JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.GET SAVED NOW- CALL ON JESUS TODAY.THE ONLY SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE EARTH - NO OTHER.
1 COR 15:23-JESUS THE FIRST FRUITS-CHRISTIANS RAPTURED TO JESUS-FIRST FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT-23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.ROMANS 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.(THE PRE-TRIB RAPTURE)
LUKE 21:28-29
28 And when these things begin to come to pass,(ALL THE PROPHECY SIGNS FROM THE BIBLE) then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption (RAPTURE) draweth nigh.
29 And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree,(ISRAEL) and all the trees;(ALL INDEPENDENT COUNTRIES)
30 When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand.(ISRAEL LITERALLY BECAME AND INDEPENDENT COUNTRY JUST BEFORE SUMMER IN MAY 14,1948.)
JOEL 2:3,30
3 A fire devoureth (ATOMIC BOMB) before them;(RUSSIAN-ARAB-MUSLIM ARMIES AGAINST ISRAEL) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(ATOMIC BOMB AFFECT)
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their eyes shall consume away in their holes,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB)(BECAUSE NUKES HAVE BEEN USED ON ISRAELS ENEMIES)(GOD PROTECTS ISRAEL AND ALWAYS WILL)
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.(1/2-3 BILLION DIE IN WW3)(THIS IS AN ATOMIC BOMB EFFECT)
EZEKIEL 20:47
47 And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the LORD; Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein.
ZEPHANIAH 1:18
18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD'S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
MALACHI 4:1
1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven;(FROM ATOMIC BOMBS) and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
And here are the bounderies of the land that Israel will inherit either through war or peace or God in the future. God says its Israels land and only Israels land. They will have every inch God promised them of this land in the future.
Egypt east of the Nile River, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, The southern part of Turkey and the Western Half of Iraq west of the Euphrates. Gen 13:14-15, Psm 105:9,11, Gen 15:18, Exe 23:31, Num 34:1-12, Josh 1:4.ALL THIS LAND ISRAEL WILL DEFINATELY OWN IN THE FUTURE, ITS ISRAELS NOT ISHMAELS LAND.12 TRIBES INHERIT LAND IN THE FUTURE
World’s largest warship docks in Israel’s Haifa port-Nimitz-class USS George H.W. Bush arrives for 4-day visit, with crew set to tour the country and Netanyahu expected to hop on board-By Times of Israel staff July 1, 2017, 12:30 pm
The USS George H.W. Bush, docked outside Israel’s Haifa port Saturday, the first such visit in 17 years.The Nimitz-class aircraft supercarrier left its homeport of Norfolk, Virginia on January 21 and has been in the region since February as a base for airstrikes against the Islamic State group. It operates mainly in the Persian Gulf.Commissioned in 2009, The 333m-long nuclear-powered ship can carry a crew of over 5,000 people, as well as around 90 fighter jets and helicopters. It is considered the world’s largest aircraft carrier and largest warship overall.Due to its size the ship is unable to enter the port itself, and dropped anchor four kilometers from the harbor.Channel 2 news said Israeli and American officials have not given details on the nature of the visit, though it noted that the Israeli and US navies cooperate closely and have held numerous joint military exercises.According to Channel 10, the crew of the George H.W. Bush will tour Israel in the coming days and celebrate American Independence Day in the Jewish state on July 4.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman will visit the ship on Monday, along with Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav.The ship will then depart on Wednesday to continue its operations.
Arab cleric claims Israel in league with Al-Jazeera-Preacher from United Arab Emirates, currently locked in a feud with Qatar, says media is the ‘weapon of the Jews’-By Times of Israel staff July 1, 2017, 11:31 am
A prominent cleric in the United Arab Emirates has claimed Israel is a supporter of Qatari television network Al-Jazeera, saying the station was a “weapon of the Jews.”“Control of the media is one of the weapons used for the destruction of the Islamic nation on the religious and national levels,” Wassim Yousuf said on Abu Dhabi TV in June.“This is why Shimon Peres went hand in hand with the Al-Jazeera network,” he added, in comments relayed by the Middle East Media Research Institute.Yousuf did not make clear how he believed Peres, the late prime minister and president, had cooperated with the Qatari channel.“Media was the first weapon of the Jews in their efforts to make the Muslims doubt their fait,” Yousuf said.He then went on to discuss alleged scheming by Jewish tribes in ancient Medina.“Look at the wickedness of the Jews,” he said. “They did not want a war because they were a minority in Medina. They did not want a war, and nor did they want an alliance with the Arab tribes.“So they wanted another weapon –- the media. They would pretend to believe in Islam at night and renounce it in the morning. This would lead the companions of the Prophet Muhammad to doubt him, and they would renounce Islam and abandon Muhammad. See how they relied on the media.”He went on to claim Jews rely on “falsification of facts” to reach their goal. “When they heard a news item, they would add a hundred lies to it, thus falsifying the facts.”This, he said, was also the Jewish strategy today.Qatar and its Al-Jazeera network have been under fire in the Arab world recently, with Saudi Arabia and its allies placing a crippling embargo on the emirate.With the support of the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain, the Saudis announced on June 5 they were suspending all ties with Qatar, accusing it of support for extremist groups — a claim Doha denies.They closed their airspace to Qatari carriers and blocked the emirate’s only land border, a vital route for its food imports. They also ordered all Qataris to leave and their own nationals to return home.Last week Riyadh laid down a list of 13 demands for Qatar, including ending Doha’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood, the closure of Al-Jazeera television, a downgrade of diplomatic ties with Iran and the shutdown of a Turkish military base in the emirate.The Arab world has often blamed Zionism and Judaism for various woes — from the Islamic State and financial crises to pornography, AIDS and even Sesame Street. Media-encouraged anti-Semitsm is thought to be rife in the Muslim world.AFP contributed to this report.
