AIRLINE GLITCH

Airline glitch takes Mideast conflict to new heights APR 30,09

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Irate Israeli passengers have complained to British BMI airline that the Jewish state was wiped off the inflight map which showed flights bound for Israel were instead heading to Mecca.But the airline denied any anti-Israel agenda and insisted there was a simple explanation: the planes were recently bought from a bankrupt charter company that flew mainly to Muslim countries.For this reason the inflight entertainment system in the two planes was made to adapt to the passengers flying to and from those destinations and therefore the map showed mainly places holy to Islam,BMI said in a statement.BMI, which started operating low-cost flights to Israel more than a year ago, denied it had any ulterior motive in showing the Israel-free maps.If BMI had any political agenda in order not to anger neighbouring countries, it would not have invested so much in the Tel Aviv line,it said.But after furious passengers took up the issue with the authorities, an Israeli official made it clear that either the Jewish state appears on the maps or BMI disappears from its skies.Doing business with Israel has its advantages and disadvantages, but we will not agree to a situation where they hide the existence of Israel but want to do business with Israel, transport ministry director-general Gideon Sitterman told army radio.I intend to contact BMI chairman Nigel Turner in London and ask for some clarifications... it is unacceptable that we are wiped off the map,he said.Foes of the Jewish state, including Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have called for Israel to be wiped off the map.

Two killed in Gaza-Egypt tunnel collapse: medics Thu Apr 30, 5:21 am ET

GAZA CITY (AFP) – Two Palestinians were killed on Thursday when a smuggling tunnel linking the Gaza Strip and Egypt collapsed, Palestinian medics said.Three other people who were in the tunnel at the time of the collapse were still missing, the medics said.The Palestinians have been using hundreds of tunnels to ferry food supplies and other necessities into the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, which has been under a crippling Israeli blockade since June 2007, when the Islamists pledged to the destruction of the Jewish state violently assumed power in the territory.Israel says the tunnels are also used by the Islamists to smuggle weapons including rockets into the Gaza Strip for use against the Jewish state.The network of tunnels was extensively bombed by Israel during its 22-day war against Hamas in December-January, but many of the tunnels were quickly rebuilt following the offensive.

Israel warns EU against criticising new govt Thu Apr 30, 5:01 am ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel has warned the European Union to limit its criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's largely right-wing cabinet or risk losing involvement in the Middle East peace process, an official said on Thursday.The warning was issued in a series of phone conversations in recent days between the deputy director of the Israeli foreign ministry's European desk Rafi Barak and the ambassadors of Britain, France and Germany, the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.Israel asks the European Union to keep a low profile and conduct a quiet dialogue... But if these declarations continue, Europe will not be able to have involvement in the peace process and both sides will lose, the senior official quoted Barak as telling the ambassadors.The comments came ahead of next week's European trip by Israel's new Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who is due to visit the Czech Republic, Italy, France and Germany.Israel last week rapped the European Union after its commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said that a planned upgrade of bilateral relations would not be implemented until Netanyahu commits to the peace talks with the Palestinians.Netanyahu has so far not publicly endorsed the creation of a Palestinian state, the cornerstone of the internationally backed Middle East peace process.He has insisted since being sworn in on March 31 that his government needed time to review its policy on the peace talks.We have told everyone in Europe in recent weeks that the Israeli government should be given time to formulate its policy and not engage in a war of declarations over the media,Barak said.We want the European Union to be a partner but it is important to hold dialogue in a mature and quiet way and not through public declarations.Late last year EU nations agreed to enhance ties with Israel but the idea was put on hold since Israel's deadly military offensive in the Gaza Strip in December and January.Ferrero-Waldner's threat also sparked a row within the EU after Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency, contradicted the commissioner's position.The peace process should not be linked to the relations between the EU and Israel, Topolanek said in an interview published in Israel this week.Commenting on Ferrero-Waldner's position, he said: I would not really attribute to it more weight than just a statement by a commissioner.The Czech EU president on Monday admitted that talks on enhancing ties with Israel were in fact on hold, defusing the potentially embarrassing row with the European Commission.

Israel's firebrand FM on first trip abroad Thu Apr 30, 3:44 am ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel's firebrand Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman will head on his first trip abroad next week with visits to the Czech Republic, Italy, France and Germany, his office said.The exact dates of the trip have not yet been set, said a statement.It will mark the first foreign tour by the controversial politican since he was sworn in along with the rest of the largely right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on March 31.Lieberman is known for controversial statements and has been called a racist by critics over his anti-Arab diatribes.

Immediately after taking office, he sparked criticism by saying that the new Israeli cabinet was not bound by the decision that the previous government took at a conference in Annapolis, Maryland in November 2007 to restart negotiations with the Palestinians.He nevertheless said Israel was bound by the 2003 Middle East roadmap, a blueprint drafted by the international Quartet of the European Union, the United States, Russia and the United Nations.The roadmap outlines the peace process and requires a halt to violence and Israeli settlement activity in the occupied West Bank before launching talks on a permanent peace agreement.He has also lashed out at Iran, saying it is a key obstacle to resolving the Middle East conflict and has come out against resuming indirect talks with Syria.

Saudi, Jordanian kings discuss Mideast peace efforts Wed Apr 29, 4:48 pm ET

RIYADH (AFP) – Jordan's King Abdullah II and Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz discussed Middle East peace issues Wednesday in the wake of the Jordanian ruler's pressuring Washington to get more involved in the process, the official Saudi news agency SPA said.Jordan's king met with his Saudi counterpart in the eastern city of Khobar after returning from meetings in Washington with US President Barack Obama last week.The two discussed regional and international developments, particularly the Palestinian issue, SPA said.In an interview aired Sunday after his talks at the White House, King Abdullah II emphasised the need for Washington to make its intentions clear by the time Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the United States next month.But if, right after that visit, there's not a clear understanding of how America is going to weigh in on these problems, then I think the goodwill (towards) the United States will disappear,he warned.In the next 18 months, if we don't move the process forward ... there will be another conflict between Israel and another protagonist,he added.Both countries have endorsed the Saudi-crafted 2002 Arab Peace Initiative as the way forward to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.The initiative calls for an end to Israel's occupation of Arab lands seized in 1967 and Palestinian statehood in return for security guarantees and blanket recognition of Israel by all Arab states.Meanwhile US special envoy Dennis Ross was expected to meet Saudi King Abdullah and other top officials Wednesday and Thursday to discuss regional political issues, the US embassy said.

Arab-Israelis march for right of return Wed Apr 29, 1:12 pm ET

AL-KAFRAYN, Israel (AFP) – As Israel celebrated its 61st anniversary, some 2,000 people demonstrated on Wednesday for Arab-Israelis' right of return to the lands from which they were chased in 1948.The protest took place on the site of Al-Kafrayn, an Arab village among the more than 500 that were razed by Israeli forces at the time of the creation of the Jewish state in 1948.Waving Palestinian flags and banners proclaiming Right of Return,the demonstrators marched through a small pine forest and the ruins of the village that was torn to the ground on April 19, 1948.Some of the families who were forced to abandon their homes at the time resettled elsewhere in Israel while tens of thousands of others fled into exile.Family members of some of the refugees visited sites of demolished villages on Wednesday just as Israel celebrated the 61st anniversary -- in the Hebraic lunar calender -- of its creation.

We have come to tell Israelis we will never forget, Fatima Chalabi, one of the protesters, told AFP.Israel has 1.2 million Arab citizens, the descendants of the 160,000 who remained after the creation of the Jewish state.On May 15, Palestinians and Arab-Israelis mark the anniversary of the Naqba -- Catastrophe -- the term they use to describe the creation of the state of Israel on three-fourth's of the territory of historic Palestine.Some 760,000 Arabs were expelled or fled from their homes during the 1948 war, giving rise to a UN-registered refugee population scattered across the Middle East that today numbers more than 4.6 million.

Carter says US-Syria ties could return this year By FRANK BAJAK, Associated Press Writer – Tue Apr 28, 9:11 pm ET

BOGOTA – Former President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday that the United States and Syria are close to restoring full diplomatic ties, but he doubted Cuba's new openness means its leaders are ready to grant free speech or change their political system.Syrian President Bashar Assad is very eager to restore full ties with Washington, Carter said.I wouldn't be surprised if it happens this year,Carter said in a telephone interview from Quito, Ecuador, at the start of a four-nation South American trip.He plans to meet Assad in Syria in early June after attending elections in Lebanon.The United States withdrew its ambassador to Syria in 2005 after a political assassination widely blamed on Syria — a claim Damascus denies. Washington has long objected to Syria's support for the Hezbollah and Hamas militant groups as well as its alliance with Iran.Syria has recently expressed openness to indirect peace talks with Israel as long as they focus on a complete withdrawal from the Golan Heights, which Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war.

Carter brokered peace between Israel and Egypt 30 years ago during his presidency.

On Cuba, he indicated that he thinks Fidel Castro — and not brother Raul, who succeeded Fidel as president after he fell ill in 2006 — has the last word on the communist island.I think Fidel is staying as aloof as he possibly can, said the 84-year-old Carter, who has long opposed the U.S. trade embargo. But Fidel also reserves the right to come forward on a particular occasion when he feels his voice might be helpful in clarifying an issue.Fidel Castro said in a newspaper column last week that President Barack Obama misinterpreted April 16 remarks by Raul in which he said Cuba was willing to discuss everything, everything, everything, with Washington, including human rights and political prisoners.I don't think (Raul) was specifically talking about abolishing Cuba's restraints on assembling and freedom of speech and changing the form of government,Carter said.Carter said he had not spoken to either Castro brother or to Obama since what has been widely seen as a thaw in Cuban relations.He said he hopes Obama, who kicked off the exchange by easing restrictions on travel and money transfers to the island by Cuban-Americans, will be aggressive in taking advantage of any opening.I would like to see the United States lift all travel restrictions because that only hurts the Cuban people,Carter said.He was to meet with Ecuador's newly re-elected president, Rafael Correa, on Wednesday, and continue on to meet with the presidents of Peru, Bolivia and Brazil.Carter said he was exploring the possibility of bringing together the presidents of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru — with U.S. representation — in a forum where sensitive issues can be discussed freely.His foundation, The Carter Center, has been trying to persuade Ecuador and Colombia to restore diplomatic ties severed after Bogota's March 1, 2008 cross-border raid to attack a rebel camp run by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia rebel group.

Israel begin 61st Independence Day celebrations Tue Apr 28, 3:29 pm ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel began celebrating 61 years of statehood at sundown on Tuesday in an abrupt and symbolic break from the commemoration of Remembrance Day.

The celebrations were officially launched with the lighting of torches at a ceremony on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem attended by hundreds of Israeli and foreign dignitaries.

Thousands of police and army forces were deployed across the country and Israel sealed off the occupied West Bank ahead of the Remembrance Day and Independence Day events, fearing Palestinian militant attacks.Independence Day ceremonies will continue on Wednesday with air force and naval parades to the mark the 61st anniversary under the Jewish calendar of the end of the British mandate in Palestine on May 14, 1948.Remembrance Day honours soldiers and civilians killed since Jews first settled outside the walls of Jerusalem's Old City in 1860.

Barak: Israeli PM will bend on Palestinian state By Amy Teibel, Associated Press Writer – Tue Apr 28, 1:27 pm ET

JERUSALEM – Israel's defense minister said in an interview published Tuesday that he expects Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to the principle of Palestinian statehood — something the Israeli leader has balked at doing since taking office a month ago.Netanyahu is coming under increasing pressure from Washington to resume peacemaking with the Palestinians, a process designed ultimately to create a Palestinian state that would live alongside Israel peacefully within fixed borders.

