JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.GET SAVED NOW- CALL ON JESUS TODAY.THE ONLY SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE EARTH - NO OTHER.
1 COR 15:23-JESUS THE FIRST FRUITS-CHRISTIANS RAPTURED TO JESUS-FIRST FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT-23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.ROMANS 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.(THE PRE-TRIB RAPTURE)
LUKE 21:28-29
28 And when these things begin to come to pass,(ALL THE PROPHECY SIGNS FROM THE BIBLE) then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption (RAPTURE) draweth nigh.
29 And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree,(ISRAEL) and all the trees;(ALL INDEPENDENT COUNTRIES)
30 When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand.(ISRAEL LITERALLY BECAME AND INDEPENDENT COUNTRY JUST BEFORE SUMMER IN MAY 14,1948.)
JOEL 2:3,30
3 A fire devoureth (ATOMIC BOMB) before them;(RUSSIAN-ARAB-MUSLIM ARMIES AGAINST ISRAEL) 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.
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(ATOMIC BOMB AFFECT)
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their eyes shall consume away in their holes,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB)(BECAUSE NUKES HAVE BEEN USED ON ISRAELS ENEMIES)(GOD PROTECTS ISRAEL AND ALWAYS WILL)
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.(1/2-3 BILLION DIE IN WW3)(THIS IS AN ATOMIC BOMB EFFECT)
EZEKIEL 20:47
47 And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the LORD; Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein.
ZEPHANIAH 1:18
18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD'S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
MALACHI 4:1
1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven;(FROM ATOMIC BOMBS) and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
And here are the bounderies of the land that Israel will inherit either through war or peace or God in the future. God says its Israels land and only Israels land. They will have every inch God promised them of this land in the future.
Egypt east of the Nile River, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, The southern part of Turkey and the Western Half of Iraq west of the Euphrates. Gen 13:14-15, Psm 105:9,11, Gen 15:18, Exe 23:31, Num 34:1-12, Josh 1:4.ALL THIS LAND ISRAEL WILL DEFINATELY OWN IN THE FUTURE, ITS ISRAELS NOT ISHMAELS LAND.12 TRIBES INHERIT LAND IN THE FUTURE
Israeli lawmakers advance bill to streamline cybersecurity-Citing DNC hack and Russian cyberattacks during 2008 Georgia war, MKs present plans to bring digital defenses under one roof-By Judah Ari Gross August 1, 2016, 11:31 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
The Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee approved a bill to bring the country’s various cyber defense groups under one umbrella on Monday, the committee announced.The bill will return to the plenary for a second and third reading later this week, where it will likely pass, before it is signed into law, the chairman of the committee, Likud MK Avi Dichter, told reporters Monday.“I’m not exaggerating if I say that the central threat of the beginning of the 21st century is the cyber threat,” he said.To address that threat, the committee’s cyber-defense subcommittee has worked since July 2015 to craft a comprehensive and streamlined proposal to address the country’s preparedness toward hacks and other digital attacks.“During the last year, we spent dozens of hours with each body to hear how they work and how they think our preparedness should be,” Dichter said in the Knesset on Monday.One of the subcommittee’s main findings was the need for one responsible body — the National Cyber Authority — to oversee both civilian and military networks. For example, the authority would monitor the cyber defenses of the IDF and the Mossad, as well as the Electric Company and the Water Authority.This National Cyber Authority will be responsible for the nation’s networks and overall security against cyberthreats. However, it will not necessarily act as a shield for hacks and attacks of private citizens.Committee member Omer Barlev, a Labor MK, cited the recent hack of the US Democratic National Committee, in which the political group’s emails were accessed — allegedly by Russia — and distributed, as an example of a cyberattack the authority would not necessarily protect against.“It depends on which political party was affected. If it was Labor, then probably not,” Barlev said with a laugh.“But really it depends on how classified the information is,” he said. “There’s a list of specific groups the authority protects, which doesn’t include political parties.”While the committee said that something along the lines of the DNC hack would not fall under the purview of the National Cyber Authority, some American analysts have categorized the allegedly Russian operation as a full-scale attack on the United States itself, not on a political party, as it represented an attempt by one country to muddle the affairs of another.