"Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, pestilences and earthquakes in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake." (Matthew 24:8-9).
"Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done" (Mark 13:30).
Showing posts with label Fatah-Hamas Pact and the Third Intifada. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fatah-Hamas Pact and the Third Intifada. Show all posts
July 16, 2011
UN Summit in September Will Press for Palestinian State
Spokesperson Foreign Affairs Seán Ó Fearghaíl TD has called on the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Eamon Gilmore to publicly support the formation of a Palestinian State at the UN in September, recognising that a two-state solution is the best path to peace in the Middle East.
Deputy Ó Fearghaíl said:
“Nabil Shaath, a senior Palestinian negotiator, is currently visiting Ireland seeking support for the UN meeting in September. I believe the Government must go to that meeting and support the establishment of a State for the Palestinian people.
“Fianna Fáil has always supported the cause of the Palestinian people and encouraged all sides to work for peace in the region. Indeed we were heartened to see President Obama appoint Senator George Mitchell as his Middle East Peace Envoy following his extraordinary work on the Good Friday Agreement. I know Senator Mitchell, who has now retired, is hopeful that genuine progress for peace can be made between Israel and the Palestinians.”
“I have been in contact with Sadaka – the Ireland Palestine Alliance. I support their efforts to raise the profile of this issue. Fianna Fáil has today tabled a motion before the Dáil calling on the Government to formally recognise a Palestinian State. We believe this State should be based on Israel’s pre-1967 borders.”
Deputy Ó Fearghaíl concluded:
“I am encouraging the Government to accept the motion and demonstrate that the elected representatives of the Irish people stand with the Palestinians in the pursuit of peace and a viable, permanent, secure State.”
The Arab League decided on Saturday to seek full U.N. membership for a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, with East Jerusalem as its capital, ignoring opposition from the United States and Israel.
The Arab League's peace process committee, meeting in Doha, said it would request membership for the state of Palestine at the U.N. General Assembly's meeting in New York in September.
"The committee decided to go to the United Nations to request full membership for Palestine on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital," it said in a statement.
The 1967 borders refer to Israel's frontiers as they stood on the eve of the 1967 Middle East war in which it captured the Gaza Strip from Egypt and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, from Jordan.
The Palestinian leadership began peace talks with Israel nearly two decades ago with the aim of founding a state alongside Israel in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Israel says that peace talks and an agreement are the only way for the Palestinians to achieve their goal of nationhood. But with the peace process at a standstill, the Palestinian leadership has been seeking new ways to advance their cause. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas opposes the use of violence.
The Arab League's U.N. move looks set to fail because of the opposition of the United States, which has veto power in the Security Council. But Israel fears the maneuvering will leave them looking vulnerable on the diplomatic front.
U.S. President Barack Obama, in a May 19 speech, condemned what he described as "symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations," a reference to the Palestinians' plan to push for recognition at the September meeting. The Palestinians currently have the status of U.N. observers without voting rights.
NO COMMON GROUND
The Doha meeting had been convened in the wake of major Middle East policy speeches in Washington by Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu had said in a speech to the U.S. Congress he was ready to make "painful concessions" for peace, saying he was ready to give up parts of what he called the ancestral Jewish homeland -- a reference to the West Bank.
The Palestinians said Netanyahu's ideas for peace had put more obstacles in the path of an already moribund peace process.
Abbas, in his opening remarks to the Doha meeting, said there were "no shared foundations" for peace talks with Netanyahu and seeking U.N. recognition was his only option.
"We see from the conditions that Netanyahu laid out that there are no shared foundations ... for negotiations. Our fundamental option is to go to the United Nations," he said.
He expressed fear that the step would lead some states to "try to impose a siege upon us," though he did not say to which governments he was referring. "We hope that there will be a safety net from the Arab states," he said.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) headed by Abbas is dependent on financial support from international donors including the United States and the European Union. It also relies on customs duties collected on its behalf by Israel, which triggered a financial crisis for the PA earlier this month when the Israeli government temporarily withheld the funds following a reconciliation deal between the rival Fatah and Hamas groups.
U.S.-brokered talks between the Palestinians and Israel broke down last September in a dispute over continued Jewish settlement building in the occupied West Bank.
"In these circumstances, it seems better to me that we freeze discussion of the peace process until there is a partner ready for peace," said Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani, who was chairing the meeting.
Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa, a leading candidate for the Egyptian presidency, told Reuters that Netanyahu had presented nothing but a series of "no's" in his speech to the U.S. Congress.
"The sound path is going to the United Nations and political struggle," Moussa said. "I believe that negotiations have become futile in light of all of these nos. What will you negotiate on?"
President Barack Obama's backing of a key Palestinian demand on the borders of its future state will help win U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state, Egypt's U.N. ambassador said Thursday.
Maged Abdelaziz linked Obama's support for the borders that existed before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war to the Palestinian campaign to get two-thirds of the U.N. General Assembly -- at least 128 of its 192 member states -- to recognize Palestine as a state by September. He predicted the Palestinians would get support from at least 130 nations, which would be "a milestone," and would keep pursuing additional recognitions.
But for a newly created Palestine to become a member of the United Nations, Abdelaziz said, it must get support from the Security Council, where the United States, Israel's closest ally, has veto power. Palestine is already recognized as an independent state by 112 countries, Abdelaziz said.
"If they put a resolution in the General Assembly requesting the Security Council to recognize the state of Palestine and this resolution passes ... with 170 or 180 votes, I'm sure that this is going to put a lot of moral pressure on the Security Council, and particularly on the United States, in order not to veto," Abdelaziz told a group of reporters.
He said he didn't know whether the Palestinians will push for a resolution in September because Palestinian leaders are still discussing what to do.
A resolution would be purely symbolic -- not legally binding like Security Council resolutions -- but it would have an impact, Abdelaziz said.
"I think the Palestinian situation would be much stronger if they got the two-thirds majority required for the General Assembly -- not to use it in the General Assembly, but use it as a card to put more emphasis on their issue in the Security Council in order to have the Security Council also act," he said.
Abdelaziz welcomed Obama's support for the pre-1967 borders with "mutually agreed swaps" of land because it "runs in conjunction with the efforts by the Palestinian leadership to garner the most possible number of recognitions of the state of Palestine on the borders of 1967, with those swaps."
But the Egyptian ambassador said Obama missed an opportunity to address other key issues including Israel's continued settlement activities, water, ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the return of refugees "which is a critical issue," and the Palestinian demand for East Jerusalem as its capital.
He said he hoped that Israel and the Palestinians will resume negotiations but said the U.S. president didn't outline the basis of negotiations, which many had hoped for, or give a timeline.
Abdelaziz said one possibility being discussed by Palestinian leaders would be to adopt a General Assembly resolution supporting Palestinian statehood in September "and then allowing one or two years for negotiations on the basis of the parameters to be established in that resolution."
By the time those negotiations end, he said, the next U.S. presidential elections would be over, which presumably would mean the White House would not face the political pressures that exist today and might look favorably on U.N. membership for Palestine.
September has loomed large because Israel and the Palestinians have agreed on Obama's target of September 2011 for a peace agreement, a date endorsed by the European Union and much of the world.
As U.S.-brokered direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations resumed last September, Obama announced at the General Assembly's annual ministerial meeting that a peace treaty should be signed in a year. But those talks collapsed weeks later after Israel ended its freeze on building settlements.
The Palestinians insist they will not resume peace talks until Israel stops building settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem -- lands it captured in the 1967 war and which the Palestinians want for their future state.
Israel maintains that the Palestinians should not be setting conditions for talks and that settlements didn't stop them negotiating in the past.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Obama have expressed vastly different visions about the path forward -- Obama is urging a return to the bargaining table while Netanyahu has attacked the Palestinians' intention to set up a "unity government" backed by both the moderate Fatah of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Iranian-backed Hamas which controls Gaza and refuses to recognize Israel.
Egypt mediated talks between Fatah and Hamas that led to the agreement on a unity government, he said, and it is trying to ensure that the reconciliation is not just symbolic.
"We're putting a lot of emphasis on Hamas changing its positions in order to join the peace process and to stop all kinds of activities that it's doing against it," Abdelaziz said.
Egyptian envoy to the UN says U.S. President's support of a Palestinian state within 1967 borders crucial, adding that Cairo was pressuring Hamas to accept Quartet Mideast peace principles.
By The Associated Press May 20, 2011
President Barack Obama's backing of a key Palestinian demand on the borders of its future state will help win UN recognition of a Palestinian state, Egypt's UN ambassador said Thursday.
Maged Abdelaziz linked Obama's support for the borders that existed before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war to the Palestinian campaign to get two-thirds of the UN General Assembly — at least 128 of its 192 member states — to recognize Palestine as a state by September.
He predicted the Palestinians would get support from at least 130 nations, which would be "a milestone," and would keep pursuing additional recognitions. UN General Assembly
But for a newly created Palestine to become a member of the United Nations, Abdelaziz said, it must get support from the Security Council, where the United States, Israel's closest ally, has veto power.
"If they put a resolution in the General Assembly requesting the Security Council to recognize the state of Palestine and this resolution passes ... with 170 or 180 votes, I'm sure that this is going to put a lot of moral pressure on the Security Council, and particularly on the United States, in order not to veto," Abdelaziz told a group of reporters.
He said he didn't know whether the Palestinians will push for a resolution in September because Palestinian leaders are still discussing what to do.
A resolution would be purely "symbolic" — not legally binding like Security Council resolutions — but it would have an impact, Abdelaziz said.
"I think the Palestinian situation would be much stronger if they got the two-thirds majority required for the General Assembly — not to use it in the General Assembly, but use it as a card to put more emphasis on their issue in the Security Council in order to have the Security Council also act," he said.
Abdelaziz welcomed Obama's support for the pre-1967 borders with "mutually agreed swaps" of land because it "runs in conjunction with the efforts by the Palestinian leadership to garner the most possible number of recognitions of the state of Palestine on the borders of 1967, with those swaps."
But the Egyptian ambassador said Obama missed an opportunity to address other key issues including Israel's continued settlement activities, water, ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the return of refugees "which is a critical issue," and the Palestinian demand for East Jerusalem as its capital.
He said he hoped that Israel and the Palestinians will resume negotiations but said the U.S. president didn't outline the basis of negotiations, which many had hoped for, or give a timeline.
Abdelaziz said one possibility being discussed by Palestinian leaders would be to adopt a General Assembly resolution supporting Palestinian statehood in September "and then allowing one or two years for negotiations on the basis of the parameters to be established in that resolution."
By the time those negotiations end, he said, the next U.S. presidential elections would be over, which presumably would mean the White House would not face the political pressures that exist today and might look favorably on UN membership for Palestine.
September has loomed large because Israel and the Palestinians have agreed on Obama's target of September 2011 for a peace agreement, a date endorsed by the European Union and much of the world.
As U.S.-brokered direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations resumed last September, Obama announced at the General Assembly's annual ministerial meeting that a peace treaty should be signed in a year. But those talks collapsed weeks later after Israel ended its freeze on building settlements.
The Palestinians insist they will not resume peace talks until Israel stops building settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem — lands it captured in the 1967 war and which the Palestinians want for their future state.
Israel maintains that the Palestinians should not be setting conditions for talks and that settlements didn't stop them negotiating in the past.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Obama have expressed vastly different visions about the path forward — Obama is urging a return to the bargaining table while Netanyahu has attacked the Palestinians' intention to set up a "unity government" backed by both the moderate Fatah of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Iranian-backed Hamas which controls Gaza and refuses to recognize Israel.
