1-WORLD QUAKES LAST 2 DAYS. 2-Offshore oil and hurricanes: Deeper may mean riskier. 3-Two-speed Europe would solve constitution deadlock, Prodi says. 4-European Union Calls for Calm in Lebanon. 5-Fatah Al-Islam Explained. 6-Navy Stages Show of Force Off Iran Coast. 7-A Remarkable 40th Anniversary
EARTHQUAKES
MATTHEW 24:7-8
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
MARK 13:8
8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:(ETHNIC GROUP AGAINST ETHNIC GROUP) and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.
LUKE 21:11
11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.
WORLD QUAKES LAST 2 DAYS (USGS)
Update time = Thu May 24 10:00 PM EDT
MAY 24,07
MAP 4.7 GULF OF CALIFORNIA
MAP 5.0 SOLOMON ISLANDS
MAP 2.5 NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 5.6 GULF OF MEXICO
MAP 4.8 FIJI REGION
MAP 2.9 NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 2.6 KENAI PENINSULA, ALASKA
MAP 3.6 SOUTH OF ALASKA
MAP 3.2 VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP 3.4 NORTHERN ALASKA
MAP 5.4 MARIANA ISLANDS REGION
MAP 2.8 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 4.5 SOUTH OF THE ALEUTIAN ISLANDS
MAP 2.9 CENTRAL ALASKA
MAP 3.3 NORTHERN ALASKA
MAP 3.3 NEW MEXICO
MAP 2.8 ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA
MAP 5.7 NORTHERN MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE
MAP 2.8 PUERTO RICO REGION
MAP 2.5 CENTRAL CALIFORNIA
MAP 2.7 NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 3.4 RAT ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, ALASKA
MAP 4.4 GULF OF CALIFORNIA
MAP 3.1 FOX ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, ALASKA
MAY 23,07
MAP 3.1 ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA
MAP 4.9 LEYTE, PHILIPPINES
MAP 2.6 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 4.5 LAKE TANGANYIKA REGION, TANZANIA
MAP 5.0 LOYALTY ISLANDS
MAP 4.5 EAST OF THE KURIL ISLANDS
MAP 4.7 AZORES ISLANDS REGION
MAP 4.6 BANDA SEA
MAP 2.8 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 4.7 VANUATU
MAP 3.1 VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP 3.4 RAT ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, ALASKA
MAP 3.2 OFFSHORE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 4.0 CENTRAL CALIFORNIA
MAP 2.5 NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 3.1 DOMINICAN REPUBLIC REGION
MAP 4.7 MARIANA ISLANDS REGION
MAP 2.8 ISLAND OF HAWAII, HAWAII
MAP 3.4 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 3.5 VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP 2.8 BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO
MAP 3.4 DOMINICAN REPUBLIC REGION
MAP 2.6 CENTRAL ALASKA
MAP 2.9 CENTRAL ALASKA
MAP 4.9 SIMEULUE, INDONESIA
MAP 2.8 PUERTO RICO REGION
STORMS HURRICANES-TORNADOES
LUKE 21:25-26
25 And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity;(MASS CONFUSION) the sea and the waves roaring;(FIERCE WINDS)
26 Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.
Offshore oil and hurricanes: Deeper may mean riskier By Bruce Nichols
Wed May 23, 11:50 AM ET
HOUSTON (Reuters) - As oil companies working in the Gulf of Mexico prepare for an active hurricane season, experts say more drilling in deeper waters farther out to sea has made the United States more vulnerable to energy disruptions. Forecasters have predicted that as many as 17 named storms, five of which could be major hurricanes, will form this season in the Atlantic Basin, which includes the gulf. The season starts June 1 and runs through November 30.
Companies have shored up offshore rigs with additional mooring lines and higher decks and added sophisticated equipment to monitor operations during storms and immediately afterward.But experts say the quest for oil and natural gas in deeper waters has put more drilling rigs, producing platforms and pipelines in the path of storms intensified by the warm loop current in the middle of the Gulf.
The theory is that storms get over the warmer loop current and intensify -- not all of them, but some, said Andy Radford of the American Petroleum Institute. The problem is, as we have gone deeper into the Gulf, we're getting farther offshore, and we're feeling the effects.The Gulf of Mexico is the source of 30 percent of U.S. domestic oil production and 20 percent of its natural gas output. Refineries supplying the nation with fuel dot the Gulf Coast. Gas pipelines run from the Gulf across the country.
Seventy percent of the gulf's oil and 40 percent of its gas come from waters deeper than 1,000 feet, even though 1 percent of the 3,800 platforms are there, the U.S. Minerals Management Service says.
Thus, storm damage to one has a big impact.
In 2005, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita knocked out a quarter of U.S. crude and fuel production, toppling offshore platforms, destroying undersea pipelines, flooding coastal refineries and sending energy prices to then-record highs.This year, refining and pipeline companies have stocked up on generators, food and trailers to keep operations running in the event of a major storm.Offshore operators have increased the number of mooring lines on most mobile drilling rigs from eight to 12 to keep them from breaking free during a storm.Jackup rigs -- which float out, lower legs and stand on the bottom to drill -- are setting decks higher to avoid storm waves. And better planning is expected to keep them out of undersea mudslide areas and minimize risks to pipelines.
BETTER PREPARED
The first named storm of 2006, Andrea, formed in May, before the start of the season, boosting companies' concern.Having already seen a storm, they're working frantically to make sure everything is ready, BP Plc spokesman Neil Chapman said.Officials have put particular emphasis on keeping oil and gas flowing by using backup pipeline routes and barges or ships to move oil if pipelines break.
We're working with other operators to come up with options for flow assurance, said Shell spokesman Fred Palmer.To improve future preparedness, companies have installed more data-gathering equipment on rigs and platforms.When we see the next big storm, we'll have more data and will probably make more refinements to our standards, said API's Radford.
Meanwhile, the hope is to avoid the record disruptions of 2005, a season in which Katrina killed at least 1,300 people and did an estimated $81 billion in damage, a U.S. record. We feel pretty confident at this point, but you never know what could happen, said Bill Holbrook, spokesman for the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association.
Two-speed Europe would solve constitution deadlock, Prodi says
22.05.2007 - 17:43 CET | By Renata Goldirova
EUOBSERVER / STRASBOURG – In the run up to the decisive EU summit on finding a way out of the constitutional impasse, the pro-European camp has started to sound the drum, with Italy's prime minister calling to preserve as much as possible of the draft EU treaty. In the last two years, almost only eurosceptic views have been listened to. It is time to listen to those who ratified the 2004 treaty, Italian prime minister Romano Prodi told MEPs in Strasbourg on Tuesday (22 May). Mr Prodi –
claiming to speak on behalf of 18 EU states which have largely ratified the original text – rejected radical changes to the foreseen institutional reforms. He listed the EU foreign minister, a lengthier presidency, the extension of qualified majority voting, the union's legal personality and the abolition of its three-pillar structure as elements which must be preserved.If the compromise does not convince
us, we will not sign it, he warned, clearly stating that a multi-speed Europe could bring about the long-sought breakthrough on the controversial issue.
At this point, a vanguard of countries could…be the best way to proceed towards a more integrated union, on condition that door remains always open to those countries willing to join later, he said.
Referring to sceptical EU governments in Warsaw, London and The Hague which want the new text to be scaled down considerably - the former European Commission president added that he hoped this approach would overcome any temptation of veto.Going on to talk about the 21-22 June summit, the Italian politician said that EU leaders should agree a precise and selective mandate for the intergovernmental conference (IGC) that is supposed to hammer out the treaty in the second half of this year. If the negotiation terms for the IGC are too wide, he warned, there is unlikely to be an agreement within the strict timetable envisaged by the German EU presidency. With an open mandate, the conference can be hardly closed by late 2007, and the time necessary to pass the new agreement at national level would make it impossible to complete the process by early 2009, he said.
MEPs' red lines
Meanwhile, members of the European Parliament have also laid down their red lines, saying they will reject any outcome of the negotiations, which – if compared to the constitutional treaty – would lead to a diminution of the protection of the rights of citizens…as well as less democracy, transparency and efficiency in the functioning of the union.According to German conservative MEP Elmar Brok and Spanish socialist MEP Enrique Baron Crespo – both in charge of the constitutional dossier in the run up to the EU summit in June – the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, the legal personality for the bloc and a greater EU role in foreign policy are non-negotiable and must remain part of the compromise treaty.
The referendum should not be used as blackmail, Mr Brok said, referring to the UK's opposition to the rights charter, with London sometimes accused of hanging a Damocles sword over the rest of the EU by saying that a treaty that has too many elements will have to be put to a referendum - unlikely to be passed a sceptical British population.
A similar warning was issued to Warsaw which opposes the new system of voting in the rejected constitution. The word veto is not part of the treaty. We must negotiate in the best will, not use threats, said Mr Baron Crespo.
At the same time, MEPs hinted that Poland's hardline approach on the EU decision-making mechanism could come at a price, affecting Warsaw's call for an energy solidarity clause to be included in the constitution.Mr Crespo also suggested Warsaw focuses on the so-called Ioannina clause, a compromise adopted in the mid-1990s which suggests that if a decision is only narrowly reached by member states and others remain strongly opposed then the issue will continue to be discussed to try and find a compromise solution.This could be a way forward for Poland, he said.
European Union Calls for Calm in Lebanon
Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: MAY 23,07
Palestinians are protesting against the Lebanese army's action The EU's foreign policy chief has visited Lebanon, expressing his support for the government. Javier Solana said the EU wanted to help establish a political dialogue for the country once the bloodshed is halted.
In the latest international call for restraint from all sides in Lebanon, the European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, has appealed for a halt to the bloodshed.I am hoping very much for calm, Solana told a press conference after meeting Lebanon's Prime Minister Fuad Siniora late Tuesday in Beirut. He said political dialogue was necessary to solve the crisis.This is the only solution, Solana said.The Lebanese army had been locked in fierce fighting with extremists in the north since Sunday. But both sides agreed on a truce on Tuesday.
Solana defends Lebanese government's action
Solana said the fighting only involved some hundred extremists.Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Thousands of Palestinians are fleeing from the troubled region in the north. I don't think that there would be any difficulties from a military point of view for the Lebanese armed forces to control the situation, Solana said. He defended the military campaign and said the government was fighting a terrorist group. Yet he called on the Lebanese army to respect the safety of civilians. We hope that the actions of the army will be in conformity with the values and high standards of protecting civilians, Solana said.
EU to help Lebanon tackle the crisis
The EU official's visit, part of a regional tour, was meant to show support for the western-backed Siniora and his government, which have been locked in a months-long dispute with the Syrian-backed opposition.Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Solana says Lebanon can count on the EU's support Earlier, Solana had said the European Union wanted to help Lebanon resolve the crisis and tackle its economic woes once the bloodshed is halted.
We want to help calm the situation and see if its possible to move in establishing a political dialogue, he told reporters in Israel, the first stop of his tour.The visit comes as the UN Security Council works to impose the establishment of an international court to try suspects in the 2005 murder of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri. A draft resolution has been circulated at the request of the Western-backed government despite resistance from the opposition.Solana continued to Cairo on Wednesday. After visiting Egypt, he will go to the Gaza Strip and then wind up his mission by returning to Israel.
Fatah Al-Islam Explained (By Ayman El-Masry) Wednesday , 23 May 2007
BEIRUT — The previously little known Fatah Al-Islam, a militant group battling the Lebanese army, is different from all other groups based in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. Unlike Palestinian groups it comprises a throng of wanted Syrian, Lebanese and people from the Gulf, a well-kept Palestinian figure in Lebanon told IslamOnline.net, requesting anonymity. Fatah al-Islam announced its creation last November after breaking away from Fatah Al-Intifada, a splinter group of the mainstream Fatah movement.In its foundation statement, it introduced itself as an Islamic group seeking to liberate Palestine and restore Muslim sanctities captured by Israel.Fatah al-Islam said it would fight Israelis and their supporters.
Experts believe the group is ideologically but not operationally linked to Al-Qaeda and is played by Lebanese and Arab parties to achieve political gains.Its leader Shaker Abssi, a Palestinian born in Areha in 1955, is a former colonel pilot.He joined Fatah Al-Intifada in Libya after its defection from the umbrella Fatah movement in 1983.He then moved to Damascus where he became close to Fatah Al-Intifada's no. 2 Abu Khaled Al-Omla.
Syrian authorities arrested Abssi in 2000 and sentenced him to three years in prison on charges of smuggling weapons, ammunition to Jordan and vice versa.No sooner had he been released than he went to Iraq following the US-led invasion.In Iraq, Abssi fought along with groups loyal to Al-Qaeda and made friends with a number of Al-Qaeda leaders there.He later returned to Syria where he once again hocked up with Omla who helped him relocate to Lebanon and set himself up in the headquarters of Fatah Al-Intifada in the village of Helwa, the Western Beqaa.
Splinter
Abssi went to Lebanon in 2005 with a group of youths he met in Iraq and stayed there around a year before getting into trouble with the Lebanese army in May 2006.An armed clash with Lebanese soldiers and Abssi's small group in Western Beqaa led to the killing of one young Syrian wanted by Damascus for fighting in Iraq.Syrian intelligence services smelled a rat and summoned Omla to ask him about the nature of this small group led by Abssi.
The investigation unmasked the close coordination between Omla and Abssi which were kept from the pro-Damascus Secretary General of Fatah Al-Intifada, Abu Moussa, and consequently the Syrian authorities.Omla then ordered Abssi to leave the Western Beqaa, which is close to the borders with Syria, and head for refugee camps in northern Lebanon.In November 2006, the security committee in Al-Badawi refugee camp handed over two of Abssi's small group to the Lebanese military intelligence. Palestinian groups handle security inside the 12 refugees camps across Lebanon, where the country's over-stretched army of 40,000 may not enter under a 1969 Arab accord.An infuriated Abssi immediately decided to break up with Fatah Al-Intifada and establish his own Fatah Al-Islam group.
Al-Qaeda Ideology
The new splinter group seized the locations of Fatah Al-Intifada in Nahr Al-Bared camp.It attracted Lebanese and people from the Gulf who subscribe to Al-Qaeda ideologies.The Palestinian sources said Fatah Al-Islam is morally and financially supported by Jihadist groups in Lebanon.Experts agree that the group has no organizational link to Al-Qaeda but share its takfiri (calling others unbelievers)
and violent mindset.The group's members believe, for instance, that parliamentary or government work is unlawful under Islam.They rapped the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas for signing the Makkah agreement with Fatah last February, accusing Hamas of making concessions on Palestinian rights.The group further sent some of its fighters to Iraq to help establish the self-declared Islamic Republic of Iraq.Abssi has denied any organizational links to Al-Qaeda but recognized that both groups share the aim of fighting infidels.Abssi was sentenced to death in Jordan for killing a US diplomat in 2002.The slain leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, received a similar sentence for the same crime.
Penetrated
Experts believe that Fatah Al-Islam is nonetheless penetrated by Lebanese and Arab parties that use it as a front to achieve political gains.The Palestinian politician, who requested anonymity, said the Future movement of MP Saad Al-Hariri had tried in vain to buy the loyalty of the group in its power struggle with Shiite Hizbullah.But the director of the Lebanese Center for Information, Ahmed Al-Ayoubi, believes that a major section of Fatah Al-Islam is directed by the Syrian regime.The Syrian strategy to face UN Security Council Resolution 1701 is based either on provoking a Hizbullah-UNIFIL conflict, which is an unlikely scenario, or pitting an armed group against UNIFIEL troops or the Lebanese army, he told IOL.Ayoubi insists that the group picked Nahr Al-Bared camp as a stronghold because the coastal camp, according to him, is a haven for pro-Syria groups.Lebanese authorities have accused Fatah al-Islam of working for the Syrian intelligence services.
It said four Syrian members of Fatah Al-Islam confessed to bombing two buses in February in a Christian area near Beirut.The group had denied any involvement in the bombings and accused the government of framing it to justify a crackdown on Palestinian camps.Syria, which withdrew its troops from Lebanon in 2005 after an outcry over the assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri, has denied any links with Fatah Al-Islam.By Ayman El-Masry May 23, 2007 Islam Online
Navy Stages Show of Force Off Iran Coast
May 23, 10:31 AM (ET) By BARBARA SURK
(AP) This image provided by the US Navy shows (from top to bottom) the USS Nimitz (CVN 68), the USS..DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - The U.S. Navy staged its latest show of military force off the Iranian coastline on Wednesday, sending two aircraft carriers and landing ships packed with 17,000 U.S. Marines and sailors to carry out unannounced exercises in the Persian Gulf.
The carrier strike groups led by the USS John C. Stennis and USS Nimitz were joined by the amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard and its own strike group, which includes landing ships carrying members of the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit.The Navy said nine U.S. warships passed through the narrow Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday. Merchant ships passing through the busy strait carry two-fifths of the world's oil exports.