In what could be seen as a mild slap from the U.S., Israel's ceremonial president, Shimon Peres, will meet President Barack Obama next week, before Netanyahu travels to Washington in mid-May. A statement from Peres' office said he would attend next week's conference of AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby, and meet Obama.Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, is a world-renowned Mideast peacemaker, while Netanyahu has a hawkish reputation. Netanyahu took office March 31 amid predictions of a clash with the Obama administration over peacemaking.Netanyahu has stepped back from his original plan to hold off on political negotiations while working with the Palestinians to improve their economy. But Netanyahu has stopped short of endorsing a separate Palestinian state, a key element of U.S. policy.In an interview with the Haaretz daily, Defense Minister Ehud Barak suggested that Netanyahu could relent.I believe that during Netanyahu's visit to Washington, Israel must formulate how it intends to move forward, and that formula will not propose three states for eight peoples, Barak said.

The prime minister's office would not comment. But an aide to the prime minister said a policy review was under way and should be completed around the time Netanyahu goes to Washington. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to publicly discuss emerging policy.The Palestinians hope to set up a state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, territories Israel captured in the 1967 war.

Israel has annexed east Jerusalem, and some 230,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank. Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005. But the coastal territory is now controlled by the Islamic militant group Hamas, complicating potential peace efforts. Israel considers Hamas, which rejects Israel's right to exist, a terrorist group.In a reflection of the sensitivity of the situation, a Palestinian military court convicted a man of treason and sentenced him to death for selling West Bank land to an Israeli company.Abbas routinely withholds the required approval of such sentences, however.Barak's centrist Labor Party, which supports Palestinian statehood, is the lone moderate voice in Netanyahu's government. But during his two years as defense minister in the preceding government of Ehud Olmert, Barak rebuffed Palestinian demands to halt settlement expansion or remove a significant number of Israeli roadblocks that encumber Palestinian movement in the West Bank.In a separate interview published Tuesday, Netanyahu's other top policy-making partner, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, denied that Jewish settlements in the West Bank were an obstacle to peacemaking, as Palestinians and the international community claim.Lieberman also said Israel can't negotiate peace with the Palestinians until they dismantle militant groups and set up a proper justice system. The Palestinians committed to do so under the U.S.-backed road map peace plan of June 2002 — which obliged Israel to halt all settlement construction.To jump straight to the last paragraph and to concede on all of the Palestinian commitments to fight terror — it's a very strange approach,Lieberman told The Jerusalem Post daily.

Israel says it shares water fairly with Palestinians Tue Apr 28, 10:10 am ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel insisted on Tuesday that it shares water resources with Palestinians in a fair manner, rejecting World Bank claims that it draws more than its quota from the common aquifer.The foreign ministry said that Palestinians have access to twice as much water as the 23.6 million cubic metres (833 million cubic feet) they are allocated annually under an agreement with Israel.Israel has fulfilled all its obligations regarding the supply of water to the Palestinians, and has even extensively surpassed the obligatory quantity,it said in a statement.The Palestinians, on the other hand, have significantly violated their commitments under the water agreement,it said, adding that Palestinians had drilled 250 wells without authorisation and allowed raw sewage to flow into streams.In a report on April 20, the World Bank noted the highly disparate availability of water resources.It said the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the blockaded Gaza Strip were totally dependent on scarce water resources shared and largely controlled by Israel.Because of Israeli restrictions and bad Palestinian management, the Palestinians face dire water shortages, the bank said in the report.

Abbas refuses to recognise Israel as Jewish state by Nasser Abu Bakr – Mon Apr 27, 1:08 pm ET

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP) – Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Monday rejected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's demand to recognise Israel as a Jewish state.A Jewish state, what is that supposed to mean? Abbas asked in a speech in the West Bank's political capital of Ramallah.You can call yourselves as you like, but I don't accept it and I say so publicly.Abbas said the topic was extensively discussed and rejected by the Palestinians during a November 2007 international conference in Annapolis, near Washington, at which the two sides relaunched peace negotiations.

Netanyahu has demanded the Palestinians recognise Israel as a Jewish state as part of an eventual peace deal.Such a move would amount to an effective renunciation of the right of return of refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, when Israel was created, a cherished principle of the Palestinians.The Israeli foreign ministry reacted to Abbas's statement by saying recognition of Israel as the sovereign state of the Jewish people is an essential and necessary step in the historic process of reconciliation between Israel and the Palestinians.The more the Palestinians assimilate this fundamental and substantive fact, the sooner the peace between the two nations will progress toward fruition,the ministry said.Abbas also criticised Israel's firebrand Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who said the new cabinet was not bound by the previous government's decision taken at Annapolis to relaunch peace talks with the Palestinians.Lieberman is in a class by himself. He has yet to learn the art of politics and he has not yet practised politics enough. He is an adversary, he has come to say no and I reject and every chance he gets he comes up with a new refrain,he said.On the latest round of Palestinian reconciliation talks which opened on Monday in Cairo, Abbas said if the parties managed to form a unity government, that cabinet would have to abide by past Israeli-Palestinian accords.It is the government and its members that should respect such deals and not movements, Abbas said.He was referring to the Hamas movement ruling Gaza whose refusal to recognise past deals, to renounce violence and to recognise Israel has prompted the West to blacklist the Islamist group as a terror outfit.

Should the Palestinians form a unity government, the cabinet's top priority would be reconstruction in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli military carried out a devastating 22-day offensive in December-January.Another priority will be preparing for combined presidential and parliamentary elections before January 24, 2010, the date when the mandate of the current legislature dominated by Hamas expires, Abbas said.His secular Fatah party and the Hamas movement have been at odds since June 2007 when the Islamists booted their rivals from the Gaza Strip after a week of deadly fighting.

Turkey, Syria conduct military drill By SELCAN HACAOGLU, Associated Press Writer – Mon Apr 27, 12:11 pm ET

ANKARA, Turkey – The Turkish military said it launched a joint drill with Syrian soldiers on their shared border Monday in order to improve security. Israel, an ally of Turkey and a longtime foe of Syria, expressed concern.Military teams from Turkey and Syria were scheduled to cross the border and visit outposts during the three-day exercises, the Turkish military said. It described the drill as the first-ever between the countries.There was no mention of the joint operation in Syrian media. However, government newspapers reported Monday that Syrian Defense Minister Hassan Ali Turkmani had begun a five-day visit to Turkey for talks with Turkish officials and also to attend an international defense fair in Istanbul.In Istanbul, senior defense officials from Turkey and Syria also signed an agreement for cooperation in the defense industry, the Anatolia news agency reported.The agency quoted Turkish Maj. Gen. Beyazit Karatas as saying the deal would lay out the legal framework for future defense industry cooperation and increase contacts between the two countries' defense ministries.Tensions between Turkey and Syria were once high because Abdullah Ocalan, leader of Turkey's rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party, sheltered in Syria. Turkey massed troops on the Syrian border. Damascus then expelled Ocalan and he was captured in Kenya in 1999.

Antagonism between the neighbors had also mounted in the 1990s when Turkey developed military ties with Israel.Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Monday that he viewed the exercise as definitely a worrisome development.But I believe that the strategic relations between Israel and Turkey will prevail over Turkey's need to participate in such an exercise, Barak said.Turkey has long been Israel's closest ally in the Muslim world, and hosted several rounds of indirect negotiations between Syria and Israel last year.However, ties between Turkey and Israel deteriorated during the Gaza war, and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan reprimanded Israeli President Shimon Peres over civilian casualties in Gaza at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.Turkish defense ties with Israel include training agreements and purchases from Israel worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Palestinians build stage for pope next to barrier By MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH, Associated Press Writer – Mon Apr 27, 11:21 am ET

AIDA REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank – Palestinians in a refugee camp near Bethlehem want to receive Pope Benedict XVI in what they say is the most fitting setting — next to the towering cement wall that is part of Israel's West Bank separation barrier and borders the camp on two sides.They are building an outdoor theater next to the wall for the pope's visit to Aida camp May 13. They say they chose the spot to highlight life under Israeli military occupation.However, the Israeli government has ordered the construction to stop, saying camp organizers lack the necessary permits and that the theater's proximity to the wall poses a security risk.Israel started building the separation barrier in the West Bank in 2002, portraying it as a defense against Palestinian gunmen and suicide bombers. Palestinians have denounced it as a land grab, since the barrier slices off about 10 percent of the West Bank, land the Palestinians seek for their future state. The barrier, made up of fences in rural areas and walls in urban neighborhoods, is about two-thirds complete.The Aida camp, home to about 5,000 Palestinians, is located between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. It sprang up in 1948 to house some of the several hundred thousand Palestinians displaced during the war over Israel's creation.The pope is touring the Holy Land from May 8-15, and will visit Bethlehem, Nazareth and Jerusalem, all key locations in Jesus' life. In Aida, he is to deliver a speech and will be entertained by local folk dancers, according Bethlehem's mayor.The outdoor theater, which is to hold an audience of 1,000, is to be completed by May 5.

Local officials said Israel has pressured them to stop work, and that Israeli soldiers came to the site last week and forced the workers to leave. The workers have since returned and are working long days to finish the project.We are determined to receive the pope in this place because it encapsulates Palestinian suffering, as we have the refugee camp, the wall and a watchtower of the Israeli military, said the Palestinian governor of the Bethlehem district, Salah Taameri.Miki Galin, an Israeli military official in the West Bank, said the theater is being built in an area under Israeli control and lacks the necessary permits. The theater's proximity to the separation barrier could also pose a security risk, he said.Galin declined to comment on whether Israel is worried about political messages implied by the stage's location, but said Israel is working closely with the Palestinian Authority and local churches to coordinate the visit.Palestinian and Israeli officials are discussing alternate locations in the camp where the pope could speak, but local officials say there is nowhere in the camp where the wall isn't visible.The wall is surrounding us like a ring on a finger,said Palestinian lawmaker Issa Karakeh.

Israel builds more homes in east Jerusalem Mon Apr 27, 9:40 am ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel has begun construction on some 60 new housing units in Jewish settlements in annexed east Jerusalem, the anti-settlement Peace Now group said on Monday.The works aim to build 60 housing units for Orthodox religious Jewish families right next to the Palestinian neighbourhood of Arab al-Sawahra, Peace Now spokeswoman Hagit Ofran told AFP.The works began two months ago as part of development of East Talpiot,one of a dozen Jewish settlements that Israel has built in east Jerusalem since conquering that part of the city in 1967, she said.They aim to complete a belt of Jewish neighbourhoods that will surround east Jerusalem and we are against this project, which is harming the hopes for peace, she said.The Jerusalem municipality says that the construction in the neighbourhood was approved in 2000 and that the works in question do not amount to a new settlement.Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said in a statement on Monday that the continuation of settlement activity is part of the occupation government's policy to avoid the two-state solution and the peace process.Israeli settlements in east Jerusalem -- which Palestinians hope to make the capital of their promised state -- are one of the main stumbling blocks in the moribund Middle East peace process.Israel annexed east Jerusalem after capturing the city in the 1967 Six Day War, declaring the city its eternal, undivided capital.The move has not been recognised by the international community and all foreign embassies are located in the commercial capital of Tel Aviv.

Obama govt asks for change in law on Hamas: report Mon Apr 27, 4:40 am ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US President Barack Obama's administration has asked Congress to allow continued aid to Palestinians, even if officials linked to the militant group Hamas become part of the government, The Los Angeles Times reported Monday.The move has nevertheless alarmed congressional supporters of Israel, the paper reported.

Under the existing law, any US aid would require that the Palestinian government recognize Israel, renounce violence and agree to follow past Israeli-Palestinian agreements. Hamas does not meet these criteria.The newspaper said the administration had requested the changes this month as part of an 83.4-billion-dollar emergency spending bill that also contains funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.The bill also would provide 840 million dollars for the Palestinian Authority as well as for rebuilding the Gaza Strip after the Israeli military assault earlier this year.

