JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T
MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE
MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.GET
SAVED NOW- CALL ON JESUS TODAY.THE ONLY SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE EARTH - NO
OTHER.
1 COR 15:23-JESUS THE FIRST FRUITS-CHRISTIANS RAPTURED TO JESUS-FIRST
FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT-23 But every man in his own order: Christ the
firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.ROMANS 8:23
And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of
the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the
adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.(THE PRE-TRIB RAPTURE)
LUKE 21:28-29
28 And when these things begin to come to pass,(ALL THE PROPHECY SIGNS FROM THE BIBLE) then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption (RAPTURE) draweth nigh.
29 And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree,(ISRAEL) and all the trees;(ALL INDEPENDENT COUNTRIES)
30 When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand.(ISRAEL LITERALLY BECAME AND INDEPENDENT COUNTRY JUST BEFORE SUMMER IN MAY 14,1948.)
JOEL 2:3,30
3 A fire devoureth (ATOMIC BOMB) before them;(RUSSIAN-ARAB-MUSLIM ARMIES AGAINST ISRAEL) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(ATOMIC BOMB AFFECT)
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their eyes shall consume away in their holes,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB)(BECAUSE NUKES HAVE BEEN USED ON ISRAELS ENEMIES)(GOD PROTECTS ISRAEL AND ALWAYS WILL)
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.(1/2-3 BILLION DIE IN WW3)(THIS IS AN ATOMIC BOMB EFFECT)
EZEKIEL 20:47
47 And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the LORD; Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein.
ZEPHANIAH 1:18
18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD'S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
MALACHI 4:1
1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven;(FROM ATOMIC BOMBS) and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
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
Christian supporters of Israel plan to flood UNESCO with bibles-Evangelical group urges members of the faith to ‘refresh diplomats’ memory’ on Judaism and Christianity’s historical ties to Jerusalem-By Times of Israel staff November 3, 2016, 6:41 am
A group of evangelical Christians has called upon members of the faith to mail bibles to the UNESCO leadership in Paris in response to the recent UNESCO resolutions which ignore Jewish and Christian ties to the Temple Mount.In an appeal on its website, the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem asked “Christians all over the globe to take a Bible, use a highlighter and mark some of the many passages where it speaks of ‘Jerusalem’ and the ‘Temple,’ and then mail it to the UNESCO headquarters in Paris.”The call also states, “We are hoping to inundate UNESCO with tens of thousands of Bibles to drive home the message that Jews and Christians have a much more genuine, historic connection to Jerusalem and the Temple than Muslims.”The website provides the address of Michael Worbs, the Chairperson of the Executive Board of UNESCO, to which the bibles may be mailed, and recommends that the senders include a letter of disapproval.The ICEJ, a Christian Zionist organization, was founded by evangelical Christians in 1980 with the stated goal of showing support for the modern state of Israel. According to the group’s website, it represents churches and denominations around the world and has branches in 80 countries.In a statement released by the organization, ICEJ Executive Director Dr. Jürgen Bühler said that “Most of us view these diplomats as being principled and well-educated. But apparently, some of them forgot their history lessons and we are sending them Bibles to refresh their memory. Even worse, some of these representatives are deliberately trying to erase the Jewish and Christian bonds to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and other revered sites in the Land of Israel. Hopefully, our campaign will give our nations’ envoys at UNESCO the courage to stand up to the anti-Semites in their midst.”The ICEJ reported that hundreds of bibles have already been mailed and that thousands were on the way.Worbs himself has apologized for the resolution and sought to delay the vote by member states unsuccessfully. UNESCO director-general Irina Bokova has also voiced opposition to the motion, saying that efforts to deny history and Jerusalem’s complex multi-faith character harm UNESCO.The ICEJ has become well-known for its annual Feast of Tabernacles which, the organization reports, attracted 8,000 Christians from over 100 nations this year, who marched in in the streets of Jerusalem to show solidarity with Israel.
Court grants more time to opponents of state’s bid to protect outpost-Petitioners have until beginning of next week to respond to government’s request for 7-month stay on Amona evacuation-By Times of Israel staff November 3, 2016, 10:26 am
The High Court of Justice on Thursday granted an extension to Palestinian landowners and human rights groups to respond to a state request to push off the mandated dismantlement of a controversial West Bank outpost.The state on Monday had asked the court to grant it an extra seven months to carry the court-ordered evacuation later this year of Amona, which is built on private Palestinian land. Responses to the state’s petition were originally to be filed by Thursday afternoon.Petitioners will now have until Sunday to file their response to the states request, the court decided Thursday.The High Court, after over a decade of legal wrangling, ruled in 2014 that Amona, which lies east of Ramallah, was built on private Palestinian land and must be demolished by December 25.The impending evacuation has threatened to destabilize Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, which relies heavily on the pro-settlement right.Pro-settler lawmakers have tried to find a legal loophole to keep the outpost in place, but Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit has warned that attempting to legislate approval for the seizure of private lands would be unconstitutional.Amona is the largest of about 100 West Bank outposts built without permission but generally tolerated by the government. These are in addition to 120 legal settlements.AP contributed to this report.
