Archive for May, 2010
‘Ware the spider’s web’
May 31st
By Stan Goodenough
The eruption of violence that occurred on the high seas in the early hours of May 31, when criminals and terrorists masquerading as peace activists attacked and tried to kill Israeli soldiers had at least one positive outcome:
It caused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cancel his visit to the White House, which had been set for Tuesday after President Barack Obama extended an invitation to the Israeli leader last week.
Few observers were fooled by the “friendly” request. Obama, who has unabashedly realigned his country away from its traditionally pro-Israel stance, had come under withering fire from many quarters – including some in his own corner – after treating Netanyahu like dirt during his last visit to Washington.
With a virtually 0 percent approval rating among Israelis, the American leader had clearly been forced to accept the fact that he would not be able to cajole the people of the world’s only Jewish state into embracing his vision for a new Middle East.
Hungry for a foreign policy feat – and none is as enticing as the thought of securing an Arab-Israeli peace – Obama was ready even to eat a little crow, thus the invitation sent by the hand of his chief of staff, Israeli turncoat Rahm Emanuel.
Not that the president has had a change of heart. Having waved the threatening stick of publicly chastising Israel if the just-begun proximity talks go awry, he now dangles the sweetened carrot of renewed commitment to the “special relationship” between Israel and the United States.
Simply put, Obama planned to spring a sweet trap on Netanyahu in the White House. Some flattering words, a smiling photo opportunity, and perhaps a friendly meal around the presidential table, and Israel’s prime minister would have been ripened for manipulation.
According to the Bible:
The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, like the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He wishes. (Proverbs 21:1)
And, speaking to Israel:
Since you were precious in My sight, You have been honored, And I have loved you; Therefore I will give men for you, And people for your life. (Isaiah 43:4)
And, exhorting His people against the odds:
You must not fear them, for the LORD your God Himself fights for you.’ (Deuteronomy 3:22)
You may be familiar with a poem that has thrilled and delighted many a child. An American believer shared earlier this week her understanding that its theme speaks to the heart of what President Obama is hoping to achieve in his belated wooing of Netanyahu.
Here it is:
“Will you walk into my parlor?” said the Spider to the Fly,? “‘Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy; ?The way into my parlor is up a winding stair, ?And I have many curious things to show you when you are there.” ?”Oh no, no,” said the Fly, “to ask me is in vain; ?For who goes up your winding stair can ne’er come down again.” ??”I’m sure you must be weary, dear, with soaring up so high; ?Will you rest upon my little bed?” said Spider to the Fly. ?”There are pretty curtains drawn around, the sheets are fine and thin; ?And if you like to rest awhile, I’ll snugly tuck you in!” ?”Oh no, no,” said the little Fly, “for I’ve often heard it said they never, never wake again, who sleep upon your bed!”?? Said the cunning Spider to the Fly, “Dear friend, what can I do? to prove that warm affection I’ve always felt for you?? I have within my pantry, good store of all that’s nice;? I’m sure you’re very welcome – will you please take a slice?”? ”Oh no, no,” said the little Fly, “kind sir, that cannot be,? I’ve heard what’s in your pantry, and I do not wish to see!”?? ”Sweet creature,” said the Spider, “you’re witty and you’re wise;? How handsome are your gauzy wings, how brilliant are your eyes!? I have a little looking-glass upon my parlor shelf;? If you step in one moment, dear, you shall behold yourself.”? ”I thank you, gentle sir,” she said, “for what you’re pleased to say;? And bidding good morning now, I’ll call another day.”?? The Spider turned him round about, and went into his den,? For well he knew the silly Fly would soon come back again;? So he wove a subtle web in a little corner sly,? And set his table ready to dine upon the Fly.? then he came out to his door again, and merrily did sing,? ”Come hither, hither, pretty Fly, with the pearl and silver wing;? Your robes are green and purple, there’s a crest upon your head;? Your eyes are like the diamond bright, but mine are as dull as lead.”?? Alas, alas! how very soon this silly little Fly,? Hearing his wily, flattering words, came slowly flitting by;? With buzzing wings she hung aloft, then near and nearer drew, -? Thinking only of her brilliant eyes, and green and purple hue;? Thinking only of her crested head – poor foolish thing! At last,? Up jumped the cunning Spider, and fiercely held her fast.? He dragged her up his winding stair, into his dismal den? Within his little parlor – but she ne’er came out again!?? And now, dear little children, who may this story read,? To idle, silly, flattering words, I pray you ne’er heed;? Unto an evil counselor close heart, and ear, and eye,? And take a lesson from this tale of the Spider and the Fly.
Gaza Flotilla Action
May 31st
By Victor Sharpe
Here is more information about the so-called humanitarian flotilla, which like so many groups who hide behind titles such as, “humanitarian” and “peace and justice,” are violent and hateful in their premeditated acts.
