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
Trump ‘aggressively’ pursuing Netanyahu to attend inauguration — report-Sources say PM considering traveling to Washington for swearing-in ceremony of US president-elect; Trump says Jewish state ‘very, very important’ to him-By Times of Israel staff January 1, 2017, 9:19 am
US president-elect’s White House transition team has been “aggressively” pursuing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to attend the inauguration ceremony in Washington, DC later this month, the New York Post reported on Sunday.“There’s a plan for Trump to meet with Netanyahu,” a source close to the transition team said, according to the paper.“They’re talking all the time. And Netanyahu is talking about possibly going to the inauguration,” the source was quoted as saying.The report said Trump staffers, led by son-in-law Jared Kushner, were “aggressively courting” the Israeli prime minister in an effort to persuade him to attend the January 20 ceremony.Netanyahu’s tense relationship with outgoing US President Barack Obama was exacerbated in recent weeks, after the White House publicly clashed with Israel over its West Bank policy and later declined to veto a UN Security Council resolution condemning settlements.Trump has assured Israel that things will be different after he takes office, and last week lamented that the Jewish state was “being treated very, very unfairly” by the international community.Speaking to reporters outside his Mar-a-Lago estate on Thursday, Trump lambasted the UN for condemning Israel, saying that “horrible places, that treat people horribly, haven’t even been reprimanded” by the international body.He refused to directly answer specific questions regarding Israeli policies, but Trump called himself “very, very strong on Israel.”On Saturday evening, Trump told reporters Israel is “very, very important” to him.“Look, we have to protect Israel, Israel to me is very very important, we have to protect Israel, and I disagree with what he’s done with Israel,” Trump said, referring to Obama. “I listened to Secretary Kerry’s speech, I think it’s very unfair to Israel, what happened.” On Wednesday, Kerry delivered a 70-minute address highlighting the settlement enterprise as a central obstacle to peace, denouncing Israel’s right-wing coalition, and warning that the two-state solution was in jeopardy. Netanyahu castigated Kerry for what he argued was an unjustified assault; Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May also publicly criticized the secretary’s address as unfair and inappropriate.We cannot continue to let Israel be treated with such total disdain and disrespect. They used to have a great friend in the U.S., but…….— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2016-After the US abstained from last week’s Security Council vote on Resolution 2334, thus allowing the anti-settlement resolution to pass, Trump lashed out at the Obama administration for treating Israel with “with such total disdain and disrespect.”not anymore. The beginning of the end was the horrible Iran deal, and now this (U.N.)! Stay strong Israel, January 20th is fast approaching!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2016-Taking to his preferred medium of Twitter, the Republican president-elect urged Israel to “stay strong,” as January 20, Inauguration Day, “is fast approaching!”Trump also implied that under Obama, the US was no longer “a great friend” to the Jewish state.President-elect Trump, thank you for your warm friendship and your clear-cut support for Israel! @IvankaTrump @DonaldJTrumpJr https://t.co/lURPimG0wS— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) December 28, 2016-Netanyahu responded in kind, thanking Trump for his “warm friendship and your clear-cut support.”The prime minister has said that he looks forward to working with Trump, his administration and the US Congress to reverse the Security Council resolution.
