GREECE MIGHT GO AFTER U.S BANKS

DAY 4 OF SOEOTORO-OBAMA SEDITION & TREASON TRIAL-DR JAMES MANNING
http://atlah.org/pdf/ciaColumbiaObamaTrial_v2.pdf
http://www.atlah.org/

GLENN BECK ALL THE PRESIDENTS MEN-THIS CRIMINAL BUNCH NEVER STOPS TO CONTROL THE US
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/40663/
GLENN BECK TAKING CRIME GLOBAL-WHO ELSE BUT OBAMA & GOLDMAN SACHS FRIENDS AT WH.
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/40600/

Obama Administration: Goldman Sachs from Top to Bottom
Kurt Nimmo Infowars.com May 15, 2010

Two articles on the FDL website detail the intimate and incestuous relationship between the Barry Obama administration and Goldman Sachs. FDL names names and provides expansive detail on the Goldie administration.Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs CEO: the man who may as well be president.At a time when Congressional hearings are set to call testimony from some Goldman Sachs employees, it is vital to understand how widespread that institution’s ties are to the Obama administration. This diary shows the pervasive influence of Goldman Sachs and Goldman created institutions (like the Hamilton Project embedded in the Brookings Institution), employees and influence peddlers in the Obama administration,FDL wrote on April 27.

It is not simply Larry Summers, Timothy Geithner, Rahm Emanuel, Gary Gensler and Mark Patterson who are Goldies, but a long list of others.But that’s just the tip of the Goldman Sachs iceberg. Here you will find, I believe, the most comprehensive list of people-groups yet available to show how Obama’s administration has really become the Goldman Sachs administration.Elena Kagan is merely the latest addition, although her ties to Goldman are downplayed if not completely ignored by the corporate media.FDL notes that the Obama administration is not the first administration that Goldman has infiltrated, although it is perhaps the one that has been most completely co-opted from top to bottom. Recall that former Secretary of the Treasury Paulson in the George W. Bush era came from — Goldman Sachs where he was its chief. Recall too that the brilliant, late economist John K. Galbraith has written an entire chapter of a book devoted to the Great Depression and the economic collapse of Wall St. that accompanied it to the role of Goldman Sachs.Goldman had sponsored trusts such as Blue Ridge and Shenandoah, speculative Ponzi schemes that made the market collapse of October 1929 possible. Goldman and others “whip(ped) up a speculative fever in shares, reaping (highly leveraged) capital gains with other people’s money.They were fraudulent pyramid schemes, a Charles Ponzi-Bernie Madoff scam,writes L. Randall Wray.

It was not mere greed and short sightedness that created the Great Depression. “To think that the scientifically engineered Crash of ‘29 was an accident or the result of stupidity defies all logic. The international bankers who promoted the inflationary policies and pushed the propaganda which pumped up the stock market represented too many generations of accumulated expertise to have blundered into the great depression,writes the late Gary Allen.The international bankers sought to bring about a condition of despair here so that they might emerge as the rulers of us all,lamented Congressman Louis McFadden, Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee at the time.Goldman is now strategically placed in the White House as the Greatest Depression inexplicably unfolds all around us. McFadden was on the right track — the banksters are positioned to emerge as rulers of us all… and most of us, thanks to the corporate media, are completely unaware.Here are the FDL articles: A List of Goldman Sachs People in the Obama Government: Names Attached to the Giant Squid’s Tentacles and An Updated List of Goldman Sachs Ties to the Obama Government Including Elena Kagan.

WEBSTER TARPLEY ON WORLD ECONOMIES IN DEPRESSION
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-t-kWkPjhE&feature=player_embedded

YESTERDAY ON CNN CANDY CROWLEY WAS ASKING SESTAK WHY HE WON'T REVEAL HIS ARMY RECORDS.YOU NEVER SEE OBAMA ON CNN THE CIA NETWORK ASKING OBAMA TO REAVEAL HIS FRAUD OF NOT BEING A LEGEL AMERICAN IN OFFICE AND PROOF OF HIS BEING A KENYAN MUSLIM.CNN AND MSNBC ARE SO HYPOCRITICAL ITS JUST REDICULAS.RIGHT CANY CROWLEY,ED SCHULTZ,KEITH OLBERMAN AND RACHEL-BUTCH-MADDOW.

Ten Mental Mistakes of Obamatons
By Kelly O'Connell Sunday, May 16, 2010

We live in times of rank, unchallenged errors of thought forcefully expressed in print and spoken word. Political movements, in particular, traffic in purposeful verbal trickery. In fact, some especially depend upon fallacies to drive their message since their essential convictions are defective or even diseased. Such groups as the Nazis, Fascists and Communists immediately spring to mind here.Barack Obama peppers his rhetoric with a veritable buffet of verbal trickery. But why? If Obamatons are correct, and Barack is one of history’s great speakers, why must he use cheap rhetorical tricks to win support? The answer is Obama offers ideas which, on their face, are either counter-intuitive, or false to the average listener. Speakers do not mislead unless they sense an inability to otherwise persuade their audience. Therefore Barack needs extra help to persuade. What other explanation can there be for such incongruent methods? Obama supporters, aka Obamatons, have created a human ocean of fallacies to buoy their leader, threatening to engulf the globe in a terrifying flood of logical errors. The following is a short list of some of the most persistent members of this false-argument tsunami.

A. What is a Fallacy?
A fallacy is generally an error in reasoning. Fallacies are common, yet fraudulent arguments. The most popular are mistakes that occur when people don’t think clearly. The most typically used have given names to aid in their detection. Certainly, we all tend to use fallacious thinking daily. But for important topics, such as politics, religion, and law it is imperative we do not employ these flawed logical structures as we will end up with unacceptable results.

B. Top Ten Liberal Fallacies
The following fallacies are employed by Obama, his administration and his rabble of fervent and often intellectually challenged fans.

1. Self-Righteousness
This fallacy claims if someone is morally pure,or has the right motivations, then their actions cannot be questioned.Example: Obama claims his foreign policy is better received and more effective because it is not arrogant. Further, he implies both his economic policies and health care plans will succeed because they are not based upon greed, but instead on altruism, as the wealthier are forced to share with the less afluent.Analysis: Obama repeatedly employs the fallacy of Self-Righteousness (perhaps a logical result of his apparent embrace of a semi-messianic self-identity). Describing Obama as the furthest thing from pure, former House member Dick Armey summed him up, saying, You’re intellectually shallow. You’re a romantic. You’re self-indulgent. You have no ability.He added Obama was...the most incompetent president perhaps in our lifetime.

2. You’re Another (Tu Quoque)
Here’s the famed you too fallacy, which states an action is acceptable simply because another person has previously performed it.Example: When Obama began ramping up giant deficits, and was criticized for profligacy, his followers defended him with statements like, Bush started the deficits!Or, It’s OK for the last administration to do this, but not Obama’s? Analysis: Clearly, if Bush’s deficits were a problem, it was because such spending is irresponsible, not simply because it was W. doing them. So, if Obama quadrupled Bush’s deficits, he has fourfold culpability under the same analysis. If this dynamic is not true, imagine another example. For instance, what if Wendy’s restaurant argued they had a right to put four times the amount of cyanide in their burgers, since it was discovered a madman at McDonald’s was doing the same. This argument is utter nonsense.

3. Personal Attack (Ad Hominem)
This fallacy is committed when a person is insulted for delivering criticism.
Example: After broadcaster Rush Limbaugh launches a blistering attack upon Obama, claiming his actions were socialist, Obama asks a friend to respond. US Senator Al Franken officially replies, pointing out that claim is wrong because…Rush Limbaugh is a Big, Fat Idiot.Analysis: Even the most ponderous commentators can deliver accurate critiques of politicians. Further, doing counter-commentary like explaining Sarah Palin is a transparent moron, or that Dick Cheney is clearly evil is not so much a way of sharing genuine information, as a manner of circling the wagons against officially denoted enemies to destroy them. It’s a tribal response designed as a defensive maneuver.

4. Damning the Origin (Consider the Source)
Damning the Origin is an Ad Hominem fallacy claiming defective sources cannot express truth.Example: When FOX’s Bret Baier gave Barack a tough interview on Obamacare, badly exposing a lack of answers, the left erupted in fury over FOX’s bias and Baier’s lack of decorum and rudeness.Analysis: Even a broken clock is right twice a day. If only perfect people were allowed to speak, all communication would cease. This defensive fallacy is lately applied to Obama’s enemies.The belief that comments by such monsters as Glenn Beck or religious believers, etc must be dismissed out-of-hand is absurd. After all, if cogent criticism of liberalism is articulated, it probably won’t be by the left.