Labor aims for relevance with Tuesday’s leadership election-Can a new chairman can return the party to the glory days of Ben-Gurion and Rabin, or will it continue to languish in the opposition?-By Aron Heller July 1, 2017, 2:27 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s venerable Labor Party, which led the country to independence and steered it for decades through wars, crises and the pursuit of peace is now fighting to merely stay relevant.With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud firmly in control, Labor is trying to overcome years of missteps and regain some of its former glory with the election of a new party leader next week.But even as it prepares for the vote, the question remains whether a new chairman can return the party of David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin to the prime minister’s office — or have it continue to languish in the opposition.“I think the party needs a new mission and the mission needs to be very clear: not joining Netanyahu but replacing Netanyahu,” Erel Margalit, a high-tech entrepreneur-turned-lawmaker who is among nine candidates vying for the party leadership, told The Associated Press.Though the next national election is scheduled for late 2019, polls show the party currently winning just 10 to 15 seats in the 120-seat parliament — making it Israel’s fourth or even fifth-largest party. Labor has not ruled since then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak was defeated in 2001, following a failed attempt to reach peace with the Palestinians.The past 16 years have been a downward spiral as the public has grown disillusioned with Labor’s moderate message of Middle East peace. The party has vacillated between meekly opposing a string of hawkish governments and serving as a junior partner to Netanyahu’s Likud in what critics saw as a feeble attempt to cling to power.The current nadir follows one of Labor’s greatest recent successes, when it garnered 24 seats in the 2015 election after its leader Isaac Herzog joined forces with the centrist former foreign minister Tzipi Livni to form The Zionist Union.But the merger still fell short of unseating Netanyahu, who has ruled since 2009. With Labor squabbling internally, the anti-Netanyahu votes in Israel have increasingly migrated toward the centrist Yesh Atid party and its telegenic leader Yair Lapid.“Labor is at one of the most dire points in its long history,” said Nadav Galon, an independent consultant and former adviser to several key members. “There is just this sense that the party is not a true alternative to the government anymore.”The next leader’s main task will be inspiring confidence among its members and the wider public.Herzog, who has been chairman since 2013, has seen his popularity tumble after a series of failed attempts to join Netanyahu’s coalition. The 56-year-old is trying to defy the party tradition of quickly dumping its leaders by calling for continuity and running for re-election on a promise to merge with even more centrist factions to create one big bloc that can finally topple Netanyahu.“It happened in Canada, it happened in France, it happened in Italy. When you want to replace the government, that is what you do,” he said at a recent campaign rally. “I’m the ninth chairman since 2000. Is that reasonable?”Polls indicate that his main challenger is Amir Peretz, a former chairman who left the party and recently returned.Peretz brandishes his credentials as a former defense minister who helped initiate the Iron Dome missile defense system, which shot down hundreds of rockets during the war in Gaza three years ago. His background as a former union leader could also draw voters from working-class towns that typically vote Likud and are turned off by Labor’s image as a bastion of liberal, upper-class Jews of European descent.“The peace camp has turned the concept of peace into an elitist product… I am going to turn peace into a product of the people,” Peretz told the AP. “Peace is the greatest social and economic missed opportunity that we’ve had.”But critics say that, like Herzog, Peretz represents more of the same and the party needs to choose a fresh face.Margalit, the former entrepreneur, and ex-telecom executive Avi Gabbay — both marketing themselves as outsiders — are locked in a battle to reach a second round of voting.The two top finishers in the July 4 primary are to face off in a runoff the following week, unless someone receives an outright majority in the first round.Margalit accuses Netanyahu of corruption and fear-mongering, and says he is the only party member who can offer a real alternative to the prime minister.“The other major task is to give hope where he gives fear,” he said. “While Netanyahu is scaring, I know how to be inclusive rather than exclusive.”Margalit has pinned his campaign on restoring Labor to its glorious roots under the banner “the leftists are coming back.”But recent surveys have shown that only about 10 percent of Israelis still identify themselves as being on the “left,” with the vast majority firmly in the political center. That’s where Gabbay is aiming, with his personal biography of humble beginnings and a rise to prominence in the business world.Gabbay earned a reputation for integrity when, as environment minister with the centrist Kulanu Party, he was the lone vote against a government decision to extract off-shore natural gas. He then resigned in protest last year and joined the Labor Party when Netanyahu ousted Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon in favor of nationalist Avigdor Lieberman.Another longshot candidate is Omer Bar-Lev, a former military commando leader and son of war hero Haim Bar-Lev.And waiting in the wings is Barak, who says he has no plans of returning to politics but would do so if called upon to save party and country. The ex-premier has emerged from time to time with stinging critiques of Netanyahu. Last week, he warned that the government’s current path — with its continued control of millions of Palestinians — could lead to an apartheid state.The next Labor chairman will automatically become the country’s opposition leader, a formal role that affords meetings with visiting foreign dignitaries and high-profile speaking opportunities. But that job is not guaranteed beyond the next election, which Netanyahu could move up according to his own political calculations.Tal Schneider, a leading Israeli political blogger and commentator, said that despite dire projections, it was too soon to write off Labor. But it still had a long way to go.“All the candidates are trying to create hope but I don’t think the voters feel it yet,” she said. “They mostly want the party to have honor and a political backbone. They want it to be a real opposition. So this is really a race for opposition leader, rather than for future prime minister.”
After UN hosts 2-day anti-Israel event, Israel’s envoy says it colludes with terror supporters-At ’50 years of occupation’ gathering, Nobel laureate Jody Williams urges attendees to make life hell for Israel until it withdraws;-By Cathryn J. Prince and Times of Israel staff July 1, 2017, 1:10 am
NEW YORK — Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon accused the United Nations of “colluding with supporters of terror seeking to harm Israel,” following a two-day panel Thursday-Friday marking “50 years of occupation” in which groups Israel says have links to Palestinian terror organizations participated.The panel was addressed by Palestinian officials, an Israeli MK, Israeli and Palestinian activists and others.“It is beyond comprehension that UN funds are supporting organizations which aid terrorists and incite against Israel,” Danon said in a statement about the event, which was organized by the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People and held at UN headquarters in New York.The committee was tasked in 2016 with “bring[ing] together international experts, including from the State of Palestine and Israel, representatives of the diplomatic community, civil society, as well as academics and students to discuss the ongoing occupation.”Israel protested the meetings which began Thursday, saying that two of the groups participating, Al Haq and the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, had links to Hamas and the PFLP.Israel’s UN delegation said in a statement that “according to intelligence information” the Al Haq group “collaborates with the PFLP” and the Al Mezan Center “works together regularly with the Hamas terrorist organization.”Jody Williams, the keynote speaker at the forum on Friday, urged attendees to make “life hell” for Israel until it withdraws from Palestinian territory.Nobel Peace Prize laureate Williams said “Israel has a right to a narrative” which “may or may not be valid,” but was dismayed by the criticism surrounding the event.