'Aliyah' and Bible Prophecy: Christians Help Israel Welcome New Immigrants - CBN News John Waage

Israel's Newest Citizens Arriving at Ben Gurion Airport, Photo, CBN News, Jonathan Goff

'Aliyah' and Bible Prophecy: Christians Help Israel Welcome 

New Immigrants

07-25-2018

CBN News John Waage

TEL AVIV, Israel – Three hundred Jewish immigrants landed at Israel's Ben Gurion Airport Monday. 

Both Jewish and Christian leaders gave them a joyous welcome, celebrating their "aliyah" during 

Israel's 70th anniversary year. As CBN News John Waage reports, they're helping fulfill Bible prophecy.

In Hebrew, it's called aliyah – or going up to the Land of Israel. These new immigrants are joining 

millions of other Israelis who've made aliyah in the 70 years since Israel became a modern nation.


New immigrants from France, the former Soviet Union and South America at Ben Gurion 

International Airport, Photo, CBN News, Jonathan Goff

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Both outgoing Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharanksy and the new chairman, Isaac Herzog, 

were on hand to greet them.

Nearly 200 of these brand new soon-to-be Israelis are from France, and many of them are children. 

France is just one of a number of countries in Europe and throughout the globe where the danger to 

Jews is growing.

"It's very concerning what's happening in western Europe [and] also in other parts of the world where 

you see anti-Semitism raising its ugly head, whether it's in the form of anti-Semitism or anti-Israel 

sentiments, which are basically just masking anti-Semitism," Angels of Zion Director Danielle Mor 

told CBN News.

Mor says the Jewish Agency has kept a promise since Israel's rebirth as a modern nation 70 years ago.

"Never again! Never again will there be a Jewish person who is in danger, who is full of hope, who 

wants to come to Israel and the doors are closed," she said.

One new arrival, a pianist from France named Thierry Haddad, said radical Muslim anti-Jewish 

violence factored into his move.

"It's more and more true," he said. "Also, the politics [politicians] try to protect, but it's difficult."

Sarah Rachel Levy came alone from Paris. She told CBN News anti-Semitism didn't drive her out. 

It was more of a calling.

"I would be with my people and my God on my land. It was an obligation for me. If I didn't do that 

it's like I am dead. I don't know how to say it."

In addition to the arrivals from France, other immigrants came from the former Soviet Union and 

South America.


Photo, CBN News, Jonathan Goff

Sharansky, a world-renowned human rights activist and former Russian dissident, made aliyah when 

he was released from the Soviet Union in 1978. He told the gathering, "Despite all the challenges of 

today in Israel and despite all the slander against it, Jews continue to make aliyah, and the number of 

immigrants is rising from year to year."

Christian leaders also played a role in the welcome home ceremony. They've been helping Jewish 

immigrants get to Israel for decades. Why?

Tom Hess, director of the All Nations Convocation in Jerusalem, says the 700 references to aliyah 

in the Bible make it clear it's something close to God's heart.

"It says in scripture that God will bring His people back from the north, south, east and west. Most of 

the people have come from the north and the south and the east. But 90 percent of the people outside

of Israel today are in the west. So we know there's going to be a massive aliyah, not only continuing 

from the north, but from the west. God will bring back millions and millions of Jews," Hess said.

PA to Fund Terrorists' Families in 'Blatant' Defiance of Taylor Force Act - CBN News John Waage

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Photo, AP

PA to Fund Terrorists' Families in 'Blatant' Defiance of Taylor Force Act

04-10-2018

CBN News John Waage

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL — The Palestinian Authority has ended a three-year practice of hiding its payments to the families of terrorists and according to a new report in Israel, the move is a "blatant act of defiance" against the United States for passing the Taylor Force Act.

The US Congress approved the Taylor Force Act on March 23 as part of the 2018 Budget bill, which was signed by President Donald Trump.

Named for a US Army veteran who was stabbed to death by a Palestinian terrorist in Tel Aviv two years ago, the Taylor Force Act cuts off nearly all funds from the United States to the PA and the Palestinian Liberation Organization until the Palestinian leadership stops making payments to the families of shahids (martyrs) who are killed while committing acts of terror as well as to families of those who are injured or imprisoned.

