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
US man arrested for exporting nuclear-linked metals to Iran-Erdal Kuyumcu, 44, could face up to 20 years in jail and $1 million fine for allegedly sending cobalt-nickel metallic powder to Iran-By AFP March 2, 2016, 1:17 am-the times of israel
Authorities Tuesday arrested a US man charged with exporting a potentially dangerous metallic powder to Iran, which is used for space and nuclear activities, including missile production, the Department of Justice said.Erdal Kuyumcu, 44, was to appear in court in New York later in the day, on charges that carry up to 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine.As the CEO of Global Metallurgy, he allegedly exported cobalt-nickel metallic powder to Iran twice, shipping it first through an intermediary in Turkey in order to hide its final destination, the Department of Justice said in a statement.He attempted to send a total of more than a thousand pounds (a half ton) of the substance.Under US law, exporting such a powder to Iran is illegal without a license from the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).“Those who seek to evade the scrutiny of the regulatory agencies by operating in the shadows present a danger to our national security and our allies abroad,” said US Attorney Robert Capers of the Eastern District of New York.
Ya’alon: Syrian regime used chemical weapons during truce-Defense minister says government forces ‘dropped barrels of chlorine on civilians’ this week-By Times of Israel staff and AFP March 1, 2016, 9:51 pm
Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said Tuesday Syrian government forces used chemical weapons against civilians this week in a particularly egregious violation of the ceasefire.“The Syrians used military grade chemical weapons and lately have been using materials, chlorine, against civilians, including in these very days, after the supposed ceasefire, dropping barrels of chlorine on civilians,” he said, without providing further details, according to Reuters.Ya’alon made the comments during an address at a conference hosted by the New Tech military and aviation group in Airport City, near Tel Aviv.The minister’s claims came as Syrian President Bashar Assad pledged to do his part to guarantee the success of a shaky ceasefire that was largely holding into its fourth day.World powers have thrown their weight behind the landmark truce as a way to bring an end to Syria’s conflict, which began in 2011 with anti-government protests.Assad said the truce provided a “glimmer of hope” for Syria, where more than 270,000 people have been killed since the complex conflict erupted.“We will do our part so that the whole thing works,” Assad told German public broadcaster ARD, referring to the cessation of hostilities reached by the United States and Russia.“We have refrained ourselves from retaliating in order to give (a) chance for the agreement to survive. That’s what we can do, but at the end everything has a limit. It depends on the other side.”The president also offered a wide amnesty to opposition fighters if they agree to disarm.“The most important thing for me, legally and constitutionally… (is) that you’re not allowed, as a citizen, to hold machine-guns and hurt people or properties,” he said.“This is the only thing that we ask. We don’t ask for anything. As I said, we give them full amnesty.”The United Nations said the next round of peace talks would resume in Geneva on March 9, announcing a two-day postponement “to allow adequate time to address logistical and practical matters”.The ceasefire deal brokered by Moscow and Washington excludes territory held by the jihadist groups the Islamic State, also known as ISIL, and the al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra. The two groups together control more than half of Syria.
EU approves $274 million in aid for Palestinians-Foreign affairs chief calls on Palestinian Authority to be ‘more transparent, more accountable, and more democratic’-By Times of Israel staff March 1, 2016, 9:17 pm
The European Commission announced Tuesday that it has approved a new assistance package for the Palestinian Authority worth $274.1 million.In a press release, the Commission said the aid was the first part of a 2016 package, $184 million of which is set to be funneled directly to the PA, with a focus on education and health services, support for hospitals in East Jerusalem, and assistance to poor families.The remaining $89 million will go to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in the Near East (UNRWA).The statement said a second package will be announced later in the year.“The European Union renews its concrete commitment to the Palestinians,” Federica Mogherini, the EU high representative for foreign affairs, said in a statement. “Through this package, the EU supports the daily lives of Palestinians in the fields of education and health, protecting the poorest families and also providing the Palestinian refugees with access to essential services. These are tangible steps on the ground that can improve the lives of Palestinian people.”Mogherini called on the PA to “become more transparent, more accountable and more democratic” and uphold human rights, which she said is a prerequisite for the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state “living side by side, in peace and security, with the State of Israel and other neighbors.”While the press release refers to the Palestinian Authority as Palestine, it notes that the designation “shall not be construed as recognition of a State of Palestine and is without prejudice to the individual positions of the Member States on this issue.”
