ABBAS BLAMES ISRAEL FOR ALL ITS WOES

KING JESUS IS COMING FOR US ANY TIME NOW. THE RAPTURE. BE PREPARED TO GO.

PERSECUSSION,BEHEADINGS

JESUS PERSECUTED BIGTIME

PSALMS 14:1
1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.

ISAIAH 53:4
4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

MATTHEW 9:34
34 But the Pharisees said, He casteth out devils through the prince of the devils.

JOHN 8:41
41 Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.

JOHN 10:20
20 And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad; why hear ye him?

PHILIPPIANS 2:10-11(JESUS GETS REVENGE)
10 That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;
11 And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.(JUDGEMENT SEAT OF CHRIST AND FOR SINNERS, THE GREAT WHITE THRONE FINAL JUDGEMENT).

WE ARE CHRISTIANS WE WILL BE TREATED THE SAME.

2 TIMOTHY 3:1-5 (WHY WE ARE PERSECUTED BY THE WORLD)
1 This know also, that in the last days perilous (DANGEROUS) times shall come.
2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.

MATTHEW 5:10-12
10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

MATTHEW 24:9
9 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.

JOHN 15:18-20
18 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me (JESUS) before it hated you.
19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.

1 PETER 4:16-19
16  Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf.
17  For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?
18  And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?
19  Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.

REVELATION 6:9-11
9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain(BEHEADED) for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:
10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
11 And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.

REVELATION 20:4
4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands;(WILLINGLY-THEY CHOSE THE IMPLANT) and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

GENESIS 16:11-12
11 And the angel of the LORD said unto her,(HAGAR) Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael;(FATHER OF THE ARAB/MUSLIMS) because the LORD hath heard thy affliction.
12 And he (ISHMAEL) will be a wild man;(ISLAM IS A FAKE AND DANGEROUS SEX FOR MURDER CULT) his hand will be against every man,(ISLAM HATES EVERYONE) and every man's hand against him;(PROTECTING THEMSELVES FROM BEING BEHEADED) and he (ISHMAEL ARAB/MUSLIM) shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.(LITERAL-THE ARABS LIVE WITH THEIR BRETHERN JEWS)

JOHN 16:2
2 They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.(ISLAM MURDERS IN THE NAME OF MOON GOD ALLAH OF ISLAM)

Nazareth’s dwindling Christian populace torn between moving out, fighting back

This month’s local elections underline the bleak and bitter rivalries in the city of Jesus’s childhood

By Elhanan Miller October 11, 2013, 8:27 pm 4-The Times of Israel

“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” wondered Nathaneal, a disciple of Jesus, in the Gospel of John. Asked today, that question would have many of the city’s residents hard-pressed for an answer.The upcoming municipal elections, scheduled for October 22, find the largest Arab city in Israel impoverished and depressed. A nationwide study, conducted by the Ministry of Public Security in August, revealed that Nazareth residents are the most likely Israelis to fear falling victim to crime. They also reported the lowest sense of personal security, along with the inhabitants of the crime-ridden cities of Ramle and Lod.“Things have deteriorated in this city,” said an elderly woman walking down Nazareth’s main street on Thursday, wearing a necklace with a large golden Cross. “No citizen gets any help — not from the municipality, nor from the government, nor from the police.”Like its Christian twin. Bethlehem, in the West Bank, Nazareth’s demographic makeup has dramatically changed over the past six decades, a fact some residents tie to the deteriorating sense of security and general “low quality of life.” From being a city with a large Christian majority before 1948, today 70 percent of Nazareth’s 80,000 residents are Muslim. The change dates back to Israel’s War of Independence, when an influx of internally displaced villagers from the surrounding area relocated to Nazareth. Researchers also point to a significantly higher Muslim birth rate.Religious tension in the city came to the fore in the early 2000s, when the local Muslims began constructing a new mosque near the Basilica of the Annunciation, the city’s towering Christian landmark. In early 2002, the government decided to halt construction on the site, built over the grave of Salladin’s nephew Shihab a-Din, following massive pressure from the Vatican. The Muslims were infuriated by the move, but put up little resistance when an illegal structure they had built on the site was bulldozed the following year.Ramez Jaraisy, the city’s Communist Christian mayor nearing 20 years in office, downplayed confessionalism as a significant factor in Nazareth. Tawfik Zayyad, his predecessor in office who was killed in a 1994 car crash, was a Muslim, he remarked. Over the past century, Christian and Muslim mayors governed the city, paying little attention to the religious affiliation of their constituents.

