Why Believers Should Diligently Pray for Israel This Coming Week - JONATHAN FELDSTEIN CHARISMA NEWS

Israel desperately needs your prayers for next week's peace summit in Paris. (Flickr )

Why Believers Should Diligently Pray for Israel This Coming Week

1/13/2017 JONATHAN FELDSTEIN  CHARISMA NEWS

On Jan. 15, leaders from some 70-plus countries will meet in Paris to discuss issues relating to the Arab-Israel conflict, specifically between the Palestinians and Israel.

There's deep and legitimate concern that following the one-sided U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334 last month, that this Paris gathering will be the next step to yet another one-sided U.N. Resolution, possibly recognizing "Palestine" as a full state, setting its borders as the 1949 armistice lines and performing other unilateral actions that are not only deeply biased, but make peace harder than easier to reach. (For background, you can look at these articles from bridgesforpeace.com and the Jerusalem Post).

Political and civic leaders in Israel, the U.S. and other countries surely are working actively to prevent pontificating in Paris from becoming anything that forces Israel into a corner. I can only imagine the frenzied diplomatic jockeying at every level. 

In addition to these important and necessary actions, it's also a time for prayer. As one friend suggested, he will be fasting. Christians and Jews need to stand together and pray together for God to ensure a positive outcome. I asked others what they would pray for.

These are some of the responses I received:

• "We are with you in this war. Our hope is in God, not in man. Only God can show the way."
• "God has been leading me to Esther because He is looking for those that will not stay silent in such troubling times for Israel. The Scripture I have been reading over and over is: "For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?"
• "Each of us is given areas of influence, and it's time for us to rise up and speak on behalf of the land given to the Jewish people to those in our sphere of influence. I pray we will not remain silent, but we will see an Esther generation coming forth in this time and season." 
• "We too are in a week of prayer and fasting. We will be lifting up Israel in much prayer."
• "The heart of our prayer is that the eyes of the world's understanding will be opened in the knowledge of God, to know the importance of Israel in God's plan of salvation, that the blindness that deceives the world concerning Israel will be removed, and all will come to the love of God in support of Israel. We wrestle not with flesh and blood but with powers of darkness. The core problem is spiritual blindness. Only God can open the eyes of the blind."
• "We pray for our fellow believers who are deceived by the wiles of Satan. It is difficult for us as follows of Jesus to understand how fellow Christians cannot see God's plan for Israel. That they will come to know God's mystery of joining Jew and Gentile together in the eternal covenant given to Abraham and all of its promises. May we all come to know the truth."
• "I am praying Proverbs 2:1-15, "My son, if you will receive my words, and hide my commandments within you, so that you incline your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding; yes, if you cry out for knowledge, and lift up your voice for understanding, if you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom; out of His mouth come knowledge and understanding. He lays up sound wisdom for the righteous; He is a shield to those who walk uprightly. He keeps the paths of justice, and preserves the way of His saints. Then you will understand righteousness and judgment and equity, and every good path. When wisdom enters your heart, and knowledge is pleasant to your soul, discretion will preserve you; understanding will keep you, to deliver you from the way of the evil man, from the man who speaks perverse things, from those who leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness; who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the perversity of the wicked; whose ways are crooked, and who are devious in their paths.
• "I'm planning a time of prayer with friends on Saturday in preparation for Sunday's conference in Paris. Psalm 2 has been a source of prayer and encouragement to me to pray for the conference. I have prayed that God would confuse and confound all the plans and proceedings of the nations gathered together. I love the picture of God laughing, He will have the last laugh, and I am reminded of the saying 'He who laughs last laughs loudest.'"
• "I have thought of Esther and Haman and the plans that Haman had for the Jews and how God, in His wisdom and power, reversed them all, so that what Haman meant for evil, He used for good. So, I pray that God will use for good all that Satan wants to use for evil."
• "We are standing with you, dear brother, and all of our beloved Israel. We will not give up and we will not turn our backs."