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---

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---

The amounts paid to those groups had been hidden for three years. But the Israeli report, released by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC), shows that the PA has openly dedicated about 7 percent of its 2018 budget, about $360 million, to two groups that assist terrorists' families. The two groups are the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs ($165 million) and the Fund for Families of Martyrs and the Injured ($197 million). Both groups are under the jurisdiction of the PLO.

The Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs is run by Palestinian Minister Issa Karake, a member of the Palestinian Authority parliament. According to the ITIC report, he served time in Israel for terrorist activities.

Last month, when US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman called on the PA to condemn acts of terrorism, Karake wrote an op-ed in a Palestinian newspaper calling Friedman "the most loyal propagandist of the occupation, the settlers and the criminals."

The Fund for Families of Martyrs and the Injured is headed by Intissar al-Wazir (aka, Umm Jihad), one of the highest ranking women in the PA and widow of Khalil al-Wazir (aka, Abu Jihad), a senior military commander of the Palestinian Fatah party who was killed in Tunisia.

The ITIC's report introduction concludes that the payment disclosure "is a blatant act of defiance against the United States, which recently passed the Taylor Force Act."

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas gave a hint of how he would respond to US calls to end his pay to slay policy when he told viewers on Official Palestinian TV in January, "There is something that the Americans are telling us to stop – the salaries of the Martyrs and the Martyrs' families. Of course we categorically reject this. We will not under any circumstances allow anyone to harm the families of prisoners, the wounded and the martyrs. They are our children and they are our families. They honor us, and we will continue to pay them before the living."

Hamas Vows 'Millions of Martyrs' and Cash for Injuries and Deaths in New Gaza Border Clashes - CBN News John Waage

Hamas Vows 'Millions of Martyrs' and Cash for Injuries and Deaths in New Gaza Border Clashes

04-06-2018

CBN News John Waage

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL—As expected, thousands of protesters backed by Hamas burned hundreds of tires, sending plumes of black smoke billowing over the border with Israel. 

The Gaza Health Ministry reports seven Palestinian protesters died, at least one of them a member of a terror group, as the rioters tried for a second week to cross into Israel. They also claim several hundred were injured, but those numbers could not be confirmed.

The crowd appeared to be "significantly smaller," according to Israeli Defense Forces estimates, than the 30,000 who took part last Friday in "March of Return" protests to take back Arab villages lost to Israel in the 1948 war.

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---

Hundreds of Hamas supporters gathered around their shadowy leader Yehiyeh Sinwar at the border and chanted, "We are going to Jerusalem, millions of martyrs." 

In a defiant public threat, Sinwar vowed to "breach the borders."

Hamas is promoting injuries and deaths for it followers, announcing Friday it would pay the families of those killed or injured, ranging from $200 to $500 per injury and $3,000 per death.

Israel's military made good on its warning that it would again use live fire to prevent incursions. The military also released video showing Palestinians trying to tear down the border fence.

Palestinians burned tires to obscure the view of Israeli snipers poised to take out Gazans who managed to cross the border.  

The Jerusalem Post published a quote from the Israeli military which read, "There have been several attempts to hit and cross the fence under the smoke of the tires. In addition, a number of attempted attacks were carried out, including the throwing of explosive charges, Molotov cocktails and sabotage of the fence, all under the protection of the smoke."

Hamas has said it will continue the March of Return demonstrations for five more weeks, culminating in a massive protest on the anniversary day of what they call Al-Nakba (the so-called "Catastrophe"), which is Israel's Independence Day, May 15th on the Gregorian calendar.  

Did you know?

Friedman: US to Move Embassy to Jerusalem under Trump - CBN News John Waage

US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman

Friedman: US to Move Embassy to Jerusalem under Trump

09-05-2017

CBN News John Waage

JERUSALEM, Israel – U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman stirred up some controversy in the Muslim world when he told the Jerusalem Post what President Donald Trump pledged on the 2016 campaign trail for months: that the U.S. will ultimately move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Friedman said the president has made his position clear on the embassy move and that it is a matter of "when," not "if."  Vice President Mike Pence used the exact same description in July.