Netanyahu, on 2015 election day, claimed US part of scheme to unseat him — report-PM told reporter that V15 group was deploying ‘super-software’ to locate voters, Haaretz says; sources close to him deny report, suggest Nazis influence the newspaper-By Alexander Fulbright November 3, 2016, 10:51 am-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
In March 2015, as Israelis went to the polls, Prime Minister Netanyahu reportedly accused the Obama administration of taking part in a vast conspiracy to topple him.According to a report published Wednesday in the daily Haaretz, Netanyahu told an unnamed journalist in a phone call that “what’s happening today is election stealing” and claimed that “nothing like this has ever happened in any democracy anywhere.”Sources close to Netanyahu denied the report, suggesting that it may have emerged from Nazi sympathies among Haaretz’s owners.In the final days before the elections, polls indicated that the opposition Zionist Union faction could win more seats than Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party and go on to be the linchpin of the next governing coalition. However, bucking the polls, Likud went ahead to win 30 seats to the Zionist Union’s 24, allowing Netanyahu to form a new coalition with relative ease and continue as prime minister.But on the day of the election, when polls still indicated a possible victory for the Zionist Union, Netanyahu reportedly told the journalist by phone that he was “about to lose the election,” and alleged that the left-wing V15 group, a get-out-the-vote movement, “backed by the American administration,” had brought to Israel “super-software that locates voters.”Netanyahu believed that there was a global conspiracy to unseat him, the report said, accusing the Obama administration, spy agencies, V15, Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog, and the Israeli media of colluding to unseat him. He also reportedly complained to the journalist that the Israeli media was not covering the conspiracy and claimed: “That’s why I am going to lose the election.”Later that evening following the Likud party’s unexpected electoral landslide, hundreds of Likud members railed at Yedioth Ahronoth publisher and longtime Netanyahu nemesis Arnon “Noni” Mozes, according to the report, highlighting the belief held by many Likudniks that the media had set out to topple Netanyahu.The prime minister interpreted Likud’s electoral victory not only as a defeat of his political rivals, but as a trouncing of the Israeli media, with one Likud member telling Haaretz that “[Netanyahu] got it into his head that he had won on his own, that he had vanquished Mozes and the entire media establishment. The goal he set himself after the election was to change the balance, to gain control of the business.“Now he’s set his sights on commercial television in Israel. [Netanyahu] told us explicitly: I already handled the print media when Israel Hayom was founded,” the Likud member added, in a reference to the Sheldon Adelson-owned and Netanyahu-supporting free Israeli daily.Since the election, his critics would claim that Netanyahu has been following up on his alleged promise to tame Israeli news media, as evidenced by his recent attempts to shut down a nascent public broadcasting corporation, which unnamed Likud sources say “has turned into a broadcaster for Noni Mozes and the left.”Meanwhile, V15, the grassroots organization, which has since rebranded itself as Darkenu, is again in the headlines following the recent redrafting of a bill that would impose a NIS 11,000 ($2,885) limit per person donation to non-governmental organizations involved in elections, and require those groups to spell out their activities and financing to the state ombudsman.Wednesday’s Haaretz report cited sources “close to the prime minister” dismissing the notion that he had alleged a vast conspiracy against him, while insinuating that Nazi sympathies may have been behind the article.“The list of lies and twisted smears you ascribe to Prime Minister Netanyahu just proves again the degree to which your newspaper is biased and prejudiced against him and the degree to which you distort reality. It does not surprise us,” the sources were quoted as saying.“For years Haaretz has been the newspaper which besmirches the IDF and Israel to the world, and which does not represent even a tiny fraction of the range of opinions held by the broad Israeli public. It is no wonder that the broad Israeli public has lost its faith in you,” they said. “We can only hope that the fact that the German media concern Dumont Schauberg, which engaged in disseminating Nazi propaganda during World War II and bought 20% of the shares in Haaretz, has nothing to do with this spirit.”Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
Suspects nabbed for 2015 firebombing that wounded 3-year-old Israeli-Shin Bet arrests 3 Palestinian men accused of throwing Molotov cocktails at car near Beit El-By Judah Ari Gross November 3, 2016, 5:00 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
More than a year after a firebombing attack on a car outside Ramallah left a 3-year-old moderately wounded, the Shin Bet security service announced Thursday that it had arrested three Palestinian men suspected of being responsible for the attack.On October 23, 2015, an Israeli couple was driving with their three young children near the West Bank settlement of Beit El, north of Jerusalem, when their vehicle was attacked with Molotov cocktails.The 3-year-old daughter was moderately wounded, while her parents and two siblings sustained light injuries. (In initial reports on the incident, the daughter was incorrectly identified as being four years old.) On Thursday, the Shin Bet revealed that they had caught the alleged perpetrators of the attack, as part of a joint operation with the Israel Defense Forces and Israel Police.The suspects were named as: Khaled Badha, 43, from the Kedura refugee camp in Ramallah, who had previously served time in Israeli prison for rock throwing and taking part in riots; Abdel Majid Badra, 27, from Beituniah, in the central West Bank; and Louie Nimr, 34, of the el-Amari refugee camp in Ramallah.According to the Shin Bet, the three suspects told interrogators that the firebombing had been “part of a series of terror attacks carried out by assailants in the area.”During their interrogation, they also told the Shin Bet that “some of them had planned to carry out a shooting attack,” the security service said.A spokesperson for the Shin Bet said that indictments against the three suspects were set to be filed within the next few days.“The Shin Bet security service, together with the IDF and Israel Police, will continue to work toward the goal of exposing and foiling the activities of terror cells that carry out attacks, at any time, even if [some] time has passed since the incident,” the agency said in a statement.
Assailant shot dead as he attempts to stab soldiers — army-Palestinian with knife tries to attack servicemen guarding bus stop outside Ofra settlement in West Bank; no Israelis injured-By Judah Ari Gross November 3, 2016, 4:30 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian assailant as he attempted to stab them near the West Bank settlement of Ofra, the Israeli military said.The Palestinian approached the servicemen with a knife near a bus stop outside the settlement northeast of Ramallah, where the soldiers had been standing guard, according to the Israel Defense Forces.In response, the soldiers opened fire at the attacker, killing him, the army said.“There were no injuries among our forces,” the IDF added.The assailant was identified by the Palestinian health ministry as Maan Nasser al-Din Abu Qara, 23, from the nearby town of Mazra’a al-Qibliya.A video from the scene was posted on social media shows the Abu Qara sprawled on the floor of the bus stop, with a knife next to his body.On Monday, a member of the Palestinian security services opened fire at a group of IDF soldiers guarding at the nearby Focus checkpoint outside Ramallah, seriously injuring one and lightly wounding two.The gunman, later identified as Muhammad Turkman, was shot and killed by Israeli forces.A year of Palestinian terrorism and violence has seen 36 Israelis, two Americans and an Eritrean national killed in stabbing, car-ramming and shooting attacks. According to AFP figures, some 238 Palestinians, a Jordanian and a Sudanese migrant have also been killed, most of them in the course of carrying out attacks, Israel says, and many of the others in clashes with troops in the West Bank and at the Gaza border, as well as in Israeli airstrikes in the Strip.Dov Lieber contributed to this report.
