tell you about land for peace.”
I remember once seeing a cartoon of a Native American chief looking wistfully towards the distant horizon where once his ancestral homeland lay. He was speaking to a stranger about the peace treaties he made that were all dishonored by many Americans.
The caption read: “Let me tell you about land for peace.”
With this in mind, and with the painful knowledge of Israel’s past “land for peace” fiascos, I penned an article last year published in American Thinker, called “First Two-State Solution is 87 Years Old“.
I felt it necessary to remind the world how, in 1922, the British Colonial Office, headed by Winston Churchill, had arbitrarily abrogated the promises made by Britain under the Balfour Declaration – of assisting the creation in Mandatory Palestine of a Jewish National Home. The British government broke its promise by tearing away all of the Mandate territory east of the River Jordan and giving it away to the Arab Hashemite tribe. No Jews were allowed thereafter to live within the new Arab territory – Apartheid by the Arabs.
Now the Jewish state (a third of the size of Jordan) – ever obliged through international pressures to take risks by agreeing to “land for peace”, but never, ever receiving peace – is faced with the relentless continuation of the plan to divide up again what remains of the Land of Israel, by tearing away its biblical and ancestral homeland.
What is threatened is the very biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria known throughout the world by its Jordanian Arab name, the West Bank. Land for peace and the two-state solution combine in a deathly embrace to force Israel into agreeing to permit within its narrow borders the creation of an Arab terror state to be called “Palestine”: the 23rd Arab state.
In my work as a freelance writer and author, I am constantly forced to battle both Israel-bashers in the media as well as Jews who are sadly willing to abandon their people’s patrimony. They do so in the deluded belief that by giving away the land, a full and lasting peace with the Muslim Arabs will descend upon embattled Israel like manna from heaven.
It is necessary to retell the story of the redemption in June 1967, when Divine providence and Jewish patriotism combined to free Judea, Samaria, Gaza and the Golan Heights from alien occupation. But why must it be required to reiterate again and again that Israel did not capture land from another people? It always was the Jewish people’s very own land; and it returned to its native people.
How long must the people endure Israeli governments which turn a blind eye to the creation of new Arab facts springing up on Judean and Samarian soil as a house here and a villa there? How long must they wait before a nationalist and patriotic Israeli government emerges that withstands foreign pressures; never again sending its police and troops, like thieves in the night, to destroy Jewish villages (I never use the pejorative English word, “settlements”) on that same Judean and Samarian land?
Will Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu withstand such foreign pressure? Will he have learned the terrible lesson from his abandonment of Hebron, one of Judaism’s four holy cities in the land, the city of the Jewish people’s biblical patriarchs and matriarchs, to the Muslim Arabs? Unless a miraculous change of heart occurs, I fear not.
Nationalist and patriotic Israelis, along with Jewish and non-Jewish supporters in the Diaspora, may therefore see the new government, with its inclusion of Ehud “peace at any price” Barak as Defense Minister, continue the lamentable policy of “land for peace”; whereby, Israel gives away its land but never receives peace; followed inevitably with the direst of all tragedies – a second “two-state solution”.
How long before the majority of politicians in the Knesset finally accept that Jews have returned to their ancestral and Biblical land, a land which presently stretches from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River – a mere 44 miles at its widest.
How long before they realize that Israel must not be the only nation in the world perpetually forced to concede its homeland – the very special land given in eternal Covenant by the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, King of Israel, Creator of the Universe – invisible and indivisible.
The threats are mounting against the Jewish state to an extent not seen since 1947. My own published two volume book, Politicide: The attempted murder of the Jewish state, outlines the relentless march of the enemies of what is called in Hebrew, Eretz Yisrael.
The manner in which Israel may yet prevail is to resist from a position of relative territorial strength. Hebron and Jericho have already been lost to those Arabs who call themselves Palestinians (save for a tiny, ever threatened Jewish enclave in holy Hebron).
The Arabs have no interest in Israel’s survival; rather, the opposite. In return for a reduction in American support, Israel would be wise to keep Judea and Samaria. Keep the Golan. Restore parts of the Gaza Strip.
Will the Jewish state remain true to the Covenant? Will it no longer concede one inch of covenanted land? Will that resolve extend to an undivided Jerusalem? Will there be a firm and unyielding rejection of yet another two-state solution? If not, I fear it will be another Final Solution for the Jewish people and the Jewish state. There are some six million Israeli Jews threatened with genocide by the Muslim and Arab world. Six million Jews were slaughtered in Europe just over 60 years ago. Was that not enough?
Remember, it is always infinitely preferable to fight from a position of territorial strength than to be forced to battle for survival after yet more of the homeland has been given away in return for nothing.
Remember the words of that Native American.
Victor Sharpe is a freelance writer and contributor to Jerusalem Connection.
Obama’s Peace Plan
Aug 29th
By Jim Hutchens
After surveying the threats Israel faces, internally and externally, Aaron Klein concludes in his best selling book, The Late Great State of Israel, “I trust and believe that Israel will ultimately survive against all odds and in spite of the threats from within and without only by the grace of God. But for now, things don’t look good.”
Indeed they don’t. And the primary reason things don’t look good is because of President Obama’s peace plan that he intends to impose on Israel. Never mind the fact that he has toured the Muslim world assuring them that American values will not be imposed on the Muslims. But the hypocrisy of double-standards is readily apparent when the President is quick to impose on Israel his own values that require a two-state solution with a divided Jerusalem. Caroline Glick, writing in the Jerusalem Post, is spot on when she concludes, “America’s betrayal of Israel by the present [Obama] government is a reality.”