Abdelaziz said Obama's statement last September created momentum among Arab nations and the Palestinians which they don't want to lose.
Egypt mediated talks between Fatah and Hamas that led to the agreement on a unity government, he said, and it is trying to ensure that the reconciliation is not just symbolic.
"We're putting a lot of emphasis on Hamas changing its positions in order to join the peace process and to stop all kinds of activities that it's doing against it," Abdelaziz said.
He said this means having Hamas accept the principles outlined by the Quartet of Mideast mediators — the UN, U.S., European Union and Russia — which include recognition of Israel and honoring all past agreements with the Jewish state.
May 23, 2011
Obama Favors Arab Sovereignty Over the Temple Mount
This September, the Palestinian Authority will attempt to gain recognition as an independent state via a vote in the United Nations’ General Assembly. It is taking a a page out of the playbook of the Zionist movement and the leadership of what would become Israel. This time, the Arabs will support a resolution that partitions the land into two states. In a lot of ways, it is a big vindication of the Zionist Movement and the State of Israel. After 63 years, the two state solution wins. That does not resolve the conflict though. Even if Israel under Benjamin Netanyahu stops fighting this political move by Mahmoud Abbas and his Prime Minister, Israel will not withdraw from all of the West Bank – and especially not Jerusalem. - Joshua Reback, Jerusalem (and some Minor Reasons Why Palestinian Independence will not End the Conflict, Blog.NewVoices.org, April 13, 2011
The Middle East peace plan that U.S. President Barack Obama will unveil soon involves the creation of a Palestinian Authority state by 2011 and the transfer of Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem [presumably including the Temple Mount] to Arab-Muslim sovereignty... He intends to set an ambitious timetable for completing the peace deal -- something that will please Arabs but may irritate Israel. - Gil Ronen, Obama Plan: Temple Mount Under Arab-Muslim Sovereignty, Israel National News, August 23, 2009
President Barack Obama says Israel will face growing isolation without a credible Middle East peace process. The president told America's pro-Israel lobby that "we cannot afford to wait another decade, or another two decades, or another three decades, to achieve peace." After a contentious couple of days, Obama said his endorsement of the Jewish state's 1967 boundaries as the basis for a Palestinian state reflected the urgent need for a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians. He says his call for a future Palestine based on the 1967 borders with agreed land swaps was a public expression of what has long been acknowledged privately. Obama said he brought the terms out in the open because delay will undermine Israel's security and peace prospects. He repeated his remarks from Thursday on Israeli-Palestinian borders and security verbatim. - Obama: credible peace process needed to ward off isolation of Israel, The Associated Press, May 22, 2011
The Shin Bet uncovered a growing Hamas presence in Jerusalem aimed at establishing a foothold on the Temple Mount. This is done by funding maintenance of the Temple Mount compound - called Al-Aksa by the Arabs - and in subsidizing school trips to the mosques there. - Two arrested for Hamas plot to fire rockets at stadium, The Jerusalem Post, January 2, 2011
The goal of the New Jerusalem Covenant Project is to create the plan by which Antichrist can solve the Middle East crisis; Antichrist will use this crisis to stage his appearance in the world. Antichrist is supposed to appear at the end of the Middle East crisis (World War III). The prophetic reality of Daniel 9:24-27, Matthew 24:15 and Revelation 11:1-12 is that the new Temple will be built after World War III and will produce the Man of Sin. Thus, the Illuminati plans to destroy the Dome of the Rock during the World War III fighting so that their Antichrist can rebuild Solomon's Temple. This reality means that Arabs will retain control over the Temple Mount until the moment Antichrist comes to the world scene and seizes it for the Jews so his temple can be created. "Peace and safety" will be heralded, and the leaders of the major nations will be busy taking credit for their "brilliant" leadership that seemingly finally solved the deeply engrained religious strife in and around Jerusalem that has plagued mankind for the past 1,400 years. - David Bay, Five Steps of the Plan to Produce Antichrist, Cutting Edge Ministries, August 18, 1991
It is critical that you understand this one thing — that Palestine will be recognized as a nation in the immediate future. One hundred nations support recognizing Palestine as a nation unilaterally, meaning without Israel's approval.This is the top agenda in the UN at this time. We know through Scripture it will not happen that way but the push to make Palestine a nation is the biggest sign we are at the end with the exception of Israel becoming a nation. Let me show you why.
The current plan is for Israel to return to its 1967 borders. Why is this significant? Because it would put Jerusalem into the hands of the Palestinians. In Revelation 11:2 it specifically mentions the temple mount in Jerusalem and the city of Jerusalem,
"But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months."
Daniel 9:27 describes the event that begins the Tribulation. A 7 year covenant is confirmed by the antichrist. The contents of this covenant are in Revelation 11:1-2, Israel will get the right to build their temple, but Palestine will get Jerusalem, but remember the covenant is broken at the midpoint.
"And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week..."
As many of you know the word 'week' there is being used to describe 7 year periods. Depending on the translation it may also be stated as a "week of years".
Continuing on in Daniel 9:27
"and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate..."
At the midpoint the covenant is broken. The Tribulation is 7 years of 360 days each. Because the covenant is broken at exactly the midpoint, the Tribulation is described in the Bible as two halves; 3.5 years, 42 months, or 1260 days. Are you getting the connection to the 42 months mentioned in the second paragraph? It is the first half of the Tribulation to the day.Or put in other words, the day Palestine is recognized as a nation with Jerusalem as its capital, the Tribulation starts.
When will Palestine be recognized as a nation? I have understood since August of 2009 that it will happen in 2011. We are on a parallel course to that in Daniel 9:2.
"In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem."
May 14, 1948 (when Israel again was officially established as a nation) started a 70 year countdown (Psalm 90:10 & Zechariah 1:12). 1948 + 70 = 2018 minus 7 (for the Tribulation) is 2011.
U.S.-Israel tension over Barack Obama's endorsement of Israel's pre-1967 borders is obscuring a flip side of the Middle East coin: The past days' speeches by the U.S. president contained difficult challenges for the Palestinians as well.
Addressing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Sunday, Obama reiterated his request that the Palestinians drop their plans to appeal for recognition at the United Nations this fall, and — as he did in another Mideast speech Thursday — raised tough questions about an emerging Palestinian unity government that is to include the Hamas militant group.
Most difficult for Palestinians is Obama's call to recognize Israel as the Jewish homeland, essentially requiring the Palestinians to accept that most refugees will be denied the "right of return" to what is now Israel.
Perhaps for this reason, the Palestinians have remained largely quiet about the substance of Obama's speeches, seemingly content to watch Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clash with the U.S. administration over Israel's future borders.
"It's really premature to jump into any of these details," said Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, when asked by The Associated Press about the demands Obama made of the Palestinians.
The fate of Palestinian refugees is one of the most emotional and explosive issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians either fled or were expelled during the war surrounding Israel's creation in 1948. Today, the surviving refugees, with their descendants, number several million people.
The Palestinians claim they have the right to return to their family's lost properties.Israel rejects the principle, saying it would mean the end of the country as a Jewish democracy. Israeli leaders say the refugees should be entitled to compensation and resettled in a future Palestine to be established next to Israel, or absorbed where they now live.
In his speech last Thursday, Obama did not explicitly mention the refugees, but by saying a final peace deal must recognize "Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland for the Jewish people," he appeared to back the Israeli position.
The issue is so central to Palestinian policy and society that no Palestinian leader can be seen as abandoning the rights of the refugees, particularly at a time when peace efforts are at a standstill and so many other difficult issues, such as borders and the final status of Jerusalem, remain unresolved.
Nabil Shaath, a senior Palestinian official, said recognition of Israel as a Jewish state would sell out not only the refugees, but potentially open the door to Israel expelling its roughly 1.5 million Arab citizens as well.This idea has never been seriously raised in Israel.
He said the Palestinian recognition of Israel's right to exist, without any reference to national character, should be sufficient.
"We recognize Israel as a state," he said. "It's a recognition of a state to a state."
In his two recent speeches, Obama took aim at two other central planks of Palestinian policy:
Plans to ask the U.N. in September to recognize an independent Palestine, with or without a peace agreement; and
A unity deal struck between President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement and the Iranian-backed Hamas militants.
In Thursday's speech, Obama warned that "symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September won't create an independent state." And referring to Hamas in Sunday's address to AIPAC, a powerful pro-Israel lobby, Obama stated:
"No country can be expected to negotiate with a terrorist organization sworn to its destruction."
"We will hold the Palestinians accountable for their actions and their rhetoric," Obama said.
Erekat insisted the world must embrace the Fatah-Hamas reconciliation, meant to end the split that has left rival governments in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.The Palestinians claim both areas, along with east Jerusalem, for their future state, and Erekat said there can be no independence without reconciliation.
In any case, he said Abbas, and the umbrella Palestine Liberation Organization, dominated by Fatah, are the parties to negotiate peace with Israel — not the "unity government" of the Palestinian Authority which would be backed by both parties.
Erekat, like other Palestinians officials, declined to discuss most of the specifics of Obama's speech, including the issue of the Jewish state. For now, he says the border issue should be the focus of Mideast diplomacy.
The Palestinians demand a return to the pre-1967 lines, which would require an Israeli pullout from the West Bank and east Jerusalem, though they are open to Obama's idea of agreed-upon modifications through land swaps — as long as they are small.
Erekat said if Netanyahu accepts the 1967 lines he could raise any other matter in negotiations.
"Before I hear the prime minister of Israel saying that he accepts this principle, I think it would be a waste of my time to discuss any other issue," Erekat said.
Netanyahu says the 1967 lines are "indefensible," and his anger toward the U.S. president seemed palpable at a White House meeting Friday.
But even Obama's reference to the 1967 lines may not be entirely to the Palestinians' liking. Clarifying his position Sunday, Obama said those lines should be the basis for a peace deal, but that the final borders could be adjusted to accommodate "new demographic realities."
That was seen as a recognition that Israel could keep at least some of the occupied area where it has settled Jews. Some 500,000 Israelis live in Jewish settlements, which are considered illegal by the Palestinians and the international community.
Obama also noted the 1967 lines have long been considered a basis for a final peace deal, most recently in previous negotiations that broke down in 2008. So his embrace of those borders is not revolutionary.
"What I did on Thursday was to say publicly what has long been acknowledged privately," he said.
After initial shock and anger toward Obama, members of Netanyahu's hard-line coalition have begun to soften their opposition.
Limor Livnat, a Cabinet minister in Netanyahu's nationalist Likud Party, called Obama's speech on Sunday "excellent." She praised his tough line against Hamas and support for Israel as a Jewish state.
"Following the prime minister's words, the president sharpened his message and said things that he didn't say clearly beforehand," she told Channel 2 TV. "These are important things."
For thousands of years there was no conflict in Palestine. In the 19th century, the land of Palestine was inhabited by a multicultural population of Palestinian Arabs — approximately 86 percent Muslim, 10 percent Christian, and 4 percent Jewish. For centuries these groups lived in harmony.
In the late 1800s, a group in Europe decided to colonize this land. Known as "Zionists," this group consisted of an extremist minority of the Jewish population who wanted to create a Jewish homeland. They considered locations in Africa and the Americas before settling on Palestine, where the Jewish State of Israel was established in 1948.
