Obama's Pull Out Dangerous, Misguided- Joel Rosenberg

I strongly encourage you to read Joel's Blog

By Joel C. Rosenberg

(Washington, D.C., June 23, 2011) -- President Obama's plan to precipitously start drawing down U.S. military forces from Afghanistan before the war against Radical Islamic jihadists has truly been won -- and doing so against the advice of some of his field commanders -- is a serious mistake, misguided and dangerous. The move is a sign of White House fatigue. It will be perceived by our enemies as weakness. It will embolden the enemy and put more Americans, Israelis and other Mideast allies of ours at greater risk. We should be letting Gen. Petraeus and his team finish the job and only then bring the troops home.

Iran's political and religious leaders are not getting tired of preparing for their genocidal, apocalyptic war against the Judeo-Christian West. They continue talking about the End of Days and the coming of the Twelfth Imam. They are also accelerating the enrichment of uranium and development of ballistic missiles. In this context, increasingly unsure if they can depend on their American allies, Israeli leaders this week "launched a major five-day home front defence exercise intended to prepare its population and emergency services to respond to massive missile attacks," Agence France Presse reports. "Named 'Turning Point 5,' the exercise involves testing nationwide siren systems and the cellular network, distributing emergency kits, improving coordination and practising evacuation and shelter procedures….Among the scenarios being prepared for are sustained rocket attacks on the Tel Aviv region, the electrical grid or a geriatric hospital, local media reported….For the first time, lawmakers will also be called on to participate in response to a simulated attack on the parliament building in Jerusalem."

Such preparations are critically important. But much more is needed. Israeli leaders are not calling the nation to prayer, fasting and repentance, despite the Biblical admonition to do so. Indeed, few world leaders are calling their nations to their hearts to the Lord, including our own. Yet this is precisely the right moment. In a time when economic, religious and geopolitical threats are rising….a time when so much of the world is turning against God...a time when so many have forgotten God in their daily lives...a time when so many think the Church is irrelevant and/or hypocritical...and a time when many have turned against Israel and God's Chosen People, what we need are leaders at every level of society who are serious about crying out to the Lord for mercy and redemption. I'm not talking about a bunch of religious hot air -- slogans, bumper stickers or platitudes. What we desperately need is a bold and sincere and solid and revolutionary faith that moves us to action, that moves us to know God more deeply and serve Him more faithfully before the Day of the Lord arrives. As we read in the New Testament Book of James, "faith, if it has no works, is dead" and "faith without works is useless" (James 2:17 and 20).

This one of the reasons I love the Old Testament Book of Joel and why I'm grateful we studied it together at the 2011 Epicenter Conference -- because it is a powerful call to action. This week, I posted on my blog Part Four of my personal study notes on the Book of Joel, plus links to the latest headlines from the epicenter. I hope you'll find them helpful as you seek a faith that changes your life and moves you to serve the Lord with more passion and conviction than ever before.
For more details and links, please go to our English blog HERE or the Hebrew blog (www.joelrosenberg.co.il). Thanks. 

Baruch atem b'Shem, Yeshua

Obama Warns Of New US Fight…With Israel!

The most anti-Israel US president ever?

President Barack Obama warned that new “tactical” disagreements loomed between Israel and Washington, but vowed to leverage his administration’s “creative powers” in the cause of peace. Obama, who has had a testy relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, spoke at length on the stalled peace process at a fundraiser for his 2012 reelection campaign grouping Democratic friends of Israel.

He said that as a difficult, challenging time loomed in the Middle East over the next few years, one inviolable principle was that the bond between the United States and Israel “isn’t breakable.”

“What is also going to be true is that both the United States and Israel are going to have to look at this new landscape with fresh eyes,” Obama said, arguing the Arab Spring had changed the context of regional diplomacy.

“It’s not going to be sufficient for us just to keep on doing the same things we’ve been doing and expect somehow that things are going to work themselves out.

“We’re going to have to be creative and we’re going to have to be engaged. We’re going to have to look for opportunities where the best impulses in the Middle East come to the fore and the worst impulses are weakened.”

“There are going to be moments over the course of the next six months or the next 12 months or the next 24 months in which there may be tactical disagreements in terms of how we approach these difficult problems,” Obama said, vowing to bring to bear his administration’s “creative powers” for peace.