“This is not a Democrat or a Republican issue, this is a national security and a democracy — with a big D — issue,” Peter W. Singer, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, told Reuters’s War College podcast this week.To explain the exact nature of the kinds of attacks the authority will try to prevent, Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee member MK Ofer Shelah mentioned the Russian cyberattacks against Georgia, which kicked off a six-day war between the former Soviet republic and Russia in August 2008.Throughout the short conflict, Russian hackers brought down some of the country’s network infrastructure and also attacked and defaced government websites as a form of psychological warfare.“That war started in the cyber realm, not with something physical,” Shelah said. “If you wanted to you could see it as a weapon of mass-destruction.”The cyber-defense subcommittee presented its findings in a report released Monday, in both classified and unclassified form, dealing specifically with the “division of responsibilities and authorities” in that area.Shelah and the other members of the cyber-defense subcommittee met with representatives from the Israel Defense Forces, Shin Bet security service, Mossad, Israel Police and Foreign Ministry.“There was no single body that had the exclusive ability to deal with the challenge [of cyberattacks] and commit itself to true cooperation between the different groups,” the subcommittee said in a statement.The subcommittee determined that an umbrella organization was necessary due to the fact that it discovered during the course of its investigation “disputes and even clashes between the different bodies.”This National Cyber Authority is meant to prevent such conflicts; however, the decision to have the civilian, governmental authority responsible for both civilian and military networks rankled some members of the subcommittee, including its new chairperson, Likud MK Anat Berko.“Something that definitely bothers me is that it is a non-defense agency,” Berko told reporters. “That means it’s breached in terms of security. There will be academics and completely civilian bodies, along with sources and information from the defense agencies. We can’t have a leak of intelligence information and work methods.”The National Cyber Authority was created in February 2015 and brought into operation two months later, but did not officially receive any powers or responsibility under Israeli law, an issue that the bill will address.The legislation will amend an existing law — the “Regulation of Public Security Bodies” — to formally allow the prime minister to appoint a head of the National Cyber Authority who will serve as the “authorized officer” for issues concerning cyber defense. Under a temporary order in place until 2018, Baruch Carmeli has been named head of the National Cyber Authority.This proposed law is only one of a series of actions the government will take to formalize and create the country’s digital defenses. However, members of the subcommittee noted the future is still unclear for cyber defense, as the field and the threats presented by it are rapidly evolving and changing.“Things are changing at tremendous speed,” Shelah said. “And we will have to change while on the move.”Dichter, who presented the subcommittee’s report, took pride in the fact that the issue of cyber defense was being addressed proactively rather than reactively. Unlike “Iron Dome or the different Patriots” — Israel’s missile defense batteries — “which were created in response to rockets being fired at Israel,” Dichter said, the decision to address digital threats preceded the attacks.
Michael Oren named deputy minister in charge of public diplomacy-Former ambassador to the US to work out of Prime Minister’s Office; Kahlon adds economy portfolio in reshuffle-By Times of Israel staff August 1, 2016, 9:49 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
Former ambassador to the US and Kulanu party MK Michael Oren was appointed deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Office and head of public diplomacy on Monday.The appointment came as the Knesset vote to approve a cabinet reshuffle that saw the Likud and Kulanu parties swap the environmental protection and economy ministries.Oren was appointed ambassador to Washington by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2009, a post he held until 2013. A year later he joined the ranks of the newly formed Kulanu party.Oren’s exact responsibilities remain unclear, but it appeared as though his function in pubic diplomacy will help support Netanyahu, who continues to serve as foreign minister, as well as communications and regional affairs minister.Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, who leads Kulanu, will also take on the economy portfolio, while the Likud’s Jerusalem Minister Ze’ev Elkin will receive the Environmental Protection Ministry.Matters relating to employment were pared from the Economy Ministry and transferred to the Welfare Ministry under Likud minister Haim Katz.The Economy Ministry was held by Netanyahu since Shas leader Aryeh Deri resigned from the position in November 2015. Deri later took up the Interior Ministry in January 2016.Kahlon had been holding the Environmental Protection Ministry since May when the previous minister, Kulanu party member Avi Gabbay, resigned in protest of the appointment of Avigdor Liberman as defense minister in a coalition-building maneuver that brought his Yisrael Beytenu party into the government.Previous defense minister Moshe Ya’alon resigned from politics in protest of the development, even though he was said to have been offered the Foreign Ministry. In that coalition shake-up, Elkin lost the Absorption Ministry to Yisrael Beytenu MK Sofa Landver.