The pictures are hard to watch, the emotions they create are understandable BUT let us realize this is exactly what the Turkish Humanitarian organization wanted to create with this flotilla. This was NOT a peaceful humanitarian group, they came armed and ready for violence, even with children as human shields. Please use the facts below whenever you talk or are engaged on this subject.
1. A state of armed conflict exists between Israel and the Hamas regime controlling Gaza. The Hamas terrorists have launched over 12,000 rockets against Israeli civilians, and are presently smuggling in Iranian arms and military supplies into Gaza, by land and sea, in order to fortify its positions and continue its attacks.
2. Under international law, Israel has the right to protect the lives of its civilians from Hamas attacks, and, consequently, has undertaken measures to defend itself, including the imposition of a maritime blockade to curb Hamas rearmament. Under international maritime law, when a maritime blockade is in effect, no vessels can enter the blockaded area.
3. In line with Israel’s obligations under international law, the ships participating in the protest flotilla were warned repeatedly that a maritime blockade is in effect off the coast of Gaza and were given due notice of its exact coordinates.
4. Israel repeatedly offered the flotilla organizers permission to land in the port of Ashdod, and to transfer their aid to Gaza through the existing overland crossings, in accordance with established procedures. Thousands of tons of humanitarian supplies are regularly allowed in by Israel through the land crossings. The flotilla organizers rejected this offer, stating clearly that “this mission is not about delivering humanitarian supplies, it’s about breaking Israel’s siege.” (Greta Berlin, AFP, 27May10).
5. While the organizers claim to have humanitarian concern for the residents of Gaza they did not have similar concerns for the fate of the abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, and when asked, refused to even make a public call to allow him to be visited by the Red Cross. Shalit has languished in a Gazan dungeon for over three years.
6. When it became clear that the protest flotilla intended to violate the blockade despite repeated warnings, Israeli Naval personnel boarded the vessels of the flotilla, and redirected them to Ashdod.
7. Given the large number of vessels participating in the flotilla, there was an operational need to undertake measures to enforce the blockade a certain distance from the area of the blockade.
8. The intention of the flotilla participants to resist Israeli Naval personnel was made clear in numerous television interviews on 30 May given by the head of the IHH, Bulent Yildirim on board the Mavi Marmara (as he held a year-old infant in his arms, in what he called a “message” to any Israelis planning to act against the flotilla).
9. The Israeli Navy was met with violent opposition, two pistols were found in the hands of protesters, and over a dozen Israeli personnel were hospitalized, some in critical condition. One militant snatched a gun from an Israeli commando and opened fire. The Navy described being met by a “lynching” party.
10. In Ashdod, the flotilla’s cargo will be off-loaded and the humanitarian items will be transferred overland to Gaza in accordance with standard operating procedures. The participants of the flotilla will be subjected to immigration procedures applicable in cases of attempted illegal entry.
Summing up: Inevitably Israel will be portrayed as brutal and unconcerned for the human rights of the victims of the conflict. Hamas and the many other Islamic terror organizations play the Western world, its press and governments, masterfully. The end result is that Israel, as so often, is caught in a “No-Win” situation and must ultimately use force to stop the aggression and depredations of the Hamas terror organization. Whether Hamas and the Islamists unleash incessant rocket fire into Israeli civilian towns, kidnap Israeli soldiers, inflict terror attacks, or bring a flotilla of so-called “peace activists” to Gaza, Israel is brought to a position that it must act. Not to do so is ultimately to commit national suicide. Sadly, the mainstream press consistently refuses to accept or understand how they are being relentlessly manipulated by Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Islamists and Jihadists.
Tale of Two Embassies
May 23rd
By Shelley Neese
It’s 1979. Iran’s monarchy lay somewhere between impotency and total collapse. The Islamic Revolution rolls full steam ahead as one of the largest protest movements in history. Millions take to the streets in anti-Shah demonstrations throughout Iran. On January 17, the Shah and the rest of the Pahlavi dynasty flee the country. Two weeks later, exiled Revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini returns to Iran from Paris; millions of cheering well-wishers greet him at the airport. In a matter of ten short days the Ayatollah and his Revolutionaries overwhelm the last military forces loyal to the monarchy, ushering in the Islamic Republic.
Hundreds of American and Israeli citizens in Iran evacuate during the February chaos. Key Embassy officials are an exception. Their governments fear that if they completely jump ship, their countries will never be allowed back. The remaining personnel at the American and Israeli Embassies hunker down and wait for Khomeini’s next move.
On February 10, Revolutionaries holding a political demonstration call for an end to the Israeli presence in Iran. Thousands of political demonstrators, chanting “Death to Israel, Long live Arafat,” march to the nearby Israeli Embassy. According to Ronen Bergman in his book The Secret War with Iran, before the mob climbs over the walls and surround the building, the Israelis inside set fire to the few documents remaining. Most of the classified files were mailed back to Israel months ago. Personnel narrowly escape out the back gate, as the mob storms the embassy. Looting is rampant. The Israeli flag is torched. But, they are too late to take hostages or find intelligence.