Mayoral incumbent Ramez Jaraisy in his office, on October 10, 2013 (photo credit: Elhanan Miller/Times of Israel)

“I was elected four times in direct elections by both Muslims and Christians,” said Jaraisy. “Some people use religion to achieve political goals. We have no religious dispute outside small fundamentalist groups of Muslims and Christians. They are a very small minority.”One member of that “very small minority” is Nazareth resident Bishara Shlayan, a retired captain in the Israeli merchant navy, who is in the process of forming a political party for Christian Arabs living in Israel. The party, Shlayan said, is geared at confronting what he regards as the gradual encroachment of the city’s Muslim majority on Nazareth’s historic Christian symbols.“Mary’s Well used to have a big blue sign explaining its history. They removed the sign in order to erase any trace of Christianity, naming it ‘the Nazareth Stream.’ Even the city bus announces the stop as ‘Nazareth Stream.’ Why? Others may ignore this, but I consider it very significant.”Shlayan said that solving the problem of Christian emigration from the city required more than merely electing a Christian mayor. Change, he reasoned, must come from the Knesset, before “all the city’s Christians leave because of the gangs demanding protection money.”Jaraisy said Shlayan is a “collaborator” with the Israeli authorities, striving to create needless tension between Christians and Muslims in the city.“He will fail,” the mayor asserted.But Shlayan was not the only Christian in town speaking his mind. Waiting for his son to exit a church high school downtown, Ibrahim said he left Nazareth 14 years ago for the nearby Jewish city of Upper Nazareth — and has never looked back.“If you gave me all of Nazareth for free, I wouldn’t come back,” Ibrahim said, adding that he recently sold his 10-apartment building in the Muslim neighborhood of Jabel Hammoudeh. “We faced problems of racism there. Almost every apartment in the building has an illegal weapon.“Religion plays a big role in Nazareth. When the Christians were a majority, there was no problem… Our mentality is more European and our religion says ‘Love each other.’ ”Ibrahim said his new Jewish neighbors in Upper Nazareth are very friendly, as long as he doesn’t discuss politics with them.

Mayoral candidate Hanin Zoabi in her Nazareth office, on October 10, 2013 (photo credit: Elhanan Miller/Times of Israel)

Hanin Zoabi, the controversial member of Knesset from the Arab nationalist party Balad, joined Nazareth’s mayoral race in late August. Zoabi, a secular Muslim — who sailed on the Mavi Marmara to Gaza in 2010, castigated the IDF over its interception of the vessel, and was only allowed to run for the Knesset in January after court intervention — acknowledged that Christians are leaving Nazareth in greater numbers than Muslims, but said that this is due to the Christians’ generally higher socioeconomic level.“Muslims want to leave Nazareth just as badly as Christians do,” she said. “Christians aren’t moving to Upper Nazareth because they are more welcome there than Muslims… For the state of Israel, if you’re not a Jew you’re either a foreigner or a threat.”By forming a new Christian party, Zoabi added, Shlayan was “selling his honor and his nation.”But the Christian navy captain seemed unscathed by that critique. While waiting for the paperwork for his new party, he recently appealed to Tourism Minister Uzi Landau to place the largest statue of Jesus in the world on the city’s Mount Precipice, from which — according to Christian tradition — the heathen residents of Nazareth tried to push their savior to his death, and failed.

ITS ALWAYS ISRAELS FAULT SAYS ABBAS.WELL I GOT NEWS FOR ABBAS.WHY DOES ISRAEL HAVE TO GIVE USE MONEY.WHEN ALL USE DO IS IS MURDER INNOCENT ISRAELIS.USE CLAIM YOU WANT A STATE OF YOUR OWN.BUT USE LEACH OFF THE WEST FOR BILLIONS OF DOLLARS A YEAR JUST TO MAKE BOMBS TO KILL ISRAELIS.YOU LEACHES OF CASH.YOU CAN'T PAY YOUR EMPLOYEES SALARIES. BECAUSE ALL USE DO IS BUILD BOMBS AND CHEMICAL WEAPONS TO TRY TO KILL EVERY ISRAELI IN ISRAEL.IF THOSE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS USE GET FROM LEACHING OFF THE WEST WENT INTO JOBS AND CREATING JOBS.THEN THERE WOULD BE TRUE PEACE IN ISRAEL.BECAUSE USE LEACHES WOULD NOT HAVE TO COUNT ON THE WEST FOR HANDOUTS.GAZA WOULD BE MAKING ITS OWN CASH.NOT JUST LEACHING OFF THE WEST TO MAKE AND BUY WEAPONS TO DESTROY YOUR SO CALLED PEACE PARTNER IN THE PEACE PROCESS ISRAEL. BALESTINIANS IF YOU REALLY WANT A STATE OF YOUR OWN.YOU BETTER START CREATING REAL JOBS FOR YOUR PEOPLE.HOW CAN YOU EXPECT A STATE THATS NOT EVEN IN YOUR VOCABULARY.USE CAN NOT EVEN PRONOUNCE THE NAME PALESTINE BECAUSE USE CHANGE THE P IN PALESTINE TO A B.WELL GOD DONE A GREAT JOKE ON USE IN THIS SITUATION.GOD IS REVEALING THROUGH YOUR ARABIC LANGUAGE HOW HYPOCRITICAL ARABS AND ISLAM REALLY ARE.GOD MADE SURE YOU CAN NOT EVEN PRONOUNCE THE NAME OF YOUR STATE YOU CLAIM TO BE YOURS.SO THE BALESTINIAN PEOPLE WILL LIVE IN A STATE CALLED BALESTINE.AND WILL STEAL HALF OF JERUSALEM FROM ISRAEL.AND THEN BESIDES THAT-YOU BALESTINIANS ARE TRYING TO FORCE ISRAEL TO PAY ALL YOUR BILLS.SO USE CAN GET A FREE STATE-STEAL JERUSALEM.GET BILLIONS FROM THE WEST TO BUILD BOMBS TO TRY TO DESTROY INNOCENT WOMEN, CHILDREN AND MEN ISRAELIS.I'D SAY BALESTINE-USE CAN NOT EVEN CREATE JOBS TO MAKE MONEY FOR YOUR OWN CITIZENS.HOW CAN USE POSSIBLY RUN A STATE OF YOUR OWN WITH THE BILLIONS NEEDED TO KEEP THAT STATE RUNNING.AND BUILD BOMBS TO KILL ISRAELIS AT THE SAME TIME.HOW-WHEN ALL THE SUCKER NATIONS OF THE WORLD SUPPLY USE MURDERERS WITH CASH.-THATS HOW.SO DON'T YOU DARE BLAME ISRAEL FOR ANYTHING. WHATEVER USE ARE GOING THROUGH ITS BECAUSE USE CAUSED THE SITUATION. SURE NOT ISRAEL.IF I WAS ISRAELS LEADER.GAZA WOULD BE ISRAELS-AND EVERY ARAB WOULD HAVE BEEN FORCED INTO OTHER ARAB-MUSLIM COUNTRIES. BECAUSE IF I WAS ISRAELS LEADER.I WOULD NEVER STAND FOR THE ARABS LEECHING CASH FROM AROUND THE WORLD TO BUILD ROCKETS TO KILL MY BRETHERN THE JEWS.IF I WERE A JEWISH LEADER OF COURSE.UNFORTUNATELY I'M A CHRISTIAN GERMAN STICKING UP FOR ISRAEL.I WOULD PROTECT MY CITIZENS LIKE GOD WILL ALWAYS PROTECT ISRAEL FROM ITS ENEMIES.THANK YOU KING JESUS THE GOD AND MESSIAH OF THE WORLD AND ISRAEL FOR KEEPING YOUR PROMISES TO ISRAEL.BECAUSE IF IT WERE NOT FOR YOU GOD PROTECTING ISRAEL-THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN DESTROYED FROM THE EARTH A MILLION TIMES OVER.