French Muslims’ anti-jihad letter omits Jewish victims-French Jewish leader complains petition by Muslim intellectuals fails to mention fatal anti-Semitic attacks-By JTA August 1, 2016, 8:02 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
A leader of French Jews criticized Muslim intellectuals whose petition against local jihadists omits any mention of anti-Semitic violence.The petition, signed by dozens of academics and celebrities, appeared Sunday in the Journal de Dimanche under the title “We, French-Muslims, are ready to assume our responsibilities.” In it, the co-signatories lamented the perceived weakness of the institutions of their faith communities in stopping extremists from acting violently in Islam’s name.The text begins by listing five recent terrorist attacks: The Charlie Hebdo killings in January 2015, the bombing and shooting attacks in November, the murder of two police officers in June, the Nice promenade attacks last month, and last week’s slaying of a priest.It makes reference neither to the murder of four Jews in a kosher supermarket, the Paris Hyper Cacher, after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, nor to the execution of three children and a rabbi in Toulouse in 2012 – both perpetrated by radical Islamists.In their letter, the co-signatories called for “a clear organizational project” within French Muslim communities, which would involve “transparent and viable funding for mosques, education and salaried employment for imams, research on history, anthropology and theology that would allow and allows one to be Muslim in a non-religious republic.”It also called for “a cultural battle against radical Islam, among young and not so young, with modern methods and the most effective techniques for disseminating information and ideas.”“You’re ready to assume your responsibilities, but you are off to a bad start,” Robert Ejnes, the executive director of the CRIF umbrella of French Jewish communities and organizations, wrote on Facebook, citing the omissions.“You have a long way to go, my friends: You need to understand one day that these anti-Semitic attacks were committed against *Jews*, who were targeted for being Jewish. You can’t avoid these anti-Semitic murders,” Ejnes added.“In any case, we’ll always be here to remind you,” he concluded.CRIF has asked the authors to address the omission and have the text corrected.
Peres: Trump foreign policy would be ‘a very great mistake’-Former president blasts GOP nominee’s isolationist vision; compares Palestinian move to sue Britain to refighting Crusades-By JTA August 1, 2016, 11:48 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
Israel’s former president Shimon Peres said carrying out Donald Trump’s isolationist foreign policy vision would be “a very great mistake.”In an interview with Bloomberg.com published Monday, Peres — who is 93 and served in numerous roles in Israel’s government since its founding in 1948 — did not refer to the Republican presidential nominee by name.But asked about Trump’s statements on foreign policy, the Nobel Peace Prize winner said, “To suggest that America will disconnect her relations with NATO, that America will leave the whole field open to other countries — in my judgment it’s a mistake. A very great mistake.”Last month Trump suggested in an interview with The New York Times that US military support for NATO member states might be conditional on whether those members’ fulfill their obligations to the bloc.During the interview, Peres, who turns 93 on Tuesday, also addressed other topics, such as a project he’s working on that seeks to bring together Israeli and Arab tech entrepreneurs.“We want to make not just a Startup Nation, but a Startup Region,” Peres said of his project, the Israeli Innovation Center. “Science doesn’t have flags. Science doesn’t have borders.”Asked about the Palestinian Authority’s threats to sue Great Britain over the 1917 Balfour Declaration, Peres compared the move to refighting the Crusades, the medieval battles for control of the Holy Land.“The past is dead,” he said. “The future is the agenda.”
Sanders invokes his Judaism in response to Trump attack on Muslim couple-Former presidential hopeful speaks of his family murdered in the Holocaust, calls for ending ‘all forms of racism’-By JTA July 31, 2016, 8:01 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
Former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders mentioned his family’s Jewish history in condemning GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s attack on the parents of an American Muslim soldier killed in Iraq.“I’m Jewish. My father’s family died in concentration camps. I will do everything I can to rid this country of the ugly stain of racism,” Sanders said in a tweet Friday evening.Sanders also tweeted: “Lots of hate is being generated against Muslims in America. If we stand for anything we have to stand together and end all forms of racism.”Khizr and Ghazala Khan appeared onstage on the last day of the Democratic National Convention in support of Hillary Clinton’s nomination as the party’s candidate. Khizr Kahn in his speech said that Trump “sacrificed nothing and no one” and questioned whether Trump had ever read the US Constitution. He also condemned Trump for his proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States.I’m Jewish. My father’s family died in concentration camps. I will do everything I can to rid this country of the ugly stain of racism.— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) July 30, 2016-Trump responded in an interview Saturday with ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos.“If you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say. You tell me,” Trump said in a reference to the family’s Muslim practices.Ghazala Khan in fact has spoken in several interviews about her son. The couple has said she chose not to speak at the convention because discussing her son’s death would have been too difficult for her.In response to the question of whether he has made sacrifices, Trump said: “I think I’ve made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard. I’ve created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures. I’ve done — I’ve had — I’ve had tremendous success. I think I’ve done a lot.”Khizr Khan responded to the Trump interview saying: “Running for president is not an entitlement to disrespect Gold Star families and [a] Gold Star mother not realizing her pain. Shame on him! Shame on his family! He is not worthy of our comments. He has no decency. He is void of decency, he has a dark heart.”Late Saturday night, Trump released a statement saying: “Captain Humayun Khan was a hero to our country and we should honor all who have made the ultimate sacrifice to keep our country safe. The real problem here are the radical Islamic terrorists who killed him, and the efforts of these radicals to enter our country and do us further harm.“While I feel deeply for the loss of his son,” the statement said, “Mr. Khan who has never met me, has no right to stand in front of millions of people and claim I have never read the Constitution, (which is false) and say many other inaccurate things. If I become President, I will make America safe again.”