While the evidence of that betrayal will evolve throughout the length of Obama administration, the decision for that betrayal has evidently already been made. Does this mean the ultimate and final demise of Israel as the Palestinian Jihadists want? No, and the reason is because of what Aaron Klein referred to in his astute insight Israel will survive, “only by the grace of God.”
Not only does the two-state solution with a divided Jerusalem lack any rational basis politically, economically, socially or militarily, but it is based on the total ignorance of God’s declared promise of this land as a national home land for the Jewish people. As a matter of fact the current U.S. policy regarding the Israel-Palestinian issue is founded on myth derived from an on-going revisionist history. Not only are God’s covenants with Israel summarily dismissed (if known at all), but all international law respecting this issue is totally ignored.
As we have noted in our Jerusalem Connection Peace Plan: “The legal validity of the modern state of Israel must be recognized as having been established by international law. This is confirmed by The Balfour Declaration of November 1917, authenticated and formalized by the British Mandate of the League of Nations in July 1922, by the United Nations partition resolution of 1947, by the official recognition of the State of Israel by the United States in May of 1948 and Israel’s admission to the United Nations in 1949.”
If Israel’s so-called Palestinian peace partners refuse to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist, refuse to denounce and stop violence against Israel and refuse to abide by any past agreements with Israel, where then is there any realistic hope for peace. There is none, and if the Obama administration thinks it can impose peace they are living in a fantasy land of their own making. Is there any hope?
Unfortunately 78% of American Jews voted for Obama. As they see the progressive erosion of support for Israel on the part of Obama, they should be jarred into action. The elected Jewish politicians, most of whom are Democrats, should demand a change in Obama’s policies toward Israel and be held accountable if they don’t. Only time will tell if they have the political courage to challenge their leader. As for Christian Zionists, they have seen the folly of the two-state solution from the get go.
Sooner or later, and hopefully sooner, we will all see the numskull notion of Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in peace and security as a figment of western befuddled imagination. It’s simply not going to happen. There will be no peace until there is victory. Peace negotiations always follows, never precedes, victory on the battle field. Which means Israel will have to decisively defeat all Palestinian Jihadists including Hizbollah, totally disarm them and destroy and dismantle their terrorist infrastructure. Any thing short of this is illusory.
The sad reality of this is, if Israel does defeat the Palestinian Jihadists they will suffer the world’s condemnation. If they don’t they have consigned themselves to a never-ending fight for their own survival. The same is true whether or not they preemptively take out Iran’s nuclear capability. They are dammed if they do and dammed if they don’t.
Recently I was on a panel at a seminar hosted by the EMET Group and the Heritage Foundation dealing with New Solution to Old Problems related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The panel included three prominent Israelis, including two Major Generals plus former CIA Director, James Woolsey and noted scholar and commentator Daniel Pipes. The panel’s consensus conclusion was that the two-state solution is no solution at all primarily because neither Israel nor the Palestinians want it for different reasons, of course. Indeed, Aaron’s Klein’s word appears prophetic, “for now things don’t look good.”
Which brings me back to Klein’s more positive observation, “Israel will survive but only by the grace of God.” The prophet Daniel envisions a similar scenario. “There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. …It will be for three and a half years. When the power of the holy people has been finally broken, all things will be completed.” (12:1, 7). “Then the sovereignty, power and greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be handed over to the saints, the people of the Most High.” (7:27). The moral of the unfolding drama with Israel is that God’s grace will prevail. Read the end of the Book, we win!
A recent poll question on Lou Dobbs Tonight was, “Is it a sign of the times that President Obama is called “a god” (by Newsweek editor Evan Thomas) and “a false prophet” (by Jon Voight)? 86% agreed it was a sign of the times. 14% said no. We were heartened to see that 86% agree with us, but then it is our job to “Discern the signs of the times.”
Jim Hutchens is President of The Jerusalem Connection, International and editor of The Jerusalem Connection Report.
The Origins of the Dead Sea Scrolls
Aug 29th
By Shelley Neese
The discovery of the first Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 marked the beginning of a new era in Biblical scholarship. The scrolls predated the oldest known copies of the Hebrew Bible by a thousand years. They outlined the messianic hopes, prophetic interpretations, apocalyptic beliefs, and strict communal practices of a Jewish community unlike either the Pharisees or Sadducees, the two most well-known sects of the Second Temple period. After a half century more of archeological excavation and scroll study one glaring question remains unanswered: Who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?
Almost immediately, the scrolls were associated with Qumran, an area of ruins near the Dead Sea. Out of 11 caves, six are within a quarter mile of Qumran. The cave which stored the largest cache of scrolls is just 500 yards from the ruins. In addition, Jodi Magness, a University of North Carolina professor, identifies another connection between Qumran and the scrolls; the same peculiar type of pottery jars that contained the scrolls was excavated at Qumran. Excavations also revealed several ink wells—a rare find at comparable sites from this period and potential evidence that at least some occupants were scribes. According to this logic, the Dead Sea Scrolls must have made up a permanent library for the inhabitants of Qumran. But who were Qumran’s residents?
From the outset, academics believed Qumran was a branch of the Essene movement, a sect of Jews who separated themselves from the leadership of the Second Temple and practiced a stricter form of Judaism than their religious contemporaries. The first-century Jewish historian Josephus claims to have spent time with the Essenes personally. In his writings, Josephus goes into great detail about the Essenes’ initiation processes, purity rituals, finances, and even toilet habits. The communal practices Josephus describes, like the pooling of personal property, seem to match the requirements laid out in the Community Rule, one of the most popular manuscripts in the Dead Sea collection. The Damascus Document, another common manuscript at Qumran, depicts a strict interpretation of religious law that matches what we know to be true of the Essenes, as opposed to the Pharisees or Sadducees.