Largely due to one-sided special-interest lobbying by AIPAC, the U.S. has given more funds to Israel than to any other nation: $85 billion in grants, loans and commodities since 1949, with an additional $50 billion in interest costs for advance payments, for a total cost of $135 billion or $23,240 per Israeli. During fiscal year 2007, the U.S. gave an average of $7 million per day to the State of Israel.
"Although there are those who refuse to accept the teachings of our rabbis and will continue to support the Zionist state, there are also many who are totally unaware of the history of Zionism and its contradiction to the beliefs of Torah-True Jews. From its inception, many rabbis warned of the potential dangers of Zionism and openly declared that all Jews loyal to God should stay away from it like one would from fire. They made their opinions clear to their congregants and to the general public. Their message was that Zionism is a chauvinistic racist phenomenon which has absolutely naught to do with Judaism. They publicly expressed that Zionism would definitely be detrimental to the well being of Jews and Gentiles and that its effects on the Jewish religion would be nothing other than destructive. Further, it would taint the reputation of Jewry as a whole and would cause utter confusion in the Jewish and non-Jewish communities. Judaism is a religion. Judaism is not a race or a nationality. That was and still remains the consensus amongst the rabbis."
"We were given the Holy Land by God in order to be able to study and practice the Torah without disturbance and to attain levels of holiness difficult to attain outside of the Holy Land. We abused the privilege and we were expelled. That is exactly what all Jews say in their prayers on every Jewish festival, 'Umipnay chatoenu golinu mayartsaynu'—'Because of our sins, we were expelled from our land.'"
"We have been forsworn by God 'not to enter the Holy Land as a body before the predestined time;' 'not to rebel against the nations;' to be loyal citizens, not to do anything against the will of any nation or its honour; not to seek vengeance, discord, restitution or compensation; 'not to leave exile ahead of time.' On the contrary, we have to be humble and accept the yoke of exile. To violate the oaths would result in 'your flesh will be made prey as the deer and the antelope in the forest,' and the redemption will be delayed."
President Barack Obama is trying to assuage some of America's fiercest supporters of Israel after he endorsed the Jewish nation's 1967 boundaries as the basis for a Palestinian state and clashed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In a speech Sunday to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Obama wasn't expected to outline another significant U.S. policy shift but probably would focus on the deep U.S.-Israeli alliance.
But almost everyone in the room wanted to see how the president addresses his remarks from Thursday, when he said that a future Palestine should be shaped around the border lines that existed before Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, with land swaps to account for Israeli settlements and other changed conditions.
Obama's endorsement moved the U.S. position from noting the Palestinian goal for a country based on these terms and leaving the outcome to be settled through negotiation. By removing the nuance, he essentially stated what almost every observer assumed would have to be the border lines of a two-state solution, with mutually agreed adjustments.
Still, the change prompted bitter criticism from Netanyahu. And in a blunt display of differences, the two leaders openly disagreed after a Friday meeting at the White House. Netanyahu called the 1967 demarcation "indefensible" and issued a flat rejection of the idea.
Netanyahu, who will address the pro-Israel lobby Monday and Congress Tuesday, played down the rift.
"The disagreements have been blown way out of proportion," he told The Associated Press on Saturday. "It's true we have some differences of opinion, but these are among friends."
Netanyahu said there should be no doubt about the strength of the American-Israeli relationship and Obama's commitment to Israel and its security.
Obama was to depart later Sunday for a weeklong European tour aimed at tending to old friends in the Western alliance and securing their help with the political upheaval across the Arab world and the decade-long conflict in Afghanistan.
Obama will visit Ireland, England, France and Poland.
The trip comes amid the continued NATO-led bombing campaign in Libya and a seemingly intractable conflict between Moammar Gadhafi's forces and Libyan rebels. Talks will also encompass economic concerns, as European countries make stark cuts in public spending and Obama and congressional Republicans try to hash out how to cut spending to bring U.S. debt under control.
Exasperated by stalled Middle East peace talks in a season of tumultuous change, President Barack Obama jolted close ally Israel Thursday by embracing the Palestinians' terms for drawing the borders of their new nation next door. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel rejected the idea as "indefensible" on the eve of his vital White House meeting with Obama.
The U.S. president said that an independent Palestine should be based on 1967 borders — before the Six Day War in which Israel occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza — as adjusted by possible land swaps agreed upon by both sides. He said Israel can never live in true peace as a Jewish state if it insists on "permanent occupation."
Obama's effort to salvage a peace effort that is in shambles was a major change in tactics for a president running out of patience and reasons to be subtle. The Israeli-Palestinian stalemate has remained immune to the popular uprisings and historic drives for freedom that have swept much of the region.
He pushed both sides to accept his starting point — borders for Palestine, security for Israel — and get back to solving a deadlock "that has grinded on and on and on."
In a sweeping review of recent uprisings and authoritarian crackdowns across the Arab world, Obama was also unsparing in his words for the Palestinian leadership, repudiating its pursuit of unilateral statehood through the United Nations and questioning its alliance with a Hamas faction bent on Israel's destruction.
"At a time when the people of the Middle East and North Africa are casting off the burdens of the past, the drive for a lasting peace that ends the conflict and resolves all claims is more urgent than ever," Obama said, playing the rapid change of the past six months against a standoff that has stymied the Mideast for decades.
More broadly, before a polite diplomatic audience at the State Department, Obama sought to clarify the U.S. role toward a part of the world undergoing a transformation. He implored the American people to see that it is worth devoting U.S. might and money to help stabilize a dangerous region and help people fighting for freedom.
"There must be no doubt that the United States of America welcomes change that advances self-determination and opportunity," the president said. "Yes, there will be perils that accompany this moment of promise. But after decades of accepting the world as it is in the region, we have a chance to pursue the world as it should be."
It was Obama's explicit endorsement of the 1967 borders that changed the dynamic.
The U.S., the international community and even past Israeli governments have endorsed the idea of an agreement based on the 1967 lines, but Obama's new emphasis was a clear prodding for Israel to act.
The way Obama put it means the U.S. now accepts 1967 lines, with land swaps, as the basis for the borders of a Palestinian state — and not just that such a result would be the desired outcome of negotiations, as had been the U.S. stand.
The United States insists, too, that Israel end up with a safe, secure state without fear of attack from Palestinians.
In a cool statement released late Thursday in Jerusalem, Netanyahu rejected a full withdrawal from the West Bank, saying the 1967 lines would leave major Jewish settlements outside Israel. It was unclear whether Obama's stand would be enough to persuade the Palestinians to drop their push for U.N. recognition of their statehood.
In the run-up to the president's speech, the White House had sought to downplay the role of the Mideast peace standoff in his address, emphasizing instead other elements such as his proposed financial support for Egypt and Tunisia, two nations that have risen up and embraced democracy. But the address only served to underscore how central the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to the stability of the whole region and the political interests of the United States
Obama sought to give perspective to a five-month period in which thousands have died in protests for human rights, two countries' leaders have been toppled, others are teetering, the U.S. has been drawn into an armed conflict in Libya, and America has launched a stunning, successful mission to find and kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. The president tried to minimize bin Laden's reach even in death, saying his al-Qaida vision of destruction had already been deemed a "dead end" by those wanting a better life.
Moving country by country, Obama offered his toughest words yet for Syrian President Bashar Assad, in whom the U.S. has lost hope as a reformer given his government's bloody crackdown on dissidents. Obama did not call for Assad to step down but did accuse him of murdering his people.
"The Syrian people have shown their courage in demanding a transition," Obama said. "President Assad now has a choice: He can lead that transition or get out of the way."
One 24-year-old Syrian said the U.S. president was too late.
"It's too bad hundreds of people died before he made the speech," said Mustafa, who fled the coastal town of Banias, which has seen some of the biggest protests in recent weeks, and who did not give his surname for fear of reprisals. "I think it's too late for Assad to lead a peaceful transition to democracy after all that happened."
In seizing his own Mideast moment, Obama offered a speech that was in some ways notable for what he did not mention.
While critical of autocracy throughout the Mideast, he failed to mention the region's largest, richest and arguably most repressive nation, U.S. ally Saudi Arabia. Nor did he mention Jordan, a staunch U.S. ally that has a peace deal with Israel.Also left out was the United Arab Emirates, the wealthy, pro-American collection of mini-states on the Persian Gulf.
On the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, he raised the question of Hamas but did not seek to answer it. A proposed unity Palestinian government would pair the Fatah-dominated administration in the West Bank and the Gaza-run Hamas, which is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and seeks to destroy Israel.
"How can one negotiate with a party that has shown itself unwilling to recognize your right to exist?" Obama asked. "In the weeks and months to come, Palestinian leaders will have to provide a credible answer to that question."
Obama also conceded that borders were just a start. He had no blueprint for resolving enormous conflicts over the status of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees.
And he gave little attention to Iran, where U.S. attempts at outreach have gone nowhere.
On Yemen, a key partner in the U.S. fight against al-Qaida, Obama called on President Ali Abdullah Saleh to keep his commitment to transfer power. On Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, Obama said the only way forward is dialogue between the government and opposition, "and you can't have a real dialogue when parts of the peaceful opposition are in jail."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu headed for talks in Washington on Friday saying that U.S. President Barack Obama's vision of a Palestinian state on the borders of 1967 could leave Israel "indefensible."
"The viability of a Palestinian state cannot come at the expense of Israel's existence," he said in a statement before flying to the United States for scheduled talks with Obama.
Responding to a major Obama speech on Thursday outlining Middle East strategy, Netanyahu said he expected Washington to let Israel keep major settlement blocs beyond the 1967 lines in the occupied West Bank, under any peace deal with Palestinians.
Israeli officials seemed taken aback by the language in Obama's speech. Asked if Netnayahu had been forewarned by Washington, one said: "No comment." But some Israeli reporters accompanying the prime minister predicted a stormy meeting.
Setting out the principles of a Middle East peace accord, Obama reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to Israel's security.
He called for a deal resulting in two states, Israel and Palestine, sharing the border that existed before Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war.
It would include "mutually agreed land swaps," he said. In a pointed reply, Netanyahu said he expected "to hear a reaffirmation from President Obama of U.S. commitments made to Israel in 2004" -- an allusion to a letter by then-President George W. Bush suggesting the Jewish state may keep big settlement blocs as part of any peace pact.
"Those commitments relate to Israel not having to withdraw to the 1967 lines," Netanyahu added. Such a border, Netanyahu said, would be "indefensible."
ABBAS "APPRECIATES" OBAMA EFFORTS
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed Obama's efforts to renew the talks with Israel that collapsed last year, and had made plans to convene an "emergency" session of Palestinian and Arab officials to weigh further steps, a senior aide said.
Saeb Erekat, a former chief peace negotiator, said:
"Abbas expresses his appreciation of the continuous efforts exerted by President Obama with the objective of resuming the permanent status talks in the hope of reaching a final status agreement."
Obama's blunt language about the need to find an end to Israel's occupation of Arab land looked certain to be the crunch issue in his talks with Netanyahu.
"The dream of a Jewish and democratic state cannot be fulfilled with permanent occupation," Obama said.
His emphasis on 1967 borders went further than Obama has before in offering principles for resolving the stalemate between Israel and the Palestinians. But he stopped short of presenting a formal U.S. peace plan.
Obama's criticism of continued Israeli "settlement activity" sent a message to Netanyahu on the eve of their talks that Washington expects the Jewish state to make concessions.
A senior member of Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party, Danny Danon, accused Obama of seeking to destroy Israel by adopting the vision of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
"Netanyahu only has one option: to tell Obama to forget about it," Danon said, according to Israeli media.