Russian TV shows what the Kremlin thinks of Clinton-Democratic candidate is ‘a politician who puts herself above the law, who is ready to win at any cost,’ report says-By Lynn Berry July 31, 2016, 11:38 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
MOSCOW (AP) — To understand what the Kremlin thinks about the prospect of Hillary Clinton becoming the US president, it was enough to watch Russian state television coverage of her accepting the Democratic nomination.Viewers were told that Clinton sees Russia as an enemy and cannot be trusted, while the Democratic Party convention was portrayed as further proof that American democracy is a sham.In her acceptance speech, Clinton reaffirmed a commitment to NATO, saying she was “proud to stand by our allies in NATO against any threat they face, including from Russia.”In doing so, she was implicitly rebuking her rival, Republican nominee Donald Trump, who has questioned the need for the Western alliance and suggested that if he is elected president, the United States might not honor its NATO military commitments, in particular regarding former Soviet republics in the Baltics.While Trump’s position on NATO has delighted the Kremlin, Clinton’s statement clearly stung.“She mentioned Russia only once, but it was enough to see that the era of the reset is over,” Channel One said in its report.As US secretary of state, Clinton in 2009 presented her Russian counterpart with a red button intended to symbolize a “reset” in relations between the two countries, one of US President Barack Obama’s initiatives. In Russia, the gesture is best remembered for the misspelling of the word in Russian, while the reset itself failed in the face of Putin’s return as Russian president in 2012 and Russia’s seizure of Crimea from Ukraine two years later.Clinton once compared the annexation of Crimea to Adolf Hitler’s moves into Eastern Europe at the start of World War II, a comparison that was deeply offensive in Russia, where the country’s victory over Nazi Germany remains a prime source of national pride.Trump, on the other hand, told ABC’s “This Week” in a broadcast Sunday that he wants to take a look at whether the US should recognize Crimea as part of Russia. “You know, the people of Crimea, from what I’ve heard, would rather be with Russia than where they were,” Trump said.This runs counter to the position of the Obama administration and the European Union, which have imposed punishing sanctions on Russia in response to the annexation.“And as far as the Ukraine is concerned, it’s a mess. And that’s under the Obama’s administration with his strong ties to NATO. So with all of these strong ties to NATO, Ukraine is a mess,” Trump said. “Crimea has been taken. Don’t blame Donald Trump for that.”Putin was outraged by US support for Ukraine and by US military intervention around the world, particularly in Libya, on Clinton’s watch. But it was what he saw as interference in Russia that really rankled.When Clinton described Russia’s 2011 parliamentary elections as rigged, Putin said she was “sending a signal” to his critics. He then accused the US State Department of financially supporting the protests that drew tens of thousands of people to the streets of Moscow to demand free elections and an end to Putin’s rule.In the years since, the Kremlin has defended Russian elections in part by implying they are no different than in the United States, a country it says promotes democracy around the world while allowing its business and political elite to determine who wins at home.The Democratic Convention, which ended Friday morning Moscow time, was given wide coverage throughout the day on the nearly hourly news reports on state television, the Kremlin’s most powerful tool for shaping public opinion.Channel One began its report by introducing Clinton as “a politician who puts herself above the law, who is ready to win at any cost and who is ready to change her principles depending on the political situation.” The anchorwoman couched the description by saying that was how Clinton is seen by Trump’s supporters — but it was a nuance viewers could easily miss.The reports ran excerpts of Clinton’s speech, but the camera swung repeatedly to a sullen Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, her Democratic challenger, and his disappointed supporters. The Rossiya channel also showed anti-Clinton protesters outside the convention hall who it said “felt they have been betrayed after the email leak that showed Bernie Sanders was pushed out of the race.”Russia is a prime suspect in the hacking of Democratic National Committee computers, which led to the release of emails showing that party officials favored Clinton over Sanders for the presidential nomination.The Kremlin has denied interfering in the US election. A columnist at Russia’s best-selling newspaper, however, said it would have been a smart move.“I would welcome the Kremlin helping those forces in the United States that stand for peace with Russia and democracy in America,” Israel Shamir wrote in Komsomolskaya Pravda.Trump, meanwhile, has encouraged Russia to seek and release more than 30,000 other missing emails deleted by Clinton. Democrats accused him of trying to get a foreign adversary to conduct espionage that could affect this November’s election, but Trump later said he was merely being sarcastic.