Trump taps Jewish aide Stephen Miller to write inaugural address-Incoming senior White House adviser was Trump’s chief campaign speechwriter, reportedly crafted his infamous ‘global interests’ speech-By Eric Cortellessa December 27, 2016, 7:23 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump has commissioned aide Stephen Miller, who penned a controversial speech panned for anti-Semitic overtones, to write his historic inaugural address next month.The 31-year-old incoming senior White House adviser on policy, who is Jewish, is credited with writing most of Trump’s planned speeches during the campaign, including a controversial October address in which he spoke of Democratic rival Hillary Clinton conducting secret meetings with international bankers to destroy US sovereignty.Trump’s remarks were criticized at the time by the Anti-Defamation League for “rhetoric and tropes that historically have been used against Jews and still spur antisemitism,” and others noted its similarities to the anti-Semitic tract “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”That text is a famous anti-Semitic forgery that promulgated the conspiracy theory that a Jewish-run cabal of global financial elites controlled world affairs.Other noted speeches that Miller crafted include Trump’s Republican national convention address, which was noted for its dark tones and portrayal of a rapidly deteriorating world.According to Politico, Trump’s team of insiders is planning to spotlight the incoming president’s first-term agenda in “nationalistic” rather than “ideological” terms, calling for the need to address the nation’s border security, rebuild its infrastructure, strengthen its military and prevent American jobs from going overseas.Miller, Trump’s de facto chief speech writer, will be responsible for articulating that vision in what will be Trump’s first direct address to the nation and world as president.It is not yet clear whether Miller will revive Trump’s contentious statement from July’s GOP convention, when the candidate said of America’s set of national problems: “I alone can fix it.”Earlier this month, Trump announced Miller would assume an official role in the administration. “As senior adviser to the president for policy, Miller will… be responsible for directing White House policy staff, managing speechwriting functions, and working to ensure the enactment of the President’s policy agenda,” the transition team said in a statement.Originally from Santa Monica, California, Miller was reportedly born to liberal Jewish Democrats, but became a conservative later in life when he read the National Rifle Association’s CEO Wayne LaPierre’s book “Guns, Crime, and Freedom” and subsequently became a gun enthusiast.After graduating from Duke University in 2009, he was hired by Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, the first senator to endorse Trump’s candidacy and now his nominee to be attorney general.
Father of murdered Jerusalem girls agrees to ‘partial autopsy’-Woman, 36, suspected of killing children, setting their room ablaze before taking her own life in Jerusalem apartment-By Times of Israel staff January 2, 2017, 10:41 am
The father of four young girls found murdered in Jerusalem Sunday agreed to a “partial autopsy” of two of the girls.The girls were found dead a day earlier in a suspected murder-suicide in the capital. Firefighters found the children, ages 11, 9, 4 and 11 months, dead in a locked bedroom of a fifth-story apartment that had been set ablaze in southern Jerusalem. The girls’ mother, who is the primary suspect in their murder, was found hanged in another room.The bodies of the children were sent to the Abu Kabir forensic institute late Sunday.The father, who was not at home at the time, at first refused to allow autopsies of the children. The family is religiously observant, and Jewish religious law requires respect for the bodies of the dead, as well as a swift burial.But on Monday morning, after unspecified “signs of violence” were found on the bodies of two of the girls, police investigators asked the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court to issue an order that would allow the autopsies to go forward against the father’s wishes.Police say only an autopsy will enable them to determine whether the girls were killed in the fire, or, as investigators suspect, by strangulation beforehand by their mother.By Monday afternoon, the father gave his consent to a “partial autopsy” of the two girls who showed the signs of violence. According to media reports, if the findings indicated a need for further investigation, he would approve more invasive autopsies of all four of the children.An initial investigation of the fire concluded that a mattress had been sprayed with lighter fluid and set ablaze in the apartment.The father, who is not a suspect in the children’s deaths, arrived at the apartment about half an hour after the emergency services. A spokesperson for the United Hatzalah rescue organization said the father was being treated by a psychotrauma team. It was not clear where he was at the time of the fire.Jerusalem municipal social services had placed the father in a hotel room for the night, where he is staying with family members.Four firefighting teams responded to the initial call, entering the locked apartment through the balcony before discovering the lifeless body of the 36-year-old mother. A quick scan of the apartment led firefighters to a locked bedroom from which smoke was emanating and where they found the bodies of the four children.The names of the children and the parents, immigrants to Israel from France, were not released to the public. Friends, acquaintances and neighbors of the family expressed their horror and disbelief at the tragedy.A neighbor told Ynet that the “family had made aliyah from France 13 years ago, the children were born here. The mom always looked to be a strong, assertive woman.”Another neighbor said he had seen the mother and daughters playing in an adjacent park a day earlier and everything seemed normal.A friend of the family, who gave Ynet the first name Shmuel, said the family was “exceptional,” describing the mother as “brilliant, caring and warm.”“They always looked to be a couple raising their children with a lot of love. The community here is in shock,” he said.Hebrew-language media reported that the woman had been receiving psychiatric treatment, but there was no confirmation of the reports.Jerusalem firefighter Arik Abuluf described the scene when rescuers first arrived.“We found her lying on the floor. The room that the children were in was completely burned and because it was closed, the flames used up the oxygen.“It was the most difficult thing I have seen in all my years in the fire service,” he added.Rescuers said the woman’s body was found on a balcony outside the apartment. Neighbors who saw her body hanging on the balcony called the emergency services and were advised by them to access the balcony and cut her down. They were not able to enter the apartment, which was locked from the inside, and waited until firefighters reached the scene and broke open the door.Shalom Klein, a volunteer with the Zaka search and rescue organization, called the scene “shocking.”“I arrived at the scene of the fire and the neighbors brought me to the apartment balcony. The mother was dead. Her four children were burned to death. ZAKA Jerusalem volunteers are dealing with the bodies and collecting the remains,” Klein said.
