The Jordan Rift Valley in Israel is part of the Dead Sea Rift, a geological
boundary that separates the Arabian plate from the African plate deep under the
earth's surface.
Israel Rocked by Earthquakes
“Tell us, they said, when will this happen, and what will be
the sign of Your coming and of the end of the age? ...
There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.
All these are the beginning of birth pains.” (Matthew 24:3, 7–8)
After a string of earthquakes hit Israel’s north,
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for
heightened emergency preparedness, ordering the IDF
Home Front to ensure that citizens understand
procedures for coping with a major tremor. (Times of Israel)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met at the Knesset (Israel's
parliament) last week with officials to discuss preparedness in the event
of an earthquake.
Six tremors were felt as far north as Safed
in the Galilee and as far south as the southern
port city of Eilat, which sits on the Gulf of Eilat,
also known as the Red Sea.
On two separate days, tremors of a magnitude of
3.6 on the Richter scale were felt in the north,
including two on the same day in Tiberias,
where the walls of older apartment buildings
cracked causing residents concern for their safety.
Quakes measuring 3.3 on the Richter scale were experienced in Eilat and further south in the Red Sea. (Times of Israel)
Tiberias is an Israeli city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee
(also called the Kinneret).
One Tiberias Municipality employee, Madleine Sror, 47, said that
her computer moved and tea cup shook.
"My daughter, who works in a different part of the city,
called in a panic,” Sror said. “I heard her frightened coworkers
on the phone. Four hours later, there was another earthquake—
we thought we were imagining it, but we felt the movement and
everyone started screaming, 'Did you feel it? Did you feel it?'”
One of our Bibles For Israel team members was
also in the thick of it.
“I was sitting at my desk in Tiberias hard at work, when
my chair began to move back and forth and my stereo
speakers began to rock, but not from playing music,” he said.
The general manager of the Geophysical Institute
of Israel, Dr. Uri Frieslander, said a bigger earthquake
would not necessarily follow the string of smaller ones.
“The sequence of earthquakes does not indicate
anything about the future. We can’t rule out a
stronger earthquake, but it is certainly possible
that these small quakes will not lead to anything,”
he said. (Israel HaYom)
Israel, however, sits on top of a fault line
that stretches from northern Syria down to
East Africa and combines several rifts running
through the Jordan Valley, the Dead Sea and
the Red Sea which meet up with the East African Rift.
This entire system is subject to seismic activity.
The Jordan Valley along the Sea of Galilee.
"We are heading to an earthquake,” Amotz Agnon,
a geology professor at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University said (jn1tv).
“I cannot tell you when, I cannot tell you exactly where
will be the next one. But since the Jordan Valley,
the Dead Sea, the Arava Valley, this stretch of 200
kilometers hasn't seen a really big event in the last,
say, almost thousand years may suggest that we are
closer to an event. It definitely tells us that the level of
energy is high. But we don't know yet when the next
catastrophe will come," he continued.
The Bible does predict a huge end-time earthquake
in Israel, as well:
“It will come about on that day when Gog comes
against the land of Israel,” declares the Lord God,
“that My fury will mount up in My anger. In My
zeal and in My blazing wrath, I declare that on
that day there will surely be a great earthquake in the land of Israel.” (Ezekiel 38:18–19)
Many of Israel’s buildings were not built
with quakes in mind.
"A big chunk of Tel Aviv has buildings from the 50s,”
Agnon said, adding that they stand on pillars without
any support. “You have all these parking lots under
buildings ... and they will collapse. You don't need a
huge earthquake for this."
Tel Aviv architecture is characterized by a charming mix of
Oriental Eclectic, Bauhaus, Art Deco, classical, and modernist,
among other styles.
Although Israel invested a couple of years ago in
an earthquake alert system that will notify the public
of a quake ahead of time, it will not be operational until 2016.
The last major earthquake to hit Israel was in 1927.
It measured 6.2 on the Richter scale, killing 500 and
injuring 700.
In 1837, a major quake left 5,000 dead.
Such quakes are known to hit the country
on average every 80 years,
meaning that Israel may be due for another
serious event. (Times of Israel)
The epicenter of the 1837 earthquake was just north of the
Sea of Galilee.
Israel is not the only country this month to
experience earthquakes.