However, Obama's suggestion that negotiations should focus initially on territory and security, leaving the difficult issues of Jerusalem and the return of Palestinian refugees to a later date, appeared to chime with Netanyahu's own position.
Likewise, Obama's firm rejection of Palestinian moves to seek recognition of their statehood at the United Nations delighted Israeli officials. Abbas made no comment.
The Palestinians plan to pursue their statehood quest in September at the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly.
Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, brokered by Washington, collapsed last year when Netanyahu refused to extend a moratorium on Jewish settlement-building in the West Bank and Abbas refused to carry on negotiations.
In Gaza, the Islamist Palestinian movement Hamas said Obama had no business criticizing the recent reconciliation pact between Hamas and Abbas's secular Fatah movement, intended to end a damaging four-year split and produce a unity government.
"The peoples of the region are not in need of Obama's lectures," spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said. "Obama reaffirmed his absolute support for the policies of the (Israeli) occupation and his rejection of any criticism of the Occupation."
"We affirm that Palestinian reconciliation is a Palestinian affair and that the (peace) negotiations have proven to be pointless," he said. "Hamas will never recognize the Israeli occupation under any circumstances."
Israel's prime minister on Thursday gave a cool reception to President Barack Obama's Mideast policy speech, warning a withdrawal from the West Bank would leave Israel vulnerable to attack and setting up what could be a tense meeting at the White House.
In his speech, Obama endorsed the Palestinian position on the borders of their future state, saying it should be based on Israel's lines before the 1967 Mideast war.Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip in the fighting, and the Palestinians claim those areas for their state.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas planned to convene a meeting with senior officials as soon as possible to decide on the next steps, said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat.
Abbas is determined "to give President Obama's effort and that of the international community the chance they deserve," Erekat said.
The U.S., the international community and even past Israeli governments have endorsed a settlement based on the 1967 lines, but Obama was far more explicit than in the past. His position appeared to put him at odds with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has not accepted the concept.
Reacting to Obama's speech, Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a full withdrawal from the West Bank, saying the 1967 lines were "indefensible" and would leave major Jewish settlements outside Israel. Netanyahu rejects any pullout from east Jerusalem.
Netanyahu heads to the White House on Friday and said he would seek clarifications.
Behind the rhetoric, though, was the possibility of finding common ground.Obama said he would support agreed-upon territorial swaps between the Israel and the Palestinians, leaving the door open for Israel to retain major West Bank settlements, where the vast majority of its nearly 300,000 Jewish settlers live.
Netanyahu said he would urge Obama to endorse a 2004 American commitment, made by then President George W. Bush, to Israel.In a letter at the time, Bush said a full withdrawal to the 1967 lines was "unrealistic" and a future peace agreement would have to recognize "new realities on the ground."
Israelis have interpreted Bush's commitment as U.S. support for retaining the major settlement blocs. Earlier this week, Netanyahu said Israel would have to retain the blocs as part of any future peace agreement.
But Netanyahu also wants to keep other parts of the West Bank, including a strategic section of land along the Jordanian border that he believes is vital to Israel's security. The Palestinians oppose any Israeli presence in their future state.
Netanyahu said he would reiterate his security demands at Friday's meeting.
Netanyahu said he plans to raise other demands: Palestinian recognition of Israel as the Jewish homeland, guarantees that Palestinian refugees be resettled outside of Israel and condemnation of an emerging Palestinian government that is to include the anti-Israel Hamas militant group.
With peacemaking stalled for months, the Palestinians have said they will ask the United Nations to recognize their independence in September, with or without a peace deal.
In his speech, Obama rejected the U.N. push.
"Symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September won't create an independent state," Obama said.
It was not immediately clear whether Obama's statement on the 1967 borders as the basis for negotiations — something the Palestinians have long sought — would be sufficient to persuade the Palestinians to drop their quest for U.N. recognition.
Former U.S. Democratic Congressman Robert Wexler, president of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace in Washington, said the speech had created a "moment of truth" for the Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
"No longer in earnest can President Abbas seek a United Nations resolution and say he's serious about the creation of a Palestinian state. And likewise, Prime Minister Netanyahu must determine whether he is willing to negotiate based on the 1967 lines with agreed-upon territorial swaps," he said.
By David Bay, Cutting Edge Ministries August 24, 2009
There is no doubt that the Illuminati plans to address the issue of sovereignty over the Temple Mount.
In NEWS1052, I report that the New England Director of the House of Theosophy stated that one of the "breakthrough" events in allowing Antichrist to appear would be the creation of a single worship center for all Monotheistic faiths in the region, i.e., Jews, Muslims, Christians. However, the Director refused to answer my specific question as to whether this combination worship center would be built on the Temple Mount.
"As the U.N. General Assembly meets in late September, Obama aims to announce the opening of a new negotiating process between Israelis and Palestinians, along with 'confidence-building' steps by Israel, the Palestinian Authority and a number of Arab governments ... Obama 'will probably lay out at least a partial vision of the two-state settlement that all sides now say they support, and the course that negotiations should take. More significantly, he intends to set an ambitious timetable for completing the peace deal -- something that will please Arabs but may irritate Israel'."
I cannot fathom how Prime Minister Netanyahu could force this part of the plan for a Palestinian State down Israel's throat. The Temple Mount Faithful has created a cornerstone for the next Temple and enjoys wide public support. Even many secular Jews support the building of a new Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount, which means that Israel must control that area.
Could immensely strong Orthodox resistance to Arab control over the Temple Mount lead to a public campaign against them which would erode their power by making them appear to be unrealistic and too radical? After all, the Director of the House of Theosophy in Boston stated that one of the major goals of the "New Jerusalem Covenant Project" was to eliminate the Orthodox influence in Israel.
We can only wait to see how this Palestinian State plan unfolds, but one matter is certain: events are going to be very interesting and will fulfill prophecy.
Prophecies of Daniel 9:24-27, Matthew 24:15 and Revelation 11:1-12 reveal that Solomon's Temple is built for Antichrist to use. This prophetic reality means that the new Temple is built after the World War III, which is designed to produce the Man of Sin.Most significantly, the Illuminati Plan, as revealed in "The Armageddon Script," states that the New David (Antichrist) will travel to the Temple Mount and stand amongst the "rubble of the Dome of the Rock" ( p. 233-35).
Thus, the Illuminati plans to destroy the Dome of the Rock during the World War III fighting so that their Antichrist can rebuild Solomon's Temple.This reality means that Arabs will retain control over the Temple Mount until the moment Antichrist comes to the world scene and seizes it for the Jews so his temple can be created.
Violence erupted on Israel's borders with Syria, Lebanon and Gaza on Sunday, leaving at least eight dead and dozens wounded, as Palestinians marked what they term "the catastrophe" of Israel's founding in 1948.
Israeli troops shot at protesters in three separate locations to prevent crowds from crossing Israeli frontier lines in the deadliest such confrontation in years.
Israeli and Syrian media reports said Israeli gunfire killed four people after dozens of Palestinian refugees infiltrated the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights from Syria, along a disputed border that has been quiet for decades.
Witnesses on the nearby Lebanese frontier said four Palestinians were killed after Israeli forces fired at rock-throwing protesters to prevent them from crossing the border.
The Lebanese army had also earlier fired in the air in an attempt to hold back the crowds.
On Israel's tense southern border with the Gaza Strip, Israeli gunfire wounded 60 Palestinians as demonstrators approached Israel's fence with the Hamas Islamist-run enclave, medical workers said.
In Tel Aviv, Israel's commercial hub, a truck driven by an Arab Israeli slammed into vehicles and pedestrians, killing one man and injuring 17 people.
Police were trying to determine whether the incident was an accident or an attack. Witnesses said the driver, who was arrested, ran amok with his truck in downtown traffic.
ALERT
Israeli security forces had been on alert for violence on Sunday, the day Palestinians mark the "Nakba," or catastrophe, of Israel's founding in a 1948 war, when hundreds of thousands of their brethren fled or were forced to leave their homes.
In the Druze village of Majdal Shams, on the Golan Heights captured by Israel from Syria in 1967, Mayor Dolan Abu Salah said between 40 and 50 Nakba demonstrators from Syria tore through the frontier fence.
Hundreds of protesters flooded the lush green valley that marks the border area, waving Palestinian flags. Israeli troops attempted to mend the breached fence, firing at what the army described as infiltrators.
"We are seeing here an Iranian provocation, on both the Syrian and the Lebanese frontiers, to try to exploit the Nakba day commemorations," said the army's chief spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Yoav Mordechai.
Syria is home to 470,000 Palestinian refugees and its leadership, now facing fierce internal unrest, had in previous years prevented protesters from reaching the frontier fence.
"This appears to be a cynical and transparent act by the Syrian leadership to deliberately create a crisis on the border so as to distract attention from the very real problems that regime is facing at home," said a senior Israeli government official who declined to be named.
In a Nakba protest in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian youths threw rocks at Israeli soldiers, who fired tear gas and rubber bullets in a clash at the Israeli military checkpoint outside the city of Ramallah -- a constant flashpoint.
A Palestinian teenager was shot dead during protests in Jerusalem on Friday. Police said it was unclear who had shot him and they were investigating. That shooting took place in the tense neighborhood of Silwan in East Jerusalem, where violence regularly breaks out between Palestinian stone throwers and Israeli police and Jewish settlers.
Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of the state they intend to establish in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Several people have been killed and scores of others wounded in the Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, Ras Maroun in Lebanon and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, as Palestinians mark the "Nakba", or day of "catastrophe".
The "Nakba" is how Palestinians refer to the 1948 founding of the state of Israel, when an estimated 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled following Israel's declaration of statehood.
At least one Palestinian was killed and up to 80 others wounded in northern Gaza as Israeli troops opened fire on a march of at least 1,000 people heading towards the Erez crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel.
A group of Palestinians, including children, marching to mark the "Nakba" were shot by the Israeli army after crossing a Hamas checkpoint and entering what Israel calls a "buffer zone" -- an empty area between checkpoints where Israeli soldiers generally shoot trespassers, Al Jazeera's Nicole Johnston reported from Gaza City on Sunday.
"We are just hearing that one person has been killed and about 80 people have been injured," Johnston said.
"There are about 500-600 Palestinian youth gathered at the Erez border crossing point. They don't usually march as far as the border. There has been intermittent gunfire from the Israeli side for the last couple of hours.
"Hamas has asked us to leave; they are trying to move people away from the Israeli border. They say seeing so many people at the border indicates a shift in politics in the area."
Separately in south Tel Aviv, one Israeli man was killed and 17 were injured when a 22-year-old Arab Israeli driver drove his truck into a number of vehicles on one of the city's main roads. Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the driver, from an Arab village called Kfar Qasim in the West Bank, was arrested at the scene and is being questioned.
"Based on the destruction and the damage at the scene, we have reason to believe that it was carried out deliberately," Rosenfeld said. But he said he did not believe the motive was directly linked to the anniversary of the Nakba.
West Bank clashes
One of the biggest Nakba demonstrations was held near Qalandiya refugee camp and checkpoint, the main secured entry point into the West Bank from Israel, where about 100 protesters marched, Al Jazeera's Nisreen El-Shamayleh reported from Ramallah.
Some injuries were reported from tear gas canisters fired at protesters there, El-Shamayleh said.