Abbas blames Israel for Palestinian fiscal crisis

In interview on PA television, Palestinian leader says government won’t be able to pay employees’ salaries next month

By Ilan Ben Zion October 12, 2013, 3:16 pm 2-The Times of Israel

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday blamed Israel for the economic crisis in the Palestinian territories, reiterating the findings of a World Bank report earlier this week which accused Israel of limiting PA income by restricting access to the majority of the West Bank.“The economic situation is very difficult and the central reason for this is the Israeli occupation,” Abbas said in an interview with Palestinian government television. “Israel exploits our resources and lands which directly leads to an increase in the deficit which we must contend with.”According to Abbas, Palestinian Finance Minister Shukri Bishara informed him that the PA won’t be able to pay government salaries unless it receives international aid. The Palestinian government employs approximately 150,000 of the nearly 2 million Palestinians living in the West Bank.In January 2013 the Palestinian government said it was in “extreme jeopardy” because of a financial crisis it pinned on Arab countries’ failure to send hundreds of millions of dollars in aid. At the time, prime minister Salam Fayyad said the crisis had worsened in recent years, and the government, the Palestinian Authority, wasn’t able to pay the salaries of its employees.Earlier this year the PA’s 2013 budget deficit was expected to reach $1.4 billion; the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency cited the deficit as nearly $500 million. A World Bank report published earlier this week accused Israel of squeezing the Palestinian economy out of billions of dollars by restricting access to Area C, which comprises some 61 percent of West Bank territory but is under full Israeli civil and security control.The report said the Palestinian economy could add $3.4 billion in potential value a year, or 35 percent of the 2011 Gross Domestic Product, if Palestinians are allowed to develop the restricted area. The bank says the deficit of the Palestinian self-rule government, currently dependent on foreign aid, would drop by half, thereby reducing “the need for donor support, and reduce unemployment and poverty rates.”During his interview, Abbas called on expatriate Palestinians who succeeded in making a living abroad to aid the Palestinian Authority.“I call on all wealthy Palestinians everywhere to support small projects. If every wealthy Palestinian took care of a family or opened up a small project for them, this would help to mitigate the crisis,” Ma’an quoted the president saying.“We must take responsibility for the law, we are working to improve the situation and reduce unemployment by supporting small business owners,” Abbas said.Abbas’ statements came amid renewed peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians that began at the end of July. The negotiations teams are scheduled to meet again this week.

How a Nazi planner shaped early Israel

A plan used in the 1950s to build a system of towns and villages in the northern Negev was based on a theory developed in the Third Reich, to be used for populating an Eastern Europe cleansed of Jews. Did Zionist planners not know, or not care?