The Philippines experienced its most deadly
earthquake in 23 years, in which 222 were
reported dead, eight missing, and 797 injured.
Over 67,000 houses were damaged or destroyed.
Both Crete and Mexico also experienced 6.4-
magnitude quakes.
Yeshua (Jesus) prophesied in Matthew 24:3–8
that there would be earthquakes in the last days.
In the Book of Revelation, in John’s vision of the
Apocalypse, earthquakes are connected with the
opening of the Seven Seals:
“I looked when He broke the sixth seal, and
there was a great earthquake and the sun
became black as sackcloth made of hair, a
nd the whole moon became like blood.”
(Revelation 6:12)
“Then the seventh angel poured out his
bowl upon the air, and a loud voice came
out of the temple from the throne saying,
‘It is done.’ And there were flashes of
lightning and sounds and peals of thunder;
and there was a great earthquake, such as
there had not been since man came upon
the earth.” (Revelation 16:17–18)
People cross the water using a makeshift foot bridge in the Philippines
after an earthquake struck on October 15, 2013.
Shunning BDS Pressure,
Pop Sensation Rihanna
Performs in Tel Aviv
“I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:3)
In spite of pressure from the Boycott, Divestment and
Sanctions (BDS) movement not to perform in Israel,
over 50,000 fans of pop singer Rihanna enjoyed
her music in an open-air concert at
Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park.
Seats went for $100 apiece and up when
she appeared as a part of her “Diamonds” world tour.
The BDS movement regularly pressures artists,
universities, companies, and organizations of all
types to put economic pressure on Israel with
regard to the Palestinian question. Although
many artists refuse to appear in Israel because
of such pressures, many others do, and
Rihanna is one of them.
Rihanna joins leading artists, such as
Madonna, Alicia Keys and Lady Gaga,
all of whom have also resisted BDS
threats to perform in Israel.
Among those who have given in to online
BDS campaigns through social media and
threats of poor ticket sales at other locales
are the Pixies, Jon Bon Jovi and Elvis Costello.
Rihanna
Qatar Shows Unsportsmanlike
Bias Against Israel at World Cup
The Qatar organizers of the 2013 World Cup have
been accused of violating International Swimming
Federation (FINA) standards with unsportsmanlike
discrimination against Israel that included the
removal of the Israeli flag outside the stadium
during the event.
The Israeli flag was also whited out by state
TV in graphics used to broadcast the
international swim meet. (Israel HaYom)
Such discrimination is a violation of the FINA
Code of Ethics that bars discrimination on
the basis of gender, race, religion, or
political affiliations. (Israel HaYom)
The results of the qualifying meets in which
Israel appeared were never reported in order
to hide the presence of the Israeli swimmers
at the event, according to Israel’s top
swimmer, Gal Nevo.
The 26-year-old swimmer said that every
effort was made to erase Israel’s presence
from the event. In several of the races the
initials ISR were used instead of naming
Israel as the competing country. (Swim Vortex)
Amit Ivry
“I watched the broadcast on television of the
race in which Amit Ivry won a medal. She swam
in lane 1, but the broadcast focused completely
on the other half of the pool. Of course, there
weren’t any results [announced] and it was
impossible to know whether she’d finished in
third place,” Nevo said.
In response to complaints lodged with FINA,
the organization released the following statement:
“FINA gave a warning to the organisers of the two
FINA Swimming World Cup meets and reminded
them that the FINA rules must be equally applied
by all FINA National Federations. Moreover,
FINA guarantees that all steps will be taken
in the future for such acts not to occur again.”
This unsportsmanlike conduct, however, raises
concern that Israel will receive similar treatment
at the 2022 World Soccer Cup to be hosted by Qatar.
Gal Nevo
Netanyahu to Kerry:
“Don’t Lift Sanctions”
On Monday, Dr. Olli Heinonen, a former deputy director
of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),
warned that Iran has passed the point of no
return in its nuclear weapons program.
While Israel has repeatedly urged the dismantling
of Iran's nuclear capabilities, warning the world
about Iran's rogue nuclear program, Iran has
continued in the last year to install more
sophisticated centrifuges in its nuclear enrichment
facilities.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
said Iran currently has the ability to enrich
uranium from 3.5% to 90% within a few weeks.