After the unthinkable, papers wrestle with the unanswerable-The suspected murder of four young girls by their mother, who then took her own life, leaves heartbreaking pictures, accounts and reams of questions in its wake-By Joshua Davidovich January 2, 2017, 1:58 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
There are a lot of tough things journalists are asked to do, but answering the unanswerable – like why a mother would apparently kill her four young daughters and hang herself – may be the most impossible.But as a terrible 2016 gave way to a bitter start to 2017, that is what Israeli papers seemingly try to do, as they attempt to bring the pain, horror and tragedy of the suspected quadruple murder-suicide to readers.Heartrending pictures of a body bag containing a small child being carried out of the apartment are displayed on the front pages of broadsheet Haaretz and tabloid Israel Hayom, while Yedioth Ahronoth features blurred out smiling pictures of the five fatalities alongside the headline “How could a mother?”While the paper is long on questions, including if the children were killed in the fire that was set in their home or were strangled to death beforehand, it’s short on answers, and so is forced to suffice with what little it does know, giving a play by play of how the scene unfolded for the first responders to the Jerusalem apartment, including the father, who came into the home as his wife’s hanged body was discovered and alerted firefighters to the fact that there should have been four girls there as well.“When he started to scream I ordered the firefighters to go room to room to check if someone else was in the home,” fire official Motti Melamed tells the paper. “Every time a room was searched, the firefighters would say ‘no children found, and we thought maybe they were in a safe place outside the home. But then the firefighters got to a room at the end of the hallway, which was locked and the door was very hot – and immediately we understood that’s where the fire was coming from. The whole thing took two or three minutes.”The paper also gives the image of the mother as a happy, confident woman without any special problems that were known about, but Haaretz reports that a month ago she went to a psychiatric facility in the capital for depression. While neighbors say everyone seemed perfectly normal with the family, a source in the welfare department tells the paper that when the mother called three months ago to ask about childcare services they feared “there could be a problem with the children.”But when the service asked the family to come into the office, they refused, the source tells the paper.“They didn’t want to listen, they only wanted help on the phone,” the source says.While those two papers are hesitant to outright blame the mother, who was seemingly suffering from some sort of mental illness, Israel Hayom blasts the headline “Heartless mom” atop its story, leaving little doubt as to how it sees what happened.“When the suspicion that the mother burned her four children and then hanged herself became clear, it seemed the word ‘horror’ was too small to describe the incident,” the paper’s story reads, though it still uses the word several times.In a commentary alongside a tragic list of other cases where parents killed their children (which doesn’t even come close to including all the similar tragedies in just the past few years) Hagit Ron-Rabinovich asks “what would freeze her heart” but comes away with nothing but more questions, writing that the fact that she was mentally ill isn’t an answer at all.“It’s the first and only possibility raised as those with common sense try to absorb, understand, and drill into what happened, and there’s no comfort in it,” she writes. “It just raises more and more questions and bewilderment, and especially the lament ‘how is it possible this tragedy wasn’t prevented?”Unfortunately, the father in the Jerusalem incident isn’t the only person in Israel mourning a daughter slain in a seeming senseless act of violence, as he’s joined by the father of Lian Zaher Nasser, killed in a shooting rampage at an Istanbul nightclub that claimed the lives of 39 people just after midnight as 2017 was rung in.“I know the security situation isn’t good in Turkey. I asked her not to go but unfortunately she went,” her father is quoted saying in Yedioth.Nasser was in a group of four women, including Dr. Ala’a Abdulahi, who worked with her in a Tira dental clinic. Abdulahi gives an account in Israel Hayom of the scene in the swanky club as terror struck their New Year’s party.