Later that day, Yasser Arafat, visiting Iran as the first foreign “head of state,” gives a speech from the Israeli Embassy’s balcony, declaring it the new headquarters for the Palestinian Liberation Organization. “Under the Ayatollah’s leadership,” Arafat announces, “we will free Palestine!”
The deposed Israeli diplomats hide in Tehran apartments for a week until they secretly board a plane with eight hundred evacuating Americans.
Fast forward nine months. The plight of the American Embassy is a story much more familiar. Diplomats remain in Tehran on the principle that the U.S. should not evacuate on its own accord. The State Department assures employees that everything is “perfectly safe.” On November 4, 1979, a group of Iranian students and militants seize the compound. Calling themselves the “Muslim student followers of the Imam,” they take fifty-three American staffers hostage, parading them in front of news cameras bound and blindfolded.
The marauding Iranian students find a treasure trove of classified documents, many destroyed through a one-way shredder. They form teams to gather all the shreds and spend the next two years reassembling them. They publish sixty-five volumes of classified documents from what Khomeini referred to as the “American spy den.”
Consider for a moment the very different fates of both embassies.
On that February day, when the Israelis heard boots marching, they ran for their lives and incinerated their secrets. Nine months later, when buses of Iranian demonstrators arrived at the American embassy, they met zero resistance. The Marine security guards were armed but refused to use force. According to the testimony of William J. Daughtry—an American hostage—one security guard announced he was going to “reason” with the mob. Shortly after, Daughtry spotted him blindfolded with the rest.
In the throes of Khomeini’s Iran, the Americans took little caution in improving the vulnerable security situation at the American compound. This is especially surprising considering that Revolutionaries had taken over the Embassy once before on February 14, 1979. Embassy personnel were held hostage for several hours in what became know as the St. Valentine’s Day Open House. That event foreshadowed worse things to come.
Even as the mob took over every Embassy office, the Americans requested Iranian police or military to intervene for their protection. The Americans assumed up to the bitter end that Iran would abide by international law that says embassies are sovereign space and diplomats are immune from arrest. Khomeini never got that memo.
The Islamic Revolution took most of the world by surprise, including Western intelligence agencies. Israel’s Ambassador to Iran, Uri Lubrani, was one of the few who predicted the fall of the Shah. In a letter to Prime Minister Begin in June 1978, he warned that the Shah’s regime would collapse within two to three years. In the fall of 1978, the Central Intelligence Agency informed President Carter there was no chance of the monarchy collapsing. The CIA assessed that Iran was “not in a revolutionary or even a pre-revolutionary situation.” According to predictions of the 1978 National Intelligence Estimate, the Shah would rule for another decade. Such estimates are a risky way of deciding business when it comes to Iran.
America hoped the Revolutionary shakeup was an internal Iranian issue; the State Department thought if they kept a low profile then the anti-American rhetoric would blow over. The Israelis in the Embassy ran and hid because they took the enemy at their word. When crowds chanted “death to the Jews,” they assumed they meant exactly that. As a result, the Israelis had a close shave but they came out unscratched. The Americans, for their part, got a black eye and a 444-day hostage crisis.
The Iran of 2010 is on a path to nuclear armament. The Western world has been unable to stop or even stall these aspirations. Israel is taking Iran at its word and understands what’s at stake. The U.S. is assuming benevolence, taking no heed to Iran’s continued apocalyptic threats and diplomatic obstinance. The writing, however, is on the wall, literally. The former American Embassy, now housing Revolutionary Guards, is covered in Anti-American graffiti. A skeletal Statue of Liberty is spray painted along one wall with a scrawled message that translates “We will make America face a severe defeat.” This time will America listen?
Shelley Neese is the managing editor of The Jerusalem Connection.
The many fables of Saeb Erakat
May 23rd
I once wrote an earlier article, which was titled: Lies, damned lies, and Palestinian propaganda in descending order. That title paraphrased British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli’s, 19th century aphorism: Lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Few have mastered the art of dissimilitude more than long time Palestinian Arab spokesman, Saeb Erakat, who continues to be taken seriously by the ever gullible western media. Now in his late middle age, Erakat continues to spew howlers as he has been doing for several decades, yet he still retains the confidence of mainstream western journalists and reporters.
This is the man who bamboozled the world on CNN in April 2002 by baldly stating that Israel had, “massacred at least 500 people in Jenin and women and children were missing.”
This outrageous lie was effectively dismissed by Colin Powell himself and its falsehood subsequently confirmed by the UN, which went on to report that 56 Arabs were killed (34 of them armed combatants) in fighting by the IDF against Palestinian Arab terror squads infesting the Arab city. This is the city from which some 28 suicide bombers had infiltrated the Jewish state, perpetrating atrocities against hundreds of Israeli civilians during the previous 18 months. Erakat knew his words were false but he also knew the effectiveness of the “big lie.”
No Arab civilians were missing. However, many of the 22 civilians killed were used as human shields by the Arab terrorists – in itself an Arab war crime that remains unpunished.