By Joshua Davidovich October 11, 2013, 3:15 pm 31-The Times of Israel 

The areas of West Central Poland, and Lachish, Israel, in the southern lowland between the coast and Judean mountains, have little in common. Poznan’s rolling hills, ancient forests and many rivers interspersed with farms, villages, towns and cities provide a stark contrast to Lachish’s nearly flat and semi-arid network of collective farms, agricultural settlements and the backwater burg of Kiryat Gat.Yet an ironic twist of history will forever link the two places, for what was nearly instituted in Poznan during World War II, once the area had been cleared of Jews and other “undesirables,” came to life just a couple of decades later in the Lachish area, thanks to Zionist planners seeking to create a modern Utopian state out of what was seen as a land without a people.The man linking the two places is Walter Christaller, a giant of regional planning whose Nazi associations were somehow washed away, or conveniently forgotten, in the post-war years. His Theory of Central Places, which Konrad Meyer and Heinrich Himmler wanted to use to replicate the city-country landscape of Germany in a conquered Eastern Europe, later found a home in the Lachish region, among other places, as Israeli planners attempted to build an urban and agricultural region, like so much of the Jewish state, from scratch.Describing Christaller’s plan for the Warthegau area of Poland, Trevor Barnes, a geography professor at the University of British Columbia, told this reporter recently that “it involved creating this empty space without people and then refilling it with a Germanized population… If that’s what happened in Israel, it’s repeating exactly the same narrative, the same set of relations as there were in Nazi Germany.”

Israeli planners, for the most part, have not grappled with the fact that one of the dominant planning doctrines in early Israel was developed by a geographer in the Nazi party. And while Barnes says the doctrine is tinged by its Nazi associations, most Israeli planners deny that Christaller’s professional life had any bearing on it.

“Christaller presented a theory. Anyone can use or learn from it as they see fit but there is no connection to his past,” Gideon Biger, a professor in Tel Aviv University’s Geography department, said. (Full disclosure: I attended a class Biger taught while a student in the department, during which he spoke at length about central place theory.)

A true-blue brown shirt?

It is difficult to know how devoted Christaller was to the Nazi cause. A Social Democrat, he fled Germany for France on his bicycle in 1933, after Adolf Hitler took power, for fear that he would be persecuted by the Nazis.

Walter Christaller. (photo credit: Courtesy)

It was the same year that he published his seminal thesis “Central Places in Southern Germany,” which became the lodestar of the central places movement in geography. Christaller returned to Berlin several years later, taking a job in the Nazi Soil and Planning Department under SS man Konrad Meyer. It was there that he was tasked with creating a plan for Warthegau, which the Nazis intended to cleanse of Jews, Slavs and Poles as a test case for what the Third Reich hoped would be the creation of a greater Germany-conquered Eastern Europe, in accordance with the concept of Lebensraum (“living room”).“I have no evidence that he was an anti-Semite,” Barnes said. “His own records were destroyed and he asked his son to burn his papers. There is very little information about what he actually believed at the time … He got sucked up into that bureaucracy, but it’s not clear if he even believed in it.”After the war, Christaller joined the Communist cause (and was rumored to have worked for the Stasi) and became widely respected in planning circles, winning the Victoria Medal from the Royal Geographic Society in 1968.The question of whether Christaller was a true-blue brown shirt or just an academic trying to get ahead while the Nazis were in power is one that cuts to the heart of his legacy. No definitive answer has ever been given, but the warm welcome he received in international planning circles as early as the 1950s, and the fact that he is still widely taught in schools across the world, including in Israel, testify to the fact that most were happy to forgive, or not take seriously, his past.While his Nazi history was never a secret, it was not until his death in 1969 that the true extent of his associations with the party reverberated through the planning world.In 2012, Barnes and Claudio Minca coauthored an article exposing “the dark history” of Christaller and his theory. Next year, a second paper will be published by Barnes, comparing Christaller to Final Solution architect Adolf Eichmann, not in the severity of his crimes but in the fact that he was a “desk killer,” or schreibtischtaeter in German, a bureaucrat who efficiently helped carry out the Third Reich’s plans.“He had some belief in what he was doing,” Barnes said. “Not only did he revive the plan for Warthegau but he helped to arrange for the transfer of migrants who are going to go to the empty farms.”Christaller is far from the only Nazi to escape the taint of his actions under the Third Reich. Dr. Werner von Braun, the father of the German V-2 rocket program, was famously co-opted by the US to help get the country’s nascent space program off the launch pad; filmmaker Leni Reifenstahl remained a sought-after photographer despite being a major part of the Nazi propaganda machine; and Martin Heidegger is still considered a giant of philosophy despite his relationship with the Nazi party, thanks in part to the efforts of Hannah Arendt to clear his name.Ideas too, seeped out of Nazi Germany and into accepted modern discourse. Maps of North Africa used by German Field Marshall Erwin Rommel were utilized as recently as the 2011 NATO campaign in Libya. According to Haifa University’s Dr. Arnon Golan, who was the first Israeli academic to write about Christaller’s Nazi past in 1997, the Israel Defense Forces also bases some of its tank warfare doctrine on maneuvers innovated by Rommel as he swept through North Africa. And the idea of regression to the mean, an accepted scientific principle, had its roots in the study of eugenics.So too, despite its dark past, central place theory proved popular for many European and American planners in the 1950s and 60s, with champions of the program either ignoring or not knowing about Christaller’s Nazi past. (A plan for Christaller to conduct a speaking tour in the US in the 1960s was stymied not because he had been a Nazi, but because he was a Communist).