5. The Good Reason
The Good Reason is a fallacy where something unacceptable is made agreeable after substituting a good reason in place of the actual purpose for which the thing was done.Example: When Obama canceled America’s promised Polish missile shield, he claimed he ...supports deploying a missile-defense system when the technology is proved to be workable. And when the DC School Voucher Program was stopped, Barack said it was because of funding.Analysis: Question: Is it possible Obama really canceled missiles to curry Russian favor at the cost of the Poles? Or, could he have blocked vouchers to please the teachers unions to the disadvantage of DC kids? The Good Reason tactic is used often by Obama. Any administration priming the policy pump by arguing No crisis should be wasted” must be watched with an eagle’s eye.

6. Appeal to Pity (Argumentum ad Misericordiam)
This fallacy is another Special Pleading argument, stating pitiable groups should receive unique status and ala cart rules.Example: Those pushing Obamacare argue the poor must be put on equal footing with the wealthy in health care choice since they lack funds. Further, it’s claimed making the rich pay for them is a morally enlightened choice.Analysis: To argue the poor deserve more wealth, simply by virtue of their penury, creates a de facto socialist state.

7. Condemnation of Hypocrisy
A fascinating error which is again Special Pleading, is the Fallacy of Condemning Hypocrisy. This error claims the worst and maybe only moral failure is claiming to stand for a rule, then violating it.Example: Barney Frank mounts the House floor podium, harshly condemning Larry Wide-Stance Craig for opposing gay marriage while practicing homosexuality. Later, when criticized for allowing a gay brothel in his DC townhouse, he states, Let me be Frank, I’ve never lied about my orientation.Analysis: Hypocrisy is not the only crime in the universe. Marxist Saul Alinsky’s book, Rules For Radicals, states, Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.While socialists may only want others to live transparently moral lives, all people are under the same expectation.

8. Appeal to Anger
This fallacy suggests anyone truly angry over a subject must be correct, or they couldn’t have become furious.Example: Incensed opponents of Bush’s decision to invade Iraq, after WMD’s were not discovered, met and shouted,Bush Lied & People Fried! Then, when Obama was elected, war protesters decamped despite him not keeping promises on ejecting Iraq troops, closing Guantanamo and increasing efforts in Afghanistan.Analysis: Anger, no matter how artfully expressed, is not argument. Fury is no proof the person expressing it is correct in their position. The left believes secularized holy anger is a great purifier of debates. This is an example of the Fallacy of Emotivism, claiming emotions are a signpost for truth.

9. Purified Opinion (Appeal to Political Correctness)
A fascinating recent Western development is the rise of Political Correctness (PC). Generally, PC contains a number of formerly verboten activities and groups; having gone from rejection, to protected, and now morphed into representing unassailable truth.Example: An obese, vegetarian, Marxist lesbian boasting a peace-sign prison tattoo flips-off Conservative war hero Juan McCrane as his motorcade flies past her electricity-free commune cobbled together from recycled milk jugs and egg-crates. Officer Duerite observes, arresting her for public indecency, transporting her back to jail. But boss Chief Brawnoz insists she be released without charge.Analysis: Under the PC umbrella lie many subgroups and arguments. Since each different group, set of beliefs, or practices must be defended upon its own merits, PC is a logical fallacy (based on the Compound Question fallacy and also an inversion of the Cultural Bias fallacy. The latter is the flawed instinct to rate one’s cultural practices as universal truths).The very phrase Politically Correct,first used by Chairman Mao, is an oxymoron. Political doctrines are prima facie open for debate; to suggest any are correct,or beyond dispute, is a self-abnegating contradiction. Only a one-party system can accommodate such a theory. PC’s Marxist origins, from the Frankfurt School, are well documented, as are its goal of sowing chaos and disorder into society.

10. After This, Therefore Because of This (Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc)
This fallacy says that a second event occurring after a first event must be caused by the first.Example: Obama has pointed out how now, after his Stimulus was passed, we are finally ending the recession.Analysis: The Stimulus is a near-billion dollar job creation bill. Despite misspent funds, no strategic plan, and a many-years spending schedule, Obamatons claim all current economic recovery is Stimulus-derived. But classical economics states such stimulus does more harm than good. The Rooster Fallacy applies here, which credits the rooster’s crow for the rising of the sun.

Conclusion
What happened to America’s former superbly-trained intellectual class, once patriotic and reflexively intelligent? That generation is gone, their dull replacements a zombie army of unthinking leftists simply following State command. The US is battling the debilitating effects of John Dewey’s humanistic, socialist educational vision. Dewey’s theory dismembered our once world-class, Puritan-derived pedagogy, now devolved into simple inculcation of youth in Political Correctness, instead of the classics.We are in the fight of our lives for our future. Caught between Obama’s deranged, self-righteous socialist phantasm versus the fading glory of our freedom-boasting past, we must commit to protecting and reviving ourselves via education and political advocacy. We must purchase books on logic, philosophy, politics, history, rhetoric, law, religion, the Constitution, the Founders, and others to gain the intellectual firepower necessary to battle back and regain control of our wildly-careening country.To paraphrase Karl Marx: America, we have nothing to lose but our chains of ignorance. We have a world to win. Patriotic People of America, Unite!

Bibliography
Fallacy the Counterfeit of Argument, by W. Ward & Holther, W. B. Fearnside
Improving Your Reasoning, by Alex C. Michalos

http://www.infowars.com/the-bailout-of-big-american-banks-has-cost-trillions-more-than-weve-been-told/
The Bailout of Big American Banks Has Cost Trillions More Than We’ve Been Told Washington’s Blog May 16, 2010

TARP bailout is peanuts compared to the numerous other bailouts the government has given to the giant banks.Granted, the $700 billion dollar TARP bailout was a massive bait-and-switch. The government said it was doing it to soak up toxic assets, and then switched to saying it was needed to free up lending. It didn’t do that either. Indeed, the Fed doesn’t want the banks to lend.True, as I wrote in March 2009:The bailout money is just going to line the pockets of the wealthy, instead of helping to stabilize the economy or even the companies receiving the bailouts:

-Bailout money is being used to subsidize companies run by horrible business men, allowing the bankers to receive fat bonuses, to redecorate their offices, and to buy gold toilets and prostitutes
- A lot of the bailout money is going to the failing companies’ shareholders
-Indeed, a leading progressive economist says that the true purpose of the bank rescue plans is a massive redistribution of wealth to the bank shareholders and their top executives.
-The Treasury Department encouraged banks to use the bailout money to buy their competitors, and pushed through an amendment to the tax laws which rewards mergers in the banking industry (this has caused a lot of companies to bite off more than they can chew, destabilizing the acquiring companies)And as the New York Times notes, Tens of billions of [bailout] dollars have merely passed through A.I.G. to its derivatives trading partners.

In other words, through a little game-playing by the Fed, taxpayer money is going straight into the pockets of investors in AIG’s credit default swaps and is not even really stabilizing AIG.But the TARP bailout is peanuts compared to the numerous other bailouts the government has given to the giant banks.And I’m not referring to the $23 trillion in bailouts, loans, guarantees and other known shenanigans that the special inspector general for the TARP program mentions. I’m talking about more covert types of bailouts.Like what?Guaranteeing a Fat Spread on Interest Rates

Well, as Bloomberg notes:The trading profits of the Street is just another way of measuring the subsidy the Fed is giving to the banks, said Christopher Whalen, managing director of Torrance, California-based Institutional Risk Analytics. It’s a transfer from savers to banks.The trading results, which helped the banks report higher quarterly profit than analysts estimated even as unemployment stagnated at a 27-year high, came with a big assist from the Federal Reserve. The U.S. central bank helped lenders by holding short-term borrowing costs near zero, giving them a chance to profit by carrying even 10-year government notes that yielded an average of 3.70 percent last quarter.The gap between short-term interest rates, such as what banks may pay to borrow in interbank markets or on savings accounts, and longer-term rates, known as the yield curve, has been at record levels. The difference between yields on 2- and 10-year Treasuries yesterday touched 2.71 percentage points, near the all-time high of 2.94 percentage points set Feb. 18.

Harry Blodget explains:The latest quarterly reports from the big Wall Street banks revealed a startling fact: None of the big four banks had a single day in the quarter in which they lost money trading.For the 63 straight trading days in Q1, in other words, Goldman Sachs (GS), JP Morgan (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), and Citigroup (C) made money trading for their own accounts.Trading, of course, is supposed to be a risky business: You win some, you lose some. That’s how traders justify their gargantuan bonuses–their jobs are so risky that they deserve to be paid millions for protecting their firms’ precious capital. (Of course, the only thing that happens if traders fail to protect that capital is that taxpayers bail out the bank and the traders are paid huge retention bonuses to prevent them from leaving to trade somewhere else, but that’s a different story).But these days, trading isn’t risky at all. In fact, it’s safer than walking down the street.

Why?