Erakat’s outright lie was hardly challenged, nor his credibility dented. After all, he has made a perverse career of half-truths, mistruths and spectacular falsehoods over several decades while acting as a Palestinian spokesman and negotiator in what is called the, “peace process.” In the latest round of indirect talks between the Israelis and the Arabs, who call themselves Palestinians, brokered by George Mitchell at the behest of his master in the White House, Barack Hussein Obama, Erakat is again front and center obfuscating and manipulating the clueless media in the way he knows best.
In an article by Bret Stephens titled Liar, liar in December 2002, published in the Jerusalem Post, it was pointed out that up to that date, “Erakat has had no less than 11,382 citations in the English language press since 1988” – a veritable Niagra Falls of falsehoods that have done so much to poison the minds of countless readers against Israel. Since then the torrent of Erakat whoppers has washed away any sense of historical accuracy.
Here are a few of the many deliberate lies Mr. Erakat has uttered:
In the International Herald Tribune (11/26/05) , Saeb Erekat wrote “Israel is a nuclear power boasting the fifth-largest military in the world.” Correction (1/3/06): “While there are various ways to measure military strength, in terms of manpower alone and counting both active service members and reservists, Israel’s military ranks 18th globally, according to data in the latest edition of “The Military Balance,” a reference by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.”
Erakat has often claimed to the Western world and through its media that, “Palestinians are committed to two equal states for two peoples.” Sounds nice to western ears, but facts tell a very different story. Well over 60% of Arabs calling themselves Palestinians reject outright such an Erakat claim. And Mahmoud Abbas himself, the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority, rejects utterly any willingness to accept Israel as a Jewish state. Erakat can provide no evidence that he or his cronies seek peace, while Israel can show three peace offers in the past decade. But according to the current Palestinian narrative, effectively conveyed by Erakat, the fault for the absence of negotiations or peace lies with Israel.
Erakat claims repeatedly that Israeli villages in Judea and Samaria, which Erakat describes in the anti-Israel nomenclature as “settlements in the West Bank,” cover 42% of the disputed territory when in fact they control barely 5% of the ancestral and biblical Jewish heartland. Bret Stephens pointed out in his December, 2002 article that, Erakat says “settlers” are stealing Palestinian water resources. Yet almost all “settlers” are linked to the central Israeli water grid and do not use local wells.” What is fact is that the Arabs pollute the scant water resources and aquifer within Judea and Samaria and the very term, Palestinian water resources, is to implicitly pre-judge whose land it truly is.
He also mentioned that, “Erekat says Israel plans to deprive Palestinians of everything but “an insignificant presence in Jerusalem.” Yet at Camp David, much of east Jerusalem was theirs for the taking. They refused it.”
Hitler’s propaganda minister, Josef Goebbels, proved that telling a big lie over and over again assured that most people would come to believe it. However, Saeb Erakat also proves that if you tell a multitude of small lies over and over again, a multitude of people will believe them without question.
Erakat’s career has been just such a monument to dissimilitude. Sadly, there are many people anxious and willing to accept any nonsense uttered by such a master of deceits – which brings me to his latest outrage.
According to Israel National News, Saeb Erakat has criticized Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for mentioning the Jewish people’s historic ties to Jerusalem as described in the Bible. He accused the prime minister of, “using religion to incite hatred and fear.” Biblical references it seems are now considered hate mongering by the Islamic world. The Holy Jewish Bible refers to Jerusalem and Zion, which are synonymous, 850 times.
The Holy Christian Bible refers to them some 154 times. The Holy Koran does not refer to Jerusalem at all. Instead the Koran commands Muslims to: “ … fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war.” Koran 9:5. Propaganda is a stratagem of war and Mr. Erakat knows all too well how to wage it.
Erakat has often sought to dismiss the inextricable 3,000 year old Jewish ties to Jerusalem and has claimed that Jewish heritage on the Temple Mount, the site of the two ancient Jewish Temples, are a threat to Islam.
The neighborhoods illegally occupied by the Jordanian regime from 1948 to 1967 are now claimed by the Palestinian Authority as the future capital of a PA state. They include the Old City, the City of David and the Temple Mount. But Jewish residents of these very neighborhoods were expelled from them by the British officered Jordanian Arab Legion in 1948.
Erakat warned just this last week that, “East Jerusalem cannot continue to be occupied if there is to be peace.” This too will be believed by many in the international corridors of power and the media even as they know in their heart of hearts that if Jerusalem was again divided – like Berlin once was – there still will never be peace from the Arabs.
Saeb Erakat will continue to obfuscate and dissemble in his inimitable fashion, ever hiding the empirical fact that the Muslim world will never accept a Jewish state however much of its biblical and ancestral patrimony it gives away in pursuit of peace. Mr. Erakat well knows that even if Israel shrank to one downtown square in Tel Aviv its existence would still be a provocation to the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians.
