Iran Calls for ‘Islamic Awakening’ to Destroy Israel
May 16th
An Iranian official called this week for an ‘Islamic Awakening’ movement to help Palestinian Authority Arabs “demolish the Zionist regime”, the IRNA news agency reported.
Nakba Day protests May 2012
The comments were made at a conference in Tehran in honor of Nakba Day – the day of catastrophe – which is what the Arabs call the English date of May 15, when the State of Israel was re-established with a declaration of independence in 1948.
In a brief address at the end of the conference, the official, Hossein Shiekholeslam said, “In success of a revolution three major factors need to play effective roles, and they are the people, the leadership, and the school of thought, or ideology.”
He added, “If we wish success for the Palestinians, the existence of these three factors is necessary, as they did exist in the case of the victory of the Islamic Revolution of Iran.”
Sheikholeslam said that “In near future the Islamic Awakening movement would also swallow the Zionist regime.”
The first speaker at the conference, according to IRNA, was the PA Ambassador in Tehran, Salah Zawawi, who said that the one and only way to soothe the Arabs’ pains and agony is the annihilation of the Zionist regime.
“Turning the Palestinians into homeless people is a Zionist-western plot to enable the illegal Zionist immigrants to settle down at our ancestors’ motherlands, over the ruins of our homes,” he said.
“So long as the entire Palestinian groups have not united and each group is merely heeding its own factional interests the problems of this detached part of the Islamic world would never be solved,” he added.
Zawawi emphasized that many political projects have been launched aimed at “liberating Palestine” but that none have borne fruit yet. He said, “The Palestinians would never abandon the Holy Qods, as their capital city and I once again reiterate, political initiatives are not capable of liberating Palestine.”
He then claimed that Israel would never yield to the idea of establishing a solid Palestinian state and said, “Some 200 illegal and illegitimate townships have been constructed on the West Bank, but the U.S. president never referred to the illegitimate nature of those townships lest he would lose his presidential election campaign.”
Zawawi said that other Islamic countries should hold a conference aimed at surveying and finding a final solution for the “Palestinian issue” and added, “The Palestinian prisoners are not terrorists; they are merely brave men and women, defending their own motherland.”
On Tuesday, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas used a ‘Nakba Day’ speech to accuse Israel of carrying out ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem.
“For decades, Israel has been building settlements in Jerusalem and around it,” Abbas said in a televised speech. “This is done while there is a massive destruction of houses in the city and their original inhabitants are being uprooted on a daily basis.”
Abbas also claimed that Israel intentionally harms the Muslim and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem, saying, “The Al-Aqsa Mosque is being targeted by the occupation and together with the extremists has become the main target. They are trying to make Muslims and Christians flee the city by imposing heavy taxes, a policy which can only be called ethnic cleansing.”
His comments came one day after Israel signed an agreement with PA prisoners to end their hunger strike, which has been gaining international sympathy.
The Prime Minister’s Office said on Monday that the deal that ended the hunger strikewas a goodwill gesture to Abbas.
Part of the deal was the transfer of 100 bodies of PA Arab terrorists currently buried in Israel. The Netanyahu administration instructed security officials to prepare to transfer the bodies to the PA in another apparent gesture of conciliation to Abbas.
Meanwhile on Tuesday, at least four Israeli security personnel were hurt in Nakba Day clashes with PA Arabs in Judea and Samaria.
Hundreds of PA residents threw stones and firebombs outside the Ofer Prison adjacent to the Beitunya crossing. The IDF and Israel Police responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and other crowd dispersal means. source – Israel National News
Tech Researchers Begin Mapping Out The IMPLANTABLE Smart Phone
May 16th
The obvious next step
At the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Austin, Texas, this week, researchers are discussing just this possibility. New Scientist reports that researchers have already checked to see if current technology would make this possible. The answer is yes.