Protesters chant 'Death to America' and 'Death to Israel,' burn flags and posters of Peres-Senior Iranian general: US in ‘strong decline’-At rally celebrating 1979 embassy siege, Hossein Salami says Washington ‘can no longer manage’ Muslim world’s political, military development-By AFP and Times of Israel staff November 3, 2016, 4:21 pm
A senior Iranian military official welcomed Thursday what he said was the “strong decline” of the United States, during celebrations marking the start of the 1979 US embassy siege.“America is no longer number one and the first power of the world,” deputy Revolutionary Guards commander Hossein Salami told thousands gathered outside the former US mission in Tehran.“America’s political will can no longer manage political and military development in… the world of Islam. America’s political power has strongly declined.”Every year on November 3-4, Iran celebrates the 444-day siege of the embassy when more than 50 diplomats, staff and spies were taken hostage by Islamist students demanding the extradition of the shah, who had fled to America after being deposed a few months earlier in the Islamic revolution.The crisis severed US-Iranian diplomatic ties for decades, but Tehran last year clinched a deal with world powers to curb its controversial nuclear program in exchange for an easing of economic sanctions.Protesters on Thursday chanted the traditional rallying cries of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” and burned the US and Israeli flags. Posters of late president Shimon Peres were also set on fire during the rally.But the US remains Iran’s main enemy, and Tehran and Washington back opposing sides in several regional conflicts, including Syria and Yemen.“Our fight with the Americans will continue,” Salami said. “Pursuing our ideals in the world of Islam and in Iran, we will recognize no stopping point or red line.”He also warned the US not to criticize Iran’s ballistic missiles, calling its system “the real center of our power (that) must be strengthened.”On November 4, 1979, Iranian militant students stormed the US Embassy, taking 52 Americans hostage for 444 days after Washington refused to hand over Iran’s toppled shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, for trial in Iran.The storming of the embassy led to the severing of diplomatic relations that continues to this day.
A revived Lapid emerges as threat to Netanyahu-Aspiring prime minister’s Yesh Atid party takes lead in polls as he refashions himself as a serious contender-By Josef Federman November 3, 2016, 10:52 am-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
AP — Political newcomer Yair Lapid believes he has finally found a formula that will allow him to do something that has eluded Israeli politicians for nearly a decade: defeat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an election.Just three years after Lapid gave up a successful media career for the rough-and-tumble of Israeli politics, his centrist Yesh Atid party has been surging in opinion polls — repeatedly coming out ahead of Netanyahu’s long-dominant Likud Party. Although elections are not scheduled until 2019, few Israeli governments last for their full terms.In an interview at his office in the Knesset, Lapid attributed his recent success to hard work by his party’s lawmakers and the appeal of a moderate party in a country that has been pushed to extremes.“The concept of a center party, of people who are pragmatic and moderate and look for solutions, instead of sticking to extreme ideologies, is more and more appealing, at least in this country,” he said.Netanyahu presides over a hard-line coalition that is dominated by nationalist allies of the West Bank settler movement. Now in his third consecutive term, Netanyahu remains in control as long as key partners maintain the coalition.But he and his allies are under tremendous pressure from powerful groups in Israel that bitterly oppose the government, engendering a siege atmosphere and sense of constant peril in government circles. Many among the security establishment, academia, the cultural community and media have been at loggerheads with Netanyahu for years.Among the contentious issues are policies that appear to be aimed at stifling dovish critics. Peace efforts with the Palestinians have been frozen for years, while settlement construction in the disputed West Bank has steamed ahead — leading to repeated run-ins with the United States and other key allies.At home, Netanyahu is heading into a stormy winter parliamentary session that will tackle a series of issues that each could threaten his coalition from within. The government faces a court-ordered December 25 deadline to evacuate an illegal West Bank outpost — over the objections of key coalition partners — and a state watchdog agency is set to issue a potentially damaging report on the government’s handling of a 2014 war in the Gaza Strip.But the most galvanizing issue for Netanyahu’s rivals is the sense that the country’s liberal democracy is under assault. An example of that is Netanyahu’s contentious plan to reform the state-run broadcast authority, a reform that critics say is aimed at increasing his control of local media.“I think we have ahead of us in this Knesset session a very heated dispute about the word Israeli, where the country is going to, in all fields of living, from the relationship with the international community, with the Jewish world, economy security, so on so forth,” Lapid said. He declined to criticize Netanyahu, saying it was inappropriate to do so in an interview with foreign media.A former author, columnist, news anchor and bank pitchman, Lapid burst onto the political scene in 2013, leading his newfound Yesh Atid to a surprisingly strong showing in parliamentary elections that year. Promising relief for Israel’s struggling middle class, as well as an end to draft exemptions for religious seminary students, Yesh Atid finished as the second-largest party, with 19 seats in the 120-member parliament.Lapid, known for his wide grin and black attire, took on the job of finance minister, a difficult and often thankless task.While marking some successes, such as raising payments to Holocaust survivors, his key promises of lowering the cost of living and bringing down housing prices failed to materialize. He ultimately was fired by Netanyahu for insubordination.In last year’s election, Yesh Atid dropped to just 11 seats and Lapid found himself in the opposition. It appeared set to become the latest in a string of centrist parties to enjoy early success and quickly flame out.But Lapid has proven wilier, using his time in the opposition to reinvent himself. Once seen as an unofficial spokesman for the country’s secular middle class, he has toned down his attacks on the country’s ultra-Orthodox community and even embraced some religious rituals. Appealing to Netanyahu’s base, he has joined the prime minister in bashing the UN cultural agency UNESCO for passing resolutions seen as anti-Israeli. He also has joined the prime minister in condemning dovish Israeli human rights groups that criticize Israeli policies to overseas audiences.His tactics have drawn criticism that Lapid is becoming a mild-mannered version of Netanyahu — a charge he rejects. But recent polls have shown Yesh Atid winning as many as 27 seats if elections were held today, with at least some of those seats apparently siphoned off from Likud.Skepticism certainly remains about Lapid’s chances against Netanyahu. Reuven Hazan, a political scientist at Hebrew University, said Lapid is benefiting from a protest instinct in the polls, “but between this and actually taking on Netanyahu, this is going to be a different world.”Lapid said that while he and Netanyahu are both “patriots” who believe in Israel as a “just cause,” there are key differences, especially regarding Mideast peace and strengthening relations with the international community.Lapid said that Israel must find a way to separate from the Palestinians, as soon as possible, with the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. With continued Israeli control over millions of Palestinians who do not have voting rights, “we will either lose the Jewish majority or the democratic nature of Israel or both, and I’m not willing for this to happen,” he said. He called the pursuit of peace part of his “life’s mission.”Saying that the traditional model of direct, bilateral talks with the Palestinians has failed, Lapid called for a different approach with regional and international backing. He said Arab countries, especially Jordan and Egypt, which also share borders with the Palestinians, should participate in negotiations, along with wealthy Gulf countries. He also said that international powers could serve as “moderators.”He said he was skeptical about Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbass’ ability to deliver a peace deal — but that Israel cannot sit and do nothing.“This is existential to the future of Israel that we will separate from the Palestinians,” he said.