Aircraft aboard the three carriers and the Bonhomme Richard were to conduct air training while the ships ran submarine, mine and other exercises.The maneuvers came just two months after a previous exercise in March when two U.S. carrier groups carried out two days of air and sea maneuvers off the Iranian coast.
Before the arrival of the Bonhomme Richard strike group, the Navy maintained around 20,000 U.S personnel at sea in the Gulf and neighboring waters.U.S. warships have frequently collided with merchant ships in the busy shipping lanes of the Gulf.
A Remarkable 40th Anniversary - By Gary Stearman MAY 24,07
On June 5, 1967, Israel entered perhaps the most significant war in its modern history. Egypt, Syria and other Arab countries were poised to attack. Israel pre-empted their move and won the day, capturing the Golan Heights, Gaza and all of Israel west of the Jordan. Israeli soldiers stood on the Holy Mountain. At this historic moment, Israel was charged with a great responsibility. Their miraculous victory gave them a sacred trust, in effect, a trial to determine whether they could keep that which the Lord had given them.Now, as we draw near the fortieth year of this great experiment, we watch an Israel that totters on the brink of catastrophe, surrounded by voracious predators who believe that Israel is within their grasp. It is no secret that their enemies' long-held wish is to bring Israel and the Jews to extinction. As we watch in suspense, we ask, Will Israel pass the test? In the Bible, the number forty carries a strong complex of meanings, both negative and positive.
Symbolically, it marks a period of immersion into the fast-flowing stream of God's will. When we compare the many instances of this span, we find that they offer us a strong interpretive tool in the study of prophecy.When forty occurs in connection with individuals, groups or nations, it suggests a time of testing. It also carries the idea of probation … a supervised period, during which the object of God's will is allowed to demonstrate spiritual maturity.For the past forty years -- since Israel's miraculous victory in the Six-Day War -- Christians have watched Israel with a mixture of hope, expectancy, curiosity and disappointment. We have witnessed victories, defeats, assassinations and spiritual milestones. Most of all, we have seen the building scenario that is quickly thrusting us into the end-time era so clearly expounded by the ancient prophets.
The view of modern Israel as God's prophetic timepiece is well understood by Christians who observe events in the Middle East through the lens of dispensational interpretation. Israel is now moving through a series of actions on a timetable that will lead it to a series of cataclysmic events, each of which is designed to restore the broken world system and place Israel at the head of the nations.Israel watchers are about to experience a most interesting confluence of dates, all clustered about this amazing number. At this time of the year, we have just passed through the spring festivals of the Jews … Passover, Unleavened Bread and Firstfruits. Now, in the month of May, Pentecost arrives, with its promise of spiritual renewal. The feasts commemorate transactions between God and Israel. Each of them is freighted with meaning.It is forty years since Israelis stood victorious upon their Temple Mount. Since we have arrived at such a significant epoch, it is well worthwhile to revisit the significance of the number forty.
Bullinger Defines Forty
In 1894, E. W. Bullinger wrote a groundbreaking book, entitled Number in Scripture. This book documents the statistical connection between biblical events and any numerical contexts that may appear with them. Concerning the number forty, he writes: Forty has long been universally recognized as an important number, both on account of the frequency of its occurrence, and the uniformity of its association with the period of probation, trial, and chastisement – (not judgment, like the number 9, which stands in connection with the punishment of enemies, but the chastisement of sons, and of a covenant people). It is the product of 5 and 8, and points to the action of grace (5), leading to and ending in revival and renewal (8). This is certainly the case where forty relates to a period of evident probation. But where it relates to enlarged dominion, or to renewed or extended rule, then it does so in virtue of its factors 4 and 10, and in harmony with their signification [p. 266].Four, the number of the kingdom and ten, the number of ordinal perfection, speak of the future period of Christ's rule on earth. Thanks to men like Bullinger and many who followed in his footsteps, it is common for us to look at forty as a period of testing that leads to failure. But many forget that in testing, there is grace.
An integral part of testing is renewal and enlargement. Thus, the final state of testing is the enhancement of the general spiritual condition. Notice, also, that Bullinger breaks the number forty down into the smaller numbers, which constitute its basic factors. He pioneered this method of analyzing Scripture and, to this day, it adds to the array of techniques that allow us to discern scriptural meaning. Before looking at the current example of forty, let us look at a few past illustrations.
Moses and the Great Test
At the top of Bullinger's list is the life of Moses. The last forty years of his life were spent guiding the twelve tribes through the wilderness. As he spoke to the people, he reminded them to remember the Law and the Lord's command to conquer Canaan. He also urged them to acknowledge all that the Lord had done for them. In so doing, he mentions the forty years and the fact that they were both a test and a blessing:All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers.
And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no.
And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years.Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the LORD thy God chasteneth thee (Deut. 8:1-5).
Here, Moses speaks to the new generation of the Lord's people near the end of their wilderness march. He reminds them of the forty-year challenge that God had laid before them, and that they are still to think of themselves as the inheritors of the Promised Land. He reminds them that God humbled them in order that they might examine themselves and confirm to themselves that their heart's motivation was pure.He repeats to them that which they already knew, that the Lord had fed them with heavenly food, in order that they might learn of His Word … more sustaining than mere physical food. And could it have been a surprise to them that even their clothing was preserved during the period of wandering? Finally, Moses reminds the people that the Lord chastens with love, as a Father chastens his son. In other words, testing is not designed to destroy the people, but strengthen them.
Forty years before, the generation that sinned heard quite a different message. Here, God speaks in judgment, promising death.
To them the forty years is a sentence, not a promise: Say unto them, As truly as I live, saith the LORD, as ye have spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you: Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, which have murmured against me,Doubtless ye shall not come into the land, concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.But your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have despised.But as for you, your carcases, they shall fall in this wilderness.And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness.After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know my breach of promise.I the LORD have said, I will surely do it unto all this evil congregation, that are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die(Num. 14:28-35).Only a short while prior to this dark decree, twelve spies had been commissioned to investigate the Land, for the specific purpose of conquering it. As is well known, ten of them denied the possibility of defeating the Canaanites. Their faith was lost. Only Joshua and Caleb proclaimed that the Lord would bring them to their inheritance.
Significantly enough, the twelve scouted out the Land over a forty-day period! Once again, we see the solid and predictable biblical pattern. When the Lord commissions His people to accomplish something, forty is written upon their actions.
In this case, the spies' majority report was in the negative, ten to two. Doubting the Lord's power to bring them through, they failed the test. However, the two faithful men, Joshua and Caleb were rewarded and enlarged by their show of faith.Nor was this the only significant period of probation marked by forty days. Perhaps the most noteworthy example of this time span is found in the account of Moses' ascent into the smoke and fire of Mount Horeb. Twice, he climbed the mountain to receive the tables of the Law, each time for forty days.
Later, while recounting Israel's spiritual failures, Moses emphasizes the Lord's grace in not destroying the disobedient nation: Remember, and forget not, how thou provokedst the LORD thy God to wrath in the wilderness: from the day that thou didst depart out of the land of Egypt, until ye came unto this place, ye have been rebellious against the LORD (Deut. 9:7).Then, he recounts his two ascents of Horeb, both of which involved a forty-day period of time. Note in the following verses that Moses places himself in the narrative as an advocate for people gone tragically wrong.Also in Horeb ye provoked the LORD to wrath, so that the LORD was angry with you to have destroyed you.
When I was gone up into the mount to receive the tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant which the LORD made with you, then I abode in the mount forty days and forty nights, I neither did eat bread nor drink water:And the LORD delivered unto me two tables of stone written with the finger of God; and on them was written according to all the words, which the LORD spake with you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly.
And it came to pass at the end of forty days and forty nights, that the LORD gave me the two tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant.And the LORD said unto me, Arise, get thee down quickly from hence; for thy people which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt have corrupted themselves; they are quickly turned aside out of the way which I commanded them; they have made them a molten image.Furthermore the LORD spake unto me, saying, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people:Let me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under heaven: and I will make of thee a nation mightier and greater than they (Deut. 9:8-14).
At this point, the account in Exodus 32 tells us that Moses argues Israel's case before the Lord, saying that the Egyptians would rejoice at a God who allowed Israel to escape from slavery, only to destroy them in the wilderness. Furthermore, he asks the Lord to remember His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that their seed would be multiplied, and that they would inherit the great land grant given to Israel.After that, Moses descended with the two tablets, only to smash them to pieces.So I turned and came down from the mount, and the mount burned with fire: and the two tables of the covenant were in my two hands.And I looked, and, behold, ye had sinned against the LORD your God, and had made you a molten calf: ye had turned aside quickly out of the way which the LORD had commanded you.And I took the two tables, and cast them out of my two hands, and brake them before your eyes (Deut. 9:15-17).
His action initiated yet another forty-day period, this time to fast and pray that the Israelites might be spared from absolute destruction.And I fell down before the LORD, as at the first, forty days and forty nights: I did neither eat bread, nor drink water, because of all your sins which ye sinned, in doing wickedly in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.For I was afraid of the anger and hot
displeasure, wherewith the LORD was wroth against you to destroy you. But the LORD hearkened unto me at that time also (Deut. 9:18,19).Lest we fail to make the point, Scripture pointedly repeats time and again the significance of the number forty. Rebellion and testing are specifically tied to it in a way that is unmistakable. God desires that His people be tested in order that they may prove themselves in the crucible of this world.Ye have been rebellious against the LORD from the day that I
knew you.
Thus I fell down before the LORD forty days and forty nights, as I fell down at the first; because the LORD had said he would destroy you.I prayed therefore unto the LORD, and said, O Lord GOD, destroy not thy people and thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed through thy greatness, which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand (Deut. 9:24-26).
Three Times Forty
Moses lived to be one hundred and twenty years of age, or three times forty. His life is an amazing illustration of the number forty, since it is divided into thirds, each of which involves a different test.
First, he was born in Egypt, under extraordinary circumstances -- a supreme test. Israel had fallen into slavery and Pharoah had ordered that all Israelite sons be killed at birth. In the famous narrative, Moses' parents placed him in a reed boat, where he providentially floated into the custody of Pharaoh's daughter. She raised him as her own.According to the history of Flavius Josephus, the royal household recognized the young Moses as an exceptional child, intelligent, athletic and handsome. As a young man, he demonstrated authority, and quickly rose to leadership in the Egyptian military. As it happened, the Ethiopians were regularly invading Egypt at the time. The Lord used these circumstances to bring Moses to the forefront.Josephus writes, The Egyptians, under this sad oppression, betook themselves to their oracles and prophecies: and when God had given them this counsel, to make use of Moses the Hebrew and take his assistance, the king commanded his daughter to produce him, that he might be the general of their army (Antiquities, II, x, 1).
General Moses led an avenging army into the land of the Ethiopians. There, he successfully led the Egyptian forces to victory. In the same campaign, the daughter of the Ethiopian monarch witnessed him in battle and was so impressed by his bearing that she fell in love with him. He returned a hero, who had developed valuable political liaisons with the Ethiopians. Still, because they discovered his Hebrew roots, the Egyptians feared and suspected him. Concerning this fact, Josephus writes, Now the Egyptians, after they had been preserved by Moses, entertained a hatred to him, and were very eager in compassing their designs against him, as suspecting that he would take occasion, from his good success to raise a sedition, and bring innovations into Egypt; and told the king he ought to be slain (Antiquities, II, xi, 1).Thus, in the opening segment of his life, Moses rose to prominence.
History shows that he was a rejected figure -- powerful, yet isolated and hated. It was under these circumstances that he slew the Egyptian slave-master whom he found cruelly abusing one of his Hebrew brethren. Here, his test was that of loyalty to his own people, rather than the wealth and power of the Egyptians.The second forty-year period of his life was spent in faraway Midian, where he was a shepherd in the desert country, today called Arabia. Now, he was truly isolated, but Divine Providence had sent him to the territory of the mountain of God, called Horeb. There, at the burning bush, he was commissioned by the Lord to return to Egypt. There, he would deliver his people from bondage.The third and final forty years of Moses' life brought him to leadership in the wilderness march with the twelve tribes of Israel. Though we don't often consider it, Moses became the subject of a great New Testament discourse.
Stephen's Sermon Upon Forty
Upon the occasion of his martyrdom, given in the book of Acts, Stephen gave one of the most powerful sermons in all history. The theme of his preaching was the repeated failure of the twelve tribes to obey God. He reviews their history from Abraham forward, recalling their pattern of repeated moral breakdowns. It is fascinating that he built the sermon around the number forty.In particular, he refers to the life of Moses, dividing it into three periods of forty years, each one featuring a specific test. There could not be a better illustration of how forty is used by the Lord as He deals with His chosen people. The first forty recalls the young Moses, leader of the people:And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds.And when he was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel.And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian (Acts 7:22-24).
The climactic act of this first period was to avenge his enslaved people, even at the cost of losing his Egyptian wealth and power. As mentioned earlier, this was a test of loyalty that divided him from the royal house of Egypt. As Stephen relates the account, Moses is surprised to learn that even though he stood up for them, the Israelites still did not trust him. Without allies, he is forced to flee: For he
supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them: but they understood not.And the next day he shewed himself unto them as they strove, and would have set them at one again, saying, Sirs, ye are brethren; why do ye wrong one to another?
But he that did his neighbour wrong thrust him away, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us? Wilt thou kill me, as thou diddest the Egyptian yesterday? Then fled Moses at this saying, and was a stranger in the land of Midian, where he begat two sons (Acts 7:25-29). In Midian, forty more years passed, where Moses lived as a simple shepherd, in the vicinity of Mt. Horeb, where the Law would soon be given. This, it turns out, was the location from which the Lord would speak to Moses on several occasions, beginning with the burning bush:And when forty years were expired, there appeared to him in the wilderness of mount Sina an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a bush.
When Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight: and as he drew near to behold it, the voice of the Lord came unto him (Acts 7:30, 31).
Now, the final forty-year period of Moses' life began with a test of faith that took him before Pharoah with a demand that has rung down through the ages as the rallying cry of the oppressed, Let my people go! After a slow start, Moses brought the ten plagues upon Egypt, and led the people into the wilderness:He brought them out, after that he had shewed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red sea, and in the wilderness forty years.This is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear (Acts 7:36, 37) Stephen's powerful sermon is grounded in the principle that the Lord is patient and gracious concerning his people. Especially in the case of Moses, we find that not one, but three periods of forty years are laid out as an illustration of the way God plans key events. It is as natural as breathing to say that forty is the Lord's testing ground. Having used the life of Moses as the key element of his discourse, Stephen then mentions another forty-year period, this time quoting the prophet Amos:
Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness? (Acts 7:42).Amos was called to the dark task of calling down judgment upon Israel in the eighth century, B.C. Israel had fallen into the idolatry of astrology, worshipping the false gods of the heavens. He cites Israel's forty-year lapse as a test, which Israel had miserably failed.
From the Resurrection to A.D. 70
Now, just before he is stoned to death, Stephen calls down the same judgment upon the Pharisees and the Idumean kings who manipulated them like puppets. It is historically interesting that his death comes shortly after the ascension of Christ in A.D. 30. At this time, another forty-year period is being initiated.From Christ's crucifixion to the destruction of Herod's Temple and the city of Jerusalem was forty years! During this time, the Jerusalem church grew, even as sacrifices continued to be carried on at the Temple complex. Doubtless, the Jews believed that their normal pattern of events would continue on into the foreseeable future.As the fortieth year of this period drew closer, the book of Hebrews was penned. Most authorities date its authorship to A.D. 68, as the Romans' plans for conquest neared completion. Soon, as Jesus predicted, the Temple would be completely destroyed, right at the end of this forty-year period, a test that involved the relationship between the Jerusalem church and the Temple authorities. The third chapter of Hebrews warns the Jews not to turn back from Christian faith to the lure of Temple worship:Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness:When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years (Heb. 3:8,9).
Then, later in the same chapter, the writer to the Hebrews concluded his argument, likening his Hebrew contemporaries to the wilderness generation. Quite plainly, he is saying that it will not be long before judgment falls upon Jerusalem and Israel. And in A.D. 70, at the end of the forty-year period, those Jews who depended upon the old ways of festivals and priestly intercession, came to the end of their resources. Those who were not killed, fled into the far corners of the Roman Empire. There was no rest for them, only persecution and diaspora:But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness? And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it (Heb. 3:17-4:1).
Fast Forward:
The Twentieth Century
Since Israel's statehood on May 14, 1948, surrounding Arab nations continually agitated for the destruction of the new country, and of all the Twelve Tribes. Wars, insurrections and terrorism became a way of life for the Jews. After a period of relative peace in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Syria began to bombard Israel.In 1963, at the direction of the Arab League, Syria attempted to cut off the headwaters of the Jordan, leaving Israel without water resources.