Pliny the Elder, an ancient Roman geographer, mentions the location of the Essenes in his book Natural History (77 A.D.). He describes the Essenes living at a necessary distance “to the west of the Dead Sea,” above the town of Ein Gedi. Pliny’s description seems to correspond with Qumran’s location.
Aspects of Qumran’s architecture also seemed to fit what an ascetic group focused on community and cleanliness would need. In the ruins, there are at least eight stepped pools, identified as mikvahs, a necessity for the Essenes’ ritual purity laws. In the excavations, a pantry was discovered with tall stacks of plates and bowls, pointing to the existence of communal meals, an important observance for Essenes according to Josephus. Twelve hundred ancient graves lie near Qumran; a small portion of these were unearthed in the 1950s. All the corpses received a strict religious burial, and most were male, aligning with the thought that the Essenes of Qumran were a celibate all-male community.
For three decades, the question of who wrote the scrolls seemed to be settled. Biblical scholars widely accepted that Essenes occupied Qumran, and that these occupants owned the scrolls. This theory fell in line with the conclusions of Pere Roland de Vaux, a French archeologist who in 1951-1956 was the first to excavate Qumran professionally.
By the late 1980s, however, cracks in the Essene theory began to emerge. De Vaux had died before he completed a final report from his Qumran excavations. Scholars, tasked with cataloguing and publishing de Vaux’s material, returned to the archeological record on Qumran to take a second look at the findings. What they determined, rightly or wrongly, is that the original excavations failed to establish a concrete link between Qumran and the scrolls. For example, no scrolls or pieces of scrolls were found at Qumran. Out of 900 scrolls and scroll fragments, nowhere mentioned is the term “Essene” or the name of any other known Jewish sect. As for Josephus, he says the Essenes lived in towns all over Israel but never specifically mentions Qumran as an Essene center. Further, excavations revealed an insufficient number of private dwellings at Qumran for a place assumed to house a religious community.
Professor Norman Golb of the University of Chicago is the most ardent dissenter from the Essene theory. Golb thinks too many Jewish viewpoints and textual traditions are represented in the Dead Sea Scrolls to say this is the work of just one group. He also notes that a small sectarian community would not have possessed such a large library. The community would have unlikely contained the number of scribes sufficient to produce so many manuscripts. Golb thinks many different groups wrote the scrolls, which he supposes were removed from Jerusalem libraries during the Roman war. Jews fleeing the Roman forces between 66 and 73 A.D. went to Qumran a day’s walk and hid the scrolls in caves for safekeeping. The problem with Golb’s theory lies in the opinions of the sectarian scrolls’ authors, who write about a deep hostility toward the groups controlling the Temple and who do not express the views of mainstream Judaism at the time.
Two established Israeli archaeologists, Yuval Peleg and Yitzhak Magen the most recent to excavate Qumran propose the site was just a pottery factory that had nothing to do with the Essenes. They say the scrolls came from the sectarian libraries of Jewish refugees under Roman threat. Peleg and Magen recognize the pottery link between Qumran and the caves but theorize that the refugees hastily took jars from Qumran which by that time might have been vacated to hide their scroll deposits before fleeing the region.
A new book recently added to the debate stirs up even more controversy. Professor Rachel Elior of Hebrew University claims in Memory and Oblivion that the scrolls came from Jerusalem and were written by the Sadducees—ousted Temple priests. Elior goes one step further, claiming Josephus invented the Essenes and they never really existed.
The argument over the origins of the Dead Sea Scrolls brings normally collected scholars close to physical blows. Not all theories mentioned here were presented passively by academics looking to foster constructive debate. Among the scroll scholars exists an Essene camp and an anti-Essene camp. Golb has claimed for years that the pro-Essene scholars have tried to silence him, frequently calling them fanatics. Magen, called the proponents of the Qumran Sect theory “a guild with money and conferences.”
This past March, the academic feud reached a new low—lower than the Dead Sea itself. Golb’s 49-year-old son, Raphael, was arrested for an Internet plot to promote his father’s theories. He used at least 80 fake online aliases to post inflammatory comments on blogs defending the credibility of his father’s theories. According to the Manhattan District Attorney, Raphael was “creating multiple aliases to engage in a campaign of impersonation and harassment relating to the Dead Sea Scrolls and scholars of opposing viewpoints.” In at least one case Raphael opened an e-mail account under the name of New York University professor Lawrence H. Schiffman, who opposed Golb’s opinions. Sending e-mails in Schiffman’s name, Raphael fabricated a confession from the NYU professor that he had plagiarized parts of Golb’s work.
Despite the best efforts of Raphael and the depth of emotion surrounding the debate on the origins of the scrolls, no new consensus has yet replaced the Essene hypothesis or categorically disproved it. In the intriguing world of scroll scholarship, academics who think the Essenes wrote the manuscripts are still in the clear majority. In the last 25 years, the landscape of scroll scholarship has changed as a growing group of dissenters has succeeded in adding a degree of doubt to a theory once accepted unanimously. The case is never closed. In the fickle field of archeology and scroll study, we are always one discovery away from changing the entire question.
Shelley Neese is managing editor for the The Jerusalem Connection Report.
Imam Faisal’s Bridge to Nowhere
Aug 23rd
Imam Faisal
by Victor Sharpe
The Imam who is pushing for the construction of the Cordoba victory mosque is strangely and troublingly embraced by the U.S. State Department to an extent that leaves many puzzled and alarmed. Why has Hillary Clinton funded this Imam as he tours the Middle East at U.S. taxpayer cost?