But the Obama administration is not sure how to deliver the aid to Gaza because of the restrictions on dealing with Hamas, the report said.The requested changes may never be used. Power-sharing talks between Hamas and the US-backed Fatah faction appear to be deadlocked.They are watching for signs that the new Democratic team at the White House might be more sympathetic to Palestinians than the administration of former president George W. Bush, The Times said.The paper quoted Republican Representative Mark Steven Kirk as saying that the proposal was like agreeing to support a government that only has a few Nazis in it.US officials insist that the new proposal doesn't amount to recognizing or aiding Hamas, the report said.However, the request underscores the quandary faced by the Obama administration in its efforts to broker peace in the Middle East.Obama has repeatedly called for a separate Palestinian state. But negotiating a peace agreement will be difficult without dealing with Hamas, which won Palestinian elections in 2006, The Times said.

CELEBRATING 61 YEARS OF ISRAEL AS A NATION

ISRAEL WILL BECOME A NATION. LITERALLY IN THE SPRING.

GENESIS 12:1-3
1 Now the LORD had said unto Abram,(CHANGED TO ABRAHAM LATER) Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:(PALESTINE,ISRAEL)
2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

EZEKIEL 36:24
24 For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land.

EZEKIEL 37:9-28
9 Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Come from the four winds,(ALL THE WORLD) O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.(COME TO LIFE)
10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.(ISRAEL WILL HAVE A POWERFUL ARMY)
11 Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts.(BURNED BY HITLER)
12 Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.(THE DRY BONES COME TO LIFE IN ISRAEL)
13 And ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves,
14 And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the LORD have spoken it, and performed it, saith the LORD.
15 The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,
16 Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions:
17 And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand.
18 And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not shew us what thou meanest by these?
19 Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand.
20 And the sticks whereon thou writest shall be in thine hand before their eyes.
21 And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land:
22 And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all:
23 Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions: but I will save them out of all their dwellingplaces, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God.
24 And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them.
25 And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children’s children for ever: and my servant David shall be their prince for ever.
26 Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore.
27 My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
28 And the heathen shall know that I the LORD do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore.

MATTHEW 24:32
32 Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:(ISRAEL WAS LITERALLY REBORN JUST BEFORE SUMMER,MAY 14,1948).

MARK 13:28
28 Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When her branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is near:

DANIEL 9:24
24 Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.

ISRAEL WILL BE IN CONTROL OF JERUSALEM, THE SIGN OF THE START OF THE LAST GENERATION.

LUKE 21:24
24 And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.

ISRAELS INHERITED LAND IN THE FUTURE

And here are the bounderies of the land that Israel will inherit either through war or peace or God in the future. God says its Israels land and only Israels land. They will have every inch God promised them of this land in the future.
Egypt east of the Nile River, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, The southern part of Turkey and the Western Half of Iraq west of the Euphrates. Gen 13:14-15, Psm 105:9,11, Gen 15:18, Exe 23:31, Num 34:1-12, Josh 1:4.

ALL THIS LAND ISRAEL WILL DEFINATELY OWN IN THE FUTURE, ITS ISRAELS NOT ISHMAELS LAND.

12 TRIBES INHERIT LAND IN THE FUTURE

EZEKIEL 47:13-23,48:1-35
13 Thus saith the Lord GOD; This shall be the border, whereby ye shall inherit the land according to the twelve tribes of Israel: Joseph shall have two portions.
14 And ye shall inherit it, one as well as another: concerning the which I lifted up mine hand to give it unto your fathers: and this land shall fall unto you for inheritance.
15 And this shall be the border of the land toward the north side, from the great sea, the way of Hethlon, as men go to Zedad;
16 Hamath, Berothah, Sibraim, which is between the border of Damascus and the border of Hamath; Hazarhatticon, which is by the coast of Hauran.
17 And the border from the sea shall be Hazarenan, the border of Damascus, and the north northward, and the border of Hamath. And this is the north side.
18 And the east side ye shall measure from Hauran, and from Damascus, and from Gilead, and from the land of Israel by Jordan, from the border unto the east sea. And this is the east side.
19 And the south side southward, from Tamar even to the waters of strife in Kadesh, the river to the great sea. And this is the south side southward.
20 The west side also shall be the great sea from the border, till a man come over against Hamath. This is the west side.
21 So shall ye divide this land unto you according to the tribes of Israel.
22 And it shall come to pass, that ye shall divide it by lot for an inheritance unto you, and to the strangers that sojourn among you, which shall beget children among you: and they shall be unto you as born in the country among the children of Israel; they shall have inheritance with you among the tribes of Israel.
23 And it shall come to pass, that in what tribe the stranger sojourneth, there shall ye give him his inheritance, saith the Lord GOD.
1 Now these are the names of the tribes. From the north end to the coast of the way of Hethlon, as one goeth to Hamath, Hazarenan, the border of Damascus northward, to the coast of Hamath; for these are his sides east and west; a portion for Dan.
2 And by the border of Dan, from the east side unto the west side, a portion for Asher.
3 And by the border of Asher, from the east side even unto the west side, a portion for Naphtali.
4 And by the border of Naphtali, from the east side unto the west side, a portion for Manasseh.
5 And by the border of Manasseh, from the east side unto the west side, a portion for Ephraim.
6 And by the border of Ephraim, from the east side even unto the west side, a portion for Reuben.
7 And by the border of Reuben, from the east side unto the west side, a portion for Judah.
8 And by the border of Judah, from the east side unto the west side, shall be the offering which ye shall offer of five and twenty thousand reeds in breadth, and in length as one of the other parts, from the east side unto the west side: and the sanctuary shall be in the midst of it.
9 The oblation that ye shall offer unto the LORD shall be of five and twenty thousand in length, and of ten thousand in breadth.
10 And for them, even for the priests, shall be this holy oblation; toward the north five and twenty thousand in length, and toward the west ten thousand in breadth, and toward the east ten thousand in breadth, and toward the south five and twenty thousand in length: and the sanctuary of the LORD shall be in the midst thereof.
11 It shall be for the priests that are sanctified of the sons of Zadok; which have kept my charge, which went not astray when the children of Israel went astray, as the Levites went astray.
12 And this oblation of the land that is offered shall be unto them a thing most holy by the border of the Levites.
13 And over against the border of the priests the Levites shall have five and twenty thousand in length, and ten thousand in breadth: all the length shall be five and twenty thousand, and the breadth ten thousand.
14 And they shall not sell of it, neither exchange, nor alienate the firstfruits of the land: for it is holy unto the LORD.
15 And the five thousand, that are left in the breadth over against the five and twenty thousand, shall be a profane place for the city, for dwelling, and for suburbs: and the city shall be in the midst thereof.
16 And these shall be the measures thereof; the north side four thousand and five hundred, and the south side four thousand and five hundred, and on the east side four thousand and five hundred, and the west side four thousand and five hundred.
17 And the suburbs of the city shall be toward the north two hundred and fifty, and toward the south two hundred and fifty, and toward the east two hundred and fifty, and toward the west two hundred and fifty.
18 And the residue in length over against the oblation of the holy portion shall be ten thousand eastward, and ten thousand westward: and it shall be over against the oblation of the holy portion; and the increase thereof shall be for food unto them that serve the city.
19 And they that serve the city shall serve it out of all the tribes of Israel.
20 All the oblation shall be five and twenty thousand by five and twenty thousand: ye shall offer the holy oblation foursquare, with the possession of the city.
21 And the residue shall be for the prince, on the one side and on the other of the holy oblation, and of the possession of the city, over against the five and twenty thousand of the oblation toward the east border, and westward over against the five and twenty thousand toward the west border, over against the portions for the prince: and it shall be the holy oblation; and the sanctuary of the house shall be in the midst thereof.
22 Moreover from the possession of the Levites, and from the possession of the city, being in the midst of that which is the prince's, between the border of Judah and the border of Benjamin, shall be for the prince.
23 As for the rest of the tribes, from the east side unto the west side, Benjamin shall have a portion.
24 And by the border of Benjamin, from the east side unto the west side, Simeon shall have a portion.
25 And by the border of Simeon, from the east side unto the west side, Issachar a portion.
26 And by the border of Issachar, from the east side unto the west side, Zebulun a portion.
27 And by the border of Zebulun, from the east side unto the west side, Gad a portion.
28 And by the border of Gad, at the south side southward, the border shall be even from Tamar unto the waters of strife in Kadesh, and to the river toward the great sea.
29 This is the land which ye shall divide by lot unto the tribes of Israel for inheritance, and these are their portions, saith the Lord GOD.
30 And these are the goings out of the city on the north side, four thousand and five hundred measures.
31 And the gates of the city shall be after the names of the tribes of Israel: three gates northward; one gate of Reuben, one gate of Judah, one gate of Levi.
32 And at the east side four thousand and five hundred: and three gates; and one gate of Joseph, one gate of Benjamin, one gate of Dan.
33 And at the south side four thousand and five hundred measures: and three gates; one gate of Simeon, one gate of Issachar, one gate of Zebulun.
34 At the west side four thousand and five hundred, with their three gates; one gate of Gad, one gate of Asher, one gate of Naphtali.
35 It was round about eighteen thousand measures: and the name of the city from that day shall be, The LORD is there.

ISRAEL CELEBRATES ITS 61ST YEAR AS A NATION TODAY.CONGRADULATIONS ISRAEL AND SOON JERUSALEM WILL BECOME THE WORLD CAPITAL.

ISRAEL BECOMES A NATION VIDEOS
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2453185191695270595&hl=en
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ei2XGZk1QGg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FspfOI_YRU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3sKCylTT74&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHmBiATUono&feature=PlayList&p=0C7626D8D018F398&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=20
HATIKVA ISRAEL NATIONAL ANTHEM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjfFpFW9OdA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZ10DZHy5Ko&feature=related
JERUSALEM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKa9zJmx3jw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tR6QHCPNzs&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3zRLwQ3nH0&feature=related
ISRAEL IN PROPHECY VIDEO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoWKNH-KfM4&feature=player_embedded
ISRAEL AGAINST ALL ODDS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOi-IryUBaA&feature=PlayList&p=0C7626D8D018F398&index=23
THE MOMENT AFTER THE RAPTURE OCCURRS PARTS 1-11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fa4v94x2kU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6MDz_E56HE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFNUs03IW6s&feature=related
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The Rebirth of Israel
Posted by brittgillette on April 21st, 2007

The rebirth of Israel as an independent nation in 1948 is one of the most significant events in world history. Never before has an entire race of people been without a homeland for so long without assimilating into surrounding populations. However, no other conquered race had the promise of God to give all this land of Canaan to you and to your offspring forever. Genesis 17:8 (NLT)

The scriptures prophesied that Israel would be dispersed among the nations then brought out from among them in a gradual process that would culminate in the establishment of Israel as a nation in a single day. And that’s exactly what happened. The Bible also foretold the exact year in which this would happen. Those who study the Word of God recognize the restoration of Israel as the primary sign of the end of the age. Jesus promised the generation that witnessed this event would also witness His return. Matthew 24:34 (NLT)

Long ago the Bible predicted these events would transpire in the last days:

1) The gathering of the Jews into their homeland
2) The rebirth of Israel in a single day
3) The rebirth of Israel in the year 1948
4) Israel’s possession of Jerusalem
5) The nations of the earth aligned against Israel
6) The war of Gog / Magog
7) The rebuilding of the Jewish Temple

Five of these seven prophetic events have already been fulfilled, and the final two are certain to follow.

The Gathering of the Jews

Numerous biblical prophecies foretold of the re-gathering of Israel as a nation. Approximately 2,700 years ago, God revealed to the prophet Ezekiel a Valley of Dry Bones” (Ezekiel Chapter 37). God spoke of these bones (the Jews) gathered together and covered with flesh and muscles (re-gathered from the nations) with life being breathed into them (a dead nation brought to life once again).

Then he said to me, Son of man, these bones represent the people of Israel. They are saying, ‘We have become old, dry bones – all hope is gone. Now give them this message from the Sovereign Lord: O my people, I will open your graves of exile and cause you to rise again. Then I will bring you back to the land of Israel. When this happens, O my people, you will know that I am the Lord.Ezekiel 37:11-13 (NLT)

Beginning in the late 19th Century, the birth of the Zionist movement culminated in the gradual emigration of Jews from all over the world to resettle the land of Israel. Each decade the number of returning Jews increased, until finally the nation of Israel came to life once again in 1948.