“There was music, we were having a great time. After two hours the shooting started. I thought it was a fight and they told us to lie on the floor and the shooting didn’t stop,” she’s quoted saying. “Right after they yelled ‘Allahu akbar’ I realized it was a terror attack and me and my three friends spread out and tried to escape.”Writing before the Islamic State took responsibility for the attack, Haaretz analyst Zvi Bar’el leaves open the possibility that it could have been carried out by a Kurdish group, despite the fact that the PKK normally targets military facilities and not civilians, in a move that could make fighting terror in Turkey even more difficult.“Trying to determine who is behind it based on the target may be misleading, especially when these groups have already studied the way the Turks respond. When an attack is attributed to the Kurdish Workers Party, the PKK, Turkey launches its troops against Kurdish enclaves in Turkey, Iraq and Syria. When the attack is attributed to ISIS, the response is attacks on ISIS bases in Syria. From here the road is short to ‘changing places,’” he writes. “An attack on the Kurds is welcome as far as ISIS is concerned, and because that organization has suffered some impressive defeats at the hands of the Kurds in Syria and Iraq, ‘enlisting’ the Turkish army to battle the Kurds by carrying out an attack on military targets serves their purpose. Likewise, the Kurds might also attack civilian targets to bring Turkey’s wrath down on ISIS.”-Grilling time-This type of reporting on Turkey is only allowed outside the country, as Ankara issued a media blackout on the attack, a practically de riguer move. It’s a tactic that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be wishing he had, but even if he can’t shut down unfriendly news outlets, he can use Israel Hayom as an attack dog – and indeed the coming police grilling of Netanyahu is met by the tabloid with a large story detailing a talk purportedly given by renegade former parliamentary aide and Zionist Union also-ran Eldad Yaniv on how the media uses the police to bring down the prime minister.“According to Yaniv, one of the central figures in the plan to bring down Netanyahu is Channel 10 journalist Raviv Drucker. The Zionist Union man sums up: ‘Drucker puts pressure via the TV, and the attorney general opens an investigation,’” the paper reports, based on an expose by right-wing media watchdog Mida on Yaniv’s talk.Yedioth reports that Netanyahu will likely use the funeral of former justice minister Yaakov Neeman later Monday as an excuse to duck out of the interrogation early, after police finally got him to sit down with them.Netanyahu isn’t the only one hoping for it to move quickly, though. Haaretz’s lead editorial also calls for swift progress, though likely with a different result.“Netanyahu accuses the media of persecuting an innocent man. One would therefore expect him to hasten to prove his innocence, so that he could then return with redoubled energy to affairs of state. He would also thereby set an example for ordinary citizens wanted for questioning. But instead, he is playing the victim and ignoring his obligations as a state official,” the editorial reads. “This behavior is intolerable, and the law enforcement system must not accept it. Before a petition is filed to the High Court of Justice against Netanyahu and the attorney general to force a rapid, uninterrupted investigation, [Attorney General Avichai] Mandelblit must tell the prime minister to make himself available to the investigators with no further delay, for as much time as they need.”
Hamas says 21 fighters killed in tunnel collapses in 2016-Jerusalem bus strike planned for Sunday; Turkey arrests 8 in connection to nightclub shooting-By Ilan Ben Zion January 2, 2017, 2:52 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
15:04-‘IDF demolishes Palestinian homes east of Jerusalem’-The IDF has demolished at least 10 homes in the Palestinian village of Khan al-Ahmar, east of Jerusalem, Arabic media reports.Residents say more than 70 people are left homeless, according to Rabbis for Human Rights.The IDF spokesperson’s unit isn’t immediately available for comment.14:54-Turkey detains 8 suspected of links to nightclub attack-Istanbul anti-terror police on Monday detained eight people suspected of links to the New Year gun attack on a nightclub in the Turkish city that left 39 dead and was claimed by Islamic State (IS) jihadists, a report said.The Dogan news agency said police were pressing on with operations after making the first arrests over the attack. The suspected gunman is still believed to be on the run.— AFP-14:53-Jerusalem bus strike planned Sunday-The Histadrut labor union announces Jerusalem bus lines will go on strike on Sunday in protest against the management.14:53-Hamas lost 21 men digging tunnels in 2016-Hamas has published a report in which it says it lost 21 members of its armed forces while digging tunnels under the Gaza Strip in 2016.