In 1964, Israel replied with artillery, destroying Syrian earthmoving equipment. Hostilities between the two countries escalated. On May 24, 1966, Hafez Assad, then Syrian defense minister, stated, We shall never call for nor accept peace. We shall only accept war. We have resolved to drench this land with your blood, to oust your aggressors, to throw you into the sea.During the first half of 1967, Syria fired upon farming communities in northern Israel, and even planted mines there. Many settlers were seriously wounded and some were killed.At the same time, Egyptian forces mobilized on Israel's southern flank, along with Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. In May of 1967, Israel had just over 250,000 troops, 800 tanks and 300 combat jets. Combined Arab forces had about 550,000 troops, 2,500 tanks and over 900 combat jets. Islamic forces felt that they had arrived at the historical moment of their dreams.
By the end of May, these forces had moved their troops to Israel's borders. Egypt launched a massive naval blockade. Cairo radio repeatedly announced that Israel was trapped, with no alternative but surrender. During the period of May 31 through June 1, Egypt added to the enemy strength by moving over 100,000 troops, 1,000 tanks and 500 artillery pieces into the so-called buffer zone of the Sinai Peninsula.On June 5, in a pre-emptive strike, Israel wiped out all these enemies in a miraculous six-day campaign. By June 10, Israel controlled the Sinai, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the Golan Heights. Many books have commemorated the astonishing series of victories, won against such overwhelming odds that the Lord's intercession is the only way to explain them.On this date, Israel accepted the UN Security Council's demands for a cease-fire. Israel had captured East Jerusalem, including the Old City.This, of course, included the Temple Mount. Among religious Jews, there was exultation at the prospect of a united Jerusalem and plans for building the Third Temple. Sadly, this
lasted only about twenty-four hours.
Following World War II, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan was placed in charge of the Mount, its Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque. Through the Arab trust called the Waqf, they were the official caretakers and custodians of this area. Because of this, and pressure from certain rabbinic groups which believe that Jews should be forbidden access to the Mount because of its sacred nature, the Israeli Army, under General Moshe Dayan, quickly returned the Mount to Arab occupation. What a failure of steadfastness and faith! From that day to this, the Arabs have been busily engaged in a program to eradicate any trace of Jewish history on Mount Zion. They now officially deny that there ever was a Solomonic Temple there. Most infamously, the late Yasser Arafat boldly proclaimed that there never was a Jewish Temple of any kind there. Today, Islamists of every stripe shout this message from the housetops. Many have referred to their actions as Temple Denial.
Forty years have passed since that 1967 victory. We have taken the time to document the biblical perspective that is woven into and through this number. Given what we now know, we should examine the last forty years as yet another test of Israel's faith.
A Complex Fortieth Anniversary
This brings us to a series of dates that are now coming to our attention. As mentioned earlier, the war started on June 5, 1967. The fortieth anniversary of this event is obviously June 5, 2007. Likewise, the fortieth anniversary of the capture of Jerusalem will occur on June 10, 2007.At first glance, the anniversary would seem straightforward. That is, if we mark the moment when those Israeli troops first set foot on the Temple Mount, then June 10 of this year will mark the end of a forty-year test period for Israel.However, the picture is complicated, if we also consider the anniversary from the Jewish perspective, using the Jewish calendar. On this calendar, the Six-Day war began on the 26 of Iyar, 5727, and ended on the 2 of Sivan, 5727.On that same Jewish calendar, our current year is 5767.
This year, the 26 of Iyar and the 2 of Sivan arrive a little over three weeks earlier than the Gentile anniversary dates.To put it simply, the fortieth anniversary of the war comes about 22 days earlier on the Jewish calendar than it does on the Gentile calendar.
Pentecost: Awaiting a
New Dispensation
As the Bible clearly demonstrates, the fortieth year usually marks a radical departure from what has gone before. In the current case, Israel has repeatedly been tested on the issue of maintaining a unified Jerusalem, and a unified Israeli state. Having given up on custody of the Temple Mount, the Israelis provided Islamic forces a toehold, which has since been parlayed into a series of increasing demands for a Palestinian state.This, of course, would include a divided Jerusalem, with east Jerusalem becoming the capital of Palestine. The test has included two wars; one in 1973 and another in 2006. Israel has endured bombings and the continued onslaught of the two Intifadas (Arabic for uprising).
The first was in the 1980s, the second began in 2000, and has continued to the present. More correctly, these actions should be called terrorist insurgencies.Can we say that all this has been a forty-year test for Israel? This seems a logical conclusion, if not an obvious fact. The test is focused upon an ancient question: Can the modern leaders of Israel continue to maintain their presence in the Holy Land?
At the moment, their grip seems to be slipping. Gaza has been relinquished in a unilateral pull-out. After forty years, it has fallen into the hands of Fatah and Hamas, who are using it as a base of operations in their further attempts to wrest the entire Land from Israel. Ehud Olmert has demonstrated his reluctance to fight an effective battle to maintain Israel's borders. Last year, the rockets of Hezbollah showered all of northern Israel.The enemy was so effective (and Israel's military
leaders so ineffective) that heads rolled. Major General Yiftah Ron-Tal openly criticized Israel's military blunders, blaming Lieutenant General Halutz for Israel's weak response. Last October witnessed a significant shake-up in the Israeli military. As the test proceeds, Israel seems increasingly ineffectual in matters of security and national solidarity. It must also be added that they have succumbed to increasing pressure from the U.S. government for a Palestinian state.In a final note, we would point out that the two days of Pentecost are positioned between the Jewish and Gentile fortieth anniversary dates of the Six-Day War. On the Jewish calendar, the 2 of Sivan (May 19) falls four days prior to Pentecost, which falls on the 6 of Sivan (May 23). Eighteen days later on the Gentile calendar, we find the latter fortieth anniversary, on June 10.In the past, we have often pointed out the important meaning of Pentecost. To the Jews, it symbolizes the marriage contract between God and Israel at Sinai. On this date, Moses received the two tablets written in the Lord's own hand. This act initiated the Dispensation of Law. On Pentecost, religious Jews stay up all night studying Scripture, hoping for the blessing of a revelation from the Lord.
This is exactly what the Apostles did on that most famous of all Pentecosts. Early the next morning, their revelation came, marking the birth of the church and the coming of the new Dispensation of Grace:And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting (Acts 2:1,2).Since the initiation of the dispensations of Law and Grace are both celebrated on this date, it should not be a stretch of logic to expect that the next change of dispensation will fall on Pentecost, as well.Falling as it does on the fortieth anniversary of the Six-Day
War, this year's Pentecost may be the harbinger of great change. We should carefully observe this passing moment in history. It could well be of great importance.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
EU EXTENDS 1 YR GAZA EGYPT BORDER DEAL
EUROPEAN UNION ARMY
DANIEL 7:23-25
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast (EU,REVIVED ROME) shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth,(7TH WORLD EMPIRE) which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.(TRADING BLOCKS)
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings(10 NATIONS) that shall arise: and another shall rise after them;(#11 SPAIN) and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.( BE HEAD OF 3 NATIONS)
25 And he (EU PRESIDENT) shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.(3 1/2 YRS)
DANIEL 8:23-25
23 And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king (EU DICTATOR) of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences,(FROM THE OCCULT) shall stand up.
24 And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power:(SATANS POWER) and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people.
25 And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes;(JESUS) but he shall be broken without hand.
DANIEL 11:36-39
36 And the king (EU DICTATOR) shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done.
37 Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers,(THIS EU DICTATOR IS JEWISH) nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.(CLAIM TO BE GOD)
38 But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces:(WAR) and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things.
39 Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god,(DESTROY TERROR GROUPS) whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory: and he shall cause them to rule over many,(HIS ARMY LEADERS) and shall divide the land for gain.
REVELATION 19:19
19 And I saw the beast,(EU LEADER) and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse,(JESUS) and against his army.(THE RAPTURED CHRISTIANS)
GOOD THE EU IS AT THE GAZA EGYPT BORDER FOR ANOTHER YEAR. THE BIBLE CLEARLY SAYS THEY WILL GUARENTEE ISRAELS SECURITY FOR A LAND FOR PEACE TREATY. THIS LEBANESE FIGHTING IS NO ACCIDENT LIKE I SAID THE OTHER DAY.
EU seeks greater control of Gaza-Egypt border Wed May 23, 9:32 AM ET
CAIRO (AFP) - EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said Wednesday the European Union seeks more reponsibility in monitoring Gaza's border with Egypt, after its mission at the post was extended by a year. The Palestinians asked us to stay... and we said yes we accept.
But we would like to do it in a more effective manner, Solana told reporters after meeting with President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo.In particular on the question of the opening and closing of Rafah, we didn't have any responsibility in that, he said.The decision for a 12-month extension to the EU Border Assistance Mission (EUBAM) at Rafah, the Palestinians' only gateway to the world that bypasses Israel, was taken on Monday.
In Brussels, an EU official said the decision to extend, with an option for an additional six months, was taken at the level of ambassadors.
It is to be endorsed by the end of the week, the official said, adding there were no obstacles from either Israel or the Palestinians on extending the mandate, which is set to expire on Friday.Working in cooperation with Palestinian and Israeli officials since November 2005, EU experts monitor movements of people, goods and vehicles at the Rafah terminal, as well as training officers from the territories who work there.Israel has rarely allowed the crossing to open since one of its soldiers was seized by Palestinian militants last June.People who are trying to cross (the border), they don't know if the border will be open or closed, said Solana, adding that the reasons for the closure were not always clear.We would like to have a much better understanding of the mechanism, said Solana, who is scheduled to visit the Rafah terminal on Thursday as part of a wider Middle East regional tour.
DANIEL 7:23-25
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast (EU,REVIVED ROME) shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth,(7TH WORLD EMPIRE) which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.(TRADING BLOCKS)
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings(10 NATIONS) that shall arise: and another shall rise after them;(#11 SPAIN) and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.( BE HEAD OF 3 NATIONS)
25 And he (EU PRESIDENT) shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.(3 1/2 YRS)
DANIEL 8:23-25
23 And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king (EU DICTATOR) of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences,(FROM THE OCCULT) shall stand up.
24 And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power:(SATANS POWER) and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people.
25 And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes;(JESUS) but he shall be broken without hand.
DANIEL 11:36-39
36 And the king (EU DICTATOR) shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done.
37 Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers,(THIS EU DICTATOR IS JEWISH) nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.(CLAIM TO BE GOD)
38 But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces:(WAR) and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things.
39 Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god,(DESTROY TERROR GROUPS) whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory: and he shall cause them to rule over many,(HIS ARMY LEADERS) and shall divide the land for gain.
REVELATION 19:19
19 And I saw the beast,(EU LEADER) and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse,(JESUS) and against his army.(THE RAPTURED CHRISTIANS)
GOOD THE EU IS AT THE GAZA EGYPT BORDER FOR ANOTHER YEAR. THE BIBLE CLEARLY SAYS THEY WILL GUARENTEE ISRAELS SECURITY FOR A LAND FOR PEACE TREATY. THIS LEBANESE FIGHTING IS NO ACCIDENT LIKE I SAID THE OTHER DAY.
EU seeks greater control of Gaza-Egypt border Wed May 23, 9:32 AM ET
CAIRO (AFP) - EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said Wednesday the European Union seeks more reponsibility in monitoring Gaza's border with Egypt, after its mission at the post was extended by a year. The Palestinians asked us to stay... and we said yes we accept.
But we would like to do it in a more effective manner, Solana told reporters after meeting with President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo.In particular on the question of the opening and closing of Rafah, we didn't have any responsibility in that, he said.The decision for a 12-month extension to the EU Border Assistance Mission (EUBAM) at Rafah, the Palestinians' only gateway to the world that bypasses Israel, was taken on Monday.
In Brussels, an EU official said the decision to extend, with an option for an additional six months, was taken at the level of ambassadors.
It is to be endorsed by the end of the week, the official said, adding there were no obstacles from either Israel or the Palestinians on extending the mandate, which is set to expire on Friday.Working in cooperation with Palestinian and Israeli officials since November 2005, EU experts monitor movements of people, goods and vehicles at the Rafah terminal, as well as training officers from the territories who work there.Israel has rarely allowed the crossing to open since one of its soldiers was seized by Palestinian militants last June.People who are trying to cross (the border), they don't know if the border will be open or closed, said Solana, adding that the reasons for the closure were not always clear.We would like to have a much better understanding of the mechanism, said Solana, who is scheduled to visit the Rafah terminal on Thursday as part of a wider Middle East regional tour.
WEEKS - PENTICOST - SHAVUOT DAY 2
DAY 2 WEDNESDAY 6PM to THURSDAY 6PM IN ISRAEL SHAVUOT,WEEKS,PENTICOST
SCRIPTURES TORAH
DEUTORONOMY 15:19-16:17
19 All the firstling males that come of thy herd and of thy flock thou shalt sanctify unto the LORD thy God: thou shalt do no work with the firstling of thy bullock, nor shear the firstling of thy sheep.
20 Thou shalt eat it before the LORD thy God year by year in the place which the LORD shall choose, thou and thy household.
21 And if there be any blemish therein, as if it be lame, or blind, or have any ill blemish, thou shalt not sacrifice it unto the LORD thy God.
22 Thou shalt eat it within thy gates: the unclean and the clean person shall eat it alike, as the roebuck, and as the hart.
23 Only thou shalt not eat the blood thereof; thou shalt pour it upon the ground as water.
1 Observe the month of Abib, and keep the passover unto the LORD thy God: for in the month of Abib the LORD thy God brought thee forth out of Egypt by night.
2 Thou shalt therefore sacrifice the passover unto the LORD thy God, of the flock and the herd, in the place which the LORD shall choose to place his name there.
3 Thou shalt eat no leavened bread with it; seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread therewith, even the bread of affliction; for thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt in haste: that thou mayest remember the day when thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt all the days of thy life.
4 And there shall be no leavened bread seen with thee in all thy coast seven days; neither shall there any thing of the flesh, which thou sacrificedst the first day at even, remain all night until the morning.
5 Thou mayest not sacrifice the passover within any of thy gates, which the LORD thy God giveth thee:
6 But at the place which the LORD thy God shall choose to place his name in, there thou shalt sacrifice the passover at even, at the going down of the sun, at the season that thou camest forth out of Egypt.
7 And thou shalt roast and eat it in the place which the LORD thy God shall choose: and thou shalt turn in the morning, and go unto thy tents.
8 Six days thou shalt eat unleavened bread: and on the seventh day shall be a solemn assembly to the LORD thy God: thou shalt do no work therein.
9 Seven weeks shalt thou number unto thee: begin to number the seven weeks from such time as thou beginnest to put the sickle to the corn.
10 And thou shalt keep the feast of weeks unto the LORD thy God with a tribute of a freewill offering of thine hand, which thou shalt give unto the LORD thy God, according as the LORD thy God hath blessed thee:
11 And thou shalt rejoice before the LORD thy God, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite that is within thy gates, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are among you, in the place which the LORD thy God hath chosen to place his name there.
12 And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt: and thou shalt observe and do these statutes.
13 Thou shalt observe the feast of tabernacles seven days, after that thou hast gathered in thy corn and thy wine:
14 And thou shalt rejoice in thy feast, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite, the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are within thy gates.
15 Seven days shalt thou keep a solemn feast unto the LORD thy God in the place which the LORD shall choose: because the LORD thy God shall bless thee in all thine increase, and in all the works of thine hands, therefore thou shalt surely rejoice.
16 Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose; in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles: and they shall not appear before the LORD empty:
17 Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the LORD thy God which he hath given thee.
NUMBER 28:26-31
26 Also in the day of the firstfruits, when ye bring a new meat offering unto the LORD, after your weeks be out, ye shall have an holy convocation; ye shall do no servile work:
27 But ye shall offer the burnt offering for a sweet savour unto the LORD; two young bullocks, one ram, seven lambs of the first year;
28 And their meat offering of flour mingled with oil, three tenth deals unto one bullock, two tenth deals unto one ram,
29 A several tenth deal unto one lamb, throughout the seven lambs;
30 And one kid of the goats, to make an atonement for you.
31 Ye shall offer them beside the continual burnt offering, and his meat offering, (they shall be unto you without blemish) and their drink offerings.
PROPHETS DAY 2 SHAVUOT (WEEKS,PENTICOST)
HABAKKUK 3:1-19
1 A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet upon Shigionoth.
2 O LORD, I have heard thy speech, and was afraid: O LORD, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy.
3 God came from Teman, and the Holy One from mount Paran. Selah. His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise.
4 And his brightness was as the light; he had horns coming out of his hand: and there was the hiding of his power.
5 Before him went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet.
6 He stood, and measured the earth: he beheld, and drove asunder the nations; and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow: his ways are everlasting.
7 I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction: and the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble.