In Friedman's wide-ranging interview with the Post, he explained that the only issue remaining concerning the embassy move is the timing. "We think about that all the time," he added.

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---

Palestinian representatives and their supporters were also upset by Friedman's reference to Israel's "alleged occupation" of Judea and Samaria (a/k/a the West Bank). It was a phrase in the Post interview in which Friedman was explaining how there are much more nuanced views among both the left and right in Israel than he had imagined before becoming ambassador. But it was seized upon in a number of media outlets.

One unnamed Palestinian official called on the Trump administration to clarify its position on the West Bank. He told The Guardian that Friedman "has an extensive record of attacks against the national rights of the Palestinian people, including funding illegal colonial settlements and participating in celebrations of the Israeli occupation."

Israel considers the territory to be disputed rather than occupied.

Last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared the uprooting of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria has ended.

Friedman described Trump's relationship with Netanyahu as "phenomenal."

Israel: We'll Bomb Assad's Palace if Iran Expands in Syria - CBN News John Waage

Israel: We'll Bomb Assad's Palace if Iran Expands in Syria

08-28-2017

CBN News John Waage

JERUSALEM, Israel – A senior Israeli official has issued a warning to Russia that the Israeli military will bomb Syrian President Bashar Assad's palace in Damascus if Russia allows Iran to make military advances in Syria.

The official added another caution in the Al-Hayat al-Jadida newspaper that if regional changes don't take place in the current advance by Iran, Israel will act to scuttle the Syrian ceasefire deal recently concluded by the U.S. and Russian governments in Kazakhstan.

The warnings came during a meeting last week on the Black Sea between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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Joel Rosenberg: Syria is Trump vs. Putin

---

According to Reuters, Netanyahu told Putin, "Iran is already well on its way to controlling Iraq, Yemen and to a large extent is already in practice in control of Lebanon."

He said Israel will act unilaterally if need be to halt Iran's influence in Syria and added, "We cannot forget for a single minute that Iran threatens every day to annihilate Israel."

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Israel Supporters Meet to Counter BDS Movement, Free Speech Threats - CBN News John Waage

Israel Supporters Meet to Counter BDS Movement, Free Speech Threats

04-12-2016

CBN News John Waage

LOS ANGELES – Israel's enemies number in the millions worldwide, but not all of them carry guns or wear suicide vests. Israel also faces an economic and cultural war, and the battlefield is on college and university campuses, courts and even churches.

The BDS movement, which stands for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, seeks to achieve by economic and cultural attack what Israel's adversaries have failed to achieve in military battle: a defeat of the Jewish state.

Last week, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat tried to speak to a group of students at San Francisco State University. But protesters at the gathering began to shout "Free Palestine" and other slogans until the mayor could not be heard. It's the latest of many incidents on university grounds in the U.S. and elsewhere in which the free speech rights of Israelis and others have been trampled by demonstrators.

To counter the growing reach of the BDS movement, a group of Israel's defenders came this week to a StandWithUs conference in downtown Los Angeles. The participants hope to fight the deluge of anti-Israel hostility at academic institutions, on social media and in the global economy.

Shir, an Israeli student from Tel Aviv University, told CBN News of her experience of being shouted down when she went to speak at a university in Tampa, Florida. Anti-Israel demonstrators called her a war criminal.

"They waited outside the class, and we had to have a police escort to our cars because they kept following us and calling us names," she recalled. "They yelled, 'How can you sleep at night' and 'You are a murderer!'"

Alon, a former Israeli soldier who has lived and studied in Latin America, described how he has been bombarded from friends abroad asking pointed questions about Israel on social media. Their questions usually reflect no understanding of the true situation in the Middle East.

Alon also was severely harassed on a U.S. campus. He said protesters were "standing up, screaming, not even having an open discussion; just throwing up comments in the air without any open dialogue."

"You can see I'm standing here," Alon exclaimed at the Los Angeles conference. "I'm a civilized human being. I'm not a war machine."