Small clashes were reported throughout various neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem and cities in the West Bank, between stone-throwing Palestinians and Israeli security forces. Israeli police said 20 arrests were made in the East Jerusalem area of Issawiyah for throwing stones and petrol bombs at Israeli border police officers. About 70 arrests have been made in East Jerusalem throughout the Nakba protests that began on Friday, two days ahead of the May 15 anniversary, police spokesman Rosenfeld said.
Tensions had risen a day earlier after a 17-year-old Palestinian boy died of a gunshot wound suffered amid clashes on Friday in Silwan, another East Jerusalem neighbourhood.
Police said the source of the gunfire was unclear and that police were investigating, while local sources told Al Jazeera that the teen was shot in random firing of live ammunition by guards of Jewish settlers living in nearby Beit Yonatan.
'Palestinians killed'
Meanwhile, Syrian state television reported that Israeli forces killed four Syrian citizens who had been taking part in an anti-Israeli rally on the Syrian side of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights border on Sunday.
Israeli army radio said earlier that dozens were wounded when Palestinian refugees from the Syrian side of the Golan Heights border were shot for trying to break through the frontier fence. There was no comment on reports of the injured.
There have also been reports that Israeli gunfire killed up to 10 people and injured scores more in the Lebanese town of Ras Maroun, on the southern border with Israel.
Matthew Cassel, a journalist in the town, told Al Jazeera that he saw at least two dead Palestinian refugees.
"Tens of thousands of refugees marched to the border fence to demand their right to return where they were met by Israeli soldiers," he said.
"Many were killed. I don't know how many but I saw with my own eyes a number of unconscious and injured, and at least two dead.
"Now the Lebanese army has moved in, people are running back up the mountain to get away from the army."
'End to Zionist project'
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu addressed the events of "Nakba Day" in a televised statement on Sunday, particualrly referring to attempts to infiltrate Israel's borders with Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, saying "we are determined to defend our borders".
Netanyahu said that he instructed Israeli forces to act with restraint, but to stop all attempts at infiltration and challenges to Israel's sovereignty. He said that the "Nakba Day" protesters were not fighting for the 1967 borders as they claim, but were denying Israel's right to exist.
"We must understand who and what we are up against," Netanyahu said.
Earlier on Sunday Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of Hamas-controlled Gaza, repeated the group's call for the end of the state of Israel. Addressing Muslim worshippers in Gaza City on Sunday, Haniyeh said Palestinians marked this year's "Nakba" "with great hope of bringing to an end the Zionist project in Palestine".
"To achieve our goals in the liberation of our occupied land, we should have one leadership,'' Haniyeh said, praising the recent unity deal with its rival, Fatah, the political organisation which controls the West Bank under Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas' leadership.
Meanwhile, a 63 second-long siren rang midday in commemoration of the Nakba's 63rd anniversary.
Over 760,000 Palestinians -- estimated today to number 4.7 million with their descendants -- fled or were driven out of their homes in the conflict that followed Israel's creation. Many took refuge in neighbouring Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and elsewhere. Some continue to live in refugee camps. About 160,000 Palestinians stayed behind in what is now Israeli territory and are known as Arab Israelis. They now total around 1.3 million, or some 20 percent of Israel's population.
Three killed as thousands flee violent crackdown in Syrian town, while four others shot and killed near Israeli border.
Al Jazeera May 15 , 2011
Three people have been shot dead and at least five others, including a Lebanese soldier, have been injured following gunfire near an unofficial border crossing between Syria and northern Lebanon.
They were targeted by snipers as they left a sit-in protest in the western Syrian town of Talkalakh on Sunday, a witness told the AFP news agency.
Syrian troops arrived in the town, just 5km from the Lebanese town of Wadi Khaled, on Saturday, prompting thousands to flee a violent crackdown that left killed four residents of the town dead -- a day after a protest there against the government of president Bashar al-Assad.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces shot dead four Syrians who were taking part in a pro-Palestinian protest on the Syrian side of the border with the occupied Golan Heights, Syrian state TV reported.
The protest was to commemorate the "Nakba", a day Palestinians call the "catastrophe" -- the anniversary of Israel's creation.
As many as 300 people from the Syrian village of Majdal Shams overwhelmed border patrols and breached part of the frontier, an eyewitness told Al Jazeera.
Back on the Lebanon-Syria border, dozens of families have attempted to escape the frontier town of Talkalakh over the past two days, Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr reported from Beirut.
"There [has] been unrest there, it's one of the protest hubs," she said. "Some say up to 2,000 [have fled] in the past 48 hours."
An eyewitness on the border told Al Jazeera that at least 19 people had been wounded when the military swooped into Talkalakh on Saturday.
The violence came after more than 8,000 people attended a funeral in the provincial capital of Homs for one of three protesters killed on Friday by Syrian security forces.
Mourners for Fouad al-Rajoub gathered near Bab al-Dreib and began making their way through the city, chanting for an end to the siege on Homs, Baniyas and Deraa, the major flashpoints in the country's uprising.
An eyewitness in the city said that, due to the size of the procession, the military had removed and relocated some of the checkpoints it had established throughout the city since mass anti-regime protests erupted there last month.
Syrian army personnel were deployed in Talkalakh after officials said troops and tanks were pulled out of Baniyas and Deraa. Security barriers were set up at the entrances of the town and heavy gunfire was heard, according to activists. Security forces were deployed in surrounding villages as well.
Lebanese security officials said cracks of gunfire could be heard on the Lebanese side of the border.
Two months of violent upheaval in Syria have left at least 775 people dead.
Thousands rallied in support of Palestinians on Friday, with demonstrators in Jordan's capital heeding a call by Facebook organizers to demand a sovereign Palestinian state, others near the Jordanian-Israeli border chanting "Death to Israel," and still more activists filling Cairo's Tahrir Square.
Palestinian youth groups called for protests in the West Bank and nearby Arab countries to mark the anniversary of the May 15, 1948, creation of the Jewish state. Palestinians call the anniversary the "day of catastrophe" because of the refugee crisis and loss of land that accompanied the creation of Israel.
About 500 protesters, demanding a sovereign Palestinian state and the right of refugees to return home, marched in Amman's downtown market district, some wearing Palestinian black and white kefiyahs or headscarves and holding keys to family homes left behind.
In Cairo, thousands rallied, beginning a Facebook-generated campaign aimed at marching on the borders of the Palestinian territories.
Egypt's powerful Muslim Brotherhood backed Friday's demonstration but did not favor a march to the borders. On Thursday, Egypt's ruling Military Council called on organizers to cancel the march. A few protesters who drove to North Sinai to reach the Gaza border said they were turned back by authorities.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrations are not unusual in Jordan or Egypt, but marches solicited on Facebook are. Organizers are apparently inspired by the uprisings in Egypt and other Arab countries that were heavily dependent on mobilization through social network sites.
In Cairo, where the protest was also called to denounce recent Muslim-Christian violence, Palestinian flags filled the square.
"Egypt is Palestine. All Arab nations are Egypt," said Ola Adel, a 20-year-old law student. "This protest is not about forming an army and heading to Gaza. It is about pressuring our officials to support the Palestinians demands."
The slogans reflected changes in the political climate, including the ousting of long-term leaders in Tunisia and Egypt and efforts by the Palestinians to get the United Nations to recognize their independence. "1948 and 1967 are the catastrophes, but 2011 is the Revolution of the Return," some of the protesters' signs read.
"We want to tell the world that Palestine and its refugees are not to be forgotten," said 21-year-old Amman dentistry student Omar Hassan, whose family hails from Bethlehem in the West Bank.
In the Jordan Valley near the Israeli border, nearly 5,000 Jordanians gathered.
"The occupation is a disgrace for the international community and it must end," added Mansour to loud applause from the crowd, who urged, "death to Israel."
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were displaced during the Israeli-Arab wars in 1948 and 1967, and the fate of nearly four million Palestinian refugees and their descendants is one of the thorniest issues in the Middle East conflict.
Palestinian refugees live in a number of countries in the Middle East. Jordan hosts the largest number, and the refugees and their descendants are estimated to number nearly two million.
The Palestinians have long maintained that the refugees have a moral and legal right to return to what was once Palestine — including land which is now Israel. But Israel has argued that granting the right of return would compromise the country's identity as the world's only Jewish state.
Following the February ousting of Egypt’s longstanding president Hosni Mubarak, calls have been circulating in Egypt and throughout the region for a ‘Third Intifada’ to begin May 15.
“Unlike the first two Palestinian uprisings, the proposed Third Intifada is meant to involve the entire Arab world,” said Egyptian journalist and political analyst Abdelhalim Kandil.
It began with the appearance of a Facebook page in early March calling for a ‘Third Intifada’ against the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. The page, reportedly founded by Arab pro-Palestinian groups, set the launch date for May 15 - the day on which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were driven from their homes in 1948 to make way for the nascent state of Israel.
The page attracted some 230,000 members within two weeks, prompting Israeli officials to lodge a complaint with the popular California-based social-networking website. On March 29, Facebook removed the page - which had at that point surpassed the 500,000-member mark - claiming that its contents were found to “promote violence”.
The page was almost immediately replaced with several copycat pages, however, which reiterated calls for “the liberation of Palestine from the [Mediterranean] Sea to the [Jordan] River” and “the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes in historical Palestine” in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 194 of 1948.
An Arabic-language website called the 'Third Palestinian Intifada' appeared soon afterward, providing a general plan of action. The site calls for peaceful protests on Friday and Saturday (May 13 and 14) at Israeli embassies and consulates worldwide, including those in western capitals, "to express our rage about the ongoing occupation of Palestine and the expulsion of millions of Palestinians from their rightful homes."
‘Million-man’ march
On May 15, dubbed the “Sunday of Liberation”, the site had initially called for multiple million-man marches to advance on “historical Palestine” - in reference to Israel - from starting points in Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. This was later scaled down, however, to the staging of demonstrations outside Israeli embassies in Jordan and Egypt (the two Arab states that have diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv), along with simultaneous marches near Israel’s borders in Syria, Lebanon and the occupied Palestinian territories.
According to Mounib Mohamed, 26-year-old activist from Cairo and administrator for the website’s Egypt branch, the initial plan was scrapped “because of the difficulties associated with implementing it, and in order to avoid friction with local authorities in the countries involved.”
“As for Egypt, we’re calling for million-man gatherings to be held in cities countrywide on May 13,” Mohamed explained. “Participants will then head to Cairo’s Tahrir Square, where prominent political figures are scheduled to speak about the Palestinian cause.”
“From Tahrir, we will march to the Zionist embassy, UN offices, and certain multinational store chains known to have Zionist sympathies,” said Mohamed, who is also the administrator of the Facebook page ‘Egyptians for the Intifada’.
He went on to stress that all planned activities would be “peaceful in nature” and “carried out in coordination with Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF)”, which has run the country’s affairs since Mubarak’s ousting.
“Our ultimate objective is the liberation of Palestine via peaceful, political means in light of Egypt’s post-Mubarak political circumstances,” Mohamed added.
Egyptian youth cooperation
Several prominent revolutionary youth groups also plan to take part, including the 6 April youth movement, which played a leading role in Egypt’s January 25 Revolution.
“The Palestinian situation is a source of pain for the entire Arab nation across the political spectrum,” 6 April media spokesperson Injie Hamdi said. “Therefore, in coordination with other like-minded youth groups, we’re endorsing calls to demonstrate from May 13 to 15 in Tahrir Square and at the Israeli embassy.”
In the three months since Mubarak’s departure, Egypt has witnessed a spate of marches and protests in front of both Israel’s embassy in Cairo and its consulate in Alexandria, where demonstrators could be seen distributing flyers about the planned event.
