Jesus is Lord, A Worshipping Christian's Blog

“In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register.

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.”
Luke 2:1-7 (New International Version)

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.”

When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:
” ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.’”

Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”

After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.”
Matthew 2:1-12 (New International Version)

Wishing everyone a very happy and safe Christmas. Merry Christmas and God Bless All of You!!
-Steve and Missi

On Sunday evening November 20th, over 800 ardent supporters of Israel gathered for the Zionist Organization of America’s 114th Justice Louis D. Brandeis Award Dinner at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Manhattan. The star studded, gala event paid special tributes to TV talk show host Glenn Beck, Republican presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann and US Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R) of Florida.

Presented with the first ever Sheldon and Dr. Miriam Adelson “Defender of Israel” award, Mr. Beck was introduced by Mr. Adelson, a gaming industry mogul and a long time devotee of Israel. “In his introductory remarks Mr. Adelson described Mr. Beck as a ”very special man. We knew he was a giant even before we met him. I’d never known a Christian Zionist like Glenn Beck. He tells the truth about the Arab war against Israel.”

Adelson, also the publisher of Israel Hayom (now Israel’s largest daily newspaper), added there is “no greater supporter of Israel in the media today” than Beck. When Palestinians murdered five members of the Fogel family in last March’s Itamar massacre, Beck dedicated an entire show on Fox News to the tragedy and “displayed the pictures that almost every other television network ignored”; Palestinians celebrating the event by handing out candles in the streets, Adelson said.

Noted for his exceptional devotion to Israel and the Jewish people as evidenced in his August 2011 “Restoring Courage” rally in Jerusalem near the Temple Mount and his forthright positions on his FOX television program, Mr. Beck declared that he has placed his “chips on the table” by saying, “I wear it as a badge of pride to be a Zionist. The Jewish people and the land of Israel has a right to exist and I am not ashamed to speak the truth.” Extending plaudits to his hosts and the rich and vibrant legacy of the ZOA as a foremost advocate for a greater Israel, Mr. Beck’s address was frequently punctuated by thunderous applause. Warning of ominous times ahead, he said, “the world is on the eve of profound and dramatic change and we have an 18-month window the change the world.”

Referencing a panoply of issues such as the geo-political realities of the Arab Spring, the burgeoning Iranian nuclear threat, the nascent Occupy Wall Street movement, the danger of George Soros funded organizations, the incessant animus towards Israel emanating from the Obama administration and the prevalent denial of the Holocaust, Mr. Beck issued a clarion call for unity amongst Christians, Jews and all good people by saying, “We must lock arms and stand as sentinels for if we fail to do so things could get worse. I come to you as a brother and not as a Christian. The world does not hate you, but the enemies of G-d hate you. You, the Jewish people never gave up on G-d. You have been loyal and you never embraced the G-d of the stranger and for that Israel has been promised by G-d to the Jews.”

In a voice reverberating with palpable emotion and zeal, Mr. Beck ruefully observed that “what is happening in the world is grotesque”, he declared, “When Ahmadinejad of Iran says the Jews will burn in the fiery hell of Islam, he means it. We must say ‘Never Again’ and we must mean it. Words are meaningless. It is a time for action and only through the mighty Hand of the G-d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will we be saved.”

Choked up with tears, Mr. Beck vividly recalled his trip to Auschwitz this past summer and what it meant to him. “I demand to be counted so others will not be numbered. We must tell the truth and we must never forget. We must never repeat the mistakes of the past. Evil will grow again and this evil plant grows in darkness and we must shed a bright light upon it.”

Exhorting his audience to “rely on eternal truths”, he chided the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators as being “just like the fascists that they say they’re against. It is like a formulaic stage play replete with hypocrisy.” He added that the struggles we face for our existential survival are “personal” and that “we must go out as individuals and make a difference.” Borrowing words from Abraham Lincoln, he warned against becoming imbued with vengeance and bellicosity when he said that our mantra should be, “With malice towards none and charity for all” and said that “as the world plunges into darkness, we must be a beacon of light.”

To that end, Mr. Beck made an oblique reference to an endeavor that he is undertaking on December 8th and while what he was eluding to remains nebulous at this juncture he had tongues wagging at the conclusion of his address as audience members engaged in speculation. “Either he is announcing his candidacy for public office or he is planning to convert to Judaism”, said a ZOA member who chose to remain anonymous.

Also delivering a powerful and heartfelt address was Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R) who is seeking the Republican nomination for president in 2012. Telling her audience that her inextricable ties to Israel and the Jewish people originate in her personal religiuos beliefs she saiid, “It all began in the Book of Genesis which says that ‘Whoever blesses Israel will be blessed and whoever curses Israel will be cursed’ and I stand behind these Divine words.”

Underscoring the pernicious threat of a nuclear armed Iran, Ms. Bachmann said that “all options should be on the table” and did not rule out military force. We must never allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons and we cannot outsource our national secuirty to the UN.” Taking President Obama to task for his perceived laxity when dealing with the rogue state, she said that he has “given Iran the luxury of time to develop nuclear weapons” and called on the President “to accelerate covert operations and cyber operations in Iran and order the CIA Director to take all means necessary to stop Iran from getting the bomb before it is too late.”

Heaping substantive criticism on President Obama for his less than stellar track record as it pertains to Israel, Rep. Bachmann said, “The president supports the Occupy Wall Street protestors but fails to stand with Israel and that is not an acceptable way of treating our loyal ally. Calling for an undivided Jerusalem recognized by the United States as Israel’s official capital she exclaimed, “On my first day in office I will issue an order to immediately move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.” Ms. Bachmann then brought the crowd to its feet concerning Jerusalem’s status when she said, “Not one acre, not one foot, not one inch of Jerusalem will ever be relinquished.”

Adding her voice to Ms. Bachmann’s was Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R) of Florida who was the recipient of the ZOA’s much heralded Cherna and Dr. Irving Moskowitz Award. Introduced by ZOA Board Member Harvey Friedman, he described Ros-Lehtinen as a “national treasure to every Jew in the U.S.” and spoke of her legislative efforts opposing US funding of both Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority (PA) and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). Lauded for the tireless work that she’s done to protect Israel’s interests as Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban-American, said, “Let us make no mistake about it. Ahmadinejad has clearly stated that his intentions are to destroy both Israel and America; the little Satan and the big Satan and we must take this very seriously.”

ZOA National Chairman of the Board, Dr. Michael Goldblatt delivered the presentation to Maccabee Award recipients Judy and Jerome Taylor, noting that they had been “long-time pro-Israel activists” who had worked side by side for years on behalf of Israel. He also noted that Judy Taylor’s father had been involved in prosecuting Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg war crime trials, so that working “to protect Jews was in her genes.”

The recipients of the 2011 Louis D. Brandeis Award were William K. Langfan and his son Mark Langfan, a New York attorney. Introducing the Langfans was Professor Ephraim Inbar, the director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel.

Speaking about the seminal topographic map that he created, security analyst Mark Langfan took the audience on a spellbinding tour of the perils that Israel would find herself in if Judea and Samaria were relinquished to Arab hands. Pointing to the fact that Israel’s coastal region holds 70 percent of the Jewish population and 80 percent of its industrial base, such a scenario, he said, would inevitably lead to a massive barrage of Katyusha rockets carrying chemical warheads on major population centers including Tel Aviv, Netanya and Hadera.

“Without Israel as the bulwark against the waxing Islamic tsunami to the East”, Langfan said, :there will be a direct Islamic military threat to the very doorstep of Europe. Without Israel, how many trillions–trillions–of dollars will the US have to spend to defend Greece, and NATO from such “clear and present” danger to Western civilization? Or, as the Visa commercial would say of Israel’s present-day strategic value to the US: Priceless.”

Serving as dinner co-chairmen were James A. Tisch, the former Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and New York Jewish Federation, and CEO of Loews Corporation and Martin Gross, President of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and Member of the Board of Trustees of Brandeis University. Among the prominent guests attending the dinner were Representatives Ann Marie Buerkle and Robert Turner from New York, Rep. Joe Walsh of Illinois, Richard Stone, Chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and terrorism expert, Steve Emerson.

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Fern Sidman holds a B.A, in political science from Brooklyn College. She was the educational coordinator for the Betar Youth Movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s. She was national director of the Jewish Defense League from 1983-1985. She was a researcher for several books written by Rabbi Meir Kahane, ZTK”L. She was the managing editor of the publication entitled, The Voice of Judea, and is a regular contributor to its web site. She is currently a writer and journalist living in New York City. Her articles have appeared in The Jewish Press, The Jewish Advocate, The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, and numerous Jewish and general web sites including, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Pipes and Michael Freund.
We are delighted to have Ms. Sidman as a regular contributor to the Jesus is Lord, A Worshipping Christian’s Blog.