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
Trump ‘aggressively’ pursuing Netanyahu to attend inauguration — report-Sources say PM considering traveling to Washington for swearing-in ceremony of US president-elect; Trump says Jewish state ‘very, very important’ to him-By Times of Israel staff January 1, 2017, 9:19 am
US president-elect’s White House transition team has been “aggressively” pursuing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to attend the inauguration ceremony in Washington, DC later this month, the New York Post reported on Sunday.“There’s a plan for Trump to meet with Netanyahu,” a source close to the transition team said, according to the paper.“They’re talking all the time. And Netanyahu is talking about possibly going to the inauguration,” the source was quoted as saying.The report said Trump staffers, led by son-in-law Jared Kushner, were “aggressively courting” the Israeli prime minister in an effort to persuade him to attend the January 20 ceremony.Netanyahu’s tense relationship with outgoing US President Barack Obama was exacerbated in recent weeks, after the White House publicly clashed with Israel over its West Bank policy and later declined to veto a UN Security Council resolution condemning settlements.Trump has assured Israel that things will be different after he takes office, and last week lamented that the Jewish state was “being treated very, very unfairly” by the international community.Speaking to reporters outside his Mar-a-Lago estate on Thursday, Trump lambasted the UN for condemning Israel, saying that “horrible places, that treat people horribly, haven’t even been reprimanded” by the international body.He refused to directly answer specific questions regarding Israeli policies, but Trump called himself “very, very strong on Israel.”On Saturday evening, Trump told reporters Israel is “very, very important” to him.“Look, we have to protect Israel, Israel to me is very very important, we have to protect Israel, and I disagree with what he’s done with Israel,” Trump said, referring to Obama. “I listened to Secretary Kerry’s speech, I think it’s very unfair to Israel, what happened.” On Wednesday, Kerry delivered a 70-minute address highlighting the settlement enterprise as a central obstacle to peace, denouncing Israel’s right-wing coalition, and warning that the two-state solution was in jeopardy. Netanyahu castigated Kerry for what he argued was an unjustified assault; Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May also publicly criticized the secretary’s address as unfair and inappropriate.We cannot continue to let Israel be treated with such total disdain and disrespect. They used to have a great friend in the U.S., but…….— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2016-After the US abstained from last week’s Security Council vote on Resolution 2334, thus allowing the anti-settlement resolution to pass, Trump lashed out at the Obama administration for treating Israel with “with such total disdain and disrespect.”not anymore. The beginning of the end was the horrible Iran deal, and now this (U.N.)! Stay strong Israel, January 20th is fast approaching!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2016-Taking to his preferred medium of Twitter, the Republican president-elect urged Israel to “stay strong,” as January 20, Inauguration Day, “is fast approaching!”Trump also implied that under Obama, the US was no longer “a great friend” to the Jewish state.President-elect Trump, thank you for your warm friendship and your clear-cut support for Israel! @IvankaTrump @DonaldJTrumpJr https://t.co/lURPimG0wS— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) December 28, 2016-Netanyahu responded in kind, thanking Trump for his “warm friendship and your clear-cut support.”The prime minister has said that he looks forward to working with Trump, his administration and the US Congress to reverse the Security Council resolution.