Israel Becomes a Nation in a Single Day

God foretold long ago that after He brought His scattered people out from among the nations, He would declare them to be a nation in a single day:

Who has ever seen or heard of anything as strange as this? Has a nation ever been born in a single day? Has a country ever come forth in a mere moment? But by the time Jerusalem’s birth pains begin, the baby will be born; the nation will come forth. Would I ever bring this nation to the point of birth and then not deliver it?’ asks the Lord. No! I would never keep this nation from being born,says your God.Isaiah 66:8-9 (NLT)

This is exactly what happened on May 14, 1948. Having been brought to the brink of extinction by the horrors of the Holocaust, facing persecution around the world, and surrounded by their enemies, the Jewish people gathered together in Israel and declared themselves a nation in a single day. The United States recognized Israel as a nation on that same day, and Israel’s victories in the wars since have solidified their place among the nations of the world.

Israel an Object of Scorn in the Last Days

The prophet Zechariah noted the following would be true of Israel in the last days:

I will make Jerusalem and Judah like an intoxicating drink to all the nearby nations that send their armies to besiege Jerusalem. On that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone, a burden for the world. None of the nations who try to lift it will escape unscathed.Zechariah 12:2-3 (NLT)

The rebirth of Israel in 1948 has been accompanied by constant war and conflict with surrounding Muslim nations. The main focus of world attention today concerns Israel’s relationship with its neighbors. Just as God foretold, Israel has become a burdensome stone for the world’s political leaders. The majority of the Islamic countries surrounding Israel have made it clear their primary goal is the destruction of Israel. However, God has made it clear that Israel is here to stay.

The War of Gog/Magog

In the last days, Russia and a coalition of Muslim nations led by Iran will gather a horde of armies together in an effort to wipe Israel off the map. Israel will appear defenseless in the face of this massive invasion force with none of its worldly allies willing to come to its defense. However, God is Israel’s greatest ally, and He vows to make his presence known to the entire world by supernaturally destroying the armies arrayed against Israel:

Therefore, son of man, prophesy against Gog. Give him this message from the Sovereign Lord: When my people are living in peace in their land, then you will rouse yourself. You will come from your homeland in the distant north with your vast cavalry and your mighty army, and you will cover the land like a cloud. This will happen in the distant future. I will bring you against my land as everyone watches, and my holiness will be displayed by what happens to you. Then all the nations will know that I am the Lord.Ezekiel 38:14-16 (NLT)

The Third Temple

In the last days, the Jewish Temple will be rebuilt. The Temple will then be desecrated in an act known as the abomination of desolation. Both the prophet Daniel and Jesus refer to this act as a clear signal of the beginning of the Great Tribulation and the identity of the Antichrist.The time will come when you will see what Daniel the prophet spoke about: the sacrilegious object that causes desecration standing in the Holy Place. Matthew 24:15 (NLT)

This event, which will occur three and a half years into the Tribulation, will trigger the Great Tribulation, a time of unimaginable horror for the human race. Following this time period, Jesus will return triumphantly to establish His Millennial Kingdom.

Why All This is Important

Jesus told his disciples the primary sign of His soon return would be the restoration of Israel:

Now learn a lesson from the fig tree. When its buds become tender and its leaves begin to sprout, you know without being told that summer is near. Just so, when you see the events I’ve described beginning to happen, you can know his return is very near, right at the door. I assure you, this generation will not pass from the scene before all these things take place. Heaven and earth will disappear, but my words will remain forever.Matthew 24:32-35 (NLT)

The fig tree Jesus refers to is Israel. It’s been six decades since Israel was once again declared a nation against all worldly odds. Jesus promised that the generation which witnessed fulfillment of this prophecy would not die off until all the things of which he spoke came to pass. Given the past credibility of the Bible and God’s Son Jesus Christ, we should fully expect these events to come to pass. What this means is that Jesus is going to return soon, within this generation. A wise person will prepare accordingly.

GODLESS AMERICA VIDEO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1L9x8GFh5k&feature=player_embedded

CALL FOR CURBS ON OIL SPECULATION

OPEC, Asia, call for curbs on oil speculation By TAREK EL-TABLAWY, AP Business Writer – Sun Apr 26, 3:40 pm ET

CAIRO – OPEC and Asian energy officials called Sunday for new oil investments and tougher measures to combat speculation in crude markets that some have argued helped fuel last year's oil price spike.The call came during a one-day energy meeting in Tokyo to discuss volatility in the world oil market. Officials are concerned about another price spike once the world emerges from the global recession. The slowdown has sharply eroded oil demand and driven crude prices down about 65 percent from mid-July levels of $147 per barrel.The drop in prices, while helping offset some of the pain from the financial meltdown, has undercut investments in the sector. That has led to the delay or cancellation of dozens of projects worldwide and sparked concerns of another oil price spike once demand rebounds.Adequate and continuous investment throughout the energy value chain is essential as a means to balancing supply and demand in the future, a statement issued at the end of the meeting said, according to Japan's Kyodo news agency.The meeting brought together ministers from the 12 Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and many of Asia's biggest oil consumers such as China, India and Japan.Even as officials warned about the dangers of falling investments, they also voiced worry about speculation in the market. Many in OPEC, including Saudi Arabia, had blamed last year's run-up in prices to almost $150 per barrel on speculators and hedge funds.In order to achieve a stable oil market, the influence of excessive speculative activities in the oil exchanges, which lead to price volatility, should be limited through more regulation and control, Hossein Noqrekar-Shirazi, Iran's deputy oil minister for international affairs was quoted as saying by Iran's Press TV.Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi urged his colleagues to confront what he said was unfounded fears about supplies, adding that such perceptions had largely contributed to skyrocketing prices, in the past, the official Saudi Press Agency reported.

The statement issued by the officials said that volatility in the market is harmful to both producers and consumers and that financial markets have an impact on oil price formation, according to Kyodo. It said officials, tackling the issue of supervision of over-the-counter markets and transparency, called for further harmonized actions such as introduction of position limits.OPEC, along with the International Energy Agency, has repeatedly warned about the dangers of falling investment in the oil sector. While many projects have been scaled back or delayed, many of its most influential members have said they are pressing ahead with oil investments despite the downturn.Saudi's al-Naimi said his country is going ahead with its commitment to raise its production capacity to 12.5 million barrels per day by the middle of this year, SPA reported. He added that this would help provide excess supply capacity that would cushion the market.In March, Saudi Aramco, the oil giant run by OPEC powerhouse Saudi Arabia, said it was planning to spend about $60 billion through 2014 on energy projects.The state-run Kuwait Petroleum Corporation said Saturday it had earmarked about $80 billion on expanding production and refinery capacity by 2020.On Sunday, Kuwaiti Oil Minister Sheik Ahmed Al Abdullah Al Sabah told the meeting the OPEC member will press ahead with planned oil investment projects with an eye to achieve its production target of 4 million barrels a day by 2020. He said Kuwait was teaming up with Asia's top refiner Sinopec Corp. to build a 300,000 barrels a day refinery in China. It was also carrying out a joint venture with Japanese firms and Petrovietnam to build a 200,000 barrel a day facility in Vietnam.The minister said the "current economic and price environment, coupled with the uncertainty about climate change policies and the future demand outlook, pose serious challenges to our plans and investments,the official Kuwait News Agency reported.

Kuwait, however, has been among those that has scaled back on projects — first by scrapping a joint deal with Dow Chemicals and then by postponing the country's already much-delayed fourth refinery.OPEC, which produces about 35 percent of the world's oil, has been struggling to engineer a rebound in prices.The producer bloc held off from enacting new production cuts during their meeting last month, opting instead to focus on compliance with an earlier round of cuts totaling 4.2 million barrels per day from September levels. But the best it has been able to achieve is preventing an even deeper slide in crude prices, that have hovered between $40 to $50 per barrel most of this year.Associated Press Writer Diana Elias contributed from Kuwait.

Ahmadinejad: Iran ready to back Mideast peace deal by Jitendra Joshi – Sun Apr 26, 4:12 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said it would be fine with us if the Palestinians reach a two state peace deal with Israel, despite his full-throated opposition to the Jewish nation.The firebrand leader, in an interview broadcast Sunday on US network ABC, appeared unhappy with President Barack Obama's failure to return a message of greetings and said nuclear talks could only proceed with a clear agenda.After triggering a storm with anti-Israel remarks at a UN racism conference in Geneva, Ahmadinejad attacked Obama's support of the massacre of Gazans, in support for the criminals who were responsible for that atrocity.But having previously called for Israel to be erased from the map, he appeared to hold out a potential olive branch in backing the Palestinians' right to pursue a deal for statehood alongside Iran's arch-enemy.Whatever decision they take is fine with us. We are not going to determine anything. Whatever decision they take, we will support that,Ahmadinejad said via an interpreter in the interview, which was taped Wednesday in Tehran.We think that this is the right of the Palestinian people. However we fully expect other states to do so as well, Ahmadinejad said, without saying whether Iran might recognize the Jewish nation as part of a two state agreement.Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has set the bar high for statehood by arguing that only a referendum open to all Palestinians, including post-1948 refugees but excluding immigrant Jews, can decide the land's future.Ahmadinejad stood by his vitriolic speech last Monday in Geneva, which prompted a walkout by European diplomats. The United States and Israel boycotted the conference.

Attacking Obama's decision to stay away and his subsequent condemnation of the speech, Ahmadinejad said the Geneva conference was all about combating racism.My point of view is that the Zionist regime is the manifestation of racism,he told ABC.
The Iranian president said meanwhile it was up to the United States to take the lead in negotiations on his regime's nuclear program, which the West says is designed to make atomic weapons rather than civilian energy.Iran and US relations are dependent on the decision taken by the US administration.Mr Obama sends us messages of friendship, but in the communique issued by the 5+1, enmity can be seen, he said, referring to nuclear talks involving the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany.So this is a dual route, if you will.Ahmadinejad said he had received criticism at home for sending his message of congratulations on Obama's election.Nevertheless, I did that. I am yet to receive a response.Obama did, however, broadcast an Iranian New Year message last month, in which he called for a "new beginning between the United States and the Islamic republic after a three-decade diplomatic estrangement.But asked if Tehran was ready to talk to Washington without preconditions, Ahmadinejad said: No, no.We should just have a clear-cut framework for talks,he said.The agenda should be clear.Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told US lawmakers last week that the United States was preparing for very tough sanctions against Iran if the new US overtures fail.

Earlier this month, Ahmadinejad said his government would offer a new nuclear package to the world powers. And we are going to make that public as soon as possible. We are always ready to talk,he told ABC. In his own US television interview Sunday, Jordan's King Abdullah II said the Obama administration must explore connecting the dots between the Iranian nuclear standoff and Middle East peace. If you have an issue of the threat that Iran poses to Israel, which is what (Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu is saying, the best way of solving that problem is solving the core issue, which is the Palestinian problem and that of Jerusalem,he told NBC.

Jordan's king urges Obama to get tough for peace Sun Apr 26, 1:54 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – There will be no Middle East peace without determined intervention from US President Barack Obama, as the Israelis and Palestinians will not get anywhere by themselves, Jordan's king said.King Abdullah II, following White House talks last week, told NBC television in an interview aired Sunday that he would wait for a signal on US intentions after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits here next month.But if, right after that visit, there's not a clear understanding of how America is going to weigh in on these problems, then I think the goodwill (towards) the United States will disappear, he said on Meet the Press.And I think that people will start cutting their own deals,Abdullah warned.Noting Israel's recent conflicts in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, the king said that in the next 18 months, if we don't move the process forward ... there will be another conflict between Israel and another protagonist.And how many people will have to continue to lose their lives? he said.If it's left to the players, the Israelis and Palestinians by themselves, we're not going to get anywhere.It can only happen if there is an American umbrella with a determined American president that is going to get the Israelis and Palestinians to sit (at) the table.