As Jews worldwide read the Torah portion, Genesis 47:28-50:26, this week, we look to that section of Scripture for a relevant word for today's current events. Before Jacob died, he asked to be buried with his forefathers: "Then he charged them and said to them, 'I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought along with the field from Ephron the Hittite as a burial place. They buried Abraham and Sarah his wife there. They buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife there, and I buried Leah there. The field and the cave that is there were purchased from the children of Heth'" (Gen. 37:29-32). 

Let the nations of the world that gather in Paris not have the hubris to call the Land occupied, not when we know that it was deeded by God Himself, parts purchased to avoid any confusion, and because the people to whom God gave the Land cannot be "occupiers" in that Land when they are the owners.

I pray this will be a catalyst for far more prayer than politics, as the latter is important, but the former is essential. I pray you will add your prayers, share this article, and that together, millions like us will beseech God to continue to protect Israel throughout, and as a result of, this Paris gathering. And as the Torah continues in verse 20, let this be the model for Paris among those who mean evil against Israel: "But as for you, you intended to harm me, but God intended it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many lives" (Gen. 50:20). 

What is your prayer? 

Jonathan Feldstein was born and educated in the U.S. and immigrated to Israel in 2004. He is married and the father of six. Throughout his life and career, he has been blessed by the calling to fellowship with Christian supporters of Israel and shares experiences of living as an Orthodox Jew in Israel. He writes a regular column for Standing With Israel at charismanews.com. He can be reached at firstpersonisrael@gmail.com.

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13 False Statements About Israel You Hear Constantly - THE ALGEMEINER STAFF CHARISMA NEWS

View of the Har Homa, an Israeli settlement in Jerusalem (Wikimedia Commons )

13 False Statements About Israel You Hear Constantly

 8/11/2016 THE ALGEMEINER STAFF  CHARISMA NEWS

Mainstream Western media coverage of Israel is laced with expressions intentionally crafted to delegitimize the Jewish State. The good news, is that these terms weren't written in stone 3,300 years ago, but they are post-Israel independence creations.

By using this language, Israel's history is forfeited. Here are 13 phrases people must stop repeating:

1. "West Bank": Claims that "Judea and Samaria" are simply the "biblical name for the West Bank" stands history on its head. The Hebrew-origin terms "Judea" and "Samaria" were used through 1950, when invading [Trans]Jordan renamed them the "West Bank" in order to disassociate these areas of the Jewish homeland from Jews. The U.N.'s own 1947 partition resolution referred not to "West Bank," but to "the hill country of Samaria and Judea." This term is not shorthand for "Judea and Samaria." Under this formulation, Jordan is the "East Bank" of the original Palestine Mandate, which was designated as the homeland for the Jewish People.

2. "East" Jerusalem or "traditionally Arab East" Jerusalem: From the city's second millennium BCE origins until 1947 CE, there was no such place as "East" Jerusalem. The 19 years between when invading Jordan captured part of the city in 1948 and was ousted by Israel in 1967 was the only time in history, except between 638 and 1099, when Arabs ruled any part of Jerusalem. Palestinian Arabs have not ruled an inch of it for one day in history. In the past three millennia, Jerusalem has been the capital of three native states—Judah, Judaea and modern Israel—and has had a renewed Jewish majority since 19th-century Turkish rule. Eastern Jerusalem is a neighborhood of the city that Israel reunified in 1967.

3. "The U.N. sought to create Jewish and Palestinian States": It did not. Partitioning Palestine between "Palestinians" and Jews is like partitioning Pennsylvania between Pennsylvanians and Jews. Over and over in its 1947 partition resolution, the U.N. referenced "the Jewish State" and "the Arab" [not "Palestinian"] State.

4. 1948 was the "creation" and "founding" of  Israel: Israel wasn't "created" and "founded" in 1948 artificially and out-of-the-blue. Israel attained independence that year as the natural fruition into renewed statehood of a people who had twice before been independent in that land, and after centuries of hard work to re-establish a Jewish State in this historic homeland.

5. "The War that Followed Israel's Creation": Israel did not choose this war; it was forced on Israel by almost every Arab state, which rejected the U.N. partition and tried to push the Jews of Israel into the sea. And it was a homeland Jewish army, the Haganah, which became the IDF, that threw back that multination foreign invasion.

6. "Palestinian refugees of the war that followed Israel's creation," or the "Palestinian refugee issue": It was the invading Arab nations bent on Israel's destruction that both encouraged and caused the bulk of the Arabs to flee Israel. And a greater number of media constantly ignore the indigenous Middle Eastern Jews who were expelled from vast Arab and other Muslim lands in the wake of the Arab-Israeli War. Their number is greater than the amount of Arabs that fled tiny Israel. That Israel absorbed the bulk of these Jews, while Arab "hosts," including in Palestine itself, isolate the Arab refugees' descendants in Western-supported "refugee camps" does not convert the Arab-Israeli conflict's two-sided refugee issue into a "Palestinian" refugee issue. Had the Palestinian Arabs accepted the U.N. partition plan, they would also have been celebrating their 66th anniversary.

7.  Israel "Seized" Arab Lands in 1967:  It did not. The 1967 war, like its predecessors, was a defensive war forced upon Israel. Israel's neighbors did not want to compromise; they simply wanted to destroy the Jewish State. The new Israeli territory was meant to provide a security barrier and ensure this could never happen. Moreover, these were not "Arab Lands."

8. Israel's "1967 Borders": The 1949 Israel-Jordan Armistice Agreement expressly declared the "green line" it drew between the two sides' ceasefire positions as a military ceasefire line only, without prejudice to either side's political border claims. The post-'67 war U.N. resolution 242 pointedly did not demand Israel retreat from these lines.

9. "Israeli-Occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem": That the media insistently calls Israeli presence in the heart of Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria "Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories" does not make it so. "Occupation" is an international law term referencing foreign presence in the sovereign territory of another state. The land of Israel's last sovereign native state before modern Israel was Jewish Judaea. The land ratio of Arab lands to Israel is 625-1, 23 states to one.

10. "Jewish settlers and settlements" vs. "Palestinian residents of neighborhoods and villages": A favorite media news article contrast is referencing in the same sentence "Jewish settlers" in "settlements" and "Palestinian residents" of nearby "neighborhoods" and "villages." Jews are not alien "settlers" in a Jerusalem that's had a Jewish majority since 19th-century times or in the Judea-Samaria Jewish historical heartland.

11. Israel's "Jewish State" recognition is "a new stumbling block": New since Moses' time. The Jewish homeland of Israel, including continuous homeland-claiming Jewish presence, has always been central to Jewish peoplehood. In 1947, British Foreign Secretary Bevin told Parliament that the Jews' "essential point of principle" was Jewish Palestine sovereignty.

12. "Palestinians accept, and Israel rejects, a Two-State Solution": Wrong on both counts. Both the U.S. and Israel define 'Two States' as two states for two peoples—Jews and Arabs. Many on the Arab side reject two states for two peoples. Many Israelis, including Prime Minister Netanyahu, support that plan—conditioned on an end to Palestinian terror. The Arabs continuously and consistently deny Israel's right to exist as the nation-state of the Jewish People, no matter where its borders are drawn.

13. "THE Palestinians": The United Nations' 1947 partition resolution called Palestine's Arabs and Jews "the two Palestinian peoples." Nothing is more self-delegitimizing and counter-productive to achieving peace based on Arab recognition of Jews' right to be there, than that people should go around calling Palestinian Arabs "The Palestinians." They have no distinguishing language, religion or culture from neighboring Arabs and have never been sovereign in Palestine, whereas the Jews, with a presence stretching back three millennia, have had three states there, all Jerusalem-based. Most Palestinian Arabs cannot trace their own lineage to the land back more than four generations. 

For the original article, visit algemeiner.com.

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Israel, Archeology and Post-Modern Gobbledygook - Tsvi Sadan ISRAEL TODAY

Israel, Archeology and Post-Modern Gobbledygook

Monday, August 08, 2016 |  Tsvi Sadan  ISRAEL TODAY

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Archeology

Archeology and Palestine is a mismatch simply because there are no archeological Palestinian sites. At best archeology can inform us about Muslim life and culture since the 7th century AD. This is of little use to archeologists who are willing to compromise their discipline in the name of political agenda. 

If one would ask about Zionists harnessing archeology for their political ends, they have done that, but they at least didn't have to fabricate Jewish archeology.Archibald Sayce didn't fabricate the Siloam Inscriptionand Yigael Yadin didn't forge the Dead Sea Scrolls. 

Further still, no Jewish archeologist was ever involved in institutionalized destruction of Muslim artifacts and systematic elimination of evidences of Muslim presence in the Land of Israel.

Palestinian archeologists and their sympathetic comrades are doing whatever they can to subvert archeology in such a way as to erase any Jewish link to "the Land of Palestine." Jordanian official Raef Yusuf Najm is representative of this official Palestinian policy, claiming that "throughout history, Muslims and Christians have lived in Al Quds (Jerusalem) as one Palestinian people. Their coexistence was marred only by the Crusade invasions, then the Zionist and colonialist Israeli invasion which is trying to judaize the land and the people through all forms of crime and tyranny."

This effort to erase Jewish archeology as a way of weakening Israel is supported by the New Israel Fund (NIF), a subversive organization whose real aim is to turn Israel into a democratic, rather than a Jewish-democratic state. 

In one of its latest Facebook posts, NIF proudly announced its support of Emek Shaveh, an organization of Israeli archeologists that has teamed up with their Palestinian counterparts. So unaware of their betrayal of their academic discipline, Emek Shaveh proclaims on its website that the group is made up of "archaeologists and community activists focusing on the role of archaeology in Israeli society and in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

One of archeology's roles is to dispel the notion that it can support the Jewish claim to the land. The founder of Emek Shaveh, archeologist Gideon Sulimani, exited NIF when he said that "a nation or religion should not use archeological artifacts as a proof of land ownership." This, however, is a strange accusation considering that Jews have prayed to return to Jerusalem long before the idea of archeology was ever conceived. At worst, Israeli archeologists were trying too hard to produce scientific evidences for the traditional Jewish claim of Israel being the land of their fathers.

Emek Shaveh has radically departed from "Zionist archeology." If fact, this organ is not interested in proving anything, least of all proving Jewish presence in this land.

Truth is not what they are after. These "scientists" are in the business of peace, and for the sake of that goal truth can be manipulated, denied and locked in post-modern gobbledygook. 

A masterpiece of truth-evasion is found in their brochure entitled "Frequent Questions about Jerusalem's Old City." Consider this sentence alone: "Archaeology can support different historical scenarios, but it neither conclusively proves nor absolutely disproves them." In other words, if one so wishes, archeology can support the Palestinian narrative. All that needs to be done is to say that David is not conclusively Jewish. Likewise, since no blood stains or pieces of priestly garments can be found on the Temple Mount, evidences of ancient Jewish religious warship there can't be regarded as conclusive. 

Though seeking peace is admirable, one has to wonder how such damaging dishonesty can advance it.

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When Delta Airlines tried to Make an Anti-Israel Statement on Their Website, It Was a Huge Mistake

Israel Video Network

Published: April 24, 2016

WHERE DID THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE COME FROM? - By Shira Sorko-Ram MAOZ ISRAEL

Map of Palestine created in 1873. Note that most names on the map are from Biblical times
when the People of Israel lived in Israel. Almost no areas of habitation originated during
the Ottoman Empire’s occupation of the Holy Land.

WHERE DID THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE 

COME FROM?

Monthly Report: March 2016
Adar I - Adar II 5776

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By Shira Sorko-Ram

No one argues the fact that the Holy Land - along with the rest of the Middle East - was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire for 400 years until the British captured the ancient land of Israel in 1917.

What most people don’t know is that during the Ottoman period, the concept of a nation-state with fixed borders was foreign to Arabs. It was entirely a European concept. Among Arabs, their strongest identity was religion and language, Islam and Arabic. Today Arabs still see themselves as part of the “Arab nation” which is actually made up of 22 Arab states.

It’s not that there was no other identifiable territory in the Middle East. Egypt was Egypt from ancient times. Syria was also a known region. In fact, before the British arrived, Arabs living in and around the Holy Land directed their allegiance to Damascus; they identified themselves as Southern Syrians.

So where did “Palestine” come from? Western maps of Palestine were printed in Bibles, probably from the time there were printing presses. Such maps created in the 19th century are easily found on the Internet. But these maps show primarily the ancient tribes of Israel and their cities and towns, not maps of “Palestine” recording villages and towns existing in the 1800’s.

HADRIAN’S ATTEMPT TO ERADICATE ISRAEL

The name “Palestine” was imposed on the Holy Land by the Roman emperor Hadrian in 135 A.D.

“Almost 2,000 years ago, the Roman Emperor Hadrian cursed the Jewish People and decreed that Judea should henceforth be called “Palestine” after the Philistines, an ancient enemy of Israel that had disappeared from the world’s stage more than 600 years earlier. It was his final twist of the knife and legacy after wars, massacres, persecutions, and exiles that had largely extinguished the Jewish presence from Judea.” (www.think-israel.org)

As for maps created even in the 1800’s, there was little real-time inhabited areas to record. The fact that God had cursed the actual land of the Israelites because of their sins could be witnessed by anyone who visited there. The land had lain bare and desolate for centuries. (Leviticus 26:32, Jeremiah 18:16 are examples of the curse.)

Travelers like Mark Twain, who visited the area, all testified that few people lived in the Holy Land except for Bedouin crisscrossing the land according to the seasons and small villages scattered here and there.

A travel guide to Palestine and Syria published in 1876 by Karl Baedeker illustrates the fact that even when the Islamic Ottoman Empire ruled the region, the Muslim population in Jerusalem was minimal. But important to history, there were always Jews living in the “Four Holy Cities: Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed and Tiberius.

Baedeker estimated the total population of Jerusalem to be 60,000 - 2 MAOZ ISRAEL REPORT MARCH 2016 By Shira Sorko-Ram 7,000 Muslims, 13,000 Christians and 40,000 Jews. (https://archive.org)

THE LAND OF ISRAEL IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

In New Testament times, the authors of the Gospels spoke of the people of Israel living in the land of Israel. Matthew records the angel speaking to Joseph in a dream - who was in Egypt with Mary and Baby Yeshua - to return to the land of Israel.

Yeshua, the apostles and the New Testament continued to speak of the Holy Land as Judea, Samaria and Israel. Never Palestine. Speaking of His return in the Last Days, Yeshua said,

But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say to you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, until the Son of man shall have come. (Matthew 10:23)

THE BRITISH INTRODUCE “PALESTINE” TO ARABS

When the British conquered the Ottoman Empire, they came with their maps and documents designating the land as Palestine. The Arabs were furious. They saw the name coming from the Christian Crusader world and saw it as a victory for the “Zionists.” Not a single prominent Muslim endorsed the renaming of the region as “Palestine” in 1920; all protested it. (www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

Indeed, for decades other identities - Syrian, Arab, and Muslim - continued to compete with the Palestinian brand.

The next step of Britain and France was to divide up the whole Middle East into different nation-states. They did so according to their own European interests, not necessarily what was good or even natural to the area. Natural divisions would have been more in line with Arab religious sects - such as Shiite, Sunni, Alawite and Druze, etc. Peoples such as the Kurds, who have a very strong identity as a religion, language and a people, were not given their own nation - a huge problem and injustice, even until today. Artificially created states by Europeans is one of the reasons for the instability of the Middle East.

ARABS MIGRATE TO THE HOLY LAND

But back to the Palestinians - of which in 1920, there were none. However, major demographic transformation was taking place. Waves of new Arabs began to flood into the area to find jobs as Jewish immigrants rebuilt towns and businesses in the Holy Land after 2000 years in the diaspora.

The return of Jewish people was accompanied by economic prosperity for the region and Arabs migrated to enjoy the higher standard of living.

Winston Churchill said in 1939: “So far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied till their population has increased more than even all world Jewry could lift up the Jewish population.” (www.wnd.com)

NUMBER OF JEWS IMMIGRATING INCREASES

The number of Jews continued to increase in the first decades of the 20th century in spite of the fact that the Turks tried to keep Jews from immigrating or buying property.

When the British mandated the name “Palestine” for the Holy Land, the Jews who arrived called themselves Palestinians. But not the Arabs. In fact, many Jewish institutions in the Biblical land were called Palestinian; “The Jerusalem Post” was called “The Palestine Post” until 1950.

The Arabs, on the other hand, continued to resist the Palestinian name. In 1937, a Palestinian Arab leader named Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi told Britain’s Peel Commission that “there is no such country [as Palestine]! ‘Palestine’ is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria.” (www.camera.org)

The facts are incontrovertible. When the Balfour Declaration was written in 1917, there was nary a mention of a Palestinian people, because they simply didn’t exist. The Balfour document spoke of dividing “Palestine” between Jews and Arabs. Likewise, the United Nations in 1947 declared “Palestine” to be divided between Jews and Arabs. No Palestinians in sight.

When I moved to Israel in 1967, after the Six Day War, I had numerous conversations with Arabs living in both Israel proper and the West Bank. I didn’t even hear the term “Palestinian” from any Arabs at that time. There was definitely confusion among Arabs who found themselves suddenly a part of the Israeli nation. 

One Arab born in Israel told me, “I’m not an Arab, I’m a Christian.” Another Muslim acquaintance living on the Mount of Olives told me, “I’m a Jordanian Arab.” That of course was because when the British army withdrew from the Holy Land in 1948, the Jordanian king seized Judea and Samaria and the Old City of Jerusalem. Egypt seized Gaza.

A PALESTINIAN PEOPLE CREATED TO DESTROY ISRAEL

When Israel became a newly-born state in 1948, the Middle East Arabs immediately began to plot the destruction of Israel. This is a hard statement that nations tend to ignore. But it comes from the mouth of the Arab leaders themselves.

Enter Yasser Arafat, a native-born Egyptian with a passion to liberate Palestine from the Jews. After finishing his education in Egypt, he moved to Kuwait and met two official members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. These two men, Abu Iyad and Abu Jihad, later became Arafat’s top aides.

In 1959 when Israel was only 11 years old, Arafat formed an organization called “Fatah,” “dedicated to the liberation of Palestine through armed struggle.”

My own first visit to Israel and Jordan was in 1959. My strongest memory is of the Old City of Jerusalem (then occupied by Jordan) as an absolutely primitive backwater town made up of narrow walking passages and a derelict alley alongside the Western Wall, then called the Wailing Wall. Possibly Arafat was the only human being on earth at that time who might have thought that someday Jerusalem would be an Islamic capital of a Muslim country called Palestine. But this has become the dream and the hope of virtually every Muslim who calls himself a Palestinian in the world today.

PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION IS BORN

When the Middle East Arab countries realized Israel wasn’t going away, in 1964 the Arab League representing all the Arab nations sent representatives to create the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and wrote up its Palestinian National Charter. The Charter defined all of Israel as Palestine, the homeland for the Arabs.

It was this assembly that introduced the “Palestinian people” to the world with its declarations:

1. All Arab citizens living normally in Palestine up to 1947 are “Palestinians.” (Article 6)


2. Palestine is an Arab homeland bound to the rest of the Arab countries, which together form the great Arab homeland. (Article 1)


3. The Balfour Declaration and the UN partitioning of Palestine is null and void. (Article 17-18)


4. The “Palestinian Arab people” will move forward on the path of al- Jihad until complete and final victory [against the Zionists] has been attained. (Introduction)

As they did when the UN announced the Jewish people would have their own country, now once again, Syria, Jordan and Egypt gathered their armies together to “throw Israel into the sea.” The spring of 1967 found the Israeli people, including their leaders, in great consternation for fear that this time the Arab armed forces might actually destroy Israel.

Instead, in nothing short of one of the most amazing battles in modern history, Israel pushed Jordan out of Judea, Samaria, and East Jerusalem, including the Western Wall and the Mount of Olives; pushed Syria out of the Golan Heights and pushed Egypt out of Gaza and the Sinai Desert. Israel later returned the Sinai Desert to Egypt in exchange for a peace agreement. In six days! All of these areas “happen” to be land that God solemnly swore to give to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (later renamed Israel) and their descendants forever.

By now Yasser Arafat had had enough. Two years later through his Fatah organization, he took control of the PLO and began his life-long mission to destroy Israel and settle Palestine with a new “Palestinian people.”

HIS SOLUTION: TERROR

But how to create a Palestinian people when there still wasn’t such a nation? The answer was terror. And so today, Yasser Arafat has the distinction of being the Father of Modern Terrorism. (Is that why he won a Nobel Prize?) He was the first to hijack airplanes. 

He became famous by introducing the term “Palestinian” into the international media lexicon through a series of high-profile acts of violence targeting Israeli civilians, including bombings, cross-border raids and the 1972 Munich Olympic hostage massacre. (I happened to have been in Munich directing a film about the outreach of Youth with a Mission during the Olympics.)

The world took notice. In 1974, the United Nations recognized the PLO as “the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.” (http://america.aljazeera.com)

It was an amazing feat. Through outrageous, savage terrorism, the Palestinian people became a reality in five short years! Check it out for yourself. Once the United Nations recognized the existence of a Palestinian people, Israel was seen as an occupier of an “ancient people” who had lived in Palestine for thousands of years.

But Arafat didn’t stop there. He proclaimed to the whole world that the Jews had never ever lived in Palestine. They were usurpers who only came to settle on the Palestinian people’s land since the late 19th century. He said Jesus was a Palestinian. The Arab world rapidly rewrote their history books.

Arafat learned quickly that every time he initiated a new wave of terror, the world readily gave him more attention, even becoming more sympathetic to Palestinian rights and legitimacy.

Not everything went his way. He was kicked out of Jordan after carving out an independent territory for his fighters. He then moved to Lebanon and started a civil war there, until Israel kicked him out.

But his greatest accomplishment was his ability to create a fictitious narrative that Judea and Samaria, the Old City of Jerusalem, the Golan Heights and Gaza are an inalienable heritage to the ancient Palestinian people. In fact, the Islamic peoples of the world are convinced all of Israel actually belongs to the Palestinian people who have lived in Palestine for thousands of years.

Palestinian nation. A nation that has proclaimed to all the world that no Jew shall ever live there. Now that’s quite an achievement. No wonder this Father of Modern Terrorism is the Father figure to the Arabs living in Judea and Samaria.

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Brad Stine - comedian in support of Israel speaking at NRB - PJTN dinner

Brad Stine - comedian in support of Israel 

Speaking at NRB - PJTN dinner

Feb. 25, 2016  Nashville, TN

It was a true joy listening to Brad Stine for the first time at the Proclaiming Justice To The Nations dinner at the NRB (National Religious Broadcasters) convention in Nashville, TN. He is funny!