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is being portrayed by the Obama regime as a sincere Moslem whose sole effort in life is to foster greater harmony among Moslems and non-Moslems and “greater understanding” about Islam among non-Moslem Americans. How nice. But is it really true?
Imam Rauf has said he is not interested in talking about political matters. He is a cleric after all, which is why, he states, he will not involve himself in condemning the bloody history of Hamas or the Moslem Brotherhood of which it is a part. Yet in interviews and speeches he has given, he has said that the Arab-Israel conflict should be resolved through a “one state solution.” That is political speech if ever there was. And by calling for such a solution, he knows only too well that it would mean a “final solution” for the Jewish state and for the Jews living in it.
This Imam has a silver tongue and is most adept at promoting Islam in America – but it is supremacist jargon when his words are parsed. He is not truly interested in peace and harmony but, as with so many Moslems, he wants Islamic Sharia law to eventually supersede the United States Constitution. Oh, he will vehemently deny such a thing, but the very mosque he espouses and works tirelessly to create just yards from the tomb that is the blasted World Trade Center, will be the thirteen story high tangible symbol of Islam’s victory over America and Judeo-Christian civilization. That is the empirical fact that all those liberals and multiculturalists fail to grasp as they waffle on about freedom of religion – which they surely know is not denied anyone in the Constitution, certainly not Moslems in the United States.
So why is Clinton’s State Department paying for the Imam to visit Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi and Qatar? Why is State Department spokesman Crowley saying that Imam Faisal will not be permitted to raise funds in the oil rich Persian Gulf states by claiming, “… that would not be something he could do as part of our program.” Indeed, Rauf himself stated that funds for the mega-mosque would only come from Moslems and members of the congregation.
But according to a report in the NY Post, a London-based Arabic-language newspaper that interviewed Abdul Rauf reported that he will also collect money from Muslim and Arab nations around the world – raising the possibility his goodwill mission could help him build contacts in oil-rich states. So who is telling the truth and just what is behind this State Department’s current cozying up to Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf? Is there a guiding hand, perhaps called Barak Hussein Obama?
.
Meanwhile a family member of a 9/11 victim of that barbaric Moslem destruction of the iconic New York Twin Towers landmark, Debra Burlingame, asks: “Does the State Department have any idea they are sending a guy to the Middle East who is going to be fund-raising perhaps among the very same people he will be meeting with?”
She continued: “We know he has a fund-raising association with Saudi Arabia. It is known that the Saudis have contributed money to underwrite programs by the American Society for Muslim Advancement, a not-for-profit that Abdul Rauf runs with his wife and that is one of the sponsors of the Ground Zero mosque.”
Ms. Burlingame points out that the State Department knows what the Imam is up to. As she says, ” … he’s going to the well, and how can they say they do or don’t know what he’s doing?”
Walid Shoebat, former Moslem and Palestinian Arab terrorist, and now a Christian and supporter of Israel, quotes in his blog from an article by the Mega Mosque Imam titled, Sharing the Essence of our Beliefs, published in the Jordanian newspaper, Al-Ghad on May 9, 2009: “For that, we collectively believe that the state that was erected by the prophet in Medina was the ideal model for an Islamic state. The challenge today in the Islamic world is how do we accomplish this in our current era.”
As Mr. Shoebat points out, “Now you will know why Imam Faisal refused to describe Hamas as a terrorist organization.”
Mr. Shoebat mentions an article written in the Middle East about Imam Rauf titled, “The Most Prominent Imam in New York,” in which the writer avers that Rauf does not believe in religious dialogue. Summing up his impression of Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf and his associates, Mr. Shoebat states clearly that, “Abdul Rauf uses stealth strategy to make it difficult to detect their Sharia driven agenda while under the guise of interfaith dialogue and building bridges in what they say in English. In Arabic, their statements are clear – the bridge is to build Sharia.”
Victor Sharpe is a freelance writer, contributor to Jerusalem Connection, and author of several books including Volumes One &Two of Politicide: The attempted murder of the Jewish state.
The Poisoned Pen
Aug 11th
by Victor Sharpe
“Then said Satan: This besieged one, how shall I overcome him?
He has courage and ability, he has weapons and imagination.
So he said: I shall not take his strength, nor muzzle nor bridle him.
Nor soften nor weaken his hands, only one thing I shall do;
I shall dull his brain and he will forget that he is in the right.”
So wrote the Israeli poet, Natan Alterman, in his poem, Gone like a Dream. He was expressing his deep anxiety over the weakening resolve and steadfastness of the Jews of Israel and of the Diaspora in their support for the reconstituted Jewish state.
For long decades, in the face of unrelenting Arab Muslim hostility and aggression, the Jews were imbued with a deep conviction of the rightness and righteousness of their cause.
Many still do and fight against an unremitting and hostile world that would consign Israel to the abyss, but far too many today have fallen away and been seduced by an overwhelming onslaught – not of military might – but by a war of ideas, however false and twisted those ideas are. The success of those lies has sapped the will of many and confused many more.
We have all heard of the Big Lie theory that was so successfully enunciated and practiced by Adolf Hitler’s propaganda minister, Josef Goebbels. The theory essentially posits that people will believe in a lie if it is big enough and repeated enough times.
Goebbels knew that most people had a scant understanding of a situation but when they heard the same lie repeated again and again they would begin to accept unquestionably what was being told to them.
Goebbels put it this way: “The rank and file is usually much more primitive than we imagine. Propaganda must therefore always be essentially simple and repetitious. The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly … it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.”
The Muslim Arabs have learned this lesson all too well for they have succeeded in doing what years of Arab and Islamist warfare and terror have failed to do. They have isolated the Jewish state as never before and won millions around the globe to their cause by demonizing Israel with the Goebbelian technique of the Big Lie theory.