China backs Syria's quest to recover Golan Sun Apr 26, 1:47 pm ET

DAMASCUS (AFP) – Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi wrapped up a regional Middle East visit in Damascus on Sunday saying Israel should return the Golan Heights to Syria.China supports Syria's efforts to recover the Golan, which Israel seized during the 1967 war and annexed in 1981, Yang told reporters during a joint news conference with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem.While Yang was visiting Syria, a split appeared on Sunday within the Israeli government of hawkish Benjamin Netanyahu on possible peace negotiations with Syria.Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said that Israel had an interest in holding talks with Damascus, in an apparent rebuke to comments made by firebrand Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.Israel has an interest in normalising its relations with Syria while protecting its vital interests, Barak told reporters in Jerusalem ahead of Israel's weekly cabinet meeting.Negotiations with Syria should always be part of the Israeli government's agenda, he said.

Lieberman said in an interview published on Saturday that Syria's support of Palestinian and Lebanese militant groups made it no partner for peace.We need to look at the reality. Until today, Syria is hosting the headquarters of terror organisations such as Hamas and the (Islamic) Jihad, he told the Berliner Zeitung daily, referring to radical Palestinian groups.Earlier this month Muallem said that Syria is ready to resume indirect peace talks with Netanyahu's right-wing government.

Syria and Israel held four rounds of Turkish-mediated talks last year but discussions were suspended when Israel waged a deadly offensive against the Palestinian Islamist Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip in December and January.Yang has visited Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian territories during his regional tour and has urged the Jewish state to resume peace negotiations with the Palestinians, Syria and Lebanon.He reiterated his call in Syria, where he also met President Bashar al-Assad.China will pursue its efforts for a just and comprehensive peace based on United Nations resolutions, the principle of land-for-peace and the roadmap sponsored by the Middle East peace Quartet, Yang said.

Syria no peace partner: Israel FM Sat Apr 25, 8:20 am ET

BERLIN (AFP) – Syria's support of Palestinian and Lebanese militant groups make it no partner for peace, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in an interview published on Saturday.We need to look at the reality. Until today, Syria is hosting the headquarters of terror organisations such as Hamas and the (Islamic) Jihad, he told the Berliner Zeitung daily, referring to two radical Palestinian organisations.

Syria supports Hezbollah and its arms trafficking into southern Lebanon. Syria supports Iran's nuclear programme. That is why I cannot see in Syria a real partner for any type of agreement,Lieberman said.Syria and Israel engaged in indirect peace talks in May last year following an eight-year hiatus, but the talks were suspended after Israel launched a deadly offensive against the Gaza Strip in December.Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said earlier this month that Syria was ready to resume the indirect talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's new right-leaning government on the basis of a total pullout from the Golan Heights which Israel occupied in the 1967 Six-Day War.Lieberman raised a wave of international criticism when he last month announced that Israel would not continue the latest round of US-sponsored peace talks launched in 2007.

Jordan's king urges U.S. to pressure Israel By Sue Pleming – Fri Apr 24, 4:20 pm ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Jordan's King Abdullah urged the United States on Friday to put more pressure on Israel's new right-leaning government to resume Palestinian statehood negotiations.U.S. commitment to Palestinian statehood must be unambiguous in deeds as well as words. This is central to America's standing, Abdullah said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think-tank.Events are already testing U.S. credibility. These include the Israeli voice for turning back the clock on negotiations, he added.Since coming to power last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition have avoided recognizing the Palestinians' right to an independent state, as his predecessor Ehud Olmert did.

Abdullah, who met U.S. President Barack Obama earlier this week, said high-level U.S. involvement was needed in the talks, stalled since Israel's incursion into Gaza last December in retaliation for rocket attacks deep into the Jewish state.Israel must know that attempting to delay this solution will be disastrous for its own future as well as for the future of the Palestinians,the king said.When there is a deadlock, let the U.S. break the impasse by proposing its own creative solutions.On Monday, after meeting Abdullah, Obama urged the Israeli government to accept the goal of a Palestinian state and invited Netanyahu, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak for separate talks by early June. Netanyahu is expected in Washington next month.The king urged the United States to pressure Israel to stop illegal settlement building and moves to force out Jerusalem's Arab, Muslim and Christian population.He said the 2002 Arab peace initiative was the best option for Israel and he urged it to take up the offer.The Arab initiative offers Israel normal ties with all Arab states in return for a full withdrawal from the lands it seized in the 1967 Middle East war, creation of a Palestinian state and a just solution for Palestinian refugees.Israel now has to make its choice -- to integrate into the region ... with normal relations with its neighbors or to remain fortress Israel,the king said.Netanyahu's government has yet to take a public position on the Arab peace initiative, which the United States has also said will be part of any planned U.S. drive to create a Palestinian state.I cannot emphasize enough how important U.S. partnership is to help Israel accept the opening the Arab world has offered,the king said.Now is the time for the United States to lead, to ensure that no more time is wasted.

WHO ARE THE ARAB PHILISTINES PALESTINIANS

ISRAEL WILL BECOME A NATION. LITERALLY IN THE SPRING.

GENESIS 12:1-3
1 Now the LORD had said unto Abram,(CHANGED TO ABRAHAM LATER) Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:(PALESTINE,ISRAEL)
2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

EZEKIEL 36:24
24 For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land.

EZEKIEL 37:9-28
9 Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Come from the four winds,(ALL THE WORLD) O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.(COME TO LIFE)
10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.(ISRAEL WILL HAVE A POWERFUL ARMY)
11 Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts.(BURNED BY HITLER)
12 Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.(THE DRY BONES COME TO LIFE IN ISRAEL)
13 And ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves,
14 And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the LORD have spoken it, and performed it, saith the LORD.
15 The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,
16 Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions:
17 And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand.
18 And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not shew us what thou meanest by these?
19 Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand.
20 And the sticks whereon thou writest shall be in thine hand before their eyes.
21 And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land:
22 And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all:
23 Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions: but I will save them out of all their dwellingplaces, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God.
24 And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them.
25 And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children’s children for ever: and my servant David shall be their prince for ever.
26 Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore.
27 My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
28 And the heathen shall know that I the LORD do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore.

MATTHEW 24:32
32 Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:(ISRAEL WAS LITERALLY REBORN JUST BEFORE SUMMER,MAY 14,1948).

MARK 13:28
28 Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When her branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is near:

DANIEL 9:24
24 Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.

ISRAEL WILL BE IN CONTROL OF JERUSALEM, THE SIGN OF THE START OF THE LAST GENERATION.

LUKE 21:24
24 And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.

ISRAEL SATAN COMES AGAINST

1 CHRONICLES 21:1
1 And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.

ISRAELS TROUBLE

JEREMIAH 30:7
7 Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble;(ISRAEL) but he shall be saved out of it.

DANIEL 12:1,4
1 And at that time shall Michael(ISRAELS WAR ANGEL) stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people:(ISRAEL) and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation(May 14,48) even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.
4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro,(WORLD TRAVEL,IMMIGRATION) and knowledge shall be increased.(COMPUTERS,CHIP IMPLANTS ETC)

ISRAELS INHERITED LAND IN THE FUTURE

And here are the bounderies of the land that Israel will inherit either through war or peace or God in the future. God says its Israels land and only Israels land. They will have every inch God promised them of this land in the future.
Egypt east of the Nile River, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, The southern part of Turkey and the Western Half of Iraq west of the Euphrates. Gen 13:14-15, Psm 105:9,11, Gen 15:18, Exe 23:31, Num 34:1-12, Josh 1:4.

ALL THIS LAND ISRAEL WILL DEFINATELY OWN IN THE FUTURE, ITS ISRAELS NOT ISHMAELS LAND.

12 TRIBES INHERIT LAND IN THE FUTURE

EZEKIEL 47:13-23,48:1-35
13 Thus saith the Lord GOD; This shall be the border, whereby ye shall inherit the land according to the twelve tribes of Israel: Joseph shall have two portions.
14 And ye shall inherit it, one as well as another: concerning the which I lifted up mine hand to give it unto your fathers: and this land shall fall unto you for inheritance.
15 And this shall be the border of the land toward the north side, from the great sea, the way of Hethlon, as men go to Zedad;
16 Hamath, Berothah, Sibraim, which is between the border of Damascus and the border of Hamath; Hazarhatticon, which is by the coast of Hauran.
17 And the border from the sea shall be Hazarenan, the border of Damascus, and the north northward, and the border of Hamath. And this is the north side.
18 And the east side ye shall measure from Hauran, and from Damascus, and from Gilead, and from the land of Israel by Jordan, from the border unto the east sea. And this is the east side.
19 And the south side southward, from Tamar even to the waters of strife in Kadesh, the river to the great sea. And this is the south side southward.
20 The west side also shall be the great sea from the border, till a man come over against Hamath. This is the west side.
21 So shall ye divide this land unto you according to the tribes of Israel.
22 And it shall come to pass, that ye shall divide it by lot for an inheritance unto you, and to the strangers that sojourn among you, which shall beget children among you: and they shall be unto you as born in the country among the children of Israel; they shall have inheritance with you among the tribes of Israel.
23 And it shall come to pass, that in what tribe the stranger sojourneth, there shall ye give him his inheritance, saith the Lord GOD.
1 Now these are the names of the tribes. From the north end to the coast of the way of Hethlon, as one goeth to Hamath, Hazarenan, the border of Damascus northward, to the coast of Hamath; for these are his sides east and west; a portion for Dan.
2 And by the border of Dan, from the east side unto the west side, a portion for Asher.
3 And by the border of Asher, from the east side even unto the west side, a portion for Naphtali.
4 And by the border of Naphtali, from the east side unto the west side, a portion for Manasseh.
5 And by the border of Manasseh, from the east side unto the west side, a portion for Ephraim.
6 And by the border of Ephraim, from the east side even unto the west side, a portion for Reuben.
7 And by the border of Reuben, from the east side unto the west side, a portion for Judah.
8 And by the border of Judah, from the east side unto the west side, shall be the offering which ye shall offer of five and twenty thousand reeds in breadth, and in length as one of the other parts, from the east side unto the west side: and the sanctuary shall be in the midst of it.
9 The oblation that ye shall offer unto the LORD shall be of five and twenty thousand in length, and of ten thousand in breadth.
10 And for them, even for the priests, shall be this holy oblation; toward the north five and twenty thousand in length, and toward the west ten thousand in breadth, and toward the east ten thousand in breadth, and toward the south five and twenty thousand in length: and the sanctuary of the LORD shall be in the midst thereof.
11 It shall be for the priests that are sanctified of the sons of Zadok; which have kept my charge, which went not astray when the children of Israel went astray, as the Levites went astray.
12 And this oblation of the land that is offered shall be unto them a thing most holy by the border of the Levites.
13 And over against the border of the priests the Levites shall have five and twenty thousand in length, and ten thousand in breadth: all the length shall be five and twenty thousand, and the breadth ten thousand.
14 And they shall not sell of it, neither exchange, nor alienate the firstfruits of the land: for it is holy unto the LORD.
15 And the five thousand, that are left in the breadth over against the five and twenty thousand, shall be a profane place for the city, for dwelling, and for suburbs: and the city shall be in the midst thereof.
16 And these shall be the measures thereof; the north side four thousand and five hundred, and the south side four thousand and five hundred, and on the east side four thousand and five hundred, and the west side four thousand and five hundred.
17 And the suburbs of the city shall be toward the north two hundred and fifty, and toward the south two hundred and fifty, and toward the east two hundred and fifty, and toward the west two hundred and fifty.
18 And the residue in length over against the oblation of the holy portion shall be ten thousand eastward, and ten thousand westward: and it shall be over against the oblation of the holy portion; and the increase thereof shall be for food unto them that serve the city.
19 And they that serve the city shall serve it out of all the tribes of Israel.
20 All the oblation shall be five and twenty thousand by five and twenty thousand: ye shall offer the holy oblation foursquare, with the possession of the city.
21 And the residue shall be for the prince, on the one side and on the other of the holy oblation, and of the possession of the city, over against the five and twenty thousand of the oblation toward the east border, and westward over against the five and twenty thousand toward the west border, over against the portions for the prince: and it shall be the holy oblation; and the sanctuary of the house shall be in the midst thereof.
22 Moreover from the possession of the Levites, and from the possession of the city, being in the midst of that which is the prince's, between the border of Judah and the border of Benjamin, shall be for the prince.
23 As for the rest of the tribes, from the east side unto the west side, Benjamin shall have a portion.
24 And by the border of Benjamin, from the east side unto the west side, Simeon shall have a portion.
25 And by the border of Simeon, from the east side unto the west side, Issachar a portion.
26 And by the border of Issachar, from the east side unto the west side, Zebulun a portion.
27 And by the border of Zebulun, from the east side unto the west side, Gad a portion.
28 And by the border of Gad, at the south side southward, the border shall be even from Tamar unto the waters of strife in Kadesh, and to the river toward the great sea.
29 This is the land which ye shall divide by lot unto the tribes of Israel for inheritance, and these are their portions, saith the Lord GOD.
30 And these are the goings out of the city on the north side, four thousand and five hundred measures.
31 And the gates of the city shall be after the names of the tribes of Israel: three gates northward; one gate of Reuben, one gate of Judah, one gate of Levi.
32 And at the east side four thousand and five hundred: and three gates; and one gate of Joseph, one gate of Benjamin, one gate of Dan.
33 And at the south side four thousand and five hundred measures: and three gates; one gate of Simeon, one gate of Issachar, one gate of Zebulun.
34 At the west side four thousand and five hundred, with their three gates; one gate of Gad, one gate of Asher, one gate of Naphtali.
35 It was round about eighteen thousand measures: and the name of the city from that day shall be, The LORD is there.