“In general, the trend has been that people are more and more willing to incorporate bits of the machine world into themselves,” says Sherry Turkle, a sociologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
A button, an LED and a touch sensor all functioned appropriately when embedded under the skin of a cadaver’s arm. The team was even able to communicate transcutaneously using a Bluetooth connection and charge the electronics wirelessly.
“That’s the bottom line,” says Christian Holz of the Autodesk team.
New Scientist voices what you may be thinking about controlling a device simply by touching your skin — that it’s “creepy” and there is room for worry about malfunctions and infections — but it speculates as technology continues to become more present in our lives, the creep factor will go away. The example it offers is the now accepted use of a pacemaker to regulate the heart:
“In general, the trend has been that people are more and more willing to incorporate bits of the machine world into themselves,” says Sherry Turkle, a sociologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“The perception [of this technology] 10 years ago would differ from today and from what we would get in 10 years’ time,” agrees Holz.
Turkle wants people to be cautious about these advancements though. She told New Scientist she worries about people who can’t seem to live without their phones even for a moment. There is actually a condition for this known as nomophobia in which one has a fear of being separated from his or her cellphone.
While still reserved in its verdict on the topic New Scientist states that if such a condition exists and if humanity is getting so attached to devices, perhaps a phone implant is really the “most obvious” next step. source – The Blaze
Israel NOT Invited To US-Led Massive War Games Exercise In Middle East
May 15th
The United States is leading what it described as the “largest military exercises in the Middle East in 10 years” in Jordan on Tuesday.
From today until the end of May, one of the largest multinational military exercises the region has ever seen is taking place in Jordan. Israel not welcome...
Eager Lion 2012 “is the largest exercise held in the region in the past ten years,” Major General Ken Tovo, head of the US Special Operations Forces, told reporters in Amman.
“Yesterday we began to apply the skills that we have developed over the last weeks in an irregular warfare scenario … They will last for approximately the coming two weeks,” he added.
“The message that I want to send through this exercise is that we have developed the right partners throughout the region and across the world … insuring that we have the ability to … meet challenges that are coming to our nations,” Tovo said.
Over 12,000 soldiers are taking part in the war games, representing 19 countries, including Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Pakistan, Qatar, Britain, France, Italy, Spain and Australia.
Jordanian army operations and training chief Major General Awni Adwan said the military exercise “has been in the planning phase for the past three years.”
“No forces will be deployed north … the exercise is not connected to any real world event,” Adwan said when asked if the war games were related to the ongoing violence in Jordan’s northern neighbor Syria.
“This has nothing to do with Syria. We respect the sovereignty of Syria. There is no tension between the Syrians and us. Our objectives are clear,” Adwan said.
Israel – despite having extensive security agreements with Jordan – was not invited to participate in the exercises. Several Arab nations participating in the drill are still formally at war with the Jewish state.
Washington has granted Amman $2.4 billion in military and economic aid in the past five years, according to official figures. source – Israel National News
Knockout! Boxing Champion Manny Pacquiao Rebukes Obama’s Support For Gay-Marriage
May 14th
Now fighting using the Sword of the Spirit
“Sanctify them by they truth: thy Word is truth.” (John 17:17)
Just as Saul’s life has been radically changed by Christ on that Damascus road, the pound per pound boxing champion of the world also clearly has encountered the Truth in God’s Word. Nothing is more important to him now more than the upholding of God’s Truth in His Word.
From The Christian Post -
Manny Pacquiao, Christian Filipino boxer and congressman, has reportedly disagreed with President Barack Obama's support of redefining marriage to include same-sex couples, and has insisted people should always put God's word first.
Manny Pacquiao, Christian Filipino boxer and congressman, has reportedly disagreed with President Barack Obama‘s support of redefining marriage to include same-sex couples, and has insisted people should always put God’s word first.
After Obama vocalized that he was in support of gay marriage earlier this week, Pacquiao was adamant that the president had got it wrong. In an interview with the National Conservative Examiner while training in Los Angeles, Calif., Pacquiao spoke about the need for society to put “God’s words first.”