28 And when these things begin to come to pass,(ALL THE PROPHECY SIGNS FROM THE BIBLE) then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption (RAPTURE) draweth nigh.
29 And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree,(ISRAEL) and all the trees;(ALL INDEPENDENT COUNTRIES)
30 When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand.(ISRAEL LITERALLY BECAME AND INDEPENDENT COUNTRY JUST BEFORE SUMMER IN MAY 14,1948.)
JOEL 2:3,30
3 A fire devoureth (ATOMIC BOMB) before them;(RUSSIAN-ARAB-MUSLIM ARMIES AGAINST ISRAEL) 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.
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(ATOMIC BOMB AFFECT)
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their eyes shall consume away in their holes,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB)(BECAUSE NUKES HAVE BEEN USED ON ISRAELS ENEMIES)(GOD PROTECTS ISRAEL AND ALWAYS WILL)
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.(1/2-3 BILLION DIE IN WW3)(THIS IS AN ATOMIC BOMB EFFECT)
EZEKIEL 20:47
47 And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the LORD; Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein.
ZEPHANIAH 1:18
18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD'S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
MALACHI 4:1
1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven;(FROM ATOMIC BOMBS) and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
And here are the bounderies of the land that Israel will inherit either through war or peace or God in the future. God says its Israels land and only Israels land. They will have every inch God promised them of this land in the future.
Egypt east of the Nile River, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, The southern part of Turkey and the Western Half of Iraq west of the Euphrates. Gen 13:14-15, Psm 105:9,11, Gen 15:18, Exe 23:31, Num 34:1-12, Josh 1:4.ALL THIS LAND ISRAEL WILL DEFINATELY OWN IN THE FUTURE, ITS ISRAELS NOT ISHMAELS LAND.12 TRIBES INHERIT LAND IN THE FUTURE
Israeli lawmakers advance bill to streamline cybersecurity-Citing DNC hack and Russian cyberattacks during 2008 Georgia war, MKs present plans to bring digital defenses under one roof-By Judah Ari Gross August 1, 2016, 11:31 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
The Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee approved a bill to bring the country’s various cyber defense groups under one umbrella on Monday, the committee announced.The bill will return to the plenary for a second and third reading later this week, where it will likely pass, before it is signed into law, the chairman of the committee, Likud MK Avi Dichter, told reporters Monday.“I’m not exaggerating if I say that the central threat of the beginning of the 21st century is the cyber threat,” he said.To address that threat, the committee’s cyber-defense subcommittee has worked since July 2015 to craft a comprehensive and streamlined proposal to address the country’s preparedness toward hacks and other digital attacks.“During the last year, we spent dozens of hours with each body to hear how they work and how they think our preparedness should be,” Dichter said in the Knesset on Monday.One of the subcommittee’s main findings was the need for one responsible body — the National Cyber Authority — to oversee both civilian and military networks. For example, the authority would monitor the cyber defenses of the IDF and the Mossad, as well as the Electric Company and the Water Authority.This National Cyber Authority will be responsible for the nation’s networks and overall security against cyberthreats. However, it will not necessarily act as a shield for hacks and attacks of private citizens.Committee member Omer Barlev, a Labor MK, cited the recent hack of the US Democratic National Committee, in which the political group’s emails were accessed — allegedly by Russia — and distributed, as an example of a cyberattack the authority would not necessarily protect against.“It depends on which political party was affected. If it was Labor, then probably not,” Barlev said with a laugh.“But really it depends on how classified the information is,” he said. “There’s a list of specific groups the authority protects, which doesn’t include political parties.”While the committee said that something along the lines of the DNC hack would not fall under the purview of the National Cyber Authority, some American analysts have categorized the allegedly Russian operation as a full-scale attack on the United States itself, not on a political party, as it represented an attempt by one country to muddle the affairs of another.“This is not a Democrat or a Republican issue, this is a national security and a democracy — with a big D — issue,” Peter W. Singer, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, told Reuters’s War College podcast this week.To explain the exact nature of the kinds of attacks the authority will try to prevent, Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee member MK Ofer Shelah mentioned the Russian cyberattacks against Georgia, which kicked off a six-day war between the former Soviet republic and Russia in August 2008.Throughout the short conflict, Russian hackers brought down some of the country’s network infrastructure and also attacked and defaced government websites as a form of psychological warfare.