No education toward 2 states in Palestinian textbooks,’ report finds-Israel left off maps, Israeli cities said to be in Palestine, martyrdom praised, Holocaust not mentioned in over 70 PA textbooks for Grades 1-12, says Israel Radio journalist-By Dov Lieber March 1, 2016, 7:09 pm-the times of israel
Israel is routinely left off maps, Israeli cities are said to be in Palestine, martyrdom is celebrated, and there is not a single mention of the Holocaust in more than 70 official Palestinian Authority textbooks, Israel Radio reported Tuesday.The state radio’s Palestinian affairs correspondent, Gal Berger, said he looked over textbooks for grades 1-12 with a diverse range of subjects, including history, geography and Islamic studies, and found what he indicated was a systematic blurring out of Israel’s existence.“In the textbooks of the Palestinian Authority,” he said, “there is no education towards two states or a Palestinian state [alongside Israel] within ’67 lines.”In the Palestinian history books for grades 10-12, there are full chapters dedicated to World War II but no mention of the Holocaust, Berger reported. “For a student in this [Palestinian education] system,” said Berger, “it is as if the Holocaust never happened.”In his examination of the Islamic studies textbooks, Berger found excerpts that celebrated martyrdom, including a fourth grade textbook that invites the children to write about a Palestinian martyr of their choice.He posted a picture on his Twitter account from a page of a ninth grade textbook of Islamic studies, which he said constituted praise for martyrdom. The page begins with a Quranic verse which instructs Muslims to kill or imprison nonbelievers. If a Muslim should die in the process, the verse says, “God will not send away their works…and (will) admit them into paradise.” The textbook’s interpretation of the verse, Berger said, states that the martyrs “will be given the highest place in paradise with the prophets and messengers.”The issue of paradise and the division between believers (Muslims) and nonbelievers permeates the textbooks, according to Berger. For example, in one textbook, it is written that Palestine will be the frontline between Muslims and infidels.The erasure of Israel’s physical existence begins early, with cartoons in first grade textbooks showing stores in Palestine — among them a pharmacy in Safed, a supermarket in Haifa and a candy store in Beersheba, Berger reported. (All three cities are in Israel.) It “continues like this through the different grades,” Berger noted.Berger also cited a reading comprehension article in a seventh grade geography textbook, in which such Israeli cities as Haifa, Beersheba, Jaffa, Safed, Ashdod and Ashkelon are said to be famous cities of Palestine.In a picture from textbook on his Twitter feed, Berger also showed a true-or-false question which stated: “The surface area of Palestine is 27,027 square kilometers.” The answer, “true,” has Palestine subsuming Israel completely.Incitement from within the Palestinian Authority education system is often cited, notably by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as a cause for the current wave of Palestinian terror and violence against Israel. Berger said Tuesday he checked the books to see if there was a basis to this claim. “It’s important how you define what you mean by incitement,” he said, in presenting his findings on Israel Radio on Tuesday. “Do the textbooks openly call for attacks against Israelis or Jews? You won’t find that,” he said. However, Berger said, the textbooks lay an ideological foundation that can lead a young Palestinian to carry out an attack.Quoting possibly incendiary Quranic verses verbatim is not the problem, he argued. Rather, he said, the incitement originates in the state-sanctioned interpretation of the verse in which martyrs are told they will go to paradise.Ashraf al-Ajami, a political commentator and former Palestinian minister for prisoner affairs, countered that maps in Israel do not designate the borders of the state, or mark a distinction between sovereign Israeli territory and areas captured in the 1967 war.“If you ask any kid in the West Bank what Palestine is, he will say the West Bank and the Gaza Strip” — not Israel — Ajami said in an Israel Radio interview.Ajami also said that all the textbooks are read over by representatives of the European Union who look for any signs of incitement.Likud Minister without Portfolio Ofir Akunis told Israel Radio that he was “absolutely certain” of a link between PA education and the current wave of attacks, and that “not a day goes by” without the Palestinian Authority inciting against Israel.