The 'Third Intifada' had initially included plans for a protest march to Egypt's Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip, which has been sealed for the most part since 2007. This plan was abandoned, however, following a promise by Egypt's SCAF-appointed foreign minister late last month that the crossing would soon be reopened on a permanent basis.
Nevertheless, the Arab Doctors Union plans to dispatch a convoy of Gaza-bound humanitarian aid through the Rafah crossing - scheduled to set out from Tahrir Square on May 15. The closure of Rafah, in tandem with Israel's five-year-old blockade of the Gaza Strip, has effectively cut the coastal enclave off from the rest of the world - subjecting its roughly 1.8 million inhabitants to excessive poverty and privation.
Notably, Palestinian faction Hamas, which governs the strip and espouses a policy of armed resistance to Israel, has not publicly endorsed calls for a 'Third Intifada'. Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, meanwhile, who heads rival Palestinian faction Fatah and supports a discredited 'peace process' with Israel, has voiced downright opposition to the idea.
Last week, the two factions agreed in Cairo to form a national unity government, ending four years of bitter animosity. Just how the new Palestinian government plans to deal with Israel - whether by resistance or by negotiations - remains uncertain, however.
According to Kandil, the greatest benefit of Hamas-Fatah reconciliation is that the two factions "will now be able to coordinate the kind of peaceful revolutions seen recently in the Arab world". He expressed hope that the planned 'Third Intifada' would apply the lessons learned from successful Arab uprisings, especially those seen in Tunisia and Egypt.
"If the Palestinians stage peaceful protests en masse and persevere despite Israel's inevitably violent response - and are supported by simultaneous demonstrations in Arab and western capitals - the Israeli occupation's days may very well be numbered," said Kandil.
The first Palestinian Intifada lasted from 1987 until the signing of the 1993 Oslo peace accords. A second, more violent Palestinian uprising erupted in 2000 and ended with Israel's 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
By Matthew Duss, Center for American Progress April 29, 2011
Wednesday’s joint announcement in Cairo by representatives of the Palestinian political factions Fatah and Hamas that they had reached a preliminary agreement on the contours of a unity government, with new elections to be held after a year, marks an important new chapter in the Palestinian peoples’ quest for statehood. It also presents both a challenge and an opportunity for the Obama administration that should be understood against the backdrop of the broader challenges and opportunities that have arisen as part of the Arab revolutions that have swept the Middle East over the past months.
Inspired by events in Egypt and Tunisia, thousands of young Palestinians demonstrated across the West Bank and Gaza on March 15 in support of unity between Fatah and Hamas. Polling by Khalil Shikaki’s Palestinian Center for Survey and Policy Research reported overwhelming support (92 percent) among Palestinians for the reform efforts in Egypt and Tunisia, and majority support (51 percent) for ending the split between Fatah and Hamas.
While the announcement came unexpectedly, it’s not hard to understand why Fatah went for this deal. The group is facing a legitimacy crisis over its inability to achieve tangible progress toward Palestinian statehood and end the Israeli occupation. It is also gravely disappointed in the United States’ inability to change Israel’s calculus over the last two years. Fatah’s leaders have apparently decided, therefore, that they have more to gain by setting their own political house in order and moving away from a process controlled by the United States and thus dominated by Israeli concerns.
As for Hamas, the key question is why now? Hamas’s strategy thus far has been to sit back and watch Fatah fail, let the peace process crumble, and remain standing as the only viable Palestinian alternative. Going for this deal now indicates that they feel they have something to lose by continuing to stand aloof. The change to an Egyptian government less willing to rigidly enforce the United States and Israel’s red lines was also almost certainly a contributing factor.
Further, Hamas has seen its support among Gazans drop considerably. Shikaki’s polling shows “50% of Gazans are ready to participate in demonstrations to demand regime change in the Gaza Strip,” where Hamas rules, while only 24 percent of those polled in the Fatah-ruled West Bank said the same. It’s also likely that Hamas feels vulnerable with its key Arab ally and patron Bashar al-Assad facing serious unrest in Syria. The growing challenge to its rule in Gaza by even more extreme Salafist factions may have Hamas worried about its future.
Independent Palestinian activist Mustafa Barghouti told the BBC:
I think both sides have realized that the alternative is horrible and both sides have realized that if they continue to talk about the old divisions and the old differing problems, they will only continue to lose their popularity with the Palestinian people and they will cause the Palestinians a lot of suffering, more suffering than before.
Barghouti also stressed that “the new government which will be formed will be formed from independents from both Fatah and Hamas, which means that both sides are also sacrificing something to have unity.”
The United States has not, to say the least, looked favorably on Hamas in the past. It has been listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department since 1993. It won a parliamentary majority in 2006, a result rejected by both the Israeli government and the Bush administration even though the latter had supported holding the elections. The short-lived Palestinian unity government under the Saudi-brokered Mecca Accord ended when Hamas fought Fatah in a brief but brutal civil war—with the Bush administration covertly arming Fatah’s cadres—in June 2007, leaving the former in control of the Gaza Strip and the latter in control of the West Bank.
In response to Hamas’s 2006 electoral victory, the U.S.-led Quartet—which also includes the United Nations, the European Union, and Russia—imposed, under heavy pressure from the Bush administration, three conditions on Hamas in order to rejoin the Palestinian government: Renounce terrorism, recognize Israel, and honor past agreements signed between Israelis and Palestinians. National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor reiterated those conditions yesterday in response to the news of reconciliation.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for his part, was quick to reject the move.
“The Palestinian Authority has to choose between peace with Israel and peace with Hamas,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a statement issued even before the Palestinians had officially announced the deal. “Peace with both of them is impossible, because Hamas aspires to destroy the state of Israel and says so openly.”
The United States should continue to condemn Hamas’s terrorist actions against Israeli civilians and its refusal to recognize Israel. But Hamas has also demonstrated that its internal divisions might open avenues for it to adapt and moderate its views. Hamas’s decision to participate in the 2006 elections was the result of pragmatic calculation based on a number of factors, among them Hamas leaders’ belief that they could credibly compete with Fatah in elections. A combination of Israeli measures—including a campaign of assassinations—had also successfully degraded Hamas’s capacity to carry out terrorist attacks. Both of these things bolstered the arguments of those within Hamas who argued it was time to relinquish terrorism, if conditionally, and embrace the political process.
We’ll never know whether or not this shift was conceived as purely tactical or could have resulted in a genuine change in Hamas’s approach. By simply rejecting the results of an election it had encouraged, the Bush administration chose not to take advantage of the opportunity created by Hamas effectively endorsing the Oslo Accords by participating in elections held under its auspices. The Obama administration should not repeat this mistake.
While the Obama administration still supports the Quartet conditions—and should of course continue to insist on an end to terrorism—it should also consider a wider range of options in light of the recent agreement. U.S. law currently allows aid to a Palestinian unity government whose ministers have individually pledged adherence to the Quartet conditions even if Hamas the party has not. Congress, however, is likely to resist sending any aid to a government that includes Hamas.
The Obama administration could make clear that it will not prevent Arab allies such as the Saudis and other Gulf countries from contributing funds to keep the Palestinian Authority government operating. Palestinian unity is essential for any genuine, lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and while the United States should be extremely cautious about engaging with Hamas, it should nonetheless explore the implications that this new unity agreement might have for the goal of two states for two peoples, Palestine and Israel. Given the role the conflict continues to play as a driver of resentment and violence in the region, it would be a tragic mistake to dismiss any possibility out of hand.
After several years of bitter hostility and acrimony, the two rival Palestinian parties Fatah and Hamas eventually reached a landmark agreement on April 27 to establish a transitional government and hold free elections which can potentially transform the whole political equations of the Middle East.
The Egypt-brokered agreement, which was first announced by the official Palestinian news agency WAFA and Egypt's state-run news agency MENA, actually means that Israel's plots for isolating the popular movement of Hamas — which has been ruling the Gaza Strip following the 2006 Palestinian legislative election — will be foiled and the Palestinian nation will take a further step toward realizing its objectives and regaining its inalienable rights.
Following its victory in the 2006 elections, Hamas set forward a logically substantiated proposal for Israel and vowed to cease military operations against Tel Aviv provided that Israel accepts withdrawing from the occupied territories and freezing the settlement activities. In early February 2006, Hamas offered Israel a 10-year truce "in return for a complete Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territories, the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East al-Quds (Jerusalem)," and the recognition of Palestinian rights including the right of refugees' return. However, Israel which had never shown any sign of willingness to retreat from its expansionistic policies, refused to accept the offer and preferred to continue military battle with Hamas — a military battle which claimed the lives of thousands of innocent Gazans and devastated a remarkable part of infrastructure in the densely populated, beleaguered coastal enclave.
According to Qatar's Al Jazeera network, Hamas and Fatah, which had been holding a set of secret talks over the past months, finally solved their disagreements; and their consultations "resulted in full understandings over all points of discussions, including setting up an interim agreement with specific tasks and to set a date for election."
The unexpected agreement, which took place following the dismissal of the brutal dictator of Egypt Hosni Mubarak (who was unquestionably an unpardonable complicit in the repression of the Palestinian nation during the past 30 years), astounded the White House and irritated the Zionist regime's officials to a great extent.
Speaking at a press conference one day after the announcement of the reconciliation agreement between Hamas and Fatah, Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced that the deal marked the "crossing of a red line" and would lead Hamas to have the chance to take over the Fatah-administered West Bank.
According to the peace treaty between Hamas and Fatah, the Gazan prisoners held by the Palestinian Authority will be freed; and this is what makes Lieberman and his friends in Tel Aviv excessively anxious and flabbergasted. He has claimed that the security of West Bank will be threatened with the emancipation of these prisoners.
The peace accord between Hamas and Fatah marks the beginning of a new era in the prospect of Israel-Egypt relations as well.
It's widely believed that whoever rises to power as the new leader of the Egyptian people will be necessarily more friendly to Iran and more hostile to the Zionist regime, because the cessation of ties with the criminal state of Israel and establishing cordial diplomatic ties with independent Muslim nations such as Iran was one of the basic demands of the Egyptian nation, which ousted their uncompromising dictator Mubarak after 30 years of tyranny and despotism.
Finding a solution to end the unnecessary and unproductive conflicts between the two political parties, which have the potential to salvage the Palestinian nation and fulfill their dreams of freedom and liberation from the occupation of the Zionist regime, was one of the breakthroughs of the new Egyptian government, which is gradually assuming power as the official representative of the Egyptian nation in the international community.
Now, it's quite gratifying that the two political rivals, who were once at loggerheads as a result of the seditious conspiracies of the Zionist regime, have become friends with each other and are moving towards solving the problems of the oppressed nation of Palestine.
According to a Reuters report, the Hamas government spokesman Taher al-Nono has confirmed the agreement and said that "all points of difference [between Hamas and Fatah] have been overcome." Following the statements made by Mr. al-Nono, Israel's FM warned PA and asked Mahmoud Abbas to choose "peace with Israel" instead of coming to terms with a Hamas-Fatah coalition.
Now Israel is immensely apprehensive about its future in the Middle East. The officials in Tel Aviv are realizing that their security is seriously jeopardized with the ouster of US-backed puppets in the Arab world. With the removal of Mubarak from power as the Egyptian president, they cannot foresee a promising future for the agreements which they had reached with Egypt, including the 1978 Camp David Accords and the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty of 1979.