A tempting formula for growth

Central place theory, which is based on the relationship between cities and their surroundings in southern Germany, calls for a hierarchy of small farming villages, larger towns and bigger cities, with each rung providing a different level of service for area residents. Using a mathematical model that places the cities, towns and villages in a hexagonal pattern, proponents of central place theory hoped to be able to efficiently direct development for maximum economic benefit, while maintaining a high quality of life.For Israel in the 1950s, central place theory proved a tempting way for planners to decide where to direct growth, particularly development towns and farming villages to be populated by the influx of new immigrants. Planners engineered a hierarchical system from small farming villages, or moshavim, to large cities, and in many cases they were placed with geopolitical considerations, such as Kiryat Shmona on the border with Lebanon, and Ashdod, which was intended to be a second port out of rocket range.But nowhere did central place theory play as large a role as it did in the mostly empty Lachish region, a flat and arid expanse sitting between Israel’s southern coastal plain and the southern end of the West Bank.“As most of the development towns were planned as service centers for rural districts around them, it seemed relevant to apply central place theory to determine their location and size,” planner Arie Shachar wrote in 1971.

The settlement of Gat, a precursor to Kiryat Gat, in 1946. (photo credit: public domain, Wikimedia commons)

In the Mandate period, the Lachish region had been dominated by the Arab towns of Iraq al Manshiya and Faluja. During the War of Independence, the area saw heavy fighting between Israeli and Egyptian forces and all the inhabitants left, either by choice or by force, according to different historians.What was left was an empty area in which a purer form of Christaller’s theory could be applied “They found a lot of empty spaces and were troubled about how to better use their resources to develop the country,” said Ilan Troen, a professor at Brandeis University and the author of “Imagining Zion,” about Zionist planning. “The people who were engaged in planning had it in mind in creating a modern society. Christaller was a leading person in that regard.”What was created, and what still exists today, was a system of small villages feeding into larger service centers, which all fed into the large development town of Kiryat Gat. Everything is placed, as much as possible, according to mathematical models and hexagonal patterns pioneered by Christaller and later revised by Auguste Losche, another German planner who was able to find success despite rebuffing the Nazis.

Christaller and Kiryat Gat

Most planners maintain that Israeli officials at the time had no idea about Christaller’s past, only that he and his theory were popular in the West, where it was applied in the Netherlands and the US, among other places.“Thanks heavens they didn’t know everything about Christaller,” Troen said. “He engaged in the kind of activities that would have offended and been considered outrageous.”Golan said that David Amiran, the father of modern Israeli planning who played a large role in the Lachish project, told him that planners at the time had never heard of Christaller and certainly not his Nazi past.“They took planning as something universal. They didn’t take it as something that derives from Christaller,” Golan said.Most planners and historians are quick to point out that despite Christaller’s associations, central places is a sterile theory with no connection to National Socialism, and that it was developed before Christaller joined the Nazi party. According to Golan, the theory even predates Christaller by several decades, though Christaller nonetheless became its poster boy.However, some say shades of the theory’s journey through the Third Reich are embedded within its cold sterility and efficiency for developing a new Germany — hallmarks of Nazi ideology, which balanced cruel science with a völkisch commitment to nationalism.“It connects to the kind of Nazi ideology forged in the countryside,” said Barnes. “It begins with the farm itself. And it moves up all the way to the large urban centers. The habitation makes the connection between these two different ends, one the celebration of the rural and the other high modernism and science and industrial productivity.”

Barnes has not studied Israel’s application of central place theory. But, he says, if Israel’s planners did use it, it would be akin to Jerusalem choosing a Wagner tune for its national anthem.“You must always take into account historical context,” he said. “Personally, I am very suspicious of any theory that presents itself as the embodiment of rationality and pure logic.”Golan, however rejects Barnes’s parallel, saying that Wagner was a symbol of anti-Semitism, unlike Christaller who was “not the spirit of Nazi Germany.”So too, Golan says, Israeli use of central place theory need not be tainted with the fact that its original innovators wanted to use it for evil.“The fact that you use the same theory doesn’t show you use the same ideology,” he said.In Poland, the idea would have been used to transport Germany into a newly-conquered area. In Lachish, the idea was not to transfer Zionist city-country ideology, but rather just to find the most efficient way to put people, farms, towns and cities into a newly empty area that needed to be filled, in order to shore up Israel’s hinterlands, in what was then considered the northern Negev, and to keep Tel Aviv and the coastal region from overcrowding, a very real concern at the time for Israeli planners who feared Israel could turn into a binodal Australia redux.Instead of becoming a strong self-sustaining regional center, though, Kiryat Gat today is mostly seen as a poor backwater, kept afloat only by government subsidies — which helped spur Intel to put a plant there — and its proximity to Tel Aviv.“Models or paradigms are neat. Reality is messy,” Troen said. “The realities of Palestine in the 20th century were messy.”