Survey finds Trump got 49%, Clinton 44%, among Israel-based voters-US voters in Israel favored Trump, but support for GOP nosedived — poll-‘Exit survey’ finds 35-point drop in support for Republican candidate compared to 2012, and voter participation much lower; many say US policy on Israel their primary concern, but not conflict with Palestinians-By Raphael Ahren November 3, 2016, 2:47 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
American-Israeli voters slightly favor Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, though the support for the Republican candidate has decreased precipitously since the 2012 election, according to a poll published Thursday.The “exit survey,” conducted among 1,140 US citizens who cast absentee ballots from Israel as well as 200 who did not vote, found that 49 percent voted for the Republican candidate, compared to 44% who voted for his Democratic rival.“It’s pretty close, what we found here,” said pollster Mitchell Barak, who conducted the survey on behalf of I Vote Israel, a nonpartisan get-out-the-vote campaign. “If you take into account there’s a margin of error of about three percent, it’s very, very close. I wouldn’t say there is a clear winner here, although Trump has won according to this poll.”One noteworthy result of the poll, which was conducted this week through email questionnaires, was the steep decline in support for the GOP’s candidate. In 2012, a similar I Vote Israel poll found that 85% of Israeli-American voters cast their absentee ballots for the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, compared to only 14% for President Barack Obama, the incumbent Democrat.The 35-point drop in support for the Republican candidate was likely due, to a great extent, to a general lack of enthusiasm for Trump, Barak suggested, pointing to the high unfavorability rates of both him and Clinton. Sixty-five percent of voters said they have an unfavorable view of Trump, while 64% have that view of Clinton.“Both candidates were equally disliked by American Israelis,” Barak said.Only about 30,000 US citizens in Israel will have voted in next week’s election, I Vote Israel national director Eitan Charnoff estimated. That number would mean a sharp drop from four years ago, when more than 80,000 absentee ballots are believed to have been cast from Israel.Abe Katsman from Republicans Overseas Israel harshly criticized the poll, doubting both the relatively low expected Israeli turnout and the drop in support for the GOP candidate.“The exit poll methodology was badly flawed, both vastly undercounting the total vote and the Trump vote,” he told The Times of Israel.Arguing that some 30,000 Israelis are believed have voted in the 2014 midterm elections, he said it was “preposterous” to claim that the same number is now voting for the presidency.“Could the voter participation rate actually decline by 60% to 70% [from 2102]? Not even plausible,” he said.Only 21% of the 200 respondents to the poll who said they did not vote said they refrained from casting an absentee ballot because they didn’t like either candidate. That showed that an ostensible lack of enthusiasm with either candidate wasn’t sufficient to explain such a drastic drop in Israeli voters, Katsman said.“Also, there was a drive to get Hebrew-speaking Trump-supporting citizens to vote. But the email survey was only in English,” he added, arguing that the poll understates the number of American-Israelis who voted for the Republican candidate.Charnoff admitted that I Vote Israel’s “efforts in 2016 were more modest than in 2012,” but insisted that his group reached “literally hundreds of thousands of people” via social media in over 40 on-the-ground voter registration events.“At many of our events, people would go out of their way to explain to us that they think that voting is important but that they’re sitting this one out,” he said. “At the end of the day, voting is a choice, and we can only empower those who choose to make it.”Responding to Katsman’s argument — that the fact that only 21% of US citizens who did not vote refrained because they didn’t like either candidate — Charnoff cited the very small sample size of only 197 such respondents.“It’s no surprise that, especially toward the end of the campaign, partisan elements attack us when the facts we present are contrary to their narrative,” he said.Another interesting finding from the poll was that a quarter of respondents who said they were registered Democrats voted for Trump. Conversely, 10% of overseas voters who are affiliated with the GOP cast their absentee ballot for Clinton.Sixty-four percent of Israeli Trump voters said that the single most important issue that influenced their decision was US foreign policy and American policy vis-a-vis Israel. Among Clinton voters, the number was much lower — only 17%.Asked for the main quality or primary reason for their choice, nearly half of Israeli-American voters (49%) said they wanted to prevent the election of the other party’s candidate. Only 10% cited leadership as their motivation.Specifically, 60% of Trump voters said their choice was based on the desire to keep Clinton out of the White House. Thirty-nine percent of Democratic voters said their main motivation was to prevent a Trump presidency.The poll also shed light on some issues not directly related to the presidential election. For instance, it found that two thirds of Israeli voters have an unfavorable view of US President Barack Obama, and 51% said they have a “very unfavorable view” of him.Three-quarters of respondents said they opposed the nuclear agreement six world powers, led by the US, signed last year with Iran. Sixty-four percent “strongly oppose it.” Only 17% said they supported the pact, and 8% said they didn’t know.However, when asked what the single most important issue regarding Israel’s security is, only a quarter cited the Iranian nuclear threat. Thirty-five percent said funding the Iron Dome missile defense system was most important, as opposed to 28 percent who said supporting Israel at the United Nations and fighting the anti-Israel boycott movement were the primary issues.More than half of all Israeli overseas voters polled said the most important foreign policy issue the new president should focus on was fighting global terrorism (54%). Eighteen percent named the Iranian nuclear threat, and only 2% the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.The poll also confirmed the widespread notion that American Israelis’ level of support for the Republican candidate in each election varies according to their level of religiosity.Only 22% of respondents who defined themselves as “secular” voted for Trump, while a whopping 75% voted for Clinton. Conversely, 63% of “religious” and 85% of “ultra-Orthodox” voters chose Trump.“You can really predict and understand someone’s vote based on how religious they define themselves,” Barak said. “The secular are more likely to vote for Democrats, the traditional might go either way. But as soon as you hit Orthodoxy and ultra-Orthodoxy, the numbers are very clear toward the Republican candidate.”