The boxer quoted Leviticus 20:13 when referring to the president’s decision to advocate for same-sex marriage.
“If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable,” Pacquiao told the Examiner. “They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.”
However, Obama has attempted to explain his reasoning for supporting a redefinition of marriage, using the Golden Rule of loving your neighbor as justification for ignoring other verses condemning homosexuality in the Bible.
“Do unto others as you would have them do to you,” the president said in an ABC News report. “At a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”
Read the Bible, “The Manual of Life”
While the 33-year-old boxer said he respected Obama, he told the Examiner that the president should read the bible or “manual of life” to better society.
“God only expects man and woman to be together and to be legally married, only if they so are in love with each other,” Pacquiao said. “It should not be of the same sex so as to adulterate the altar of matrimony, like in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah of Old.” - Source – The Christian Post
Newsweek Anoints Obama As ‘The First Gay President’
May 13th
“Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,…And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.” Romans 1
RELATED STORY: The Ordinance of the Amorites
In a gutsy move, Newsweek has released the cover of their next issue, on the cover of which they depict President Obama with a rainbow halo and the title of ‘The First Gay President’.
Controversial: Newsweek released their cover early, likely hoping to drum up attention for their next issue and their same-sex marriage coverage
The news-magazine, which hits stands Monday, is using the shock factor of labeling the straight, married, father-of-two President to draw attention to itself. Tina Brown, who heads the magazine and it’s sister website The Daily Beast, is known for her appreciation of controversial covers to help boost public interest and sales.
After Time magazine went with a cover shot of a young blonde mother breastfeeding her 3-year-old boy, Ms Brown is said to have taken it in stride, saying ‘let the games begin!’
The article accompanying the cover was written by the news magazine’s regular blogger, Andrew Sullivan, who is an openly gay self-titled conservative political pundit.
‘When you step back a little and assess the record of Obama on gay rights, you see, in fact, that this was not an aberration. It was an inevitable culmination of three years of work,’ Mr Sullivan said in a statement about the article.
‘He had to discover his black identity and then reconcile it with his white family, just as gays discover their homosexual identity and then have to reconcile it with their heterosexual family,’ he wrote, describing the similarities between Mr Obama and the gay community.
There was little doubt that Newsweek would be covering the President’s historic announcement that he supports same-sex marriage after he had a sit-down television interview confirming what many already believed to be the case.
This was, however, the first time that a sitting President had done so, and the magazine asserts that such a move was a calculated one that had been thoroughly planned.
‘It’s easy to write off President Obama’s announcement of his support for gay marriage as a political ploy during an election year. But don’t believe the cynics,’ representatives from the news magazine told Politico in a statement about the article.
President Obama’s announcement came several days after Vice President Joe Biden said that he was ‘absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and men and women marrying are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties.’
The move, thought to be a misstep as he made his opinion known before Mr Obama publicly declared his, was criticized by many within the administration and outside of the White House.
‘Would I have preferred to have done this in my own way, in my own terms, without I think, there being a lot of notice to everybody? Sure,’ Mr Obama said in the ABC. ‘But all’s well that ends well.’
On the day of the President’s interview, Mr Biden is said to have had a private meeting in the Oval Office where in he apologized for his overstep.
Republicans, the vast majority of whom are against gay marriage, said that Mr Obama simply made his historic announcement in an effort to gain support among liberal voters in the lead up to the general election.
‘While President Obama has played politics on this issue, the Republican Party and our presumptive nominee Mitt Romney have been clear,’ Republican national committee chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement.
‘We support maintaining marriage between one man and one woman and would oppose any attempts to change that.’ source – Daily Mail UK
5.3 Magnitude Earthquake Shakes Israel And Lebanon
May 11th
RELATED STORY: As America Has Done To Israel
“Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.” Hebrews 12:26
From JPost: A Richter scale 5.3 magnitude earthquake shook the eastern Mediterranean on Friday night, with locals in countries throughout the Levant reporting the quake.