The president said that Israel and the United States were united on a broader vision for a secure Jewish state able to live in peace with its neighbors “where kids can get on the bus or go to bed at night and not have to worry about missiles landing on them.”

Obama ignited the latest US row with Netanyahu last month when he said in public what had been private US policy, that 1967 territorial lines, with agreed land swaps should be used to demarcate Israel from a future Palestinian state.

His statement provoked a public scolding from Netanyahu during a subsequent White House visit. The Israeli leader also stressed the “indefensible” nature of the 1967 lines.

Israel and the Palestinians have been at loggerheads over negotiations, which halted shortly after they were relaunched in Washington in September 2010 when a partial freeze on Israeli settlement construction expired.

Israel refused to renew the freeze, and the Palestinians insist they will not hold talks while settlements are being built on land they want for their future state.

Story source
here



Okay, what I would like to know is this:

How in the world can the USA possibly think it is still united with Israel, and can work together to establish a Palestinian state after they have tossed Israel under the bus? And, just what does the "look at this new landscape with fresh eyes" entail?

Wait...I know! The USA will demand that Israel give up even more. I'll bet there is another bus coming soon, too. Maybe Israel will do the tossing this time. One can only hope and pray...

Don

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Baruch atem b'Shem, Yeshua

Own People are Jews' Worst Enemies!!!

Who Needs Enemies When Your Own People Despise You??!!! Disgusting!! Mid

American Jews comprise more than 25 percent of the pro-Hamas flotilla that aims to challenge the IDF on the high seas and reach Hamas-backed Gaza, throwing cold water on the allegation of a unified pro-Israel “Jewish lobby” in the United States.

"It's important that Jews are in this boat... The Jewish lobby in this country is so powerful," New York Jewish labor attorney Richard Levy told media agencies.

Comments by the Jews reflect mis-information that is omnipresent in mainstream media, particularly when referring to the supposed “blockade” on Gaza in order to prevent the smuggling of advanced weapons, explosives and terrorists whose aim is to attack Israel civilians and soldiers.

Israel imposed a partial blockade after Hamas’ terrorist militia ousted the rival Fatah faction in a bloody war more than four years ago. Thousands of tons of humanitarian aid were allowed through land crossings, and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu last year canceled the blockade on all goods except for material that can be used for the Hamas terrorist infrastructure.

The maritime embargo remains in effect because of the ease with which Hamas can use fishing boats to bring into Gaza weapons from Iran and Syria.

The American Jews on the flotilla, like millions of other people, still refer to the “Israel blockade,” which Levy said is “morally and juridically unsupportable.” He then made an inexplicable connection to “slaughter,” stating that “no more people should be slaughtered in the name of the Jews."

The Americans hope to sale from Greece on "The Audacity of Hope” this week with the announced intention of breaking the maritime embargo, but Israeli military commanders have said that the goal of the pro-Hamas organizers behind the flotilla is to try  to force the IDF into a clash, similar to last year's confrontation with Turkish-based IHH terror activists.

The Americans undoubtedly are not looking for a fight but are part of a larger community of American Jews who are unfamiliar with Israel but whose idea of the Jewish state is one that adopts Christian values of “turning the other cheek.”

Jewish activist Leslie Cogan told the French news agency AFP, the flotilla is "a cargo of friendship, a cargo of peace."

Last week, Jewish anti-Zionists in London rallied in memory of the nine IHH members who were killed by Israeli Navy commandos last year after brutally attacking the soldiers, who reached the deck of the Mavi Mamara ship virtually unarmed except for paint guns and small revolvers.

After last year’s clash on the high seas, the leader of the German-Jewish organization Jewish Voice for Peace in the Middle East said the group actually wants to “preserve” Israel.

"Some see what we are doing as a betrayal. But the question is what do they really know about the whole thing. Some people don't want to be educated," Kate Katzenstein-Leiterer told the German news agency DPA.

In contrast to the American Jews’ efforts for the flotilla, pressure from French Jews prevented the departure of a ship to Gaza, according to the Turkish newspaper Today’s Zaman. 
Baruch atem b'Shem, Yeshua

Cruel and UNMERITED Punishment for Pollard

by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

Phone calls flooded the White House, Israel’s Ambassador Michael Oren appealed to the State Department, and hundreds protested at the American embassy in Tel Aviv, but U.S. President Barack Obama remains silent as Jonathan Pollard remains in jail hours before his father is to be buried.