Because the US government is lending money to the big banks at near-zero interest rates. And the banks are then turning around and lending that money back to the US government at 3%-4% interest rates, making 3%+ on the spread. What’s more, the banks are leveraging this trade, borrowing at least $10 for every $1 of equity capital they have, to increase the size of their bets. Which means the banks can turn relatively small amounts of equity into huge profits–by borrowing from the taxpayer and then lending back to the taxpayer.The government’s zero-interest-rate policy, in other words, is the biggest Wall Street subsidy yet. So far, it has done little to increase the supply of credit in the real economy. But it has hosed responsible people who lived within their means and are now earning next-to-nothing on their savings. It has also allowed the big Wall Street banks to print money to offset all the dumb bets that brought the financial system to the brink of collapse two years ago. And it has fattened Wall Street bonus pools to record levels again.

Paul Abrams chimes in:To get a clear picture of what is going on here, ignore the intermediate steps (borrowing money from the fed, investing in Treasuries), as they are riskless, and it immediately becomes clear that this is merely a direct payment from the Fed to the banking executives…for nothing. No nifty new tech product has been created. No illness has been treated. No teacher has figured out how to get a third-grader to understand fractions. No singer’s voice has entertained a packed stadium. No batter has hit a walk-off double. No risk has even been managed, the current mantra for what big banks do that is so goddamned important that it is doing god’s work.Nor has any credit been extended to allow the real value-producers to meet payroll, to reserve a stadium, to purchase capital equipment, to hire employees. Nothing.Congress should put an immediate halt to this practice. Banks should have to show that the money they are borrowing from the Fed is to provide credit to businesses, or consumers, or homeowners. Not a penny should be allowed to be used to purchase Treasuries. Otherwise, the Fed window should be slammed shut on their manicured fingers.And, stiff criminal penalties should be enacted for those banks that mislead the Fed about the destination of the money they are borrowing. Bernie Madoff needs company.There is another type of guaranteed spread that allows the giant banks to make money hand over fist. Specifically, the Fed pays the big banks interest to borrow money at no interest and then keep money parked at the Fed itself. (The Fed is intentionally doing this for the express purpose of preventing too much money from being lent out to Main Street. That’s just dandy.)The giant banks are receiving many other covert bailouts and subsidies as well.

Too Big As Subsidy

Initially, the fact that the giant banks are too big to fail encourages them to take huge, risky gambles that they would not otherwise take. If they win, they make big bucks. If they lose, they know the government will just bail them out. This is a gambling subsidy.The very size of the too big to fails also decreases the ability of the smaller banks to compete. And – since the government itself helped make the giants even bigger – that is also a subsidy to the big boys (see this).The monopoly power given to the big banks (technically an oligopoly) is a subsidy in other ways as well. For example, Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said in September that giants like Goldman are using their size to manipulate the market:The main problem that Goldman raises is a question of size: too big to fail.In some markets, they have a significant fraction of trades. Why is that important? They trade both on their proprietary desk and on behalf of customers. When you do that and you have a significant fraction of all trades, you have a lot of information.

Further, he says, That raises the potential of conflicts of interest, problems of front-running, using that inside information for your proprietary desk. And that’s why the Volcker report came out and said that we need to restrict the kinds of activity that these large institutions have. If you’re going to trade on behalf of others, if you’re going to be a commercial bank, you can’t engage in certain kinds of risk-taking behavior.The giants (especially Goldman Sachs) have also used high-frequency program trading which not only distorted the markets – making up more than 70% of stock trades – but which also let the program trading giants take a sneak peak at what the real (aka human) traders are buying and selling, and then trade on the insider information. See this, this, this, this and this. (This is frontrunning, which is illegal; but it is a lot bigger than garden variety frontrunning, because the program traders are not only trading based on inside knowledge of what their own clients are doing, they are also trading based on knowledge of what all other traders are doing).Goldman also admitted that its proprietary trading program can manipulate the markets in unfair ways. The giant banks have also allegedly used their Counterparty Risk Management Policy Group (CRMPG) to exchange secret information and formulate coordinated mutually beneficial actions, all with the government’s blessings.In addition, the giants receive many billions in subsidies by receiving government guarantees that they are too big to fail, ensuring that they have to pay lower interest rates to attract depositors.

Derivatives

The government’s failure to rein in derivatives or break up the giant banks also constitute enormous subsidies, as it allows the giants to make huge sums by keeping the true price points of their derivatives secret. See this and this.

Toxic Assets

The PPIP program – which was supposed to reduce the toxic assets held by banks – actually increased them, and just let the banks make a quick buck.In addition, the government suspended mark-to-market valuation of the toxic assets held by the giant banks, and is allowing the banks to value the assets at whatever price they desire. This constitutes a huge giveaway to the big banks.

As one writer notes:By allowing banks to legally disregard mark-to-market accounting rules, government allows banks to maintain investment grade ratings.By maintaining investment grade ratings, banks attract institutional funds. That would be the insurance and pension funds money that is contributed by the citizen.As institutional money pours in, the stock price is propped up ….

Mortgages and Housing

PhD economists John Hussman and Dean Baker (and fund manager and financial writer Barry Ritholtz) say that the only reason the government keeps giving billions to Fannie and Freddie is that it is really a huge, ongoing, back-door bailout of the big banks.Many also accuse Obama’s foreclosure relief programs as being backdoor bailouts for the banks. (See this, this and this).

Foreign Bailouts

The big banks – such as JP Morgan – also benefit from foreign bailouts, such as the European bailout, as they are some of the largest creditors of the bailed out countries, and the bailouts allow them to get paid in full, instead of having to write down their foreign losses.These are just a few of the secret bailouts programs the government is giving to the giant banks. There are many other bailout programs as well. If these bailouts and subsidies are added up, they amount to many tens – or perhaps even hundreds – of trillions of dollars.And then there is the cost of debasing the currency in order to print money to fund these bailouts. The cost to the American citizen in less valuable dollars will be truly staggering.

IDF Prepares Public for Nationwide Home Front Exercise
by Hillel Fendel MAY 16,10

The IDF Home Front Command has launched a media campaign in preparation for the national Home Front exercise known in Hebrew as Nekudat Mifneh 4 (Turning Point 4).

The joint exercise will be held by the National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA), the IDF Home Front Command, the Israel Police, Magen David Adom emergency services, government offices and local authorities. It will simulate various emergency scenarios and responses provided to civilians in Israel. The focus will be the sounding of a siren across Israel on Wednesday, May 26, at 11:00 AM, requesting that all residents enter protected spaces specified in advance.The media campaign will include television and radio broadcasts in Hebrew and other languages, as well as internet ads directing the public to the Home Front Command website. In addition, the campaign will include ads in national and target-specific newspapers, such as hareidi-religious and Arabic newspapers.This year marks the fourth consecutive year the exercise has taken place. It was planned as part of the annual training graph, and was prepared over the past few months by a national administration comprised of various officials. The exercise is billed as another opportunity to prepare the public and municipal authorities for emergency periods.

During last year's Turning Point 3 five-day exercise, representatives from 70 nations participated as observers, watching Israel simulate a war with Hamas, Hizbullah, and Syria combined with Arab riots and terrorist attacks. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu explained last year that Israel is called upon to provide not only an offensive response to the threats surrounding the country, but also a defensive response for the civilian population. (IsraelNationalNews.com)

Greek leader considers action against US banks
MAY 16,10

ATHENS, Greece – Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou is not ruling out taking legal action against U.S. investment banks for their role in creating the spiraling Greek debt crisis.Papandreou told CNN on Sunday that I wouldn't rule out going after the U.S. banks.The government, as well as many Greeks, have blamed international banks for fanning the flames of the debt crisis with comments about Greece's likely default.The Greek leader also says a parliamentary investigation will soon examine the rapid swelling of Greece's debt and the country's banking practices.The European Union and the International Monetary fund have approved a euro110 billion ($136 billion) bailout package for Greece.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

BERLIN (AP) — The chief economist of a German bank is quoted as saying that he doubts Greece's ability to repay its huge debts in an orderly fashion.German news website Handelsblatt on Sunday reported that the Dekabank's chief economist shares the doubts voiced by Deutsche Bank AG's Chief Executive Josef Ackermann on Thursday.
Ulrich Kater was quoted as saying: It will be very, very difficult for Greece to orderly repay its debt.He said the country's new austerity measures and its lack of competitiveness were dooming Greece's prospects for economic growth, making debt reduction difficult.Ackermann, CEO of Germany's biggest lender, caused outrage and nervousness on already jittery markets by publicly doubting Greece's ability to repay its debt and mentioning the possibility of a debt restructuring.

DOCTOR DOCTORIAN FROM ANGEL OF GOD
then the angel said, Financial crisis will come to Asia. I will shake the world.