“That war started in the cyber realm, not with something physical,” Shelah said. “If you wanted to you could see it as a weapon of mass-destruction.”The cyber-defense subcommittee presented its findings in a report released Monday, in both classified and unclassified form, dealing specifically with the “division of responsibilities and authorities” in that area.Shelah and the other members of the cyber-defense subcommittee met with representatives from the Israel Defense Forces, Shin Bet security service, Mossad, Israel Police and Foreign Ministry.“There was no single body that had the exclusive ability to deal with the challenge [of cyberattacks] and commit itself to true cooperation between the different groups,” the subcommittee said in a statement.The subcommittee determined that an umbrella organization was necessary due to the fact that it discovered during the course of its investigation “disputes and even clashes between the different bodies.”This National Cyber Authority is meant to prevent such conflicts; however, the decision to have the civilian, governmental authority responsible for both civilian and military networks rankled some members of the subcommittee, including its new chairperson, Likud MK Anat Berko.“Something that definitely bothers me is that it is a non-defense agency,” Berko told reporters. “That means it’s breached in terms of security. There will be academics and completely civilian bodies, along with sources and information from the defense agencies. We can’t have a leak of intelligence information and work methods.”The National Cyber Authority was created in February 2015 and brought into operation two months later, but did not officially receive any powers or responsibility under Israeli law, an issue that the bill will address.The legislation will amend an existing law — the “Regulation of Public Security Bodies” — to formally allow the prime minister to appoint a head of the National Cyber Authority who will serve as the “authorized officer” for issues concerning cyber defense. Under a temporary order in place until 2018, Baruch Carmeli has been named head of the National Cyber Authority.This proposed law is only one of a series of actions the government will take to formalize and create the country’s digital defenses. However, members of the subcommittee noted the future is still unclear for cyber defense, as the field and the threats presented by it are rapidly evolving and changing.“Things are changing at tremendous speed,” Shelah said. “And we will have to change while on the move.”Dichter, who presented the subcommittee’s report, took pride in the fact that the issue of cyber defense was being addressed proactively rather than reactively. Unlike “Iron Dome or the different Patriots” — Israel’s missile defense batteries — “which were created in response to rockets being fired at Israel,” Dichter said, the decision to address digital threats preceded the attacks.
Michael Oren named deputy minister in charge of public diplomacy-Former ambassador to the US to work out of Prime Minister’s Office; Kahlon adds economy portfolio in reshuffle-By Times of Israel staff August 1, 2016, 9:49 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
Former ambassador to the US and Kulanu party MK Michael Oren was appointed deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Office and head of public diplomacy on Monday.The appointment came as the Knesset vote to approve a cabinet reshuffle that saw the Likud and Kulanu parties swap the environmental protection and economy ministries.Oren was appointed ambassador to Washington by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2009, a post he held until 2013. A year later he joined the ranks of the newly formed Kulanu party.Oren’s exact responsibilities remain unclear, but it appeared as though his function in pubic diplomacy will help support Netanyahu, who continues to serve as foreign minister, as well as communications and regional affairs minister.Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, who leads Kulanu, will also take on the economy portfolio, while the Likud’s Jerusalem Minister Ze’ev Elkin will receive the Environmental Protection Ministry.Matters relating to employment were pared from the Economy Ministry and transferred to the Welfare Ministry under Likud minister Haim Katz.The Economy Ministry was held by Netanyahu since Shas leader Aryeh Deri resigned from the position in November 2015. Deri later took up the Interior Ministry in January 2016.Kahlon had been holding the Environmental Protection Ministry since May when the previous minister, Kulanu party member Avi Gabbay, resigned in protest of the appointment of Avigdor Liberman as defense minister in a coalition-building maneuver that brought his Yisrael Beytenu party into the government.Previous defense minister Moshe Ya’alon resigned from politics in protest of the development, even though he was said to have been offered the Foreign Ministry. In that coalition shake-up, Elkin lost the Absorption Ministry to Yisrael Beytenu MK Sofa Landver.