Our Father in Heaven,
We give thanks for the pleasure
Of gathering together for this occasion.
We give thanks for this food
Prepared by loving hands.
We give thanks for life,
The freedom to enjoy it all
And all other blessings.
As we partake of this food,
We pray for health and strength
To carry on and try to live as You would have us.
This we ask in the name of Christ,
Our Heavenly Father.

–Harry Jewell

Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone. Praise the Lord with Thanksgiving for all that He has done for us!!

Since Friday morning, November 11th, Jews around the world and especially in the Orthodox enclaves of New York have been recoiling in horror over the overtly anti-Semitic vandalisms that took place in the early morning hours near Ocean Parkway and Avenue I in the Midwood section of Brooklyn. Three vehicles were torched and a gruesome array of hideous epithets as well as the perfunctory swastikas and KKK emblem were indiscriminately scrawled on cars and benches. As community outrage reached a fever pitch, it was duly noted that this attack was clearly planned to coincide with the 73rd anniversary of Kristallnacht, (the night of broken glass), when on November 9-10 1938, as a pogrom of mammoth proportions erupted in Hitler’s Europe, almost 200 synagogues were destroyed, over 8,000 Jewish shops were sacked and looted, and tens of thousands of Jews were deported to concentration camps.

There is no doubt that we are living in turbulent times. One need only turn on the TV, computer or read any newspaper to find that we are witnessing an alarming escalation of blatant Jew hatred. What is most frightening is the fact that while the putrid stench of such hatred wafts through the air, a tacit approval of sorts looms large in respectable circles who refuse to condemn it. One gets the eerily visceral feeling that this may indeed be a replication of Europe 1938. On the local scene, anti-Semitism has invaded the discussion of corporate avarice and malfeasance that is being promulgated by the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. Sound familiar? Their mantra goes something like this: It is the Jew who controls the banks, the international monetary fund; it is the Jew who is at the vanguard of the insidious cabal to steal the wealth of the world, while the unemployment rates spike and the poor grow poorer. It is time to resurrect the perennial scapegoat and it is always the Jew.

Let us make no mistake about it. While the haters charge that they are merely anti-Zionist, we know that it is a clever subterfuge for classical anti-Semitism. Case in point: Most recently,in Boston, the Occupy movement staged a takeover of the Israeli consulate, where demonstrators spewed forth the hackneyed and utterly baseless claims that the Israelis have assumed the role of Nazis in their purported “oppression” of the Palestinians.

Anyone who has eyes to see and ears that not only hear but also listen will know that these are not sporadic happenings but that Jew hatred is a permanent part of and endemic to our society; a recurrent cancer that at times goes into remission but inevitably reappears in ever more toxic manifestations. Fatal attacks on Jews and their communities throughout Europe and South America have been taking place for decades while the abject silence of the world is beyond deafening.

Each day we are inundated with bloody images of the rise of radical Islam, not only in the Middle East, not only in the maelstrom of the Arab spring, but in the heartland of Western civilization. It is an ideology that is driven not by a prototypical miscreant like Adolf Hitler but by a political credo that is couched in religious doctrine. It is a burgeoning and pernicious movement that calls for the eradication of Israel and of course, the death of the Jew, the primary infidel of all infidels.

It is a culture of death where one nary witnesses the respect for the sanctity of life and yet the world remains taciturn at best and indifferent at worst. An Orwellian flavor has emerged amongst civilized intellectuals in the Western academy who wouldn’t dare express revulsion over egregious acts of terror in the fear of being labeled “politically incorrect”, in the fear of appearing pro-Colonialist or pro-Imperialist. By dint of sheer repetition of their propaganda, the Islamists and the cadre of Jew haters who support them have convinced us that the aggressor is the victim, that good is bad and right is wrong.

It is also no coincidence that this week we also commemorate the 21st anniversary of the assasination of Rabbi Meir Kahane, who, in his relatively short lifetime embodied the lone voice in the wilderness when he spoke so eloquently and presciently about the rise in anti-Semitism and the nebulous future of the Jew in exile. He was a man who called for Jews to re-connect with their G-d, their heritage and to cloak themselves in Jewish pride; to fear no man but only to fear G-d; to rise up from the ash barrels of Auschwitz and to re-create the Jew of yesteryear; the Jew of the bible who knew who their implacable foes were and who never hastened to challenge them.

During this most trying week, we would do well to take heed of Rabbi Kahane’s last words on the evening of November 5, 1990 when he summed things up by saying, “It’s not an accident that so few German Jews survived the camps. The Polish Jew did better. Why? Because the Polish Jew wasn’t surprised. It didn’t shock him that gentiles could behave like this. It didn’t surprise him, so he wasn’t shattered inside, he wasn’t broken. But the German Jew was psychologically shattered. How could this be? I’m a German. I’m a German. How could it be? How can you do this to me? The Pole knew he was a Jew. The German was broken because his whole illusion was shattered. And that’s how the American Jew lives. “I’m an American”. It’s the gentile who will teach you so quickly that you’re a Jew. It’s not just in the bars, in the working class bars the anti-Semitism that you see. When you see the news media and their attitude towards Israel; it’s not anti-Israel – it is anti-Semitism.”

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Fern Sidman holds a B.A, in political science from Brooklyn College. She was the educational coordinator for the Betar Youth Movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s. She was national director of the Jewish Defense League from 1983-1985. She was a researcher for several books written by Rabbi Meir Kahane, ZTK”L. She was the managing editor of the publication entitled, The Voice of Judea, and is a regular contributor to its web site. She is currently a writer and journalist living in New York City. Her articles have appeared in The Jewish Press, The Jewish Advocate, The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, and numerous Jewish and general web sites including, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Pipes and Michael Freund.
We are delighted to have Ms. Sidman as a regular contributor to the Jesus is Lord, A Worshipping Christian’s Blog.

Mark Langfan, the American-Israel Security 3D-Map topographer, and this year’s co-recipient of the Justice Louis D. Brandeis Award at the upcoming Zionist Organization of America dinner along with his father William, has offered concrete evidence which conclusively debunks the litany of falsehoods and distortions found in the book “Israel Lobby” written by Professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer. The book, originally published in 2006 asserts that “Israel is no longer a vital military strategic ally of the United States.”

Using basic and clear multi-colored graphic maps of the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean, Langfan has presented his findings to members of the US Congress and Senate. If Israel were to be destroyed, he says, the Middle East would be rapidly engulfed by an Islamist Caliphatic “tsunami” which could conceivably immobilize Saudi Arabia, Cyprus and Greece; resulting in an exponential spike in oil prices to $300 a barrel. http://www.marklangfan.com/westerntheater2.html http://www.marklangfan.com/easterntheater1.html

After conducting assiduous research, Langfan sent an e-mail communication to Professor Walt and the entire Harvard Strategic Institute faculty in May of 2011 which contained the graphics of the region. According to the text of the e-mail which was released to the media by Langfan, he said that Professor Walt ” has unknowingly, aided and abetted America’s most implacable and lethal strategic enemies to the irreparable detriment of the United States by espousing his specious theory.” Langfan also called on Professor Walt “to publicly retract his bogus theory immediately before it does even more harm to the national security of the United States.”

For the full Walt email, go to: www.marklangfan.com/profwaltemail.html.

Stating that his graphics prove that “Walt and Mearsheimer are both modern-day Lindberghs”, Langfan compares him to one who places Americans security interests at risk. Charles Lindbergh was the American aviator hero who aggressively lobbied Americans on behalf of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany and against Great Britain before Germany declared war against the United States in World War II.

On Sunday evening, November 20th, Langfan and his father William will be honored for their “tireless” efforts on Israel’s behalf at the ZOA Gala in New York. .

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Fern Sidman holds a B.A, in political science from Brooklyn College. She was the educational coordinator for the Betar Youth Movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s. She was national director of the Jewish Defense League from 1983-1985. She was a researcher for several books written by Rabbi Meir Kahane, ZTK”L. She was the managing editor of the publication entitled, The Voice of Judea, and is a regular contributor to its web site. She is currently a writer and journalist living in New York City. Her articles have appeared in The Jewish Press, The Jewish Advocate, The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, and numerous Jewish and general web sites including, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Pipes and Michael Freund.
We are delighted to have Ms. Sidman as a regular contributor to the Jesus is Lord, A Worshipping Christian’s Blog.