JAMES 5:1-3
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.

REVELATION 18:10,17,19
10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
17 For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,
19 And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.

EZEKIEL 7:19
19 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.

REVELATION 13:16-18
16 And he(FALSE POPE) causeth all,(WORLD SOCIALISM) both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(CHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM

WORLD MARKET RESULTS
http://money.cnn.com/data/world_markets/
CNBC VIDEOS
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15839263/site/14081545/?tabid=15839796&tabheader=false

HALF HOUR DOW RESULTS MON MAY 17,2010

09:30 AM +1.25
10:00 AM -23.58
10:30 AM -14.36
11:00 AM -55.10
11:30 AM -91.60
12:00 PM -163.77
12:30 PM -141.93
01:00 PM -141.33
01:30 PM -90.24
02:00 PM -110.64
02:30 PM -98.33
03:00 PM -29.95
03:30 PM -64.39
04:00 PM +5.67 10,625.83

S&P 500 1136.94 +1.26

NASDAQ 2354.23 +7.38

GOLD 1,224.10 -3.70

OIL 70.17 -1.44

TSE 300 11,813.00 -202.00

CDNX 1554.67 -38.44

S&P/TSX/60 695.48 -11.24

MORNING,NEWS,STATS

YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow +17 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow -91 points at low today.
Dow +50 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $1,227.40.OIL opens at $71.09 today.

AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow -180 points at low today so far.
Dow +50 points at high today so far.

WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow -180 points at low today.
Dow +50 points at high today.

GEEWIZ WEBSTER IF GOLDMAN SACHS WERE BROKEN UP.WERE WOULD SOETORO-OBAMA GET HIS CHICAGO THUGS FROM TO CONTINUE DESTROYING AMERICA SINCE MOST HAVE COME FROM GOLDMAN SACHS.AND HOW COULD SOETORO & ADMINISTRATION FUNNEL SECRET CASH FROM THE FEDERAL RESERVE TO BAILOUT(ROBB AMERICANS)AND GIVE ALL THE BANKS OF THE WORLD BIGTIME CASH,ESPECIALLY EUROPE.

GOLD HITS ALLTIME HIGH $1,248.20 Seize and Liquidate Goldman Sachs
[Translate] Webster G. Tarpley TARPLEY.net April 27, 2010

Today’s Senate hearings, carried on CNBC, Bloomberg, and C-SPAN, represent the first major exposure of the American people to the scandalous frauds of the derivatives casino, including synthetic collateralized debt obligations (synthetic CDOs or CDO²). These are things most people have heard very little about. They begin to open up the shocking reality behind such shopworn euphemisms like toxic assets,exotic instruments,and troubled assets.Reactionaries in general and Republicans in particular have done everything possible to hide the role of derivatives, which must be considered the main cause of the financial panic of September 2008 which brought down Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and AIG, after felling Bear Stearns in March of the same year. The reactionary legend, repeated yesterday on the Senate floor by financier minion GOP Sen. Gregg of New Hampshire, is that the crisis was caused by poor people taking out subprime mortgages and then defaulting, bringing down the entire Anglo-American banking system and triggering the bailouts. Either that, or too much government spending was too blame.

A mass of kited derivatives blew up in September 2008
This Big Lie has come from such propaganda sources as the Limbaugh Institute of Retarded Reactionary Ranting. But the $1.5 trillion in subprime mortgages were dwarfed by the $15 trillion US residential real estate market, to say nothing of the $1.5 thousand trillion world derivatives bubble. But, starting with Bush-Goldman Sachs Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, the talk has been of a housing correction, not a derivatives panic. It must be pointed out that derivatives are nothing but wagers, bets placed from a distance on securities which themselves are often not mortgages, but rather other derivatives. The bettor buying a synthetic CDO or CDO² does not own the underlying mortgages or mortgage-backed securities, any more than someone who bets on a racehorse owns part of the horse. Blankfein and others tried to portray derivatives as a service to hedgers and end-users, but it’s clear that the vast majority of derivatives involve neither hedgers nor users, but only bettors on both side of the transaction. It is in any case this mass of kited derivatives which blew up in 2008, bringing on the present world economic depression.

Goldman Sachs executives are babbling cretins
The mystique of Goldman Sachs is based in large part on their reputation as the smartest financiers on Wall Street. After today’s hearings, this mystique has permanently dissipated. The Goldman executives babbled. They sounded dumb. They stalled and stammered and went into contortions to avoid giving straight answers to simple questions. They were mendacious and evasive when they did speak. Financial powers around the world will note carefully the refusal of three out of four Goldman executives on one panel to state that they had a duty to defend the interests of their clients. Who will want to do business with such a gang? Goldman Sachs got $10 billion of taxpayer money in low-interest loans under the Bush-Paulson TARP. Part of that money went to pay for obscene bonuses for Goldman executives like the ones on display today. The argument for bonuses is that they must be paid to retain the highly talented personnel, virtual geniuses, who are indispensable for Wall Street speculative success. But these are no geniuses, they are imbeciles. No more bonuses should be paid by banks saved through public money.

Don’t buy any used cars from Lloyd Blankfein
Sleaziest of all was Goldman’s risk-monger in chief, Lloyd Blankfein, who pretended not to know that derivatives are often kept hidden off balance sheet. The morally insane Blankfein testified that his role was to provide the firm’s clients with the risk they wanted.Other GS witnesses represented the firm’s role as distributing risk.But it turned out that they were manufacturing risk through the very existence and activities of Goldman Sachs, which had the result of pyramiding the total risk of the US financial system into intergalactic space. It is time to regulate much of that unbearable risk out of existence with appropriate regulatory legislation. In the meantime, no sane person would buy a used car from Blankfein. Nor should they believe his assurance that the recession has ended.But when at the end of the day Blankfein finally suggested to Sen. Tester that synthetic CDOs might be outlawed, we should accept his proposal immediately.Today’s hearings reveal the Goldman Sachs gunslingers and whiz kids as ignorant gangsters and con artists, notable only for their ability to practice massive fraud with impudence. These sleazy mediocrities do not deserve bonuses paid for by taxpayers. Rather, it is time to shut them down and put them in the dock.If Goldman Sachs had cared about is clients, it would have urgently warned them to unload their subprime risk by late 2006 or thereabouts. Instead, Goldman was busily increasing its clients’ risk by selling them more toxic CDOs out of its own inventory warehouse.

Goldman Sachs: bookies who stack the deck and fix the games
As the philandering Sen. Ensign pointed out, comparing Wall Street to Las Vegas is a slander on the croupiers of Las Vegas, where everyone knows or should know that the game is rigged so that the house always wins. To use the comparison introduced by Sen. McCaskill, Goldman Sachs was operating as the gambling house, or the bookie. At the same time, Goldman was betting for their own account. But much worse was the fact that Goldman was stacking the decks, loading the dice, fixing the games on which the bets were placed, and bribing the umpires.As Ensign put it in a rare moment of lucidity, the subprime mortgage was bad. But the collapse of subprime would not have had anything like its actual destructive effect on the US economy if it had not been compounded by the mass of synthetic derivatives that were piled on top of subprime.

No national or social purpose served by Goldman Sachs and toxic derivatives bets
The broader issue raised by today’s hearing is: what human purpose is served by the existence of Goldman Sachs, which concocts toxic synthetic CDOs for the purpose of allowing speculators, who are often lied to and duped, to bet for or against them. Goldman Sachs can only be described as a speculative parasite which promotes the activities of other speculative parasites, such as the John Paulson hedge fund at the expense of the public and of its other clients. It was a crime to inject $10 billion of Treasury money into Goldman Sachs. It was another crime for the Fed to lend Goldman untold billions (just how many billions Bernanke still refuses to disclose) to keep them afloat and enable more predatory profits. These crimes must stop, and the public money must be clawed back. Most important, it is time to shut down the derivatives rackets.Goldman got $12.5 billion from taxpayers for AIG credit default swaps Useful questions from GOP Sen. Coburn pointed to another kind of derivative: the infamous credit default swap (CDS). These CDS are what brought down AIG, whose London hedge fund had issues $3 trillion in derivatives. When the government bailed out AIG, part of that $180 billion of taxpayer money was used for payouts to the CDS counterparties of AIG, biggest among them Goldman, which got $12.5 billion from the US taxpayer. That was 100 cents on the dollar on a mass of toxic CDS. Coburn wanted to know why Goldman got all their money back, while GM bondholders took a bath as GM went bankrupt. That was, of course, a matter of Goldman’s political clout through GS alum Henry Paulson and Obama Car Czar Steve The Rat Rattner, backed up by the historic preponderance of finance capital over industrial capital in this country since Andrew Carnegie sold out to JP Morgan over a century ago.