Arab Muslim spokespersons have become adept at smoothly repeating a few enormous lies, often wrapped in pseudo-emotion, that coerce so many uninformed but well- intentioned listeners who then fall for them – hook, line and sinker.
A typical technique by such Arab Muslim propagandists is to create a lie and deliver it with conviction. As soon as the lie is exposed for what it is, the Arab or pro-Arab propagandists merely moves on to the next big howler. And so it goes – an endless and unashamed armory of pernicious falsehoods masquerading as facts.
And in the court of public opinion, the victim of those manufactured myths, Israel, now becomes the victimizer and oppressor to so many people and thus further marginalized and demonized.
Leftists and Marxists rush to embrace the cause of the Arabs, who call themselves Palestinians, seeing through a dark mirror a warped comparison of the successful and creative Jewish state with Lenin’s attack on capitalism – and if the Jewish state is surrounded by self-oppressed and failed Arab societies, so much the better. Add to this Ionesco like ‘Theater of the Absurd’ a mainstream international media, which eagerly loves to be manipulated by Arab and Muslim regimes, and you have a perfect storm.
This then is the metaphysical challenge to Israel as it resists both the violence of overt Muslim Arab physical aggression and the equally diabolical violence of the poisoned pen and the mendacity of the misspoken word.
The old aphorism goes: ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm them.’ Oh! But they do.
And the Arab Muslim world has learned, just as Josef Goebbels knew, that if you lie about a people and bear false witness against them, you prepare them with your hateful words for an extermination that millions around the globe will willingly accept and excuse.
Satan is busy. He hates the light of Israel. He hates the creativity, the progress and the freedoms that Israel, like America, spreads throughout the world.
He enjoys the ultimate absurdity that spews from the Islamic Republic of Iran as the new ‘Haman,’ Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, calls the United States the ‘Great Satan’ and Israel, the ‘Little Satan.’ Oh, how delicious that irony is to the real Satan.
But the dark forces of Arab and Islamic hate know that they will not prevail if they fail to extinguish the flickering candle of light in the world. Israel is that illuminating candle and will surely endure despite Satan’s eternal quest to snuff it out. As it says in the Apocrypha’s Book of Esdras 2: “I shall light a candle of understanding in thy heart, which shall not be put out.”
It should also be understood by the forces of hate and darkness, those who worship death, not life, that the flame of a single candle can light untold millions more.
Victor Sharpe is a freelance writer and author of Volumes One and Two of Politicide: The attempted murder of the Jewish state. Victor’s books may be purchased or downloaded on line from the publisher www.lulu.com or from www.Amazon.com
Islam is Islam is Islam
Aug 4th
by Victor Sharpe
To quote the old proverb: “If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, it must be a duck.” So it is with Islam. There is no radical Islam, no hijacked Islam, no corrupted Islam, no extreme Islam and no moderate Islam: There is simply Islam.
Listening to White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, answering questions from reporters about the planned 15 story high mosque mere yards from ground zero was revealing. He said: “I think you’ve heard this administration and the last administration talk about the fact that we are not at war with a religion but with an idea that has corrupted a religion.”
There again is that oft repeated phrase that the religion of Islam has been corrupted. But does Gibbs and his boss, Barack Hussein Obama, truly believe that Islam is a peaceful religion and not without a major pillar called jihad with its dire implications for all non-Moslems or, as the Muslim world likes to describe them: infidels.
One still hears the phrase by well-meaning but misguided individuals that Islam means peace. No. Islam means submission; not submission to the will of the people but solely to the will of Allah. And Moslems may not ever question the teachings of the prophet Mohammed.
Islam also teaches that it is superior to all other religions. It is Islam über alles. The Moslem is taught that Judaism and Christianity perverted the will of Allah and Islam received the superior revelation requiring, therefore, that Jews and Christians ultimately submit to Islam.
Islam bases its ideology on five pillars – Witness to Allah and his prophet Mohammed; Prayer five times daily facing Mecca and the Ka’ba; Almsgiving to the poor and to the mosque; Fasting during the month of Ramadan; and Pilgrimage to Mecca. But there is a sixth pillar called jihad. This is now the greatest of all threats to Judeo-Christian civilization. Indeed one can say that much of the world faces an existential threat to its survival, not from the manufactured and erroneous science of global warming but from global jihad.
According to Abraham Katsh, who wrote the following as far back as 1954 in his book on the Koran:
“The duty of Jihad, the waging of Holy War, has been raised to the dignity of a sixth canonical obligation … To the Moslem, the world is divided into regions under Islamic control, the dar al-Islam, and regions not subjected as yet, the dar al-harb.
“Between this area of warfare and the Muslim dominated part of the world there can be no peace. Practical considerations may induce the Muslim leaders to conclude an armistice, but the obligation to conquer and, if possible, convert never lapses. Nor can territory once under Muslim rule be lawfully yielded to the unbeliever. Legal theory has gone so far as to define as dar al-Islam any area where at least one Muslim custom is observed.
“Thanks to this concept, the Moslem is required to subdue the infidel, and he who dies in the path of Allah is considered a martyr and assured of Paradise and of unique privileges there.”
Now we can see how there will never be a true and lasting peace by the Muslim Arabs – who call themselves Palestinians, or by the Arab and Muslim states – with Israel. Islam will not allow it. So it is pointless, therefore, and against God’s Covenant with His people, to give away one single centimeter of biblical and ancestral Jewish land to the so-called Palestinian Arabs or to anyone else.
Nor can there ever be peace between Muslim Kosovo and the Orthodox Christian Serbs or between Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India, to name a few of the endless Muslim engendered wars raging in the world today. The simple reason is that Islam will never countenance or accept peace with any non-Muslim neighbor: Never.