The one truth that Erakat will never reveal is that the Palestinian Arab leadership will never accept a “two state solution.” They want no Jewish state side by side with their Arab and Muslim state.
Indeed, they ultimately want one state stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the borders of Iraq – that is an Islamic state, including the present day Kingdom of Jordan, in which neither Jews nor Hashemites will be permitted to remain. It will inevitably become a Hamas controlled state willingly tied to the baleful influence of the Islamic Republic of Iran – an extension of Islamist and jihadist influence on the very doorstep of Europe and a bridgehead for the dreamed of worldwide Islamic Caliphate.
Victor Sharpe is the author of Volumes One and Two of Politicide: The attempted murder of the Jewish state.
How Christians can Honor Israel by Acknowledging Shavuot (Pentecost)
May 14th
May 19, 2010 Shavuot. Shavuot is what the Bible refers to as “Feast of Weeks.” Most non-Jews don’t have the foggiest idea what it means. The Greeks called it “Pentecost,” from a Greek word meaning 50. It is called “Pentecost” in the New Testament. Today, Christians acknowledge Pentecost fifty days after Resurrection Sunday or Easter. It’s the day Christians memorialize the coming of the Holy Spirit to indwell those who believe in Jesus as Messiah, Redeemer and Savior.
In the Torah, however, it is called the “Feast of Weeks” because it is the 50th day after Pesach or Passover. Shavout was a major festival instituted by God through Moses.
Christians and those of us who have become children of Abraham by faith see Shavuot as an occasion to look back to our roots. And we find that in our roots our genealogy has led us straight back to our heritage…. to our Jewish elder brothers (and sisters). Let me explain.
Shavuot is one of the 3 Pilgrim Festivals God gave through Moses to the children of Israel. These festivals were not suggestions. They were commands. They were command performances. Moses said in Deuteronomy 16:16-17,
“Three times a year all your men must appear before the LORD your God at the place He will choose:
(1) at the Feast of Unleavened Bread,(Passover)
(2) the Feast of Weeks (Shavuot) and
(3) the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot).
No man should appear before the LORD empty-handed: Each of you must bring a gift in proportion to the way the LORD your God has blessed you.”
There are two traditions that are recognized at Shavuot that are especially encouraging to Christians, as we seek to honor Israel and show our support of the Jewish people.
First, it has to do with the giving of the Torah. Traditionally, Shavuot is considered the anniversary of the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai. In Exodus 19:1, Moses wrote, “In the third month after the Israelites left Egypt – on the very day – they came to the Desert of Sinai.” 50 days after celebrating Passover and leaving Egypt, Moses and all the children of Israel came to Mt. Sinai. There, 50 days after the Exodus, Moses received straight from God’s own hand the Covenant, the 10 commandments, and all the laws that were to govern God’s people forever.
So, why is Shavuot special to Christians? Because Christians, specifically Christian Zionists, believe in the ultimate authority of the Torah as the very word of God. Because of our faith and belief, we share a common heritage with our Jewish ancestors, who brought to us the faith in the One True God – the God of Israel.
Because we believe in Torah, we believe God’s covenants with the Jewish people are inviolable and valid today. We believe that the land promised to the Jewish people is theirs and theirs alone. We believe God is re-gathering his people to the land He promised to them as a National homeland.
Because we believe in Torah, we believe in Israel’s right to exist. We believe “The Road Map to Peace” will fail. We believe “The Two-State Solution” is not of God. It’s because we believe in Torah that we stand with Israel and the Jewish people. It is NOT because we look to some end-time Armageddon scenario in the future.
Secondly, we celebrate Shavuot because we identify with Ruth. Shavuot is important to us as Christian Zionists because at Shavout, the Book of Ruth is read. Why is the book of Ruth so important?
The story of Ruth is important because Ruth was a Gentile who linked herself with Judaism. As woman of Moab, she married a man of Judah – but her Jewish husband died. Now what was she to do? Naomi, her Jewish mother-in-law encouraged her to simply return to her “own people.” “Don’t’ ask me to do that”, Ruth said. She would not go back. Ruth’s story is famous for the pledge she makes to Naomi:
“Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.” (Ruth 1:16-17)
Ruth was loyal to Naomi, her Jewish mother-in-law. More importantly, she was loyal to the God of Israel. Ruth insisted on returning to Israel. Later, she again followed her mother-in-law’s guidance when she is told to glean in the fields of Boaz.
As a result, Ruth proceeded to win the love of Boaz, a close family relative who redeems her. Boaz marries Ruth and they have a son. And Ruth became the great-grandmother of King David which places her in the ancestral blood line of the Messiah.
Ruth, a non-Jew who made a pledge to her Jewish mother-in-law, serves as the model today for the Christian Zionist’s unqualified support of the Jews. It serves as a model of our pledge to Israel, the Jewish people and the God of Israel.
Ruth has become the “patron saint,” if you will, of Christian Zionists. We are the heirs and spiritual descendents of this godly woman. Her example is our cause. As Ruth placed her fate with Naomi, we choose to join our fate with Israel and the Jewish people.