Trump taps Jewish aide Stephen Miller to write inaugural address-Incoming senior White House adviser was Trump’s chief campaign speechwriter, reportedly crafted his infamous ‘global interests’ speech-By Eric Cortellessa December 27, 2016, 7:23 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump has commissioned aide Stephen Miller, who penned a controversial speech panned for anti-Semitic overtones, to write his historic inaugural address next month.The 31-year-old incoming senior White House adviser on policy, who is Jewish, is credited with writing most of Trump’s planned speeches during the campaign, including a controversial October address in which he spoke of Democratic rival Hillary Clinton conducting secret meetings with international bankers to destroy US sovereignty.Trump’s remarks were criticized at the time by the Anti-Defamation League for “rhetoric and tropes that historically have been used against Jews and still spur antisemitism,” and others noted its similarities to the anti-Semitic tract “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”That text is a famous anti-Semitic forgery that promulgated the conspiracy theory that a Jewish-run cabal of global financial elites controlled world affairs.Other noted speeches that Miller crafted include Trump’s Republican national convention address, which was noted for its dark tones and portrayal of a rapidly deteriorating world.According to Politico, Trump’s team of insiders is planning to spotlight the incoming president’s first-term agenda in “nationalistic” rather than “ideological” terms, calling for the need to address the nation’s border security, rebuild its infrastructure, strengthen its military and prevent American jobs from going overseas.Miller, Trump’s de facto chief speech writer, will be responsible for articulating that vision in what will be Trump’s first direct address to the nation and world as president.It is not yet clear whether Miller will revive Trump’s contentious statement from July’s GOP convention, when the candidate said of America’s set of national problems: “I alone can fix it.”Earlier this month, Trump announced Miller would assume an official role in the administration. “As senior adviser to the president for policy, Miller will… be responsible for directing White House policy staff, managing speechwriting functions, and working to ensure the enactment of the President’s policy agenda,” the transition team said in a statement.Originally from Santa Monica, California, Miller was reportedly born to liberal Jewish Democrats, but became a conservative later in life when he read the National Rifle Association’s CEO Wayne LaPierre’s book “Guns, Crime, and Freedom” and subsequently became a gun enthusiast.After graduating from Duke University in 2009, he was hired by Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, the first senator to endorse Trump’s candidacy and now his nominee to be attorney general.
Father of murdered Jerusalem girls agrees to ‘partial autopsy’-Woman, 36, suspected of killing children, setting their room ablaze before taking her own life in Jerusalem apartment-By Times of Israel staff January 2, 2017, 10:41 am
The father of four young girls found murdered in Jerusalem Sunday agreed to a “partial autopsy” of two of the girls.The girls were found dead a day earlier in a suspected murder-suicide in the capital. Firefighters found the children, ages 11, 9, 4 and 11 months, dead in a locked bedroom of a fifth-story apartment that had been set ablaze in southern Jerusalem. The girls’ mother, who is the primary suspect in their murder, was found hanged in another room.The bodies of the children were sent to the Abu Kabir forensic institute late Sunday.The father, who was not at home at the time, at first refused to allow autopsies of the children. The family is religiously observant, and Jewish religious law requires respect for the bodies of the dead, as well as a swift burial.But on Monday morning, after unspecified “signs of violence” were found on the bodies of two of the girls, police investigators asked the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court to issue an order that would allow the autopsies to go forward against the father’s wishes.Police say only an autopsy will enable them to determine whether the girls were killed in the fire, or, as investigators suspect, by strangulation beforehand by their mother.By Monday afternoon, the father gave his consent to a “partial autopsy” of the two girls who showed the signs of violence. According to media reports, if the findings indicated a need for further investigation, he would approve more invasive autopsies of all four of the children.An initial investigation of the fire concluded that a mattress had been sprayed with lighter fluid and set ablaze in the apartment.The father, who is not a suspect in the children’s deaths, arrived at the apartment about half an hour after the emergency services. A spokesperson for the United Hatzalah rescue organization said the father was being treated by a psychotrauma team. It was not clear where he was at the time of the fire.Jerusalem municipal social services had placed the father in a hotel room for the night, where he is staying with family members.Four firefighting teams responded to the initial call, entering the locked apartment through the balcony before discovering the lifeless body of the 36-year-old mother. A quick scan of the apartment led firefighters to a locked bedroom from which smoke was emanating and where they found the bodies of the four children.The names of the children and the parents, immigrants to Israel from France, were not released to the public. Friends, acquaintances and neighbors of the family expressed their horror and disbelief at the tragedy.A neighbor told Ynet that the “family had made aliyah from France 13 years ago, the children were born here. The mom always looked to be a strong, assertive woman.”Another neighbor said he had seen the mother and daughters playing in an adjacent park a day earlier and everything seemed normal.A friend of the family, who gave Ynet the first name Shmuel, said the family was “exceptional,” describing the mother as “brilliant, caring and warm.”“They always looked to be a couple raising their children with a lot of love. The community here is in shock,” he said.Hebrew-language media reported that the woman had been receiving psychiatric treatment, but there was no confirmation of the reports.Jerusalem firefighter Arik Abuluf described the scene when rescuers first arrived.“We found her lying on the floor. The room that the children were in was completely burned and because it was closed, the flames used up the oxygen.“It was the most difficult thing I have seen in all my years in the fire service,” he added.Rescuers said the woman’s body was found on a balcony outside the apartment. Neighbors who saw her body hanging on the balcony called the emergency services and were advised by them to access the balcony and cut her down. They were not able to enter the apartment, which was locked from the inside, and waited until firefighters reached the scene and broke open the door.Shalom Klein, a volunteer with the Zaka search and rescue organization, called the scene “shocking.”“I arrived at the scene of the fire and the neighbors brought me to the apartment balcony. The mother was dead. Her four children were burned to death. ZAKA Jerusalem volunteers are dealing with the bodies and collecting the remains,” Klein said.