According to an article written by Matthew Duss on the "Center for American Progress" website, thousands of young Palestinians who were inspired by the developments in Egypt and Tunisia "demonstrated across the West Bank and Gaza on March 15 in support of unity between Fatah and Hamas. Polling by Khalil Shikaki's Palestinian Center for Survey and Policy Research reported overwhelming support (92 percent) among Palestinians for the reform efforts in Egypt and Tunisia, and majority support (51 percent) for ending the split between Fatah and Hamas."
The Palestinian nation's quest for statehood and their inclination for the settlement of conflicts between Fatah and Hamas indicate that a new era is beginning in the history of Palestinian people's resistance against the occupying regime of Israel. With their promising agreement, Fatah and Hamas laid the groundwork for the establishment of a solidified independent Palestinian state, foiling the treasonous plots of the Zionist regime and their mercenaries in the Arab world.
The preliminary agreement reached by the Hamas and Fatah movements for solving their disputes and forming a unity government has angered Israel.
Up until now, the two movements, which became bitter rivals following the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006, had been unable to strike a deal through direct and indirect negotiations. The conflict on the ground between Hamas and Fatah resulted in a deep rift between the residents of the Gaza strip and the West Bank. The leaders of Hamas accused Fatah of oppressing their supporters and trying to drive Hamas off the political stage. Fatah claimed that the Hamas movement was hindering efforts to strike a deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) and said Hamas's confrontational approach was not in the Palestinians' interests.
Israel took advantage of the political turmoil between the two Palestinian factions and abducted 22 Hamas MPs in order to reduce their presence in parliament to below a majority. Also, the assassination of some Hamas leaders and Israel's siege of Gaza were the results of the increased tension between the two Palestinian factions.
Even though some Arab countries, such as Egypt, Syria, and Qatar, tried to negotiate peace between the two sides, the deep divide between leaders of the two movements rendered these efforts useless.
Israel, which opposes any form of alliance between the Palestinian movements, used the opportunity to expand dozens of settlements in the West Bank and al-Quds (Jerusalem). The Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas, said nothing about the settlement construction in order to create a front against the Hamas movement. The silence led to the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and al-Quds. The Israelis evicted hundreds of Palestinian families who had been residing in East al-Quds for many years and made them homeless.
The international community and organizations like the UN have also remained silent about Israel's violations of international law, which has encouraged Israel to continue its settlement construction activities.
Hamas leaders have frequently criticized Israel over the continuation of settlement construction, but their protests did not produce any results due to the differences between the two Palestinian factions. Over the past five years, the leaders of Hamas and Fatah held numerous meetings in Cairo, Riyadh, and Damascus to lay the foundations for reconciliation between the two movements.
However, the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen have prepared the ground for the Hamas and Fatah leaders to return to their policies of resistance. The fall of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Tunisia's Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, and the change in the regional situation, worked in favor of Hamas. Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, the country's most influential movement since the departure of former dictator Hosni Mubarak, has expanded its relations with Hamas.
Since Hamas has a longtime ideological connection with the Muslim Brotherhood, Mubarak's ouster has paved the way for the strengthening of Hamas's political position and activities. The Fatah movement suffered the most after Mubarak's downfall since Fatah's policy of compromise had always been endorsed by Mubarak and the subservient Arab regimes over the past two decades.
With the transformation of the political structure in Egypt, the Fatah movement lost its main political sponsor in the region and its leaders were forced to make an agreement with Hamas.
The preliminary agreement between Fatah and Hamas has been hailed by the Palestinians since the people always believed the political rifts and divisions between the leaders was not in the national interests. Now the ground has been prepared for a final agreement between the Palestinian leaders on drawing up a road map for the resistance campaign, which has caused concern for the Israelis.
The Palestinian leaders have declared May 15 the day for the beginning of the Palestinians' third Intifada, and this proposal has been approved by the entire political spectrum of Palestine. On this day, all Palestinians, both inside and outside of the occupied territories, are expected to rise up against the Zionist regime. On May 15, the expelled Palestinian refugees who live in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt will march toward the borders of occupied Palestine and attempt to cross into the occupied territories. The move, which will be peaceful, will put the cabinet of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a difficult position.
Many civil society institutions across the Islamic and Arab world have pledged solidarity with the Palestinians and their decision to march toward the country's borders.
Any irrational response by the Zionist regime toward the May 15 demonstrators will influence world public opinion, and the Zionist regime will be condemned by the comity of nations.
Based on the agreement, Hamas and Fatah will play a key role in determining the Palestinian nation's destiny and bringing an end to the “neither war, nor peace” situation. In response, Netanyahu announced that Acting PA Chief Mahmoud Abbas has to choose between Hamas and Israel. But Mahmoud Abbas, a.k.a Abu Mazen, has declared that the convergence with Hamas is final and there is no return.
And thus it appears that the signing of the Hamas-Fatah accord and the May 15 marches will mark a turning point in the history of Palestine as the third Intifada determines the nation's destiny.
Terror-loving Palestinians have launched a movement called “Third Intifada”, whereby they intend to use Facebook to organize a third Intifada against Israel beginning on May 15th. The last Intifada resulted in the death of 5000 people.
According to the Jerusalem Post, the page is centered around the following message, composed by the administrator,
“The neighboring country will start a march to Palestine on the 15th of May. After that, all the Muslim countries will soon march, [and] Palestine will be liberated.”
Already the site has 332,700 ‘likes’, and everyone is asked to link to the page and ‘like’ it. As such people ‘like’ nothing more than to see Jews slaughtered, it is not surprising the page is so popular.
Aish.com put out this video on the site with an accompanying petition to sign asking for the removal of the vile page.
The page is in Arabic, but you can use Google translate and copy-paste the various postings to get a good idea as to how thrilled these people are at the possibility that their mission might succeed.
The page threatens Facebook with “a boycott from all Muslims” should Facebook take the page down.
But the Muslims needn’t worry about that. Facebook is shariah compliant.
This isn’t the only Facebook page dedicated to destroying Israel and killing Jews, as the above video details. The ‘social site’ is packed with despicable, hate-inspired pages aimed at Israel and Jews that Facebook refuses to take down, despite the fact that such pages are in clear violation of the site’s terms of service.
Israel has pleaded to Facebook to please remove the page, but Facebook refused. Abe Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), also begged Facebook to do the civilized thing, but Facebook essentially told the ADL to take a flying f**k at a rolling bagel.
Facebook said:
“While some kinds of comments and content may be upsetting for someone — criticism of a certain culture, country, religion, lifestyle, or political ideology, for example — that alone is not a reason to remove the discussion,” Debbie Frost, a spokeswoman for Facebook, said in an e-mailed statement.
“We strongly believe that Facebook users have the ability to express their opinions, and we don’t typically take down content, groups or Pages that speak out against countries, religions, political entities, or ideas,” she said.
This is odd considering that Facebook only recently refused to allow the posting of a tastefully done video that told the story of the savage massacre of the young Fogel family in Itamar by Palestinian cutthroats. In the Facebook universe, it is okay to call for the killing of Jews, but it is unacceptable to show what such incitement results in.
See, Facebook thinks they own the world now. Facebook thinks it is G-d. Or, rather, Allah. Should these calls for jihad come to fruition and a new round of violence explode on the scene beginning May 15th as specified, Facebook should be held accountable.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO and co-founder, is himself a Jew, a repugnant, mentally-disturbed, self-loathing Jew who obviously cares nothing about human life, and even less about his fellow Jews since he is more than willing to risk the chance that this Facebook group and others like it could result in tremendous pain and loss. Sadly, the Left is rife with such Zuckerbergs.
Normally, this sort of threat might be shrugged off, but after what the world has witnessed over the past few months, we can see that ‘social media’ is nothing to be taken lightly.
Arutz Sheva – [...] The page, ‘Third Palestinian Intifada‘, urges its readers to copy the link, place it in their profiles and publish it on all pictures, videos and pages — everywhere they can. An alert announces that a march to “Palestine” will begin from neighboring countries on May 15 and soon after, “Palestine will be liberated and we will be freed. Our goal now is to reach millions of subscribers on this page before May.”
The page also includes inflammatory language that calls for supporters to build on the previous two murderous previous intifadas in which Arab terrorists murdered and wounded thousands of Israeli civilians. The second intifada is also called the Oslo War as it took place after the Oslo peace accords were signed by PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitschak Rabin. The notice refers readers to related content on other sites such as Twitter andYouTube.
“This Facebook page constitutes an appalling abuse of technology to promote terrorist violence,” said Foxman.
“We should not be so naïve to believe that a campaign for a ‘Third Intifada’ does not portend renewed violence, especially in the current climate that has seen a dramatic increase in rocket attacks from Gaza, the brutal murder of the Fogel family in the West Bank, and a terrorist bombing in Jerusalem.”
Last week, Yuli Edelstein, Israel’s Minister of Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs also sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO and one of its founders over the issue. He wrote him that the site has “great potential to rally the masses around good causes, and we are all thankful for that. However, such potential comes hand in hand with the ability to cause great harm, such as in the case of the wild incitement displayed” on the Third Palestinian Intifada page.
A petition urging Facebook to remove the dozens of pages promoting hatred of Israel and incitement to kill Jews — incuding the page calling for a Third Intifada — has been started on the Internet by the Jerusalem-based Aish HaTorah Yeshiva. The petition calls on Facebook to “remove any pages that promote hate against Israel and the Jewish people.”
This Intifada page is even more troubling when you consider the collection of threats coming at Israel from all directions. Gaza has been firing rockets into Israel, terrorists have struck at Itamar and Central Jerusalem, and other less publicized places. Iran was caught smuggling tons of high-grade weaponry to Hamas. The Palestinians are threatening to unilaterally declare a State at the UN, and a mega-flotilla is scheduled to arrive around the same time as this call for an Intifada, to name just a few. Coincidence? There are none in the Middle East.
Facebook pulled down a page on Tuesday that aimed to set in motion the Third Palestinian Intifada on May 15th.
According to a report by The Global Post, the creators — "a newly formed super-viral Palestinian group" — were inspired by the uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa.
...Minister Yuli Edelstein wrote a letter to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, warning that the page includes calls to kill Jews and to liberate Jerusalem through violence.
The page incites to violence and violates Facebook content regulations, wrote Edelstein.
ADL National Director Abraham Foxman said about the page: "We should not be so naïve to believe that a campaign for a ‘Third Intifada’ does not portend renewed violence, especially in the current climate that has seen a dramatic increase in rocket attacks from Gaza, the brutal murder of the Fogel family in the West Bank, and a terrorist bombing in Jerusalem."
The original page had nearly 300,000 supporters. In a statement issued on the ADL site today, Foxman welcomed Facebook's decision to take down the page:
We applaud Facebook's willingness to continue to engage and consider this important question and we deeply appreciate their responsiveness. By taking this action, Facebook has now recognized an important standard to be applied when evaluating issues of non-compliance with its terms of service involving distinctions between incitement to violence and legitimate calls for collective expressions of opinion and action. As it continues to monitor its pages, Facebook should be able to apply this standard in response to complaints about other pages with similar content. We hope that they will continue to vigilantly monitor their pages for other groups that call for violence or terrorism against Jews and Israel...
A strikingly similar page — calling for a third Intifada on May 15th — has since appeared on Facebook.