The question is – why is this important in our time?
It’s important because of:
(1) The existential threats to the survival of the Jewish people mounting world-wide.
(2) Radical, Muslim anti-Semitism is pervasive throughout the world of Islam.
(3) Anti-Semitism is reaching a fevered pitch in Europe – to a degree not seen since the 1930’s.
(4) The Middle East is a tender box. Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinijad has denied the first holocaust ever happened. Yet, has vowed to “wipe Israel off the map,” in what is a call for nothing short of a second holocaust. And Iran’s race toward the acquisition of nuclear weapons makes the threat even more real.
(5) Iran supports, trains, and equips the most vicious and barbaric terrorists groups in existence today. These groups include Hamas, Hizbollah and Al Qaeda.
(6) All of these terrorist groups have targeted Israel and the United States for extinction.
(7) Proponents of this vicious Anti-Semitism try to hide under the “veil of anti-Zionism”….in the “politically correct” halls of elite academia.
Anti-Semitism is in fact anti-Zionism. It also has something very important to do with Christians.
A recent poll showed that 53% of those in tenured academia in this country have an unfavorable view toward evangelical Christians.
Contempt for Jews and Christians is growing exponentially in our college and university classrooms – many paid for and endowed by Saudi Arabian Wahabism.
Even one of our own former Presidents, Jimmy Carter, has come out of the closet with his anti-Israel book, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.”
It appears that things will indeed get much worse before they get better.
The question we ask is: What are we Christians going to do about this? How will Christian Zionists respond to all this?
On April 30, 2010 the Embassy of Israel in Washington, DC hosted a ceremony to Honor the Righteous Among the Nations. The Ambassador of Israel, H.E. Michael Oren, honored a Dutch pastor and his wife who had provided a safe house for Jews in Amsterdam during WWII. Rachel Goldberg, the granddaughter of one of the Jews who was saved from the holocaust, had come to the U.S. for the ceremony. During his remarks, Ambassador Oren noted the question that many Jews had at that time was, “do we stand alone?” “No,” asserted the Ambassador, was the answer that many Christians gave by providing safe houses for Jews during WWII. And then he raised this very pointed question, “would we do the same?” I am bold to believe there will be an army of God’s people who will rise to the occasion and say, “no, you are not alone!”
But if the days ahead do turn darker and more foreboding, what then?
If we are indeed re-living the days of the 1930’s – as many Jewish and Christian leaders assert – if history is repeating itself, where will the Christian Zionists be and what will they do?
What will be the role of the spiritual descendants of Ruth? Perhaps a little history is helpful at this point.
• Prior to the outbreak of WWII there were approximately 8 million Jews in Europe.
• 6 million were exterminated in Hitler’s ovens.
• About a million emigrated to America, Canada, Palestine and elsewhere.
• Approximately 1 million were provided safe haven in the very midst of areas controlled by Hitler’s Third Reich. How could that have happened? It happened because of people like the Dutch pastor and his wife risking their lives to save the Jews of their day.
Ann Frank’s story is well known to most of us. Born in Frankfurt, Germany, Ann Frank and her family moved to Amsterdam in 1933, after the Nazis gained power in Germany. There they were trapped by the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.
As persecutions against the Jewish population increased, the family went into hiding in July 1942, in hidden rooms in her father Otto Frank’s office building. After two years in hiding, the group was betrayed and transported to concentration camps. Seven months after her arrest, Ann died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Her father Otto, the only survivor of the group, returned to Amsterdam after the war ended, to find that Ann’s diary had been saved. The Diary of Ann Frank tells her story. But also in Amsterdam at the same time, perhaps not as well known to our Jewish friends, was the heroic story of Corrie Ten Boom and her Christian Zionist family.
By 1942 she and her family had become very active in the Dutch underground, hiding refugees. The Ten Boom family was able to rescue many Jews from certain death at the hands of the Nazi SS. The family’s work in saving Jews was motivated by their staunch Christian Zionist beliefs. They helped and befriended Jews. They did not ask them to convert in order to get help. In fact, the Ten Boom family provided them Kosher food and honored the Sabbath. On February 28, 1944 (because of a Dutch informant) the entire Ten Boom family was arrested. They were sent first to political concentration camps in the Netherlands. Later they were sent to the notorious Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany. Here Corrie’s father and sister died.
Miraculously Corrie was released in December 1944. In the movie The Hiding Place, Corrie tells of her release from camp, saying that she later learned that her release had been a clerical error: and in fact, the women prisoners her age in the camp were killed the week following her release. Corrie Ten Boom was declared a member of the Righteous Among the Nations by the State of Israel in December 1967.
For her work in aiding the Jewish people she was invited to plant a tree in the Avenue of the Righteous Gentiles, at the Yad Vashem, near Jerusalem. Rabbi Daniel Lapin has commented with regret on how little Corrie ten Boom is known among American Jews. The fact is that approximately one million Jews survived the holocaust because of the sacrificial efforts of a multitude of Corrie Ten Booms. This should be an encouragement to both Jews and Christians.
