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
The Times of Israel-Jewish Times-European rabbis pan ruling to prohibit religious garb in firms-Jewish leaders say ‘Europe is sending a clear message; its faith communities are no longer welcome’-By JTA March 14, 2017, 6:03 pm
PARIS — European rabbis condemned an EU court’s ruling allowing firms to prohibit employees’ religious clothes and symbols, saying the ruling amounts to saying that “faith communities are no longer welcome.”The ruling Tuesday by the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg also said that customers cannot simply demand that workers remove headscarves if the company has no policy barring religious symbols. “An internal rule of an undertaking which prohibits the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign does not constitute direct discrimination,” the court said in a statement.The ruling, which came amid a rise in the popularity of anti-Muslim politicians in Europe over the proliferation of jihadist attacks on the continent and ethnic and religious tensions, was on two lawsuits filed by Muslim employees who were sanctioned for wearing religious symbols or prohibited from doing so.“This decision sends signals to all religious groups in Europe,” Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis, said in a statement Tuesday. “With the rise of racially motivated incidents and today’s decision, Europe is sending a clear message; its faith communities are no longer welcome. Political leaders need to act to ensure that Europe does not isolate religious minorities and remains a diverse and open continent.”One of the lawsuits that led to the ruling was by an employee of the Belgian branch of G4S, the London-listed outsourcing and security company. After three years at the firm she decided she wanted to start wearing a headscarf at work for religious reasons. She was fired in June 2006 for refusing to take off her scarf. The company said she had broken unwritten rules prohibiting religious symbols.In the second case, design engineer Asma Bougnaoui was fired from a consultancy firm, Micropole, following a complaint from a customer who claimed his staff had been “embarrassed” by her headscarf while she was on their premises giving advice. Before taking the job she had been told that wearing a headscarf might pose problems for the company’s customers.In the summer of 2016, dozens of French municipalities banned, with the backing of the French government, bathers from wearing a full-body swimsuit favored by Muslim women that is known as the burkini. While the move, which a French court ruled was unconstitutional, was opposed by many Europeans who believed it violated personal and religious freedoms, it was supported by many others who regarded the burkini and other clothing favored by Muslims as a political statement.Marine Le Pen, the leading candidate in the presidential race in France, said she would ban all Muslim head-covering gear if she is elected. Asked whether she would do the same for the kippah, she has said that she would do so to preserve equality.
Latin America’s largest synagogue welcomes first female rabbi-Fernanda Tomchinsky-Galanternik, a psychologist and mother of one, is the first Brazilian woman to be ordained-By JTA March 14, 2017, 5:57 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
RIO DE JANEIRO — Latin America’s largest synagogue, the 2,000-family Congregacao Israelita Paulista in Brazil, has inaugurated its first female rabbi.Some 200 people attended the welcome ceremony for Rabbi Fernanda Tomchinsky-Galanternik held last week at the 80-year-old Sao Paulo temple, also known by the acronym CIP. Ordained in December in Argentina, the Brazilian-born psychologist and mother of one also will coordinate the synagogue’s teaching department.“CIP began to tread a path that is possible only within Judaism and particularly within such a pluralist community,” Tomchinsky-Galanternik said. “But it can only be done with the presence and the action of all. I look forward to working with everyone in many different ways.”“Rabbi Fernanda,” as she has been commonly called, is the third female rabbi to serve at a Brazilian synagogue. Rio’s Reform temple ARI was the pioneer, hiring Rabbi Sandra Kochmann of Paraguay in 2003. Brazilian-born Luciana Pajecki Lederman has been the rabbi at the Conservative Comunidade Shalom in Sao Paulo since 2005.“We believe that women can perform mitzvot and participate in an equal position in religious services,” CIP President Sergio Kulikovsky said to open the ceremony. “Nothing is mandatory, but women are allowed to participate in an egalitarian way.”Indeed, the synagogue founded by German immigrants in 1936 and affiliated with both the Reform and Conservative movements took several years to assume an openly progressive attitude, although it was led for decades by emeritus Reform Rabbi Henry Sobel, an iconic voice for interreligious dialogue and human rights in Brazil.“Fernanda is the symbol of a very special moment of the Latin American Rabbinical Seminary — she is the first Brazilian woman to be ordained a rabbi,” said Rabbi Ariel Stofenmacher, CEO and vice president of the Marshall T. Meyer seminary. “She joins CIP to continue the construction of the Brazilian Jewish identity.”Founded in 1962, the institution is the New York Jewish Theological Seminary’s educational affiliate in Argentina and the academic, cultural and religious center of the Conservative Jewish movement in Latin America.“In line with all Conservative and Reform synagogues around the world, CIP assumes a clear egalitarian position by receiving Rabbi Fernanda as a full member of the rabbinate,” said CIP Rabbi Michel Schlesinger.
Relatives of slain Israeli girls protest that killer is now free-Jordanian who killed Israeli girls says Israeli ‘human waste’ must be eradicated-Hours after his release from 20 years in jail for murdering 7 teens, Ahmed Daqamseh says Israelis should be eliminated ‘by fire or by burial,’ calls two-state solution ‘a lie’-By Times of Israel staff and Agencies March 12, 2017, 6:27 pm
Hours after his release from 20 years in jail for gunning down seven Israeli schoolgirls, ex-Jordanian solider Ahmed Daqamseh declared on Sunday that Israelis are “human waste” that must be eradicated.Daqamseh made his remarks to al-Jazeera TV station, shortly after returning from jail to his home village of Ibdir to cheering friends and family.“The Israelis are the human waste of people, that the rest of the world has vomited up at our feet,” he told the TV station.“We must eliminate them by fire or by burial. If this is not done by our hands, the task will fall on the future generations to do.”In remarks directed to the Jordanian people, Daqamseh urged: “Do not believe the lie that is normalization with the Zionist entity. Do not believe the lie that is the two-state solution. Palestine is one land from the river to the sea, there is no state called ‘Israel.'”In a later interview with Jordan’s “Al-Rad” newspaper, Daqamseh said that he did not want to cause political instability in Jordan, and indicated he was not planning to carry out future attacks.“My position regarding Zionists is known. I did what I did 20 years ago and that’s it,” he said.In March 1997, Daqamseh opened fire with an automatic weapon at Israeli schoolgirls on a trip to the Jordan-Israel border, killing seven of them and wounding five others and a teacher. A Jordanian court later deemed Daqamseh mentally unstable and sentenced him to life in prison, rather than imposing the death penalty.Jordan’s then ruler King Hussein condemned the attack and later traveled to Israel to offer his condolences to the families of the murdered schoolgirls. Amman also paid compensation.Early on Sunday morning, Daqamseh was released from the Bab al-Hawa prison in Irbid, 90 kilometers (60 miles) north of the capital Amman after serving the mandatory 20 years.Daqamseh was driven home in a convoy of dozens of cars whose drivers were honking their horns, a video shared on social media showed.His brother Bassem said the family home was full of well-wishers.“He is in good health, wearing a black suit among his relatives and close family including his 78-year-old mother,” his brother said.Videos circulated on social media showed Daqamseh greeting relatives and posing for selfies with visitors.-‘Children’s blood not worthless’-There was no immediate official reaction from neighboring Israel, but relatives of the slain schoolgirls slammed Daqamseh’s release.“This morning takes us back 20 years, to that horrible day,” said Hezi Cohen, whose daughter Nirit was shot dead in the 1997 attack.“I’d like to tell the (Israeli) prime minister and defense minister: Our children’s blood should not be worthless,” he told Israeli news website Ynet.“You should have acted vis-à-vis Jordan to prevent this release at any cost.”Orit Cohen, whose sister Keren was killed, said: “Who says that tomorrow he (Daqamseh) won’t carry out another attack and murder more Israelis?”Israel Fatihi, whose daughter Sivan was killed in the attack, said the Israeli ambassador to Jordan had warned them of the Jordanian’s release.Daqamseh “was called a hero in the Jordanian parliament at the time of the murder. If that’s what they said in parliament, what can we expect from the family?”Israel’s “peace with Jordan is between us (Israelis) and the royal family — not the people or the parliament,” he said.Jordan is the only Arab nation besides Egypt to have signed a peace treaty with the Jewish state.Fatihi recalled King Hussein’s condolence visit, saying he and his family had been sitting on the floor in mourning at the time and that the monarch knelt down next to them. “We told him we really appreciated his visit,” Fatihi said.Nurit, his wife, said their daughter Sivan was a “very happy” child who “took everything easily.” She said she misses “her laughter, her smile, her joy of life.”“Despite the murder we are for peace,” she said.Keren Ofri Mizrachi, one of the girls Daqamseh shot and wounded in the attack, said his release from prison was a difficult day for her. She told Israel’s Channel 10 TV how he shot her four times from close range while she was trying to escape the carnage. Her twin sister was also shot and wounded in the attack.“I saw the look of murder in his eyes,” she said, adding that his release had brought memories flooding back. It feels like being “wounded again.” But, she added, “I have chosen to live. I won’t allow anybody or anything in the world break me. I am strong, I am a proud Jew. I have a family and children, they are my strength.”