Jordanian security forces clash with gunmen near Syria border-Three troops injured in firefight with ‘outlaws’ in the northern city of Irbid-By AP and AFP March 2, 2016, 12:19 am-the times of israel
Jordanian troops exchanged fire with armed men during arrest raids in the northern city of Irbid on Tuesday, including one group holed up in a building, security officials said.Jordan’s Public Security Directorate referred to those being targeted in the raids as “outlaws” but did not elaborate. The directorate reported there were deaths among the gunmen but did not say how many, and that three members of the security forces were hurt. The statement said clashes began earlier Tuesday and continued in the evening.The daily al-Ghad said more than 20 suspected militants were arrested in the operation.Jordanian media said the security forces were battling religious extremists.Amateur video posted online showed groups of men, apparently onlookers, standing in a street as heavy gunfire could be heard in the distance.Since last year, Jordan assumed a high-profile role in the US-led military campaign against the extremist Islamic State group which controls large areas of neighboring Iraq and Syria.Jordan has also cracked down domestically, with IS sympathizers, including those expressing support for the group in social media, facing several years in prison.
France razes Calais ‘Jungle’ migrant camp, sparking clashes-‘We have already seen prison and torture, this doesn’t scare us,’ says refugee as police dismantle tents-By Eric RANDOLPH March 1, 2016, 5:44 pm-the times of israel
CALAIS, France (AFP) — France was razing parts of the “Jungle” migrant camp for a second day Tuesday while thousands of refugees remained blocked in Greece as Europe struggled with the flood of desperate people at its borders.An overnight downpour left stranded refugees shivering in the mud on the Greek border with Macedonia as the UN said over 131,000 migrants had crossed the Mediterranean to reach Europe so far this year.The figure was more than the total number for the first five months of 2015 as Europe grapples with its biggest migration crisis since World War II which many fear poses a threat to very core of the European project.In the northern French port city of Calais, tensions were high as bulldozers continued dismantling the southern half of the Jungle camp, which has become a magnet for people hoping to reach Britain.Roving teams were trying to convince the inhabitants to leave of their own volition and move to better accommodation provided for them, but many fear it will take them further from their goal of reaching Britain, with clashes erupting on Monday.“We have already seen prison and torture, this doesn’t scare us,” a migrant told one of the teams.While the Jungle has become a cause celebre for activists, the crisis there pales in comparison to the situation along the Greek-Macedonian border where more than 7,000 people are stranded after Balkans states imposed a daily limit on the number of migrants allowed to enter.Increasingly desperate, some tried to force their way across the frontier on Monday but were tear gassed by Macedonian police, prompting a sharp rebuke from the EU, which said it was “not our idea of managing the crisis.”In a bid to ease some of the deep divisions which have emerged over the crisis, EU president Donald Tusk set off Tuesday on a tour which will take him to Vienna, the Balkan states and Turkey.At the Idomeni border camp in northern Greece, where thousands of refugees and are camped, an overnight downpour left their tents drenched and children coughing miserably.With Austria and Balkan states capping the numbers of migrants entering their territory, there has been a swift build-up along the border in northern Greece, with Athens warning that the total number of people “trapped” on its soil could reach up to 70,000 in March.“We have been waiting for six days,” said a Syrian woman called Farah as a van distributing canned food and long-life milk was quickly mobbed and emptied in minutes.“The food is not enough, everyone is lying to us and we are desperate,” added the 32-year-old, as children could be heard coughing and crying in nearby tents.German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country registered 1.1 million asylum seekers in 2015, lashed out at the border restrictions, saying they risked plunging debt-ridden Greece into refugee chaos.UN rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein denounced the growing border restrictions as “an act of cruelty” saying instead of receiving compassion, desperate refugees were facing a “rising roar of xenophobia.”And Eva Cosse of Human Rights Watch said trapping asylum seekers in Greece was “an unconscionable and short-sighted non-solution that is causing suffering and violence.”Despite the criticism, countries in the firing line were standing firm.“We cannot take in hundreds of thousands of people. We are not Germany’s waiting room,” Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann told Heute daily.“It cannot be that people are just waved through Greece, Macedonia and Croatia and that Austria does the EU’s job of sharing them around.”Back in northern France, operations to raze the southern half of the Calais camp were continuing, with officials saying it would affect between 800 and 1,000 people, although charities working there say it would affect more than 3,450 people, among them 300 unaccompanied children.The demolition comes ahead of talks on Thursday between French President Francois Hollande and British Prime Minister David Cameron. The fate of the camp has also played into fraught discussions about Britain’s possible exit from the European Union (EU).