In the early morning hours of Friday November 11th, vandals set fire to several parked cars and scrawled anti-Semitic graffiti on nearby benches in the predominantly Jewish neighborhood of Midwood in Brooklyn in what the police said was a hate crime.

The arson took place along Ocean Parkway between Avenue I and Avenue J in what is commonly referred to as the Flatbush section, where three cars; a BMW, a Lexus and a Jaguar, were set ablaze. In addition, the epithet “KKK” was scrawled on the side of a red van, the police said, and swastikas and anti-Semitic slurs could be found on benches.

“The violence – I’m calling it violence when you blow up three cars – adds a sickening dimension to this type of anti-Semitism,” said Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who lives two blocks away and represents the 48th assembly district. He said he regularly walked past the benches with his 90-year-old mother to Sabbath services. “We walk down Ocean Parkway every single week,” Mr. Hikind said. “All I could think about was my mother sitting on a bench with a swastika. She survived Auschwitz.” Mr. Hikind said that this area of Brooklyn, including Midwood and Borough Park, contains one of the largest concentrations of Holocaust survivors outside of Israel.

The Police Department’s Hate Crimes Task Force is involved in the investigation and Mr. Hikind said the police promised to increase their presence in the neighborhood. “The fact that this most recent attack came on the heels of the 73rd anniversary of Kristallnacht may or may not be a coincidence,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said in a statement in response the episode in Brooklyn. “Either way, this kind of hateful act has no place in the freest city in the freest country in the world.”

“Somebody had to have seen something,” remarked Hikind. “Even the tiniest detail that may seem irrelevant could prove to be a vital piece of information to the investigation. It is simply impossible that three cars were set on fire in the middle of a residential neighborhood and nobody saw anything. To the cowards who did this, who are responsible for this vicious and depraved anti-Semitic act, I say, ‘we will hunt you down and prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law for this hate crime.’”

Since Friday, the reward for credible information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for this heinous crime has increased by $25,000. The monies were put together by both Mr. David Ben-Horeen, publisher of The Jewish Voice, as well as other leaders of the community, and $1000 by NYC council member David Greenfield. The reward now stands at $30,000.

As of Sunday afternoon Police police had made no arrests The NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating. Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes said dozens of empty beer bottles were found at the scene. He said they would be tested for fingerprints and DNA samples. Police in the 66th Precinct bolstered patrols in the neighborhood; especially the scene of the attack.

Separately, the police said Friday that they had arrested a man accused of scrawling swastikas in five incidents last week in Jackson Heights, Queens. The man, Franco Rodriguez, 40, spray painted the symbols on the doors of several local libraries and a Catholic church, the police said.

On Sunday, November 13th, about 100 Midwood residents along with elected officials staged a peaceful protest march on Ocean Parkway past the four public benches from which the 16 swastikas had been removed after the pre-dawn attack Friday. Carrying an Israeli flag, the marchers were led by Mr. Hikind, State Senator Eric Adams, Rabbi Chaim Gruber, New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, civil rights lawyer Norman Siegel and other community leaders. “There was a time when vandals used magic markers to express hate; now they’re using gasoline,” Adams said.

U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer condemned the vandalism during an unrelated event on Sunday. “It’s disgraceful and they should throw the book at the people who did it,” Schumer said. “Sometimes vandals think they’re pranks, sometimes they’re more malicious than that. Either way they cause great harm.”

Protesters noted the attack occurred one day after the 73rd anniversary of Kristallnacht in Nazi Germany on Nov. 9-10, 1938, when synagogues were set on fire and the windows of Jewish-owned shops were broken. Sunday’s march also included about 25 people from the Occupy Wall Street movement in Manhattan, which put out a statement condemning the vandalism. The mix of people who showed up for the march “shows that we stand together against hatred. And it makes residents here feel better,” Hikind said.

The NYPD has established special hotlines for tips. Anyone with information concerning Friday’s incident is urged to call 718-265-7327 or 718-265-7387. All calls will be kept confidential.

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Fern Sidman holds a B.A, in political science from Brooklyn College. She was the educational coordinator for the Betar Youth Movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s. She was national director of the Jewish Defense League from 1983-1985. She was a researcher for several books written by Rabbi Meir Kahane, ZTK”L. She was the managing editor of the publication entitled, The Voice of Judea, and is a regular contributor to its web site. She is currently a writer and journalist living in New York City. Her articles have appeared in The Jewish Press, The Jewish Advocate, The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, and numerous Jewish and general web sites including, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Pipes and Michael Freund.
We are delighted to have Ms. Sidman as a regular contributor to the Jesus is Lord, A Worshipping Christian’s Blog.

We’ve had a remarkable year for the occurrence of natural disasters. It is amazing how many records were set in just the past eleven months. If the world lasts another decade, any flood, tornado, or earthquake event in the U.S. will have to use the year 2011 to judge its historic significance.

The most striking headlines that I keep seeing are the ones that read “hundred-year” flood, tornado, or earthquake. I’ve even seen some events given the title “five-hundred-year.” If the cycle is one hundred or five hundred years, it makes me wonder why they keep happening every year. I remember the great flood of 1993 was given the title of “one hundred-year flood.” Now, eighteen years later, we have another flood that is eight decades too early.

Last week, Oklahoma was struck by a large earthquake. The 5.6 trembler was centered near the town of Sparks, and it sent out shockwaves that were felt as far away as Wisconsin. This was the most powerful quake in the state’s history. The previous record was a 5.5 magnitude earthquake that struck near the town of El Reno in 1952.

Oklahoma is not known as a geologically active state. It typically only had about fifty earthquakes a year until 2009. In the past three years, the number of quakes has dramatically spiked, with 1,047 quakes shaking the state last year. The increase has prompted researchers to install seismographs in the area.

The breaking of records often causes the media to highlight other recent records. An ABC News report stunned me as the reporter listed four records that have occurred since February in Oklahoma. After doing some research, I found two more records. Here is the list:

Most snow – In February, a snowstorm dumped 11.8 inches on Oklahoma City and 13.2 inches in Tulsa, shattering the all-time daily snowfall records for February in both cities.

Coldest temperature – The Oklahoma Mesonet weather station at Nowata reached -31° F on February 10. The low set a record for the whole state.

Tornadoes – April had more tornadoes than in any previous year. This is a remarkable record for a state that is in the bull’s eye of tornado alley.

Highest wind – In May, Doppler radar detected the highest wind speeds ever recorded in Oklahoma. An EF5 tornado was found to have winds of 318 miles per hour.

Hailstones – On May 23, a supercell thunderstorm in Kiowa County produced a record hailstone that measured six inches in diameter.

Record heat – Oklahoma City had the hottest average temperature summer on record (June thru August) – 87.5 (2011). The previous record was 85.9° set in 1934.

Drought – Year-to-date, Oklahoma has had its driest year since 1921.

Terry and I have joked with some our friends who live in Oklahoma. I’ve requested a notice if sulfur and brimstone start falling from the sky. Some folks have started using the term “Oklageddon.” All kidding aside, I don’t think the people of the Sooner State have done anything special to invoke God’s wrath. After all, the weather has been perfect out in San Francisco. You would think the Lord would cause the so-called gay capital of America to slide into the ocean before He would go after a Bible-belt state like Oklahoma.

There may actually be a divine connection to all the natural disasters taking place in Oklahoma. Rather than being a form of judgment, the events of this year may be part of God’s end-time warning plan. Jesus said the sign of the Tribulation hour’s nearness would be an increase in calamities. He said these birth pangs would lead right up to the very end.

What is remarkable is that few people are asking the question, “What is going on in Oklahoma and other parts of the world?” Earlier this year, Japan was hit by the largest earthquake in recorded history. Here in Arkansas, we had the most powerful earthquake in thirty-six years. In August, a 5.8 quake rocked the East Coast of America. Forget about prophecy; I don’t even see people looking for natural reasons to explain why we are having so many quakes.

Jesus warned that there would a profound state of apathy about end-time signs right ahead of His return. The profound lack of attention to these warning events would seem to indicate that we are at the saturation point of apathy, and that the Rapture must be very near.

“Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh” (Matthew 24:44).

“But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness” (2 Peter 3:10-11).

– Todd

Original Link.