28 And when these things begin to come to pass,(ALL THE PROPHECY SIGNS FROM THE BIBLE) then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption (RAPTURE) draweth nigh.
29 And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree,(ISRAEL) and all the trees;(ALL INDEPENDENT COUNTRIES)
30 When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand.(ISRAEL LITERALLY BECAME AND INDEPENDENT COUNTRY JUST BEFORE SUMMER IN MAY 14,1948.)
JOEL 2:3,30
3 A fire devoureth (ATOMIC BOMB) before them;(RUSSIAN-ARAB-MUSLIM ARMIES AGAINST ISRAEL) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(ATOMIC BOMB AFFECT)
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their eyes shall consume away in their holes,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB)(BECAUSE NUKES HAVE BEEN USED ON ISRAELS ENEMIES)(GOD PROTECTS ISRAEL AND ALWAYS WILL)
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.(1/2-3 BILLION DIE IN WW3)(THIS IS AN ATOMIC BOMB EFFECT)
EZEKIEL 20:47
47 And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the LORD; Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein.
ZEPHANIAH 1:18
18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD'S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
MALACHI 4:1
1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven;(FROM ATOMIC BOMBS) and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
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
Christian supporters of Israel plan to flood UNESCO with bibles-Evangelical group urges members of the faith to ‘refresh diplomats’ memory’ on Judaism and Christianity’s historical ties to Jerusalem-By Times of Israel staff November 3, 2016, 6:41 am
A group of evangelical Christians has called upon members of the faith to mail bibles to the UNESCO leadership in Paris in response to the recent UNESCO resolutions which ignore Jewish and Christian ties to the Temple Mount.In an appeal on its website, the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem asked “Christians all over the globe to take a Bible, use a highlighter and mark some of the many passages where it speaks of ‘Jerusalem’ and the ‘Temple,’ and then mail it to the UNESCO headquarters in Paris.”The call also states, “We are hoping to inundate UNESCO with tens of thousands of Bibles to drive home the message that Jews and Christians have a much more genuine, historic connection to Jerusalem and the Temple than Muslims.”The website provides the address of Michael Worbs, the Chairperson of the Executive Board of UNESCO, to which the bibles may be mailed, and recommends that the senders include a letter of disapproval.The ICEJ, a Christian Zionist organization, was founded by evangelical Christians in 1980 with the stated goal of showing support for the modern state of Israel. According to the group’s website, it represents churches and denominations around the world and has branches in 80 countries.In a statement released by the organization, ICEJ Executive Director Dr. Jürgen Bühler said that “Most of us view these diplomats as being principled and well-educated. But apparently, some of them forgot their history lessons and we are sending them Bibles to refresh their memory. Even worse, some of these representatives are deliberately trying to erase the Jewish and Christian bonds to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and other revered sites in the Land of Israel. Hopefully, our campaign will give our nations’ envoys at UNESCO the courage to stand up to the anti-Semites in their midst.”The ICEJ reported that hundreds of bibles have already been mailed and that thousands were on the way.Worbs himself has apologized for the resolution and sought to delay the vote by member states unsuccessfully. UNESCO director-general Irina Bokova has also voiced opposition to the motion, saying that efforts to deny history and Jerusalem’s complex multi-faith character harm UNESCO.The ICEJ has become well-known for its annual Feast of Tabernacles which, the organization reports, attracted 8,000 Christians from over 100 nations this year, who marched in in the streets of Jerusalem to show solidarity with Israel.
Court grants more time to opponents of state’s bid to protect outpost-Petitioners have until beginning of next week to respond to government’s request for 7-month stay on Amona evacuation-By Times of Israel staff November 3, 2016, 10:26 am
The High Court of Justice on Thursday granted an extension to Palestinian landowners and human rights groups to respond to a state request to push off the mandated dismantlement of a controversial West Bank outpost.The state on Monday had asked the court to grant it an extra seven months to carry the court-ordered evacuation later this year of Amona, which is built on private Palestinian land. Responses to the state’s petition were originally to be filed by Thursday afternoon.Petitioners will now have until Sunday to file their response to the states request, the court decided Thursday.The High Court, after over a decade of legal wrangling, ruled in 2014 that Amona, which lies east of Ramallah, was built on private Palestinian land and must be demolished by December 25.The impending evacuation has threatened to destabilize Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, which relies heavily on the pro-settlement right.Pro-settler lawmakers have tried to find a legal loophole to keep the outpost in place, but Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit has warned that attempting to legislate approval for the seizure of private lands would be unconstitutional.Amona is the largest of about 100 West Bank outposts built without permission but generally tolerated by the government. These are in addition to 120 legal settlements.AP contributed to this report.