“It is disturbing… that the state of Israel does not wish to allow the Palestinians to have their narrative heard,” she said, urging European nations and organizations such as Amnesty International to recognize Palestine as a state.Williams did not address Hamas rule of the Gaza Strip or payments via the Palestinian Authority government to convicted terrorists and their families; nor did other panelists. Israel has been vociferously protesting payments from the Palestinian Authority to terrorists in Israeli jails and to their families and those of Palestinians killed while carrying out terror attacks against Israelis.The head of Israel’s B’Tselem NGO, Hagai El-Ad, told the gathering on Friday that the Israeli government branded Palestinians who oppose the occupation as terrorists, Israelis who oppose the occupation as traitors, and the international community that opposes the occupation as anti-Semites. He lamented the failure to implement December 2016’s UN Resolution 2334 that branded settlements illegal.Joint (Arab) List Knesset member Aida Touma-Suleiman said the window for a two-state solution was closing fast, but that the alternative was not a democratic single-state. Rather, she said, there was already a one-state reality, but it was not a state that gave equal rights to the two peoples under its control. Israel was showing clear signs of apartheid, she said, adding that democracy and occupation were incompatible.Another panelist Friday, Noura Erakat, an assistant professor at George Mason University and a political activist, said the difference between the situation in the Gaza Strip and natural disasters such as the 2010 earthquake in Haiti is that the former is a human-made disaster.“The naval blockade of 10 years, and the land siege can all be reversed. The World Health Organization has said that by 2020 Gaza will not be livable, and so one has to question whether we have become so numb to these numbers that we can’t do anything about it,” Erakat said.organized by the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People-Israel and Egypt have maintained a blockade on the Gaza Strip since Hamas overthrew Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party in a bloody coup in 2007. Israel says the blockade is necessary to prevent weaponry from reaching Hamas, which is avowedly committed to the destruction of Israel. Hamas and Israel have fought three wars since 2008.Tania Hary, executive director of the Israeli NGO Gisha – Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, said inertia is largely responsible for the situation in Gaza, adding that it was inextricably linked to the West Bank.“It is one of the biggest experimentation projects on the planet. How do you test the breaking point of two million people?” Hary said of Gazan residents.The World Jewish Congress set up a protest table across the street from the UN where the event was taking place, and said in a statement that the organizing committee was “the only UN body dedicated to an individual group of people, despite the many pressing human rights concerns facing peoples around the world. Established in November 1975 after the UN General Assembly passed its notorious ‘Zionism-equals-racism’ resolution, the Committee continues to encourage that poisonous notion.“While it claims to support the Middle East peace process and the achievement of a two-state solution, the Committee in fact regularly disparages Israel and administers events questioning its legitimacy,” the WJC said.The WJC called on the international community to support efforts to resume face-to-face Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, rather than encouraging unilateral Palestinian moves and rhetoric. It also called on the UN to dissolve what it said was the biased Committee and other bodies of its kind.During Thursday’s panel sessions, senior Palestinian negotiator and PLO official Saeb Erekat said that “Hamas and the PFLP are not terrorist organizations,” and that the Palestinians “do not have a partner in Israel today” since “the Israeli government, headed by Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu, is trying to replace the two-state solution with one state, two systems, apartheid.”Hamas and the PFLP are both internationally regarded as terror groups. Most recently Hamas and the PFLP claimed responsibility for a June 16 shooting and knife attack outside the Old City of Jerusalem in which Israeli Border Policewoman Hadas Malka was stabbed to death.Danon hit back at Erekat and the Palestinians for having “no shame,” decrying the “lies and incitement from those who are paying terrorists to kill innocent Israelis.”“These obsessive attempts to besmirch our good name will not change the fact that the Palestinian leadership refuses to end their support for terror,” said Danon, standing next to a photograph of Malka.Danon had protested to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday against the panel.Guterres indicated that the event did not have the blessing of his office.
Livni urges UNESCO not to pass Hebron decision-Former foreign minster speaks at UN body despite anti-Israel bias in bid to ward off new move to designate Tomb of the Patriarchs part of Palestine-By Times of Israel staff July 1, 2017, 5:33 pm
Former foreign minister Tizpi Livni criticized the UN’s cultural body for its repeated decisions against Israel and called on the organization to reject a further provocative vote on the flash point West Bank city of Hebron set for Sunday.The Palestinians are pushing to have Hebron — the site of the Tomb of the Patriarchs — declared as a “World Heritage Site in Danger” during the upcoming World Heritage Committee meeting.Speaking Friday at the UNESCO International Conference on the Empowerment of Women in Paris, Livni, a member of the opposition Zionist Union party, said she had seriously considered skipping the event due to previous “false” decisions against the Jewish state, Ynet reported.“I am an opposition leader in Israel, but I am not in opposition to the history of my people and not an opposition to the truth,” Livni said. “These decisions will not harm my people’s connection to [Jerusalem and Hebron], but they will hurt UNESCO and the ability to promote common interests.”UNESCO has come under fire by Israel, the US and other nations for a series of moves deemed anti-Israel, most recently in May when its executive board ratified a resolution denying any Jewish legal or historical Israeli links to Jerusalem and calling Israel an “occupying power” in its capital.That resolution also criticized the Israeli government for archaeological projects in the capital and in Hebron and lambasted its naval blockade of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.“UNESCO must not be turned into a political arena,” Livni said during the UN body’s conference. “There are representatives from countries that have conflicts between them, but they must be left outside the building. Unfortunately, there are member states that exploit UNESCO for political purposes and to open conflicts.”In a video (Hebrew) posted on her Facebook page, Livni defended her decision to speak at the UNESCO event.“At first I thought I would not come because they have taken terrible decisions, but then I thought, if I am getting a hearing here at UNESCO, I am going to say what I have to, not only on the issue of women, but also what I think about the decisions that are on their table about Hebron next week,” Livni said.“They are going to hear what one woman from Israel thinks of these decisions. We can make a difference here.”In May’s resolution, the UN agency wrote that Hebron (and Bethlehem) was an “integral part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” and that it “deplores the ongoing Israeli excavations, works, construction of private roads for settlers and of a Wall inside the Old City of Al-Khalil/Hebron which are illegal under international law and harmfully affect the authenticity and integrity of the site.”The UN cultural agency’s World Heritage Committee is expected to vote on the matter on July 2, during its 41st session in Krakow, Poland. Given the Arab nations’ automatic majority in international forums, the Palestinian proposal is likely to be accepted.The Tomb of the Patriarchs would become the third cultural site on UNESCO’s “List of World Heritage in Danger” that is registered as located in the “State of Palestine.” The other two are the birthplace of Jesus in Bethlehem and the “cultural landscape of Southern Jerusalem,” around Battir.Following the May vote, Israel announced it would cut another $1 million from its payments to the UN, bringing the total cuts since December 2016 to $9 million.In December, after the Security Council passed Resolution 2334, slamming Israeli settlement activity and calling settlements illegal, Netanyahu ordered $6 million cut from Israel’s payment to the UN. And in March, after the Human Rights Council passed five anti-Israel resolutions, Netanyahu vowed to cut an additional $2 million.Last week, Israel denied a fact-finding mission entry to Hebron ahead of the UNESCO vote.A group of independent scholars from the International Council on Monuments and Sites had been trying to gain access to the disputed holy site since the Palestinian Authority announced in April its plan to have it added to UNESCO’s list of endangered world heritage sites.However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided not to grant them the required permits.“On a strategic and principled level, the State of Israel will not take part in and will not legitimize any Palestinian political move under the guise of culture and heritage,” said Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO, Carmel Shama-Hacohen.Raphael Aharen contributed to this report.