I relate these stories to pose this question, “Are we possibly living in days when God will again have to raise up a host of Corrie Ten Booms – an Army of the descendants of Ruth – who will make her same pledge of commitment?”
“Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.”
One of the clearest and most vivid memories of my early childhood was of my great grand-mother Mendenhall who lived in Westfield, Indiana. She was from a long standing family of Quakers. They were abolitionists – they were pro-active against slavery. I remember it as though it was yesterday – she took me down in the basement of her home. There against the dark side of one wall was a large open cabinet with shelves – it looked like a book case. It was filled with canned goods and preserves. Then, without saying a word, she reached to right side of the cabinet and began to pull it toward her. Amazingly, the book case was on hinges and opened up like a door. There behind the bookcase was a room carved out of the dirt in the basement -about 8 feet square. In it was still a small table and a couple of old ladder back chairs.
“Sonny” she said, (she always called me Sonny), “this is where we hid the negro slaves who were making their way north to Canada. God blessed our home. We were privileged to be one of the safe houses of the Underground Railroad. Someday Sonny, maybe God will bless you like that.” I have been blessed in this life and I don’t know how God may bless it in the future. But I do know this – as some of you know – there is already a line of safe houses in western Canada going south to the Texas-Mexico border. In eastern Canada there is a series of hiding places going south to Florida.
I know of a retired Colonel who built a new home in one of our southern states. In that home are 3 different hiding places. When I saw them I remembered my Grandmother Mendenhall’s little safe haven carved out of the dirt in her basement.
And who are these modern safe houses for? Hopefully no one. Hopefully they will remain empty and unused until Messiah comes. This kind of thing couldn’t happen again – Not in the land of the free and the home of the brave – Could it?
Most people didn’t think it could happen in sophisticated, intellectual and highly civilized Germany of the 1930’s. Six million Jews questioned whether it could happen. They perished.
A million were able to escape in time.
A million were saved in safe houses – by many who were Christian Zionists.
We must ask the question no one wants to ask. Could this happen again?
Today, in the 21st century, some, including a former President of the United States, speak of there being “too many Jews.” Is anyone listening?
Others boldly say their goal, their solution, is to wipe Israel off the map. Is anyone listening?
Some countries do not allow Jews to even enter. Does anyone notice?
Some call for the destruction of the cancerous lump called Jews. Is anyone listening?
Some call for the downfall of Israel and the United States. Is anyone listening?
Could it happen again? We fervently pray that it will never happen again. We pray good people and nations will have the courage to resist the appeasement of this madness. But, if it ever does happen again, I will tell you, there will be those descendants of Ruth – an army of Christians Zionists, empowered by the Holy Spirit who vow the pledge of Ruth:
“Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.”
May I say, the pledge of Ruth is not the shallow commitment of the “summer soldier, or the sunshine patriot.” Indeed, it is much more. General Orde Wingate, the passionate British Christian Zionist, who trained so many of the early leaders of the Israel Defense Forces, loved to quote a line from John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim:
“Who would true valour see,
let him come hither;
One here will constant be,
Come wind, come weather”
We say to Israel, the Jewish people, to their enemies, to our political leaders, and to our religious leaders, we say as clearly and with as much conviction as we possibly can: You are not alone!
While our pledge to Israel and our Jewish friends is unconditional, it would be a great encouragement to Christians if our Jewish friends would affirm that pledge by giving us your blessing.
After Ruth made her unqualified pledge, Boaz who became her husband blessed her when he said;
“May the LORD repay you for the good you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.”
As Boaz blessed Ruth for her commitment, I want to humbly ask our Jewish friends, to honor us by blessing us with the blessing of Boaz.
We are indeed, in this together. This time, empowered by the Holy Spirit of the God of Israel, we say to the Jews; YOU ARE NOT ALONE NOW, AND YOU WILL NOT BE ALONE IN THE FUTURE! Come wind, come weather! WE will live or die TOGETHER!
A closing note. If you would be interested in being a part of a safe house network, should it ever be needed, please go to “Safe House” link. Follow the instructions and we’ll be in touch with you.
‘Rejoice with Jerusalem!’
May 11th
by Stan Goodenough
God commands it:
“Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all you who love her; Rejoice for joy with her, all you who mourn for her; That you may feed and be satisfied with the consolation of her bosom; That you may drink deeply and be delighted with the abundance of her glory.”
For thus says the LORD:
“Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream. Then you shall feed; On her sides shall you be carried, and be dandled on her knees. As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you; And you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.” (Isaiah 66: 10-13)
Children from across the nation descended on Jerusalem Tuesday – filling the parks, crowding the sidewalks, clambering up the slopes of Mount Zion and flooding in through the gates of the Old City.