Kiryat Gat as seen from the air today. (photo credit: CC BY-SA Amos Meron, Wikimedia commons)

In 1997, Golan wrote that it was too simple for planners to just disregard Christaller’s Nazi connections because of the “objectivity” of his theories. “It seems … that it is rooted in the complex relations between Israelis and their painful past and that understanding the social and cultural dimensions of theories such as the central place theory, might contribute to a revaluation of the agenda of recent Israeli geography and the research of the shaping of Israeli landscapes,” his paper reads.According to Troen, it’s impossible that Israeli planners, most of whom had been educated in Germany and maintained contacts with the post-war European planning community, didn’t know about Christaller. But relating to him for Israelis then was no different than their dilemmas over whether or not to buy German appliances.At the end of the day, central places provided an important model for a country that also learned to live with Bosch washing machines and strong diplomatic ties with Bonn and Berlin.“Jews had to make decisions about how to relate to the products of Nazi Germany,” he said. “Zionist planners saw that as bitter irony. These are the unexpected connections that seem so absurd and so tragic.”Follow Joshua Davidovich on Twitter 

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ISAIAH 17:1,11-14
1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.
11  In the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish: but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.
12  Woe to the multitude of many people, which make a noise like the noise of the seas; and to the rushing of nations,(USELESS U.N) that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters!
13  The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters: but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind.
14  And behold at evening tide trouble; and before the morning he is not.(ASSAD) This is the portion of them that spoil us,(ISRAEL) and the lot of them that rob us.

AMOS 1:5
5  I will break also the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from the plain of Aven, and him that holdeth the sceptre from the house of Eden:(IRAQ) and the people of Syria shall go into captivity unto Kir,(JORDAN) saith the LORD.

JEREMEIAH 49:23-27
23  Concerning Damascus.(SYRIA) Hamath is confounded, and Arpad: for they have heard evil tidings: they are fainthearted; there is sorrow on the sea;(WAR SHIPS WITH NUKES COMING ON SYRIA) it cannot be quiet.
24  Damascus is waxed feeble, and turneth herself to flee, and fear hath seized on her: anguish and sorrows have taken her, as a woman in travail.
25  How is the city of praise not left, the city of my joy!
26  Therefore her young men shall fall in her streets, and all the men of war shall be cut off in that day, saith the LORD of hosts.
27  And I will kindle a fire (NUKES OR BOMBS) in the wall of Damascus, and it shall consume the palaces of Benhadad.(ASSADS PALACES POSSIBLY IN DAMASCUS)

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)

JEREMIAH 47:1-7
1 The word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah the prophet against the Philistines,(PALESTINIAN/ARABS) before that Pharaoh smote Gaza.
2  Thus saith the LORD; Behold, waters rise up out of the north,(NORTHERN TSUNAMI POSSIBLY) and shall be an overflowing flood, and shall overflow the land, and all that is therein; the city, and them that dwell therein: then the men shall cry, and all the inhabitants of the land shall howl.
3  At the noise of the stamping of the hoofs of his strong horses,(ISRAELS ARMY) at the rushing of his chariots, and at the rumbling of his wheels, the fathers shall not look back to their children for feebleness of hands;(ISRAEL POSSIBLY NUKES GAZA)
4  Because of the day that cometh to spoil all the Philistines,(PALESTINIAN FAKE ARABS) and to cut off from Tyrus and Zidon every helper that remaineth: for the LORD will spoil the Philistines, the remnant of the country of Caphtor.
5  Baldness is come upon Gaza;(NUKED POSSIBLY) Ashkelon is cut off with the remnant of their valley: how long wilt thou cut thyself?
6  O thou sword of the LORD, how long will it be ere thou be quiet? put up thyself into thy scabbard, rest, and be still.
7  How can it be quiet, seeing the LORD hath given it a charge against Ashkelon, and against the sea shore? (MEDITTERANEAN SEA) there hath he appointed it.

EGYPT

ISAIAH 19:1-5
1 The burden of Egypt. Behold, the LORD rideth upon a swift cloud, and shall come into Egypt: and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence, and the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst of it.
2 And I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians: and they shall fight every one against his brother, and every one against his neighbour; city against city, and kingdom against kingdom.
3 And the spirit of Egypt shall fail in the midst thereof; and I will destroy the counsel thereof: and they shall seek to the idols, and to the charmers, and to them that have familiar spirits, and to the wizards.
4 And the Egyptians will I give over into the hand of a cruel lord; and a fierce king shall rule over them, saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts.
5 And the waters shall fail from the sea, and the river shall be wasted and dried up.

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.

JOEL 2:3,20,30-31
3 A fire(NUCLEAR ATOMIC BOMB) devoureth before them;(RUSSIA-ARABS-MUSLIMS) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them,(BEFORE THE NUKE GOES OFF) and behind them a desolate wilderness;(AFTER THE ATOMIC BOMB GOES OFF) yea, and nothing shall escape them.(EVERYTHING NUKED)
20 But I will remove far off from you the northern army,(RUSSIA,ARAB,MUSLIMS) and will drive him into a land barren and desolate,(SIBERIAN DESERT) 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.(FOR COMING AGAINST ISRAEL)
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.