Bill aims to outlaw sex between rabbis and their followers-Legislation seeks to prevent exploitation by spiritual leaders, similar to restrictions between therapists and patients-By Sue Surkes March 2, 2016, 1:34 am-the times of israel
Rabbis and other spiritual figures who use their influence to sexually exploit their followers could face the full weight of criminal law if a bill which was cleared for its first reading in the Knesset Tuesday enters the books.Passed for preliminary reading in January, the bill forms part of broader efforts to create a framework for dealing with cults in Israel and calls for up to three years imprisonment for offenders.But the wording will allow it to deal also with cases in which religious figures sexually exploit their followers. Activities would be deemed criminal should the authority figure exploit the “real psychological dependence” of his or her victim during or close to a period in which advice or guidance was given in one-on-one meetings.The proposed legislation, introduced by Meretz MK Michal Rozin and signed by lawmakers from across the spiritual spectrum, places encounters such as these on a par with sexual relations between a therapist and patient, which are illegal, the Hebrew daily Haaretz reported.“This is about psychological dependence, just as exists in a therapist-patient relationship,” Rozin said. “It’s the place of the legislature to determine that sexual relationships within the framework of such dependence cannot take place within the law and that they have to be prohibited by criminal law.”Liat Klein, legal adviser to the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel, which helped to put the draft bill together, said: “Rabbis and spiritual individuals create great dependence among those who turn to them, usually during distress or a crisis.”The police and prosecution services endeavored for years to prosecute cult leader Goel Ratzon, who presented himself as a spiritual guru, and was finally convicted in September of multiple sexual offenses, including rape, sodomy, sex with a minor, indecent assault and fraud.Ratzon, 64, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison and ordered to pay hundreds of thousands of shekels in restitution to his victims, is believed to have had up to 32 “wives” starting in 1991. He also reportedly fathered at least 49 children, with some media sources estimating that more than 60 children were involved in his cult.Prosecutors tried to create a legal precedent of “spiritual slavery” and argued that relationships, including sexual ones, with 12 women had to be seen within the context of Ratzon’s spiritual control which negated the womens’ ability to choose freely.The court acquitted Ratzon of sexual slavery and rejected the prosecution’s attempt to enshrine spiritual slavery as a precedent.According to the Israeli Center for Cult Victims, there are some 100 cults active in Israel, with 15,000-20,000 adults and 3,000 children in their ranks.