Derivatives and zombie banks: the toll
Thanks to Goldman Sachs, the other Wall Street zombie banks, and their derivatives, the financial panic of 2008 has turned into a world economic depression of unimaginable proportions. The unemployed and underemployed in the US alone are surely in excess of 20 million. Five to six million home foreclosures are already done or in the pipeline, throwing tens of millions of Americans out of their homes. World trade has been seriously impacted. The budgets of California, New York, Illinois, and many other states are in crisis, with massive layoffs of teachers and other state employees. An entire generation is being destroyed. Now, Greek bonds are trading at junk levels under the attack of speculative predators including Soros, Greenlight Capital, SAC, and the protagonists of today’s hearings – Paulson and Co and Goldman Sachs itself. The attack on Greece and the euro represents the leading edge of the second wave of the depression, which is now arriving in much the same way that the second wave of the 1930s depression was unleashed by the Vienna Kreditanstalt bankruptcy in May of 1931, about 79 years ago and just a year and a half into that depression.The goal of the Republicans is to portray themselves as stern judges of Wall Street, even as they line up in a unanimous phalanx to protect the finance jackals from any meaningful regulation whatsoever — as seen in yesterday’s vote to block cloture on derivatives re-regulation and reform. The goal of the Democrats is to expose the sociopathic evil of Goldman Sachs and the rest of Wall Street while preening themselves as defenders of the public interest, without however banning credit default swaps, banning synthetic CDOs, and imposing a Wall Street sales tax on all remaining derivatives and asset transactions.

To this degree, today’s hearings are being conducted in bad faith by both major parties. However, the dynamic of the resulting spectacle has the result of educating and mobilizing public opinion against the predatory practices which are the essence of Wall Street, even a year and a half after the banking panic of September 2008 and the monster bailout of zombie banks which soon followed. What is required is a new edition of the anti-banker sentiment set off by the Senate Banking Committee hearings conducted from January 1933 to May 1934 by committee counsel Ferdinand Pecora, which unmasked the corruption of Wall Street. Persons of good will need to get active now to push this process as far as possible while these social dynamics are working. It is time to hit the zombie banks, the hedge funds, and their derivatives as hard as possible, before the second wave of the depression hits. The program necessary to fight the depression and break the strangle-hold of Wall Street on the US economy and political system is given on my web site.Mitch McConnell on the bailout: Harry, I think we need to do this, we should try to do this, and we can do this.During a break the senators filed out, and the GOP reactionary lockstep once again blocked cloture for a final debate on the Wall Street reform bill, weak as it is. Many activists of the Tea Party naively believe that they have been fighting for a year and a half that they have been fighting to take back the Republican Party. If that is what they believe, today’s second cloture vote proves that they have gotten nowhere in their efforts. Despite their charades, the GOP are the bodyguards of the Wall Street predators. Tea baggers who think they can break the Wall Street grip on the Republicans are pathetic dupes, and they need to wake up, pronto.

When Paulson went to the leaders of Congress to demand a $700 billion bailout for Goldman and his Wall Street cronies, GOP Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell was deeply frightened by the apocalyptic briefing delivered by Paulson and Bernanke. When Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid started talking about how difficult it would be to get so much money in a hurry, McConnell urged an immediate bailout, saying: Harry, I think we need to do this, we should try to do this, and we can do this.(Andrew Ross Sorkin, Too Big to Fail [New York: Viking, 2009], p. 442) The GOP was the original party of the bailout, and they have not repented, as best seen through the continuance of McConnell, one of the key midwives of the bailout, as Republican Senate Majority Leader. This is the same McConnell who went to Wall Street recently to meet with zombie bankers and hedge fund hyenas, pledging to block derivatives reforms in exchange for big bucks contributed to the GOP’s campaign coffers. Tea baggers who think the GOP has changed or is moving to their side are sadly deluded.Today, the market fetishism of the crackpot Austrian school has taken a severe blow. Now that Blankfein‘s public image has been soiled by Goldman’s scurrilous and scatological emails, the time is ripe for the radical reform of derivatives and the zombie banks. This is a matter of national survival.Now that Goldman Sachs is masquerading as a bank holding company, it is subject to FDIC rules. If Goldman’s derivative hoard is marked to market, it is bankrupt. The FDIC should therefore seize Goldman and liquidate it under chapter 7 of the US Code. Sheila Bair should not wait for Friday.

Most Israeli Jews are Religious or Traditional
by Gil Ronen MAY 16,10

Most Israeli Jews over the age of 20 are at least somewhat religious, the Central Bureau of Statistics' new social survey showed. Eight percent of the Jews defined themselves as hareidi-religious, 12% as religious, 13% as traditionalist-religious and 25% as traditionalist but not so religious.This gives a total of 58%, or almost 6 in 10, who are at least partly religious. The remaining 42% describe themselves as secular.Among Jews aged 25-54, 93% of the secular ones are in the workforce, as are 91% of the traditionalists, 94% of the religious men and 52% of the hareidi-religious ones. Among women, employment percentages are 88% for secular women, 80% for traditionalists, 83% of the religious women and 61% of the hareidi-religious ones.Eighty-eight percent of the Jews are pleased with their lives. Among the hareidi-religious this number is at 96%. Ninety-one percent of the religious Jews, 86% of the traditionalists and 87% of the secular ones are pleased with their lives.

Sixty-eight percent of the Jewish population uses the internet. This includes 80% of the secular public, 64% of traditionalists, 66% of religious and 32% of the hareidi-religious.The percentage of hareidi-religious is much higher in the younger age brackets. Of the Jews aged 20 to 29, 14% are hareidi-religious, compared to only 2% in the 65 and over category. Thirty eight percent of the 20 to 29 year-olds are secular, compared to 43% among the 65 and over.In 71% of the secular married couples, both partners work outside the home. In 28% of the secular couples, only one partner works outside the home – and in 66% of these cases, that partner is the husband. In 19% of the hareidi-religious married couples, both partners work outside the home. In 54% of the hareidi-religious couples, only one partner works outside the home – and in 60% of these cases, that partner is the wife.(IsraelNationalNews.com)

Arab Media Cheer Obama for De-Linking Muslims from Terror
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu MAY 16,10

A leading international Arab newspaper has hailed U.S. President Barack Obama for officially removing the description Muslim terrorist as part of his campaign to reach out to the Muslim world.The op-ed did not note the radical Muslim bacgkround of the terrorists and reasoned they are equal to other terrorists whose religion is not connected with their acts.Osman Mirghani, the deputy editor-in-chief of Al-Sharq Al-Awsat,which is owned by a Saudi Arabian company and published in London, wrote an op-ed last week under the headline Why Didn't Obama Mention Islam?.The Obama administration has broken from the Bush government’s policy of using the term Islamic terrorism in official documents and no longer [is] responding to extremist voices that call for targeting home countries of terrorists, he explained.He said the president is carrying out his pledge in his reaching out to Muslims speech at Cairo University in June 2008. Regarding Obama's statements on the botched Times Square bombing, the editor praised President Obama for not once referring to prime suspect Faisal Shahzad’s being Muslim and for not mentioning Islam in discussing the terrorist operation.

The same approach was taken after the failed Christmas Day bombing by Nigerian Muslim Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalib. Obama spoke about the detained terrorist as a member of the Al-Qaeda organization but he did not speak about him being a Muslim, Mirghani wrote.Even when he spoke about Al-Qaeda, Obama noted that it was not the first time that the network had targeted America, ignoring the links that were made in the past between the organization and Islam or when it was put in the context of Islamic extremism.Similarly, after the Fort Hood, Texas attack by a Muslim terrorist who murdered 13 people last November, President Obama cautioned against jumping to conclusions’and did not refer to the terrorist's Arab origin or religion.The article did not mention that most, if not all, Arab terrorists are indoctrinated by Muslim extremism. Instead, the editor argued that describing terrorists as Muslims actually provokes more terror.There is recognition today of the fact that terrorists are benefiting from the creation of an anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim atmosphere after any terrorist operation, and that issuing statements or taking steps that target Muslims employed by extremist groups further spreads hostility against the U.S., the West, and even moderate Islamic states,he reasoned. The writer argued that the identity of the terrorist does not necessarily implicate the country he belongs to, in the same way that other adherents of the religion the terrorist follows should not be condemned.He accused former President George W. Bush of being captive to the Big Stick policy and slogans of you're either with us or against us,which caused the popularity of the U.S. to wane, not only in the Islamic world but in numerous countries around the world.In contrast, he continued,The new president has extended his hand to the Islamic world,… and the tendency to link every terrorist operation to the religion of the perpetrator has disappeared.(IsraelNationalNews.com)

Remains Removed Amidst Protests from All Sides
by Hillel Fendel MAY 16,10

The Rabbis' Forum of the 'Nation and Land Task Force' issued a sharp statement against the leaders of the hareidi groups protesting removal of the human remains in Ashkelon.The hareidi-religious Atra Kadisha group has organized widespread protests in Jerusalem, Ashkelon and elsewhere against the digging-up of the graves. The graves are being relocated in the framework of a “compromise” with those who wished to prevent the expansion of Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon in the area of the graves.