Earthquake felt as far north as Safed, in Jerusalem; epicenter near Cyprus; no injuries, damages reported after tectonic event.
The United States Geological Survey’s web site said the quake at a depth of 19.8 kilometres occurred in the sea between Cyprus and Lebanon at 9:48 p.m. local time.
Residents in Israel reported feeling the tremors, as thousands of citizens picked up the phone and called police to announce the event. No damages or injuries were reported.
The earthquake was felt as far south as Rishon Lezion, and as far north as Safed.
Residents in Lebanon also reported the earthquake, with Lebanese media saying tremors were felt in Beirut, Sidon, Tyre and the coastal city of Tripoli.
Police said they received thousands of phone calls in localities nationwide shortly after 9:50 p.m. Residents in Safed, Beit She’an and neighboring towns in the Jordan Valley, Migdal Haemek, Araaba, Haifa and other cities and towns called their local authorities to report the tectonic event.
In addition, residents of Tel Aviv, Carmiel and Jerusalem also reported feeling the earth tremble.
“The whole bed was shaking for a pretty long time,” one Jerusalem resident told The Jerusalem Post. “I’m used to earthquakes in California, and this one was strong.” Last December, a light 3.8 earthquake shook the Galilee region with its epicenter in the Hula Valley and Sea of Galilee. source – JPost
Israel NOT Invited To Obama’s Chicago For NATO Summit Next Week
May 11th
The Chicago way
Israel will not be invited to NATO’s May 20-21 summit in Chicago, the alliance’s top official said Friday. But he denied that alliance member Turkey had blocked Israel’s participation.
It is obvious to even the casual observer how much disdain Obama has for Netanyahu and the state of Israel
Instead, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the reason is because Israel does not participate in NATO’s main military missions.
News reports have claimed that Turkey blocked Israel’s participation because of the raid in 2010 by Israeli troops on ships heading to Gaza in which eight Turks and a Turkish-American died.
NATO has a system of partnerships with dozens of nations across the globe such as the Mediterranean Dialogue, a NATO outreach program with seven friendly nations, including Israel.
In the past, partner nations did not usually attend the alliance’s summits. But Fogh Rasmussen said 13 would do so this time.
“At the Lisbon summit (in 2010), we made clear that we would enhance dialogue and cooperation with partner nations … because in today’s world security challenges know no borders, and no country or alliance can deal with most of them on their own,” he told journalists.
Two other members of the Mediterranean group, Jordan and Morocco, are among them. But Fogh Rasmussen said Israel is not because it does not participate in missions in Afghanistan and Kosovo.
“Israel has not been invited to attend the summit because Israel is neither a participant in ISAF nor in KFOR … no one has blocked an invitation because it’s not been an issue,” Fogh Rasmussen said. ISAF and KFOR are acronyms for coalition forces in Afghanistan and Kosovo.
Earlier this year, Turkey scuttled a plan to include an Israeli warship in a NATO-run flotilla patrolling the Mediterranean.
In the past, Israeli warships and air force jets have joined in some NATO exercises, but Israel’s participation in the naval operation would the first time its armed forces have taken part in one of the alliance’s military operations.
Representatives of about 60 nations and international organizations will attend the Chicago conference. Partner nations include include Sweden, Switzerland, Qatar, Georgia, Australia and New Zealand.
Representatives of Russia and several Central Asian states also have been invited to discuss the war in Afghanistan — the summit’s main focus — “because they provide important transit arrangements to the benefit of our operation,” Fogh Rasmussen said. The alliance has repeatedly said it is prepared to enhance practical cooperation with all partner nations in the region, including Israel. But some members have opposed past attempts to forge closer cooperation with the Jewish state, saying that could hurt the alliance’s relations with other Muslim countries, including Afghanistan, which remains NATO’s top operational priority. source – ABC News