French Muslims’ anti-jihad letter omits Jewish victims-French Jewish leader complains petition by Muslim intellectuals fails to mention fatal anti-Semitic attacks-By JTA August 1, 2016, 8:02 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
A leader of French Jews criticized Muslim intellectuals whose petition against local jihadists omits any mention of anti-Semitic violence.The petition, signed by dozens of academics and celebrities, appeared Sunday in the Journal de Dimanche under the title “We, French-Muslims, are ready to assume our responsibilities.” In it, the co-signatories lamented the perceived weakness of the institutions of their faith communities in stopping extremists from acting violently in Islam’s name.The text begins by listing five recent terrorist attacks: The Charlie Hebdo killings in January 2015, the bombing and shooting attacks in November, the murder of two police officers in June, the Nice promenade attacks last month, and last week’s slaying of a priest.It makes reference neither to the murder of four Jews in a kosher supermarket, the Paris Hyper Cacher, after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, nor to the execution of three children and a rabbi in Toulouse in 2012 – both perpetrated by radical Islamists.In their letter, the co-signatories called for “a clear organizational project” within French Muslim communities, which would involve “transparent and viable funding for mosques, education and salaried employment for imams, research on history, anthropology and theology that would allow and allows one to be Muslim in a non-religious republic.”It also called for “a cultural battle against radical Islam, among young and not so young, with modern methods and the most effective techniques for disseminating information and ideas.”“You’re ready to assume your responsibilities, but you are off to a bad start,” Robert Ejnes, the executive director of the CRIF umbrella of French Jewish communities and organizations, wrote on Facebook, citing the omissions.“You have a long way to go, my friends: You need to understand one day that these anti-Semitic attacks were committed against *Jews*, who were targeted for being Jewish. You can’t avoid these anti-Semitic murders,” Ejnes added.“In any case, we’ll always be here to remind you,” he concluded.CRIF has asked the authors to address the omission and have the text corrected.
Peres: Trump foreign policy would be ‘a very great mistake’-Former president blasts GOP nominee’s isolationist vision; compares Palestinian move to sue Britain to refighting Crusades-By JTA August 1, 2016, 11:48 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
Israel’s former president Shimon Peres said carrying out Donald Trump’s isolationist foreign policy vision would be “a very great mistake.”In an interview with Bloomberg.com published Monday, Peres — who is 93 and served in numerous roles in Israel’s government since its founding in 1948 — did not refer to the Republican presidential nominee by name.But asked about Trump’s statements on foreign policy, the Nobel Peace Prize winner said, “To suggest that America will disconnect her relations with NATO, that America will leave the whole field open to other countries — in my judgment it’s a mistake. A very great mistake.”Last month Trump suggested in an interview with The New York Times that US military support for NATO member states might be conditional on whether those members’ fulfill their obligations to the bloc.During the interview, Peres, who turns 93 on Tuesday, also addressed other topics, such as a project he’s working on that seeks to bring together Israeli and Arab tech entrepreneurs.“We want to make not just a Startup Nation, but a Startup Region,” Peres said of his project, the Israeli Innovation Center. “Science doesn’t have flags. Science doesn’t have borders.”Asked about the Palestinian Authority’s threats to sue Great Britain over the 1917 Balfour Declaration, Peres compared the move to refighting the Crusades, the medieval battles for control of the Holy Land.“The past is dead,” he said. “The future is the agenda.”
Sanders invokes his Judaism in response to Trump attack on Muslim couple-Former presidential hopeful speaks of his family murdered in the Holocaust, calls for ending ‘all forms of racism’-By JTA July 31, 2016, 8:01 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
Former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders mentioned his family’s Jewish history in condemning GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s attack on the parents of an American Muslim soldier killed in Iraq.“I’m Jewish. My father’s family died in concentration camps. I will do everything I can to rid this country of the ugly stain of racism,” Sanders said in a tweet Friday evening.Sanders also tweeted: “Lots of hate is being generated against Muslims in America. If we stand for anything we have to stand together and end all forms of racism.”Khizr and Ghazala Khan appeared onstage on the last day of the Democratic National Convention in support of Hillary Clinton’s nomination as the party’s candidate. Khizr Kahn in his speech said that Trump “sacrificed nothing and no one” and questioned whether Trump had ever read the US Constitution. He also condemned Trump for his proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States.I’m Jewish. My father’s family died in concentration camps. I will do everything I can to rid this country of the ugly stain of racism.— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) July 30, 2016-Trump responded in an interview Saturday with ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos.“If you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say. You tell me,” Trump said in a reference to the family’s Muslim practices.Ghazala Khan in fact has spoken in several interviews about her son. The couple has said she chose not to speak at the convention because discussing her son’s death would have been too difficult for her.In response to the question of whether he has made sacrifices, Trump said: “I think I’ve made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard. I’ve created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures. I’ve done — I’ve had — I’ve had tremendous success. I think I’ve done a lot.”Khizr Khan responded to the Trump interview saying: “Running for president is not an entitlement to disrespect Gold Star families and [a] Gold Star mother not realizing her pain. Shame on him! Shame on his family! He is not worthy of our comments. He has no decency. He is void of decency, he has a dark heart.”Late Saturday night, Trump released a statement saying: “Captain Humayun Khan was a hero to our country and we should honor all who have made the ultimate sacrifice to keep our country safe. The real problem here are the radical Islamic terrorists who killed him, and the efforts of these radicals to enter our country and do us further harm.“While I feel deeply for the loss of his son,” the statement said, “Mr. Khan who has never met me, has no right to stand in front of millions of people and claim I have never read the Constitution, (which is false) and say many other inaccurate things. If I become President, I will make America safe again.”