Open up Gaza or it will explode, Hamas threatens Israel-Senior official says residents of the Strip can no longer tolerate living without an airport or seaport-By Dov Lieber March 13, 2017, 9:59 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
A senior member of Hamas’s political bureau threatened Israel on Monday with an “explosion” of violence should Israel not ease its blockade of the Gaza Strip.Gaza is suffering from high unemployment, a severe housing shortage and, according to the UN and other organizations, the collapse of its water, sewage and electrical infrastructure.“If Israel does not take apart its siege of Gaza, then an explosion is coming,” said Fathi Hamad, during a rally outside the UN headquarters in the Strip.Hamas is a terror group that seeks the destruction of Israel and has fought three major rounds of conflict against it since seizing Gaza in 2007. Over the years, it has fired thousands of rockets into Israel, tunneled under the border to carry out attacks, and orchestrated suicide bombings that have killed hundreds of Israelis.Hamad yelled the slogan, “Take apart the siege or [expect] an explosion,” which was repeated by participants in the rally, according to a recording of his remarks published on Hamas’s Al Aqsa Voice news site.“The features of this explosion have already begun to appear in a number of places,” added Hamad, without specifying. “The explosion of the people in the West Bank and Gaza will encompass everyone who besieges us and stands in our way.”Israel has seen an uptick in rocket attacks from Gaza over the past month. Most of those attacks are believed to have been the work of small Islamic State-sympathizing groups, rather than Hamas.The Israeli Shin Bet security service arrested two Palestinian men in the West Bank suspected of planning to carry several attacks on behalf of Hamas, the agency announced on Sunday.Hamad specifically criticized what he said were Israeli policies geared to prevent the rebuilding of Gaza in the wake of a devastating Israel-Hamas war in the summer of 2014, as well severe travel restrictions on Gazans imposed by the Jewish state .He also said Gazans would no longer accept living without an airport or seaport.Israel says its blockade is essential to prevent terrorists from obtaining materials to fortify military positions, dig tunnels and build rockets to fire at the Jewish state.Israel and Egypt imposed the blockade on Gaza after Hamas seized power from the internationally backed Palestinian Authority in 2007. Repeated reconciliation attempts between Gaza and West Bank governments have failed.The Israeli army has said it will ease its restrictions on the embattled enclave should Hamas cease calling for its destruction, and using imported materials to build up its arsenal.Israeli Transportation and Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz said on Friday he is pushing forward with a proposal to build an artificial island with a seaport and possibly an airport off the coast of Gaza that he believes will alleviate hardship in the blockaded territory and offer residents their first real bridge to the outside world in a decade.Hamad is known as one of the most radical figures in Hamas today. He is suspected of a string of bombings near the houses of operative from the rival Fatah movement, and is thought to be in contact with Salafi organizations and Islamic State fighters in the Sinai Peninsula.He is considered one of the most powerful Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip, and often operates independently of the organization’s political branch.In September, 2016, the United States added Hamad to its “global terrorist” list.Agencies contributed to this report.
LAND FOR PEACE (THE FUTURE 7 YEARS OF HELL ON EARTH)
JOEL 3:2
2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people(ISRAEL) and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.(UPROOTED ISRAELIS AND DIVIDED JERUSALEM)(THIS BRINGS ON WW3 BECAUSE JERUSALEM IS DIVIDED,WARNING TO ARABS-MUSLIMS AND THE WORLD).
THE WEEK OF DANIEL 9:27 WE KNOW ITS 7 YRS
Heres the scripture 1 week = 7 yrs Genesis 29:27-29
27 Fulfil her week, and we will give thee this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years.
28 And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week:(7 YEARS) and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife also.
29 And Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Bilhah his handmaid to be her maid.
DANIEL 11:21-23
21 And in his estate shall stand up a vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom: but he shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries.
23 And after the league made with him he shall work deceitfully: for he shall come up, and shall become strong with a small people.
24 He shall enter peaceably even upon the fattest places of the province; and he shall do that which his fathers have not done, nor his fathers' fathers; he shall scatter among them the prey, and spoil, and riches: yea, and he shall forecast his devices against the strong holds, even for a time.
DANIEL 9:26-27
26 And after threescore and two weeks(62X7=434 YEARS+7X7=49 YEARS=TOTAL OF 69 WEEKS OR 483 YRS) shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary;(ROMAN LEADERS DESTROYED THE 2ND TEMPLE) and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.(THERE HAS TO BE 70 WEEKS OR 490 YRS TO FUFILL THE VISION AND PROPHECY OF DAN 9:24).(THE NEXT VERSE IS THAT 7 YR WEEK OR (70TH FINAL WEEK).
27 And he ( THE ROMAN,EU PRESIDENT) shall confirm the covenant (PEACE TREATY) with many for one week:(1X7=7 YEARS) and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease,(3 1/2 yrs in TEMPLE ANIMAL SACRIFICES STOPPED) and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
JEREMIAH 6:14
14 They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.
JEREMIAH 8:11
11 For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.
1 THESSALONIANS 5:3
3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
ISAIAH 33:8
8 The highways lie waste, the wayfaring man ceaseth: he hath broken the covenant,(7 YR TREATY) he hath despised the cities, he regardeth no man.(THE WORLD LEADER-WAR MONGER CALLS HIMSELF GOD)
JERUSALEM DIVIDED
GENESIS 25:20-26
20 And Isaac was forty years old (A BIBLE GENERATION NUMBER=1967 + 40=2007+) when he took Rebekah to wife, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Padanaram, the sister to Laban the Syrian.
21 And Isaac intreated the LORD for his wife, because she was barren: and the LORD was intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived.
22 And the children (2 NATIONS IN HER-ISRAEL-ARABS) struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to enquire of the LORD.
23 And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels;(ISRAEL AND THE ARABS) and the one people shall be stronger than the other people;(ISRAEL STRONGER THAN ARABS) and the elder shall serve the younger.(LITERALLY ISRAEL THE YOUNGER RULES (ISSAC)(JACOB-LATER NAME CHANGED TO ISRAEL) OVER THE OLDER ARABS (ISHMAEL)(ESAU)
24 And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb.
25 And the first came out red, all over like an hairy garment; and they called his name Esau.(THE OLDER AN ARAB)
26 And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau's heel; and his name was called Jacob:(THE YOUNGER-ISRAELI) and Isaac was threescore (60) years old when she bare them.(1967 + 60=2027)(COULD BE THE LAST GENERATION WHEN JERUSALEM IS DIVIDED AMOUNG THE 2 TWINS)(THE 2 TWINS WANT JERUSALEM-THE DIVISION OF JERUSALEM TODAY)(AND WHOS IN CONTROL OF JERUSALEM TODAY-THE YOUNGER ISSAC-JACOB-ISRAEL)(AND WHO WANTS JERUSALEM DIVIDED-THE OLDER,ESAU-ISHMAEL (THE ARABS)
ZECHARIAH 12:1-5 King James Bible
1 The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.
2 Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem.
3 And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.
4 In that day, saith the LORD, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness.
ISAIAH 28:14-19 (THIS IS THE 7 YR TREATY COVENANT OF DANIEL 9:27)
14 Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.
15 Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:
16 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.
17 Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.
18 And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.
19 From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night: and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report.