JEREMIAH 8:7
7 Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times;(MIGRATION TIME) and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming;(IN MIGRATION SEASON) but my people know not the judgment of the LORD.(WW3 MIGRATING BIRDS EAT ISRAELS ENEMIES FLESH AND BLOOD)

In Gaza, Hamas feels the squeeze

Although Israel has boosted supplies, Egypt’s crackdown on smuggling tunnels has raised prices in the Strip, angered residents, and cost the Islamist government a fortune. It’s still training terrorists, though

By Avi Issacharoff October 12, 2013, 3:54 am 2-The Times of Israel

ISRAEL-GAZA BORDER — At first glance, everything seems peaceful and serene. I’m standing at the northern tip of the Gaza Strip, the point where the barrier between Israel and Gaza ends as it descends gradually into the sea. And nothing separates the sands of Israel’s Zikim beach from the northernmost beach in Gaza.Two Palestinian fishermen row their raft into the sea, hoping to catch some fish to sell and bring home a few shekels. Today, the rest of Gaza beach is empty. On weekends, it is packed with people seeking recreation and relaxation.The northernmost homes of the al-Shati refugee camp, a few kilometers south, are visible in the distance. This is the home of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. Further south are the Gaza beach hotels, generally empty except for the foreign journalists who stay from time to time.This single position where I’m taking in the view is one of the biggest headaches for the Israeli security forces. Those fishermen could, theoretically, row out to sea towards the imaginary border inside the water and easily swim to the Israeli side in a matter of seconds.This hasn’t happened. For now, Hamas has no interest in launching a terrorist attack from Gaza or initiating military confrontations.But Egypt’s exhaustive crackdown on Hamas, and on its smuggling tunnels running into the Sinai, is giving rise to fears that the Islamist group may attempt to escalate tensions with Israel, in a bid to force Egypt to open the Sinai border for commerce and trade.

That’s why in recent weeks it has been the Israelis, of all people, who have attempted to dissuade Cairo from enforcing a hermetic blockade on the Gaza Strip. Squeezing Gaza too tight will likely cause upheaval in the region, which will result in a new round of violence between Israel and Hamas.For most Gazans, though, the closing of the tunnels has translated into a new reality in which, while most products are still available, they are much more expensive than before Egypt made its move.

A city underground

During the years of Israel’s tight blockade on Gaza, from 2007 to 2010, hundreds of tunnels were dug out, very close together, along the narrow strip of land that forms the border between Egypt and Gaza.

The spokesperson for the Egyptian Border Police reported last week that the Egyptians have closed 1,055 tunnels since January 2011, 794 of them in the nine months since January 2013.The tunnels were one of the Hamas government’s primary projects. The industry employed up to 40,000 people, and provided nearly 40% of the government’s budget. The tunnels were of varying lengths and widths, but the majority shared a purpose – to smuggle in all types of merchandise, from missiles and military equipment to snacks and cigarettes. Subverting the Israeli blockade, the industry proved highly profitable, too, for private entrepreneurs.Hamas monitored the tunnels closely and heavily taxed the tunnel owners. Each entrepreneur would pay taxes to the Rafah Municipality for a license to begin digging. Once the tunnel was dug, taxes were charged on all products brought through it, but the goods were still cheaper than anything flowing legitimately through the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel.A seven shekel ($2) pack of cigarettes from Egypt, for example, would sell for 10 shekels (almost $3) in the Gaza shops; the tunnel owner made two shekels and Hamas one shekel per smuggled pack.The system worked for everyone: The tunnel owners earned their commission, residents of Gaza enjoyed exceptionally cheap products, and Hamas benefited from the tens of millions of dollars in taxes that it accumulated each month.The first stage of the Egyptian war against the tunnels began when the Muslim Brotherhood was still in control. After 16 Egyptian police officers were killed near the Rafah border in August 2012, Cairo realized that terrorists affiliated with Al-Qaeda were using the tunnels to receive military equipment from Gaza and were smuggling people through the tunnels to facilitate fighting.This was the trigger for Egyptian military action. Approximately half of the tunnels were closed down. But the most dramatic shift began in late June 2013, several days before the widespread protests against Morsi led to his ouster. The army took advantage of the Brotherhood’s weakness and launched a massive operation along the Rafah border, shutting down 90% of the tunnels there.The financial implications for Gaza and the Hamas treasury were immediate and the situation has not improved since. “For six years, we grew accustomed to buying everything, and cheap,” a Gaza resident told me. “Gasoline was only three shekels per liter. Cigarettes cost ten and milk was sold for four shekels. Now, it’s not that we’re lacking anything. Trucks constantly enter Gaza via Kerem Shalom. But the prices have more than doubled.”

The Coordinating Office for Government Activities in the Territories, understanding the potential for escalated violence in Gaza as a result of the lack of merchandise, has lately allowed over 430 trucks to bring products into Gaza via Kerem Shalom on a daily basis.But according to the Gaza resident, the problem is cost, not availability. “People earn the same salaries as before, if they work at all. But the prices have skyrocketed. People cannot afford to buy gasoline for eight shekels per liter or cigarettes for 25 shekels. The Gaza markets are suffering a recession, and this is holiday season,” he said, referring to Eid al-Adha, the Feast of the Sacrifice, which begins next Tuesday.Hamas is also hurting. “Just picture the situation: Nearly all the men in Gaza smoke. But the taxes collected on smuggled cigarettes from Egypt are gone,” a Gaza vendor said. “Half a million liters of fuel were transported through the tunnels daily and each liter contributed 1.5 shekels to the Hamas treasury. They paid thousands of dollars in taxes for each car that was brought in through the tunnels. The same was true for construction materials, snacks, everything.”The lack of income has impacted Hamas government salaries. Hamas withheld last month’s wages in order to save the money for Eid al-Adha. The government apparently plans on granting a 1,000 shekel bonus to each of its 50,000 employees for the holiday.

What does Hamas do now?