Russian TV shows what the Kremlin thinks of Clinton-Democratic candidate is ‘a politician who puts herself above the law, who is ready to win at any cost,’ report says-By Lynn Berry July 31, 2016, 11:38 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
MOSCOW (AP) — To understand what the Kremlin thinks about the prospect of Hillary Clinton becoming the US president, it was enough to watch Russian state television coverage of her accepting the Democratic nomination.Viewers were told that Clinton sees Russia as an enemy and cannot be trusted, while the Democratic Party convention was portrayed as further proof that American democracy is a sham.In her acceptance speech, Clinton reaffirmed a commitment to NATO, saying she was “proud to stand by our allies in NATO against any threat they face, including from Russia.”In doing so, she was implicitly rebuking her rival, Republican nominee Donald Trump, who has questioned the need for the Western alliance and suggested that if he is elected president, the United States might not honor its NATO military commitments, in particular regarding former Soviet republics in the Baltics.While Trump’s position on NATO has delighted the Kremlin, Clinton’s statement clearly stung.“She mentioned Russia only once, but it was enough to see that the era of the reset is over,” Channel One said in its report.As US secretary of state, Clinton in 2009 presented her Russian counterpart with a red button intended to symbolize a “reset” in relations between the two countries, one of US President Barack Obama’s initiatives. In Russia, the gesture is best remembered for the misspelling of the word in Russian, while the reset itself failed in the face of Putin’s return as Russian president in 2012 and Russia’s seizure of Crimea from Ukraine two years later.Clinton once compared the annexation of Crimea to Adolf Hitler’s moves into Eastern Europe at the start of World War II, a comparison that was deeply offensive in Russia, where the country’s victory over Nazi Germany remains a prime source of national pride.Trump, on the other hand, told ABC’s “This Week” in a broadcast Sunday that he wants to take a look at whether the US should recognize Crimea as part of Russia. “You know, the people of Crimea, from what I’ve heard, would rather be with Russia than where they were,” Trump said.This runs counter to the position of the Obama administration and the European Union, which have imposed punishing sanctions on Russia in response to the annexation.“And as far as the Ukraine is concerned, it’s a mess. And that’s under the Obama’s administration with his strong ties to NATO. So with all of these strong ties to NATO, Ukraine is a mess,” Trump said. “Crimea has been taken. Don’t blame Donald Trump for that.”Putin was outraged by US support for Ukraine and by US military intervention around the world, particularly in Libya, on Clinton’s watch. But it was what he saw as interference in Russia that really rankled.When Clinton described Russia’s 2011 parliamentary elections as rigged, Putin said she was “sending a signal” to his critics. He then accused the US State Department of financially supporting the protests that drew tens of thousands of people to the streets of Moscow to demand free elections and an end to Putin’s rule.In the years since, the Kremlin has defended Russian elections in part by implying they are no different than in the United States, a country it says promotes democracy around the world while allowing its business and political elite to determine who wins at home.The Democratic Convention, which ended Friday morning Moscow time, was given wide coverage throughout the day on the nearly hourly news reports on state television, the Kremlin’s most powerful tool for shaping public opinion.Channel One began its report by introducing Clinton as “a politician who puts herself above the law, who is ready to win at any cost and who is ready to change her principles depending on the political situation.” The anchorwoman couched the description by saying that was how Clinton is seen by Trump’s supporters — but it was a nuance viewers could easily miss.The reports ran excerpts of Clinton’s speech, but the camera swung repeatedly to a sullen Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, her Democratic challenger, and his disappointed supporters. The Rossiya channel also showed anti-Clinton protesters outside the convention hall who it said “felt they have been betrayed after the email leak that showed Bernie Sanders was pushed out of the race.”Russia is a prime suspect in the hacking of Democratic National Committee computers, which led to the release of emails showing that party officials favored Clinton over Sanders for the presidential nomination.The Kremlin has denied interfering in the US election. A columnist at Russia’s best-selling newspaper, however, said it would have been a smart move.“I would welcome the Kremlin helping those forces in the United States that stand for peace with Russia and democracy in America,” Israel Shamir wrote in Komsomolskaya Pravda.Trump, meanwhile, has encouraged Russia to seek and release more than 30,000 other missing emails deleted by Clinton. Democrats accused him of trying to get a foreign adversary to conduct espionage that could affect this November’s election, but Trump later said he was merely being sarcastic.