A switchboard operator at the White House on Sunday morning – shortly after midnight in Washington – said that “no one is available to take a message for president” until the morning, about two hours before Prof. Morris Pollard is to be buried in the Midwestern state of Indiana.

His son Jonathan has languished in American prisons for more than 25 years as he continues to serve a life sentence for the offense of passing on classified information for Israel, a crime that normally carries no more than four years in jail.

The Obama administration has been ominously silent on increasing calls from American officials,  including U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, to free Pollard. Evidence has mounted that his trial was all but fair, and the extraordinary harsh sentence has been criticized by Congressman and former members of American Cabinets.

Pollard’s father, who died Saturday at the age of 95 in the city of South Bend, was a professor and award-winning microbiologist at the University of Notre Dame for five decades. He is to be buried at 10 a.m. (6 p.m. in Israel).

He was allowed to speak to his father shortly before he died, but the United States did not answer humanitarian appeals to allow Jonathan to visit his father while he was still alive.

Last January, Prof. Pollard told the South Bend Tribune, “I can hope that justice will prevail” and that his son be released before his father’s death. He said, "It's such an overwhelming miscarriage of justice that I keep waking up fighting with people.”

It appears that the Obama administration also is denying Jonathan Pollard the merit of attending the final resting place of his father. 
Baruch atem b'Shem, Yeshua

Enough!!! Free Pollard!!!!

This wouldn't be an issue if he was an Arab Muslim!!!!!!!!!!! Say it isn't so!!!

Massive Phone-In to White House to Free Pollard for Funeral
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

Two campaigns were launched Sunday to free prisoner Jonathan Pollard to attend his father’s funeral Monday morning –a massive phone-in to the White House and political pressure from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

The Obama administration last week remained silent to requests to free Pollard long enough to visit his 95-year-old father before he died Saturday. Officials will have to act almost immediately if they want to allow him to help bury his father. He would have to leave his cell several hours before the funeral in South Bend, Indiana, and security arrangements would have to be implemented.

The main desk phone number at the White House is 202-456-1414. Activists said that there is no time for e-mails and told supporters, “The number to the main desk does not take messages; however, if numerous people are calling non-stop, the message will reverberate throughout the White House and it will have an effect."

In addition, a rally is scheduled at 7 p.m. (noon EDT) opposite the American Embassy in Tel Aviv under the banner, “Obama: Show a bit of humanity. Let Pollard accompany his father to his final resting place.”

On the political front, Prime Minister Netanyahu said he will submit a formal diplomatic request on behalf of Pollard, who is serving a life term in prison for passing on classified information to America's ally, Israel -- an offense that usually carries a 2-4 year prison term.

Likud Minister Limor Livnat said that Prime Minister Netanyahu has “worked hard the past week” to try to convince the Obama administration to allow Pollard out of prison to visit his father, who was an award-winning professor at Notre Dame University in Indiana.

“I really hope the U.S. administration shows minimal humanity and lets him out of prison after 26 years to be at the funeral,” she added.

Jewish Home Minister Daniel Hershkowitz, a member of the coalition government, stated, "The man has been rotting in an American prison. His mother passed away, and he was not allowed to see his father before his death, too. I want to remind everyone that he was not acting against the United States but rather to obtain information on [Arab] terrorists.”

Kadima MK Ronit Tirosh said that if the United States does not allow Jonathan Pollard to help bury his father, she will boycott the annual American Independence Day party at the ambassador’s house.

Nachman Shai, also a Kadima MK, called on American Jews to speak up for Pollard. "Five million Jews live in the United States, and they are silent,” he said. “A clear statement needs to come from them.”
Comment on this stor

Baruch atem b'Shem, Yeshua

U.S. pressuring Netanyahu to accept Obama's peace plan

Israeli source says Americans frustrated with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for hampering U.S. efforts to stop Palestinians trying UN route to statehood in September.

By Barak Ravid

Washington is pressuring Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accede to its proposal to resume Israeli-Palestinian peace talks on the basis of U.S. President Barack Obama's May 19 speech.

An Israeli source who spoke recently with senior officials in Washington said the Americans were very frustrated with Netanyahu's behavior, feeling that he was impeding America's efforts to keep the Palestinians from unilaterally seeking UN recognition of a state in September.

Netanyahu's personal envoy, Isaac Molho, spent last week in Washington, where the Americans presented their proposal for resuming talks on the basis of Obama's speech. Specifically, Obama's plan calls for negotiating over borders and security first, while deferring issues such as Jerusalem and the refugees until later. It also calls for the borders to be based on the 1967 lines, with mutually agreed land swaps.