Just hours before the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna released their much awaited report confirming Iran’s “development of a nuclear explosive device”, this very topic was vigorously addressed at a forum at the 92nd Street Y on Manhattan’s upper east side. Excerpts from the powerful 2011 documentary, “Iranium” (which documents the genesis of Iran’s nuclear threat, beginning with the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the ideology espoused by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini until today) was screened before the 200 audience members. Simulcast to a variety of venues around the country, the distinguished panel members had the opportunity of answering questions from audience members who were not present at the location.

Moderated by the film’s director, Alex Traiman, (who was also involved in the production of other films documenting the rise of radical Islam and those who carry terrorist attacks in the name of Allah such as “Obsession” and “The Third Jihad”) the panel consisted of Nazie Eftekhari, a prominent Iranian-American activist and the founder and CEO of The Araz Group, a family of companies that includes HealthEZ and America’s PPO. Having grown up in Iran, Ms. Eftekhari’s prodigious efforts have been focused on spotlighting the excessive human rights abuses against Iranian citizens that take place every day in her native country along with initiating a campaign of global support for the protection of the civil rights of Iranian dissidents.

Joining Ms. Eftekhari on the panel was former Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle who served in this post during the Reagan administration. Mr. Perle is a member of several think-tanks including the Hudson Institute, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the Center for Security Policy. He is also a resident fellow of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research.

Opening with images from “Iranium” in which media personalities report on the immense amount of pressure Iranian embassies throughout the US and Canada placed on those theaters screening the film and their demands that presentations be canceled, the panelists offered a historical overview of the progenitors of the Islamic revolution and political metamorphoses that have gripped Iran over the last century. “When Khomeini came to power in 1979, he was never elevated to Ayatollah, despite common misconceptions”, said Ms. Eftekhari. She added that the previous Ayatollah and the Shah of Iran severed ties in 1962 and it was then that Iranian women were accorded the right to vote. “The Shah’s father was a secular ruler who did not force women to cover their hair and if the various mullahs disagreed with his ruling they would be horsewhipped.”

Condemning then president Jimmy Carter for welcoming Khomeini and helping in the Shah’s ouster, Ms. Eftekhari said she saw a glaring resemblance between the demonstrations leading to the Arab spring and the Iranian revolution of 1979. “As a liberal Democrat; as a supporter of Hillary Clinton and a fan of Barack Obama, I was terribly upset and extremely disappointed to know that the leaders of my country did not stand up and speak out when the people of Iran exercised their rights of free speech and dissent in June of 2009, following the national elections. Hillary Clinton has said that the leadership of those dissidents demonstrating in the streets of Teheran did not want help from the USA and I simply don’t believe that.”

“This is the time for regime change”, said Mr. Perle as he addressed options that can feasibly be implemented when confronting the Iranian nuclear issue. Taking a flinty posture, he said that, “endless, feckless negotiations haven proven a failure with Iran.” Recalling policy meetings he had with the late President Ronald Reagan, Mr. Perle said, “After exploring various strategies vis-a-vis the Soviet Union, Regan decided to bring down the Soviet Union and he was successful, and today, the US policy as it pertains to Iran should be the same.”

Envisioning a military invasion of Iran by the US, Mr. Perle suggested “surgical strikes” on facilities and installations that would avoid casualities and the death of large numbers of people. “Military containment is not a viable strategy. It essentially translates into an acceptance of Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Destroying critical elements of their program would be the most efficient modality”, he said.

Citing the abysmal failure of the sanctions imposed on Iran by the UN, Mr. Perle did acknowledge that the people of Iran are feeling the brunt and that “the government in Iran is miserably unpopular”. As a country that produces millions of barrels of oil a day for foreign consumption, Mr. Perle suggested that an international ban on refined petroleum would create a situation in which Iran would grind to a halt.

As to the role of Israel in the increasing tense standoff with Iran, Ms. Eftekhari extended plaudits to the Jewish people and Israel and exhorted the Jewish state not to fire the first salvo in what could materialize as a major Middle East conflagration. “When I was studying in college in Iran, I warmly remember Israeli students studying there and the close friendships we developed. In Iran, Muslims and Jews at one time lived in peace and harmony. I remember the groups of Russian Jewish children that were smuggled out of the former Soviet Union and to Teheran on their way to Israel. We are like cousins in so many ways,” said Eftekhari. Referring to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as “a Holocausr denying midget”, she added that the past 33 years have been an anomoly in the longstanding and fruitful reliationship between the people of Iran and the Jews.

Exhorting Israel to refrain from initiating a military assault on Iran, Ms. Eftekhari suggested that they support a strike of Iranian oil workers for six weeks as a means of confrontation. “We must understand the impact of propaganda being spewed forth by the Iranian regime. There are 77 million Iranians and they would hate Israel if an attack was launched. The regime in Iran couldn’t care less if they lost 100,000 of their own citizens as long as it produced hatred for Israel among the population.” She also expressed her approval of Israeli government kidnappings of Iranian nuclear scientists and said that their “extrication” was “a good thing” until they can go back to Iran to actually work on nuclear medicine.

“If Israel attacks Iran, it will be because we allowed the regime to violate the human rights of its people. Iran has declared that 1.5 millon people there who express discontent with the government are criminals. Instead of bellyaching about whether Israel is going to attack Iran or not, let’s do something about it. Iranians are killing Americans as we speak in the Middle East through their terror proxies and we’ve done nothing to restrain them.” she added.

———————————————-

Fern Sidman holds a B.A, in political science from Brooklyn College. She was the educational coordinator for the Betar Youth Movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s. She was national director of the Jewish Defense League from 1983-1985. She was a researcher for several books written by Rabbi Meir Kahane, ZTK”L. She was the managing editor of the publication entitled, The Voice of Judea, and is a regular contributor to its web site. She is currently a writer and journalist living in New York City. Her articles have appeared in The Jewish Press, The Jewish Advocate, The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, and numerous Jewish and general web sites including, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Pipes and Michael Freund.
We are delighted to have Ms. Sidman as a regular contributor to the Jesus is Lord, A Worshipping Christian’s Blog.

There is no such thing as good news in the Middle East. Any positive move will eventually be followed by a negative consequence. In last week’s Nearing Midnight Update, I pointed out the demise of Libyan dictator of Moammar Gadhafi. Some people mistook my comments about his death as being a beneficial sign for Libya. If you have been following my commentary for the past few years, you would know that I see no hope of the Muslim world ever becoming the cradle of democracy.

The Arab Spring uprising had Western leaders and the liberal media giddy for several months. They all cheered as one dictator after another was forced from power. Now that the political process is starting to show that radical Islamists have the upper hand in the region, optimism is starting to fade.

The revolt started in Tunisia, so it’s fitting that it would be the first to have free elections. Last week, an Islamic religious party won the lion’s share of seats in the Tunisian parliament. The Ennahda party received 41 percent of the vote, giving it 90 seats in the 217-seat assembly. Ennahda says it wants the Koran to be the guideline of Tunisia’s legislation.

In Libya, Islamists are already in key positions of control. While NATO was bombing from the air, militants where pouring into the country. Right now, an ex-terrorist once jailed by the CIA is running the country’s military. Several political leaders are speaking openly of enacting Islamic law in Libya .

In Egypt, organizers are getting ready for next month’s elections. The Muslim Brotherhood is the favorite to win the largest number of seats. A Muslim Brotherhood victory would be a huge disaster for Israel. Officials with the group have issued increasingly hostile rhetoric toward the Jewish state. In an August radio interview with Radio Free Europe, Essam el-Erian said Israel had no right to exist as a Jewish state: “Existence of a state for Jews is against all rules of states all over the world.” The Muslim Brotherhood has already said it would push to annul the landmark 1979 Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty.

It now appears that Iraq may join the list of failed opportunities for liberty. By the end of the year, all American troops will be out of Iraq. U.S. diplomats had tried to arrange for a contingency to remain in the country. The reason we offered to leave a policing force is that we want to protect our $700 billion investment in Iraq. Having spent all this money and sacrificed 4,000 soldiers, we don’t want to see Iraq become a client state of Iran. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has already become very friendly with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and he has offered words of support for Iran’s key ally, Syria.

The key reason the Arab Spring has gone sour is the inability of our leaders to understand the evil nature of Islam. We spend huge resources to save people from brutal dictators, and they turn around and support a system that is even more enslaving. The leader of Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai, would not be in power if American forces had not kicked out the Taliban, an Islamist militant group that has murdered thousands of the Afghan people. Karzai has repeatedly threatened to quit the political process and join the Taliban if he continues to come under pressure to reform his corrupt government.