Liberman: Israel ‘won’t ignore’ new Hezbollah weapon factories-Defense minister promises to ‘respond with strength’ to further spillover from battles in Syria hitting Israeli territory-By Times of Israel staff July 2, 2017, 6:56 pm
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman issued a stern warning to the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah and its Iranian patrons over the development of rocket manufacturing installations inside Lebanon.“We are fully aware” of the rocket factories, Liberman told military correspondents in a briefing in Tel Aviv Sunday. “We know what needs to be done… We won’t ignore the establishment of Iranian weapons factories in Lebanon.”Still, he cautioned against overstating the threat. Since the Second Lebanon War in 2006, Israel has pulled significantly ahead of Hezbollah, he said. “There’s no need for either hysteria or euphoria on this issue.”Asked about the spike in spillover fire from Syrian battlefields hitting the Israeli side of the Golan Heights, Liberman said the Syrian army was trying to prevent further incidents.“There is intense fighting in recent days by rebel groups trying to regain control of Quneitra [on the Israeli-Syrian border], and a commensurate response from the Syrian army. We’re responding and will respond more forcefully” in the future, he said.He was referring to repeated Israeli attacks on Syrian army positions in response to errant shells and other spillover from the battles in the area in recent weeks.“The State of Israel has no interest in initiating a military move, not in the north and not in the south. There is quiet in the south, and in the north the spillover fire from Syria isn’t directed at us.”Israel would not set “red lines” when it came to responding to the spillover, which has seen 16 separate incidents of fire into Israeli territory in just over a week. “We have no red lines. We’ll weigh every incident separately,” but also “respond with strength” each time.“I don’t think that in either Syria or Lebanon, where they’re aware of the depth of our intelligence, they think that it’s a good idea to test our military capabilities.”Iran has reportedly begun constructing the new factories in Lebanon after Israeli airstrikes in Syria destroyed several shipments of rockets destined for southern Lebanese launching pads in recent years.Last month, at the Herzliya Conference, IDF intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Herzl Halevi said that “Iran has been working for the past year to set up indigenous infrastructures for producing precise munitions both in Lebanon and Yemen. We can’t ignore that, and we won’t.”Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz echoed Liberman’s comments on Sunday. “Israel will not sit by and watch the continuing arming of Hezbollah with advanced weaponry, and will do anything it needs to to remove this threat,” he said while visiting the USS George H.W. Bush, a Nimitz-class US Navy aircraft carrier anchored in Haifa.
US pilots from vital Yom Kippur War mission reunite with Israeli ‘brothers in arms’-10 American airman who volunteered to deliver fighter jets to the IDF return to the country they helped defend 44 years ago-By Andrew Tobin July 1, 2017, 3:29 am-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
TEL AVIV (JTA) – The arrival of US fighter jets in Israel, as part of a month-long arms drop, was critical to turning the tide of the Yom Kippur War in favor of the Jewish state.But for the American pilots who volunteered to deliver the aircraft, it was just another mission. Alan Chesterman, part of a US Navy squadron that flew a handful of the jets, said he had little knowledge of Israel or its security situation when he landed here in October 1973.“We knew we were flying into a combat zone, but we didn’t know anything about it,” he said. “It was more like I’m young, adventurous and fearless – you might say young and stupid. I just lived to fly.”Chesterman, 72, was one of two pilots who this week reunited with some of the Israelis to whom they handed the Douglas A-4 Skyhawks. Along with nine other American pilots and their wives, they took a VIP tour of Israel to see what has become of the country since they helped to fend off the surprise onslaught by its Arab neighbors 44 years ago.The Americans landed at Ben-Gurion Airport Saturday on commercial flights, and have since been traveling around the country and receiving briefings from top military officials. They visited the Tel Nof airbase Wednesday, where they exchanged war stories with more than a dozen Israeli pilots who flew the American Skyhawks and recreated a photograph several of them, including retired US fighter pilot Roy “Bubba” Segars, 76, and former Israeli airman Jacob “Booby” Daube, had taken together during the war.On Thursday, the American pilots attended a flight course completion ceremony at the Hatzerim Air Force base, where they saw Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin speak.Rami Lothan, 65, an Israeli Air Force pilot who greeted the Americans in 1973 and flew one of the Skyhawks in the war, participated in a flight show at the event, flying a propeller-driven training plane. He helped organize and host the trip after meeting members of the group at flight shows in the United States.Lothan said that in the midst of the Yom Kippur War — in which a coalition of Arab armies led by Egypt and Syria caught Israel unprepared on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar – the Israeli pilots had not been able to appreciate the arrival of the Americans, who were fighting the Vietnam War at the time. This week’s visit, he said, has been an opportunity to reflect.“I don’t think we had enough time to sit down and appreciate what was happening. Whatever we could fly, whatever could carry bombs, we flew it,” he said. “But seeing these guys; it’s like lost brothers. I can admire pilots who don’t have any connection to the Middle East, and they just completed tours in Vietnam, and they all volunteered to come here and help us out.”Chesterman recalled that he was stationed at the naval airbase in southern California when the squadron skipper asked for volunteers for a dangerous and unspecified mission. Almost all the pilots raised their hands. Over the course of two days, they made their way to Israel, stopping several times along the way, including in Spain, the only European country that would have them en route to Israel.Segars, the other pilot from the mission now in Israel, fired some rounds toward Libya on the way.Although the Americans were only in Israel for a few hours, Chesterman gathered that the country was fully mobilized for war. He recalled seeing the wife and children of a soldier camped in a tent along the runway of the airbase, with their clothes drying on an air defense battery.“That when it hit me: I think they’re not just fighting for territory. They’re literally fighting for their lives,” Chesterman said. “The whole family was basically called up for active duty and was there for the duration. We don’t have to do it that way in the United States.”Chesterman said the Israelis welcomed the American pilots with a friendly meal on base, during which he and his fellow pilots “did our best to drink all their booze.” One of the Israeli pilots who had been drinking with them suddenly excused himself, saying he needed to return to the war. Only then did the Americans realize he had been drinking iced tea, not beer.Segars – the pilot who “fired at Muammar Gaddafi,” as Chesterman put it – earnestly tried to convince the Israelis to let him join the battle. But the several beers he had just downed “disabused him of opportunity to go fight in someone else’s war, Chesterman said.Until recently, Chesterman had been afraid to return to Israel because he thought it was unsafe. But this was his second trip to the county in the past two years, and he said he has learned to take comfort in the fact that “the good guys have all the guns.” He has also gained an appreciation for the role he played in helping Israel at a moment of profound crisis and what the country has become since.“I’m completely impressed by the way the Israelis conduct themselves,” he said. “They are proud of their country. It’s so young, with so many smart people and technology, but also has so much history. It’s an incredible places. If it weren’t for my kids and grandkids back in the states, Israel would be at the top of my list of places to live.”
Palestinian cleric calls on Allah to help us ‘slaughter Americans, Europeans’-In sermon at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa, Sheikh Nidhal Siam also denounces Saudis, Qataris as ‘collaborators’ of Western powers-By Times of Israel staff July 1, 2017, 2:13 am
A Palestinian cleric preaching outside Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque this month called on Allah to facilitate the “slaughter” of Americans, Europeans and various Arab leaders.Sheikh Nidhal Siam, known as Abu Ibrahim, castigated the regimes of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, calling both “collaborators” with the Americans and the English.He called on Allah to “enable us to slaughter… the Americans… the Europeans,” and the “criminal and treacherous” Arab rulers he had mentioned.A video of his sermon was posted on YouTube on June 18 and subsequently reposted and translated by the watchdog group Middle East Media Research Institute.“Do not think that some of the collaborators are right and some are wrong. They are all equally collaborators. Just as the Saudi regime is a lackey of the Americans, and is immersed in collaboration with them, the Qatari regime is a lackey of the English, and is immersed in collaboration with them,” Siam said. “All these [regimes] are like riding beasts ridden by the superpowers.“Oh Allah, enable us to slaughter the Americans!” he continued, as his listeners said “Amen!”Siam then said “And the Europeans!” and later: “And our criminal and treacherous [Arab] rulers!”After each proclamation the listeners chanted another amen.The cleric concluded: “Oh Allah, bring about their downfall soon! Oh Allah, do not leave a single one of them on the face of the earth!”His listeners again intoned an amen.