Netanyahu, on 2015 election day, claimed US part of scheme to unseat him — report-PM told reporter that V15 group was deploying ‘super-software’ to locate voters, Haaretz says; sources close to him deny report, suggest Nazis influence the newspaper-By Alexander Fulbright November 3, 2016, 10:51 am-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
In March 2015, as Israelis went to the polls, Prime Minister Netanyahu reportedly accused the Obama administration of taking part in a vast conspiracy to topple him.According to a report published Wednesday in the daily Haaretz, Netanyahu told an unnamed journalist in a phone call that “what’s happening today is election stealing” and claimed that “nothing like this has ever happened in any democracy anywhere.”Sources close to Netanyahu denied the report, suggesting that it may have emerged from Nazi sympathies among Haaretz’s owners.In the final days before the elections, polls indicated that the opposition Zionist Union faction could win more seats than Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party and go on to be the linchpin of the next governing coalition. However, bucking the polls, Likud went ahead to win 30 seats to the Zionist Union’s 24, allowing Netanyahu to form a new coalition with relative ease and continue as prime minister.But on the day of the election, when polls still indicated a possible victory for the Zionist Union, Netanyahu reportedly told the journalist by phone that he was “about to lose the election,” and alleged that the left-wing V15 group, a get-out-the-vote movement, “backed by the American administration,” had brought to Israel “super-software that locates voters.”Netanyahu believed that there was a global conspiracy to unseat him, the report said, accusing the Obama administration, spy agencies, V15, Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog, and the Israeli media of colluding to unseat him. He also reportedly complained to the journalist that the Israeli media was not covering the conspiracy and claimed: “That’s why I am going to lose the election.”Later that evening following the Likud party’s unexpected electoral landslide, hundreds of Likud members railed at Yedioth Ahronoth publisher and longtime Netanyahu nemesis Arnon “Noni” Mozes, according to the report, highlighting the belief held by many Likudniks that the media had set out to topple Netanyahu.The prime minister interpreted Likud’s electoral victory not only as a defeat of his political rivals, but as a trouncing of the Israeli media, with one Likud member telling Haaretz that “[Netanyahu] got it into his head that he had won on his own, that he had vanquished Mozes and the entire media establishment. The goal he set himself after the election was to change the balance, to gain control of the business.“Now he’s set his sights on commercial television in Israel. [Netanyahu] told us explicitly: I already handled the print media when Israel Hayom was founded,” the Likud member added, in a reference to the Sheldon Adelson-owned and Netanyahu-supporting free Israeli daily.Since the election, his critics would claim that Netanyahu has been following up on his alleged promise to tame Israeli news media, as evidenced by his recent attempts to shut down a nascent public broadcasting corporation, which unnamed Likud sources say “has turned into a broadcaster for Noni Mozes and the left.”Meanwhile, V15, the grassroots organization, which has since rebranded itself as Darkenu, is again in the headlines following the recent redrafting of a bill that would impose a NIS 11,000 ($2,885) limit per person donation to non-governmental organizations involved in elections, and require those groups to spell out their activities and financing to the state ombudsman.Wednesday’s Haaretz report cited sources “close to the prime minister” dismissing the notion that he had alleged a vast conspiracy against him, while insinuating that Nazi sympathies may have been behind the article.“The list of lies and twisted smears you ascribe to Prime Minister Netanyahu just proves again the degree to which your newspaper is biased and prejudiced against him and the degree to which you distort reality. It does not surprise us,” the sources were quoted as saying.“For years Haaretz has been the newspaper which besmirches the IDF and Israel to the world, and which does not represent even a tiny fraction of the range of opinions held by the broad Israeli public. It is no wonder that the broad Israeli public has lost its faith in you,” they said. “We can only hope that the fact that the German media concern Dumont Schauberg, which engaged in disseminating Nazi propaganda during World War II and bought 20% of the shares in Haaretz, has nothing to do with this spirit.”Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
Suspects nabbed for 2015 firebombing that wounded 3-year-old Israeli-Shin Bet arrests 3 Palestinian men accused of throwing Molotov cocktails at car near Beit El-By Judah Ari Gross November 3, 2016, 5:00 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
More than a year after a firebombing attack on a car outside Ramallah left a 3-year-old moderately wounded, the Shin Bet security service announced Thursday that it had arrested three Palestinian men suspected of being responsible for the attack.On October 23, 2015, an Israeli couple was driving with their three young children near the West Bank settlement of Beit El, north of Jerusalem, when their vehicle was attacked with Molotov cocktails.The 3-year-old daughter was moderately wounded, while her parents and two siblings sustained light injuries. (In initial reports on the incident, the daughter was incorrectly identified as being four years old.) On Thursday, the Shin Bet revealed that they had caught the alleged perpetrators of the attack, as part of a joint operation with the Israel Defense Forces and Israel Police.The suspects were named as: Khaled Badha, 43, from the Kedura refugee camp in Ramallah, who had previously served time in Israeli prison for rock throwing and taking part in riots; Abdel Majid Badra, 27, from Beituniah, in the central West Bank; and Louie Nimr, 34, of the el-Amari refugee camp in Ramallah.According to the Shin Bet, the three suspects told interrogators that the firebombing had been “part of a series of terror attacks carried out by assailants in the area.”During their interrogation, they also told the Shin Bet that “some of them had planned to carry out a shooting attack,” the security service said.A spokesperson for the Shin Bet said that indictments against the three suspects were set to be filed within the next few days.“The Shin Bet security service, together with the IDF and Israel Police, will continue to work toward the goal of exposing and foiling the activities of terror cells that carry out attacks, at any time, even if [some] time has passed since the incident,” the agency said in a statement.
Assailant shot dead as he attempts to stab soldiers — army-Palestinian with knife tries to attack servicemen guarding bus stop outside Ofra settlement in West Bank; no Israelis injured-By Judah Ari Gross November 3, 2016, 4:30 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian assailant as he attempted to stab them near the West Bank settlement of Ofra, the Israeli military said.The Palestinian approached the servicemen with a knife near a bus stop outside the settlement northeast of Ramallah, where the soldiers had been standing guard, according to the Israel Defense Forces.In response, the soldiers opened fire at the attacker, killing him, the army said.“There were no injuries among our forces,” the IDF added.The assailant was identified by the Palestinian health ministry as Maan Nasser al-Din Abu Qara, 23, from the nearby town of Mazra’a al-Qibliya.A video from the scene was posted on social media shows the Abu Qara sprawled on the floor of the bus stop, with a knife next to his body.On Monday, a member of the Palestinian security services opened fire at a group of IDF soldiers guarding at the nearby Focus checkpoint outside Ramallah, seriously injuring one and lightly wounding two.The gunman, later identified as Muhammad Turkman, was shot and killed by Israeli forces.A year of Palestinian terrorism and violence has seen 36 Israelis, two Americans and an Eritrean national killed in stabbing, car-ramming and shooting attacks. According to AFP figures, some 238 Palestinians, a Jordanian and a Sudanese migrant have also been killed, most of them in the course of carrying out attacks, Israel says, and many of the others in clashes with troops in the West Bank and at the Gaza border, as well as in Israeli airstrikes in the Strip.Dov Lieber contributed to this report.