8 Was the LORD displeased against the rivers? was thine anger against the rivers? was thy wrath against the sea, that thou didst ride upon thine horses and thy chariots of salvation?
9 Thy bow was made quite naked, according to the oaths of the tribes, even thy word. Selah. Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers.
10 The mountains saw thee, and they trembled: the overflowing of the water passed by: the deep uttered his voice, and lifted up his hands on high.
11 The sun and moon stood still in their habitation: at the light of thine arrows they went, and at the shining of thy glittering spear.
12 Thou didst march through the land in indignation, thou didst thresh the heathen in anger.
13 Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people, even for salvation with thine anointed; thou woundedst the head out of the house of the wicked, by discovering the foundation unto the neck. Selah.
14 Thou didst strike through with his staves the head of his villages: they came out as a whirlwind to scatter me: their rejoicing was as to devour the poor secretly.
15 Thou didst walk through the sea with thine horses, through the heap of great waters.
16 When I heard, my belly trembled; my lips quivered at the voice: rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of trouble: when he cometh up unto the people, he will invade them with his troops.
17 Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls:
18 Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation.
19 The LORD God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds’ feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places. To the chief singer on my stringed instruments.
The magic of Shavuot, 1967
By Larry Domnitch May 23, 2007
Reprinted from our publication of this piece in 2005, on the 40th anniversay of the holiday.
Over the last two millennia, Jews have visited Jerusalem in honor of the festivals, in lieu of the Biblically ordained pilgrimages. On the holiday of Shavuot, there was also the custom to visit the grave of King David on Mount Zion, since according to tradition, the date of his birth and passing was the holiday of Shavuot. When Shavuot arrived in 1948, it was a month after the establishment of the State of Israel, and Jews could no longer continue to make the pilgrimage to the Western Wall.
The Jordanians, who occupied the eastern half of the city since the War of Independence, blocked all rights of passage to the Jews. However, the pilgrimage to King David's tomb on nearby Mount Zion, located on the Israeli side of divided Jerusalem, continued. Over the next nineteen years, crowds made their way to Mount Zion, where they could view the Old City and the Temple Mount.
On the morning of Shavuot June 15, 1967, just six days after the liberation of the Old City of Jerusalem following the Six Day War, the Old City was officially opened to the Israeli public. For the first time in almost two thousand years, masses of Jews could visit the Western Wall and walk through the cherished streets of Judaism's capital city as members of the sovereign Jewish nation.
Each Jew who ventured to the Western Wall on that unforgettable day represented the living realization of their ancestors' dreams over the millennia. It was one of those rare, euphoric moments in history. From the late hours of the night, thousands of Jerusalem residents streamed towards Zion gate, eagerly awaiting entry into the Old City. At 4 a.m., the accumulating crowds were finally allowed to enter the area of the Western Wall. The first Minyan (traditional quorum of ten men) soon began.
Over fifteen hundred people shared that special moment. As the sun continued to rise, there was a steady flow of thousands who made their way to the Old City. In total, two hundred thousand visited the Western Wall that day. It was the first pilgrimage, en masse, of Jews to Jewish-controlled Jerusalem on a Jewish festival in two thousand years, since the pilgrimages for the festivals in Temple times.
The Jerusalem Post described the epic scene:
Every section of the population was represented. Kibbutz members and soldiers rubbing shoulders with Neturei Karta. Mothers came with children in prams, and old men trudged steeply up Mount Zion, supported by youngsters on either side, to see the wall of the Temple before the end of their days. Some wept, but most faces were wreathed in smiles.
For thirteen continuous hours a colorful variety of all peoples trudged along in perfect order, stepping patiently when told to do so at each of six successive barriers set up by the police to regulate the flow.
An eyewitness described the moment:
I've never known so electric an atmosphere before or since. Wherever we stopped, we began to dance. Holding aloft Torah scrolls we swayed and danced and sang at the tops of our voices. So many of the Psalms and songs are about Jerusalem and Zion and the words reached into us a new life. As the sky lightened, we reached the Zion gate. Still singing and dancing, we poured into the narrow alleyways beyond.On Shavuot, three thousand two hundred and seventy nine years earlier, the Israelites stood at Mount Sinai and felt the gravity of the moment as a unique relationship was formed between themselves and their Creator. On the day of Shavuot following Israel's amazing victory of the Six-Day War, multitudes ascended to the Western Wall, as their ancestors had done in the past, and they celebrated the holiday just a short distance from the Temple Mount. They, too, felt the magic of the moment. Views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
SCRIPTURES TORAH
DEUTORONOMY 15:19-16:17
19 All the firstling males that come of thy herd and of thy flock thou shalt sanctify unto the LORD thy God: thou shalt do no work with the firstling of thy bullock, nor shear the firstling of thy sheep.
20 Thou shalt eat it before the LORD thy God year by year in the place which the LORD shall choose, thou and thy household.
21 And if there be any blemish therein, as if it be lame, or blind, or have any ill blemish, thou shalt not sacrifice it unto the LORD thy God.
22 Thou shalt eat it within thy gates: the unclean and the clean person shall eat it alike, as the roebuck, and as the hart.
23 Only thou shalt not eat the blood thereof; thou shalt pour it upon the ground as water.
1 Observe the month of Abib, and keep the passover unto the LORD thy God: for in the month of Abib the LORD thy God brought thee forth out of Egypt by night.
2 Thou shalt therefore sacrifice the passover unto the LORD thy God, of the flock and the herd, in the place which the LORD shall choose to place his name there.
3 Thou shalt eat no leavened bread with it; seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread therewith, even the bread of affliction; for thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt in haste: that thou mayest remember the day when thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt all the days of thy life.
4 And there shall be no leavened bread seen with thee in all thy coast seven days; neither shall there any thing of the flesh, which thou sacrificedst the first day at even, remain all night until the morning.
5 Thou mayest not sacrifice the passover within any of thy gates, which the LORD thy God giveth thee:
6 But at the place which the LORD thy God shall choose to place his name in, there thou shalt sacrifice the passover at even, at the going down of the sun, at the season that thou camest forth out of Egypt.
7 And thou shalt roast and eat it in the place which the LORD thy God shall choose: and thou shalt turn in the morning, and go unto thy tents.
8 Six days thou shalt eat unleavened bread: and on the seventh day shall be a solemn assembly to the LORD thy God: thou shalt do no work therein.
9 Seven weeks shalt thou number unto thee: begin to number the seven weeks from such time as thou beginnest to put the sickle to the corn.
10 And thou shalt keep the feast of weeks unto the LORD thy God with a tribute of a freewill offering of thine hand, which thou shalt give unto the LORD thy God, according as the LORD thy God hath blessed thee:
11 And thou shalt rejoice before the LORD thy God, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite that is within thy gates, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are among you, in the place which the LORD thy God hath chosen to place his name there.
12 And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt: and thou shalt observe and do these statutes.
13 Thou shalt observe the feast of tabernacles seven days, after that thou hast gathered in thy corn and thy wine:
14 And thou shalt rejoice in thy feast, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite, the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are within thy gates.
15 Seven days shalt thou keep a solemn feast unto the LORD thy God in the place which the LORD shall choose: because the LORD thy God shall bless thee in all thine increase, and in all the works of thine hands, therefore thou shalt surely rejoice.
16 Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose; in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles: and they shall not appear before the LORD empty:
17 Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the LORD thy God which he hath given thee.
NUMBER 28:26-31
26 Also in the day of the firstfruits, when ye bring a new meat offering unto the LORD, after your weeks be out, ye shall have an holy convocation; ye shall do no servile work:
27 But ye shall offer the burnt offering for a sweet savour unto the LORD; two young bullocks, one ram, seven lambs of the first year;
28 And their meat offering of flour mingled with oil, three tenth deals unto one bullock, two tenth deals unto one ram,
29 A several tenth deal unto one lamb, throughout the seven lambs;
30 And one kid of the goats, to make an atonement for you.
31 Ye shall offer them beside the continual burnt offering, and his meat offering, (they shall be unto you without blemish) and their drink offerings.
PROPHETS DAY 2 SHAVUOT (WEEKS,PENTICOST)
HABAKKUK 3:1-19
1 A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet upon Shigionoth.
2 O LORD, I have heard thy speech, and was afraid: O LORD, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy.
3 God came from Teman, and the Holy One from mount Paran. Selah. His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise.
4 And his brightness was as the light; he had horns coming out of his hand: and there was the hiding of his power.
5 Before him went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet.
6 He stood, and measured the earth: he beheld, and drove asunder the nations; and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow: his ways are everlasting.
7 I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction: and the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble.
8 Was the LORD displeased against the rivers? was thine anger against the rivers? was thy wrath against the sea, that thou didst ride upon thine horses and thy chariots of salvation?
9 Thy bow was made quite naked, according to the oaths of the tribes, even thy word. Selah. Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers.
10 The mountains saw thee, and they trembled: the overflowing of the water passed by: the deep uttered his voice, and lifted up his hands on high.
11 The sun and moon stood still in their habitation: at the light of thine arrows they went, and at the shining of thy glittering spear.
12 Thou didst march through the land in indignation, thou didst thresh the heathen in anger.
13 Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people, even for salvation with thine anointed; thou woundedst the head out of the house of the wicked, by discovering the foundation unto the neck. Selah.
14 Thou didst strike through with his staves the head of his villages: they came out as a whirlwind to scatter me: their rejoicing was as to devour the poor secretly.
15 Thou didst walk through the sea with thine horses, through the heap of great waters.
16 When I heard, my belly trembled; my lips quivered at the voice: rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of trouble: when he cometh up unto the people, he will invade them with his troops.
17 Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls:
18 Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation.
19 The LORD God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds’ feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places. To the chief singer on my stringed instruments.
The magic of Shavuot, 1967
By Larry Domnitch May 23, 2007
Reprinted from our publication of this piece in 2005, on the 40th anniversay of the holiday.
Over the last two millennia, Jews have visited Jerusalem in honor of the festivals, in lieu of the Biblically ordained pilgrimages. On the holiday of Shavuot, there was also the custom to visit the grave of King David on Mount Zion, since according to tradition, the date of his birth and passing was the holiday of Shavuot. When Shavuot arrived in 1948, it was a month after the establishment of the State of Israel, and Jews could no longer continue to make the pilgrimage to the Western Wall.
The Jordanians, who occupied the eastern half of the city since the War of Independence, blocked all rights of passage to the Jews. However, the pilgrimage to King David's tomb on nearby Mount Zion, located on the Israeli side of divided Jerusalem, continued. Over the next nineteen years, crowds made their way to Mount Zion, where they could view the Old City and the Temple Mount.
On the morning of Shavuot June 15, 1967, just six days after the liberation of the Old City of Jerusalem following the Six Day War, the Old City was officially opened to the Israeli public. For the first time in almost two thousand years, masses of Jews could visit the Western Wall and walk through the cherished streets of Judaism's capital city as members of the sovereign Jewish nation.
Each Jew who ventured to the Western Wall on that unforgettable day represented the living realization of their ancestors' dreams over the millennia. It was one of those rare, euphoric moments in history. From the late hours of the night, thousands of Jerusalem residents streamed towards Zion gate, eagerly awaiting entry into the Old City. At 4 a.m., the accumulating crowds were finally allowed to enter the area of the Western Wall. The first Minyan (traditional quorum of ten men) soon began.
Over fifteen hundred people shared that special moment. As the sun continued to rise, there was a steady flow of thousands who made their way to the Old City. In total, two hundred thousand visited the Western Wall that day. It was the first pilgrimage, en masse, of Jews to Jewish-controlled Jerusalem on a Jewish festival in two thousand years, since the pilgrimages for the festivals in Temple times.
The Jerusalem Post described the epic scene:
Every section of the population was represented. Kibbutz members and soldiers rubbing shoulders with Neturei Karta. Mothers came with children in prams, and old men trudged steeply up Mount Zion, supported by youngsters on either side, to see the wall of the Temple before the end of their days. Some wept, but most faces were wreathed in smiles.
For thirteen continuous hours a colorful variety of all peoples trudged along in perfect order, stepping patiently when told to do so at each of six successive barriers set up by the police to regulate the flow.
An eyewitness described the moment:
I've never known so electric an atmosphere before or since. Wherever we stopped, we began to dance. Holding aloft Torah scrolls we swayed and danced and sang at the tops of our voices. So many of the Psalms and songs are about Jerusalem and Zion and the words reached into us a new life. As the sky lightened, we reached the Zion gate. Still singing and dancing, we poured into the narrow alleyways beyond.On Shavuot, three thousand two hundred and seventy nine years earlier, the Israelites stood at Mount Sinai and felt the gravity of the moment as a unique relationship was formed between themselves and their Creator. On the day of Shavuot following Israel's amazing victory of the Six-Day War, multitudes ascended to the Western Wall, as their ancestors had done in the past, and they celebrated the holiday just a short distance from the Temple Mount. They, too, felt the magic of the moment. Views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
SHAVUOT STARTS TONIGHT
Today In Jewish History 5 Sivan May 22,07
In 1981, Israel bombed and destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor in Baghdad. Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had pronounced himself as the reincarnation of Babylonian tyrant Nebuchadnezzar, and named the nuclear reactor Tammuz -- the name of the calamitous Jewish month when Nebuchadnezzar's troops laid siege on Jerusalem 2,500 years earlier. Ilan Ramon (later to become Israel's first astronaut, who died in the explosion of the Space Shuttle Columbia) and seven other pilots executed the daring raid -- flying over enemy Arab territory for hours, and avoiding detection with their tight formation that emitted a radar signal resembling a commercial airliner. However, even as Israel celebrated the successful raid, condemnation was nearly universal. One prominent U.S. senator called it one of the most provocative, ill-timed and internationally illegal actions taken in that nation's history. Two decades later, as the world feared Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, the Israeli action was vindicated.
EXODUS 23:16
16 And the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field.
The holiday of Shavuot,(WEEKS,PENTECOST) which begins tonight, is known as the Festival of Harvest.
DAY 1 TUESDAY from 6PM to 6PM. DAY 2 WEDNESDAY from 6PM to 6PM THU. THE THIRD TEMPLE HAS TO BE REBUILT TO PERFORM THESE FEASTS PROPERLY, PLEASE ISRAEL REBUILD THE 3RD TEMPLE NOW. ALL ISRAEL GET BEHIND THE SANHEDRIN AND LETS PRAISE THE GOD OF ISRAEL PROPERLY IN THE 3RD TEMPLE. IM ONLY A SINGLE VOICE BUT WITH LOTS OF VOICES IT CAN HAPPEN. ALL CHRISTIANS ALSO ENCOURAGE CHURCHES TO GET THE WORD AROUND, WE NEED THE 3RD TEMPLE REBUILT.
DAY 1 OF FIRSTFRUITS (SHAVUOT) SCRIPTURES
ACTS 1:1-26, 2:1-47
1 The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach,
2 Until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen:
3 To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God:
4 And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me.
5 For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.
6 When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?
7 And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.
8 But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
9 And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.
10 And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel;
11 Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.
12 Then returned they unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem a sabbath day’s journey.
13 And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room, where abode both Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon Zelotes, and Judas the brother of James.
14 These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.
15 And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples, and said, (the number of names together were about an hundred and twenty,)
16 Men and brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas, which was guide to them that took Jesus.
17 For he was numbered with us, and had obtained part of this ministry.
18 Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out.
19 And it was known unto all the dwellers at Jerusalem; insomuch as that field is called in their proper tongue, Aceldama, that is to say, The field of blood.
20 For it is written in the book of Psalms, Let his habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein: and his bishoprick let another take.
21 Wherefore of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us,
22 Beginning from the baptism of John, unto that same day that he was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection.
23 And they appointed two, Joseph called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias.
24 And they prayed, and said, Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, shew whether of these two thou hast chosen,
25 That he may take part of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place.
26 And they gave forth their lots; and the lot fell upon Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.
1 And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.
3 And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.
4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
5 And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven.
6 Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language.
7 And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans?
8 And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?
9 Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia,
10 Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes,
11 Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.
12 And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this?
13 Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine.
14 But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words:
15 For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day.
16 But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel;
17 And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:
18 And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy:
19 And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke:
20 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come:
21 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
22 Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know:
23 Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:
24 Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.
25 For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved:
26 Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope:
27 Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.
28 Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance.
29 Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day.
30 Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne;
31 He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption.
32 This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses.
33 Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear.
34 For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself, The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand,
35 Until I make thy foes thy footstool.
36 Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.
37 Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?
38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
39 For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.
40 And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation.
41 Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.
42 And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.
43 And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles.
44 And all that believed were together, and had all things common;
45 And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.
46 And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart,
47 Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.
TORAH SCRIPTURES
EXODUS CHAPTERS 19-20
1 In the third month, when the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai.
2 For they were departed from Rephidim, and were come to the desert of Sinai, and had pitched in the wilderness; and there Israel camped before the mount.