Jihad requires the Moslem believers to spread what they consider “Islamic truth” by all means, especially by the sword. Now in our modern world, the sword gives way to the most lethal and devastating weaponry in man’s military arsenal. That is why the leader of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, seeks the ultimate nuclear weapon to destroy Israel and usher in what he believes to be the Islamic messiah, the 12th Imam.
As I’ve written previously, Islam, through jihad, is to spread what is called in Arabic, Dar al-Islam, the “House of Submission” meaning those lands occupied and controlled by Islamic states and under Sharia law. Those nations not yet conquered by Muslim forces are in what is called the “Dar al-Harb: the House of War, and must be eventually overcome by endless war.
Islam seeks to impose Sharia law wherever it gains control. It is based upon the Koran and the Sunna and has not been reformed or modified since the 7th century. It can never be changed. That is why we see on the front page of the Times magazine the horrific photograph of the 18 year old Afghani girl whose nose and ears were cut off by her husband, acting according to Islamic Sharia law. Her offense was that she had fled from her cruel family and in-laws and, as a mere woman under Taliban Islamic rule, she had little or no rights.
Saudi Arabia invests endless billions of dollars to build mosques throughout the world. The international blanketing of cities with mosques is just another expression of jihad. In Western Europe, most famously renamed Eurabia by the writer, Bat Yeor, there may soon come a time when there will be more minarets than steeples.
Perhaps the most egregious and blatant example of Islamic triumphalism is the planned construction of a giant mosque in New York, almost upon the site of the horrific destruction of the Twin Towers by Moslem terrorists acting in the name of Allah.
The proposed Cordoba Mosque (named after the Islamic defeat of Christians in Spain during the 8th century) is to be opened in 2011 on the very anniversary of the September 11, 2001 atrocity – a flagrant insult to the memory of the thousands of innocents who died at the hands of Moslem fanatics and believers, most of them Saudis.
It is depressing to see and hear liberals such as White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, and New York Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, denigrating principled opponents of the giant mosque, accusing them of being against religious freedom. This is a canard and as baseless as the claim by proponents of the building of a mosque at ground zero as being merely Muslim outreach and interfaith understanding.
What liberals and “progressives” fail to understand by the very location of the mosque is what jihad is all about. Subdue the “infidel” at all costs. For Moslems, the Islamic obligation to conquer and convert the unbeliever and impose Sharia law must never lapse.
Victor Sharpe is the author of Volumes One and Two of Politicide: The attempted murder of the Jewish state. The books may be purchased on line from the publisher www.lulu.com or from www.Amazon.com
One that calls for a response
Jul 29th
Rep. Louie Gohmert [R-Texas] and 46 co-sponsors introduced House Resolution 1553; it “condemns the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran for its threats of ‘annihilating’ the United States and the State of Israel, for its continued support of international terrorism, and for its incitement of genocide of the Israeli people.”
It “supports using all means of persuading the Government of Iran to stop building and acquiring nuclear weapons” and pledges that the U.S. will ensure that Israel “continues to receive critical economic and military assistance, including missile defense capabilities, needed to address the threat of Iran.”
In addition, it “expresses support for Israel’s right to use all means necessary to confront and eliminate nuclear threats posed by Iran, defend Israeli sovereignty, and protect the lives and safety of the Israeli people, including the use of military force if no other peaceful solution can be found within a reasonable time.”
God says: I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war against the rider on the horse and his army. But the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who had performed the miraculous signs on his behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped his image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur. The rest of them were killed with the sword that came out of the mouth of the rider on the white horse.” [Revelation 19:11-21].
The Jerusalem Connection says: War with the Muslim world is inevitable. It is a fact of the prophetic future. It’s just a matter of time. Islam refuses to tolerate the existence of non-Muslims. They must convert or die. But the day is coming when Yahweh and his Messiah will tolerate no opposition. Those opposing him will be struck down and ruled with an iron scepter. Resolution 1553 signed by one-third of the House Republicans is merely a warning shot across the bow of Islam. And we will either be on God’s side in this battle or we will be destroyed. As we approach the elections of 2010 and 2012 we need to pray as we have been told to pray – that those in authority over us “may be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.” And if they refuse and reject the truth, that God would refuse and reject them. We can no longer live under Godless, deceitful and corrupt leaders. O Yahweh, have mercy on your people, in Jesus name, AMEN.
One that calls for a response
Jul 22nd
Rabbi Chaim Richman, director of the Temple Institute of Jerusalem said: “Tisha B’Av was not intended to be a day of perpetual mourning, but rather, a bridge to the future; the yearning and desire which our mourning inspires is designed to motivate us to rebuild, … “we hear many excuses, such as ‘who are we to rebuild the Temple? We are not ready. The time has not yet come. The Temple is a thing of the past.’”… “The renewal of Israel and the building of the Holy Temple is a process that has begun and is now unstoppable … This nation is preparing to ‘rise up like a lion’ (Numbers 23:24). We are moving ever closer to the day on which we can truly say, without jaded cynicism or facetiousness but with true sincerity, that Tisha B’Av is no longer relevant, for it will have turned into a day of gladness.”
God says: “Give careful thought to your ways. Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the he house so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored’ I am with you says Yahweh…. So Yahweh stirred up the spirit of the whole remnant of the people. They began to work on the house of Yahweh Almighty.”… “Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way for the day [of the LORD] will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed , the man doomed to destruction. He opposes and exalts himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped and even sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.” [Haggai 1:7, 14; II Thessalonians 2:3-4].