Poll: Only 9% of Palestinians think Trump can restart peace talks-Survey shows deep skepticism of US president; 38% say new administration will aggravate tensions with Israel-By Times of Israel staff and AP March 14, 2017, 5:31 pm
The vast majority of Palestinians believe US President Donald Trump’s policies will ramp up Israeli-Palestinian tensions or contribute to stagnation, according to a poll published on Tuesday.According to a survey by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, only 9 percent believe Trump will be able to relaunch Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.Some 38% said the Trump administration would aggravate Palestinian tensions with Israel, contributing to a flare-up of violence in the wake of an expected push in West Bank settlement building.If the new US administration would call on the Palestinians to return to negotiations with Israel without preconditions, 58% of respondents believe Palestinian leadership should reject the initiative. Some 31 percent, meanwhile, said the Palestinians should heed the call.The poll was published as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas hosted visiting Trump envoy Jason Greenblatt to discuss stalled peace efforts with Israel.Trump’s election has sparked deep concern among Palestinians, who have repeatedly denounced the US president’s campaign promise to relocate the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.Trump, however, has recently signaled a shift from his previous blanket support of Israeli policies, and last month publicly asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “hold back” on settlement building.On Monday, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Trump would make a “historic” offer during Abbas’s expected trip to Washington early next month.Erekat told the Al-Khaleej news site the details of the proposal would include a halt in settlement expansion and a commitment not to relocate the US Embassy.This will be in exchange for the Palestinians reentering negotiations with Israel — in a summit to be hosted in Amman with the two parties, as well as the US and Jordan.Erekat added that Abbas is likely to agree to the deal, saying that “he does not have any other choice.”It is unclear whether Netanyahu would be able to agree to such terms, due to the current right-wing makeup of his government. The PM has reportedly opposed similar offers involving building freezes in the past.Earlier on Monday, Greenblatt told Netanyahu that Trump hopes to work out an approach to settlement building that is consistent with the US goal of reaching a peace deal.Greenblatt’s visit marks the first major attempt by the new US administration to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, after two months that have seen officials dither on support for the two-state solution, the location of the US Embassy, and building in the settlements.
PM to Trump envoy: Peace progress with all neighbors possible under new president-In five hours of talks, Netanyahu and Jason Greenblatt try to ‘work out approach’ on settlements; envoy to meet Abbas in Ramallah on Tuesday-By Raphael Ahren and Times of Israel staff March 14, 2017, 1:43 am
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held five hours of talks with a senior adviser to US President Donald Trump in Jerusalem on Monday, in which they discussed opportunities for advancing peace between Israel and its neighbors, and tried to formulate a coordinated approach for the two leaderships on the issue of settlements. At a press conference with Netanyahu last month, Trump had urged Israel to “hold back on settlements a little bit.”At the meeting with Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s special envoy for the peace process, the two “reaffirmed the joint commitment of both Israel and the United States to advance a genuine and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians that strengthens the security of Israel and enhances stability in the region,” according to a statement by the Prime Minister’s Office.The two men discussed Israeli settlements “in the hope of working out an approach that is consistent with the goal of advancing peace and security,” the statement read.Greenblatt told Netanyahu that “enabling the growth of the Palestinian economy and improving the quality of life for Palestinians” were important to Trump. The prime minister replied that he was “fully committed to broadening prosperity for Palestinians,” seeing the issue “as a means of bolstering the prospects for peace.”The Prime Minister’s Office said Netanyahu told Greenblatt that he believes that it would be possible, under Trump’s leadership, “to advance peace between Israel and all its neighbors, including the Palestinians, and he looks forward to working closely with President Trump to achieve that goal.”Greenblatt reaffirmed to Netanyahu, according to the statement, the president’s commitment “to Israel’s security and to the effort to help Israelis and Palestinians achieve a lasting peace through direct negotiations.”Greenblatt is to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday as part of an attempt to broker fresh peace talks after years of stagnation. In a phone call on Friday, Trump invited Abbas to the White House in the near future.Greenblatt took to Twitter late Monday night after the meeting to say that he and Netanyahu “discussed [the] regional situation, how progress towards peace with Palestinians can be made & settlements.”In meeting w/ @IsraeliPM @netanyahu, discussed regional situation, how progress towards peace with Palestinians can be made & settlements.— Jason D. Greenblatt (@jdgreenblatt45) March 13, 2017-He also expressed appreciation for Netanyahu’s “time and commitment to partnership with the US.”I appreciate the @IsraeliPM @netanyahu's time and commitment to partnership with the US— Jason D. Greenblatt (@jdgreenblatt45) March 13, 2017-Prior to the start of their sit-down Monday, Netanyahu told Greenblatt that he “hope[s] we can do some good things together,” to which Greenblatt responded, “I hope we’re going to do great things together.”Greenblatt’s visit marks the first major attempt by the new US administration to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, after two months that have seen officials dither on support for the two-state solution, the location of the US Embassy and opposition to building in settlements.The goal of Greenblatt’s visit was reportedly to formulate the Trump administration’s position on settlements, including what the US will accept in terms of where and how much Israel can build.In Washington prior to the meeting, State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters Greenblatt would be doing “a lot of listening, discussing the views of the leadership in the region, getting their perspectives on the current situation and how progress toward eventual peace can be made.”“I characterise it as the first of what will become many visits to the region,” Toner added.He said that the issue of settlements would be discussed. “We see them as a challenge that needs to be addressed at some point,” Toner said.In his upcoming meeting with Abbas, Greenblatt won’t be bringing new proposals, PA Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki said on Sunday, while adding that Tuesday’s meeting would focus on planning for Abbas’s trip to Washington.On Friday, Trump held his first phone conversation with Abbas, inviting him to visit the White House. On Sunday, Abbas said that his phone conversation with Trump was “constructive” and that the US president had “confirmed his full commitment to the peace process.”He added: “We will continue to cooperate with [Trump], in order to arrive at a comprehensive and just peace that will bring security and stability to everyone.”Channel 2 quoted Israeli officials Sunday expressing satisfaction that the Trump-Abbas call had gone well, since, they said, Israel supports a resumption of negotiations without preconditions.During his visit to Washington last week, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman was told by administration officials that the new US leadership was seeking a two-state deal, dispelling lingering doubts in that regard, Channel 2 reported.At a joint press conference with Netanyahu on February 15, Trump said: “I’m looking at two-state and one-state, and I like the one that both parties like,” leading to speculation concerning Trump’s commitment to the two-state solution.The US administration is currently said to be weighing how to proceed with a renewed peace effort after Abbas’s imminent visit to Washington. One possibility being considered is a regional summit, to be held in Egypt or Jordan. If such a summit would be substantive, rather than a mere photo op, Trump would be prepared to attend, sources close to the president were quoted by the Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth on Sunday as saying. The White House is trying to ascertain whether the Saudis can be drawn into this process, the newspaper said.Trump intends to visit Israel in the first year of his presidency, the paper reported, and might combine the trip with a summit of this kind.Alternatively, Trump may invite Abbas and Netanyahu to the White House, to announce the resumption of direct talks.Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story erroneously included that Abbas said Trump had expressed commitment to a two-state deal, based on a Palestinian transcript of the speech.AFP contributed to this report.