3 And Moses went up unto God, and the LORD called unto him out of the mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel;
4 Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself.
5 Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine:
6 And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.
7 And Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid before their faces all these words which the LORD commanded him.
8 And all the people answered together, and said, All that the LORD hath spoken we will do. And Moses returned the words of the people unto the LORD.
9 And the LORD said unto Moses, Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with thee, and believe thee for ever. And Moses told the words of the people unto the LORD.
10 And the LORD said unto Moses, Go unto the people, and sanctify them to day and to morrow, and let them wash their clothes,
11 And be ready against the third day: for the third day the LORD will come down in the sight of all the people upon mount Sinai.
12 And thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it: whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death:
13 There shall not an hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned, or shot through; whether it be beast or man, it shall not live: when the trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount.
14 And Moses went down from the mount unto the people, and sanctified the people; and they washed their clothes.
15 And he said unto the people, Be ready against the third day: come not at your wives.
16 And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled.
17 And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount.
18 And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.
19 And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice.
20 And the LORD came down upon mount Sinai, on the top of the mount: and the LORD called Moses up to the top of the mount; and Moses went up.
21 And the LORD said unto Moses, Go down, charge the people, lest they break through unto the LORD to gaze, and many of them perish.
22 And let the priests also, which come near to the LORD, sanctify themselves, lest the LORD break forth upon them.
23 And Moses said unto the LORD, The people cannot come up to mount Sinai: for thou chargedst us, saying, Set bounds about the mount, and sanctify it.
24 And the LORD said unto him, Away, get thee down, and thou shalt come up, thou, and Aaron with thee: but let not the priests and the people break through to come up unto the LORD, lest he break forth upon them.
25 So Moses went down unto the people, and spake unto them.
1 And God spake all these words, saying,
2 I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
7 Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
12 Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
13 Thou shalt not kill.
14 Thou shalt not commit adultery.
15 Thou shalt not steal.
16 Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
17 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.
18 And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off.
19 And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die.
20 And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.
21 And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.
22 And the LORD said unto Moses, Thus thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, Ye have seen that I have talked with you from heaven.
23 Ye shall not make with me gods of silver, neither shall ye make unto you gods of gold.
24 An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen: in all places where I record my name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee.
25 And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.
26 Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon.
NUMBERS 28:26-31
26 Also in the day of the firstfruits, when ye bring a new meat offering unto the LORD, after your weeks be out, ye shall have an holy convocation; ye shall do no servile work:
27 But ye shall offer the burnt offering for a sweet savour unto the LORD; two young bullocks, one ram, seven lambs of the first year;
28 And their meat offering of flour mingled with oil, three tenth deals unto one bullock, two tenth deals unto one ram,
29 A several tenth deal unto one lamb, throughout the seven lambs;
30 And one kid of the goats, to make an atonement for you.
31 Ye shall offer them beside the continual burnt offering, and his meat offering, (they shall be unto you without blemish) and their drink offerings.
PROPHETS SCRIPTURES DAY 1 FIRSTFRUITS WEEKS (SHAVUOT)
EZEKIEL 1:1-28
1 Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river of Chebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.
2 In the fifth day of the month, which was the fifth year of king Jehoiachin’s captivity,
3 The word of the LORD came expressly unto Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and the hand of the LORD was there upon him.
4 And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire.
5 Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a man.
6 And every one had four faces, and every one had four wings.
7 And their feet were straight feet; and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf’s foot: and they sparkled like the colour of burnished brass.
8 And they had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides; and they four had their faces and their wings.
9 Their wings were joined one to another; they turned not when they went; they went every one straight forward.
10 As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle.
11 Thus were their faces: and their wings were stretched upward; two wings of every one were joined one to another, and two covered their bodies.
12 And they went every one straight forward: whither the spirit was to go, they went; and they turned not when they went.
13 As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of lamps: it went up and down among the living creatures; and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning.
14 And the living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning.
15 Now as I beheld the living creatures, behold one wheel upon the earth by the living creatures, with his four faces.
16 The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the colour of a beryl: and they four had one likeness: and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel.
17 When they went, they went upon their four sides: and they turned not when they went.
18 As for their rings, they were so high that they were dreadful; and their rings were full of eyes round about them four.
19 And when the living creatures went, the wheels went by them: and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up.
20 Whithersoever the spirit was to go, they went, thither was their spirit to go; and the wheels were lifted up over against them: for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.
21 When those went, these went; and when those stood, these stood; and when those were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up over against them: for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.
22 And the likeness of the firmament upon the heads of the living creature was as the colour of the terrible crystal, stretched forth over their heads above.
23 And under the firmament were their wings straight, the one toward the other: every one had two, which covered on this side, and every one had two, which covered on that side, their bodies.
24 And when they went, I heard the noise of their wings, like the noise of great waters, as the voice of the Almighty, the voice of speech, as the noise of an host: when they stood, they let down their wings.
25 And there was a voice from the firmament that was over their heads, when they stood, and had let down their wings.
26 And above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone: and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it.
27 And I saw as the colour of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it, from the appearance of his loins even upward, and from the appearance of his loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about.
28 As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one that spake.
EZEKIEL 3:12
12 Then the spirit took me up, and I heard behind me a voice of a great rushing, saying, Blessed be the glory of the LORD from his place.
OTHER NEWS
1-WORLD QUAKES LAST 2 DAYS. 2-Quake experts all shook up by zoo animals. 3-Government forecasts active Atlantic hurricane season. 4-2-3 Pacific storms expected this year. 5-U.N. relief convoy hit in Lebanon battle. 6-Israel says Hamas leaders may be targets. 7-Three More Kassams as Sderot Prepares for Funeral. 8-Calls to Re-settle Gush Katif.
EARTHQUAKES
MATTHEW 24:7-8
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
MARK 13:8
8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:(ETHNIC GROUP AGAINST ETHNIC GROUP) and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.
LUKE 21:11
11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.
WORLD QUAKES LAST 2 DAYS (USGS)
Update time = Tue May 22 15:59:54 UTC 2007
MAY 22,07
MAP 3.4 RAT ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, ALASKA
MAP 3.2 OFFSHORE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 4.0 CENTRAL CALIFORNIA
MAP 2.5 NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 4.7 MARIANA ISLANDS REGION
MAP 2.8 ISLAND OF HAWAII, HAWAII
MAP 3.4 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 2.9 BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO
MAP 2.6 CENTRAL ALASKA
MAP 2.9 CENTRAL ALASKA
MAP 4.9 SIMEULUE, INDONESIA
MAP 2.8 PUERTO RICO REGION
MAY 21,07
MAP 5.0 CRETE, GREECE
MAP 2.9 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 4.5 MOLUCCA SEA
MAP 4.7 MINDANAO, PHILIPPINES
MAP 4.7 DODECANESE ISLANDS, GREECE
MAP 4.7 NORTHERN SUMATRA, INDONESIA
MAP 4.2 NORTHERN ALASKA
MAP 2.5 ISLAND OF HAWAII, HAWAII
MAP 4.4 SOUTHEASTERN ALASKA
MAP 5.1 SOLOMON ISLANDS
MAP 4.8 TARAPACA, CHILE
Quake experts all shook up by zoo animals Mon May 21, 9:37 PM ET
BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese zoo is monitoring its animals extra carefully to study how their behaviour predicts earthquakes, the China Daily said on Tuesday. Guangzhou Zoo, in the southern province of Guangdong, had set up observation points near peacocks, frogs, snakes, turtles, deer and squirrels to monitor and record their behaviour for the city's seismology office.We have found many animals behave oddly before an earthquake, the newspaper quoted experts as saying. Hibernating animals, for example, will wake up and flee from their caves, while the aquatic ones will leap from the water's surface.The report did not say how long before a quake the animals react, or whether the aim of the exercise was to provide timely warnings. According to the seismology office, abnormal behaviour can be observed among 130 animals before an earthquake.Mice and snakes, for instance, normally do not leave their hiding places during day time, but you will see them scurrying about when an earthquake is about to strike, the newspaper quoted Chen Honghan, vice-director of Guangzhou Zoo, as saying.
Chen said giraffes ran away from trees for fear of being crushed, while hippos headed for land, and in the case of a tsunami, they kept diving into deep water to protect themselves from the waves.The earthquake bureau in Nanning, capital of the Guangxi autonomous region in southern China, monitors snakes at local snake farms via video cameras 24 hours per day.Of all the creatures on Earth, snakes are perhaps the most sensitive to earthquakes, bureau director Jiang Weisong was quoted as saying in December.China is struck by frequent earthquakes, most hitting remote rural areas.
STORMS HURRICANES-TORNADOES
LUKE 21:25-26
25 And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity;(MASS CONFUSION) the sea and the waves roaring;(FIERCE WINDS)
26 Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.
Government forecasts active Atlantic hurricane season By Christopher Doering MAY 22,07
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The 2007 Atlantic hurricane season will be active with 13 to 17 named storms, seven to 10 of which are expected to become hurricanes, the U.S. government's top climate agency predicted on Tuesday.
Of the seven to 10 hurricanes forecast, three to five will be major ones of Category 3 or higher with winds over 110 miles per hour, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in its annual forecast.An average Atlantic hurricane season brings 11 named storms, with six becoming hurricanes, including two major hurricanes, NOAA said.Earlier forecasts for the Atlantic hurricane season also have predicted the return of an active pattern this year.
Weather forecaster AccuWeather.com has predicted 13 or 14 tropical storms or hurricanes would form in the Atlantic this year and six or seven could hit the United States, with the Gulf Coast and Gulf of Mexico oil installations at high risk.The Colorado State University team under forecast pioneer William Gray predicted 17 storms, of which nine would become hurricanes, and London-based Tropical Storm Risk predicted 16.7 storms and 9.2 hurricanes.The Atlantic hurricane season typically peaks between August 1 and late October.
A devastating 2005 Atlantic hurricane season generated 28 tropical storms, of which 15 became hurricanes. A record four major hurricanes hit the United States, including Katrina, which devastated New Orleans, killed 1,300 people and caused $80 billion in damage. Forecasters had expected an active 2006 season as well, but only 10 storms formed, five of which became hurricanes. No hurricanes hit the United States last year.
2-3 Pacific storms expected this year By BRIAN CHARLTON, Associated Press Writer Mon May 21, 11:27 PM ET
HONOLULU - Hawaii and the rest of the central Pacific face a slightly below-average hurricane season this summer, with just two or three tropical cyclones expected, federal forecasters said Monday.
With sea surface temperatures lower than average, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Central Pacific Hurricane Center predicted possible La Nina conditions resulting in less tropical cyclone activity.Those conditions and the overall reduction in hurricane activity in that region since 1995 led to the prediction for the June-November season, said Jim Weyman, director of the hurricane center, at a news conference.In a La Nina — the opposite of the better-known El Nino events — the waters of the mid-Pacific equatorial region are cooler than normal. Hurricane season begins June 1 and ends Nov. 30. The islands get an average of 4.5 tropical cyclones a year and one hurricane about every 15 years. Last year, the central Pacific had five tropical cyclones after NOAA predicted two to three.
When I give a slightly below average forecast it always troubles me because people always think they don't have to worry, and that is not the message we want to take, Weyman said.
The message is it only takes that one to cause tremendous devastation. Since 1959, 62 hurricanes, 67 tropical storms and 61 tropical depressions have been tracked in the central Pacific. The last hurricane to hit Hawaii was in 1992 when Iniki ravaged Kauai, killing six people and causing $2.5 billion in damage.In a nod to Hawaiian culture, the hurricane center will now use only Hawaiian names for tropical storms and hurricanes, Weyman said. The next one will be called Kika. Private and university forecasters have predicted that the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season will be especially active, producing as many as 17 tropical storms and hurricanes and a well above average possibility of at least one striking the U.S.
The federal government plans to release its predictions Tuesday.On the Net:Central Pacific Hurricane Center: http://www.weather.gov/cphc
U.N. relief convoy hit in Lebanon battle By SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI, Associated Press Writer MAY 22,07
TRIPOLI, Lebanon - A convoy of U.N. relief supplies was hit in a third day of fighting Tuesday between Lebanese troops and an Islamic militant group holed up in a crowded Palestinian refugee camp.
In two other refugee camps in Lebanon, angry Palestinians burned tires to protest the Lebanese army assault on the northern camp of Nahr el-Bared. The unrest heightened fears that the military's attempt to crush the al-Qaida-inspired Fatah Islam could provoke a broader backlash among hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in other refugee camps, where Islamic extremists have been growing in influence. Overnight, the Lebanese government ordered the army to finish off the militants who have set up in Nahr el-Bared, where 31,000 Palestinian refugees live on the outskirts of the northern port of Tripoli. At least 50 combatants have been killed since fighting erupted Sunday.
Black smoke billowed from the area Tuesday amid artillery and machine gun exchanges between troops and militants. Lebanese troops skirmished with Fatah Islam fighters, trying to seize militant positions on the outskirts of the camp.There are dead and wounded on the road, inside the camp, screamed a Lebanese woman, Amina Alameddine, who ran weeping from her home on the edge of the camp. She fled with her daughter and four other relatives after Fatah Islam fighters started shooting at the army from the roof of her house.At the same time, Lebanese troops sought to flush out fighters hiding in Tripoli. Soldiers raided a building where Fatah Islam militants were believed to be hiding out, blasting an apartment with grenades, gunfire and tear gas.They found no one in the apartment, but hours later, while pursuing a militant, they ordered him to surrender. He dropped a pistol but then detonated an explosives belt on his body, police officials said. None of the troops was injured.
Reports emerged from Nahr el-Bared of heavy destruction from the three days of bombardment by Lebanese artillery and tanks and militants who returned fire with mortars and automatic weapons.The shelling is heavy, not only on our positions, but also on children and women. Destruction is all over, Fatah Islam spokesman Abu Salim Taha told The Associated Press by telephone from inside the camp.A U.N. refugee official said dozens of buildings were believed demolished, with residents trapped inside. There was also word that food and medical supplies were running out. The reports could not be confirmed because officials and reporters could not enter the camp.The camp is being destroyed from inside, a U.N. Relief and Works Agency staffer told the AP. The construction is very weak and the houses are very close to each other. We have reports that there are dozens of homes that were destroyed with the residents inside. Truly people are under the rubble. This is no exaggeration, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.The militants have killed 29 soldiers since Sunday and about 20 of the fighters have also been killed. The number of civilian casualties is unknown because relief officials have had limited access.Lebanese authorities do not enter the refugee camps under a nearly 40-year-old agreement with the Palestinians.
The tens of thousands of Palestinians live in two- or three-story white buildings on the camp's densely packed narrow streets. Refugees have been hiding in their homes inside the camp and Palestinian officials there said nine civilians were killed Monday.After a morning of battles, the camp briefly fell silent Tuesday afternoon. Taha said the militants called a unilateral cease-fire, but it collapsed within an hour and heavy exchanges of fire and several explosions were heard. It was not known which side started firing.An UNRWA official said a pickup truck and a water tanker were caught between the lines of the two sides and hit as they entered the camp. There may have been some casualties, at least one, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. We could not distribute everything, he told the AP by telephone from the camp entrance.
The Lebanon representative of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad, which has been mediating a cease-fire, confirmed the relief effort had come under attack. Speaking on Al-Jazeera television, Abu Imad Rifai said that while people were trying to pick up food supplies for UNRWA, they were shelled and some were injured, some seriously.Rifai said he did not know who had breached the cease-fire.
Earlier, Taleb al-Salhani of UNRWA said the agency scrambled to evacuate one of its employees, a Palestinian aid worker wounded Monday. The army earlier stopped six UNRWA trucks, including a water tanker, saying it was too dangerous to enter the camp. The government of Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora appeared determined to pursue Fatah Islam. Lebanon's Cabinet late Monday authorized the army to step up its campaign and end the terrorist phenomenon that is alien to the values and nature of the Palestinian people, Information Minister Ghazi Aridi said. The Bush administration reaffirmed its support for Saniora's government Tuesday and indicated it suspected Syrian involvement.
White House spokesman Tony Snow said the Fatah Islam militants want to disrupt the nation's security and distract international attention from a U.N. effort to establish a special tribunal try suspects in the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in Beirut. The United States will not tolerate attempts by Syria, terrorist groups or any others to delay or derail Lebanon's efforts to solidify its sovereignty or seek justice in the Hariri case, Snow said. Lebanese security officials accuse Syria of backing Fatah Islam to disrupt Lebanon. The charges are denied by Syria, which controlled Lebanon until 2005 when its troops were forced to withdraw from the country following Hariri's assassination. The fighting, Lebanon's worst internal violence since the 1975-90 civil war, has added yet another layer of instability to an uneasy balancing act among numerous sects and factions vying for power. Saniora's government already faces a domestic political crisis, with the opposition led by Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hezbollah demanding its removal.