The Americans told Molho that to block European initiatives such as France's proposal for an international peace conference in Paris, they must have something concrete to offer, like Netanyahu's agreement to negotiate on the basis of Obama's speech.

The U.S. proposal was also given to chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, who said the Palestinians would resume talks on this basis.

Meanwhile, a European diplomat who was briefed on Molho's talks in Washington said they were fruitless. "The Americans didn't get anything new from Molho," the diplomat said.

This week, American diplomat David Hale will arrive in Israel to hold further meetings with both Molho and Erekat. Hale is temporarily replacing George Mitchell, the U.S. special envoy who resigned earlier this year.

Read full article
here


It seems to me that Obama is enacting revenge for the dressing-down he recently received from Netanyahu in DC. However, Obama is treading on very thin ice when he gives a ultimatum to Israel about her borders.

Why is Obama so insistant on his proposal being the done-deal agreement before the Palestinians seek UN recognition for similar bountries? Could it be all about who would get the credit for the accomplishment?

Praying for Israel, for Netanyahu and for each of its leaders and citizens. Praying that God will grant them the wisdom and peace to trust in Him. Praying that God will protect, sustain and save Israel during this time of pressure, threats and turmoil...in Jesus' Name...Amen!

Don

Reclaiming a Historical Truth: Arabs ordered their people to leave Israel

The deliberate depopulation of Arab villages was a hallmark of the Arab campaign. In December 1947, villagers in the Tul Karm sub-district were ordered out by local leaders.
By Efraim Karsh

I agree with Shlomo Avineri, in his op-ed "Zionism needs no propaganda" (Haaretz English Edition, May 23 ), that the tragedy befalling the Palestinian Arabs in 1948 was exclusively of their own making, and that there is therefore "a grave moral defect in the Nakba discourse."

I am surprised, however, by his assertion that "despite decades of research, to this day no document or broadcast has been found confirming ... [any order] by the Arab leadership for the population to leave." This claim couldn't be further from the truth. While most Palestinian Arabs needed little encouragement to take to the road, large numbers of them were driven from their homes by their own leaders and/or the "Arab Liberation Army" that had entered Palestine prior to the end of the Mandate, whether out of military considerations or in order to prevent them from becoming citizens of the prospective Jewish state. Of this there is an overwhelming and incontrovertible body of contemporary evidence - intelligence briefs, captured Arab documents, press reports, personal testimonies and memoirs, and so on and so forth.

In the largest and best-known example of Arab-instigated exodus, tens of thousands of Arabs were ordered or bullied into leaving the city of Haifa (on April 21-22 ) on the instructions of the Arab Higher Committee, the effective "government" of the Palestinian Arabs. Only days earlier, Tiberias' 6,000-strong Arab community had been similarly forced out by its own leaders, against local Jewish wishes (a fortnight after the exodus, Sir Alan Cunningham, the last British high commissioner of Palestine, reported that the Tiberias Jews "would welcome [the] Arabs back" ). In Jaffa, Palestine's largest Arab city, the municipality organized the transfer of thousands of residents by land and sea; in Jerusalem, the AHC ordered the transfer of women and children, and local gang leaders pushed out residents of several neighborhoods, while in Beisan the women and children were ordered out as Transjordan's Arab Legion dug in.

Avineri mentions the strenuous Jewish efforts to persuade the Haifa Arabs to stay but not the AHC's order to leave - which was passed on to the local leadership by phone and secretly recorded by the Haganah. Nor does he note the well-documented efforts of Haifa's Arab leadership to scaremonger their hapless constituents, reluctant in the extreme to leave, into fleeing. Some Arab residents received written threats that, unless they left town, they would be branded as traitors deserving of death. Others were told they could expect no mercy from the Jews.

In the words of a British intelligence report: "After the Jews had gained control of the town, and in spite of a subsequent food shortage, many would not have responded to the call for a complete evacuation but for the rumors and propaganda spread by the National Committee members remaining in the town. Most widespread was a rumor that Arabs remaining in Haifa would be taken as hostages by [the] Jews in the event of future attacks on other Jewish areas: and an effective piece of propaganda with its implied threat of retribution when the Arabs recapture the town, is that [those] people remaining in Haifa acknowledged tacitly that they believe in the principle of a Jewish State."