You may be as surprised to be here as we all are to see you-Advice for Trump’s would-be peacemaker-Op-ed: Mr. Greenblatt, don’t try to strong-arm the sides into an impossible deal. Do focus on education. Insist on changing what the Palestinians are taught about Israel, and you might just make some headway-By David Horovitz March 14, 2017, 5:10 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
Dear Mr. Greenblatt, I wish you only success as you set out on your bid to pave a path to progress on the Israeli-Palestinian front. You may be as surprised to be here as we all are to see you. And I’ve no idea how much authority you actually have, or what is supposed to happen when you head back home from the region. You may not know either.But since this has not hitherto been your prime preoccupation, and since you are the first official dispatched here by the new president for the purpose of peacemaking, allow me to offer some insights, from the perspective of an Israeli who has unhappily watched well-intentioned efforts at peacemaking fail time and again over the years.The Israeli mainstream wants to separate from the Palestinians, not necessarily out of any particular love of our neighbors, but out of simple self-interest. This is the only country on earth with a Jewish majority. And we insist that it remain a democracy. Since there are today almost as many non-Jews as Jews between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, we need to separate from many of the Palestinians or risk losing our Jewish state or our democracy. We emphatically assert a historic right to the disputed West Bank, the biblical Judea and Samaria, but exercising that right risks dooming Jewish-democratic Israel, so we recognize the imperative to compromise with the millions of Palestinians who also have rights in this land.Plenty of us also believe it is bad for them and corrosive for us to be running the lives of the Palestinians, to the reduced extent that we still do. (Israel does not control day-to-day life in the West Bank cities.) Most of us Israelis, for this reason too, are baffled by calls from some on the political right to annex much or all of the West Bank. Why would we choose to have millions of hostile Palestinians forced to live under our rule? We also tend to think time is working against us. Demographers argue among themselves, and many of us argue with the demographers, but the general consensus is that, come back in a few decades, and the Jews will be outnumbered between the river and the sea. There is thus an urgency for separation.Why, if this is so obvious, have we not then disconnected ourselves from the Palestinians? Why did we so frustrate your predecessors in the Obama Administration, spurning their entreaties to take territorial risks for peace, deriding their talk of multilayered security fences and other arrangements that would ostensibly keep us safe after a withdrawal to a slightly amended version of the pre-1967 borders? Why? Because we don’t trust the Palestinians. We think we would be vulnerable to aggression they might initiate. And even if we were to put aside our doubts about the current regime of Mahmoud Abbas, we know he could be easily swept aside by Hamas or other extremists were the Israel Defense Forces no longer deployed in the West Bank. And were Hamas or other extremists to take over there, as they took over in Gaza after we left in 2005, Israel would be paralyzed. Everywhere in Israel is within rudimentary rocket range of everywhere in the West Bank. We managed to function, somehow, during 50 days of war with Hamas in Gaza in 2014. We would not be able to function for a single day with Hamas in control of the West Bank.We didn’t always mistrust Abbas as much as we do today. We concluded, after the 2000 attempt at peacemaking under the Clinton Administration was doomed by Yasser Arafat, that Arafat was never going to genuinely come to terms with Israel the Jewish state, and we saw him return from those talks to foster the strategic onslaught of suicide bombings against us in the Second Intifada. But we did not regard Abbas as an Arafat-style duplicitous sponsor of terrorism, even though we lamented that Abbas failed to counter the false narrative bequeathed by Arafat, to the effect that there were no Jewish temples in Jerusalem, and thus that we Jews have no right to be here.In recent years, however, we have also watched Abbas preside over a hierarchy that relentlessly defamed and demonized Israel, that incited his Palestinian people against us, and that did encourage terrorism. We saw his Palestinian Authority immortalizing terrorists by naming streets and squares in their memory, and paying salaries to families of terrorists. And latterly, we saw him personally escalate the tensions surrounding the incendiary Temple Mount, by hailing the pure blood of Palestinian martyrs spilled in defense of Al-Aqsa — directly contributing to the hysteria surrounding the site, and thus to the car-rammings and stabbings and shootings.How, then, in this near-impossible context, Mr. Greenblatt, as a lover of Israel and doubtless as a seeker of peace, are you to succeed in your mission? Peacemaking requires both decisive leadership and grassroots support — each benefiting from the other.There is grassroots Israeli support in principle for an agreement because most Israelis, as I noted above, regard separation from the Palestinians as a vital Israeli interest. And I would argue that Israel has chosen leaders down the decades who proved their readiness for peacemaking, and has ousted leaders — including Benjamin Netanyahu in 1999 — when it feared that opportunities for peacemaking were being missed.But there is no parallel on the Palestinian side. It seems to me that there is woefully inadequate grassroots Palestinian support for an accord, because the widespread Palestinian conviction remains that the Jews have no right to be here, and that if they hang tough enough, for long enough, they will be able to see off this iteration of Jewish sovereignty. Any Palestinian leader who thus agrees to the far-reaching compromises an accord would necessitate will be regarded as a traitor and betrayer of the cause.As their veteran, ultra-credible leader, Arafat could have worked to change the mindset of his Palestinian people more easily than Abbas. Arafat could have impressed upon them that the only viable path to their independence winds via true recognition of Israel. But he had no desire to do so. Abbas would likely have been risking his life in seeking to tell his people the inconvenient truth that the Jews have rights here too. He chose not to.How to shift this picture, Mr. Greenblatt? One word: Education.Change what Palestinians are taught and told about Israel in their schools and mosques, by their political leaders and via social media, and you begin to create a climate in which, one day — who knows, perhaps even in your era? — genuine progress toward an accommodation becomes possible.And how do you achieve that change? By insisting upon it, and using America’s leverage to have others insist upon it, too — as a condition for financial aid to the Palestinians, and diplomatic support for the Palestinians. Make the inculcation of a “culture of peace” a core element of your efforts at peacemaking. In the Obama administration’s predictably abortive attempt at forging a deal in 2013-14, the two sides did make some progress toward a joint document devoted precisely to this issue — to fostering tolerance and understanding and mutual respect. Israel’s one-time chief negotiator Tzipi Livni gave me some details in an interview in September 2014. Go back to that document. Revive it.Educate, open minds, boost understanding, and you start to change the nature of interaction. You give your mission some prospect of success.I’m not saying that all the onus is on the Palestinian side. Plainly, your administration is already giving some thought as to how Israel could contribute to the beginning of a change in climate. Already, the president has indicated some concerns over the settlement enterprise. President Obama’s mistake was to castigate all building beyond the 1967 lines as a crime of equal gravity. A wiser approach would be for Israel, in coordination with your administration, to refrain from building in areas that we will have to relinquish, however reluctantly, if we are to serve our long-term imperative to separate from the Palestinians.There is also more that can be done to help bolster the Palestinian economy and freedom of movement, within the limitations of Israel’s valid security concerns. A thriving West Bank economy is unfortunately not a sufficient condition for peace, but it is a necessary one.Mr. Greenblatt, you begin your mission in, potentially, a slightly more encouraging era than some of your predecessors. Shared concerns about Iran mean that others in this region are more ready than in the past to ally with Israel, privately if not publicly. There was dismay in parts of this region at the perceived weakness of the Obama Administration — failing to support reformists in Iran; failing to intervene when Syria’s Bashar Assad gassed his own people.You have a clean slate.Your administration is deemed unpredictable. And your president relishes deal-making.What would seem to have been logical for years — the need to invest strategic efforts in education in order to create a grassroots Palestinian climate that backs compromise — was ignored by your various predecessors. They instead followed decades of conventional wisdom and sought to strong-arm the sides into an impossible deal within an impossible time frame. I urge you to defy conventional wisdom. Do the unexpected. It happens to be the smartest course.Assuming, that is, that your mission actually has presidential potential to lead anywhere at all.
Gas find off Egypt reviving interest in region — industry official-‘Milestone’ natural gas discovery boosts hopes of meeting Europe’s energy needs with other deposits in eastern Mediterranean-By MENELAOS HADJICOSTIS March 14, 2017, 5:51 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — The discovery of a huge natural gas deposit in Egyptian waters has boosted hopes of other such finds in the eastern Mediterranean that could help meet Europe’s energy needs, a senior official with Italian oil and gas company Eni said Tuesday.Eni SpA Chief Exploration Officer Luca Bertelli said his company’s “milestone” discovery of Zohr, estimated to hold 30 trillion cubic feet of gas, has reinvigorated the interest of other major oil and gas companies in the region.He said waters off Cyprus hold potential for new discoveries while exploration opportunities are coming up with Lebanon and Israel later this year offering offshore areas, or blocks, to bidders for exploration licensing.“I believe the potential is here, but we need to go step by step,” Bertelli told a gas conference. “If we don’t drill, we don’t know.”Bertelli said Eni expects the first gas to start flowing from Zohr by the end of 2017 to meet Egypt’s domestic demand for decades. Fully developing the deposit will cost up to 12 billion euros ($12.8 billion).For export, Bertelli said Egypt could bring two idle processing plants back on stream to liquefy gas so it can be exported to the European markets.He said geological features off Cyprus are similar to those around where the Zohr deposit was discovered, raising hopes for new finds. Earlier drilling by Texas-based Noble Energy discovered a field estimated to contain over four trillion cubic feet in reserves.If more fields are discovered off Cyprus, the island could opt to build a processing plant of its own to export gas, said Bertelli.Eni SpA is licensed either on its own or in partnership with South Korea’s Kogas and France’s Total to carry out exploratory drilling in six of Cyprus’s 13 offshore blocks.Bertelli said an alternative option for export purposes is to build pipelines linking east Mediterranean gas fields with Turkey and Europe. Pipelines are technically feasible, but would require massive investment, political agreements and additional gas finds, he added.