Their presence added reams of youthful color and vibrancy to the many-thousand-strong crowds of Jews and their friends here to celebrate 43 years (by the Hebrew Calendar) since the Six Day War saw their ancient capital returned to Jewish hands.
And it will be festive: The next 24 hours will be marked by ceremonies and speeches on Ammunition Hill and in the Tower of David, hora dancing in the city’s public squares, marches through the streets, all night music concerts and prayer meetings at the Western Wall.
Organized tours will show off the massive development and growth that has taken place in the city under Israeli sovereignty. Modern high-rises, new residential developments and ambitious transportation projects will vie for attention with the famous historical sites and legendary biblical landmarks that make Jerusalem an engrossing magnet for millions, nay billions on the planet.
But while it enthralls multitudes – there is only one nation that loves this city, only one people that has longed to return here and remained faithful in devotion to Jerusalem for thousands and thousands of years.
The Jews’ veneration of Jerusalem hugely outstrips the feelings any other nation has for its capital. This can be said without exaggeration or apology.
Which other people has acclaimed a single city for 30 solid centuries – or even a third of that time? What city has Chinese or Russians or Britons, or Norwegians or Indians or Africans or any other nation or people group prayed daily for generation after generation to return to? What other nation – violently driven from its land, and enduring hundreds of years of what it calls “captivity” in exile – clung to, and drew hope from, their belief in their ultimate restoration to that land, and to the pulsating city that was its heart?
Indeed, the return of the Jews to Jerusalem, followed by the return of Jerusalem to the Jews, should be reason for rejoicing by all men and women of goodwill.
But as music fills the air and drumbeats echo off the golden walls across the valley from my home, people in other capitals around the world are watching these celebrations through glowering, resentful, even hate-filled eyes.
Jerusalem Day 2010 has been preceded by intensifying gentile efforts to force Israel to stop building here. Spearheaded by the increasingly openly hostile Obama administration, the international community is galled by the “effrontery” of Jews’ administering, developing and growing their own flagship city.
Israel’s claim to Jerusalem flies in the face of the world’s plans to turn half the city into the capital of a new Arab state called Palestine. Instead of acknowledging that Muslim violence, threats and incitement against Jews is the primary reason for the failure of their “peace process,” the world blames the Israeli government for building up its own home.
As I write, US special envoy George Mitchell is here, trying to get some form of shuttle diplomacy underway in order to “jump start” the repeatedly discredited diplomatic process with the Palestinian Arabs.
In an attempt to get some traction, Mitchell claimed last week that the Israeli government had agreed to freeze building in northern Jerusalem for two years. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat have denied that there is any freeze on construction in the city.
As Israel tries to resist the pressures of its “friend and ally” across the Atlantic, Washington – which has realigned the once pro-Israel United States with the Arab/Islamic world – is expected to get nasty.
Let it. The superglue of their entire history holds the Jews to Jerusalem. Any nation trying to remove it from them will only injure itself.
Badly.
Rejoice with Jerusalem – all you who love her!
We are!!
One that calls for a response
May 6th
Dennis Prager said: “If there is any group that should know the uniqueness of Nazi evil and should not want the evil of the Holocaust cheapened for political purposes, it is the Jews. Yet, there is at least a 50-50 chance that if you read or hear a public personality use Nazi imagery to describe conservatives, the person is a Jew. Specifically, a Jew on the Left. … As a Jew who has devoted much of his life to fighting anti-Semitism — from being sent by Israel to the former Soviet Union to aid Soviet Jews, to writing a book on anti-Semitism (“Why the Jews? The Reason for Anti-Semitism”), to serving on the board of directors of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum — I have always found any trivialization of Nazism and the Holocaust offensive. That Jews would do this — to fellow Americans, no less — and solely in order to serve their Left-wing politics is worse than offensive. It is immoral!”
God says: “In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations will come, and I will fill his house with glory.”… “A day of Yahweh is coming when your plunder will be divided among you. I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it; the city will be captured, the houses ransacked, and the women raped. Half of the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be taken from the city. Then Yahweh will go out and fight against those nations, as he fights in the day of battle. On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half of the mountain moving north and half moving south. You will flee by my mountain valley, for it will extend to Azel. You will flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then Yahweh my God will come, and all the holy ones with him.” (Haggai 2:6-7; Zechariah 14: 1-5).
The Jerusalem Connection says: From the vantage point of the Hebrew prophets the Holocaust would have to be seen as a preview of coming attractions. In other words, the worst is yet to come and the focus of the future will be not only on the Jews but on Christians as well. Remember, it’s the Saturday people first and then the Sunday people that are in the crosshairs of the Islamic Jihadists. The flippant attribution of “Nazi” on one’s political enemies will become a reality when a third (yes, that’s 2 billion plus) of mankind are killed by a Satanically controlled army (Revelation 9:13-18). Anticipating this, Jesus admonishes us to pray with confidence that he would not ask to pray for something that he did not intend to answer. “Be always on the watch and pray that you may have the power to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.” (Luke 21:36).