I don’t think it’s possible to have a friend in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is regarded to be a dear friend of America, but yet it aids our enemies. Thomas Friedman of the New York Times reports that Saudi donors “still constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide─not to mention the fundamentalist mosques, charities and schools that spawn the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan.”

At some point in the future, we are going to realize that we made a huge mistake in our dealings with the Muslim world. We’ve been bowing to Islam so long that it would take incredibly drastic steps to turn things around. I still can’t believe we let go Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the guy who killed 270 people in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. To shock the Muslims back to reality, we would have to say, “Stop doing that or we’ll nuke Mecca.”

I often wonder what our leaders would do if they know how bad things will get because of their foolish attempts to placate Islam. The Bible warns that Muslim nations will trigger a series of great battles in the Tribulation hour that will kill tens of millions of people. The most spectacular battle involving the Muslim world will be when the Lord pours His wrath on the Gog armies as they attack Israel .

“And I will call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains, saith the Lord GOD: every man’s sword shall be against his brother. And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone. Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the LORD” (Ezekiel 38:21-23).

– Todd

Original Link.

Speaking before an overflow audience at the Kingsway Jewish Center in Brooklyn on Tuesday evening November 1st, Helen Freedman, the executive director of Americans For A Safe Israel (AFSI) told those gathered at the Zionism Museum and Education Center that, “the current political climate in Israel demands our active concern and our concrete participation. As the government of Israel acquiesces to world pressure and maintains a timorous posture towards the Arabs, as UNESCO sanitizes the Palestinian Authority, we are witnessing an all out assault against the intrepid settler movement.”

Relating devastating incidents that she personally witnessed while leading the bi-annual AFSI Chizuk mission to Israel, Ms. Freedman said, “Just today, we learned that of the announcement that the Ministry of Education in Israel has decided to cut off funding for the Od Yosef Chai yeshiva near Yitzhar in the Shromrom. That should serve as a clarion call to us all about which direction the government is taking in terms of the future of Jewish life in Judea and Samaria.”

Bemoaning the abject “guilt and fear” that the government of Israel projects to the world, she told her audience of a sweeping movement in Israel that tacitly hands over ownership of all religious sites to the Arabs. “In 1993, following the actions taken by Baruch Goldstein, ZT”L, the government divided the Ma’arat HaMachpela in Hevron and the Arabs received the entire Yitzchak Avinu hall to pray in and the Jewish worshippers were relegated to the court yard”, she ruefully observed.

Adding that Arabs she has spoken to in Israel have boastfully declared possession of every Jewish holy site, she said that the UNESCO decision to grant recognition and admittance of the Palestinians into their organization would further embolden their quest of have complete control of all holy sites including the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. With pain in her voice she queried, “When will our shamefully obsequious behavior in the face of our avowed enemies cease?”

She called upon the assemblage to personally involve themselves in the battle to save the residents of Judea and Samaria from possible expulsion and to “be more than armchair activists”. Exhorting those present to show their support for the settlers by writing and calling their elected officials and joining lobbying efforts in Washington, she declared, “AFSI’s objectives are very clear. Our Chizuk mission to Israel is not exclusively limited to providing moral and material support to our brave brothers and sisters in Judea, Samaria and the Golan, but it is also about realizing that it is incumbent upon every single one of us to stand up and speak out for our G-d given rights to Eretz Yisroel even when the slings and arrows of our detractors are pointed in our direction.”

AFSI’s next Chizuk Mission for Israel is scheduled for November 13th.

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Fern Sidman holds a B.A, in political science from Brooklyn College. She was the educational coordinator for the Betar Youth Movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s. She was national director of the Jewish Defense League from 1983-1985. She was a researcher for several books written by Rabbi Meir Kahane, ZTK”L. She was the managing editor of the publication entitled, The Voice of Judea, and is a regular contributor to its web site. She is currently a writer and journalist living in New York City. Her articles have appeared in The Jewish Press, The Jewish Advocate, The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, and numerous Jewish and general web sites including, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Pipes and Michael Freund.
We are delighted to have Ms. Sidman as a regular contributor to the Jesus is Lord, A Worshipping Christian’s Blog.

Good for this man. Pray that he will have the strength to stand up for what he believes.

A standoff over prayers at a school flagpole is looming between a longtime Baptist preacher and a Florida public school system.

Ron Baker, the pastor of Russell Baptist Church in Green Cove Springs, said he plans to keep on praying, regardless of what happens.

“Did you ever think that in America you’d be in trouble for praying at the flag?” Baker told Fox News. “It’s disturbing.”

Baker was referring to a legal opinion submitted by the Clay County School Board’s attorney and published in Jacksonville.com. The attorney determined that a series of prayers on the grounds of four schools was a violation of the U.S. Constitution. The attorney further declared that the prayers were a clear endorsement of religion and Christianity.

“It is a violation of the United States Constitution for a teacher, school administrator or other school district employee to join in a prayer session during their work time,” wrote J. Bruce Bickner in a story that appeared on Jacksonville.com.

Bickner did not return telephone calls or emails seeking comment.

“I never thought I’d ever see that happen in America,” Pastor Baker told Fox News. “Maybe in North Korea or China or Russia – but not America.”

For quite some time Pastor Baker has been praying at all four of Clay County’s schools. Normally he’s joined by church members, parents, grandparents and students – offering thanks to God around each school flagpole.

But the Baptist preacher said all that changed when an atheist group complained – leading to the ban.

“Who would have thought when you’re praying for the safety of the school, the students and respecting the teachers and faculty – that that would be deemed as wrong and impermissible?” he wondered.

Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, told Jacksonville.com that their complaints would be satisfied so long as the early morning prayers were halted.

“I’m just so pleased to see that someone else has some legal common sense,” she told the newspaper.

The pastor said he’s contacted the American Center for Law and Justice – and was told that his prayers are indeed – Constitutional.

“I don’t feel I did anything wrong and I don’t feel any need to stop,” he said.

So on Monday morning at 8:15 a.m., Pastor Baker said he will be at the flagpole at Clay Hill Elementary School – in defiance of the school attorney.

“I’m not going to stop,” he said. “We’ll be praying.”

Original Link.

Tensions flared between dozens of pro-Israel demonstrators and members of “Students for Justice in Palestine” on Sunday afternoon, October 16th outside of Columbia University on the third and final day of the
2011 National Students for Justice in Palestine “teach-in” organized by members to prepare for their upcoming Israel Apartheid Week events across college campuses throughout North America.

Holding aloft both Israeli and American flags and signs saying, “SJP Brings Stealth Jihad to Columbia University”, “Stop Hamas Terror Against Jews and Christians” and “Occupy Columbia With Truth and Justice – Not Lies and Anti-Israel Incitement”, the pro-Israel supporters represented such organizations as Americans For a Safe Israel (AFSI), the National Conference of Jewish Affairs (NCJA), Amcha – Coalition for Jewish Concerns, and the Human Rights Coalition Against Radical Islam (HRCARI).

Rancorous debates and raucous arguments broke out between the two sides as the Zionist contingent engaged the SJP members as they exited the university on the corner of 116th Street and Broadway. “Our conference is about advocating for human rights in Palestine. Our Palestinian brothers and sisters are being subjected to the most severe degree of oppression on a daily basis by the Israeli colonialists and occupiers and we are here to put forth our message that a Jewish state is a fundamentally racist concept as are the apartheid practices of that state”, said Amina Fayyid, a SJP student organizer.

According to the SJP web site, one of the objectives of the conference is to “facilitate and support the advancement of existing campaigns and the development of new campaigns with particular (but not exclusive) emphasis on Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) of Israel.” Among the multifarious seminars and workshops taking place at the conference is one entitled, “Indigenous Struggles: situating Palestine as a settler-colonial project” which ostensibly explores “understanding Palestine within comparative settler colonial framework while seeking to re-align the Palestinian movement within a universal history of decolonization, and imagining new possibilities for Palestinian resistance, solidarity and common struggle.”

Helen Freedman, executive director of Americans For A Safe Israel (AFSI), said, “Israel is the only stable democracy in the Middle East and these student activists know very well that Palestinians living in Israel have a much better lifestyle than they would in any other Arab country; yet their goal in organizing such a conference is perpetuate the myths, incessant lies and blatant distortions that they use in their quest to demonize Israel. What we are witnessing here today is nothing short of the most egregious form of anti-Semitism cloaked in the clever subterfuge of anti-Zionism.”