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
The Times of Israel-Jewish Times-European rabbis pan ruling to prohibit religious garb in firms-Jewish leaders say ‘Europe is sending a clear message; its faith communities are no longer welcome’-By JTA March 14, 2017, 6:03 pm
PARIS — European rabbis condemned an EU court’s ruling allowing firms to prohibit employees’ religious clothes and symbols, saying the ruling amounts to saying that “faith communities are no longer welcome.”The ruling Tuesday by the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg also said that customers cannot simply demand that workers remove headscarves if the company has no policy barring religious symbols. “An internal rule of an undertaking which prohibits the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign does not constitute direct discrimination,” the court said in a statement.The ruling, which came amid a rise in the popularity of anti-Muslim politicians in Europe over the proliferation of jihadist attacks on the continent and ethnic and religious tensions, was on two lawsuits filed by Muslim employees who were sanctioned for wearing religious symbols or prohibited from doing so.“This decision sends signals to all religious groups in Europe,” Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis, said in a statement Tuesday. “With the rise of racially motivated incidents and today’s decision, Europe is sending a clear message; its faith communities are no longer welcome. Political leaders need to act to ensure that Europe does not isolate religious minorities and remains a diverse and open continent.”One of the lawsuits that led to the ruling was by an employee of the Belgian branch of G4S, the London-listed outsourcing and security company. After three years at the firm she decided she wanted to start wearing a headscarf at work for religious reasons. She was fired in June 2006 for refusing to take off her scarf. The company said she had broken unwritten rules prohibiting religious symbols.In the second case, design engineer Asma Bougnaoui was fired from a consultancy firm, Micropole, following a complaint from a customer who claimed his staff had been “embarrassed” by her headscarf while she was on their premises giving advice. Before taking the job she had been told that wearing a headscarf might pose problems for the company’s customers.In the summer of 2016, dozens of French municipalities banned, with the backing of the French government, bathers from wearing a full-body swimsuit favored by Muslim women that is known as the burkini. While the move, which a French court ruled was unconstitutional, was opposed by many Europeans who believed it violated personal and religious freedoms, it was supported by many others who regarded the burkini and other clothing favored by Muslims as a political statement.Marine Le Pen, the leading candidate in the presidential race in France, said she would ban all Muslim head-covering gear if she is elected. Asked whether she would do the same for the kippah, she has said that she would do so to preserve equality.
Latin America’s largest synagogue welcomes first female rabbi-Fernanda Tomchinsky-Galanternik, a psychologist and mother of one, is the first Brazilian woman to be ordained-By JTA March 14, 2017, 5:57 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
RIO DE JANEIRO — Latin America’s largest synagogue, the 2,000-family Congregacao Israelita Paulista in Brazil, has inaugurated its first female rabbi.Some 200 people attended the welcome ceremony for Rabbi Fernanda Tomchinsky-Galanternik held last week at the 80-year-old Sao Paulo temple, also known by the acronym CIP. Ordained in December in Argentina, the Brazilian-born psychologist and mother of one also will coordinate the synagogue’s teaching department.“CIP began to tread a path that is possible only within Judaism and particularly within such a pluralist community,” Tomchinsky-Galanternik said. “But it can only be done with the presence and the action of all. I look forward to working with everyone in many different ways.”“Rabbi Fernanda,” as she has been commonly called, is the third female rabbi to serve at a Brazilian synagogue. Rio’s Reform temple ARI was the pioneer, hiring Rabbi Sandra Kochmann of Paraguay in 2003. Brazilian-born Luciana Pajecki Lederman has been the rabbi at the Conservative Comunidade Shalom in Sao Paulo since 2005.“We believe that women can perform mitzvot and participate in an equal position in religious services,” CIP President Sergio Kulikovsky said to open the ceremony. “Nothing is mandatory, but women are allowed to participate in an egalitarian way.”Indeed, the synagogue founded by German immigrants in 1936 and affiliated with both the Reform and Conservative movements took several years to assume an openly progressive attitude, although it was led for decades by emeritus Reform Rabbi Henry Sobel, an iconic voice for interreligious dialogue and human rights in Brazil.“Fernanda is the symbol of a very special moment of the Latin American Rabbinical Seminary — she is the first Brazilian woman to be ordained a rabbi,” said Rabbi Ariel Stofenmacher, CEO and vice president of the Marshall T. Meyer seminary. “She joins CIP to continue the construction of the Brazilian Jewish identity.”Founded in 1962, the institution is the New York Jewish Theological Seminary’s educational affiliate in Argentina and the academic, cultural and religious center of the Conservative Jewish movement in Latin America.“In line with all Conservative and Reform synagogues around the world, CIP assumes a clear egalitarian position by receiving Rabbi Fernanda as a full member of the rabbinate,” said CIP Rabbi Michel Schlesinger.
Relatives of slain Israeli girls protest that killer is now free-Jordanian who killed Israeli girls says Israeli ‘human waste’ must be eradicated-Hours after his release from 20 years in jail for murdering 7 teens, Ahmed Daqamseh says Israelis should be eliminated ‘by fire or by burial,’ calls two-state solution ‘a lie’-By Times of Israel staff and Agencies March 12, 2017, 6:27 pm
Hours after his release from 20 years in jail for gunning down seven Israeli schoolgirls, ex-Jordanian solider Ahmed Daqamseh declared on Sunday that Israelis are “human waste” that must be eradicated.Daqamseh made his remarks to al-Jazeera TV station, shortly after returning from jail to his home village of Ibdir to cheering friends and family.“The Israelis are the human waste of people, that the rest of the world has vomited up at our feet,” he told the TV station.“We must eliminate them by fire or by burial. If this is not done by our hands, the task will fall on the future generations to do.”In remarks directed to the Jordanian people, Daqamseh urged: “Do not believe the lie that is normalization with the Zionist entity. Do not believe the lie that is the two-state solution. Palestine is one land from the river to the sea, there is no state called ‘Israel.'”In a later interview with Jordan’s “Al-Rad” newspaper, Daqamseh said that he did not want to cause political instability in Jordan, and indicated he was not planning to carry out future attacks.“My position regarding Zionists is known. I did what I did 20 years ago and that’s it,” he said.In March 1997, Daqamseh opened fire with an automatic weapon at Israeli schoolgirls on a trip to the Jordan-Israel border, killing seven of them and wounding five others and a teacher. A Jordanian court later deemed Daqamseh mentally unstable and sentenced him to life in prison, rather than imposing the death penalty.Jordan’s then ruler King Hussein condemned the attack and later traveled to Israel to offer his condolences to the families of the murdered schoolgirls. Amman also paid compensation.Early on Sunday morning, Daqamseh was released from the Bab al-Hawa prison in Irbid, 90 kilometers (60 miles) north of the capital Amman after serving the mandatory 20 years.Daqamseh was driven home in a convoy of dozens of cars whose drivers were honking their horns, a video shared on social media showed.His brother Bassem said the family home was full of well-wishers.“He is in good health, wearing a black suit among his relatives and close family including his 78-year-old mother,” his brother said.Videos circulated on social media showed Daqamseh greeting relatives and posing for selfies with visitors.-‘Children’s blood not worthless’-There was no immediate official reaction from neighboring Israel, but relatives of the slain schoolgirls slammed Daqamseh’s release.“This morning takes us back 20 years, to that horrible day,” said Hezi Cohen, whose daughter Nirit was shot dead in the 1997 attack.“I’d like to tell the (Israeli) prime minister and defense minister: Our children’s blood should not be worthless,” he told Israeli news website Ynet.“You should have acted vis-à-vis Jordan to prevent this release at any cost.”Orit Cohen, whose sister Keren was killed, said: “Who says that tomorrow he (Daqamseh) won’t carry out another attack and murder more Israelis?”Israel Fatihi, whose daughter Sivan was killed in the attack, said the Israeli ambassador to Jordan had warned them of the Jordanian’s release.Daqamseh “was called a hero in the Jordanian parliament at the time of the murder. If that’s what they said in parliament, what can we expect from the family?”Israel’s “peace with Jordan is between us (Israelis) and the royal family — not the people or the parliament,” he said.Jordan is the only Arab nation besides Egypt to have signed a peace treaty with the Jewish state.Fatihi recalled King Hussein’s condolence visit, saying he and his family had been sitting on the floor in mourning at the time and that the monarch knelt down next to them. “We told him we really appreciated his visit,” Fatihi said.Nurit, his wife, said their daughter Sivan was a “very happy” child who “took everything easily.” She said she misses “her laughter, her smile, her joy of life.”“Despite the murder we are for peace,” she said.Keren Ofri Mizrachi, one of the girls Daqamseh shot and wounded in the attack, said his release from prison was a difficult day for her. She told Israel’s Channel 10 TV how he shot her four times from close range while she was trying to escape the carnage. Her twin sister was also shot and wounded in the attack.“I saw the look of murder in his eyes,” she said, adding that his release had brought memories flooding back. It feels like being “wounded again.” But, she added, “I have chosen to live. I won’t allow anybody or anything in the world break me. I am strong, I am a proud Jew. I have a family and children, they are my strength.”