28 And when these things begin to come to pass,(ALL THE PROPHECY SIGNS FROM THE BIBLE) then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption (RAPTURE) draweth nigh.
29 And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree,(ISRAEL) and all the trees;(ALL INDEPENDENT COUNTRIES)
30 When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand.(ISRAEL LITERALLY BECAME AND INDEPENDENT COUNTRY JUST BEFORE SUMMER IN MAY 14,1948.)
JOEL 2:3,30
3 A fire devoureth (ATOMIC BOMB) before them;(RUSSIAN-ARAB-MUSLIM ARMIES AGAINST ISRAEL) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(ATOMIC BOMB AFFECT)
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their eyes shall consume away in their holes,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB)(BECAUSE NUKES HAVE BEEN USED ON ISRAELS ENEMIES)(GOD PROTECTS ISRAEL AND ALWAYS WILL)
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.(1/2-3 BILLION DIE IN WW3)(THIS IS AN ATOMIC BOMB EFFECT)
EZEKIEL 20:47
47 And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the LORD; Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein.
ZEPHANIAH 1:18
18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD'S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
MALACHI 4:1
1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven;(FROM ATOMIC BOMBS) and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
And here are the bounderies of the land that Israel will inherit either through war or peace or God in the future. God says its Israels land and only Israels land. They will have every inch God promised them of this land in the future.
Egypt east of the Nile River, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, The southern part of Turkey and the Western Half of Iraq west of the Euphrates. Gen 13:14-15, Psm 105:9,11, Gen 15:18, Exe 23:31, Num 34:1-12, Josh 1:4.ALL THIS LAND ISRAEL WILL DEFINATELY OWN IN THE FUTURE, ITS ISRAELS NOT ISHMAELS LAND.12 TRIBES INHERIT LAND IN THE FUTURE
World’s largest warship docks in Israel’s Haifa port-Nimitz-class USS George H.W. Bush arrives for 4-day visit, with crew set to tour the country and Netanyahu expected to hop on board-By Times of Israel staff July 1, 2017, 12:30 pm
The USS George H.W. Bush, docked outside Israel’s Haifa port Saturday, the first such visit in 17 years.The Nimitz-class aircraft supercarrier left its homeport of Norfolk, Virginia on January 21 and has been in the region since February as a base for airstrikes against the Islamic State group. It operates mainly in the Persian Gulf.Commissioned in 2009, The 333m-long nuclear-powered ship can carry a crew of over 5,000 people, as well as around 90 fighter jets and helicopters. It is considered the world’s largest aircraft carrier and largest warship overall.Due to its size the ship is unable to enter the port itself, and dropped anchor four kilometers from the harbor.Channel 2 news said Israeli and American officials have not given details on the nature of the visit, though it noted that the Israeli and US navies cooperate closely and have held numerous joint military exercises.According to Channel 10, the crew of the George H.W. Bush will tour Israel in the coming days and celebrate American Independence Day in the Jewish state on July 4.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman will visit the ship on Monday, along with Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav.The ship will then depart on Wednesday to continue its operations.
Arab cleric claims Israel in league with Al-Jazeera-Preacher from United Arab Emirates, currently locked in a feud with Qatar, says media is the ‘weapon of the Jews’-By Times of Israel staff July 1, 2017, 11:31 am
A prominent cleric in the United Arab Emirates has claimed Israel is a supporter of Qatari television network Al-Jazeera, saying the station was a “weapon of the Jews.”“Control of the media is one of the weapons used for the destruction of the Islamic nation on the religious and national levels,” Wassim Yousuf said on Abu Dhabi TV in June.“This is why Shimon Peres went hand in hand with the Al-Jazeera network,” he added, in comments relayed by the Middle East Media Research Institute.Yousuf did not make clear how he believed Peres, the late prime minister and president, had cooperated with the Qatari channel.“Media was the first weapon of the Jews in their efforts to make the Muslims doubt their fait,” Yousuf said.He then went on to discuss alleged scheming by Jewish tribes in ancient Medina.“Look at the wickedness of the Jews,” he said. “They did not want a war because they were a minority in Medina. They did not want a war, and nor did they want an alliance with the Arab tribes.“So they wanted another weapon –- the media. They would pretend to believe in Islam at night and renounce it in the morning. This would lead the companions of the Prophet Muhammad to doubt him, and they would renounce Islam and abandon Muhammad. See how they relied on the media.”He went on to claim Jews rely on “falsification of facts” to reach their goal. “When they heard a news item, they would add a hundred lies to it, thus falsifying the facts.”This, he said, was also the Jewish strategy today.Qatar and its Al-Jazeera network have been under fire in the Arab world recently, with Saudi Arabia and its allies placing a crippling embargo on the emirate.With the support of the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain, the Saudis announced on June 5 they were suspending all ties with Qatar, accusing it of support for extremist groups — a claim Doha denies.They closed their airspace to Qatari carriers and blocked the emirate’s only land border, a vital route for its food imports. They also ordered all Qataris to leave and their own nationals to return home.Last week Riyadh laid down a list of 13 demands for Qatar, including ending Doha’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood, the closure of Al-Jazeera television, a downgrade of diplomatic ties with Iran and the shutdown of a Turkish military base in the emirate.The Arab world has often blamed Zionism and Judaism for various woes — from the Islamic State and financial crises to pornography, AIDS and even Sesame Street. Media-encouraged anti-Semitsm is thought to be rife in the Muslim world.AFP contributed to this report.