Taking aim at Columbia University for allowing their campus to be used for the conference, Glenn Richter, former chairman of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry movement and the current director of Amcha -CJC said, “This university has a long and shameful tradition of anti-Semitic policies, dating back over 70 years ago when brave students protested against the pro-Nazi policies of the institution’s heavy-handed president, Nicholas Murray Butler. Butler then had a leader of the protests expelled. Today we are here protesting against a different form of racist ideology, commonly known as Islamo-fascism.”

Calling the members of SJP, “Islamo-Fascists For An Arab Only Palestine”, the Human Rights Coalition Against Radical Islam issued a flyer declaring that the motivation for the conference was predicated on “bigotry, violence and genocide against the Jewish people.” Dr. Marvin Belsky, a retired New York City physician and spokesman for HRCARI said, “In Israel, Christians, Muslims and gays have full human rights, protection and dignity. Arabic and Hebrew are the official languages and Arabs who comprise over 1.2 million citizens serve in government, as well as assuming positions as judges, doctors, ambassadors and police and Israel remains a refuge for the world’s oppressed from Asia to Africa.”

Larry Domnitch, a prolific author, academic and historian, said he came “to express my support for Israel in the face of so much misinformation that is being disseminated on this campus and others as well. In a few weeks will be the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration which expressed the inherent and historical right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel. 94 years later that right is still being contested.”

Julian Rappaport, one of the demonstrators engaging with passers-by at the university’s gate, contended that the anti-Israel conference inside was not an expression of free speech, but “to give only one, incorrect side of the picture. Columbia has the responsibility to be more critical of what’s going on.” During a heated confrontation with an SJP member who called for “the complete obliteration of the racist Zionist entity”, Mr, Rappaport was arrested by police for allegedly kicking the student and was charged with disorderly conduct. He was released soon thereafter and returned to the demonstration.

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Fern Sidman holds a B.A, in political science from Brooklyn College. She was the educational coordinator for the Betar Youth Movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s. She was national director of the Jewish Defense League from 1983-1985. She was a researcher for several books written by Rabbi Meir Kahane, ZTK”L. She was the managing editor of the publication entitled, The Voice of Judea, and is a regular contributor to its web site. She is currently a writer and journalist living in New York City. Her articles have appeared in The Jewish Press, The Jewish Advocate, The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, and numerous Jewish and general web sites including, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Pipes and Michael Freund.
We are delighted to have Ms. Sidman as a regular contributor to the Jesus is Lord, A Worshipping Christian’s Blog.

America’s longstanding policy of Muslim appeasement has been a complete failure. We started on this path thinking that acts of kindness will somehow separate the good Muslims from the extremists. Our efforts have only made maters worse. The Middle East has become more radicalized than at any point in the past.

Afghanistan is a prime example of our failed labors. We have spent over $440 billion trying to make that nation a better place, and intolerance has only gotten worse under our watch. The post-Taliban was even nice enough to pass a constitution that ensures the free exercise of religion. It was as pointless as having a fox put his paw print on a contract that guarantees he won’t eat the chickens he’s left to guard. According to the U.S. State Department, there is not a single public Christian church left in Afghanistan. They have all been destroyed by various Muslim forces. The State Department also said there is only one Jewish resident left in Afghanistan. At one time, there were thousands of Jews in that land.

Looking back on our time in Iraq, it’s a good question whether we made the right choice to invade. The majority of Americans believe the mission was more of a failure than a success. Saddam Hussein was never an imminent threat to the United States. Now that Shia Muslims control Iraq, there has been a warming of relations with Iran. I think the only reason we are trying to maintain troops in Iraq is to prevent Iraq from turning into an Islamic state.

Our political leaders were all shocked when they learned that Pakistan’s military had provided support to terrorist groups. We have provided aid to Pakistan for sixty years, and yet they chose to side with radicals that have killed over 20,000 of their own people. When we found Osama bin Laden living next to Pakistan’s military academy, it should have been all the more obvious that an infidel can’t buy love in the Islamic world.

Our dealing with Iran has been another appeasement failure. Last week, it was made known that agents working for Iran had plotted to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington and to bomb buildings connected to Israel. Tehran gave approval to this plot because it perceived America as being weak. So far, all we did was give the Iranian UN ambassador a tongue lashing, and we talked about our pipe-dream hope of still bringing Iran into the family of nations.

We are headed for disaster if we think we can coexist with a nation that likes to sponsor terrorism and is working feverishly to join the nuclear club. Just the thought of Republican Guard units sneaking an atomic bomb into New York should spur us toward taking a hard-line stance with Tehran.

Some of our efforts at appeasement don’t even make sense. In May, Hillary Clinton released a State Department video celebrating Muslim inventions that fails to show any inventions. Clinton had to go all the way back to the ninth century to praise some woman who founded a university. She lauded the use of social networking technology by young people throughout the Middle East to express their aspirations, but all that stuff was invented in the West. If Clinton had the most basic understanding of history, she would know that the Muslim world has been a dead zone for innovation.

What makes it so fruitless to deal with Muslims is the lack of value they place on life. Israel and Hamas just agreed to swap Palestinian prisoners for Israeli captive soldier Gilad Shalit. Israel will release 1,027 prisoners in two stages. Within a week, 450 will be swapped for Shalit and the rest will be freed two months later. If I was Palestinian, I would have to think long and hard about why the life of an Israeli soldier is worth a thousand times than my own.

The core problem is the evil nature of the Muslim religion. Because Islam is satanically driven, it’s foolhardy to try to befriend a cabal that seeks our enslavement. We wouldn’t fall into the appeasement trap if we took into account all the time our kindness towards Islam has only been rewarded with betrayal.

There would be no Muslim appeasement if our leaders had read and understood their Bible. In Genesis, we are told that there is a spiritual conflict between Abraham’s two sons. Isaac would be the son of the promise and Ishmael would cursed as a “wild ass” of a man with his hand against every man and every man’s hand against him (Gen. 16:12). The children of Ishmael will continue kicking like a donkey right up to the point that they are nearly wiped out in Tribulation carnage.

“For there will be greater anguish than at any time since the world began. And it will never be so great again. In fact, unless that time of calamity is shortened, not a single person will survive. But it will be shortened for the sake of God’s chosen ones.” Matthew 24:21-22 (NLT)

– Todd

Original Link.

In his much awaited speech before the United Nations General Assembly on Friday, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas officially asked the UN for recognition of a Palestinian state to rounds of applause, except for US Delegate Susan Rice and the Israeli delegation, in the automatically pro-Arab body.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, UN Ambassador Ron Prosor, and later Minister for Diaspora Affairs Yuli Edelstein, left the room.

Abbas started his speech by referring to Israel as “an occupying power who has committed ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, pushing them away from their ancestral homeland,” ignoring UN recognition of the state of Israel in 1948.

He spoke of the “brutality” of the IDF’s military checkpoints, saying that Israel is conducting a war of aggression in Gaza which includes assassinations and airstrikes against schools and hospitals.

He did not mention rocket fire, grad missiles, suicide bombers and massacres against Israel, perpetrated by the people he honors by naming streets and schools after them.

He said that that it is a fait accompli that there will be the “rise of Palestine.”

“Our people will continue their popular, peaceful resistance,” Abbas declared. “This Israeli settlement policy will destroy the chances of achieving a two-state solution and threatens to undermine the structure of the Palestinian National Authority and even end its existence.”

He added that he holds the Israeli government responsible for the expansionist movement of the Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria, saying that this will destroy chances of peace. Abbas warned that this problem will be transformed into a religious conflict and said that it is “impossible for us to accept unilateral actions” on the part of the Israeli government, ignoring his own unilateral action at that precise moment.

“We urge the UN to declare the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people,” Abbas said, adding that he personally and many other Arabs were forced to leave their homes and villages by the Israeli ‘occupiers’ in 1948.

Abbas is from the Israeli city of Tsfat, whose Arab residents left of their own volition, promised by the Arab leaders of 1948 that they would return after the Jews were annihilated swiftly, a plan that did not work.

Abbas said that he was willing to compromise for peace in that he is accepting only 22 percent of historic Palestine as a state, forgetting that the Balfour Plan called for Israel to have the entire area and that there was no historic Palestine besides a Jewish one – and no Palestinian people either until the PLO decided to call itself by that name in 1964.

He added that his objectives are: realization of inalienable rights of the Palestinian people with East Jerusalem and Gaza as part of a state; resolving the issue of Arab refugees as outlined in UN resolution 194; and releasing PA Arab prisoners, whom he called ‘prisoners of conscience,’ from Israeli jails; His fourth objective, he said, is to have Israel renounce violence by the settlers.