Open up Gaza or it will explode, Hamas threatens Israel-Senior official says residents of the Strip can no longer tolerate living without an airport or seaport-By Dov Lieber March 13, 2017, 9:59 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
A senior member of Hamas’s political bureau threatened Israel on Monday with an “explosion” of violence should Israel not ease its blockade of the Gaza Strip.Gaza is suffering from high unemployment, a severe housing shortage and, according to the UN and other organizations, the collapse of its water, sewage and electrical infrastructure.“If Israel does not take apart its siege of Gaza, then an explosion is coming,” said Fathi Hamad, during a rally outside the UN headquarters in the Strip.Hamas is a terror group that seeks the destruction of Israel and has fought three major rounds of conflict against it since seizing Gaza in 2007. Over the years, it has fired thousands of rockets into Israel, tunneled under the border to carry out attacks, and orchestrated suicide bombings that have killed hundreds of Israelis.Hamad yelled the slogan, “Take apart the siege or [expect] an explosion,” which was repeated by participants in the rally, according to a recording of his remarks published on Hamas’s Al Aqsa Voice news site.“The features of this explosion have already begun to appear in a number of places,” added Hamad, without specifying. “The explosion of the people in the West Bank and Gaza will encompass everyone who besieges us and stands in our way.”Israel has seen an uptick in rocket attacks from Gaza over the past month. Most of those attacks are believed to have been the work of small Islamic State-sympathizing groups, rather than Hamas.The Israeli Shin Bet security service arrested two Palestinian men in the West Bank suspected of planning to carry several attacks on behalf of Hamas, the agency announced on Sunday.Hamad specifically criticized what he said were Israeli policies geared to prevent the rebuilding of Gaza in the wake of a devastating Israel-Hamas war in the summer of 2014, as well severe travel restrictions on Gazans imposed by the Jewish state .He also said Gazans would no longer accept living without an airport or seaport.Israel says its blockade is essential to prevent terrorists from obtaining materials to fortify military positions, dig tunnels and build rockets to fire at the Jewish state.Israel and Egypt imposed the blockade on Gaza after Hamas seized power from the internationally backed Palestinian Authority in 2007. Repeated reconciliation attempts between Gaza and West Bank governments have failed.The Israeli army has said it will ease its restrictions on the embattled enclave should Hamas cease calling for its destruction, and using imported materials to build up its arsenal.Israeli Transportation and Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz said on Friday he is pushing forward with a proposal to build an artificial island with a seaport and possibly an airport off the coast of Gaza that he believes will alleviate hardship in the blockaded territory and offer residents their first real bridge to the outside world in a decade.Hamad is known as one of the most radical figures in Hamas today. He is suspected of a string of bombings near the houses of operative from the rival Fatah movement, and is thought to be in contact with Salafi organizations and Islamic State fighters in the Sinai Peninsula.He is considered one of the most powerful Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip, and often operates independently of the organization’s political branch.In September, 2016, the United States added Hamad to its “global terrorist” list.Agencies contributed to this report.
LAND FOR PEACE (THE FUTURE 7 YEARS OF HELL ON EARTH)
JOEL 3:2
2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people(ISRAEL) and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.(UPROOTED ISRAELIS AND DIVIDED JERUSALEM)(THIS BRINGS ON WW3 BECAUSE JERUSALEM IS DIVIDED,WARNING TO ARABS-MUSLIMS AND THE WORLD).
THE WEEK OF DANIEL 9:27 WE KNOW ITS 7 YRS
Heres the scripture 1 week = 7 yrs Genesis 29:27-29
27 Fulfil her week, and we will give thee this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years.
28 And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week:(7 YEARS) and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife also.
29 And Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Bilhah his handmaid to be her maid.
DANIEL 11:21-23
21 And in his estate shall stand up a vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom: but he shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries.
23 And after the league made with him he shall work deceitfully: for he shall come up, and shall become strong with a small people.
24 He shall enter peaceably even upon the fattest places of the province; and he shall do that which his fathers have not done, nor his fathers' fathers; he shall scatter among them the prey, and spoil, and riches: yea, and he shall forecast his devices against the strong holds, even for a time.
DANIEL 9:26-27
26 And after threescore and two weeks(62X7=434 YEARS+7X7=49 YEARS=TOTAL OF 69 WEEKS OR 483 YRS) shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary;(ROMAN LEADERS DESTROYED THE 2ND TEMPLE) and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.(THERE HAS TO BE 70 WEEKS OR 490 YRS TO FUFILL THE VISION AND PROPHECY OF DAN 9:24).(THE NEXT VERSE IS THAT 7 YR WEEK OR (70TH FINAL WEEK).
27 And he ( THE ROMAN,EU PRESIDENT) shall confirm the covenant (PEACE TREATY) with many for one week:(1X7=7 YEARS) and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease,(3 1/2 yrs in TEMPLE ANIMAL SACRIFICES STOPPED) and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
JEREMIAH 6:14
14 They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.
JEREMIAH 8:11
11 For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.
1 THESSALONIANS 5:3
3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
ISAIAH 33:8
8 The highways lie waste, the wayfaring man ceaseth: he hath broken the covenant,(7 YR TREATY) he hath despised the cities, he regardeth no man.(THE WORLD LEADER-WAR MONGER CALLS HIMSELF GOD)
JERUSALEM DIVIDED
GENESIS 25:20-26
20 And Isaac was forty years old (A BIBLE GENERATION NUMBER=1967 + 40=2007+) when he took Rebekah to wife, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Padanaram, the sister to Laban the Syrian.
21 And Isaac intreated the LORD for his wife, because she was barren: and the LORD was intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived.
22 And the children (2 NATIONS IN HER-ISRAEL-ARABS) struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to enquire of the LORD.
23 And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels;(ISRAEL AND THE ARABS) and the one people shall be stronger than the other people;(ISRAEL STRONGER THAN ARABS) and the elder shall serve the younger.(LITERALLY ISRAEL THE YOUNGER RULES (ISSAC)(JACOB-LATER NAME CHANGED TO ISRAEL) OVER THE OLDER ARABS (ISHMAEL)(ESAU)
24 And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb.
25 And the first came out red, all over like an hairy garment; and they called his name Esau.(THE OLDER AN ARAB)
26 And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau's heel; and his name was called Jacob:(THE YOUNGER-ISRAELI) and Isaac was threescore (60) years old when she bare them.(1967 + 60=2027)(COULD BE THE LAST GENERATION WHEN JERUSALEM IS DIVIDED AMOUNG THE 2 TWINS)(THE 2 TWINS WANT JERUSALEM-THE DIVISION OF JERUSALEM TODAY)(AND WHOS IN CONTROL OF JERUSALEM TODAY-THE YOUNGER ISSAC-JACOB-ISRAEL)(AND WHO WANTS JERUSALEM DIVIDED-THE OLDER,ESAU-ISHMAEL (THE ARABS)
ZECHARIAH 12:1-5 King James Bible
1 The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.
2 Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem.
3 And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.
4 In that day, saith the LORD, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness.
ISAIAH 28:14-19 (THIS IS THE 7 YR TREATY COVENANT OF DANIEL 9:27)
14 Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.
15 Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:
16 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.
17 Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.
18 And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.
19 From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night: and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report.