“Hamas now has nothing to offer the Palestinian community in Gaza,” said a Palestinian analyst, who asked to remain anonymous. “Let’s look a few years ahead. According to the UN, by 2020 there will not be a single drop of water in the Gaza Strip that is fit for human consumption. What can Hamas do about that? Very little.“But even today, the financial situation in the Gaza Strip is deteriorating rapidly. The government’s income has declined — because of the tunnels, but also because of a decrease in outside contributions. The money that the Muslim Brotherhood once raised for Hamas from its members in Egypt has dried up. Unemployment rates among the younger generation in Gaza have never been higher and the majority of university graduates cannot find work. What kind of future can Hamas offer these thousands of young adults who cannot afford to buy a house or even to get married?”Hamas, this analyst said, is facing “one of the most severe economic and political crises in its history — because of the events throughout the Middle East. Its mother-movement in Egypt has once again been outlawed and now operates underground. Its ally in Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, has his own local Intifada to deal with due to the rising costs of fuel. The movement has been pushed to the sidelines of the civil war in Syria and the Muslim Brotherhood is no longer a central player even in Jordan, where protests against the royal family have tapered out.”Hamas’s only supporters, he said, “are Qatar and Turkey, while all other Arab countries including Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain oppose them. There isn’t even anyone left to mediate between Hamas and Fatah, if Gaza decides to take the [internal Palestinian] reconciliation route.”This analyst believes that while there is a possibility of escalated violence against Israel, its unlikely. “It’s not on their agenda, despite the financial crisis. One faction, led by Haniyeh, claims that the current circumstances in the region leave Hamas with no choice but to reconcile with Fatah. A second group argues that Hamas must show no signs of weakness at this time and must hang tough until circumstances change for the better. A third group advocates reconciliation, but only in six months’ time, once the negotiations between the PA and Israel come to an end. At that point, they believe that Abu Mazen [PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas] will have no choice but to accept that the talks with Israel failed, which will weaken him politically. They want to reconcile from a position of strength.”For now, Hamas leaders are waiting to see if Egypt will change its policies towards Gaza. These leaders cannot even leave the Strip; Cairo has forbidden them from crossing through the Rafah border terminal.At the same time, Hamas is constantly building up its military forces in case its leaders do choose the escalation route. It has set up a training camp for members of its military wing, not far from Gaza’s northwestern border, on the ruins of the Dugit settlement. The camp is named Askelan — a reference to Ashkelon, further up the coast in Israel.A tall watchtower constructed at the camp is clearly visible from Israeli territory. From this elevated vantage point, Hamas activists observe activity on the Israeli side of the border. Since the last major flare-up in November 2012, they’ve been watching relative quiet. There are no guarantees that it will last.

Al-Qaeda leader urges unity among Syrian jihadis

Ayman al-Zawahiri tells Islamists fighting Assad not to cooperate with secular rebels, calls on Egyptian Islamists to unite to rid country of military

By AP and Times of Israel staff October 12, 2013, 12:48 pm 0-The Times of Israel

BEIRUT — The leader of al-Qaeda has urged jihadis in Syria to unite, an appeal likely aimed at rival affiliates of his terror network fighting there to oust President Bashar Assad.Ayman al-Zawahiri said fighters must “rise above organizational loyalties and party partisanship” and unite behind the goal of setting up an Islamic state.Al-Zawaihri also urged Syrian regime opponents not cut deals with Western-backed and secular groups. Islamist rebels have battled with secular and Kurdish rebel groups over Syria’s border crossings with Turkey for several weeks, leaving dozens dead.However, he suggests he will not impose unity, saying in an audio message Friday that “what you agree upon will also be our choice.”Two al-Qaeda-linked groups have emerged in Syria’s civil war — Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham. The first is commanded by a Syrian, the second by an Iraqi, but both are loyal to al-Zawahiri.In the 17-minute video clip, the al-Qaeda leader also called on Egyptian Islamists to work together under the banner of Islam in order to rid the country of military rule. Zawahiri railed against the Egyptian military, calling its leader “the Americanized butcher of the military coup” and accusing it of waging a war against Islam.He said the “secular military” has colluded with the United States, Israel, secular movements and Christians against Islam. Al Zawahiri also accused Egypt’s secularists of cooperating with the regime of ousted President Hosni Mubarak.“Here is the tragedy in Egypt unfolding before your eyes, showing the extent the hatred of the seculars, the US agents, have for Muslims and Islamist groups,” Al Zawahiri said. “The secular military and its allies, the enemies of Islam, what to eradicate anyone who raises the banner of Islam.”In a jab at Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood, Al Zawahri criticised Islamists who “compromised” with secular groups in Egypt and Tunisia, only to end up being persecuted by them. He said the anti-Islam alliance doesn’t distinguish between Islamists who wage holy war or those who seek power through democratic means.“They held on to secularism, fought for it, turning against the so-called democracy idol they asked Muslims to submit to in place of the rule of Sharia,” he said.Al Zawahiri urged Islamists to unite and wage a “popular” religious uprising “to rid Egypt of this criminal gang that jumped over power with fire and iron”.The recording was produced by the media arm of the group which issues Al Zawahiri’s messages. This is Al Zawahiri’s second message about Egypt since August.