Dozens of refugees angered by the assault on Nahr el-Bared burned tires in protest in the southern camp of Ein el-Hilweh, Lebanon's largest Palestinian camp. Protesters also burned tires in Rashidiyeh camp, farther south. The protests raised the specter that Palestinians in Lebanon's 11 other refugee camps could rise up in anger over the assault on Nahr el-Bared. The overcrowded camps — housing more than 215,000 refugees, out of a total of 400,000 Palestinians in Lebanon — are also home to many armed Palestinian factions who often battle each other and have seen a rising number of Islamic extremists. Major Palestinian factions have distanced themselves from Fatah Islam, which arose here last year and touts itself as a Palestinian liberation movement. But many view it as a nascent branch of al-Qaida-style terrorism with ambitions of carrying out attacks around the region. The group's leader, Palestinian Shaker al-Absi, has been linked to the former head of al-Qaida in Iraq and is accused in the 2002 assassination of a U.S. diplomat in Jordan. He moved into Nahr el-Bared last fall after being expelled from Syria, where he was in custody. Since then, he is believed to have recruited about 100 fighters, including militants from Saudi Arabia, Yemen and other Arab countries, and he has said he follows the ideology of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. Among the militants killed Sunday was a man suspected in a plot to bomb trains in Germany last year, according to Lebanese security officials.
Major Palestinian faction leaders met with Saniora for the second time in as many days. European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana arrived Tuesday in Beirut to discuss the crisis. Late Monday, an explosion went off in a shopping area in a Sunni Muslim sector of Beirut, wrecking parked cars and injuring seven people — a day after a bomb in a Christian part of the capital killed a woman. The two bombings while the fighting was going on in Tripoli were highly unusual. Taha, the Fatah Islam spokesman, denied his group was behind them.
Israel says Hamas leaders may be targets By LAURIE COPANS, Associated Press Writer MAY 22,07
JERUSALEM - Israeli aircraft struck two camps used by the Islamic militant group Hamas on Tuesday, a day after a Palestinian rocket attack killed an Israeli woman, and officials suggested even Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas could be a target. Israel vowed harsh retaliation in response to Monday night's deadly rocket attack on the southern town of Sderot, about a mile from Gaza. However, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert acknowledged there is no quick solution for the rocket barrages.Israeli defense officials said the army would step up attacks on Palestinian militants, warning even top leaders of Hamas could be in danger. The defense officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, said there were no immediate plans for a large-scale ground operation in Gaza.Asked about Haniyeh in a radio interview, Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh described Hamas' leadership as terrorists in suits.We don't care if he's a ringleader, a perpetrator of rocket launching or if he is one of the political leaders, Sneh later told The Associated Press. No one has immunity.
Leaders of Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups in Gaza already have taken a series of precautions to avoid Israeli attacks, turning off cell phones and staying indoors.In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri threatened harsh retaliation if the group's leaders were attacked.Harming... any of Hamas' leadership will cost the occupation dearly, he said. This will mean responses. He did not elaborate.Hamas dominates the Palestinian government after sweeping to power in a 2006 election.
But it recently formed a coalition with the rival Fatah faction.The moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah planned to head to Gaza later Tuesday in hopes of restoring a cease-fire with Israel, officials said. But Israeli and Palestinian officials accused each other of undermining truce efforts — raising the likelihood of further fighting.Abbas planned to meet with Hamas leaders to discuss fighting with Israel as well as the recent factional violence between Hamas and Fatah.
After a six-month lull, Israel resumed airstrikes on militant targets in Gaza on May 16 in response to heavy rocket fire. More than 40 Palestinians, most of them militants, have been killed.But Israel's high-tech army has not been able to find a solution for countering the crude, homemade rockets. In the past week, more than 150 rockets have landed around nearby Sderot, a town of 24,000 people.
Seven more rockets were fired Tuesday, injuring two people, the army said. Israel responded with four airstrikes, targeting two suspected weapons depositories and the two Hamas camps. Palestinian officials said seven people were wounded.Tensions were heightened following Monday night's deadly rocket attack, which killed a 31-year-old woman. She was the first Israeli killed by a Qassam rocket since November.Olmert rushed to Sderot late Monday for the second time in a week to try to calm residents.
We will continue to invest and will continue to protect you, but you of course know that there is no immediate solution for the Qassams and there is no definitive solution, Olmert said, according to a statement from his office.He pledged to speed up the process of reinforcing homes to protect against the rockets.
I understand your anger, frustration and hardship, he said. On Tuesday, the government evacuated hundreds of Sderot residents to hotels in other parts of the country for the Shavuot holiday, which was beginning at sundown. The evacuation was orderly, and Israeli soldiers helped people board the buses, shouting out orders through megaphones. This is really an unbearable situation. But one thing is for certain. We have to wake up the government to the fact that this is not the solution. The real solution is that the Palestinians should have to evacuate, said Michael Amsalem, a Sderot town councilor. Monday night's attack came during a meeting in Sderot between Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Javier Solana, the European Union foreign policy chief. They were not harmed.
Angry Sderot residents demonstrated outside the building where Solana and Livni were meeting and later burned tires, charging that the Israeli government has failed to protect them. Solana denounced the violence, and Livni called for international action to put pressure on the terrorists and the Palestinian government and not compromise with terror.Hamas' rocket attacks apparently have been aimed at drawing in Israel and ending the Palestinian infighting, which killed some 50 people last week.
Ahmed Youssef, a senior Hamas official, said the group would consider talks on a cease-fire if Israel first stopped its mad attacks.The aggression must stop so we can talk about a comprehensive cease-fire, said Youssef, a top aide to Haniyeh. The government is working on expanding the truce.
This is a national interest.However, Israel dismissed talk of a new cease-fire, saying Hamas never sticks to them. Hamas ... is leading the violence, Defense Minister Amir Peretz said Tuesday before meeting Solana in Jerusalem. We don't intend on stopping. We will stop at the point that the rockets stop.
Three More Kassams as Sderot Prepares for Funeral
by Hillel Fendel (INN) MAY 22,07
With Kassams continuing to rain down upon Sderot and environs - three more were fired Tuesday morning, causing no damage - it appears that the public is just as confused about what to do as the government is. In a poll taken this week for the Knesset TV Channel, 78% of the public opined that the government was not responding forcefully enough to the Kassam-firing terrorists in Gaza.
However, at the same time, a majority of the respondents still feel that ground forces should not be sent in. It should be noted that the poll was carried out before the Kassam-caused death of Shir'el Friedman of Sderot Monday night.
Kassam Victim's Funeral at Noon
Shir'el, who was born in Sderot and is survived by her parents and two older brothers, is to be laid to rest in the Sderot cemetery at noon today (Tuesday). Shir'el was Israel's ninth fatal casualty of a Kassam rocket. Mordechai Yosifov, 49, and Afik Zahavi, a 3.5 year old on his way to nursery, were killed in June 2004. Three months later, two young cousins - Dorit Aniso, 2, and Yuval Abebeh, 4 - were killed just before the onset of the Sukkot holiday. Four months later, Ella Abukasis, 17, was killed by a Kassam rocket as she was walking home; she jumped to protect her brother when the Red Dawn rocket warning alert sounded. In July 2005, Dana Gelkowitz, 22, was killed in a Kassam attack at Netiv HaAsarah - the only non-Sderot Kassam casualty among Israelis. Last summer, in July 2006, Moshe Shlomo, 52, died of a heart attack he suffered after a Kassam rocket landed near his home a few days earlier. Last November, Fatima Slutzker, a Moslem woman married to a Russian Jew, was killed by a Kassam that landed in downtown Sderot. In addition, three foreign workers were killed in a Kassam attack in Gush Katif in 2005, and two Bedouin were killed when they moved a previously-unexploded Kassam in a field.
Wheat Fields About to be Harvested Go Up in Flames
In terms of monetary damage caused by the rockets, it is not limited to an apartment or a car here and there. Wheat fields in at least two agricultural communities in the western Negev, nearly ready for harvest after months of work, have gone up in flames when rockets hit them. I sat and cried this morning when I saw it, said one member of Kibbutz Nir-Am, just outside Sderot.
This is our harvest season, Betty Gavri of Nir-Am told Ynet. When you hear on the radio 'no one was hurt and there was no damage' - when our wheat fields go up in flames on the eve of Shavuot, that's not damage? The holiday of Shavuot, which begins tonight (Tuesday night and Wednesday), is known as the Festival of Harvest (Exodus 23,16). As opposed to the city of Sderot, the nearby agricultural communities have a more earthy connection to the land; barely any of the 350 residents of Kibbutz Nir-Am, for instance, have left. Our imbibed values are that our very presence here determines the State's borders.
This is an agricultural tradition, that says that the land is our roots and our sustenance. If everyone would get up and leave, we could just close the entire country.
Rabbis and Educators Call for Social, Military Help
A group of some 100 rabbis and educators, many of them representing hesder yeshivot and yeshiva high schools around the country, descended upon the Yeshivat Hesder of Sderot on Monday to show their solidarity with the city residents. Among the participants were Rabbis Chaim Druckman, Chanan Porat, Tsomet Institute head Yisrael Rosenne, Yigal Kaminetzky of Gush Katif, Elisha Vishlitzky, David Fendel of Sderot, and Eliezer Sheinvald of Modiin, as well as Col. (ret.) Geva Rapp of the 'Face to Face' outreach organization. The rabbis resolved to continue activities such as hosting Sderot residents in their towns and schools, further visits to Sderot, offering economic and social help to needy families, special Sabbath and other events around the country dedicated to Sderot, and more. In addition, the educators called upon the Government of Israel to end this national disgrace of the abandonment of Jewish lives in Sderot and the area, by embarking on another Operation Defensive Shield [i.e., a massive military anti-terror offensive] in order to restore the self-respect and the security of the residents of Sderot. To this end, the group resolved to embark on a campaign, including billboards, bumper stickers, rallies, and the like to garner public support for the cause. Other visitors to Sderot on Monday included Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzippy Livny, the European Union's Javier Solana, and Britain's Ambassador to Israel Tom Phillips. The Home Front Command distributed pamphlets to many communities in the Sderot-Ashkelon area, advising the residents how to protect themselves during Kassam attacks. Among those who received them were 500 expellee families from Gush Katif, currently living in Nitzan, just north of Ashkelon.For more information on Sderot, see the Yeshivat Sderot http://www.sderot.org/ and Sderotmedia websites http://sderotmedia.com/
Calls to Re-settle Gush Katif
by Hillel Fendel (INN) MAY 22,07
With every crash of a Kassam rocket in the Negev, increasingly more voices are calling for a return to Gaza - for different reasons. Respected journalists from Yediot Acharonot and Haaretz have written that re-occupying Gaza is the only solution - lending an air of political correctness to the simultaneous ideological call by settlement leaders and Gush Katif expellees to return to Gush Katif. The reasons advanced for reoccupation by the various elements are, to be sure, not identical.
Military affairs correspondent Ron Ben-Yishai, writing for Yediot Acharonot last week (May 17), explained that it is based solely on security considerations: Israel's key problem at this point in time is the violent anarchy reigning in the Palestinian arena, Ben-Yishai wrote. Even if Israel chooses to undertake drastic measures such as cutting off electricity and water from Gaza residents, while indiscriminately bombing launch sites, there would still be no one on the Palestinian side able to stop the Kassam attacks. The only thing that will happen is that Israel will face condemnation and be isolated in international public opinion. Under current circumstances, Ben-Yishai continued, one consideration must guide the Israeli government: How do we prevent casualties among western Negev residents as a result of Kassam attacks, and how do we thwart the digging of tunnels by the Palestinians and a worse situation in the future as a result of Hamas' rapid strengthening? The most effective and virtually only modus operandi to achieve these objectives is an occupation of wide sections of the Gaza Strip.
Once the IDF controls most Gaza territory, it will be able, in conjunction with the General Security Service (Shabak), to gather intelligence information and apply it in anti-terror operations while proceeding to destroy terror infrastructures. Meanwhile, the digging of a seawater tunnel would curb the smuggling through Gaza's Philadelphi route.
Ben-Yishai added that limited aerial and ground operations would not curb Kassam rockets, would draw terrorist fire and endanger Israeli troops, and would end with international pressure upon Israel.
Instead, a very large military force [is] required to stay in the Strip for many months... The question is whether the Olmert government will continue to deal with political survival and endless 'assessment sessions, or whether it will finally start to act practically.Similarly, on the same day, correspondent Avi Issacharoff penned a piece for Haaretz entitled, No Other Solution For Gazans But Israeli
Occupation. Explaining that Fatah has been left without strong leadership and is headed for a military defeat at the hands of Hamas, the Gazans are repeating one clear message: only Israeli occupation will save them. There is no other solution on the horizon.These calls were somewhat encouraging to people like Adi Mintz, a former Director of the Yesha Council [Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza], who was in the midst of publicizing his own call for a return to Gaza.
Mintz, a resident of Dolev in the Binyamin region of the Shomron, wrote in the most recent edition of B'Sheva:
...Jacob was unable to be comforted for the loss of his son Joseph, because one cannot becomforted for the loss of someone who is actually alive... We, too, are unable to be comforted over the loss of Gush Katif for two reasons: Because we know that we will return, and also - just like in the case of Jacob and Joseph - because the crime was committed against us by our own brothers. For 19 years, the survivors of Kibbutz Kfar Etzion [destroyed and captured by the Jordanians in 1948 - ed.] would go up to a hilltop overlooking Gush Etzion, and see the lone oak tree there. That tree became a symbol of the longed-for return... and Kfar Etzion became the first town to be rebuilt by Israel after the liberation of Judea and Samaria during the Six Day War... More and more journalists and former IDF generals who supported the Disengagement now regret it, and admit that it was a strategic mistake - the rotten fruits of which we ate in the war in Gaza and in Lebanon. A strategic mistake can be rectified only by another strategic move: Returning to Gush Katif. Such a move might seem, at present, detached from reality. However, with the IDF apparently preparing for a major offensive in Gaza, and with the government seemingly waiting only for Kassam deaths before acting, the return to Gush Katif is the only answer.This will show the Arabs, Mintz explained, that they cannot defeat us, that this is our land, and that only we have the rights to it.
Mintz emphasized the fact that the Jewish towns in Gush Katif and northern Gaza were not built on Arab land, and that the State of Israel's terrible act of throwing out its sons can still be rectified: The public is still in the throes of the earthquake of last summer's war, and is open to new conceptions. The call and demand to return to Gush Katif is moral and just, on the one hand, and is a strategic necessity, on the other hand... Together with the 'Homesh First' people [who are leading a campaign to return to the Disengagement-destroyed town of Homesh in the Shomron - ed.], we must broaden the scope of the struggle to include also a struggle to win over the public's soul. This is the time to join forces and to wage a campaign that will keep the idea of a return to both Homesh and Gush Katif in the public consciousness. Even if we don't succeed in the short run, this type of struggle has supreme importance for the long run.
In 1981, Israel bombed and destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor in Baghdad. Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had pronounced himself as the reincarnation of Babylonian tyrant Nebuchadnezzar, and named the nuclear reactor Tammuz -- the name of the calamitous Jewish month when Nebuchadnezzar's troops laid siege on Jerusalem 2,500 years earlier. Ilan Ramon (later to become Israel's first astronaut, who died in the explosion of the Space Shuttle Columbia) and seven other pilots executed the daring raid -- flying over enemy Arab territory for hours, and avoiding detection with their tight formation that emitted a radar signal resembling a commercial airliner. However, even as Israel celebrated the successful raid, condemnation was nearly universal. One prominent U.S. senator called it one of the most provocative, ill-timed and internationally illegal actions taken in that nation's history. Two decades later, as the world feared Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, the Israeli action was vindicated.
EXODUS 23:16
16 And the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field.
The holiday of Shavuot,(WEEKS,PENTECOST) which begins tonight, is known as the Festival of Harvest.
DAY 1 TUESDAY from 6PM to 6PM. DAY 2 WEDNESDAY from 6PM to 6PM THU. THE THIRD TEMPLE HAS TO BE REBUILT TO PERFORM THESE FEASTS PROPERLY, PLEASE ISRAEL REBUILD THE 3RD TEMPLE NOW. ALL ISRAEL GET BEHIND THE SANHEDRIN AND LETS PRAISE THE GOD OF ISRAEL PROPERLY IN THE 3RD TEMPLE. IM ONLY A SINGLE VOICE BUT WITH LOTS OF VOICES IT CAN HAPPEN. ALL CHRISTIANS ALSO ENCOURAGE CHURCHES TO GET THE WORD AROUND, WE NEED THE 3RD TEMPLE REBUILT.
DAY 1 OF FIRSTFRUITS (SHAVUOT) SCRIPTURES
ACTS 1:1-26, 2:1-47
1 The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach,
2 Until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen:
3 To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God:
4 And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me.
5 For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.
6 When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?
7 And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.
8 But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
9 And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.
10 And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel;
11 Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.