Labor aims for relevance with Tuesday’s leadership election-Can a new chairman can return the party to the glory days of Ben-Gurion and Rabin, or will it continue to languish in the opposition?-By Aron Heller July 1, 2017, 2:27 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s venerable Labor Party, which led the country to independence and steered it for decades through wars, crises and the pursuit of peace is now fighting to merely stay relevant.With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud firmly in control, Labor is trying to overcome years of missteps and regain some of its former glory with the election of a new party leader next week.But even as it prepares for the vote, the question remains whether a new chairman can return the party of David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin to the prime minister’s office — or have it continue to languish in the opposition.“I think the party needs a new mission and the mission needs to be very clear: not joining Netanyahu but replacing Netanyahu,” Erel Margalit, a high-tech entrepreneur-turned-lawmaker who is among nine candidates vying for the party leadership, told The Associated Press.Though the next national election is scheduled for late 2019, polls show the party currently winning just 10 to 15 seats in the 120-seat parliament — making it Israel’s fourth or even fifth-largest party. Labor has not ruled since then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak was defeated in 2001, following a failed attempt to reach peace with the Palestinians.The past 16 years have been a downward spiral as the public has grown disillusioned with Labor’s moderate message of Middle East peace. The party has vacillated between meekly opposing a string of hawkish governments and serving as a junior partner to Netanyahu’s Likud in what critics saw as a feeble attempt to cling to power.The current nadir follows one of Labor’s greatest recent successes, when it garnered 24 seats in the 2015 election after its leader Isaac Herzog joined forces with the centrist former foreign minister Tzipi Livni to form The Zionist Union.But the merger still fell short of unseating Netanyahu, who has ruled since 2009. With Labor squabbling internally, the anti-Netanyahu votes in Israel have increasingly migrated toward the centrist Yesh Atid party and its telegenic leader Yair Lapid.“Labor is at one of the most dire points in its long history,” said Nadav Galon, an independent consultant and former adviser to several key members. “There is just this sense that the party is not a true alternative to the government anymore.”The next leader’s main task will be inspiring confidence among its members and the wider public.Herzog, who has been chairman since 2013, has seen his popularity tumble after a series of failed attempts to join Netanyahu’s coalition. The 56-year-old is trying to defy the party tradition of quickly dumping its leaders by calling for continuity and running for re-election on a promise to merge with even more centrist factions to create one big bloc that can finally topple Netanyahu.“It happened in Canada, it happened in France, it happened in Italy. When you want to replace the government, that is what you do,” he said at a recent campaign rally. “I’m the ninth chairman since 2000. Is that reasonable?”Polls indicate that his main challenger is Amir Peretz, a former chairman who left the party and recently returned.Peretz brandishes his credentials as a former defense minister who helped initiate the Iron Dome missile defense system, which shot down hundreds of rockets during the war in Gaza three years ago. His background as a former union leader could also draw voters from working-class towns that typically vote Likud and are turned off by Labor’s image as a bastion of liberal, upper-class Jews of European descent.“The peace camp has turned the concept of peace into an elitist product… I am going to turn peace into a product of the people,” Peretz told the AP. “Peace is the greatest social and economic missed opportunity that we’ve had.”But critics say that, like Herzog, Peretz represents more of the same and the party needs to choose a fresh face.Margalit, the former entrepreneur, and ex-telecom executive Avi Gabbay — both marketing themselves as outsiders — are locked in a battle to reach a second round of voting.The two top finishers in the July 4 primary are to face off in a runoff the following week, unless someone receives an outright majority in the first round.Margalit accuses Netanyahu of corruption and fear-mongering, and says he is the only party member who can offer a real alternative to the prime minister.“The other major task is to give hope where he gives fear,” he said. “While Netanyahu is scaring, I know how to be inclusive rather than exclusive.”Margalit has pinned his campaign on restoring Labor to its glorious roots under the banner “the leftists are coming back.”But recent surveys have shown that only about 10 percent of Israelis still identify themselves as being on the “left,” with the vast majority firmly in the political center. That’s where Gabbay is aiming, with his personal biography of humble beginnings and a rise to prominence in the business world.Gabbay earned a reputation for integrity when, as environment minister with the centrist Kulanu Party, he was the lone vote against a government decision to extract off-shore natural gas. He then resigned in protest last year and joined the Labor Party when Netanyahu ousted Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon in favor of nationalist Avigdor Lieberman.Another longshot candidate is Omer Bar-Lev, a former military commando leader and son of war hero Haim Bar-Lev.And waiting in the wings is Barak, who says he has no plans of returning to politics but would do so if called upon to save party and country. The ex-premier has emerged from time to time with stinging critiques of Netanyahu. Last week, he warned that the government’s current path — with its continued control of millions of Palestinians — could lead to an apartheid state.The next Labor chairman will automatically become the country’s opposition leader, a formal role that affords meetings with visiting foreign dignitaries and high-profile speaking opportunities. But that job is not guaranteed beyond the next election, which Netanyahu could move up according to his own political calculations.Tal Schneider, a leading Israeli political blogger and commentator, said that despite dire projections, it was too soon to write off Labor. But it still had a long way to go.“All the candidates are trying to create hope but I don’t think the voters feel it yet,” she said. “They mostly want the party to have honor and a political backbone. They want it to be a real opposition. So this is really a race for opposition leader, rather than for future prime minister.”
After UN hosts 2-day anti-Israel event, Israel’s envoy says it colludes with terror supporters-At ’50 years of occupation’ gathering, Nobel laureate Jody Williams urges attendees to make life hell for Israel until it withdraws;-By Cathryn J. Prince and Times of Israel staff July 1, 2017, 1:10 am
NEW YORK — Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon accused the United Nations of “colluding with supporters of terror seeking to harm Israel,” following a two-day panel Thursday-Friday marking “50 years of occupation” in which groups Israel says have links to Palestinian terror organizations participated.The panel was addressed by Palestinian officials, an Israeli MK, Israeli and Palestinian activists and others.“It is beyond comprehension that UN funds are supporting organizations which aid terrorists and incite against Israel,” Danon said in a statement about the event, which was organized by the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People and held at UN headquarters in New York.The committee was tasked in 2016 with “bring[ing] together international experts, including from the State of Palestine and Israel, representatives of the diplomatic community, civil society, as well as academics and students to discuss the ongoing occupation.”Israel protested the meetings which began Thursday, saying that two of the groups participating, Al Haq and the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, had links to Hamas and the PFLP.Israel’s UN delegation said in a statement that “according to intelligence information” the Al Haq group “collaborates with the PFLP” and the Al Mezan Center “works together regularly with the Hamas terrorist organization.”Jody Williams, the keynote speaker at the forum on Friday, urged attendees to make “life hell” for Israel until it withdraws from Palestinian territory.Nobel Peace Prize laureate Williams said “Israel has a right to a narrative” which “may or may not be valid,” but was dismayed by the criticism surrounding the event.“It is disturbing… that the state of Israel does not wish to allow the Palestinians to have their narrative heard,” she said, urging European nations and organizations such as Amnesty International to recognize Palestine as a state.Williams did not address Hamas rule of the Gaza Strip or payments via the Palestinian Authority government to convicted terrorists and their families; nor did other panelists. Israel has been vociferously protesting payments from the Palestinian Authority to terrorists in Israeli jails and to their families and those of Palestinians killed while carrying out terror attacks against Israelis.The head of Israel’s B’Tselem NGO, Hagai El-Ad, told the gathering on Friday that the Israeli government branded Palestinians who oppose the occupation as terrorists, Israelis who oppose the occupation as traitors, and the international community that opposes the occupation as anti-Semites. He lamented the failure to implement December 2016’s UN Resolution 2334 that branded settlements illegal.Joint (Arab) List Knesset member Aida Touma-Suleiman said the window for a two-state solution was closing fast, but that the alternative was not a democratic single-state. Rather, she said, there was already a one-state reality, but it was not a state that gave equal rights to the two peoples under its control. Israel was showing clear signs of apartheid, she said, adding that democracy and occupation were incompatible.Another panelist Friday, Noura Erakat, an assistant professor at George Mason University and a political activist, said the difference between the situation in the Gaza Strip and natural disasters such as the 2010 earthquake in Haiti is that the former is a human-made disaster.“The naval blockade of 10 years, and the land siege can all be reversed. The World Health Organization has said that by 2020 Gaza will not be livable, and so one has to question whether we have become so numb to these numbers that we can’t do anything about it,” Erakat said.organized by the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People-Israel and Egypt have maintained a blockade on the Gaza Strip since Hamas overthrew Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party in a bloody coup in 2007. Israel says the blockade is necessary to prevent weaponry from reaching Hamas, which is avowedly committed to the destruction of Israel. Hamas and Israel have fought three wars since 2008.Tania Hary, executive director of the Israeli NGO Gisha – Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, said inertia is largely responsible for the situation in Gaza, adding that it was inextricably linked to the West Bank.“It is one of the biggest experimentation projects on the planet. How do you test the breaking point of two million people?” Hary said of Gazan residents.The World Jewish Congress set up a protest table across the street from the UN where the event was taking place, and said in a statement that the organizing committee was “the only UN body dedicated to an individual group of people, despite the many pressing human rights concerns facing peoples around the world. Established in November 1975 after the UN General Assembly passed its notorious ‘Zionism-equals-racism’ resolution, the Committee continues to encourage that poisonous notion.“While it claims to support the Middle East peace process and the achievement of a two-state solution, the Committee in fact regularly disparages Israel and administers events questioning its legitimacy,” the WJC said.The WJC called on the international community to support efforts to resume face-to-face Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, rather than encouraging unilateral Palestinian moves and rhetoric. It also called on the UN to dissolve what it said was the biased Committee and other bodies of its kind.During Thursday’s panel sessions, senior Palestinian negotiator and PLO official Saeb Erekat said that “Hamas and the PFLP are not terrorist organizations,” and that the Palestinians “do not have a partner in Israel today” since “the Israeli government, headed by Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu, is trying to replace the two-state solution with one state, two systems, apartheid.”Hamas and the PFLP are both internationally regarded as terror groups. Most recently Hamas and the PFLP claimed responsibility for a June 16 shooting and knife attack outside the Old City of Jerusalem in which Israeli Border Policewoman Hadas Malka was stabbed to death.Danon hit back at Erekat and the Palestinians for having “no shame,” decrying the “lies and incitement from those who are paying terrorists to kill innocent Israelis.”“These obsessive attempts to besmirch our good name will not change the fact that the Palestinian leadership refuses to end their support for terror,” said Danon, standing next to a photograph of Malka.Danon had protested to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday against the panel.Guterres indicated that the event did not have the blessing of his office.