40% of Europe’s Jewish leaders say anti-Semitism a threat to Jewish life-But alienation from communal life, weakening status of Jewish organizations and demographic decline ranked as more serious threats-By JTA and Times of Israel staff March 1, 2016, 6:19 pm-the times of israel
In a survey among leaders of European Jewish communities, 40 percent of respondents maintained that anti-Semitism poses a serious threat to the future of Jewish life in their country.But the poll figures — published Monday — also showed that alienation of Jews from Jewish life (61%), weakness of Jewish organizations (55%) and demographic decline (51%) were ranked as more pressing issues.The results appeared in the Third Survey of European Jewish Leaders and Opinion Formers, which was published Monday by the International Center for Community Development of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. The survey is based on replies gathered last year from 314 respondents.The anti-Semitism fears are the highest recorded by JDC since it launched its first survey of this kind in 2008. That year, only 10 percent of respondents ranked the phenomenon as the most serious threat facing their communities. In the following survey, conducted in 2011, the figure rose to 26%.The results match other surveys that show increasing concern among Jews over anti-Semitism following the increase in hate crimes in Western Europe after 2000 in connection with Israel and jihadist attacks on Jewish targets, beginning with the 2012 slaying of three children and a rabbi at a Jewish school in Toulouse, France.In 2013, nearly one-third of 5,847 European Jewish respondents to an EU survey said they “seriously considered emigrating” because of anti-Semitism.Still, in all three JDC surveys among leaders of European Jewry, a majority of respondents ranked internal problems as the most serious threat facing their communities.In 2011 and 2015, the problem of “alienation of Jews from the Jewish community life” was ranked as most serious by more than half the respondents. In 2008, 38% of respondents named the “increasing rate of mixed marriages” as their communities’ No. 1 threat.
CLINTON HAD HER USUAL NEW AGE NUTCASE SPEECH OF PEACE-LOVE-JOY-GET ALONG WITH EVERYBODY-ENVIROMENTAL CASES CLEAN ENERGY CULT LIES FROM THE PITS OF HELL.RUBIOS NOT GETTING OUT. HE JUST FINISHED SAYING HES GOING ALL THE WAY.
Trump, Clinton each win 4 states; Sanders 1 on Super Tuesday-GOP frontrunner takes Alabama, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Georgia, boding ill for rivals Rubio and Cruz-By AP March 2, 2016, 2:13 am Updated: March 2, 2016, 3:45 am-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton each won at least four states in Super Tuesday elections, the biggest day of the primary campaign. Clinton’s rival Bernie Sanders won his home state of Vermont.Clinton and Trump were pressing for sweeping victories that could distance them from their party rivals and move them closer to a November presidential election showdown. Nominating contests were being held Tuesday in 12 of the 50 U.S. states.Trump won in Alabama, Massachusetts, Tennessee and Georgia. Clinton won in Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and Virginia. Voting was still ongoing in other contests or the races were too close to call.Trump, the brash billionaire and reality TV star, has stunned the Republican political establishment by winning three of the first four contests, seizing on the anxieties of voters angry at Washington and worried about terrorism, immigration and an uncertain economy. Using simple terms, and often coarse language, he has soared to the top of polls with his pledge to “make America great again.”Republican officials, fearing a Trump sweep, have been lashing out at his temperament and command of the issues in the hours before voting began.“You’ve got a con man and a bully who is moving forward with great speed to grab the party’s mantle to be its standard bearer,” Norm Coleman, a former senator who backs Marco Rubio, said in an interview with The Associated Press. “That’s almost incomprehensible.”Clinton, once seen as the all-but-inevitable Democratic nominee, has contended with an unexpectedly strong challenge from Sanders, a senator and self-described democratic socialist. But Clinton, like Trump, had also won three of the first four races, and a landslide victory in South Carolina on Saturday bodes well for prospects in important southern states Tuesday due to her overwhelming support among black voters.Candidates are vying to win delegates who will vote for them at the parties’ conventions in July. For Republicans, 595 delegates were at stake, nearly half of the 1,237 needed for the nomination. Democrats were allocating 865, delegates more than one-third of the 2,383 needed to become the nominee.Tuesday’s vote was critical for the two leading Republicans vying to be Trump’s main challenger: Ted Cruz, a firebrand conservative senator from Texas, and Rubio, a Florida senator who has become the favorite of much of the Republican establishment.Both senators have launched furious verbal attacks on Trump in recent days, but some in the party establishment fear the anti-Trump campaign has come too late.Cruz once saw the Southern states that vote Tuesday as his opportunity to stake his claim to the nomination, given their large evangelical Christian populations, only to see Trump pick up a sizable segment of evangelicals. Now the Cruz campaign’s future hinges on a victory in his home state of Texas, the biggest prize up for grabs.Rubio’s goal is even more modest. He’s seeking to stay competitive in the delegate count and hoping to pull off a win in his home state of Florida on March 15.Even before the results started flowing in, Trump was calling for Rubio to quit the race if he didn’t win anywhere on Tuesday.