“You have to have seen the ISIS report from
David Albright last week, which now says that
this breakout time can be one month," Heinonen
said. "And I believe that if certain arrangements
are made, it can even go down to two weeks.” (JNS)
Dr. Olli Heinonen is a Senior Fellow at Harvard
University's Belfer Center for Science and
International Affairs.
Last week in Rome, Netanyahu met with
US Secretary of State John Kerry, stressing
the importance of preventing Iran from attaining
nuclear weapons.
He also stressed the importance of sanctions
against Iran, which have brought the
country to talks with the world powers.
(Jerusalem Online)
The US Secretary of State expressed appreciation
for Iran’s new “diplomatic openness” while
emphasizing that Iran must not acquire a nuclear
bomb and must “prove that its nuclear program
is for peaceful proposes.”
Kerry said that diplomacy is the preferred approach,
and this Monday at a Ploughshares Fund Gala at the
US Institute of Peace, he said that it would be “the
height of irresponsibility” to let “fear tactics and
forces that suggest otherwise” block negotiations.
(Times of Israel)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with
US Secretary of State John Kerry in Rome last week.
Irish Journalist Tests Sweden’s
Anti-Semitism by Wearing a Kippah
Irish journalist Patrick Reilly recently tested
the waters of anti-Semitism in Sweden by
publicly appearing to be Jewish for a few
hours in the southern Swedish town of Malmö.
In response to complaints about anti-Semitism made
by the local Jewish community and Jewish tourists,
Reilly put on a kippah (head covering), an identifiable
symbol of Judaism, to see firsthand what those
who are visibly Jewish experience. (HaAretz)
One local Jewish resident, Shmuel Goldberg, one of
ew who dare to appear in public wearing the traditional
Jewish head covering, warned Reilly to be careful.
Goldberg knows only too well that the wearing the
kippah has resulted in verbal abuse and in one incident,
he was almost physically attacked.
A Jewish man wears a kippah while praying at
the Western (Wailing) Wall in Jerusalem
Reilly made a point of avoiding areas of the city
known for racial discrimination and even violence,
areas tourists usually wouldn’t visit anyway.
“The idea was to go about my normal day
and also visit places which a potential
tourist may go to, albeit with one major
difference—the kippah clipped to the back
of my head.” (The Local)
Approaching the market area of the city that
also houses the local bars that draw a night
crowd, he said he immediately sensed he was
being watched.
“It didn’t take long before I got the feeling
that I was on display,” Reilly said.
Noting that he had walked down the same
street numerous times in the past without
drawing any notice, he felt as if he now had
“two heads” as he drew constant backward
stares.
“As I passed a well-known bar, I spotted some
lunchtime coffee drinkers looking open mouthed
in my direction,” he said.
Malmo, Sweden
Reilly reported that giggles were mixed with the stares
as if the appearance of the small white head
covering was humorous and deserving of laughter.
The stares continued in the center of town, he said,
but were less menacing.
The Irish reporter said he had almost forgotten he
was wearing the kippah when a husky man walked
in his direction and mouthed to his friend “f***ing Jew.”
“It was a reminder that making your Jewish
identity in Malmö obvious carries its own risk.
Frankly, it was a relief to take it off,” he said.
Malmo Synagogue, the only synagogue in Malmo, was bombed in
July 2010.
Reilly, who has lived in Malmö for the last two years,
said he has never felt threatened until he wore the
kippah for a few hours.
The Simon Wiesenthal Centre, which watches over
the interests of Jewish communities worldwide,
issued a travel advisory against visiting Malmö three
years ago due to a surge of anti-Semitism and hate crimes.
For instance, in 2010, Malmö’s only synagogue was
ombed. Last year, a local Jewish community building,
which houses a kindergarten, meeting halls and apartments,
also was bombed.
We live in a world where it is increasingly difficult to be
identifiably Jewish. Like Patrick Reilly, however, most
of us will never know just how difficult that can be until we
walk a mile in the shoes (or in this case, kippah) of the
Jewish People.
We all can, however, stand against anti-Semitism
wherever we see it and stand WITH the Jewish People
today and always.
"Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her
hard service has been completed, that her sin has been
paid for, that she has received from the LORD's hand double
for all her sins." (Isaiah 40:2)
Editor's Note:
