Showing posts with label civil war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label civil war. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Is Israel at Risk of Civil War? - Israel Today

Is Israel at Risk of Civil War?

Wednesday, August 31, 2016 |  Israel Today Staff

Former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo on Tuesday warned that rifts in Israeli society are becoming so deep that the Jewish state is at risk of civil war.
Speaking at a ceremony to honor fallen Druze IDF soldiers, Pardo said that the polarization of Israeli society is far more urgent than Hamas, Hezbollah or even Iran.
“This internal threat should concern us more than external threats,” said the former spymaster. “If a divided society crosses a certain line, a civil war becomes a possibility in the most extreme scenario. I’m concerned we’re heading in this direction.”
Pardo noted that all sectors of society - Left and Right, Jew and Arab - are responsible for this situation, and that everyone needs to be reminded that “there is more that unites us than divides us.”
As examples of societies that have become hyper-polarized, Pardo pointed to Britain following its abrupt exit from the EU and the United States during a bizarre presidential primary season.
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Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Joel C. Rosenberg's Blog - As Jordan’s King warns of “civil war” inside Islam & says Jordan has reached “the boiling point.”

KingAbdullah-Obama-OvalOffice-Feb2016

Joel C. Rosenberg's Blog

As Jordan’s King warns of “civil war” inside Islam & says Jordan has reached “the boiling point.” President Obama finally makes time to meet with him. Here’s the latest.

by joelcrosenberg
(Jerusalem, Israel) -- For months now, Jordan's King Abdullah II has been urgently warning Western leaders in blunt and stark language that the tidal wave of Syrian refugees into his country and the barbaric violence of the Islamic State poses a clear and present danger to his kingdom. He needs significantly more military and financial assistance than he is currently getting, and he needs it quickly.
ISIS is engaged in “a third world war” against the West and moderate Sunni Arab governments like his own, says the 54 year old monarch.
Jordan has reached “the boiling point,” he adds. “Jordanians are suffering….and sooner or later I think the dam is going to burst.”
“We need the rest of the world to work with us,” the King insists. “This is why I say it [must be] Muslims, Christians, Jews, other religions, all of us fighting this global fight together. It is a war inside of Islam, it is our civil war, but we cannot do it by ourselves.”
The King has taken his message to U.S. and European reporters, news anchors and conferences of world leaders. So far, he hasn't seen much response. And the stakes couldn't be higher.
Jordan has welcomed in more than 1.3 million Syrian refugees. Its spending a quarter of its annual budget on people who aren't Jordanian citizens. They are at the breaking point. Yet last year, the international community provided only about 35% of the financial aid they had promised to the Hashemite Kingdom. What's more, thus far the U.S. and international military effort against ISIS has been half-hearted. Today, the influence of ISIS is steadily growing. Its leaders are emboldened. And they are looking to hit new targets, like Jordan.
Adding insult to injury, in January -- as readers of this column will recall -- President Obama said he was too busy to meet when the King went to Washington on official business. In the end, the President carved out five minutes for the West's most faithful Sunni Arab ally. That was shameful.
Fortunately, the President made more time for Jordan's King last week -- finally. The two leaders met at the White House on Wednesday for an extended discussion of the current state of the fight against the Islamic State, the state of the Syrian civil war, the enormous financial pressures Jordan is facing, and other critical regional issues.
The meeting seemed to go well. The President praised the monarch as "one of our most stalwart allies in the world" and rightly noted that "Jordan is a country that punches above its weight when it comes to the fight against ISIL." 
The King, in return, graciously thanked the President, Congress and the American people for their generous military and financial aid to his kingdom. "We are so grateful for the support that you've shown me and our people, our country," he said. "Truly, no country other than the United States has given us so much support -- whether it’s to the economy so that we can take the challenge of refugees to our country, but also to the military and security so that we can defend our borders, but also secure our people."
"I’m actually leaving Washington very optimistic about the level of support from the United States," the King added.
I'm glad the meeting happened. I'm glad the President has increased U.S. aid to Jordan in recent years. But I am not as optimistic as the king about the future. I believe Jordan is in grave danger from ISIS terrorism -- including chemical attacks -- and from the mass of Syrian refugees who I fear could be incited to launch an uprising in the hopes of trying to topple the kingdom. Thus, I believe the U.S. should be doing far more to help our Jordanian friends.
We need to pull out all the stops in our campaign to defeat ISIS, starting with liberating Mosul and all of northern Iraq from the ISIS scourge. At the same time we should be pressing our European allies and the rich Sunni Arab states to provide more financial aid to Jordan. And we should be working far more closely to build a strong alliance between Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states not just against ISIS but against the threat of a nuclear Iran, as well.
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joelcrosenberg | March 2, 2016 at 12:37 pm | Categories: Uncategorized | URL:http://wp.me/piWZ7-4lr

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

What Has Israel Done For You Lately? - Israel Today

What Has Israel Done For You Lately?

Monday, February 22, 2016 |  Israel Today Staff
Most of the mainstream news regarding Israel is related to conflict, but year after year Israel punches far above its weight in a wide range of other areas. Sadly, far too little of that receives significant media coverage.
Jerusalem Online recently ran an op-ed listing the five top ways that the author of that piece felt Israel had helped the world in 2015.
A summary of that list is as follows:
  1. Israel continues to aid the victims of Syria’s civil war both by granting entry to those in need of urgent medical care and by sending aid teams to refugee camps throughout Europe;
  2. Israeli intelligence played a key role in thwarting a massive ISIS terrorist attack in Germany last November;
  3. Israel was one of the first on the ground and provided a disproportionate amount of assistance when an earthquake ravaged the nation of Nepal;
  4. Israel fed the entire population of Vanuato for a full month after a tropical cyclone devastated the tiny island nation last March;
  5. Israel leads in the battle against the global water crisis by providing innovative solutions to over 150 nations where water is far too scarce.
Of course, this list is by no means comprehensive. Despite Israel’s tiny size, minuscule population and lack of significant natural resources, it routinely contributes disproportionately to the good of the international community.
PHOTO: Israeli soldiers load rescue equipment onto a plane before being dispatched to Nepal following a massive earthquake (Flash90)
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Thursday, November 26, 2015

How Lincoln Made Thanksgiving a National Holiday - STEVE STRANG CHARISMA MAGAZINE

The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth

The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth (Portrait by Jennie Augusta Brownscombe, 1914)

How Lincoln Made Thanksgiving a National Holiday




Thanksgiving is the great American holiday that people of all religions embrace as their own. It is a tradition that hearkens back, of course, to the early Puritan fathers who thanked God for helping them survive in this new world. It was not, as some politically correct people would have us believe, to thank the Indians for their help. The Puritans were thanking Almighty God—as we should be doing ourselves.
Thanksgiving only became a national holiday in 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln issued the proclamation reprinted below. Until then, various states had Thanksgiving on different days.
In 1861, Lincoln ordered government departments closed for a local day of Thanksgiving. On Sept. 28, 1863, Sarah Josepha Hale, a 74-year-old magazine editor, wrote to Lincoln urging him to have the "day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival." She explained, "You may have observed that, for some years past, there has been an increasing interest felt in our land to have the Thanksgiving ... become permanently an American custom and institution."
George Washington was the first president to proclaim a day of Thanksgiving, issuing his request on Oct. 3, 1789, exactly 74 years before Lincoln's.
The document below sets apart the last Thursday of November "as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise." As we celebrate Thanksgiving with family and friends, let's reflect on these words from one of America's greatest presidents at the height of the Civil War.

Washington, D.C.
October 3, 1863
By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore.
Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.
And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.
By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward,
Secretary of State

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Thursday, February 5, 2015

Post-Charlie Hebdo: Does France Face Civil War?

Post-Charlie Hebdo: Does France Face Civil War?

PARIS - French Holocaust survivors gathered last month on the 70th anniversary of the liberation the Auschwitz.

They are men and women who saw terrible anti-Semitism as children and who must again live in a time when some in France and in Europe want to kill Jews.

France's Jews have felt like a target for a long time. And the killings by Muslim terrorists at the Charlie Hebdo newspaper and kosher supermarket have only confirmed their worst fears, and it will cause more of them to leave France for Israel and the United States.

Post-Charlie: Same Old, Same Old

Some have called the massacre France's 9/11. But America clearly changed after 9/11. It's not at all clear if France has changed enough.

Yes, there have been arrests and more police and soldiers have been deployed. But political correctness is still so deeply rooted in France that speaking out too strongly against Muslim immigration and being labelled a racist can still end a career.

French TV commentator Eric Zemmour was fired in December for saying that Muslims should be deported to avoid "chaos and civil war."

Zemmour has written the bestseller, The French Suicide, about how France is being destroyed. CBN News had hoped to interview Zemmour, but his publicist told us he was in hiding because of death threats.

One week after the killings, Paris police banned an anti-Islamization march.

Even popular far-right leader Marine Le Pen has been tiptoeing around the subject. She's reportedly feuding with her foreign policy adviser, Aymeric Chauprade, who gave an exclusive interview to CBN News.

Chauprade angered Le Pen by saying that France is at war with some Muslims and in danger from what he called a fifth column of 1 million radical Muslims in France.

"The problem, which is maybe worse, is the sympathy from a large part of the Muslim population in France toward jihad and towards the radical idea," he told CBN News.

"(French leaders) refuse to accept the idea that violence is rooted in Islam. I do not say all Muslims are violent but that violence is rooted in Islam's holy texts," he said.

An Outpouring of Hypocrisy

The world saw millions of Frenchmen flood into the streets to say "I am Charlie." It was a touching outpouring of support for free speech in the face of Muslim terror.

But conservatives in France saw something else: hypocrisy.

The same French leaders marching for free speech have not allowed free speech critical of Islam, except for few Charlie Hebdo cartoons, and have crafted policies that have allowed Muslim extremism to flourish in France.

French author, journalist and publisher Jean Robin says the government brought on the attacks, by being harder on critics of Islam than on Muslims.

"The people who are responsible for these attacks are the ones showing off now and demonstrating for freedom of speech, which they crushed year after year," Robin said. "We don't have the freedom to say the ones who demonstrated are the ones responsible for what happened."

When CBN News asked French writer Renaud Camus about the French government's commitment to free speech, he burst out laughing.

"They have not been protecting free speech," he said. "The aim of the government over the 40 years has been to impeach free speech, to express itself on the main subject of the replacement of population, which is totally banned from the media, and which is what you're not allowed to talk about it."

Camus has been banned himself because of his warnings about Islam.

A Self-Inflicted Wound?

And France's unwillingness to confront the problem of Muslim immigration and radicalism strongly enough could help ensure there will be more attacks like the one on Charlie Hebdo and the kosher supermarket.

All of those French conservatives we interviewed warned of civil war, and of a future like Lebanon or Yugoslavia, although Camus added that, "Civil war is the wrong expression. There will be nothing civil about it."

After what should have been a clear wake-up call for France, it's not at all clear that France will do what it takes to prevent the next attack.

Chaurpade said France has to "fight very firmly, very strictly, against the Islamization of French society. There is an Islamization process, and we have to stop it clearly."

The number one best-selling book in France right now is Submission, by Michel Houellebecq. The story is set in the future when France has a Muslim president and French women begin wearing veils. It was released, coincidentally, on the day of the Charlie Hebdo massacre.

There are likely to be more terrorist attacks in France, not only because of the government's fear of political correctness, but because there are simply too many Muslim jihadists in the country to stop all of them.

Thursday, May 8, 2014

Inching Toward Civil War?

Inching Toward Civil War?

Thursday, May 08, 2014 |  Ryan Jones  ISRAEL TODAY
An exchange of emails between young Jewish settlers has many in Israel worried that the nation could be inching toward civil war over the issue of future control of the land.
A cause of grave concern ever since the forced withdrawal of Jews from Gaza in 2005 has been the use of violence by both those carrying out the evacuation, and those being evacuated, a situation that could easily result in Jews spilling Jewish blood.
A number of times in recent months, Israeli authorities have demolished illegally built homes and structures in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, the so-called “West Bank.” In the Samarian community of Yitzhar, in particular, these demolitions have been marked by violence.
It was in Yitzhar this week that residents belonging to a local email list began discussing whether or not it was permitted to kill an Israeli soldier in perceived defense of the community.
“I support throwing rocks (at Jews, and of course on Arabs without question). In certain circumstances - even if the rocks lead to the death of a soldier!” wrote one young woman who was later arrested for inciting violence.
A 17-year-old youth from the community responded, “There is no Halachtic (Jewish religious) issue with killing a soldier (who’s tearing down our buildings).”
The exchange was immediately condemned by elders in the Yitzhar community, as well as by officials in the broader settler movement.
But the mother of the arrested girl said the problem is only going to grow as the younger generations grow increasingly frustrated at seeing their government make concessions to Israel’s enemies, even as it curtails what they see as the biblically mandated restoration of Jewish life in this land.
“The young generation is tired of walking around crouched and afraid,” she told Yediot Ahronot. “The Israeli nation is alive and well. We need to build up our strength and be an example for other nations.”
Another factor feeding the fears of a future civil war is the hostile manner in which most Jewish settlers are portrayed in the mainstream Israeli media. This portrayal is believed to be largely responsible for the harsh way police often treat settler youth, as well as pronouncements by some left-wing Jewish politicians in recent years that the settlers are no longer their brothers.
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