The Jerusalem Connection says: There’s good news and bad news. The good news is there is a growing acceptance among Jews, and especially Israelis, for the building of the third Temple in Jerusalem. It is a fact of the prophetic future. It will happen. The Bible says so. And we can rejoice with our Jewish elder brothers that it will happen. Of course for followers of Jesus as Messiah it will never take the place of the substitutionary sacrifice of the Lamb of God for the sins of the world. The bad news is, shortly after it is built, The Man of Sin (the anti-Messiah) will irreparably defile and desecrate the rebuilt Temple so that Messiah, when he comes, will have to totally destroy it. But there’s more good news. When Messiah comes he will set up his Kingdom on earth and there will be no need for a Temple then, “because Yahweh God Almighty and the Lamb are its Temple.”… “He who testifies to these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming soon.’” [Revelation 21:22; 22:20].
Palestinian arabs are a counterfeit people
Jul 22nd
by Victor Sharpe
The Arabs who call themselves “Palestinians” are Arabs who are indistinguishable from their fellow Arabs who live in the surrounding artificially created states such as Iraq and Jordan or the other entities throughout the Middle East created by the colonial powers, France and Britain. Both European powers were victorious after the Ottoman Turkish Empire lay defeated at the end of World War 1.
Both powers carved artificial borders across the corpse of what had been Turkey’s empire in the Middle East, and both France and Britain left a legacy of war and violence, which has bedevilled the region ever since. One such territory, previously occupied by Ottoman Turkey for 400 years, was the geographical entity known sometimes as Palestine ever since the destruction of Judea in 135 AD by Rome.
But there is no such a thing as a Palestinian people. No such thing as a Palestinian history or a Palestinian language exists. There has never been any independent, sovereign Palestinian state in all of recorded history – certainly not an Arab independent state of Palestine.
You will search in vain for Palestinian Arab coinage or Palestinian Arab archaeological artefacts specifically related to any Palestinian Arab king or ancient leader. But what you will find are coins, pottery, ancient scrolls, et cetera, all providing conclusive, empirical and millennial evidence of Jewish civilization dotting the land known correctly as Israel – not Palestine.
The present-day so-called “Palestinians” are an Arab people. They share an Arab culture, ethnicity, and language identical to their fellow Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa, with few if any distinctions.
Yasser Arafat, the Egyptian born arch-terrorist, who imposed himself undemocratically on the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians, was fond of creating the absurd myth that Palestinian Arabs were descended from the Canaanites and the Philistines. As we know, the bigger the lie the bigger the number of people will believe it. And so Arafat twisted history in order to disinherit the indigenous native people of the land: the Jews.
Canaanites, without doubt, were the first known inhabitants of the Land of Israel before the first Hebrews, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, settled there and before Moses, much later, brought them back during the Exodus to the Promised Land from slavery in Egypt.
Indeed, the correct early geographic name of the Land of Israel is Canaan, not “Palestine.” The Canaanites lived both along the coastal plain and in the mountain regions, which run like a spine down the biblical territory of Samaria and Judea. Their language was similar to Hebrew and their territory stretched north into present day Lebanon and included the present day Golan Heights.
The Canaanites were finally subdued during the reign of King David. Most Canaanites were gradually assimilated into the Jewish tribes, embraced the faith, and were no longer a distinguishable people.
After the 8th century BC, the Canaanites no longer existed and the only people, therefore, who can trace back any lineage to the ancient Canaanites are the Jews: not the Palestinian Arabs. So much for Arafat’s nonsense and for the on- going attempts by today’s Palestinian Arabs to hoodwink the world.
The term “Philistine” provides the source from which the term “Palestine” is derived. The Roman Emperor, Hadrian, recycled the name as an insult to the Jews whose independence he had destroyed. He thus renamed Judea, Philistia, which in time became Palestine. Like the Arabs who gave themselves the concocted name “Palestinian,” the Philistines were alien peoples who entered the land from other regions.
The modern “Palestinian Arabs” flooded British Mandatory Palestine from Arab territories as far away as Sudan, Egypt, Syria and what was Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). They were attracted during the early decades of the 20th century by new employment opportunities provided by the Jewish pioneers, whose heroic efforts were turning the desert green again and restoring the centuries of neglect the land had endured under alien conquerors.
The Arabs came from the stagnant surrounding Arab lands. Britain turned a blind eye to the flood of illegal aliens entering, while at the same time often arbitrarily limiting Jewish immigration into their ancient, biblical and ancestral homeland in order to appease Arab extremists.
The Philistines were non-Semitic peoples who had entered the land from their homes throughout the Aegean Islands in general and from Crete in particular. They are therefore often known as the Sea Peoples.
These ancient Cretans arrived in Southern Canaan and were known as “Pelestim and Keretim” by the Hebrew tribes. It appears that their first settlement may have been Gaza. Later they settled in Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gat and Ekron: the Pentapolis.
Their territory was primarily along the coastal Mediterranean; interestingly, a territory not dissimilar in size to the present day Gaza Strip. They attempted at different times to invade Judah but they were turned back by the various Jewish heroes we know from the Bible and ultimately defeated by King David. From that time onwards they were diminished as a threat and as a separate people – finally disappearing from history. Any “Palestinian” Arab attempt to claim a lineage with them is as absurd as that of links with the early Canaanites for neither Philistines or Canaanites were Arabs.
The so-called “Palestinians” who claim Jerusalem do not want it because it is truly theirs; they want merely to take it away from the Jews for whom Jerusalem, known also as Zion, is the eternal, 3,000 year old Jewish capital.