After watching a brief presentation of the 2016 PJTN video "Hating Israel: In Search of the Truth Behind BDS" (which I am really looking forward to seeing the full video), he came out on stage and did a 15 minute comedy routine. Loved it!

I was able to record most of it from our table in the middle of the room, filled with several 100 people. 

It was also a great joy to have so many present from Jerusalem. We sat a a table with Bruce Mills, deacon at the Jerusalem Baptist Church. Also present was the former director of ICEJ (International Christian Embassy Jerusalem), the director of Yad Vashem, and staff from Christian Friends of Israel. Jeffrey Levinson of GODTV was a panelist during one segment of the 2.5 hour evening.

Shalom,

Steve Martin

Founder

Love For His People, Inc.

Published on Feb 26, 2016

Brad Stine - comedian in support of Israel speaking at NRB - PJTN dinner Feb. 25, 2016 in Nashville, TN

Videos filmed and shared by Steve Martin - to give appreciation to and love for those we support, through Love For His People, Inc.

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Where Does the History of Israel Begin? - Tsvi Sadan ISRAEL TODAY

Where Does the History of Israel Begin?

Thursday, February 25, 2016 |  Tsvi Sadan  

 ISRAEL TODAY

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Bible

In the never-ending debate between political rivals, the latest fracas erupted after right-wing Minister of Education Naftali Bennet posted to Facebook this week stating, "I am proud to announce that fifty years after Jerusalem was freed, the educational system will devote the next year to our united capital." 

Bennet went on to remind Israelis that "our history begins with Jerusalem."

Left-wing Member of Knesset Stav Shaffir (Labor) rushed to "correct" the minister via Twitter, insisting that  "we came here from Egypt," hence, our history as a people with Egypt. 

Her tweet was subjected to a feast of ridicule. One fake Twitter account had Shaffir saying that the two Tablets of Stone (Ten Commandments) were made in China because it says in the Mishna that "Moses received Torah from Sini" (in Hebrew, one vowel changes Sinai to Sini, the word for Chinese).

Laughs aside, Shaffir touched upon an ever relevant subject with which Jews have continuously wrestled – does Israel have the right to a land occupied by others? 

Those like Shaffir who support a Palestinian state are basically saying that Israel stole another people's land, and it should be given back to them. If indeed they are right, the Bible should have opened, as Shaffir suggests, with the people of Israel leaving Egypt and becoming a nation.

This position is nothing news. From time immemorial, Jews have been suggesting that since the five books of Moses are regarded as Torah or Law, the Bible should begin with the first commandment given to Israel as a people, which is, "this month shall be unto you the beginning of months" (Exodus 12:2) 

Instead, the Bible opens with "in the beginning God created..." 

Interesting as the stories of Genesis and those leading up to the Exodus are, the relevant "beginning" is the first commandment, and the passages from Genesis 1 to Exodus 12 are, therefore, superfluous. Or so this logic goes.

But it must be for good reason that the Bible opens with Genesis, and not with Israel in Egypt. 

Based on Psalm 111:6, God told the story of Genesis so that Israel could not be accused of being "robbers, because you took by force the lands of Canaan." This famous rabbinical commentary demonstrates that long before there was any Palestinian, Jews were conscience of the fact that the Promise Land was under dispute. 

Israel's claim to it rests upon the premise that it was given to her as a declaration of the power of His works and to be a light to the nations.

The Promise Land, therefore, is not some kind of divine reward for those who suffered under the hand of Egypt, or even for those who endured the Holocaust. Israel inherited the Land for the sole purpose of guiding humanity to the God who created heaven and earth. Failing to do so endangers not only Israel, but the entire world. 

In other words, the people of Israel sustain the world through submission to God.

In this light, though she claims to be Zionist, Stav Shaffir's understanding of Israel's history actually forfeits Israel's right to the entire Land of Israel, and not just to the "occupied territories," because in a world void of God, Israel is truly a robber of another people's land.

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