After the unthinkable, papers wrestle with the unanswerable-The suspected murder of four young girls by their mother, who then took her own life, leaves heartbreaking pictures, accounts and reams of questions in its wake-By Joshua Davidovich January 2, 2017, 1:58 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
There are a lot of tough things journalists are asked to do, but answering the unanswerable – like why a mother would apparently kill her four young daughters and hang herself – may be the most impossible.But as a terrible 2016 gave way to a bitter start to 2017, that is what Israeli papers seemingly try to do, as they attempt to bring the pain, horror and tragedy of the suspected quadruple murder-suicide to readers.Heartrending pictures of a body bag containing a small child being carried out of the apartment are displayed on the front pages of broadsheet Haaretz and tabloid Israel Hayom, while Yedioth Ahronoth features blurred out smiling pictures of the five fatalities alongside the headline “How could a mother?”While the paper is long on questions, including if the children were killed in the fire that was set in their home or were strangled to death beforehand, it’s short on answers, and so is forced to suffice with what little it does know, giving a play by play of how the scene unfolded for the first responders to the Jerusalem apartment, including the father, who came into the home as his wife’s hanged body was discovered and alerted firefighters to the fact that there should have been four girls there as well.“When he started to scream I ordered the firefighters to go room to room to check if someone else was in the home,” fire official Motti Melamed tells the paper. “Every time a room was searched, the firefighters would say ‘no children found, and we thought maybe they were in a safe place outside the home. But then the firefighters got to a room at the end of the hallway, which was locked and the door was very hot – and immediately we understood that’s where the fire was coming from. The whole thing took two or three minutes.”The paper also gives the image of the mother as a happy, confident woman without any special problems that were known about, but Haaretz reports that a month ago she went to a psychiatric facility in the capital for depression. While neighbors say everyone seemed perfectly normal with the family, a source in the welfare department tells the paper that when the mother called three months ago to ask about childcare services they feared “there could be a problem with the children.”But when the service asked the family to come into the office, they refused, the source tells the paper.“They didn’t want to listen, they only wanted help on the phone,” the source says.While those two papers are hesitant to outright blame the mother, who was seemingly suffering from some sort of mental illness, Israel Hayom blasts the headline “Heartless mom” atop its story, leaving little doubt as to how it sees what happened.“When the suspicion that the mother burned her four children and then hanged herself became clear, it seemed the word ‘horror’ was too small to describe the incident,” the paper’s story reads, though it still uses the word several times.In a commentary alongside a tragic list of other cases where parents killed their children (which doesn’t even come close to including all the similar tragedies in just the past few years) Hagit Ron-Rabinovich asks “what would freeze her heart” but comes away with nothing but more questions, writing that the fact that she was mentally ill isn’t an answer at all.“It’s the first and only possibility raised as those with common sense try to absorb, understand, and drill into what happened, and there’s no comfort in it,” she writes. “It just raises more and more questions and bewilderment, and especially the lament ‘how is it possible this tragedy wasn’t prevented?”Unfortunately, the father in the Jerusalem incident isn’t the only person in Israel mourning a daughter slain in a seeming senseless act of violence, as he’s joined by the father of Lian Zaher Nasser, killed in a shooting rampage at an Istanbul nightclub that claimed the lives of 39 people just after midnight as 2017 was rung in.“I know the security situation isn’t good in Turkey. I asked her not to go but unfortunately she went,” her father is quoted saying in Yedioth.Nasser was in a group of four women, including Dr. Ala’a Abdulahi, who worked with her in a Tira dental clinic. Abdulahi gives an account in Israel Hayom of the scene in the swanky club as terror struck their New Year’s party.