Perhaps what links the modern day Arabs who call themselves “Palestinians” with the ancient Philistines is that both are invaders. The Philistines wanted to take from the Israelites the Holy Ark of the Covenant, while today’s so-called “Palestinian Arabs” want to take the Holy City of the Covenant. So let me close with the words of a Christian Arab, Joseph Farah, who knows of what he writes.
“There has never been a land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians. Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians (another recent invention), Syrians, Iraqis, etc. Keep in mind that the Arabs control 99.9 per cent of the Middle East lands. Israel represents one-tenth of one per cent of the landmass. But that’s too much for the Arabs. They want it all. And that is ultimately what the fighting in Israel is about today… No matter how many land concessions the Israelis make, it will never be enough”.
- Joseph Farah, “Myths of the Middle East” -
Victor Sharpe is a freelance writer and author of several books including Volumes One and Two of Politicide: The attempted murder of the Jewish state.
A time for war and a time for peace
Jul 20th
By Shelley Neese
The modern state of Israel was born out of a war, grew territorially through war, and established its capital in Jerusalem via war. These combat victories prevented her annihilation time and again. Yet, some argue, if God is a God of peace, then all violence is un-Godly. Ergo, if war is wrong, Israel is wrong.
Christian Zionists know that for Israel war has been a means of survival, moral by way of necessity. Christian Zionists generally see Israel’s use of war as necessary in order to secure a state for the peace and protection of the Jewish people in their covenanted land. Israel’s War of Independence in 1948 was as justified (and miraculous) as God’s sending of the plagues on Egypt to bring the Hebrews out of slavery.
Anti-Zionist Christians counter that Israel’s violent conflict with the Palestinians proves the Jewish state is operating outside of God’s will. These Christians highlight New Testament passages seen as opposing violence of all forms and promoting peace. An often emphasized verse from Matthew quotes Jesus: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say…if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” [Matt. 5: 38-39]. The cornerstone of the anti-war Christian movement appears in the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God” [Matt. 5: 9]. They also carefully select Old Testament prophecies. A favorite verse comes out of Isaiah: “and they will hammer their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, and never again will they learn war” [Isa. 2: 4].
The problem with using Scripture to boost the anti-war argument is that each verse is taken out of context. When Jesus encourages believers to turn the other cheek and be peacemakers, He is talking about the ethics of loving your neighbor as yourself, instructing believers in how to love God and humanity. One should not infer that Jesus is denouncing war between nations as immoral or unjustified. In the Isaiah passage, the prophet is offering a vision of the millennial kingdom when all nations come together in peace. This vision is not meant to reflect the pre-millennial state of world order. In fact, Isaiah speaks at length about the judgment that awaits unrighteous nations who persecute God’s chosen people of Judah. The prophet warns of all the war and calamity that must befall the earth before restoration is achieved.
From antiquity to the present, war has been a regrettable necessity in Israel’s growth and protection. The Bible has the most to say about war—its justification and consequences—in the context of ancient Israel’s battles. It starts with the story of Exodus when God’s judgment of Pharaoh ended with the obliteration of the Egyptian army. In Deuteronomy 20, God sent the Israelites into war with the Amorites saying, “For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory” [Deut. 20:4]. Subsequent wars included Joshua’s conquest of the land of Israel and David’s war to expand the borders of Israel. Christian Zionists also argue that Israel’s military wins in 1948 and 1967 against those who sought their destruction were signs of God’s continued fidelity to the Jewish people.
God has dealt with nations in terms of their wickedness, using war as an instrument of divine correction. That being the case, the Hebrew people were not immune to military defeat. When the nation of Judah rebelled against God, prophets like Jeremiah warned them to repent or lose everything. Still, the Israelites ignored the prophecies and continued in disobedience. As a result, God allowed the Babylonians to destroy the temple, raze Jerusalem, and take the Jews into captivity.
Some Christians have a difficult time rectifying the God of the Old Testament and the words of Jesus. They believe a loving God would not condone war and therefore they reject the God of War in the Old Testament in favor of the Prince of Peace in the New Testament. Selective interpretation of God’s character is a dangerous game. A believer cannot throw out aspects of God because they are difficult to understand. The part of God that renders judgment and applies punishment does not tarnish God’s character or make Him any less loving.
To be sure, war is lamentable. The way of peace should always be sought by believers. God commands us in His word: “so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men” [Rom. 12:18]. But as long as we live in a profaned world and peace does not always depend on us, war will be a part of our existence. In some cases, peace can only be achieved through conflict. As Solomon said: There is “a time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace” [Eccles. 3:8].
In the second century, the heretic Marcion tried to purge Christianity of a belief in the Hebrew God. Marcion believed that the wrathful and jealous God of the Old Testament embodied evil. He taught that the Hebrew God had nothing to do with Jesus because Jesus was sent to Earth by a different and more benevolent God. Marcion rejected the Old Testament completely and canonized only those parts of the New Testament that taught peace and love.
No one is suggesting that all anti-Zionist Christians share the heretical views of Marcion. Nevertheless, many Christians today misunderstand the aforementioned Scriptures concerning a biblical view of peace and war. Some go so far as to conveniently overlook or even manipulate these Scriptures in order to promote a different image of God that suits their worldview. While Christians against Israel create a new theology of peace to promote their anti-war and pro-Palestinian positions, they strip down God’s character. In their teaching, God becomes a deity that stands for love and compassion, but nothing more.
As we see from the Scripture, it is not a contradiction to say that God loves peace but battles unrighteousness. God is a God of peace. But we must also not forget the Scripture that reads, “The Lord is a warrior” [Exod. 15:3]. Until the lion lies down with the lamb, Israel does not have the luxury of hammering its swords into plowshares.
Shelley Neese is managing editor for the The Jerusalem Connection Report.