Archaeologists and others wrote that the graves were most likely those of non-Jews, regarding whom the Jewish laws of honoring the dead are strict, but not as strict as for Jewish corpses.Despite these findings, the protest organizers issued announcements against the cruel removal by the Zionists of the graves of our forefathers and rabbis, may their memories protect us, in the city of Ashkelon in order to build upon them some hospital.The Nation and Land Task Force issued a counter-response recalling the events in Gush Katif of five years ago: Part of the hareidi public, primarily Atra Kadisha, who cooperated with the uprooting of Jewish graves from Gush Katif and did not raise an outcry – they are the ones responsible for the desecration of the graves at Barzilai. Five years ago, when we turned personally to Atra Kadisha for help in the struggle against the transfer of the Gush Katif graves, they ignored us and lent their hand to the desecration of the graves of the holy Jews in Gush Katif. This harsh precedent weakened the demand to preserve ancient graves in Israel and around the world.Some 30 hareidi protestors were briefly arrested or detained last night and this morning during the various demonstrations. The uprooting of the graves was broadcast over the internet on the Israel Antiquities Authority site, until Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman heard of it and asked that it be stopped.

Criticism of the Calm Hareidi Media
Atra Kadisha had criticism of the mainstream hareidi press for its coverage of the events. The hareidi group did not like the use of the following dry phrases in the reports: The police are blocking,the police are arresting,the archaeologists are removing,etc.The reports should condemn them and express shock and trembling at these criminal acts,Atra Kadisha writes,but they unfortunately are so deep into the impurity that they can’t even condemn the Zionists, etc.(IsraelNationalNews.com)

MUSLIM NATIONS

EZEKIEL 38:1-12
1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, set thy face against Gog,(RULER) the land of Magog,(RUSSIA) the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW)and Tubal,(TOBOLSK) and prophesy against him,
3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW) and Tubal:
4 And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,(GOD FORCES THE RUSSIA-MUSLIMS TO MARCH) and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords:
5 Persia,(IRAN,IRAQ) Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:
6 Gomer,(GERMANY) and all his bands; the house of Togarmah (TURKEY)of the north quarters, and all his bands:(SUDAN,AFRICA) and many people with thee.
7 Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them.
8 After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.
9 Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee.(RUSSIA-EGYPT AND MUSLIMS)
10 Thus saith the Lord GOD; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought:
11 And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates,
12 To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.

ISAIAH 17:1
1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.

PSALMS 83:3-7
3 They (ARABS,MUSLIMS) have taken crafty counsel against thy people,(ISRAEL) and consulted against thy hidden ones.
4 They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.
5 For they (MUSLIMS) have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee:(TREATIES)
6 The tabernacles of Edom,(JORDAN) and the Ishmaelites;(ARABS) of Moab, PALESTINIANS,JORDAN) and the Hagarenes;(EGYPT)
7 Gebal,(HEZZBALLOH,LEBANON) and Ammon,(JORDAN) and Amalek;(SYRIA,ARABS,SINAI) the Philistines (PALESTINIANS) with the inhabitants of Tyre;(LEBANON)

DANIEL 11:40-43
40 And at the time of the end shall the king of the south( EGYPT) push at him:(EU DICTATOR IN ISRAEL) and the king of the north (RUSSIA AND MUSLIM HORDES OF EZEK 38+39) shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.
41 He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown: but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon.(JORDAN)
42 He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape.
43 But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt: and the Libyans and the Ethiopians shall be at his steps.

EZEKIEL 39:1-8
1 Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog,(LEADER OF RUSSIA) and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech (MOSCOW) and Tubal: (TUBOLSK)
2 And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts,(RUSSIA) and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel:
3 And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand.
4 Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands,( ARABS) and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured.
5 Thou shalt fall upon the open field: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
6 And I will send a fire on Magog,(NUCLEAR BOMB) and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I am the LORD.
7 So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.
8 Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord GOD; this is the day whereof I have spoken.

JOEL 2:3,20,30-31
3 A fire(NUCLEAR BOMB) devoureth before them;(RUSSIA-ARABS) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
20 But I will remove far off from you the northern army,(RUSSIA,MUSLIMS) and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things.(SIBERIAN DESERT)
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(NUCLEAR BOMB)
31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.

Russia arms sales to Syria don't help peace: Israel
Sun May 16, 6:51 am ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Sunday criticised Russia for supplying arms to Syria, saying the move did not help efforts to bring peace to the region.The sale of these weapons does not contribute to building an atmosphere of peace, Lieberman told Israel's public radio in what was an unusually muted statement from the outspoken minister.Lieberman's remarks came just days after a top Russian military official said Moscow was supplying Syria with MiG-29 fighter jets, Pantsir short-range air defence systems and armoured vehicles.He also insisted the regime of Bashar al-Assad was not interested in peace, and described as naive anyone who believed Syria would be ready to cut ties with Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah militia in exchange for a return of the Golan Heights, which Israel occupied during the 1967 Six Day War.Israel and Syria remain technically in a state of war, and Russia's arms sales and possible nuclear cooperation with Syria, which has close ties to Iran, is unnerving for both the Jewish state and Washington.

Israel has also accused Syria of supplying Hezbollah with Scud missiles.Lieberman also fired a further salvo of criticism over Russia's hypocritical stance on terrorism after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev held talks with exiled Hamas supremo Khaled Meshaal during a visit to Damascus.Following the visit, Medvedev and his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul called for the radical Islamist movement, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, to be included in the peace process -- in a move which drew a furious response from Israel.Russia, but also Egypt and Turkey as well as other countries, have a policy of differentiating between good and bad terrorism, between that which targets Israel and that which targets others,Lieberman said.We will not accept any ultimatum with regard to Hamas, and we won't let this movement take part in any peace process,he said.

Russia to sell Syria warplanes, air defense systems
Fri May 14, 3:16 pm ET

MOSCOW/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Russia has signed deals to sell Syria warplanes, anti-tank weapons and air defense systems, a senior Russian arms trader said on Friday, prompting an outcry from Syria's foe Israel.Mikhail Dmitriyev, head of the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation, said Russia would supply Syria with MiG-29 fighters, truck-mounted Pantsir short-range surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery systems.He said Russia would also supply Damascus with anti-tank weapons but did not specify their type.Syria's regional foe Israel reacted angrily to the deal but called into question the solvency of Damascus.Syria at the present time cannot afford to pay for this sophisticated weaponry, indeed, it has hardly enough money to buy food for its citizens. One can only wonder what is the real reason behind this dubious deal,said an Israeli government official in Jerusalem who declined to be named.Israel's close ally the United States imposed sanctions on Syria for its support of militant groups and corruption.Earlier this week, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited Syria -- the first visit to Damascus by a Moscow ruler since the 1917 Bolshevik revolution -- and oversaw talks on Russia's possible assistance in building a nuclear power plant in Syria.While in Syria, Medvedev unnerved Israel by paying a visit to Khaled Meshaal, the exiled leader of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.

Russia's haste to win this contract has seen it even willing to meet with notorious Hamas leaders in Syria,the anonymous Israeli official said.Israel's Foreign Ministry said it was deeply disappointed that Medvedev met the leader of Hamas, which it said was a terror organization in every way.(Reporting by Dmitry Solovyov; additional reporting by Ori Lewis in Jerusalem; editing by Jon Boyle)

Iran: Nuclear Blitzkrieg
By Alexander Maistrovoy Sunday, May 16, 2010

The question is not whether Iran will get a nuclear weapon; it is about where and against whom it will use it.Is the civilized community ready to reconcile with the Iranian nuclear bomb? There is only one answer to the question: it is, because it has no other options. Years of peace initiatives, conferences, good will gestures and fruitless diplomatic shifts have taken their toll: Iran has passed (or is about passing) the line after which the creation of the nuclear weapon becomes an irreversible reality. And no sanctions – neither strong, nor soft – will change the situation.The problem has resolved itself; and all that Obama, Sarkozy and other enlightened leaders can do is to accept the reality as it is. Considering their full failure, it will be the most reasonable decision. As the proverb says If you can’t bite, don’t show your teeth.The main question today is: what will come next? What will happen, when Tehran gets the terrible weapon? Historical experience shows that possession of nuclear weapons in itself is not a source of destabilization. On the contrary, it can serve a means of deterrence.It was true in the case of the Soviet Union, compelled to find an adequate answer to the post-war USA challenge; China, which feared (despite the anti-American rhetoric) of the Soviet expansion; Israel’s Samson Option; India and Pakistan, aspiring to neutralize each other; and the Pyongyang regime, wishing to maintain power.