The PA Chairman said that the PA and the PLO would renounce violence as well, adding that the PLO is immediately willing to return to negotiations if these demands, a.k.a. preconditions, leading to the destruction of Israel by definition, are met. He has refused to recognize Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people.

He blamed Israel for shattering every peace initiative, saying that it is far more dangerous to circumvent the issue of Palestinian statehood and there should be “no business as usual” until it is resolved. He confirmed his readiness for immediate independence and said he would be submitting an application for full membership as an independent member state of the UN.

Abbas said there cannot be negotiations for peace without clear parameters and timetables. He claimed Israeli military occupation has altered the borders of a Palestinian state and has changed demographics, and said that is totally unacceptable. He called this a “moment of truth” and added he was waiting for the world to say that they will not allow Israel to “occupy us forever.”

“Enough, enough, enough,” declared Abbas upon speaking about 63 years of tragedy for his people and charging Israel with being “above the law.”

No one had ever heard of a Palestinian people 63 years ago, although there were Arabs living in the area which was considered greater Syria.

“Are we an unnecessary and unwanted people?” he queried.

Abbas also said that the world is testing the worthiness of the Palestinians and spoke of their desire to be a peaceful nation while maintaining the rule of law and order and enhancing economic self-reliance to reduce the need for foreign aid. He spoke of creating infrastructure projects in marginalized areas as well as of instituting public freedoms, rights for women, and a government of “accountability and transparency.”

He spoke of the “Palestinian Spring”, a time when displaced refugees can return home, a time of independence when men, women and children can lead normal lives, and accused Israel of seizing Palestinian land and burning olive trees.

Abbas then said Palestinian people want to “enjoy a normal life like the rest of humanity.”

Finally, he said that justice is possible and the loss of hope is the enemy of peace. He then confirmed that he is submitting an application for a sovereign and independent homeland. Holding up a copy of the application, he said it contains a request for a state with full member nation status in the UN based on the June 4, 1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Abbas requested that the UN Secretary General expedite the transmittal of the application to the Security Council. He said that the greatest contribution to peace is by the Palestinians having full membership as a UN nation state.

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Fern Sidman holds a B.A, in political science from Brooklyn College. She was the educational coordinator for the Betar Youth Movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s. She was national director of the Jewish Defense League from 1983-1985. She was a researcher for several books written by Rabbi Meir Kahane, ZTK”L. She was the managing editor of the publication entitled, The Voice of Judea, and is a regular contributor to its web site. She is currently a writer and journalist living in New York City. Her articles have appeared in The Jewish Press, The Jewish Advocate, The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, and numerous Jewish and general web sites including, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Pipes and Michael Freund.
We are delighted to have Ms. Sidman as a regular contributor to the Jesus is Lord, A Worshipping Christian’s Blog.

People may be finally waking up to, and opposing, the radical element of Islam. Let us hope that it has staying power.

SANTA ANA, Calif. – Jurors found 10 Muslim students guilty Friday of disrupting a lecture by the Israeli ambassador at a California university in a case that stoked a spirited debate about free speech.

Jurors delivered the verdicts in Orange County Superior Court in the case involving a speech by Ambassador Michael Oren in February 2010 at the University of California, Irvine.

The students were also convicted of conspiring to disrupt Oren’s speech.

The students were charged with misdemeanor counts after standing up, one by one, and shouting prepared statements at Oren such as “propagating murder is not an expression of free speech.”

Prosecutors say the students broke the law by interrupting Oren’s speech on U.S.-Israel relations and cutting short the program, despite calls to behave from campus officials. Defense attorneys argued the students had a right to protest.

Nearly 200 people packed the courtroom to hear closing arguments at the trial that some community members called a waste of taxpayers’ money and an effort to single out the defendants because they are Muslim.

Prosecutor Dan Wagner told jurors the students acted as censors to block the free flow of ideas and infringed upon the rights of 700 people who had gone to the Irvine campus to hear Oren.

Wagner showed video footage of university officials pleading with students to behave but said they kept interrupting the lecture. Wagner also showed emails sent among members of UC Irvine’s Muslim Student Union planning the disruption and calculating who was willing to get arrested.

Original Link.

Well, this is refreshing. Let’s hope we see more of it.

LONDON — Thousands of Muslims held a rally in London on Saturday to fight extremism and promote a moderate, inclusive version of Islam.

The event in Wembley arena was led by Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, a respected Pakistan-born Islamic scholar, who gained recognition outside the Muslim world after he published a detailed fatwa — or religious ruling — against terrorism and suicide bombings last year.

“I want to address those who are lost, who have a total misconception of jihad — I want to send them a message — come back to normal life. Whatever you’re doing is totally against Islam,” he told the audience, which included families with young children and students.

Some Islamic scholars, including Tahir-ul-Qadri, have warned that a power vacuum in North Africa and the Middle East could lead to militant and extremist groups gaining ground in upcoming elections caused by the so-called Arab Spring.

“If these elements come into power, it will be a big disaster,” Tahir-ul-Qadri told The Associated Press.

He said his message is primarily aimed at people who are on the edge of being radicalized — not those who had already been “brainwashed.”

Tahir-ul-Qadri’s organization, Minhaj-ul-Quran International, said the event was attended by some 12,000 people and was broadcast to several countries.

Members of the audience told the AP there is no easy way to persuade terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda to give up violence.

“People are looking for a cause, and the path of violence is the easiest one to take,” said Memoona Naushahi, a 20-year-old university student from Bradford in northern England. The message of the conference “may reach only people who want to hear it,” she added.

But Naushahi and others participants said that promoting a uniting voice such as Tahir-ul-Qadri’s is a step in the right direction and can spread the right message.

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Before noon on Wednesday, September 21st, scores of stalwart Christian supporters of Israel along with sizeable contingents of Jews poured into Dag Hammarskjold Plaza near the United Nations to express their indignation over the unilateral Palestinian bid for statehood expected to take place on Friday as part of the annual UN general assembly meeting. Sponsors of the rally said that a coalition of close to 50 Christian and Jewish organizations along with the Israeli government had taken part in mobilizing over 5000 people to attend under the banner of the “Eagles Wings Coalition Council”, named for the Buffalo, New York based organization of the same name, headed by Robert Stearns. Many rally participants had traveled from across the United States and Canada to attend.

Just as President Barack Obama has concluded his address to the General Assembly where he exhorted the Palestinians to abandon their quest for a unilateral declaration of statehood at the United Nations, speaker after speaker underscored the irrefragable anti-Semitism and blatant anti-Israel predilections that have come to define the mantra of the UN. According to UN Watch in Geneva, over the last five years, the UN Human Rights Council has adopted 70 resolutions condemning specific nations, and 40 of those have been levied against Israel. Likewise, the General Assembly has adopted approximately 20 anti-Israel resolutions each year, compared to only half a dozen targeting other countries.

The demonstrators also roundly condemned the Durban III conference that is scheduled to take place tomorrow and marks the 10th anniversary of the first Durban Conference in South Africa. The ostensible agenda of the UN sponsored conference was to have addressed issues of global racism, sexism and xenophobia, but rapidly morphed into a series of forums in which anti-Israel non-governmental organizations used their time to propagandize against the Jewish state.

“The original Durban conference equated Zionism with racism,” said Robert Stearns, director of Eagle’s Wings. “Thankfully, the United States government and many others have not participated in the Durban conference, and yet it continues. A Durban event in Geneva went so far as to invite the president of Iran as the keynote speaker. When he’s your keynote speaker at a human rights rally, you should know there’s a problem”, he added. In addition to the U.S. and Israel, Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United Kingdom are boycotting Durban III.

Saying that everyone attending the rally serves as “watchmen on the wall of Israel”, he poiinted to the religious rights granted to minorities in Israel as well as rights for women and said that Israel is “the only democracy in the Middle East”.

“I believe that all of us who worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob found in the Bible see the modern state of Israel as an expression of God’s fidelity to his friend Abraham,” he said, “so we are concerned and pay attention to what’s happening in Israel.”

As organizational and community leaders gathered on the stage, the rally attendees held aloft signs saying, “Stop the UN Double Standards”, “Israel: We Stand With You”, “Jews Want Peace: Arabs Want Pieces”, and “Denounce Durban III” while a sea of blue and white Israeli flags were also raised.