NORTHEAST INTELLIGENCE NETWORK
http://homelandsecurityus.com/?p=2672

ON JOHN LOEFFLER THIS WEEK

Global warming was back on the table this week as familiar faces testified before congress about proposed caps and credits legislation. The problem with C&C is that they didn't work in Europe but cause serious increases in energy costs. Richard Loomis from World Energy Source (www.worldenergysource.com) guests in the first hour.

Then we open a new thread on the subject of Christian Zionism. A new movement in evangelical churches seeks to turn opinions against Israel. Dr. Paul Merkley is professor emeritus of history at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and author of Christian Attitudes toward the State of Israel.John's boralogue focuses on the polarization in American politics today and what it means in the light of the onrushing crises we face, given that both parties seem ignorant of the strategic picture where America is.
http://britanniaradio.blogspot.com/2009/04/john-loeffler-steel-on-steel-caps.html#links

Saturday, 25 April 2009 The Merkley Report. Who are the Palestinians?
Paul Charles MERKLEY

Paul Merkley is a retired Professor of History from Carleton University in Ottawa. His teaching specialties were in the History of the United States in the Twentieth Century and in the Religious Factor in American History. He has published scholarly books and articles on Christian theology of History and on aspects of the role of Christian faith in American politics.Paul’s interest in Israel goes back to 1981 when he spent six months with his family in residence as a visiting Professor at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, where he taught courses in History of Religion in the United States. He has made several subsequent research visits to Israel.


Who are the Palestinians? - by Paul Charles Merkley.

Consider this insight into the earliest history of the Arab-Israeli conflict:

The assassination of Arab brethren like Goliath, by Jewish sheep-herders like David, is the sort of shameful ignominy that we must yet set aright in the domain of the occupied Palestinian homeland.Lest anyone imagine that we could simply pass by this sort of imbecility, we have to note that this is an excerpt from a speech [1] by President Anwar Sadat of Egypt, who declared himself the champion of the Palestinians at the time of the Camp David Accords (1978), and is today widely acclaimed in the West as a prescient statesman, one of the inaugurators of the effort to achieve peace through negotiation in the Middle East.Sadat’s right to pose as the champion of the Palestinians” was vehemently denied by all the other Arab leaders and indeed the whole Arab world -- and this not because his historical knowledge seemed to any of them to be defective, but, rather because it was not vivid enough. Chairman of the PLO Yassir Arafat, during a press conference, September 2, 1983, at a U.N. meeting in Geneva, Arafat stated:We [the Palestinian people] were under Roman imperialism. We sent a Palestinian fisherman, called St. Peter, to Rome; he not only occupied Rome, but also won the hearts of the people. We know how to resist imperialism and occupation. Jesus Christ was the first Palestinian fedayeen [freedom fighter] who carried his sword along the path on which the Palestinians today carry their cross. [2]Statements like these seem to bear out the thesis of the great archeologist, William Foxwell Albright: that a Moslem historian is a contradiction in terms. The Israeli archeologist, Benjamin Mazar, recalled that Albright liked the Arabs very much ... and knew Arabic. But he used to say that a Moslem is unable to become a historian. He believes in the Koran, and in the Koran, Maryam the sister of Moses, is the mother of Jesus Christ! Now if such a thing is determined as the basis of historical study, how can he be a historian? To become a historian is to escape from Islam.[3]

Prior to the question, Who are the Palestinians,is the question, What is Palestine?

The name Palestine is not an invention of the Arabs. It is an invention of the Romans. The Romans chose the name Palestina precisely because it insulted the Jews and their History, memorializing, as it does, the already long-vanished Philistines. These were the people who had invaded this area from the sea about the same time as the Israelites began their conquest of it by land under Joshua, becoming their long-enduring enemies. The distinct life and culture of the Philistines had been swept away centuries before the Romans showed up. (In recent years, following several spectacular archeological expeditions, it has become possible at last to reconstruct some features of that life and culture.)In the Second Century BC, the name Palestina was applied by the Romans to what had been the homeland of the Jewish nation, as part of a deliberate policy of obliterating remembrance of the Jewish nation from this place where their sovereign Kingdom had once been, and where they had lived continuously as part of the subsequent empires of the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Ptolemies, Seleucids, and Romans -- this people whose resistance to Rome's tyranny had set such a dangerous example for their other subject peoples. This Roman insult is perpetuated and given yet another twist by the hijacking of the name Palestine by the Arab populations of that part of the world today and by their anti-Zionist supporters elsewhere in the world – and, of course, by the UN. These newly-minted Palestinians have, of course, no more historical connection to the Philistines than do the Jews.Prior to 1948, opposition to the project of the Zionists was carried out in the name of the Arab people -- or the Arab people of Palestine. This terminology reflected the fact that (as Bernard Lewis shows) from the end of the Jewish state in antiquity to the beginning of British rule, the area now designated by the name Palestine was not a country and had no frontiers, only administrative boundaries; it was a group of provincial subdivisions, by no means always the same, within a large entity.[4] Nowadays, the term Palestinian nation serves to give color to a claim to aboriginal habitation and possession of the vicinity -- as the term “Arab”, of course, does not. Yet, there never was an Arab state of Palestine, or even an Arab nor an Ottoman Province of Palestine. Even the very name Palestine fell into disuse among the Arabs, only to be revived by the British. At that point it was (unwisely) appropriated by the Zionists. They believed that it would strengthen their proprietary claim to the land to employ the local term preferred by the British. All over the political landscape during the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, there were organizations like the Palestine League, the Pro-Palestine Committee, the Christian Council on Palestine, the American Christian Palestine Committee, and so on -- and all of them were lobbies on behalf of the Jews, on behalf of Zionism! That's what Palestine and Palestinian meant. (Students who are new to the history of modern Israel usually experience something of a jolt when they first encounter this inversion of nomenclature in the documents.)

Secular Zionists had another motive as well for appropriating the title Palestinian: because the name affirmed contemporary geographical associations it served to distinguish their vision of the past and the future of the Jewish people from that of religiously-inclined Zionists, to whom the reality of past and present belonging of the Jews was better conveyed by the term Eretz Israel. (Incidentally: for a while during the 1920s and 1930s the more zealous secularists took to calling themselves Canaanites -- but that vogue eventually passed.)In any case: this usage (Palestinian for Jewish) was no more accurate from a historical point of view than the current usage (Palestinian for Arab.) But this matter does illustrate a hazard that seems to be peculiar to late Twentieth Century political rhetoric: namely, that, in the absence of general respect for historical knowledge, the key concepts in political discussion are handed down from journalists, who derive them from the slogans of contemporary politicians.Prior to 1967, Arab leaders never talked of a Palestinian nation. In the Arab Covenant of 1919, proposed by the Arab Congress in Jerusalem in 1919, we read: The Arab lands are a complete and indivisible whole, and the divisions of whatever nature to which they have been subjected are not approved or recognized by the Arab nation. In the same year, the General Syrian Congress expressed quite another view: We ask that there should be no separation of the southern part of Syria, known as Palestine. In 1937 the local Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdul Hadi, testifying before the British Royal (Peel) Commission that was to come up with a partition plan, said: There is no such country as Palestine. Palestine is a term the Zionists invented. There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria. Palestine is alien to us. It is the Zionists who introduced it.In 1946, another Arab spokesman, Princeton University History professor Philip K. Hitti, then widely regarded as the foremost historian of the Arab people, told the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry: There is no such thing as Palestine in history, absolutely not. This view had been endorsed in 1939 by the Arab historian George Antonius, who identified Palestine as part of the whole of the country of that name [Syria] which is now split into mandated territories. And as late as 1956 a Saudi Arabian United Nations delegate said: It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but Southern Syria.This is still the real view of Syria’s President Assad, despite that state's window-dressing support of liberated Palestine: Palestine is not only a part of our Arab homeland,Hafez al-Assad used to say, but a basic part of southern Syria.[5]

Sometime after the Six Day War of 1967, Arab rhetoric took a 180 degree turn. Now the Arab-speaking people who were the rightful owners of the vicinity became the Palestinian people, the aboriginal inhabitants. The concept first appears with full clarity in the same Palestinian Covenant that rejects the legitimacy of the concept Jewish people/nation and calls for Israel's destruction. Henceforward, Arab politicians everywhere nodded agreement as Yassir Arafat explained that the Palestinian people were in place before the Jews arrived. They were, moreover, the carriers of a civilization higher than any that has ever been seen anywhere else. This he described before the Assembly of the United Nations 1983:[Before the Jewish invasion, which began in 1881,] Palestine was then a verdant land, inhabited by an Arab people in the course of building its life and enriching its indigenous culture.... It pains our people greatly to witness the propagation of the myth that its homeland was a desert until it was made to bloom by the toil of foreign settlers, that it was a land without a people, and that the settler entity caused no harm to any human being. No, such lies must be exposed from this rostrum for the world must know that Palestine was the cradle of the most ancient cultures and civilizations. Its Arab people were engaged in farming and building, spreading culture throughout the land for thousands of years, setting an example in the practice of religious tolerance and freedom of worship, actions as faithful guardians of the holy places of all religions.... Religious brotherhood was the hall-mark of our Holy City [Jerusalem] before it succumbed to catastrophe. Our people continued to pursue this enlightened policy until the establishment of the state of Israel and their dispersion. This did not deter our people from pursuing their humanitarian role on Palestinian soil. Nor will they permit their land to become a launching pad for aggression or a racist camp for the destruction of civilization, culture, progress and peace. Our people cannot but maintain the privileged task of defending their native land, their Arab nationhood, their culture and civilization, and in safeguarding the cradle of the monotheistic religions. [6]Travelers’ accounts of the land belonging to the period described by Arafat afford quite a different picture. Alphonse Lamartine described the scene in 1835:Outside the gates of Jerusalem we saw indeed no living object, heard no living sound. We found the same void, the same silence as we should have found before the entombed gates of Pompeii or Hercalaneum ….A complete, eternal silence reigns in the town, in the highways, in the country … the tomb of a whole people.]