San Diego attorney Micha Danzig does pro-bono work for people threatened by the BDS movement and he is an advisor to StandWithUs. He's angered that the freest society in the Middle East, Israel, is singled out for harsh sanctions with the help of serial human rights abusers in the rest of the world, including China, North Korea, Cuba and a number of Arab regimes in Israel's neighborhood.

"It's freedom of speech for me, but not for thee, and that is what is the mantra of the BDS supporters on campuses," Danzig said. He acknowledged that, like the U.S., Israel is not perfect, but maintained that it is just and good.

"When you're saying that the one Jewish state is so deserving of this (economic and cultural attack), then you uniquely attribute all this evil to one Jewish state," Danzig explained.

"That can't help but spill over to Jews on campus," he continued. "It can't help but spill over to Jewish businesses, to people who are supportive of Israel, to Zionists, non-Jewish Zionists, Christian Zionists who support Israel. They become the focus of this vitriol and hate – not just Israel."

Several mainline Protestant churches are involved in the BDS economic war on Israel. The push began in the United Nations, targeting Israel for divestment in the same way churches targeted apartheid South Africa in the 1980s.

StandWithUs CEO Roz Rothstein told CBN News many church leaders have bought into a campaign of disinformation and a pro-Palestinian narrative that distorts the true picture in the Middle East, often without the knowledge of their parishioners.

"Often times, it's not the people in the pews that are angry at Israel. It's the people in leadership positions that are moving in this direction and on false information and half-truths," Rothstein said. She also expressed gratitude for the millions of Christians who do support Israel.  

"I'm a daughter of Holocaust survivors and I'm personally grateful to the community for standing shoulder to shoulder with Israel and the Jewish people on these very difficult issues during these BDS campaigns," she said.

In the meantime, more than a dozen state legislatures are considering or have passed laws and resolutions that would restrict various types of business and other participation in the BDS movement, and more action is expected as lawmakers come to terms with the impact on the movement on one of America's closest allies.

Israeli Film Festival Hopes for More Faith Films by John Waage CBN News

Israeli Film Festival Hopes 

for More Faith Films

By John Waage

CBN News Sr. Editor

Friday, November 20, 2015

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ENCINO, Calif. -- For three weeks, Israeli filmmakers have showcased their works in and around Los Angeles. The 29th annual Israel Film Festival wraps up this week.

Organizers of the annual event are happy with this year's turnout. Meir Fenigstein, founder and executive director of IsraFest Foundation, Inc., says the films on display in Hollywood's backyard featured young filmmakers.

"Almost, I can say, 29 years, we never had so many first-time filmmakers making their first feature film," he said. "And that's very interesting because you feel that it is a new upcoming industry, a new wave of younger filmmakers."

Fenigstein says the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the dominant theme in past years, but today's films deal with Israeli culture and tell stories.

And while the films about faith are growing in the U.S., they're not so popular in Israel, the cradle of both Judaism and Christianity. In the future, organizers hope to include more films about faith.

"You don't see many films about faith -- very few. I don't know why. Maybe the Israelis are not very religious -- at least the filmmakers. So this is not such a topic they are interested in," he said.

But that may change. Fenigstein is already planning for next year's festival, the 30th anniversary, and he hopes to include Christians.

"We want to be more connected to the Christian community," he said. "We're already there. And we want to do a really special event with the Christian community and to bring them in to see at least one right Israeli film -- that would be right for them to watch -- and to bring them to be close to Israel."

Watch report: CBN News - Israeli Films

Opinion: Palestinian Terrorists Aiming to Replace ISIS as 'Chief Butchers'? - Erick Stakelbeck, CBN News

Erick Stakelbeck -  CBN

Opinion: Palestinian Terrorists Aiming to Replace ISIS as 'Chief Butchers'?

By John Waage

CBN News Sr. Editor

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Both Arab and Israeli observers of the daily stabbing attacks by Palestinians in Jerusalem and other Israeli cities say the terrorists seem to be modeling their attacks after the beheadings conducted by ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

Palestinian cartoonists frequently celebrate the stabbings with cartoons on social media. One shows a woman wearing the Muslim hijab stabbing a pig dripping blood with a star of David on its back.