“The whole land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people,” said Helen Freedman, the executive director of Americans For a Safe Israel (AFSI). “The unilateral declaration of independence is very, very dangerous, because what it does is signal to the Arabs that they now have a state. There’s no legitimacy to their claim for a state, but the population will get the message that they do have entitlement and the whole situation will really spiral out of control”, she declared.

Roz Rothstein, national director of of the pro-Israel student advocacy organization “StandWithUs” said, “Today we are all Israelis.” Pointing to the UN, she quipped, “In that building over there, they are fools. They have turned right and wrong upside down. They have turned evil and good upside down.”

“Do not compromise in the name of peace. Do not even talk about peace when the other does not want it”, intoned Simon Deng, a refugee from the Sudan and a former slave. Calling himself a “a friend of the State of Israel”, he drew wild applause from the crowd when he called for “an undivided Jerusalem as Israel’s capital”. Spotlighting the horrific hypocrisy of the world body, Deng said, “The UN is turning a blind eye to racism in the Islamic world while condemning democratic Israel.”

Focusing on the escalating genocidal agenda emanating from Teheran, Deputy Speaker of the Knesset Danny Danon said, “Inside the UN today you can see hatred against the Jewish people. President Obama, you have to wake up and you have to show leadership and you have to deal with the threat that is coming from Iran.”

Other speakers included Herb London of the Hudson Institute, Dr. Marvin Belsky of the Human Rights Coalition Against Radical Islam (HRCARI), Richard Allen of JCC Watch; Bishop Carlton T. Brown, from Harlem who spoke on behalf of 15 uptown churches, and Rabbi Yaakov Y. Kermaier, the spiritual leader of Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue Synagogue and President of the New York Board of Rabbis.

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Fern Sidman holds a B.A, in political science from Brooklyn College. She was the educational coordinator for the Betar Youth Movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s. She was national director of the Jewish Defense League from 1983-1985. She was a researcher for several books written by Rabbi Meir Kahane, ZTK”L. She was the managing editor of the publication entitled, The Voice of Judea, and is a regular contributor to its web site. She is currently a writer and journalist living in New York City. Her articles have appeared in The Jewish Press, The Jewish Advocate, The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, and numerous Jewish and general web sites including, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Pipes and Michael Freund.
We are delighted to have Ms. Sidman as a regular contributor to the Jesus is Lord, A Worshipping Christian’s Blog.

The “redistribute the wealth” president is at it again.

US President Barack Obama is planning a higher minimum tax rate on the richest Americans to ensure they are taxed at the same rate as the less wealthy.

White House officials said Mr Obama would provide details of his proposal on Monday when he reveals his long-term plan to reduce the budget deficit.

Reports say the proposal is to be called the Buffett Rule, after the billionaire investor Warren Buffett.

Mr Buffett says loopholes mean the richest pay relatively less tax.

This is because earnings from investments are taxed at lower rates than wages.

The proposed new tax would affect Americans who earn more than $1m a year.

The proposal is likely to meet a strong challenge in Congress, where Republicans have said they oppose any tax increases.

The US economy has been growing only slowly while the unemployment rate remains stubbornly high, above 9%. Facing an election next year, Mr Obama has had a battle in Congress over how to reduce the ballooning deficit while the economy remains stagnant.

A Congressional “supercommittee” of six Republicans and six Democrats has been charged with finding steep reductions in the deficit by late November, when automatic cuts come into force.

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When two sides can’t come to an agreement on peace, what does the U.N. propose? Mandate it.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. and Europe are racing to avert or delay a looming showdown over Palestinian statehood at the United Nations this week that may kill already badly wounded Mideast peace hopes.

Senior U.S. and European officials will meet on Sunday in New York to try to find a formula that would bring Israel and the Palestinians back to stalled negotiations without antagonizing either side or embroiling the region in new turmoil. But with the parties locked in intractable positions over the Palestinian bid for U.N. recognition and chances for a breakthrough slim, officials say the effort may be more about damage control than diplomacy.

Frustrated by their inability to win concessions from Israel, like a freeze on settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, the Palestinians have seized this moment to try to gain greater standing and attention with a high stakes wager on statehood and U.N. membership that is vehemently opposed by Israel and the United States.

Twelve months after President Barack Obama said he wanted the U.N. to be welcoming Palestine as its newest member this year, talks have been broken down for almost as long and the U.S. is in the unenviable position of leading the opposition to something it actually supports.

With tensions high amid fears that a promised U.S. veto of the Palestinian bid at the U.N. Security Council could spark violence in the region, American officials were working around the clock to secure additional opposition to recognition, officials said. Without nine affirmative votes in the 15-member Council, the Palestinian resolution will fail and Washington is hoping it won’t have to act alone. U.S. officials believe that six other Council members may vote against or abstain, meaning the Palestinians will fall short, but this could not be immediately confirmed.

Heading off or watering down the Palestinian resolution had been the goal of international diplomats who had hoped to parlay that success into a meeting between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders at which negotiations would be relaunched. Yet the Palestinians have stuck to their guns, refusing to back down and give up the little leverage they appear to hold.

Still, even after the Palestinians lose at the Security Council on a U.S. veto or votes, they are expected to take their case for recognition to the U.N. General Assembly, where they enjoy widespread support and the United States cannot kill it.

A nod from the General Assembly, could give the Palestinians access to international judicial bodies like the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, which the Israelis fear will then unfairly target them. This will further isolate Israel and the United States and deepen Israel’s engrained mistrust of the United Nations.

Thus, the scramble for compromise continues with envoys from the international “Quartet” of Mideast peacemakers — the U.S., the E.U., the U.N. and Russia — gathering on Sunday followed by talks between Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

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There can be no doubt that 2011 is now the most calamity-prone year in American history. Three weeks ago, I wrote that the U.S. has set a record for the year with the most costly weather disasters. By the time the year is over, we could have $200 billion in weather-related losses.

Hurricane Irene has added $14 billion to the tab, and it is only the tenth billion-dollar weather event of the year. Amazingly, the hurricane was only a category 1 storm when it made landfall. Irene was able to inflict so much damage by having a perfect track over the most populated area of the East Coast.

Tropical Storm Lee was another weak storm that inflicted heavy losses. It never reached hurricane status, but it generated misery through relentless rainfall. Lee broke no less than eight major records for flooding.

The losses from the Texas drought continue to add up. It is now the worst dry spell in the history of that state. I can see the effects of the drought here in Arkansas. Every time I drive to Little Rock, I see at least ten trucks hauling massive loads of hay in the direction of the Lone Star State. So much hay is being moved to Texas on Interstate 30 that a layer of hay is building up on the side of the road.

Not all of America’s problems are weather related. Our nation has been struggling with a financial crisis for the past three years. You would have to go back to the days of the Great Depression to find a longer period of economic stagnation. Right now, Washington is trying to come up with a plan that creates new jobs.

You can see our downfall in various lists that are used to track the wealth status of nations. We no longer have the tallest buildings, the fastest trains, the busiest ports, or the most cars. The only category we lead in is that we are the country with the largest national debt.

Most prophecy-minded Christians would point to our relationship with God as the source of our national troubles. We are already blessed wildly beyond the average citizen of most other nation. In the U.S., the average person makes $47,200 per year. In the nation of China, $7,519 is the average annual income. Near the bottom of the list, a person in Zimbabwe earns only $400 per year.

The question is: Why are we losing God’s special blessing on our nation? I’m sure most of you folks are aware of the “blessing and curse” prophecy regarding how nations treat Israel. God warned in His Holy Bible:

“I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:3).

I think our dealing with Israel is a major factor in why we have so many problems, but I don’t think it is the main reason. If it was, we could just elect a pro-Israel president and all these storm clouds would vanish.

Years of slowly turning our back on God has caused us to lose our hedge of divine protection. The attack of 9/11 is probably the most striking indication that our enemies no longer fear us. When I was a kid, all the major terrorism was in Europe or the Middle East. Now, the only way we are able to keep evildoers away from our door is by transforming our homeland into a giant police state.

There is no easy formula for getting back to our glory days as a nation. It would take a revival movement to change our course. The Old Testament example of Israel proves how difficult it is to change the hearts of people when a nation forgets God.

For years, I have received a continuous stream of email from people who do not believe in Bible prophecy. One of their biggest complaints has been my warning of greater natural disasters in the coming days. I don’t get as much mail on this subject any more. I think it’s because people no longer see my forecast as something of pure fantasy. It’s happening now, and they now view it as a threat. I still stand by the same warning that I would write people back with: “If my luck with the end-time signs doesn’t run out soon, yours will.”

“And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).

– Todd

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