However, in the case of Iran the situation is different. The country has no enemies capable of threatening it. If there is something that can provoke USA and Israel to attack Iran it is its nuclear program in combination with aggressive rhetoric and expansion of Islamic revolution.The purpose of Iran is not to deter its enemies but to change the balance of power in the Middle East and to bring the whole world under control. It is not a casual whim of Ayatollahs. Firstly, it is the embodiment of Persian expectations about the World Power that trace back to Cyrus the Great. Secondly, it is the Shiite aspirations connected with the appearance of Mehdi and expectations of the Apocalypse.Those were theological and civilization aspects of the problem. In real-politic Iranian aspirations are expressed in plans of hegemony in the Persian Gulf and total Shiite expansion in the region. Iranian push must draw a line under almost one-and-a-half-thousand-year argument between Sunni and Shiite Islam.The present geopolitical situation has, from the point of view of Iranians, their pluses and minuses. Pluses consist in the unique window of possibilities, which Iran had not had since the Sassanids (VI-VII centuries). Minuses are that the window of possibilities is faced with time constraints.
Let’s list these pluses:

-Disappearance from the political scene of Saddam Hussein’s regime, the sentry dog for Iran, and the inevitable vacuum of power in the region after American armies leave Iraq.
-Growth of Shiite radicalism.
-Steady high oil prices. Selling oil is the basis of Iranian economy.
-Clear weakness of the West.
-Appeasement policy of the White House.
-Pro-Iranian position of the Turkish Justice and Development Party. Turkey had always been a counterbalance to the Persian influence.
-Paralysis, corruption and unpopularity of the rulers of the Arab world.

Minuses refer to the time factor:

-Extraordinary high oil prices can start declining and it will undermine the abilities of the regime.
-Rather low birth rate, which is already not exceeding the European one.
-Threat of internal instability.
-Inevitable race of nuclear arms in the region.
-Danger of Taliban and al-Qaida, the sworn enemies of the Islamic Republic, capturing power in Pakistan.
-Possibility of a strong president, like Ronald Reagan, coming to power in the USA.

The window of possibilities is measured not by decades, but by years, and Iran has to act not quickly, but rapidly. In this situation the nuclear bomb cannot just be the weapon of deterrence or intimidation factor. Iran must paralyze the will of the enemies and not just frighten them. It can’t afford positional warfare as the USSR or China in the years of the cold war, it requires a blitzkrieg.That is why nuclear weapons must not only exist in Iran’s arsenal, it must be used. This requirement will become much more vital if the initial Shiite press in Iraq and Gulf States; or the aggression of Hezbollah and HAMAS against Israel meet resistance and fail.

Where and against whom? Israel? It seems reasonable, but only at first sight.

The Iranian goal is to bring nearer Mehdi’s appearance and not to commit suicide for the sake of it. Iranian rockets are not of sufficient accuracy, and the regime has not much time for the development of nuclear missiles. Israel in its turn has advanced rockets with nuclear warheads and nuclear submarines. In case of destroying Zionist formation, the Islamic Republic itself would stand the risk of turning into a scorched desert.Besides, even insignificant discrepancy in calculations can become fatal, because only 60 km. separate Greater Tel Aviv from the sacred Muslim sites in Jerusalem. I don’t think the destruction of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock together with several hundred thousand Muslims is the best scenario for Ayatollahs. And at last, weak as it is, Obama’s administration won’t be able to stay neutral.Iranian Ayatollahs never showed desire to burn down in the Apocalypse so anticipated by them. It means, the bomb should be used, but without threatening the regime.Therefore the object of the nuke strike should satisfy the number of conditions:

-Deserted and remote from mass-media area with low population density.
-It should be the enemy, which has no capabilities required for an adequate response.
-The USA should remain out of the conflict area.
-The result must produce a knockout effect.
-The object of the nuke strike should be far away from the Iranian border.
These are rigid restrictions, but they leave certain options.

As I have already said, neither USA nor Zionists are sworn enemies of Shiite Iran. They are no more than a scarecrow, like American imperialism of the 60ies was for China. Radical Sunni Islam is the real enemy of Persian Shiites, and Iran is going to fight it to death. Hitler abused imperialists and England left and right, while preparing for the fight against severe and ruthless, like Germany itself, Stalin’s Russia. In the 80ies Saddam threatened to wipe out Israel, preparing military expansion to Iran. Rhetoric is not always consistent with true purposes of speakers.

Iran is terrified by the prospect of a nuclear bomb in the hands of adherents of a caliphate. And Teheran plans to paralyze their will.Where? There are two perfect options: al-Qaida bases in Yemen and Taliban bases in Afghanistan after Americans leave them.Both are deserted areas with small populations far from Iranian borders. Besides, this enemy is dangerous not only for Iran but for the West too. Striking a fatal blow, Iranians won’t be afraid of a response strike. Finding a pretext will not be a problem…It will clear the way to Iranian triumph in the Middle East and test the patience of the West. However, the results can be predicted beforehand …

Israeli left flies flag to urge end to occupation By Alastair Macdonald – MAY 16,10

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – A weekend rally in Jerusalem by Israelis demanding an end to their country's settlement and occupation of the West Bank was hailed by its left-wing sponsors as the start of a major push that could help U.S. peace efforts.But the turnout of just a couple of thousand people drew scorn from settlers, who count on the rightist-led government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resist President Barack Obama's drive for a deal to establish a Palestinian state.This is a beginning, said one of the rally's organizers, Yariv Oppenheimer of the anti-settlement Peace Now group, promising to step up public campaigning.It's a good turnout.A crowd of 2,000 or so -- a shadow of the mass peace rallies of the 1990s but an improvement on recent attempts to galvanize support -- waved blue-and-white Israeli flags and placards reading Zionists Are Not Settlers on a warm Saturday evening.Speaker after speaker told them they were the true patriots defending a Jewish state which risked disaster if nationalists on the right held on to occupied land so that Palestinians under Israel's rule would soon outnumber its 5.5 million Jews.We want a Jewish state for the Jewish people with clear, recognized borders, not a Jewish state built on settlements and discrimination,said Eldad Yaniv, a founder last year of the National Left, one of several new groups arguing Israel must quit Arab land to remain a democracy with a Jewish majority.

Accused of treason and of being anti-Zionist by the national camp comprising religious settlers and their backers on Israel's right, the National Left's manifesto focuses on establishing its own credentials as defenders of a Zionist state whose founding generation were mostly secular socialists.These people are getting more aggressive about being Zionist,said David Ricci, a politics professor at Jerusalem's Hebrew University who took part in the rally.It's kind of new: they're saying a Palestinian state is in our interests.

SHOWING OBAMA

For Anat Maor, a former member of parliament for the small, left-wing Meretz party, the evening showed Israel's peace camp was still alive: It's important to us to show that it's not just outside pressure. It is the voice of the people of Israel.Reflecting skepticism about Netanyahu's good faith in saying he wants a two-state solution with the Palestinians, one man held a sign reading: Barack Obama, Please Force Peace On Us.I'm here because my country is being taken away from me by the right, said Zohar Eviatar, a psychology professor at Haifa University, as she waved a blue-and-white flag.Yonat, a 26-year-old youth worker, said as the national anthem concluded the rally on downtown Jaffa Road: Originally Zionism is a left-wing ideology. The right has taken Zionism in a fascist direction but the flag and anthem are ours.About 500,000 Jews, some citing a Biblical birthright, live in the West Bank and areas in and around East Jerusalem that Israel captured in a 1967 war. Palestinians want to establish a state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.While opinion polls continue to show mainstream support for a two-state solution outweighs opposition to handing over occupied land, voters deserted left-wing parties in droves after a Palestinian uprising began in 2000. They have yet to recover.The long dominant Labour party of state founder David Ben-Gurion and the late, peacemaking premier Yitzhak Rabin has had just 13 of 120 seats in parliament since the election last year that brought Netanyahu's right-wing Likud back to power.