Nor was this phenomenon confined to Palestinian cities. The deliberate depopulation of Arab villages too, and their transformation into military strongholds was a hallmark of the Arab campaign from the onset of hostilities. As early as December 1947, villagers in the Tul Karm sub-district were ordered out by their local leaders, and in mid-January Haganah intelligence briefs reported the evacuation of villages in the Hula Valley to accommodate local gangs and newly arrived ALA forces.

By February, this phenomenon had expanded to most parts of the country, gaining considerable momentum in April and May as Arab forces throughout Palestine were being comprehensively routed. On April 18, the Haganah's intelligence branch in Jerusalem reported a fresh general order to remove the women and children from all villages bordering Jewish localities. Twelve days later, its Haifa counterpart reported an ALA directive to evacuate all Arab villages between Tel Aviv and Haifa in anticipation of a new general offensive. In early May, as fighting intensified in the eastern Galilee, local Arabs were ordered to transfer all women and children from the Rosh Pina area, while in the Jerusalem sub-district, Transjordan's Arab Legion ordered the emptying of scores of villages.

To sum up, Zionism needs no propaganda to buttress its case, yet the historical truth needs to be reclaimed after decades of relentless distortion.

Efraim Karsh is research professor of Middle East and Mediterranean studies at King's College London, director of the Middle East Forum (Philadelphia ) and author, most recently, of "Palestine Betrayed."

Baruch atem b'Shem, Yeshua

Chilling Reality...

Baruch atem b'Shem, Yeshua

Bibi~Israel WILL Protect Its Borders

We need to continue to pray for Israel and for PM Netanyahu that he will stand strong on this matter...
by Gavriel Queenann

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Thursday that the Jewish state had the "right and obligation to protect its borders," signaling that the penetration of Israel's border by Syrians on May 15 will not be repeated.

"On May 15 we marked the the creation of [modern] Israel," Netanyahu told attendees of the International Hi-Tech Conference at the Jerusalem International Convention Center.

"We have witnessed the efforts of our enemies and violate our borders. Provocations by Iran, Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas. The same efforts are expected again in the coming days to challenge our sovereignty and undermine our country's borders," Netanyahu said.

"Israel, like every country in the world, has the right and obligation to guard its borders and protect them," added Netanyahu. "My instructions are clear: to act with restraint but also with the determination required in order to protect our citizens and our borders."

Netanyahu's statement comes as Arabs plan to mark June 5 as "Naksa Day" – the date on which Jerusalem was liberated by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War.

Arabs in Palestinian Authority administered areas expect to commemorate the day with riots. Foreign Arabs, especially in Syria and Lebanon, are expected to march on Israel's borders.

PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas, who has promised a third intifada if negotiations with Israel fail, said this year's 'Nakba Day' riots were only a 'rehearsal' for  the June 5 'Naksa Day."

Previously, during May 15's annual "Naqba Day" unrest, some 100 Syrian agitators illegally entered Israel's Golan region and clashed with security forces. Israel's security forces have been equipped with less-than-lethal weapons for Naksa Day.

Lebanon is reportedly closing its border with Israel on June 5 in hopes of avoiding an incident and the IDF has gone on alert.
 
Baruch atem b'Shem, Yeshua

Obama and Israel: Is it Ignorance or Arrogance?

By Jan Markell
Olive Tree Ministries
June 1, 2011

The fanfare is over. Benjamin Netanyahu has left the building. He has returned to Israel and he and the Israelis realize that they are on their own. The President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, has identified himself as the most anti-Israel President in history. But he does not speak for all of the American people and he does not speak for all of Congress. There may be only a few issues in Washington that have bi-partisan support, but one of those issues is that both the Right and the Left in Congress - with a few exceptions - remain an ally of God's covenant land. Many of them are trying to hold back the water from the hole in the dam that would make the Islamic empire the chosen people.
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The stage is set. America has played a key but a bitter role. The world is headed in a frightful direction. The President of the United States is steering a sinking ship. Obama's actions against Israel reflect both ignorance and arrogance. Such perilous times only remind us that the King of kings' return is imminent. If you look up and not around, you will maintain a level of peace.

Read full story
here



Jan's full article is a "must read" to help us understand the deteriorating situation that exists between Israel and the USA. We must pray for Israel and the leadership of our country, that the Lord's will would be done for His honor and glory.

Don