Poll: Only 9% of Palestinians think Trump can restart peace talks-Survey shows deep skepticism of US president; 38% say new administration will aggravate tensions with Israel-By Times of Israel staff and AP March 14, 2017, 5:31 pm
The vast majority of Palestinians believe US President Donald Trump’s policies will ramp up Israeli-Palestinian tensions or contribute to stagnation, according to a poll published on Tuesday.According to a survey by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, only 9 percent believe Trump will be able to relaunch Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.Some 38% said the Trump administration would aggravate Palestinian tensions with Israel, contributing to a flare-up of violence in the wake of an expected push in West Bank settlement building.If the new US administration would call on the Palestinians to return to negotiations with Israel without preconditions, 58% of respondents believe Palestinian leadership should reject the initiative. Some 31 percent, meanwhile, said the Palestinians should heed the call.The poll was published as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas hosted visiting Trump envoy Jason Greenblatt to discuss stalled peace efforts with Israel.Trump’s election has sparked deep concern among Palestinians, who have repeatedly denounced the US president’s campaign promise to relocate the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.Trump, however, has recently signaled a shift from his previous blanket support of Israeli policies, and last month publicly asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “hold back” on settlement building.On Monday, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Trump would make a “historic” offer during Abbas’s expected trip to Washington early next month.Erekat told the Al-Khaleej news site the details of the proposal would include a halt in settlement expansion and a commitment not to relocate the US Embassy.This will be in exchange for the Palestinians reentering negotiations with Israel — in a summit to be hosted in Amman with the two parties, as well as the US and Jordan.Erekat added that Abbas is likely to agree to the deal, saying that “he does not have any other choice.”It is unclear whether Netanyahu would be able to agree to such terms, due to the current right-wing makeup of his government. The PM has reportedly opposed similar offers involving building freezes in the past.Earlier on Monday, Greenblatt told Netanyahu that Trump hopes to work out an approach to settlement building that is consistent with the US goal of reaching a peace deal.Greenblatt’s visit marks the first major attempt by the new US administration to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, after two months that have seen officials dither on support for the two-state solution, the location of the US Embassy, and building in the settlements.
PM to Trump envoy: Peace progress with all neighbors possible under new president-In five hours of talks, Netanyahu and Jason Greenblatt try to ‘work out approach’ on settlements; envoy to meet Abbas in Ramallah on Tuesday-By Raphael Ahren and Times of Israel staff March 14, 2017, 1:43 am
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held five hours of talks with a senior adviser to US President Donald Trump in Jerusalem on Monday, in which they discussed opportunities for advancing peace between Israel and its neighbors, and tried to formulate a coordinated approach for the two leaderships on the issue of settlements. At a press conference with Netanyahu last month, Trump had urged Israel to “hold back on settlements a little bit.”At the meeting with Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s special envoy for the peace process, the two “reaffirmed the joint commitment of both Israel and the United States to advance a genuine and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians that strengthens the security of Israel and enhances stability in the region,” according to a statement by the Prime Minister’s Office.The two men discussed Israeli settlements “in the hope of working out an approach that is consistent with the goal of advancing peace and security,” the statement read.Greenblatt told Netanyahu that “enabling the growth of the Palestinian economy and improving the quality of life for Palestinians” were important to Trump. The prime minister replied that he was “fully committed to broadening prosperity for Palestinians,” seeing the issue “as a means of bolstering the prospects for peace.”The Prime Minister’s Office said Netanyahu told Greenblatt that he believes that it would be possible, under Trump’s leadership, “to advance peace between Israel and all its neighbors, including the Palestinians, and he looks forward to working closely with President Trump to achieve that goal.”Greenblatt reaffirmed to Netanyahu, according to the statement, the president’s commitment “to Israel’s security and to the effort to help Israelis and Palestinians achieve a lasting peace through direct negotiations.”Greenblatt is to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday as part of an attempt to broker fresh peace talks after years of stagnation. In a phone call on Friday, Trump invited Abbas to the White House in the near future.Greenblatt took to Twitter late Monday night after the meeting to say that he and Netanyahu “discussed [the] regional situation, how progress towards peace with Palestinians can be made & settlements.”In meeting w/ @IsraeliPM @netanyahu, discussed regional situation, how progress towards peace with Palestinians can be made & settlements.— Jason D. Greenblatt (@jdgreenblatt45) March 13, 2017-He also expressed appreciation for Netanyahu’s “time and commitment to partnership with the US.”I appreciate the @IsraeliPM @netanyahu's time and commitment to partnership with the US— Jason D. Greenblatt (@jdgreenblatt45) March 13, 2017-Prior to the start of their sit-down Monday, Netanyahu told Greenblatt that he “hope[s] we can do some good things together,” to which Greenblatt responded, “I hope we’re going to do great things together.”Greenblatt’s visit marks the first major attempt by the new US administration to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, after two months that have seen officials dither on support for the two-state solution, the location of the US Embassy and opposition to building in settlements.The goal of Greenblatt’s visit was reportedly to formulate the Trump administration’s position on settlements, including what the US will accept in terms of where and how much Israel can build.In Washington prior to the meeting, State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters Greenblatt would be doing “a lot of listening, discussing the views of the leadership in the region, getting their perspectives on the current situation and how progress toward eventual peace can be made.”“I characterise it as the first of what will become many visits to the region,” Toner added.He said that the issue of settlements would be discussed. “We see them as a challenge that needs to be addressed at some point,” Toner said.In his upcoming meeting with Abbas, Greenblatt won’t be bringing new proposals, PA Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki said on Sunday, while adding that Tuesday’s meeting would focus on planning for Abbas’s trip to Washington.On Friday, Trump held his first phone conversation with Abbas, inviting him to visit the White House. On Sunday, Abbas said that his phone conversation with Trump was “constructive” and that the US president had “confirmed his full commitment to the peace process.”He added: “We will continue to cooperate with [Trump], in order to arrive at a comprehensive and just peace that will bring security and stability to everyone.”Channel 2 quoted Israeli officials Sunday expressing satisfaction that the Trump-Abbas call had gone well, since, they said, Israel supports a resumption of negotiations without preconditions.During his visit to Washington last week, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman was told by administration officials that the new US leadership was seeking a two-state deal, dispelling lingering doubts in that regard, Channel 2 reported.At a joint press conference with Netanyahu on February 15, Trump said: “I’m looking at two-state and one-state, and I like the one that both parties like,” leading to speculation concerning Trump’s commitment to the two-state solution.The US administration is currently said to be weighing how to proceed with a renewed peace effort after Abbas’s imminent visit to Washington. One possibility being considered is a regional summit, to be held in Egypt or Jordan. If such a summit would be substantive, rather than a mere photo op, Trump would be prepared to attend, sources close to the president were quoted by the Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth on Sunday as saying. The White House is trying to ascertain whether the Saudis can be drawn into this process, the newspaper said.Trump intends to visit Israel in the first year of his presidency, the paper reported, and might combine the trip with a summit of this kind.Alternatively, Trump may invite Abbas and Netanyahu to the White House, to announce the resumption of direct talks.Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story erroneously included that Abbas said Trump had expressed commitment to a two-state deal, based on a Palestinian transcript of the speech.AFP contributed to this report.