Mark Twain traveled to the Holy Land in 1867 and recorded this:

[It is] Desolate country, whose soil is rich enough, but given over wholly to weeds -- a silent mournful expanse…. A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action…. We never saw a human being on the whole route.... There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country. [7] These observations, recorded en passage by literary men, may not carry the day with all readers. If so, here is a description dating from 1913, appearing in the records of the Palestine Royal Commission:The road leading from Gaza to the north was only a summer track suitable for transport by camels and carts ... [N]o orange groves, orchards or vineyards were to be seen until one reached Yabna village ... Not in a single village in this area was water used for irrigation ... Houses were all of mud. No windows were anywhere to be seen ... sanitary conditions horrible ... schools do not exist ... Many ruins of villages were scattered over the area, as owing to the prevalence of malaria, many villages were deserted by their inhabitants.

And here is a report by the Director of Development, appointed by the British Government, 1933:

We found it inhabited by fellahin who lived in mud hovels and suffered severely from the prevalent malaria.... The individual plots ... changed hands annually. There was little public security, and the fellahin's lot was an alternation of pillage and blackmail by their neighbours, the Bedouin.Irrefutable testimony to the situation in Palestine at the time of the Mandate is found in the work of Walter Lowdermilk, Assistant Chief of the U.S. Soil Conservation Service, and author of foundation scholarly studies on global natural resources. For over twenty years he conducted vast field research on all the inhabited continents to find the lines of causal connection between the use of land and the prosperity of nations. In his book, Palestine: Land of Promise (1944), he draws upon the huge body of field research which he and his associates had done in Palestine under the auspices of the U.S. Conservation Service to review the history of the area of the Mandate as he found it revealed in the archeological record and in the condition of the land in the late 1930s.An Arab legend tells us that once upon a time an angel, carrying a sack of stones, flew over Palestine; suddenly the sack burst and all the stones were strewn about upon the hills. The true story reads differently. Once upon a time the hills of Palestine were covered with rich red earth and protected by forests, smaller vegetation and terraces. Then the trees were cut down, the terraces were neglected, the fertile soil was washed away by rain and finally only the stones were left on the fields.... Two thousand years ago Palestine, with its neighbors, Egypt and Syria, represented one of the most advanced economic areas of the Roman Empire…. [T]he breakdown of agriculture ... took place between the seventh and twentieth centuries [under the early Muslim rulers.] In this period of decay, agriculture, which had previously achieved remarkable refinements in conservation, declined under exploitation by ignorant rulers and repeated invasions of nomads.... After the expulsion of the Crusaders and a new invasion by Arab nomads, the decline of Palestine proceeded at an accelerated pace .... Desert Arabs poured into the land and to the very gates of Jerusalem, stealing and plundering on the roads throughout the country….The country became a desert land with no one to till the soil .… During these years of decline, Palestine had been gradually depopulated; the lowest point was reached about 1850 when the total population was below 200,000. Visiting Mandate Palestine in 1938, Lowdermilk found Jewish colonies struggling to reverse the effects of all those centuries of neglect and abuse of the soil.

[There are] about 300 colonies defying great hardships and applying the principles of co-operation and soil conservation to the old Land of Israel.... Here in one corner of the Near East, thoroughgoing work is in progress to rebuild the fertility of the land instead of condemning it by neglect to further destruction and decay…. Mandate officials had little success in their attempts to get the Arabs to plant trees, even though the seedlings were free and assistance in planting was given…. Along with the need for improved techniques in the use of land and the development of industries, Palestine, like the rest of the Near East, must have a larger population if it is to be restored to full activity and prosperity. [8]A summary of the local history which appears in an official report of the British government in 1937 re-enforces Lowdermilk’s conclusions:In the twelve centuries or more that have passed since the Arab conquest, Palestine has virtually dropped out of history.…In economics as in politics Palestine lay outside the main stream of the world's life. In the realm of thought, in science or in letters, it made no contribution to modern civilization. Its last state was worse than its first. [9]Ignoring these abundantly-recorded realities, champions of Palestinian liberation developed in the 1960s and 1970s the narrative of the Palestinians as the autochthonous population of the region. They are the descendants of the Philistines, and of the Jebusites, its First Nation, present in the land from time immemorial.There are innumerable problems with this historical argument however -- although not markedly greater than those that arise to a thinking person who is asked to consider the claims of all the other tribes and nations of the world who ask us, with a straight face, to consider them autochthonous(which means, self-seeding – a ridiculous term.) The Philistines, according to all reliable historians, were not a Semitic people, but a people of Aegean origin who settled on the southern coast of Palestine in the 12th century BC, shortly before the arrival of the Israelites. The Jebusites, likewise non-Semitic, but also not nearly related to the Philistines, once possessed many of the cities of the highlands of what became Israel, and were finally dislodged from their most important stronghold, Jerusalem, by David, somewhere shortly before 1000 BC.There is an unavoidable logical problem facing anyone wishing to combine this claim to autochthonous standing in the region with the other claim, that of Arab ancestry -- given that none of the oldest pre-Israelite inhabitants seems to have been Semitic at all -- and certainly none were Arabs. Yet, when the polemical occasion requires it, the same Palestinians do double-service as Arabs. Our nation is the Arab nation, extending from the Atlantic to the Red Sea and Beyond, Arafat declaims (on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.) Zuheir Muhsim, member of the PLO Executive Council, March, 1977 let the cat out of the bag long ago:

Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity serves only tactical purposes. The founding of a Palestinian state is a new tool in the continuing battle against Israel … In fact, there is no Palestinian people ... Only for political reasons do we speak of a Palestinian identity. [10]The Arabs entered the area with the Moslem conquests in the Seventh Century. During those early years of Arab empire, the vast majority of those subjects of that Empire who lived in the Hold Land were Christians and Jews. Jews and Christians still worked the land during the centuries of early Arab rule because the Arabs, being Bedouins, had only contempt for agricultural life. The probability is that few of the original Arab conquerors of Seventh century survived subsequent wars and disease. In documents deriving from the succeeding period, the word Arab reverts to its earlier meaning of Bedouin or nomad, becoming in effect a social rather than an ethnic term.[11]Arriving in the last decade of the Eleventh Century, the Crusaders (to the everlasting shame of our civilization) carried out a far-reaching slaughter of Muslims in Jerusalem; and thereafter the Latin Crusaders’ oppression of the Eastern Christians (mainly Greek Orthodox and Eastern, and mainly Arab-speaking) reduced the Arab component further. After the Latin Kingdoms had been closed down by Muslim re-conquest, the new rulers replenished the population by introducing Turks, Kurds, Africans, Berbers, Balkan Slavs, Greeks, Syrians, Egyptians, Persians, Georgians, Circassians and many others. Travelers in the region today see the evidence of this abundant racial variety in the faces of the local people.Thus Arab rule (as distinct from rule by subsequent Moslem conquerors who eventually used the Arabic language) is extremely brief -- in fact, coinciding virtually with the years of the regime of the first Muslim conquerors, the Umayyads (660s to 750.)Felix Bovet, a Swiss scholar who visited in 1858, describes the visible impact of Arab conquest thereafter:They pitched their tents in its grazing fields or built their places of refuge in its ruined cities. They created nothing in it. Since they were strangers in the land, they never became its masters. The desert wind that brought them thither could one day carry them away without their leaving behind them any sign of their passage through it. [12]Another way to measure this matter of Arab belonging to the area is this: that, in the twelve centuries of the Arab presence in Palestine before the return of the Jews of modern times, the Arabs built only a single new town: Ramleh.[13]

All responsible debate about what is Palestine and who has rights and what they are in Palestine, begins with the Balfour Declaration of November, 1917:His Majesty's Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
What, then, was this Palestine, to which the Balfour Declaration casually alludes? The last edition we have of the Encyclopedia Britannica prior to the Balfour Declaration defines Palestine as follows:PALESTINE: ... conventionally used as a name for the territory which, in the Old Testament, is claimed as the inheritance of the pre-exilic Jews.... We may describe Palestine as the strip of land extending along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea .... Eastward there is no such definite border. The river Jordan, it is true, marks a delimitation between western and eastern Palestine; but it is practically impossible to say where the latter ends and the Arabian desert begins.In all of the record of all of the deliberations of the British and the French and the Americans leading to the Balfour Declaration it is always taken for granted that what is being proposed is a homeland for the Jews in some part of what (as this encyclopedic definition makes clear) has always been defined as that part of the world where the Jews once had their inheritance. There was simply no other way of defining this area.For over three thousand years, from the time of the conquest of these lands by the Israelites from the Canaanites and the Philistines (and others) until the twentieth century, Israelites have been present in this land. Jews greatly outnumbered Christians in the last centuries of Roman rule inPalestina. The estimated five million Jews who lived there before the Revolts of 66- 70 AD and 132-136 AD were probably reduced, by massacre or by flight, to perhaps three million by the beginning of the Third Century. Roman law forbade them to live in Jerusalem; but after a while the authorities pretended not to notice the remnant that continued to cling to the city during all this period. The centre of Jewish, culture, however, moved to Yavneh, and then to Tiberias and then to Safat in the Galilee.After the conversion of the Empire to Christianity, persecution of the Jews began again - just as the Roman authorities were showing signs of wearying of it. Then, having lived for three centuries in humiliation under Roman-Christian (that is, Byzantine) rule, the Jews made the mistake of showing support for the Persian invaders who overthrew the Byzantines in 611-614. This regime lasted only a little more than a decade, and the Jews paid the price of yet another massacre for their disloyalty when Byzantine rule was restored. When the first of the Moslem conquerors in turn overthrew the Byzantines forever (633), the Jews, much reduced in numbers and in substance, welcomed the restoration of Muslim rule as relatively temperate.

When the Crusaders came, they massacred thousands of the Jews, and forbade the survivors from entering Jerusalem again. This is believed to be the nadir in the story of Jewish presence in the Holy Land. Probably only a few thousand Jews remained in the Holy Land. Again, when Islamic rule returned -- this time under Saladin of Damascus, a Kurd -- the Jews had reason to rejoice in the relative improvement of their condition. Under the Ottomans, Jewish numbers increased again -- perhaps to about 30,000 by 1881. By the middle of the Nineteenth century, the total population of the whole region that became the British mandate of Palestine was about 400,000 -- less than 4% of today's population. By World War I, 600,000 lived in Western Palestine (i.e., present Israel). Of these, about 80,000 were Jews.Anyone who has any respect for the history of that region knows that by the time of the Balfour Declaration of November, 1917, Jews were a minority in Palestine as a whole -- only about 83,000 in 1922. And so one is not surprised to find that the Balfour Declaration clearly says that the work of making a Jewish state here is going to have to deal as justly as possible with the claims of those other populations. The other populations, however, are never identified as the Palestinians -- certainly never by themselves. Apart from small pockets of several other nationalities, the majority were mainly Arabs.Palestine had never been a Province of the Ottoman Empire, and had, indeed, never been governed as a distinct unity but for most of Ottoman history as a region of a large jurisdiction dominated by Syria/Lebanon. Throughout all of the tangled and noisy history of this area from 1917 until 1948 it never occurred to any responsible figure to use the term in any other than a regional-geographical sense.