12 Then returned they unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem a sabbath day’s journey.
13 And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room, where abode both Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon Zelotes, and Judas the brother of James.
14 These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.
15 And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples, and said, (the number of names together were about an hundred and twenty,)
16 Men and brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas, which was guide to them that took Jesus.
17 For he was numbered with us, and had obtained part of this ministry.
18 Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out.
19 And it was known unto all the dwellers at Jerusalem; insomuch as that field is called in their proper tongue, Aceldama, that is to say, The field of blood.
20 For it is written in the book of Psalms, Let his habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein: and his bishoprick let another take.
21 Wherefore of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us,
22 Beginning from the baptism of John, unto that same day that he was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection.
23 And they appointed two, Joseph called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias.
24 And they prayed, and said, Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, shew whether of these two thou hast chosen,
25 That he may take part of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place.
26 And they gave forth their lots; and the lot fell upon Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.
1 And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.
3 And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.
4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
5 And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven.
6 Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language.
7 And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans?
8 And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?
9 Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia,
10 Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes,
11 Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.
12 And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this?
13 Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine.
14 But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words:
15 For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day.
16 But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel;
17 And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:
18 And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy:
19 And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke:
20 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come:
21 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
22 Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know:
23 Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:
24 Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.
25 For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved:
26 Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope:
27 Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.
28 Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance.
29 Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day.
30 Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne;
31 He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption.
32 This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses.
33 Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear.
34 For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself, The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand,
35 Until I make thy foes thy footstool.
36 Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.
37 Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?
38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
39 For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.
40 And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation.
41 Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.
42 And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.
43 And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles.
44 And all that believed were together, and had all things common;
45 And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.
46 And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart,
47 Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.
TORAH SCRIPTURES
EXODUS CHAPTERS 19-20
1 In the third month, when the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai.
2 For they were departed from Rephidim, and were come to the desert of Sinai, and had pitched in the wilderness; and there Israel camped before the mount.
3 And Moses went up unto God, and the LORD called unto him out of the mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel;
4 Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself.
5 Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine:
6 And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.
7 And Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid before their faces all these words which the LORD commanded him.
8 And all the people answered together, and said, All that the LORD hath spoken we will do. And Moses returned the words of the people unto the LORD.
9 And the LORD said unto Moses, Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with thee, and believe thee for ever. And Moses told the words of the people unto the LORD.
10 And the LORD said unto Moses, Go unto the people, and sanctify them to day and to morrow, and let them wash their clothes,
11 And be ready against the third day: for the third day the LORD will come down in the sight of all the people upon mount Sinai.
12 And thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it: whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death:
13 There shall not an hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned, or shot through; whether it be beast or man, it shall not live: when the trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount.
14 And Moses went down from the mount unto the people, and sanctified the people; and they washed their clothes.
15 And he said unto the people, Be ready against the third day: come not at your wives.
16 And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled.
17 And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount.
18 And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.
19 And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice.
20 And the LORD came down upon mount Sinai, on the top of the mount: and the LORD called Moses up to the top of the mount; and Moses went up.
21 And the LORD said unto Moses, Go down, charge the people, lest they break through unto the LORD to gaze, and many of them perish.
22 And let the priests also, which come near to the LORD, sanctify themselves, lest the LORD break forth upon them.
23 And Moses said unto the LORD, The people cannot come up to mount Sinai: for thou chargedst us, saying, Set bounds about the mount, and sanctify it.
24 And the LORD said unto him, Away, get thee down, and thou shalt come up, thou, and Aaron with thee: but let not the priests and the people break through to come up unto the LORD, lest he break forth upon them.
25 So Moses went down unto the people, and spake unto them.
1 And God spake all these words, saying,
2 I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
7 Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
12 Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
13 Thou shalt not kill.
14 Thou shalt not commit adultery.
15 Thou shalt not steal.
16 Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
17 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.
18 And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off.
19 And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die.
20 And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.
21 And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.
22 And the LORD said unto Moses, Thus thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, Ye have seen that I have talked with you from heaven.
23 Ye shall not make with me gods of silver, neither shall ye make unto you gods of gold.
24 An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen: in all places where I record my name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee.
25 And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.
26 Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon.
NUMBERS 28:26-31
26 Also in the day of the firstfruits, when ye bring a new meat offering unto the LORD, after your weeks be out, ye shall have an holy convocation; ye shall do no servile work:
27 But ye shall offer the burnt offering for a sweet savour unto the LORD; two young bullocks, one ram, seven lambs of the first year;
28 And their meat offering of flour mingled with oil, three tenth deals unto one bullock, two tenth deals unto one ram,
29 A several tenth deal unto one lamb, throughout the seven lambs;
30 And one kid of the goats, to make an atonement for you.
31 Ye shall offer them beside the continual burnt offering, and his meat offering, (they shall be unto you without blemish) and their drink offerings.
PROPHETS SCRIPTURES DAY 1 FIRSTFRUITS WEEKS (SHAVUOT)
EZEKIEL 1:1-28
1 Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river of Chebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.
2 In the fifth day of the month, which was the fifth year of king Jehoiachin’s captivity,
3 The word of the LORD came expressly unto Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and the hand of the LORD was there upon him.
4 And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire.
5 Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a man.
6 And every one had four faces, and every one had four wings.
7 And their feet were straight feet; and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf’s foot: and they sparkled like the colour of burnished brass.
8 And they had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides; and they four had their faces and their wings.
9 Their wings were joined one to another; they turned not when they went; they went every one straight forward.
10 As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle.
11 Thus were their faces: and their wings were stretched upward; two wings of every one were joined one to another, and two covered their bodies.
12 And they went every one straight forward: whither the spirit was to go, they went; and they turned not when they went.
13 As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of lamps: it went up and down among the living creatures; and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning.
14 And the living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning.
15 Now as I beheld the living creatures, behold one wheel upon the earth by the living creatures, with his four faces.
16 The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the colour of a beryl: and they four had one likeness: and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel.
17 When they went, they went upon their four sides: and they turned not when they went.
18 As for their rings, they were so high that they were dreadful; and their rings were full of eyes round about them four.
19 And when the living creatures went, the wheels went by them: and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up.
20 Whithersoever the spirit was to go, they went, thither was their spirit to go; and the wheels were lifted up over against them: for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.
21 When those went, these went; and when those stood, these stood; and when those were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up over against them: for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.
22 And the likeness of the firmament upon the heads of the living creature was as the colour of the terrible crystal, stretched forth over their heads above.
23 And under the firmament were their wings straight, the one toward the other: every one had two, which covered on this side, and every one had two, which covered on that side, their bodies.
24 And when they went, I heard the noise of their wings, like the noise of great waters, as the voice of the Almighty, the voice of speech, as the noise of an host: when they stood, they let down their wings.
25 And there was a voice from the firmament that was over their heads, when they stood, and had let down their wings.
26 And above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone: and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it.
27 And I saw as the colour of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it, from the appearance of his loins even upward, and from the appearance of his loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about.
28 As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one that spake.
EZEKIEL 3:12
12 Then the spirit took me up, and I heard behind me a voice of a great rushing, saying, Blessed be the glory of the LORD from his place.
OTHER NEWS
1-WORLD QUAKES LAST 2 DAYS. 2-Quake experts all shook up by zoo animals. 3-Government forecasts active Atlantic hurricane season. 4-2-3 Pacific storms expected this year. 5-U.N. relief convoy hit in Lebanon battle. 6-Israel says Hamas leaders may be targets. 7-Three More Kassams as Sderot Prepares for Funeral. 8-Calls to Re-settle Gush Katif.
EARTHQUAKES
MATTHEW 24:7-8
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
MARK 13:8
8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:(ETHNIC GROUP AGAINST ETHNIC GROUP) and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.
LUKE 21:11
11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.
WORLD QUAKES LAST 2 DAYS (USGS)
Update time = Tue May 22 15:59:54 UTC 2007
MAY 22,07
MAP 3.4 RAT ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, ALASKA
MAP 3.2 OFFSHORE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 4.0 CENTRAL CALIFORNIA
MAP 2.5 NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 4.7 MARIANA ISLANDS REGION
MAP 2.8 ISLAND OF HAWAII, HAWAII
MAP 3.4 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 2.9 BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO
MAP 2.6 CENTRAL ALASKA
MAP 2.9 CENTRAL ALASKA
MAP 4.9 SIMEULUE, INDONESIA
MAP 2.8 PUERTO RICO REGION
MAY 21,07
MAP 5.0 CRETE, GREECE
MAP 2.9 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 4.5 MOLUCCA SEA
MAP 4.7 MINDANAO, PHILIPPINES
MAP 4.7 DODECANESE ISLANDS, GREECE
MAP 4.7 NORTHERN SUMATRA, INDONESIA
MAP 4.2 NORTHERN ALASKA
MAP 2.5 ISLAND OF HAWAII, HAWAII
MAP 4.4 SOUTHEASTERN ALASKA
MAP 5.1 SOLOMON ISLANDS
MAP 4.8 TARAPACA, CHILE
Quake experts all shook up by zoo animals Mon May 21, 9:37 PM ET
BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese zoo is monitoring its animals extra carefully to study how their behaviour predicts earthquakes, the China Daily said on Tuesday. Guangzhou Zoo, in the southern province of Guangdong, had set up observation points near peacocks, frogs, snakes, turtles, deer and squirrels to monitor and record their behaviour for the city's seismology office.We have found many animals behave oddly before an earthquake, the newspaper quoted experts as saying. Hibernating animals, for example, will wake up and flee from their caves, while the aquatic ones will leap from the water's surface.The report did not say how long before a quake the animals react, or whether the aim of the exercise was to provide timely warnings. According to the seismology office, abnormal behaviour can be observed among 130 animals before an earthquake.Mice and snakes, for instance, normally do not leave their hiding places during day time, but you will see them scurrying about when an earthquake is about to strike, the newspaper quoted Chen Honghan, vice-director of Guangzhou Zoo, as saying.
Chen said giraffes ran away from trees for fear of being crushed, while hippos headed for land, and in the case of a tsunami, they kept diving into deep water to protect themselves from the waves.The earthquake bureau in Nanning, capital of the Guangxi autonomous region in southern China, monitors snakes at local snake farms via video cameras 24 hours per day.Of all the creatures on Earth, snakes are perhaps the most sensitive to earthquakes, bureau director Jiang Weisong was quoted as saying in December.China is struck by frequent earthquakes, most hitting remote rural areas.
STORMS HURRICANES-TORNADOES
LUKE 21:25-26
25 And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity;(MASS CONFUSION) the sea and the waves roaring;(FIERCE WINDS)
26 Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.
Government forecasts active Atlantic hurricane season By Christopher Doering MAY 22,07
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The 2007 Atlantic hurricane season will be active with 13 to 17 named storms, seven to 10 of which are expected to become hurricanes, the U.S. government's top climate agency predicted on Tuesday.
Of the seven to 10 hurricanes forecast, three to five will be major ones of Category 3 or higher with winds over 110 miles per hour, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in its annual forecast.An average Atlantic hurricane season brings 11 named storms, with six becoming hurricanes, including two major hurricanes, NOAA said.Earlier forecasts for the Atlantic hurricane season also have predicted the return of an active pattern this year.
Weather forecaster AccuWeather.com has predicted 13 or 14 tropical storms or hurricanes would form in the Atlantic this year and six or seven could hit the United States, with the Gulf Coast and Gulf of Mexico oil installations at high risk.The Colorado State University team under forecast pioneer William Gray predicted 17 storms, of which nine would become hurricanes, and London-based Tropical Storm Risk predicted 16.7 storms and 9.2 hurricanes.The Atlantic hurricane season typically peaks between August 1 and late October.
A devastating 2005 Atlantic hurricane season generated 28 tropical storms, of which 15 became hurricanes. A record four major hurricanes hit the United States, including Katrina, which devastated New Orleans, killed 1,300 people and caused $80 billion in damage. Forecasters had expected an active 2006 season as well, but only 10 storms formed, five of which became hurricanes. No hurricanes hit the United States last year.
2-3 Pacific storms expected this year By BRIAN CHARLTON, Associated Press Writer Mon May 21, 11:27 PM ET
HONOLULU - Hawaii and the rest of the central Pacific face a slightly below-average hurricane season this summer, with just two or three tropical cyclones expected, federal forecasters said Monday.
With sea surface temperatures lower than average, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Central Pacific Hurricane Center predicted possible La Nina conditions resulting in less tropical cyclone activity.Those conditions and the overall reduction in hurricane activity in that region since 1995 led to the prediction for the June-November season, said Jim Weyman, director of the hurricane center, at a news conference.In a La Nina — the opposite of the better-known El Nino events — the waters of the mid-Pacific equatorial region are cooler than normal. Hurricane season begins June 1 and ends Nov. 30. The islands get an average of 4.5 tropical cyclones a year and one hurricane about every 15 years. Last year, the central Pacific had five tropical cyclones after NOAA predicted two to three.
When I give a slightly below average forecast it always troubles me because people always think they don't have to worry, and that is not the message we want to take, Weyman said.
The message is it only takes that one to cause tremendous devastation. Since 1959, 62 hurricanes, 67 tropical storms and 61 tropical depressions have been tracked in the central Pacific. The last hurricane to hit Hawaii was in 1992 when Iniki ravaged Kauai, killing six people and causing $2.5 billion in damage.In a nod to Hawaiian culture, the hurricane center will now use only Hawaiian names for tropical storms and hurricanes, Weyman said. The next one will be called Kika. Private and university forecasters have predicted that the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season will be especially active, producing as many as 17 tropical storms and hurricanes and a well above average possibility of at least one striking the U.S.
The federal government plans to release its predictions Tuesday.On the Net:Central Pacific Hurricane Center: http://www.weather.gov/cphc
U.N. relief convoy hit in Lebanon battle By SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI, Associated Press Writer MAY 22,07
TRIPOLI, Lebanon - A convoy of U.N. relief supplies was hit in a third day of fighting Tuesday between Lebanese troops and an Islamic militant group holed up in a crowded Palestinian refugee camp.
In two other refugee camps in Lebanon, angry Palestinians burned tires to protest the Lebanese army assault on the northern camp of Nahr el-Bared. The unrest heightened fears that the military's attempt to crush the al-Qaida-inspired Fatah Islam could provoke a broader backlash among hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in other refugee camps, where Islamic extremists have been growing in influence. Overnight, the Lebanese government ordered the army to finish off the militants who have set up in Nahr el-Bared, where 31,000 Palestinian refugees live on the outskirts of the northern port of Tripoli. At least 50 combatants have been killed since fighting erupted Sunday.
Black smoke billowed from the area Tuesday amid artillery and machine gun exchanges between troops and militants. Lebanese troops skirmished with Fatah Islam fighters, trying to seize militant positions on the outskirts of the camp.There are dead and wounded on the road, inside the camp, screamed a Lebanese woman, Amina Alameddine, who ran weeping from her home on the edge of the camp. She fled with her daughter and four other relatives after Fatah Islam fighters started shooting at the army from the roof of her house.At the same time, Lebanese troops sought to flush out fighters hiding in Tripoli. Soldiers raided a building where Fatah Islam militants were believed to be hiding out, blasting an apartment with grenades, gunfire and tear gas.They found no one in the apartment, but hours later, while pursuing a militant, they ordered him to surrender. He dropped a pistol but then detonated an explosives belt on his body, police officials said. None of the troops was injured.
Reports emerged from Nahr el-Bared of heavy destruction from the three days of bombardment by Lebanese artillery and tanks and militants who returned fire with mortars and automatic weapons.The shelling is heavy, not only on our positions, but also on children and women. Destruction is all over, Fatah Islam spokesman Abu Salim Taha told The Associated Press by telephone from inside the camp.A U.N. refugee official said dozens of buildings were believed demolished, with residents trapped inside. There was also word that food and medical supplies were running out. The reports could not be confirmed because officials and reporters could not enter the camp.The camp is being destroyed from inside, a U.N. Relief and Works Agency staffer told the AP. The construction is very weak and the houses are very close to each other. We have reports that there are dozens of homes that were destroyed with the residents inside. Truly people are under the rubble. This is no exaggeration, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.The militants have killed 29 soldiers since Sunday and about 20 of the fighters have also been killed. The number of civilian casualties is unknown because relief officials have had limited access.Lebanese authorities do not enter the refugee camps under a nearly 40-year-old agreement with the Palestinians.
The tens of thousands of Palestinians live in two- or three-story white buildings on the camp's densely packed narrow streets. Refugees have been hiding in their homes inside the camp and Palestinian officials there said nine civilians were killed Monday.After a morning of battles, the camp briefly fell silent Tuesday afternoon. Taha said the militants called a unilateral cease-fire, but it collapsed within an hour and heavy exchanges of fire and several explosions were heard. It was not known which side started firing.An UNRWA official said a pickup truck and a water tanker were caught between the lines of the two sides and hit as they entered the camp. There may have been some casualties, at least one, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. We could not distribute everything, he told the AP by telephone from the camp entrance.