You may be as surprised to be here as we all are to see you-Advice for Trump’s would-be peacemaker-Op-ed: Mr. Greenblatt, don’t try to strong-arm the sides into an impossible deal. Do focus on education. Insist on changing what the Palestinians are taught about Israel, and you might just make some headway-By David Horovitz March 14, 2017, 5:10 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
Dear Mr. Greenblatt, I wish you only success as you set out on your bid to pave a path to progress on the Israeli-Palestinian front. You may be as surprised to be here as we all are to see you. And I’ve no idea how much authority you actually have, or what is supposed to happen when you head back home from the region. You may not know either.But since this has not hitherto been your prime preoccupation, and since you are the first official dispatched here by the new president for the purpose of peacemaking, allow me to offer some insights, from the perspective of an Israeli who has unhappily watched well-intentioned efforts at peacemaking fail time and again over the years.The Israeli mainstream wants to separate from the Palestinians, not necessarily out of any particular love of our neighbors, but out of simple self-interest. This is the only country on earth with a Jewish majority. And we insist that it remain a democracy. Since there are today almost as many non-Jews as Jews between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, we need to separate from many of the Palestinians or risk losing our Jewish state or our democracy. We emphatically assert a historic right to the disputed West Bank, the biblical Judea and Samaria, but exercising that right risks dooming Jewish-democratic Israel, so we recognize the imperative to compromise with the millions of Palestinians who also have rights in this land.Plenty of us also believe it is bad for them and corrosive for us to be running the lives of the Palestinians, to the reduced extent that we still do. (Israel does not control day-to-day life in the West Bank cities.) Most of us Israelis, for this reason too, are baffled by calls from some on the political right to annex much or all of the West Bank. Why would we choose to have millions of hostile Palestinians forced to live under our rule? We also tend to think time is working against us. Demographers argue among themselves, and many of us argue with the demographers, but the general consensus is that, come back in a few decades, and the Jews will be outnumbered between the river and the sea. There is thus an urgency for separation.Why, if this is so obvious, have we not then disconnected ourselves from the Palestinians? Why did we so frustrate your predecessors in the Obama Administration, spurning their entreaties to take territorial risks for peace, deriding their talk of multilayered security fences and other arrangements that would ostensibly keep us safe after a withdrawal to a slightly amended version of the pre-1967 borders? Why? Because we don’t trust the Palestinians. We think we would be vulnerable to aggression they might initiate. And even if we were to put aside our doubts about the current regime of Mahmoud Abbas, we know he could be easily swept aside by Hamas or other extremists were the Israel Defense Forces no longer deployed in the West Bank. And were Hamas or other extremists to take over there, as they took over in Gaza after we left in 2005, Israel would be paralyzed. Everywhere in Israel is within rudimentary rocket range of everywhere in the West Bank. We managed to function, somehow, during 50 days of war with Hamas in Gaza in 2014. We would not be able to function for a single day with Hamas in control of the West Bank.We didn’t always mistrust Abbas as much as we do today. We concluded, after the 2000 attempt at peacemaking under the Clinton Administration was doomed by Yasser Arafat, that Arafat was never going to genuinely come to terms with Israel the Jewish state, and we saw him return from those talks to foster the strategic onslaught of suicide bombings against us in the Second Intifada. But we did not regard Abbas as an Arafat-style duplicitous sponsor of terrorism, even though we lamented that Abbas failed to counter the false narrative bequeathed by Arafat, to the effect that there were no Jewish temples in Jerusalem, and thus that we Jews have no right to be here.In recent years, however, we have also watched Abbas preside over a hierarchy that relentlessly defamed and demonized Israel, that incited his Palestinian people against us, and that did encourage terrorism. We saw his Palestinian Authority immortalizing terrorists by naming streets and squares in their memory, and paying salaries to families of terrorists. And latterly, we saw him personally escalate the tensions surrounding the incendiary Temple Mount, by hailing the pure blood of Palestinian martyrs spilled in defense of Al-Aqsa — directly contributing to the hysteria surrounding the site, and thus to the car-rammings and stabbings and shootings.How, then, in this near-impossible context, Mr. Greenblatt, as a lover of Israel and doubtless as a seeker of peace, are you to succeed in your mission? Peacemaking requires both decisive leadership and grassroots support — each benefiting from the other.There is grassroots Israeli support in principle for an agreement because most Israelis, as I noted above, regard separation from the Palestinians as a vital Israeli interest. And I would argue that Israel has chosen leaders down the decades who proved their readiness for peacemaking, and has ousted leaders — including Benjamin Netanyahu in 1999 — when it feared that opportunities for peacemaking were being missed.But there is no parallel on the Palestinian side. It seems to me that there is woefully inadequate grassroots Palestinian support for an accord, because the widespread Palestinian conviction remains that the Jews have no right to be here, and that if they hang tough enough, for long enough, they will be able to see off this iteration of Jewish sovereignty. Any Palestinian leader who thus agrees to the far-reaching compromises an accord would necessitate will be regarded as a traitor and betrayer of the cause.As their veteran, ultra-credible leader, Arafat could have worked to change the mindset of his Palestinian people more easily than Abbas. Arafat could have impressed upon them that the only viable path to their independence winds via true recognition of Israel. But he had no desire to do so. Abbas would likely have been risking his life in seeking to tell his people the inconvenient truth that the Jews have rights here too. He chose not to.How to shift this picture, Mr. Greenblatt? One word: Education.Change what Palestinians are taught and told about Israel in their schools and mosques, by their political leaders and via social media, and you begin to create a climate in which, one day — who knows, perhaps even in your era? — genuine progress toward an accommodation becomes possible.And how do you achieve that change? By insisting upon it, and using America’s leverage to have others insist upon it, too — as a condition for financial aid to the Palestinians, and diplomatic support for the Palestinians. Make the inculcation of a “culture of peace” a core element of your efforts at peacemaking. In the Obama administration’s predictably abortive attempt at forging a deal in 2013-14, the two sides did make some progress toward a joint document devoted precisely to this issue — to fostering tolerance and understanding and mutual respect. Israel’s one-time chief negotiator Tzipi Livni gave me some details in an interview in September 2014. Go back to that document. Revive it.Educate, open minds, boost understanding, and you start to change the nature of interaction. You give your mission some prospect of success.I’m not saying that all the onus is on the Palestinian side. Plainly, your administration is already giving some thought as to how Israel could contribute to the beginning of a change in climate. Already, the president has indicated some concerns over the settlement enterprise. President Obama’s mistake was to castigate all building beyond the 1967 lines as a crime of equal gravity. A wiser approach would be for Israel, in coordination with your administration, to refrain from building in areas that we will have to relinquish, however reluctantly, if we are to serve our long-term imperative to separate from the Palestinians.There is also more that can be done to help bolster the Palestinian economy and freedom of movement, within the limitations of Israel’s valid security concerns. A thriving West Bank economy is unfortunately not a sufficient condition for peace, but it is a necessary one.Mr. Greenblatt, you begin your mission in, potentially, a slightly more encouraging era than some of your predecessors. Shared concerns about Iran mean that others in this region are more ready than in the past to ally with Israel, privately if not publicly. There was dismay in parts of this region at the perceived weakness of the Obama Administration — failing to support reformists in Iran; failing to intervene when Syria’s Bashar Assad gassed his own people.You have a clean slate.Your administration is deemed unpredictable. And your president relishes deal-making.What would seem to have been logical for years — the need to invest strategic efforts in education in order to create a grassroots Palestinian climate that backs compromise — was ignored by your various predecessors. They instead followed decades of conventional wisdom and sought to strong-arm the sides into an impossible deal within an impossible time frame. I urge you to defy conventional wisdom. Do the unexpected. It happens to be the smartest course.Assuming, that is, that your mission actually has presidential potential to lead anywhere at all.
Gas find off Egypt reviving interest in region — industry official-‘Milestone’ natural gas discovery boosts hopes of meeting Europe’s energy needs with other deposits in eastern Mediterranean-By MENELAOS HADJICOSTIS March 14, 2017, 5:51 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — The discovery of a huge natural gas deposit in Egyptian waters has boosted hopes of other such finds in the eastern Mediterranean that could help meet Europe’s energy needs, a senior official with Italian oil and gas company Eni said Tuesday.Eni SpA Chief Exploration Officer Luca Bertelli said his company’s “milestone” discovery of Zohr, estimated to hold 30 trillion cubic feet of gas, has reinvigorated the interest of other major oil and gas companies in the region.He said waters off Cyprus hold potential for new discoveries while exploration opportunities are coming up with Lebanon and Israel later this year offering offshore areas, or blocks, to bidders for exploration licensing.“I believe the potential is here, but we need to go step by step,” Bertelli told a gas conference. “If we don’t drill, we don’t know.”Bertelli said Eni expects the first gas to start flowing from Zohr by the end of 2017 to meet Egypt’s domestic demand for decades. Fully developing the deposit will cost up to 12 billion euros ($12.8 billion).For export, Bertelli said Egypt could bring two idle processing plants back on stream to liquefy gas so it can be exported to the European markets.He said geological features off Cyprus are similar to those around where the Zohr deposit was discovered, raising hopes for new finds. Earlier drilling by Texas-based Noble Energy discovered a field estimated to contain over four trillion cubic feet in reserves.If more fields are discovered off Cyprus, the island could opt to build a processing plant of its own to export gas, said Bertelli.Eni SpA is licensed either on its own or in partnership with South Korea’s Kogas and France’s Total to carry out exploratory drilling in six of Cyprus’s 13 offshore blocks.Bertelli said an alternative option for export purposes is to build pipelines linking east Mediterranean gas fields with Turkey and Europe. Pipelines are technically feasible, but would require massive investment, political agreements and additional gas finds, he added.