In 1922, the League of Nations assigned to Great Britain a Mandate on its behalf over Palestine. As defined by that Act, Palestine included what is now Israel, as well as what is now generally (and inaccurately) called the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as well as everything on the other side of the Jordan all the way to desert portions of Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Shortly after, the British government attempted to take into account the unwillingness of the Arab people of Palestine to live in a Jewish state by partitioning this historic region This they did, by severing everything East of the Jordan river, calling that the Kingdom of Transjordan, later Jordan. The portion of land assigned to this kingdom was about four-fifths of the whole of Mandate of Palestine: 35,000 sq. miles. Today, Jordan roughly the population of Israel and is publicly (and gleefully) declared to be free of Jews.Incidentally: most Western commentators and most governments of Western nations as well as the UN, refer to the predominantly Arab-speaking central portions of what was once Palestine as the West Bank, and treat with scorn the use of the terms Judea and Samaria. We are told that use of these terms marks one as a biblical literalist or fundamentalist, and/or as a tool (witting or unwitting) of religious zealots. In fact, Judea and Samaria were the terms used by the British during the Mandate period. These are the terms that appear on the maps. It is the term West Bank which is the politically-loaded newcomer to the debate. Until sometime after 1967, the term West Bank, had application only to a river; henceforth the term (in capital letters) was kept alive by Jordan to bolster its case that it had been deprived of half of its Kingdom – the other bank -- even though the Britain and the League of Nations had established the Jordan River as the western frontier of the Kingdom of Transjordan, and even though the UN had decided in 1947 that this territory would belong to the new Arab state which should be built within the confines of the Balfour mandate, as defined I947. Then, after the King of Jordan abandoned his claim to rule in this region, and designated the PLO as the natural leaders of the Palestinian People, the West Bank by a further twist of logic became the usual designation for everything extending westward from the actual west bank of the River Jordan, up to the tops of the mountain ranges, and then halfway down the other side towards the Mediterranean Sea.

Bernard Lewis demonstrates that very notion of an Arab national identity, in the sense now promulgated, is an invention of the early Twentieth Century and derives from Western habits of thought. Using European analogies, our politicians and our scholars speak of the Arabic-speaking people as a nation or group of sister nations in the European sense, united by a common territory, language and culture and a common aspiration to a political independence. No one denies that there were many centuries of Arab rule over the region which we call the Holy Land. These centuries were, however, by no means uninterrupted. There were also periods of Persian rule, Seljuk rule, Egyptian rule, and lastly there were four hundred years (exactly) of Ottoman rule. When the British were locked in their life-and-death struggle with the central Powers and Turkey, they made a dramatic bid to all the non-Turkish races of the region, promising them whatever they wanted to hear. In particular, they tapped into the movement of Arab nationalism (whose roots, in any case, were in the recent history of European nationalist movements.) Arab-speaking politicians who wished to participate in the overthrow of the Ottomans, abetted by Lawrence of Arabia and other nationalist romantics, championed Arab nationalism.In playing to these Arab-nationalist forces the British agreed to minimize the presence in the whole region of such non-Arab peoples as the Assyrians (who were Christians of ancient standing), the Kurds (whom were read about in today’s newspapers still) and many many others. Arab nationalists, for their own purposes, have always magnified the Arab part of the story.It is logically impossible to make the case that Palestine belongs to the local non-Jewish population because they belong to the Arab Nation and simultaneously to speak of the immemorial existence of the Palestinian nation. An argument based on either of these premises is in any case incompatible with the clear teaching of Islam which is that all Muslims belong to the nation of Islam, the dar al-Islam.While it is historically insupportable, therefore, to speak of many centuries of Arab rule, it is perfectly correct to speak of many centuries of Muslim rule.The majority [of the inhabitants of Mandate Palestine] belonged to ...the nation of Islam...[and] thought of themselves primarily as Muslims. When further clarification was necessary, it might be territorial -- Egyptians, Syrian, Iraqi -- or social -- townsman, peasant, nomad. It is to this last that the term Arab belongs. So little had it retained of its ethnic meaning that we even find it applied at times to non-Arab nomads of Kurdish or Turkoman extraction. [14]Many Christians who regard themselves as realists and also as people of goodwill ask: What does it matter if the case for the Palestinian people lacks historical substance? Would it not be better if we all simply nodded agreeably as the Palestinians recited their alternative narrative and then get on with the work of reconciliation ?

In recent years, Christian liberals have found support for this thinking in an unlikely place: in the thinking and the writing of those Israel politicians of the left who were the authors of the policy of seeking peace through negotiation with the Palestine Liberation Organization -- the process which brought about the ruinous 1993 Oslo Accords. Shimon Peres, the Israeli politician who invested more than any other in this process, suggested in a book written in 1993 what might be called a Gordian knot approach to the embarrassment of dealing with the Palestinians arguments about their history. After reviewing the story more-or-less along the lines which we have just followed he concludes: Until the 1948 War of Independence, the Palestinian people did not exist as a separate entity, either in their own consciousness or in the minds of other people, including the Arab nations .... During the British Mandate, Palestinian nationalist consciousness was defined as being part of the greater Arab nation, giving Palestinians a different, separate identity from that of the Jews living in the region ...[Their slogan was:] PALESTINE IS ARAB. Rather than claim ownership of the land in the name of a particular nationality, they did so in the name of pan-Arabism. They also asked for and received Arab solidarity before the 1948, on ideological grounds of unification, not a particular national identity.An attempt to combine these general and particular nationalist trends is found in the PLO's Palestinian Covenant, which asserts that Palestine is the national homeland of the Palestinian Arab people; it is an integral part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation. In other words, even the founding document of the Palestinian national movement does not lay claim to the land on behalf of Palestinians alone ... Only during the ideological struggle against the State of Israel and the Zionist movement did the ideologues of the Palestinian camp begin to speak about a specific historical Palestinian connection to this controversial land, a connection that is independent of any pan-Arab context. At that time, the Palestinians began to be described as the descendents of the ancient Jebusites, and some even suggested that the Palestinian people existed from time immemorial.

But then he sweeps away all these merely historical considerations:

These facts [my emphasis] do not question the legitimacy of Palestinian national consciousness. The modern democratic outlook recognizes the validity of forming a new national association, termed people building in the professional literature, based on the consciousness of independence by any group that establishes such a national association.In short: facts, schmacts. Anybody can invent a nation any time that it serves a purpose!The Palestinians became a people when they decided to do so and when they began to act as a national collective. Questions of how they began to act as a national collective and what factors led to this awakening are of interest to historians and sociologists, but the speculations make no difference in determining strategy. Strategy depends upon present reality. . . . Just as we Jewish people did not ask the Palestinians for permission to become a state, neither do they need our permission to become a people. [15]Thus Peres dismisses the integrity of three millennia of historiography, leveling all recitals of the past to the moral and intellectual standing of myth. Perhaps such contempt for historical fact makes sense to a man who could say (1n May of 1994): Today we have ended the Arab-Israeli conflict. Utopia is coming.[16] People who dismiss mere historical facts for the sake of realism will eventually learn that there is nothing more real than historical fact. Historians, and others who take history seriously, have reason for concern regarding the recent habit of such Christian organizations as the Middle East Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches of patronizing the fantasy-histories of self-declared aboriginal people and others who claim to be victims of Eurocentrism,linear thinking and other alleged vices of the Western mind. It used to be better understood than it is today that Christian faith depends upon the historical validity of certain entirely specific events, which appear in historical documents and which have been subject to critical examination for over nineteen hundred years, and which are alleged to recapitulate the largest meanings in human history. This realization is at the heart of the entirely unique preoccupation with the determination of historical fact which has always characterized Western civilization. But respect for historical fact is not widespread in an age when historical thinking is generally despised and historical content has been almost entirely driven from the curriculum of schools. The point of historical research is not to move us along the path of peace and reconciliation. It is to find truth. It is simple fantasy to talk of a well-developed Arab civilization in the region and equally fantastic to ground the claim of its present Arab-speaking residents in a calim to aboriginal title.I have found for my sins that Christian pro-Palestinian zealots will scream at you that all your historical generalizations come out an evil heart, that you are deaf to the need of love and understanding. They claim to know that your generalizations are all the opposite of truth, but they do not step forward with historical documentation.Parties who will not listen to arguments about truth are never going to be moved down the path of reconciliation. We must not let fear of appearing to be an enemy of peace and reconciliation make us enemies of historical truth.Paul C. Merkley.

[1] Quoted in Ramon Bennett, Philistine: The Great Deception (Jerusalem: Arm of Salvation, 1995), 137.
[2] Quoted in Bat Ye’or, The Dhimmim: The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians Under Islam (London: Associated University Presses, 1985), 145.
[3] Leona Glidden Running and David Noel Freedman, William Foxwell Albright: A Twentieth -Century Genius ( New York: Two Continents/Morgan, 1975.), 384.
[4] See Bernard Lewis, The Palestinians and the PLO: A Historical Approach, Commentary, January, 1975.
[5] All the quotations in this paragraph derive from Joan Peters, From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Palestine (London: Michael Joseph, 1985), 139-140.
[6] Speech to United Nations General Assembly, New York, November 13, 1974.
[7] Quoted in Binyamin Netanyahu, A Place Among the Nations Bantam Books, 1993), pp. 38-40.
[8] The specific portions which I have quoted come from Walter Lowdermilk Palestine: Land of Promise (New York: Harper, 1944), pp. 133, 59, 28, 5-6, 80-83. Lowdermilk’s research materials are in the file, Walter Lowdermilk,in Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N.Y.]
[9] Palestine Royal Commission Report of 1937, cited in Peters, 140.
[10] Quoted from Dutch daily, Trouw, March, 1977, by Peters, 137.
[11] Bernard Lewis, The Arabs in History, cited in Peters, 152.
[12] Quoted by Netanyahu, 43.
[13] Netanyahu, 43-44.
[14] Lewis, The Arabs, 15, cited in Peters, 152-154.
[15] Shimon Peres, The New Middle East (New York: Henry Holt, 1993), 165-166.
[16] Quoted in Jerusalem Post, June 4, 1994.

JESUS RETURNS TO EARTH BODILY LIKE HE LEFT

ACTS 1:10-11
10 And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel;
11 Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.

Whose Promised Land? Psalm 78:54-55 (ISRAELS)
54 And He brought them to His holy border, This mountain which His right hand had acquired.
55 He also drove out the nations before them,Allotted them an inheritance by survey, And made the tribes of Israel dwell in their tents.

JESUS RETURNS TO EARTH BODILY TO RULE AND REIGN FROM DAVIDS THRONE FOREVER AND WE COME BACK WITH HIM ON WHITE HORSES.

ACTS 1:10-11
10 And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel;
11 Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.

ZECHARIAH 14:4
4 And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.

REVELATION 19:11-16
11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.
12 His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself.
13 And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.
14 And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.
15 And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
16 And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.

JUDE 14-16
14 And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,
15 To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.
16 These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men's persons in admiration because of advantage.

JERUSALEM DIVIDED

ZECHARIAH 12:1-5 King James Bible
1 The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.
2 Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem.
3 And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.
4 In that day, saith the LORD, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness.
5 And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in the LORD of hosts their God.

JOEL 3:2
2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.

ZECHARIAH 14:1-9 King James Bible
1 Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee.
2 For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
3 Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.
4 And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south. 5 And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the LORD my God shall come, and all the saints with thee.
6 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark:
7 But it shall be one day which shall be known to the LORD, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light.
8 And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be.
9 And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one.

JUDGEMENT SIGNS IN DAYS OF LOT. NO BODY LISTENED TO WARNING SIGNS

LUKE 17:28-32
28 Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;
29 But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.
30 Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.
31 In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away: and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back.
32 Remember Lot's wife.

JUDGEMENT SIGNS IN DAYS OF NOAH. WORLDWIDE FLOODING,CURRUPTION,VIOLENCE (TERRORISM).

MATTHEW 24:37-39
37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

GENESIS 6:11-13
11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

LUKE 17:25-27
25 But first must he suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation.
26 And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.
27 They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.

THE JUDGEMENT OF THE NATIONS

JOEL 3:2
2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.

DANIEL 12:8-13
8 And I (DANIEL) heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things?
9 And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.
10 Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.
11 And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, (at the 3 1/2 yr mark of the 7 yr treaty) and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.
12 Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.
13 But go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days.

MATTHEW 25:31-46
31 When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
32 And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:
33 And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
42 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
43 I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
44 Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
45 Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.
46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.