Many on Saturday wore blue T-shirts bearing the faces of Ben-Gurion and Rabin, who was assassinated at a peace rally in 1995 by an Israeli rightist. They heard Achinoam Nini, a singer who also performed on the night Rabin was shot, tell them from the platform: We must take our fate in our own hands.Netanyahu, pressed by the Obama administration, last year dropped his outright opposition to a Palestinian state. But few analysts believe the conflict is close to resolution, despite a resumption of negotiations this month via U.S. mediators. Settler leader Danny Dayan scoffed: The total failure of the new, united left movement to bring out more than a handful of demonstrators ... proves once again that the overwhelming majority of Israelis recognize that the Jewish residents of Yesha (the occupied territories) are true Zionists.With a dose of self-deprecating humor on behalf of the aging baby-boomers and idealistic youngsters gathered to fly the flag of Israel's left, politics professor Ricci said: This is group therapy. It's important that people come out and know that there are other people like me and that it's not all over.
(Editing by Tim Pearce)

Abbas to meet US envoy on May 18: Palestinians
MAY 16,10

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP) – Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas will meet with the US envoy this week for the first time since indirect peace talks with Israel began on May 9, a senior Palestinian official said on Sunday.President Abbas will meet with (George) Mitchell on Tuesday at around midday (0900 GMT), the official told AFP.A spokesman for the US embassy confirmed Mitchell was due to return to the region within days but he could not say exactly when he would arrive, nor did he have details of the envoy's schedule.Mitchell left the region a week ago after managing to secure the agreement of both Israel and the Palestinians to begin an initial round of US-mediated proximity talks.The indirect negotiations had been due to start in March but were delayed over a row about Jewish settlement activity in annexed east Jerusalem.The Palestinians eventually agreed to hold the talks after receiving US assurances a Jerusalem settlement expansion plan would be frozen.Jerusalem and Jewish settlements are among the thorniest issues in efforts to achieve a peace deal.

Israel, which captured east Jerusalem in 1967 and later annexed it, considers the Holy City its eternal and indivisible capital, while the Palestinians see east Jerusalem as the capital of their promised state.The last round of direct negotiations between the two sides collapsed in December 2008 when Israel launched a devastating war on the Gaza Strip in a bid to halt Palestinian rocket fire aimed at Israeli towns.

POISONED WATERS

REVELATION 8:8-11
8 And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;
9 And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.
10 And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters;
11 And the name of the star is called Wormwood:(bitter,Poisoned) and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.(poisoned)

REVELATION 16:3-7
3 And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea.(enviromentalists won't like this result)
4 And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood.
5 And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus.
6 For they(False World Church and Dictator) have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.

Huge oil plumes found under Gulf as BP struggles By JEFFREY COLLINS, Associated Press Writer - MAY 16,10

ROBERT, La. – Oil from a blown-out well is forming huge underwater plumes as much as 10 miles long below the visible slick in the Gulf of Mexico, scientists said as BP wrestled for a third day Sunday with its latest contraption for slowing the nearly month-old gusher.BP, the largest oil and gas producer in the U.S., has been unable to thread a tube into the leak to siphon the crude to a tanker, its third approach to stopping or reducing the spill on the ocean floor. Engineers remotely steering robot submersibles were trying again Sunday to fit the tube into a breach nearly a mile below the surface, BP said.Oil has been spewing since the rig Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20, killing 11 people and sinking two days later. The government shortly afterward estimated the spill at 210,000 gallons — or 5,000 barrels — a day, a figure that has since been questioned by some scientists who fear it could be far more. BP executives have stood by the estimate while acknowledging there's no way to know for sure.BP also owns a rig that operated with incomplete and inaccurate engineering documents, which one official warned could lead to catastrophic operator error, records and interviews show.Two months before the Deepwater Horizon accident, 19 members of Congress called on the agency that oversees offshore oil drilling to investigate a whistle-blower's complaints about the BP-owned Atlantis, which is stationed in 7,070 feet of water more than 150 miles south of New Orleans.The Associated Press has learned that an independent firm hired by BP substantiated the complaints in 2009 and found that the company was violating its own policies by not having completed engineering documents on board the Atlantis when it began operating in 2007.

Word of huge submerged oil plumes, meanwhile, raised the specter of more damage to the ecologically rich Gulf. It also adds to questions about when large amounts of crude might hit shore.It's just a matter of time ... and the first significant amount of oil is going to show up around the U.S, said Hans Graber, director of the University of Miami's satellite sensing facility, who has been tracking the oil slick.Researchers from the National Institute for Undersea Science and Technology said Saturday they had detected the underwater oil plumes at depths between just beneath the surface to more than 4,000 feet.Three or four large plumes have been found, at least one that is 10 miles long and a mile wide, said Samantha Joye, a marine science professor at the University of Georgia.Researchers Vernon Asper and Arne Dierks said in Web posts that the plumes were perhaps due to the deep injection of dispersants which BP has stated that they are conducting.BP has won government approval to use chemicals on the oil near where it is gushing to break it up before it rises to the surface.The researchers were also testing the effects of large amounts of subsea oil on oxygen levels in the water. The oil can deplete oxygen in the water, harming plankton and other tiny creatures that serve as food for a wide variety of sea critters.Oxygen levels in some areas have dropped 30 percent, and should continue to drop, Joye said.It could take years, possibly decades, for the system to recover from an infusion of this quantity of oil and gas, Joye said. We've never seen anything like this before. It's impossible to fathom the impact.

Joye's lab was waiting for the research boat to return so a team of scientists can test about 75 water samples and 100 sediment samples gathered during the voyage. Researchers plan to go back out in about a month and sample the same areas to see if oil and oxygen levels have worsened.BP has been unable to stop the gusher with huge blowout preventers on the well or by putting a 100-ton box above the flow to trap and siphon it to a tanker on the surface. The latest effort, inserting a mile-long pipe into the largest of two leaks, hit a snag Saturday.BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles said one piece of equipment, called the framework, had to be brought to the surface and adjusted to fit with the tube.The framework holds a pipe and stopper. If it works, the tube could capture more than three-quarters of the leak. BP also must contend with a smaller leak that's farther away. One expert said BP's latest idea seems to have the best chance for success so far. Inserting a pipe into the oil gusher would be easy at the surface, said Ed Overton, a LSU professor of environmental studies. But using robots in 5,000 feet of water with oil rushing out of the pipe makes things much more difficult. It's something like threading the eye of a needle. But that can be tough to do up here. And you can imagine how hard it would be to do it down there with a robot, Overton said.BP is also drilling a relief well that is considered the permanent solution to stopping the leak. It's about halfway done and still months away from being completed. The company also is still considering using a smaller containment dome known as a top hat,as well as a junk shot,in which golf balls and rubber would be inserted to try to clog the leak.
Associated Press writers Ramit Plushnick-Masti in Houston; Noaki Schwartz in Los Angeles; Janet McConnaughey near Fort Jackson; Jason Dearen in New Orleans; Erica Werner, Matthew Daly and Frederic J. Frommer in Washington, and Melinda Deslatte in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, contributed to this report.

Rabbi's Commentary Celebrating Shavuot in the Holy Land
May 13, 2010

Dear Friend of Israel,

At sundown on Tuesday, May 18, Jews will celebrate the festival of Shavuot, a holiday with dual significance. The Bible states, From the day after the Sabbath … count off seven full weeks. Count off fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath, and then present an offering of new grain to the Lord (Leviticus 23:15-16). Thus, on Shavuot Jews commemorate the time in ancient days when the first fruits were harvested and brought to the holy Temple in Jerusalem as an offering to God.

The second event commemorated on Shavuot is the giving of the Torah (the first five books of what Christians call the Old Testament) to Moses on Mount Sinai. God's law, as expressed in the Torah, is the source of the unique character, faith, and destiny of the Jewish people. It also forms the moral foundation of Western civilization and its institutions, which makes it of critical importance not just for Jews, but for Christians, and indeed the entire world.As I discussed last week, Israel has just marked the 43rd anniversary of the liberation of the city of Jerusalem during the 1967 Six Day War. Shavuot that year fell just six days after the Holy City was reclaimed, and on that holiday thousands of grateful Jewish pilgrims were able to see the holy sites to which they had so long been denied access. One Israeli magazine described the extraordinary scene on Shavuot, 1967: For the first time since the Dispersion in the year 70 C.E. a pilgrimage numbering two hundred thousand persons moved under the Flag of Israel through the streets of King David's City to the last surviving relic of the Second Temple. Every section of the population was represented, kibbutz members and soldiers in tallitot (prayer shawls) rubbing shoulders with ultra-orthodox rabbis. Mothers came with children in prams, and old men trudged steeply up Mount Zion, supported by youngsters on either side, to see the Wall of the Temple before the end of their days… Some wept, but most faces were wreathed in smiles.

Every year now on Shavuot people from all over Jerusalem stream to the Western Wall in early morning to pray at a sunrise service. It is a fitting way to observe this significant Jewish festival, to honor their biblical commitment, and to give thanks to God.Today, I ask you to please say a prayer for the peace of Jerusalem. Pray that the Jewish people will always be able to celebrate the festival of Shavuot in Jerusalem, the holiest city of all Judaism, and the capital of the sovereign Jewish State. And let us all - Jews and Christians alike - give thanks to God for the precious gift of His word.With prayers for shalom, peace,Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein
President.