Protesters chant 'Death to America' and 'Death to Israel,' burn flags and posters of Peres-Senior Iranian general: US in ‘strong decline’-At rally celebrating 1979 embassy siege, Hossein Salami says Washington ‘can no longer manage’ Muslim world’s political, military development-By AFP and Times of Israel staff November 3, 2016, 4:21 pm
A senior Iranian military official welcomed Thursday what he said was the “strong decline” of the United States, during celebrations marking the start of the 1979 US embassy siege.“America is no longer number one and the first power of the world,” deputy Revolutionary Guards commander Hossein Salami told thousands gathered outside the former US mission in Tehran.“America’s political will can no longer manage political and military development in… the world of Islam. America’s political power has strongly declined.”Every year on November 3-4, Iran celebrates the 444-day siege of the embassy when more than 50 diplomats, staff and spies were taken hostage by Islamist students demanding the extradition of the shah, who had fled to America after being deposed a few months earlier in the Islamic revolution.The crisis severed US-Iranian diplomatic ties for decades, but Tehran last year clinched a deal with world powers to curb its controversial nuclear program in exchange for an easing of economic sanctions.Protesters on Thursday chanted the traditional rallying cries of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” and burned the US and Israeli flags. Posters of late president Shimon Peres were also set on fire during the rally.But the US remains Iran’s main enemy, and Tehran and Washington back opposing sides in several regional conflicts, including Syria and Yemen.“Our fight with the Americans will continue,” Salami said. “Pursuing our ideals in the world of Islam and in Iran, we will recognize no stopping point or red line.”He also warned the US not to criticize Iran’s ballistic missiles, calling its system “the real center of our power (that) must be strengthened.”On November 4, 1979, Iranian militant students stormed the US Embassy, taking 52 Americans hostage for 444 days after Washington refused to hand over Iran’s toppled shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, for trial in Iran.The storming of the embassy led to the severing of diplomatic relations that continues to this day.
A revived Lapid emerges as threat to Netanyahu-Aspiring prime minister’s Yesh Atid party takes lead in polls as he refashions himself as a serious contender-By Josef Federman November 3, 2016, 10:52 am-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
AP — Political newcomer Yair Lapid believes he has finally found a formula that will allow him to do something that has eluded Israeli politicians for nearly a decade: defeat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an election.Just three years after Lapid gave up a successful media career for the rough-and-tumble of Israeli politics, his centrist Yesh Atid party has been surging in opinion polls — repeatedly coming out ahead of Netanyahu’s long-dominant Likud Party. Although elections are not scheduled until 2019, few Israeli governments last for their full terms.In an interview at his office in the Knesset, Lapid attributed his recent success to hard work by his party’s lawmakers and the appeal of a moderate party in a country that has been pushed to extremes.“The concept of a center party, of people who are pragmatic and moderate and look for solutions, instead of sticking to extreme ideologies, is more and more appealing, at least in this country,” he said.Netanyahu presides over a hard-line coalition that is dominated by nationalist allies of the West Bank settler movement. Now in his third consecutive term, Netanyahu remains in control as long as key partners maintain the coalition.But he and his allies are under tremendous pressure from powerful groups in Israel that bitterly oppose the government, engendering a siege atmosphere and sense of constant peril in government circles. Many among the security establishment, academia, the cultural community and media have been at loggerheads with Netanyahu for years.Among the contentious issues are policies that appear to be aimed at stifling dovish critics. Peace efforts with the Palestinians have been frozen for years, while settlement construction in the disputed West Bank has steamed ahead — leading to repeated run-ins with the United States and other key allies.At home, Netanyahu is heading into a stormy winter parliamentary session that will tackle a series of issues that each could threaten his coalition from within. The government faces a court-ordered December 25 deadline to evacuate an illegal West Bank outpost — over the objections of key coalition partners — and a state watchdog agency is set to issue a potentially damaging report on the government’s handling of a 2014 war in the Gaza Strip.But the most galvanizing issue for Netanyahu’s rivals is the sense that the country’s liberal democracy is under assault. An example of that is Netanyahu’s contentious plan to reform the state-run broadcast authority, a reform that critics say is aimed at increasing his control of local media.“I think we have ahead of us in this Knesset session a very heated dispute about the word Israeli, where the country is going to, in all fields of living, from the relationship with the international community, with the Jewish world, economy security, so on so forth,” Lapid said. He declined to criticize Netanyahu, saying it was inappropriate to do so in an interview with foreign media.A former author, columnist, news anchor and bank pitchman, Lapid burst onto the political scene in 2013, leading his newfound Yesh Atid to a surprisingly strong showing in parliamentary elections that year. Promising relief for Israel’s struggling middle class, as well as an end to draft exemptions for religious seminary students, Yesh Atid finished as the second-largest party, with 19 seats in the 120-member parliament.Lapid, known for his wide grin and black attire, took on the job of finance minister, a difficult and often thankless task.While marking some successes, such as raising payments to Holocaust survivors, his key promises of lowering the cost of living and bringing down housing prices failed to materialize. He ultimately was fired by Netanyahu for insubordination.In last year’s election, Yesh Atid dropped to just 11 seats and Lapid found himself in the opposition. It appeared set to become the latest in a string of centrist parties to enjoy early success and quickly flame out.But Lapid has proven wilier, using his time in the opposition to reinvent himself. Once seen as an unofficial spokesman for the country’s secular middle class, he has toned down his attacks on the country’s ultra-Orthodox community and even embraced some religious rituals. Appealing to Netanyahu’s base, he has joined the prime minister in bashing the UN cultural agency UNESCO for passing resolutions seen as anti-Israeli. He also has joined the prime minister in condemning dovish Israeli human rights groups that criticize Israeli policies to overseas audiences.His tactics have drawn criticism that Lapid is becoming a mild-mannered version of Netanyahu — a charge he rejects. But recent polls have shown Yesh Atid winning as many as 27 seats if elections were held today, with at least some of those seats apparently siphoned off from Likud.Skepticism certainly remains about Lapid’s chances against Netanyahu. Reuven Hazan, a political scientist at Hebrew University, said Lapid is benefiting from a protest instinct in the polls, “but between this and actually taking on Netanyahu, this is going to be a different world.”Lapid said that while he and Netanyahu are both “patriots” who believe in Israel as a “just cause,” there are key differences, especially regarding Mideast peace and strengthening relations with the international community.Lapid said that Israel must find a way to separate from the Palestinians, as soon as possible, with the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. With continued Israeli control over millions of Palestinians who do not have voting rights, “we will either lose the Jewish majority or the democratic nature of Israel or both, and I’m not willing for this to happen,” he said. He called the pursuit of peace part of his “life’s mission.”Saying that the traditional model of direct, bilateral talks with the Palestinians has failed, Lapid called for a different approach with regional and international backing. He said Arab countries, especially Jordan and Egypt, which also share borders with the Palestinians, should participate in negotiations, along with wealthy Gulf countries. He also said that international powers could serve as “moderators.”He said he was skeptical about Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbass’ ability to deliver a peace deal — but that Israel cannot sit and do nothing.“This is existential to the future of Israel that we will separate from the Palestinians,” he said.