Livni urges UNESCO not to pass Hebron decision-Former foreign minster speaks at UN body despite anti-Israel bias in bid to ward off new move to designate Tomb of the Patriarchs part of Palestine-By Times of Israel staff July 1, 2017, 5:33 pm
Former foreign minister Tizpi Livni criticized the UN’s cultural body for its repeated decisions against Israel and called on the organization to reject a further provocative vote on the flash point West Bank city of Hebron set for Sunday.The Palestinians are pushing to have Hebron — the site of the Tomb of the Patriarchs — declared as a “World Heritage Site in Danger” during the upcoming World Heritage Committee meeting.Speaking Friday at the UNESCO International Conference on the Empowerment of Women in Paris, Livni, a member of the opposition Zionist Union party, said she had seriously considered skipping the event due to previous “false” decisions against the Jewish state, Ynet reported.“I am an opposition leader in Israel, but I am not in opposition to the history of my people and not an opposition to the truth,” Livni said. “These decisions will not harm my people’s connection to [Jerusalem and Hebron], but they will hurt UNESCO and the ability to promote common interests.”UNESCO has come under fire by Israel, the US and other nations for a series of moves deemed anti-Israel, most recently in May when its executive board ratified a resolution denying any Jewish legal or historical Israeli links to Jerusalem and calling Israel an “occupying power” in its capital.That resolution also criticized the Israeli government for archaeological projects in the capital and in Hebron and lambasted its naval blockade of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.“UNESCO must not be turned into a political arena,” Livni said during the UN body’s conference. “There are representatives from countries that have conflicts between them, but they must be left outside the building. Unfortunately, there are member states that exploit UNESCO for political purposes and to open conflicts.”In a video (Hebrew) posted on her Facebook page, Livni defended her decision to speak at the UNESCO event.“At first I thought I would not come because they have taken terrible decisions, but then I thought, if I am getting a hearing here at UNESCO, I am going to say what I have to, not only on the issue of women, but also what I think about the decisions that are on their table about Hebron next week,” Livni said.“They are going to hear what one woman from Israel thinks of these decisions. We can make a difference here.”In May’s resolution, the UN agency wrote that Hebron (and Bethlehem) was an “integral part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” and that it “deplores the ongoing Israeli excavations, works, construction of private roads for settlers and of a Wall inside the Old City of Al-Khalil/Hebron which are illegal under international law and harmfully affect the authenticity and integrity of the site.”The UN cultural agency’s World Heritage Committee is expected to vote on the matter on July 2, during its 41st session in Krakow, Poland. Given the Arab nations’ automatic majority in international forums, the Palestinian proposal is likely to be accepted.The Tomb of the Patriarchs would become the third cultural site on UNESCO’s “List of World Heritage in Danger” that is registered as located in the “State of Palestine.” The other two are the birthplace of Jesus in Bethlehem and the “cultural landscape of Southern Jerusalem,” around Battir.Following the May vote, Israel announced it would cut another $1 million from its payments to the UN, bringing the total cuts since December 2016 to $9 million.In December, after the Security Council passed Resolution 2334, slamming Israeli settlement activity and calling settlements illegal, Netanyahu ordered $6 million cut from Israel’s payment to the UN. And in March, after the Human Rights Council passed five anti-Israel resolutions, Netanyahu vowed to cut an additional $2 million.Last week, Israel denied a fact-finding mission entry to Hebron ahead of the UNESCO vote.A group of independent scholars from the International Council on Monuments and Sites had been trying to gain access to the disputed holy site since the Palestinian Authority announced in April its plan to have it added to UNESCO’s list of endangered world heritage sites.However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided not to grant them the required permits.“On a strategic and principled level, the State of Israel will not take part in and will not legitimize any Palestinian political move under the guise of culture and heritage,” said Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO, Carmel Shama-Hacohen.Raphael Aharen contributed to this report.