"The Middle East peace plan that United States President Barack Obama will unveil soon involves the creation of a Palestinian Authority state by 2011 and the transfer of Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem [presumably including the Temple Mount] to Arab-Muslim sovereignty... He intends to set an ambitious timetable for completing the peace deal -- something that will please Arabs but may irritate Israel." - Gil Ronen, Obama Plan: Temple Mount Under Arab-Muslim Sovereignty, Israel National News, August 23, 2009
By David Bay, Cutting Edge Ministries August 24, 2009
There is no doubt that the Illuminati plans to address the issue of sovereignty over the Temple Mount.
In NEWS1052, I report that the New England Director of the House of Theosophy stated that one of the "breakthrough" events in allowing Antichrist to appear would be the creation of a single worship center for all Monotheistic faiths in the region, i.e., Jews, Muslims, Christians. However, the Director refused to answer my specific question as to whether this combination worship center would be built on the Temple Mount.
"As the U.N. General Assembly meets in late September, Obama aims to announce the opening of a new negotiating process between Israelis and Palestinians, along with 'confidence-building' steps by Israel, the Palestinian Authority and a number of Arab governments ... Obama 'will probably lay out at least a partial vision of the two-state settlement that all sides now say they support, and the course that negotiations should take. More significantly, he intends to set an ambitious timetable for completing the peace deal -- something that will please Arabs but may irritate Israel'."
I cannot fathom how Prime Minister Netanyahu could force this part of the plan for a Palestinian State down Israel's throat. The Temple Mount Faithful has created a cornerstone for the next Temple and enjoys wide public support. Even many secular Jews support the building of a new Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount, which means that Israel must control that area.
Could immensely strong Orthodox resistance to Arab control over the Temple Mount lead to a public campaign against them which would erode their power by making them appear to be unrealistic and too radical? After all, the Director of the House of Theosophy in Boston stated that one of the major goals of the "New Jerusalem Covenant Project" was to eliminate the Orthodox influence in Israel.
We can only wait to see how this Palestinian State plan unfolds, but one matter is certain: events are going to be very interesting and will fulfill prophecy.
Prophecies of Daniel 9:24-27, Matthew 24:15 and Revelation 11:1-12 reveal that Solomon's Temple is built for Antichrist to use.This prophetic reality means that the new Temple is built after the World War III, which is designed to produce the Man of Sin.Most significantly, the Illuminati Plan, as revealed in "The Armageddon Script," states that the New David (Antichrist) will travel to the Temple Mount and stand amongst the "rubble of the Dome of the Rock" ( p. 233-35).
Thus, the Illuminati plans to destroy the Dome of the Rock during the World War III fighting so that their Antichrist can rebuild Solomon's Temple.This reality means that Arabs will retain control over the Temple Mount until the moment Antichrist comes to the world scene and seizes it for the Jews so his temple can be created.
Exasperated by stalled Middle East peace talks in a season of tumultuous change, President Barack Obama jolted close ally Israel Thursday by embracing the Palestinians' terms for drawing the borders of their new nation next door. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel rejected the idea as "indefensible" on the eve of his vital White House meeting with Obama.
The U.S. president said that an independent Palestine should be based on 1967 borders — before the Six Day War in which Israel occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza — as adjusted by possible land swaps agreed upon by both sides. He said Israel can never live in true peace as a Jewish state if it insists on "permanent occupation."
Obama's effort to salvage a peace effort that is in shambles was a major change in tactics for a president running out of patience and reasons to be subtle. The Israeli-Palestinian stalemate has remained immune to the popular uprisings and historic drives for freedom that have swept much of the region.
He pushed both sides to accept his starting point — borders for Palestine, security for Israel — and get back to solving a deadlock "that has grinded on and on and on."
In a sweeping review of recent uprisings and authoritarian crackdowns across the Arab world, Obama was also unsparing in his words for the Palestinian leadership, repudiating its pursuit of unilateral statehood through the United Nations and questioning its alliance with a Hamas faction bent on Israel's destruction.
"At a time when the people of the Middle East and North Africa are casting off the burdens of the past, the drive for a lasting peace that ends the conflict and resolves all claims is more urgent than ever," Obama said, playing the rapid change of the past six months against a standoff that has stymied the Mideast for decades.
More broadly, before a polite diplomatic audience at the State Department, Obama sought to clarify the U.S. role toward a part of the world undergoing a transformation. He implored the American people to see that it is worth devoting U.S. might and money to help stabilize a dangerous region and help people fighting for freedom.
"There must be no doubt that the United States of America welcomes change that advances self-determination and opportunity," the president said. "Yes, there will be perils that accompany this moment of promise. But after decades of accepting the world as it is in the region, we have a chance to pursue the world as it should be."
It was Obama's explicit endorsement of the 1967 borders that changed the dynamic.
The U.S., the international community and even past Israeli governments have endorsed the idea of an agreement based on the 1967 lines, but Obama's new emphasis was a clear prodding for Israel to act.
The way Obama put it means the U.S. now accepts 1967 lines, with land swaps, as the basis for the borders of a Palestinian state — and not just that such a result would be the desired outcome of negotiations, as had been the U.S. stand.
The United States insists, too, that Israel end up with a safe, secure state without fear of attack from Palestinians.
In a cool statement released late Thursday in Jerusalem, Netanyahu rejected a full withdrawal from the West Bank, saying the 1967 lines would leave major Jewish settlements outside Israel. It was unclear whether Obama's stand would be enough to persuade the Palestinians to drop their push for U.N. recognition of their statehood.
In the run-up to the president's speech, the White House had sought to downplay the role of the Mideast peace standoff in his address, emphasizing instead other elements such as his proposed financial support for Egypt and Tunisia, two nations that have risen up and embraced democracy. But the address only served to underscore how central the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to the stability of the whole region and the political interests of the United States
Obama sought to give perspective to a five-month period in which thousands have died in protests for human rights, two countries' leaders have been toppled, others are teetering, the U.S. has been drawn into an armed conflict in Libya and America has launched a stunning, successful mission to find and kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. The president tried to minimize bin Laden's reach even in death, saying his al-Qaida vision of destruction had already been deemed a "dead end" by those wanting a better life.
Moving country by country, Obama offered his toughest words yet for Syrian President Bashar Assad, in whom the U.S. has lost hope as a reformer given his government's bloody crackdown on dissidents. Obama did not call for Assad to step down but did accuse him of murdering his people.
"The Syrian people have shown their courage in demanding a transition," Obama said. "President Assad now has a choice: He can lead that transition or get out of the way."
One 24-year-old Syrian said the U.S. president was too late.
"It's too bad hundreds of people died before he made the speech," said Mustafa, who fled the coastal town of Banias, which has seen some of the biggest protests in recent weeks, and who did not give his surname for fear of reprisals. "I think it's too late for Assad to lead a peaceful transition to democracy after all that happened."
In seizing his own Mideast moment, Obama offered a speech that was in some ways notable for what he did not mention.
While critical of autocracy throughout the Mideast, he failed to mention the region's largest, richest and arguably most repressive nation, U.S. ally Saudi Arabia. Nor did he mention Jordan, a staunch U.S. ally that has a peace deal with Israel. Also left out was the United Arab Emirates, the wealthy, pro-American collection of mini-states on the Persian Gulf.
On the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, he raised the question of Hamas but did not seek to answer it. A proposed unity Palestinian government would pair the Fatah-dominated administration in the West Bank and the Gaza-run Hamas, which is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and seeks to destroy Israel.
"How can one negotiate with a party that has shown itself unwilling to recognize your right to exist?" Obama asked. "In the weeks and months to come, Palestinian leaders will have to provide a credible answer to that question."
Obama also conceded that borders were just a start. He had no blueprint for resolving enormous conflicts over the status of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees.
And he gave little attention to Iran, where U.S. attempts at outreach have gone nowhere.
On Yemen, a key partner in the U.S. fight against al-Qaida, Obama called on President Ali Abdullah Saleh to keep his commitment to transfer power
. On Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, Obama said the only way forward is dialogue between the government and opposition, "and you can't have a real dialogue when parts of the peaceful opposition are in jail."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu headed for talks in Washington on Friday saying that U.S. President Barack Obama's vision of a Palestinian state on the borders of 1967 could leave Israel "indefensible."
"The viability of a Palestinian state cannot come at the expense of Israel's existence," he said in a statement before flying to the United States for scheduled talks with Obama.
Responding to a major Obama speech on Thursday outlining Middle East strategy, Netanyahu said he expected Washington to let Israel keep major settlement blocs beyond the 1967 lines in the occupied West Bank, under any peace deal with Palestinians.
Israeli officials seemed taken aback by the language in Obama's speech. Asked if Netnayahu had been forewarned by Washington, one said: "No comment." But some Israeli reporters accompanying the prime minister predicted a stormy meeting.
Setting out the principles of a Middle East peace accord, Obama reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to Israel's security.
He called for a deal resulting in two states, Israel and Palestine, sharing the border that existed before Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war.
It would include "mutually agreed land swaps," he said. In a pointed reply, Netanyahu said he expected "to hear a reaffirmation from President Obama of U.S. commitments made to Israel in 2004" -- an allusion to a letter by then-President George W. Bush suggesting the Jewish state may keep big settlement blocs as part of any peace pact.
"Those commitments relate to Israel not having to withdraw to the 1967 lines," Netanyahu added. Such a border, Netanyahu said, would be "indefensible."
ABBAS "APPRECIATES" OBAMA EFFORTS
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed Obama's efforts to renew the talks with Israel that collapsed last year, and had made plans to convene an "emergency" session of Palestinian and Arab officials to weigh further steps, a senior aide said.
Saeb Erekat, a former chief peace negotiator, said:
"Abbas expresses his appreciation of the continuous efforts exerted by President Obama with the objective of resuming the permanent status talks in the hope of reaching a final status agreement."
Obama's blunt language about the need to find an end to Israel's occupation of Arab land looked certain to be the crunch issue in his talks with Netanyahu.
"The dream of a Jewish and democratic state cannot be fulfilled with permanent occupation," Obama said.
His emphasis on 1967 borders went further than Obama has before in offering principles for resolving the stalemate between Israel and the Palestinians. But he stopped short of presenting a formal U.S. peace plan.
Obama's criticism of continued Israeli "settlement activity" sent a message to Netanyahu on the eve of their talks that Washington expects the Jewish state to make concessions.
A senior member of Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party, Danny Danon, accused Obama of seeking to destroy Israel by adopting the vision of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
"Netanyahu only has one option: to tell Obama to forget about it," Danon said, according to Israeli media.
However, Obama's suggestion that negotiations should focus initially on territory and security, leaving the difficult issues of Jerusalem and the return of Palestinian refugees to a later date, appeared to chime with Netanyahu's own position.
Likewise, Obama's firm rejection of Palestinian moves to seek recognition of their statehood at the United Nations delighted Israeli officials. Abbas made no comment.
The Palestinians plan to pursue their statehood quest in September at the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly.
Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, brokered by Washington, collapsed last year when Netanyahu refused to extend a moratorium on Jewish settlement-building in the West Bank and Abbas refused to carry on negotiations.
In Gaza, the Islamist Palestinian movement Hamas said Obama had no business criticizing the recent reconciliation pact between Hamas and Abbas's secular Fatah movement, intended to end a damaging four-year split and produce a unity government.
"The peoples of the region are not in need of Obama's lectures," spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said. "Obama reaffirmed his absolute support for the policies of the (Israeli) occupation and his rejection of any criticism of the Occupation."
"We affirm that Palestinian reconciliation is a Palestinian affair and that the (peace) negotiations have proven to be pointless," he said. "Hamas will never recognize the Israeli occupation under any circumstances."
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