“There was music, we were having a great time. After two hours the shooting started. I thought it was a fight and they told us to lie on the floor and the shooting didn’t stop,” she’s quoted saying. “Right after they yelled ‘Allahu akbar’ I realized it was a terror attack and me and my three friends spread out and tried to escape.”Writing before the Islamic State took responsibility for the attack, Haaretz analyst Zvi Bar’el leaves open the possibility that it could have been carried out by a Kurdish group, despite the fact that the PKK normally targets military facilities and not civilians, in a move that could make fighting terror in Turkey even more difficult.“Trying to determine who is behind it based on the target may be misleading, especially when these groups have already studied the way the Turks respond. When an attack is attributed to the Kurdish Workers Party, the PKK, Turkey launches its troops against Kurdish enclaves in Turkey, Iraq and Syria. When the attack is attributed to ISIS, the response is attacks on ISIS bases in Syria. From here the road is short to ‘changing places,’” he writes. “An attack on the Kurds is welcome as far as ISIS is concerned, and because that organization has suffered some impressive defeats at the hands of the Kurds in Syria and Iraq, ‘enlisting’ the Turkish army to battle the Kurds by carrying out an attack on military targets serves their purpose. Likewise, the Kurds might also attack civilian targets to bring Turkey’s wrath down on ISIS.”-Grilling time-This type of reporting on Turkey is only allowed outside the country, as Ankara issued a media blackout on the attack, a practically de riguer move. It’s a tactic that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be wishing he had, but even if he can’t shut down unfriendly news outlets, he can use Israel Hayom as an attack dog – and indeed the coming police grilling of Netanyahu is met by the tabloid with a large story detailing a talk purportedly given by renegade former parliamentary aide and Zionist Union also-ran Eldad Yaniv on how the media uses the police to bring down the prime minister.“According to Yaniv, one of the central figures in the plan to bring down Netanyahu is Channel 10 journalist Raviv Drucker. The Zionist Union man sums up: ‘Drucker puts pressure via the TV, and the attorney general opens an investigation,’” the paper reports, based on an expose by right-wing media watchdog Mida on Yaniv’s talk.Yedioth reports that Netanyahu will likely use the funeral of former justice minister Yaakov Neeman later Monday as an excuse to duck out of the interrogation early, after police finally got him to sit down with them.Netanyahu isn’t the only one hoping for it to move quickly, though. Haaretz’s lead editorial also calls for swift progress, though likely with a different result.“Netanyahu accuses the media of persecuting an innocent man. One would therefore expect him to hasten to prove his innocence, so that he could then return with redoubled energy to affairs of state. He would also thereby set an example for ordinary citizens wanted for questioning. But instead, he is playing the victim and ignoring his obligations as a state official,” the editorial reads. “This behavior is intolerable, and the law enforcement system must not accept it. Before a petition is filed to the High Court of Justice against Netanyahu and the attorney general to force a rapid, uninterrupted investigation, [Attorney General Avichai] Mandelblit must tell the prime minister to make himself available to the investigators with no further delay, for as much time as they need.”
Hamas says 21 fighters killed in tunnel collapses in 2016-Jerusalem bus strike planned for Sunday; Turkey arrests 8 in connection to nightclub shooting-By Ilan Ben Zion January 2, 2017, 2:52 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
15:04-‘IDF demolishes Palestinian homes east of Jerusalem’-The IDF has demolished at least 10 homes in the Palestinian village of Khan al-Ahmar, east of Jerusalem, Arabic media reports.Residents say more than 70 people are left homeless, according to Rabbis for Human Rights.The IDF spokesperson’s unit isn’t immediately available for comment.14:54-Turkey detains 8 suspected of links to nightclub attack-Istanbul anti-terror police on Monday detained eight people suspected of links to the New Year gun attack on a nightclub in the Turkish city that left 39 dead and was claimed by Islamic State (IS) jihadists, a report said.The Dogan news agency said police were pressing on with operations after making the first arrests over the attack. The suspected gunman is still believed to be on the run.— AFP-14:53-Jerusalem bus strike planned Sunday-The Histadrut labor union announces Jerusalem bus lines will go on strike on Sunday in protest against the management.14:53-Hamas lost 21 men digging tunnels in 2016-Hamas has published a report in which it says it lost 21 members of its armed forces while digging tunnels under the Gaza Strip in 2016.