The Lebanon representative of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad, which has been mediating a cease-fire, confirmed the relief effort had come under attack. Speaking on Al-Jazeera television, Abu Imad Rifai said that while people were trying to pick up food supplies for UNRWA, they were shelled and some were injured, some seriously.Rifai said he did not know who had breached the cease-fire.
Earlier, Taleb al-Salhani of UNRWA said the agency scrambled to evacuate one of its employees, a Palestinian aid worker wounded Monday. The army earlier stopped six UNRWA trucks, including a water tanker, saying it was too dangerous to enter the camp. The government of Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora appeared determined to pursue Fatah Islam. Lebanon's Cabinet late Monday authorized the army to step up its campaign and end the terrorist phenomenon that is alien to the values and nature of the Palestinian people, Information Minister Ghazi Aridi said. The Bush administration reaffirmed its support for Saniora's government Tuesday and indicated it suspected Syrian involvement.
White House spokesman Tony Snow said the Fatah Islam militants want to disrupt the nation's security and distract international attention from a U.N. effort to establish a special tribunal try suspects in the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in Beirut. The United States will not tolerate attempts by Syria, terrorist groups or any others to delay or derail Lebanon's efforts to solidify its sovereignty or seek justice in the Hariri case, Snow said. Lebanese security officials accuse Syria of backing Fatah Islam to disrupt Lebanon. The charges are denied by Syria, which controlled Lebanon until 2005 when its troops were forced to withdraw from the country following Hariri's assassination. The fighting, Lebanon's worst internal violence since the 1975-90 civil war, has added yet another layer of instability to an uneasy balancing act among numerous sects and factions vying for power. Saniora's government already faces a domestic political crisis, with the opposition led by Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hezbollah demanding its removal.
Dozens of refugees angered by the assault on Nahr el-Bared burned tires in protest in the southern camp of Ein el-Hilweh, Lebanon's largest Palestinian camp. Protesters also burned tires in Rashidiyeh camp, farther south. The protests raised the specter that Palestinians in Lebanon's 11 other refugee camps could rise up in anger over the assault on Nahr el-Bared. The overcrowded camps — housing more than 215,000 refugees, out of a total of 400,000 Palestinians in Lebanon — are also home to many armed Palestinian factions who often battle each other and have seen a rising number of Islamic extremists. Major Palestinian factions have distanced themselves from Fatah Islam, which arose here last year and touts itself as a Palestinian liberation movement. But many view it as a nascent branch of al-Qaida-style terrorism with ambitions of carrying out attacks around the region. The group's leader, Palestinian Shaker al-Absi, has been linked to the former head of al-Qaida in Iraq and is accused in the 2002 assassination of a U.S. diplomat in Jordan. He moved into Nahr el-Bared last fall after being expelled from Syria, where he was in custody. Since then, he is believed to have recruited about 100 fighters, including militants from Saudi Arabia, Yemen and other Arab countries, and he has said he follows the ideology of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. Among the militants killed Sunday was a man suspected in a plot to bomb trains in Germany last year, according to Lebanese security officials.
Major Palestinian faction leaders met with Saniora for the second time in as many days. European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana arrived Tuesday in Beirut to discuss the crisis. Late Monday, an explosion went off in a shopping area in a Sunni Muslim sector of Beirut, wrecking parked cars and injuring seven people — a day after a bomb in a Christian part of the capital killed a woman. The two bombings while the fighting was going on in Tripoli were highly unusual. Taha, the Fatah Islam spokesman, denied his group was behind them.
Israel says Hamas leaders may be targets By LAURIE COPANS, Associated Press Writer MAY 22,07
JERUSALEM - Israeli aircraft struck two camps used by the Islamic militant group Hamas on Tuesday, a day after a Palestinian rocket attack killed an Israeli woman, and officials suggested even Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas could be a target. Israel vowed harsh retaliation in response to Monday night's deadly rocket attack on the southern town of Sderot, about a mile from Gaza. However, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert acknowledged there is no quick solution for the rocket barrages.Israeli defense officials said the army would step up attacks on Palestinian militants, warning even top leaders of Hamas could be in danger. The defense officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, said there were no immediate plans for a large-scale ground operation in Gaza.Asked about Haniyeh in a radio interview, Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh described Hamas' leadership as terrorists in suits.We don't care if he's a ringleader, a perpetrator of rocket launching or if he is one of the political leaders, Sneh later told The Associated Press. No one has immunity.
Leaders of Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups in Gaza already have taken a series of precautions to avoid Israeli attacks, turning off cell phones and staying indoors.In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri threatened harsh retaliation if the group's leaders were attacked.Harming... any of Hamas' leadership will cost the occupation dearly, he said. This will mean responses. He did not elaborate.Hamas dominates the Palestinian government after sweeping to power in a 2006 election.
But it recently formed a coalition with the rival Fatah faction.The moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah planned to head to Gaza later Tuesday in hopes of restoring a cease-fire with Israel, officials said. But Israeli and Palestinian officials accused each other of undermining truce efforts — raising the likelihood of further fighting.Abbas planned to meet with Hamas leaders to discuss fighting with Israel as well as the recent factional violence between Hamas and Fatah.
After a six-month lull, Israel resumed airstrikes on militant targets in Gaza on May 16 in response to heavy rocket fire. More than 40 Palestinians, most of them militants, have been killed.But Israel's high-tech army has not been able to find a solution for countering the crude, homemade rockets. In the past week, more than 150 rockets have landed around nearby Sderot, a town of 24,000 people.
Seven more rockets were fired Tuesday, injuring two people, the army said. Israel responded with four airstrikes, targeting two suspected weapons depositories and the two Hamas camps. Palestinian officials said seven people were wounded.Tensions were heightened following Monday night's deadly rocket attack, which killed a 31-year-old woman. She was the first Israeli killed by a Qassam rocket since November.Olmert rushed to Sderot late Monday for the second time in a week to try to calm residents.
We will continue to invest and will continue to protect you, but you of course know that there is no immediate solution for the Qassams and there is no definitive solution, Olmert said, according to a statement from his office.He pledged to speed up the process of reinforcing homes to protect against the rockets.
I understand your anger, frustration and hardship, he said. On Tuesday, the government evacuated hundreds of Sderot residents to hotels in other parts of the country for the Shavuot holiday, which was beginning at sundown. The evacuation was orderly, and Israeli soldiers helped people board the buses, shouting out orders through megaphones. This is really an unbearable situation. But one thing is for certain. We have to wake up the government to the fact that this is not the solution. The real solution is that the Palestinians should have to evacuate, said Michael Amsalem, a Sderot town councilor. Monday night's attack came during a meeting in Sderot between Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Javier Solana, the European Union foreign policy chief. They were not harmed.
Angry Sderot residents demonstrated outside the building where Solana and Livni were meeting and later burned tires, charging that the Israeli government has failed to protect them. Solana denounced the violence, and Livni called for international action to put pressure on the terrorists and the Palestinian government and not compromise with terror.Hamas' rocket attacks apparently have been aimed at drawing in Israel and ending the Palestinian infighting, which killed some 50 people last week.
Ahmed Youssef, a senior Hamas official, said the group would consider talks on a cease-fire if Israel first stopped its mad attacks.The aggression must stop so we can talk about a comprehensive cease-fire, said Youssef, a top aide to Haniyeh. The government is working on expanding the truce.
This is a national interest.However, Israel dismissed talk of a new cease-fire, saying Hamas never sticks to them. Hamas ... is leading the violence, Defense Minister Amir Peretz said Tuesday before meeting Solana in Jerusalem. We don't intend on stopping. We will stop at the point that the rockets stop.
Three More Kassams as Sderot Prepares for Funeral
by Hillel Fendel (INN) MAY 22,07
With Kassams continuing to rain down upon Sderot and environs - three more were fired Tuesday morning, causing no damage - it appears that the public is just as confused about what to do as the government is. In a poll taken this week for the Knesset TV Channel, 78% of the public opined that the government was not responding forcefully enough to the Kassam-firing terrorists in Gaza.
However, at the same time, a majority of the respondents still feel that ground forces should not be sent in. It should be noted that the poll was carried out before the Kassam-caused death of Shir'el Friedman of Sderot Monday night.
Kassam Victim's Funeral at Noon
Shir'el, who was born in Sderot and is survived by her parents and two older brothers, is to be laid to rest in the Sderot cemetery at noon today (Tuesday). Shir'el was Israel's ninth fatal casualty of a Kassam rocket. Mordechai Yosifov, 49, and Afik Zahavi, a 3.5 year old on his way to nursery, were killed in June 2004. Three months later, two young cousins - Dorit Aniso, 2, and Yuval Abebeh, 4 - were killed just before the onset of the Sukkot holiday. Four months later, Ella Abukasis, 17, was killed by a Kassam rocket as she was walking home; she jumped to protect her brother when the Red Dawn rocket warning alert sounded. In July 2005, Dana Gelkowitz, 22, was killed in a Kassam attack at Netiv HaAsarah - the only non-Sderot Kassam casualty among Israelis. Last summer, in July 2006, Moshe Shlomo, 52, died of a heart attack he suffered after a Kassam rocket landed near his home a few days earlier. Last November, Fatima Slutzker, a Moslem woman married to a Russian Jew, was killed by a Kassam that landed in downtown Sderot. In addition, three foreign workers were killed in a Kassam attack in Gush Katif in 2005, and two Bedouin were killed when they moved a previously-unexploded Kassam in a field.
Wheat Fields About to be Harvested Go Up in Flames
In terms of monetary damage caused by the rockets, it is not limited to an apartment or a car here and there. Wheat fields in at least two agricultural communities in the western Negev, nearly ready for harvest after months of work, have gone up in flames when rockets hit them. I sat and cried this morning when I saw it, said one member of Kibbutz Nir-Am, just outside Sderot.
This is our harvest season, Betty Gavri of Nir-Am told Ynet. When you hear on the radio 'no one was hurt and there was no damage' - when our wheat fields go up in flames on the eve of Shavuot, that's not damage? The holiday of Shavuot, which begins tonight (Tuesday night and Wednesday), is known as the Festival of Harvest (Exodus 23,16). As opposed to the city of Sderot, the nearby agricultural communities have a more earthy connection to the land; barely any of the 350 residents of Kibbutz Nir-Am, for instance, have left. Our imbibed values are that our very presence here determines the State's borders.
This is an agricultural tradition, that says that the land is our roots and our sustenance. If everyone would get up and leave, we could just close the entire country.
Rabbis and Educators Call for Social, Military Help
A group of some 100 rabbis and educators, many of them representing hesder yeshivot and yeshiva high schools around the country, descended upon the Yeshivat Hesder of Sderot on Monday to show their solidarity with the city residents. Among the participants were Rabbis Chaim Druckman, Chanan Porat, Tsomet Institute head Yisrael Rosenne, Yigal Kaminetzky of Gush Katif, Elisha Vishlitzky, David Fendel of Sderot, and Eliezer Sheinvald of Modiin, as well as Col. (ret.) Geva Rapp of the 'Face to Face' outreach organization. The rabbis resolved to continue activities such as hosting Sderot residents in their towns and schools, further visits to Sderot, offering economic and social help to needy families, special Sabbath and other events around the country dedicated to Sderot, and more. In addition, the educators called upon the Government of Israel to end this national disgrace of the abandonment of Jewish lives in Sderot and the area, by embarking on another Operation Defensive Shield [i.e., a massive military anti-terror offensive] in order to restore the self-respect and the security of the residents of Sderot. To this end, the group resolved to embark on a campaign, including billboards, bumper stickers, rallies, and the like to garner public support for the cause. Other visitors to Sderot on Monday included Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzippy Livny, the European Union's Javier Solana, and Britain's Ambassador to Israel Tom Phillips. The Home Front Command distributed pamphlets to many communities in the Sderot-Ashkelon area, advising the residents how to protect themselves during Kassam attacks. Among those who received them were 500 expellee families from Gush Katif, currently living in Nitzan, just north of Ashkelon.For more information on Sderot, see the Yeshivat Sderot http://www.sderot.org/ and Sderotmedia websites http://sderotmedia.com/
Calls to Re-settle Gush Katif
by Hillel Fendel (INN) MAY 22,07
With every crash of a Kassam rocket in the Negev, increasingly more voices are calling for a return to Gaza - for different reasons. Respected journalists from Yediot Acharonot and Haaretz have written that re-occupying Gaza is the only solution - lending an air of political correctness to the simultaneous ideological call by settlement leaders and Gush Katif expellees to return to Gush Katif. The reasons advanced for reoccupation by the various elements are, to be sure, not identical.
Military affairs correspondent Ron Ben-Yishai, writing for Yediot Acharonot last week (May 17), explained that it is based solely on security considerations: Israel's key problem at this point in time is the violent anarchy reigning in the Palestinian arena, Ben-Yishai wrote. Even if Israel chooses to undertake drastic measures such as cutting off electricity and water from Gaza residents, while indiscriminately bombing launch sites, there would still be no one on the Palestinian side able to stop the Kassam attacks. The only thing that will happen is that Israel will face condemnation and be isolated in international public opinion. Under current circumstances, Ben-Yishai continued, one consideration must guide the Israeli government: How do we prevent casualties among western Negev residents as a result of Kassam attacks, and how do we thwart the digging of tunnels by the Palestinians and a worse situation in the future as a result of Hamas' rapid strengthening? The most effective and virtually only modus operandi to achieve these objectives is an occupation of wide sections of the Gaza Strip.
Once the IDF controls most Gaza territory, it will be able, in conjunction with the General Security Service (Shabak), to gather intelligence information and apply it in anti-terror operations while proceeding to destroy terror infrastructures. Meanwhile, the digging of a seawater tunnel would curb the smuggling through Gaza's Philadelphi route.
Ben-Yishai added that limited aerial and ground operations would not curb Kassam rockets, would draw terrorist fire and endanger Israeli troops, and would end with international pressure upon Israel.
Instead, a very large military force [is] required to stay in the Strip for many months... The question is whether the Olmert government will continue to deal with political survival and endless 'assessment sessions, or whether it will finally start to act practically.Similarly, on the same day, correspondent Avi Issacharoff penned a piece for Haaretz entitled, No Other Solution For Gazans But Israeli
Occupation. Explaining that Fatah has been left without strong leadership and is headed for a military defeat at the hands of Hamas, the Gazans are repeating one clear message: only Israeli occupation will save them. There is no other solution on the horizon.These calls were somewhat encouraging to people like Adi Mintz, a former Director of the Yesha Council [Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza], who was in the midst of publicizing his own call for a return to Gaza.
Mintz, a resident of Dolev in the Binyamin region of the Shomron, wrote in the most recent edition of B'Sheva:
...Jacob was unable to be comforted for the loss of his son Joseph, because one cannot becomforted for the loss of someone who is actually alive... We, too, are unable to be comforted over the loss of Gush Katif for two reasons: Because we know that we will return, and also - just like in the case of Jacob and Joseph - because the crime was committed against us by our own brothers. For 19 years, the survivors of Kibbutz Kfar Etzion [destroyed and captured by the Jordanians in 1948 - ed.] would go up to a hilltop overlooking Gush Etzion, and see the lone oak tree there. That tree became a symbol of the longed-for return... and Kfar Etzion became the first town to be rebuilt by Israel after the liberation of Judea and Samaria during the Six Day War... More and more journalists and former IDF generals who supported the Disengagement now regret it, and admit that it was a strategic mistake - the rotten fruits of which we ate in the war in Gaza and in Lebanon. A strategic mistake can be rectified only by another strategic move: Returning to Gush Katif. Such a move might seem, at present, detached from reality. However, with the IDF apparently preparing for a major offensive in Gaza, and with the government seemingly waiting only for Kassam deaths before acting, the return to Gush Katif is the only answer.This will show the Arabs, Mintz explained, that they cannot defeat us, that this is our land, and that only we have the rights to it.
Mintz emphasized the fact that the Jewish towns in Gush Katif and northern Gaza were not built on Arab land, and that the State of Israel's terrible act of throwing out its sons can still be rectified: The public is still in the throes of the earthquake of last summer's war, and is open to new conceptions. The call and demand to return to Gush Katif is moral and just, on the one hand, and is a strategic necessity, on the other hand... Together with the 'Homesh First' people [who are leading a campaign to return to the Disengagement-destroyed town of Homesh in the Shomron - ed.], we must broaden the scope of the struggle to include also a struggle to win over the public's soul. This is the time to join forces and to wage a campaign that will keep the idea of a return to both Homesh and Gush Katif in the public consciousness. Even if we don't succeed in the short run, this type of struggle has supreme importance for the long run.
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