Liberman: Israel ‘won’t ignore’ new Hezbollah weapon factories-Defense minister promises to ‘respond with strength’ to further spillover from battles in Syria hitting Israeli territory-By Times of Israel staff July 2, 2017, 6:56 pm
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman issued a stern warning to the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah and its Iranian patrons over the development of rocket manufacturing installations inside Lebanon.“We are fully aware” of the rocket factories, Liberman told military correspondents in a briefing in Tel Aviv Sunday. “We know what needs to be done… We won’t ignore the establishment of Iranian weapons factories in Lebanon.”Still, he cautioned against overstating the threat. Since the Second Lebanon War in 2006, Israel has pulled significantly ahead of Hezbollah, he said. “There’s no need for either hysteria or euphoria on this issue.”Asked about the spike in spillover fire from Syrian battlefields hitting the Israeli side of the Golan Heights, Liberman said the Syrian army was trying to prevent further incidents.“There is intense fighting in recent days by rebel groups trying to regain control of Quneitra [on the Israeli-Syrian border], and a commensurate response from the Syrian army. We’re responding and will respond more forcefully” in the future, he said.He was referring to repeated Israeli attacks on Syrian army positions in response to errant shells and other spillover from the battles in the area in recent weeks.“The State of Israel has no interest in initiating a military move, not in the north and not in the south. There is quiet in the south, and in the north the spillover fire from Syria isn’t directed at us.”Israel would not set “red lines” when it came to responding to the spillover, which has seen 16 separate incidents of fire into Israeli territory in just over a week. “We have no red lines. We’ll weigh every incident separately,” but also “respond with strength” each time.“I don’t think that in either Syria or Lebanon, where they’re aware of the depth of our intelligence, they think that it’s a good idea to test our military capabilities.”Iran has reportedly begun constructing the new factories in Lebanon after Israeli airstrikes in Syria destroyed several shipments of rockets destined for southern Lebanese launching pads in recent years.Last month, at the Herzliya Conference, IDF intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Herzl Halevi said that “Iran has been working for the past year to set up indigenous infrastructures for producing precise munitions both in Lebanon and Yemen. We can’t ignore that, and we won’t.”Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz echoed Liberman’s comments on Sunday. “Israel will not sit by and watch the continuing arming of Hezbollah with advanced weaponry, and will do anything it needs to to remove this threat,” he said while visiting the USS George H.W. Bush, a Nimitz-class US Navy aircraft carrier anchored in Haifa.
US pilots from vital Yom Kippur War mission reunite with Israeli ‘brothers in arms’-10 American airman who volunteered to deliver fighter jets to the IDF return to the country they helped defend 44 years ago-By Andrew Tobin July 1, 2017, 3:29 am-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
TEL AVIV (JTA) – The arrival of US fighter jets in Israel, as part of a month-long arms drop, was critical to turning the tide of the Yom Kippur War in favor of the Jewish state.But for the American pilots who volunteered to deliver the aircraft, it was just another mission. Alan Chesterman, part of a US Navy squadron that flew a handful of the jets, said he had little knowledge of Israel or its security situation when he landed here in October 1973.“We knew we were flying into a combat zone, but we didn’t know anything about it,” he said. “It was more like I’m young, adventurous and fearless – you might say young and stupid. I just lived to fly.”Chesterman, 72, was one of two pilots who this week reunited with some of the Israelis to whom they handed the Douglas A-4 Skyhawks. Along with nine other American pilots and their wives, they took a VIP tour of Israel to see what has become of the country since they helped to fend off the surprise onslaught by its Arab neighbors 44 years ago.The Americans landed at Ben-Gurion Airport Saturday on commercial flights, and have since been traveling around the country and receiving briefings from top military officials. They visited the Tel Nof airbase Wednesday, where they exchanged war stories with more than a dozen Israeli pilots who flew the American Skyhawks and recreated a photograph several of them, including retired US fighter pilot Roy “Bubba” Segars, 76, and former Israeli airman Jacob “Booby” Daube, had taken together during the war.On Thursday, the American pilots attended a flight course completion ceremony at the Hatzerim Air Force base, where they saw Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin speak.Rami Lothan, 65, an Israeli Air Force pilot who greeted the Americans in 1973 and flew one of the Skyhawks in the war, participated in a flight show at the event, flying a propeller-driven training plane. He helped organize and host the trip after meeting members of the group at flight shows in the United States.Lothan said that in the midst of the Yom Kippur War — in which a coalition of Arab armies led by Egypt and Syria caught Israel unprepared on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar – the Israeli pilots had not been able to appreciate the arrival of the Americans, who were fighting the Vietnam War at the time. This week’s visit, he said, has been an opportunity to reflect.“I don’t think we had enough time to sit down and appreciate what was happening. Whatever we could fly, whatever could carry bombs, we flew it,” he said. “But seeing these guys; it’s like lost brothers. I can admire pilots who don’t have any connection to the Middle East, and they just completed tours in Vietnam, and they all volunteered to come here and help us out.”Chesterman recalled that he was stationed at the naval airbase in southern California when the squadron skipper asked for volunteers for a dangerous and unspecified mission. Almost all the pilots raised their hands. Over the course of two days, they made their way to Israel, stopping several times along the way, including in Spain, the only European country that would have them en route to Israel.Segars, the other pilot from the mission now in Israel, fired some rounds toward Libya on the way.Although the Americans were only in Israel for a few hours, Chesterman gathered that the country was fully mobilized for war. He recalled seeing the wife and children of a soldier camped in a tent along the runway of the airbase, with their clothes drying on an air defense battery.“That when it hit me: I think they’re not just fighting for territory. They’re literally fighting for their lives,” Chesterman said. “The whole family was basically called up for active duty and was there for the duration. We don’t have to do it that way in the United States.”Chesterman said the Israelis welcomed the American pilots with a friendly meal on base, during which he and his fellow pilots “did our best to drink all their booze.” One of the Israeli pilots who had been drinking with them suddenly excused himself, saying he needed to return to the war. Only then did the Americans realize he had been drinking iced tea, not beer.Segars – the pilot who “fired at Muammar Gaddafi,” as Chesterman put it – earnestly tried to convince the Israelis to let him join the battle. But the several beers he had just downed “disabused him of opportunity to go fight in someone else’s war, Chesterman said.Until recently, Chesterman had been afraid to return to Israel because he thought it was unsafe. But this was his second trip to the county in the past two years, and he said he has learned to take comfort in the fact that “the good guys have all the guns.” He has also gained an appreciation for the role he played in helping Israel at a moment of profound crisis and what the country has become since.“I’m completely impressed by the way the Israelis conduct themselves,” he said. “They are proud of their country. It’s so young, with so many smart people and technology, but also has so much history. It’s an incredible places. If it weren’t for my kids and grandkids back in the states, Israel would be at the top of my list of places to live.”
Palestinian cleric calls on Allah to help us ‘slaughter Americans, Europeans’-In sermon at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa, Sheikh Nidhal Siam also denounces Saudis, Qataris as ‘collaborators’ of Western powers-By Times of Israel staff July 1, 2017, 2:13 am
A Palestinian cleric preaching outside Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque this month called on Allah to facilitate the “slaughter” of Americans, Europeans and various Arab leaders.Sheikh Nidhal Siam, known as Abu Ibrahim, castigated the regimes of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, calling both “collaborators” with the Americans and the English.He called on Allah to “enable us to slaughter… the Americans… the Europeans,” and the “criminal and treacherous” Arab rulers he had mentioned.A video of his sermon was posted on YouTube on June 18 and subsequently reposted and translated by the watchdog group Middle East Media Research Institute.“Do not think that some of the collaborators are right and some are wrong. They are all equally collaborators. Just as the Saudi regime is a lackey of the Americans, and is immersed in collaboration with them, the Qatari regime is a lackey of the English, and is immersed in collaboration with them,” Siam said. “All these [regimes] are like riding beasts ridden by the superpowers.“Oh Allah, enable us to slaughter the Americans!” he continued, as his listeners said “Amen!”Siam then said “And the Europeans!” and later: “And our criminal and treacherous [Arab] rulers!”After each proclamation the listeners chanted another amen.The cleric concluded: “Oh Allah, bring about their downfall soon! Oh Allah, do not leave a single one of them on the face of the earth!”His listeners again intoned an amen.
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