Survey finds Trump got 49%, Clinton 44%, among Israel-based voters-US voters in Israel favored Trump, but support for GOP nosedived — poll-‘Exit survey’ finds 35-point drop in support for Republican candidate compared to 2012, and voter participation much lower; many say US policy on Israel their primary concern, but not conflict with Palestinians-By Raphael Ahren November 3, 2016, 2:47 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
American-Israeli voters slightly favor Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, though the support for the Republican candidate has decreased precipitously since the 2012 election, according to a poll published Thursday.The “exit survey,” conducted among 1,140 US citizens who cast absentee ballots from Israel as well as 200 who did not vote, found that 49 percent voted for the Republican candidate, compared to 44% who voted for his Democratic rival.“It’s pretty close, what we found here,” said pollster Mitchell Barak, who conducted the survey on behalf of I Vote Israel, a nonpartisan get-out-the-vote campaign. “If you take into account there’s a margin of error of about three percent, it’s very, very close. I wouldn’t say there is a clear winner here, although Trump has won according to this poll.”One noteworthy result of the poll, which was conducted this week through email questionnaires, was the steep decline in support for the GOP’s candidate. In 2012, a similar I Vote Israel poll found that 85% of Israeli-American voters cast their absentee ballots for the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, compared to only 14% for President Barack Obama, the incumbent Democrat.The 35-point drop in support for the Republican candidate was likely due, to a great extent, to a general lack of enthusiasm for Trump, Barak suggested, pointing to the high unfavorability rates of both him and Clinton. Sixty-five percent of voters said they have an unfavorable view of Trump, while 64% have that view of Clinton.“Both candidates were equally disliked by American Israelis,” Barak said.Only about 30,000 US citizens in Israel will have voted in next week’s election, I Vote Israel national director Eitan Charnoff estimated. That number would mean a sharp drop from four years ago, when more than 80,000 absentee ballots are believed to have been cast from Israel.Abe Katsman from Republicans Overseas Israel harshly criticized the poll, doubting both the relatively low expected Israeli turnout and the drop in support for the GOP candidate.“The exit poll methodology was badly flawed, both vastly undercounting the total vote and the Trump vote,” he told The Times of Israel.Arguing that some 30,000 Israelis are believed have voted in the 2014 midterm elections, he said it was “preposterous” to claim that the same number is now voting for the presidency.“Could the voter participation rate actually decline by 60% to 70% [from 2102]? Not even plausible,” he said.Only 21% of the 200 respondents to the poll who said they did not vote said they refrained from casting an absentee ballot because they didn’t like either candidate. That showed that an ostensible lack of enthusiasm with either candidate wasn’t sufficient to explain such a drastic drop in Israeli voters, Katsman said.“Also, there was a drive to get Hebrew-speaking Trump-supporting citizens to vote. But the email survey was only in English,” he added, arguing that the poll understates the number of American-Israelis who voted for the Republican candidate.Charnoff admitted that I Vote Israel’s “efforts in 2016 were more modest than in 2012,” but insisted that his group reached “literally hundreds of thousands of people” via social media in over 40 on-the-ground voter registration events.“At many of our events, people would go out of their way to explain to us that they think that voting is important but that they’re sitting this one out,” he said. “At the end of the day, voting is a choice, and we can only empower those who choose to make it.”Responding to Katsman’s argument — that the fact that only 21% of US citizens who did not vote refrained because they didn’t like either candidate — Charnoff cited the very small sample size of only 197 such respondents.“It’s no surprise that, especially toward the end of the campaign, partisan elements attack us when the facts we present are contrary to their narrative,” he said.Another interesting finding from the poll was that a quarter of respondents who said they were registered Democrats voted for Trump. Conversely, 10% of overseas voters who are affiliated with the GOP cast their absentee ballot for Clinton.Sixty-four percent of Israeli Trump voters said that the single most important issue that influenced their decision was US foreign policy and American policy vis-a-vis Israel. Among Clinton voters, the number was much lower — only 17%.Asked for the main quality or primary reason for their choice, nearly half of Israeli-American voters (49%) said they wanted to prevent the election of the other party’s candidate. Only 10% cited leadership as their motivation.Specifically, 60% of Trump voters said their choice was based on the desire to keep Clinton out of the White House. Thirty-nine percent of Democratic voters said their main motivation was to prevent a Trump presidency.The poll also shed light on some issues not directly related to the presidential election. For instance, it found that two thirds of Israeli voters have an unfavorable view of US President Barack Obama, and 51% said they have a “very unfavorable view” of him.Three-quarters of respondents said they opposed the nuclear agreement six world powers, led by the US, signed last year with Iran. Sixty-four percent “strongly oppose it.” Only 17% said they supported the pact, and 8% said they didn’t know.However, when asked what the single most important issue regarding Israel’s security is, only a quarter cited the Iranian nuclear threat. Thirty-five percent said funding the Iron Dome missile defense system was most important, as opposed to 28 percent who said supporting Israel at the United Nations and fighting the anti-Israel boycott movement were the primary issues.More than half of all Israeli overseas voters polled said the most important foreign policy issue the new president should focus on was fighting global terrorism (54%). Eighteen percent named the Iranian nuclear threat, and only 2% the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.The poll also confirmed the widespread notion that American Israelis’ level of support for the Republican candidate in each election varies according to their level of religiosity.Only 22% of respondents who defined themselves as “secular” voted for Trump, while a whopping 75% voted for Clinton. Conversely, 63% of “religious” and 85% of “ultra-Orthodox” voters chose Trump.“You can really predict and understand someone’s vote based on how religious they define themselves,” Barak said. “The secular are more likely to vote for Democrats, the traditional might go either way. But as soon as you hit Orthodoxy and ultra-Orthodoxy, the numbers are very clear toward the Republican candidate.”