Last week in an interview with CBN News, Israeli Infrastructure Minister Yuval Steinitz warned that some of the attacks in Israel look as if they came from the ISIS playbook.

Are Palestinian terrorists adopting ISIS's tactics? CBN News Terrorism Erick Stakelbeck addressed that and more on Newswatch, Oct. 19.

Click here to watch the CBN News interview: Erick Stakelbeck

"The fact that they're waving knives, coming to people's necks, trying to cut them or behead them -- I'm confident that at least some of these terrorists were not just indoctrinated but inspired also from ISIS," Steinitz said.

Palestinian journalist Bassam Tawil confirms the suspicion in a powerful article for the Gatestone Institute.

"They (the Palestinian terrorists) are trying to replace Islamic State jihadis as the chief "butchers" of humans in the Middle East," Tawil wrote.

"How can our leaders in Ramallah accuse Jews of 'contaminating' the Al Aqsa Mosque with their 'filthy feet' at a time when our youths burn a religious site such as Joseph's Tomb?" Tawil asked.

"The attacks are an attempt to erase history so that Jews will not be able to claim any religious ties to the land. This is exactly what the Islamic State is doing in Syria and Iraq," he added.

ISIS confirmed its support for the Palestinian attacks with the release of a video on social media Monday. A masked spokesman praised the Palestinian attackers as "lone wolves who refuse to be subdued and spread fear among the sons of Zion."

The ISIS media campaign, unprecdented in scope, calls for Palestinians to continue the attacks on soldiers and civilians, using "every means at their disposal, including knives, vehicles, poison and explosives."

With this as a backdrop, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will meet Thursday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Germany.

White House and State Department responses to the wave of violence have been tepid and laced with the usual moral equivalence between Israel and the Palestinian leaders, who have in large measure sparked the violence as well as applauded it.

A more appropriate response would be to condemn without qualification the spread of terror throughout the Palestinian territories and the ISIS connection, including the incitement to violence and the celebration of it in the Palestinian media.

Democratic presidential candidates might also help by demanding a more robust response from their president.

Republicans in Congress could help by tracking the flow of hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars to the Palestinian Authority and forcing a public account of where our tax dollars are being spent.

Get with it, Washington, or your approval ratings will drop even further.

Children of the Holocaust: Stars without a Heaven

Children of the Holocaust: 

Stars without a Heaven

By John Waage

CBN News Sr. Editor

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

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JERUSALEM, Israel -- This is Holocaust Remembrance week, 70 years after the Allies opened the Nazi death camps and found the vortex of 6 million Jewish dead.

Today, fewer than 100,000 survivors remain, but Israelis are working hard to keep their memory alive.

It's difficult to grasp the horror and destruction of the Nazi killing machine. One-third of the world's Jews were murdered. The pain and scars endure to the next generation.

David Hershkoviz would hear his mother screaming in her sleep as she relived the agony: a German soldier separated her from her own mother, who died at Auschwitz.

"She didn't speak about the gas chambers because she wasn't there. She didn't speak about the fact that they were burning bodies; she wasn't there. But during the separation she was there, and that separation didn't leave her," he told CBN News, choking back tears.

Hershkoviz's mother died two years ago. But through a "second generation" study course in central Israel, he's keeping her story alive. The Shem Olam Holocaust Institute is educating people like Hershkoviz to tell their stories when the Holocaust survivors are gone.

The Institute's director, Avraham Kreiger, said many children didn't ask tough questions of their parents.

"How did their parents deal with guilt questions during those moments? How did they go through the difficult moments of separation, of leaving, of difficult decisions? They weren't able to ask this and apparently, the parents weren't able to answer," Kreiger told CBN News.

Meanwhile in Jerusalem, the Yad VaShem Holocaust Memorial Museum tells more stories in an exhibition called "Children in the Holocaust: Stars without a Heaven," with dolls and sketches.

Holocaust survivor Inna Rennet Rehavi's teddy bear is on display. She carried the bear during a remarkable escape with her mother from the train car leading them to Auschwitz.

"Teddy lasted better than I did, and many others. He is more war wounded than I am since he is missing an ear and an arm; but he was a real hero," Rehavi said.