“He has to get out,” he told Fox News. “He hasn’t won anything.”Ohio Gov. John Kasich and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson remain in the race, but neither is expected to be a major factor on Tuesday.Republicans spent months largely letting Trump go unchallenged, wrongly assuming that his populist appeal with voters would fizzle. Instead, he’s appeared to only grow stronger, winning states and drawing support for some of his most controversial proposals.In six of the states voting Tuesday, large majorities of Republican voters said they supported a proposal to temporarily ban all non-citizen Muslims from entering the United States, an idea championed by Trump. The exit polls were conducted by Edison Research for The Associated Press and television networks.Republicans fear Trump will damage their prospects of recapturing the White House after Barack Obama’s two terms. The worries appeared to grow after Trump briefly refused to disavow the apparent support of a former Ku Klux Klan leader, David Duke, during a television interview. Trump later said he had not understood the TV interviewer and he did repudiate Duke.The disarray among Republicans comes as Clinton, seeking to become America’s first female president, has tightened her grip on the Democratic race. She has increasingly turned her attention away from Sanders and on to Trump, casting herself as a civil alternative to the insults and bullying that have consumed the Republican race.“What we can’t let happen is the scapegoating, the flaming, the finger pointing that is going on the Republican side,” she told voters in Massachusetts. “It really undermines our fabric as a nation.”Sanders, who has energized young voters with his call for a political revolution, was seeking to stay close to Clinton in the South and pick up victories in other states including Minnesota in addition to Vermont. But he faces tough questions about whether he can rally minorities who are core Democratic voters.Democrats were voting in 11 states and American Samoa; Republicans were voting in 11 states.
Prospect of Trump nomination poses dilemma for Jewish Republicans-Neutrality on Israeli-Palestinian issue and support from white supremacists has Jewish GOP supporters concerned-By Ron Kampeas March 2, 2016, 3:06 am-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
WASHINGTON (JTA) – Donald Trump’s surging candidacy has sent shivers through the ranks of the Republican elite and created deep anxiety among Jewish Republicans, some of whom are so unnerved they are prepared to vote for Hillary Clinton if Trump wins the nomination. Yet others say that despite Trump’s promise to be “neutral” on Israel and his support from white supremacists, conservative principles demand deference to the eventual nominee.“As boorish as he is, as occasionally foolish as he is, and how vituperative he can be, I would vote for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton any day,” said Ari Fleischer, a former spokesman for President George W. Bush and a board member of the Republican Jewish Coalition.Fleischer said he was speaking only for himself, not the RJC, which declined JTA’s request for comment.For other Jewish conservatives, Trump is too unpalatable to support, and for obvious reasons. Trump has refused to side unequivocally with Israel, declining at a recent campaign event to pin blame for the Middle East conflict on either Israel or the Palestinians, saying instead that he wished to remain “neutral.”His conservative credentials are shaky, having previously favored abortion rights and argued for the imposition of tariffs, which is anathema to the business community. And Trump’s rhetoric has won support for the billionaire real-estate magnate from quarters not known for their deference to Jewish sensitivities, including former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and National of Islam head Louis Farrakhan.In an editorial this week, William Kristol, the neoconservative scion who runs The Weekly Standard, said the party must be saved from “a charlatan and a demagogue.” The Emergency Committee for Israel, which Kristol founded, also released a videothis week featuring clips of Trump speaking favorably of Syrian President Bashar Assad, former Libyan strongman Moammar Ghadafi and Saddam Hussein.“For this former Republican, and perhaps for others, the only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton,” Robert Kagan, a veteran of the Reagan State Department and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, wrote last week in widely shared Washington Post Op-Ed. “The party cannot be saved, but the country still can be.”Jonathan Tobin, the online editor at Commentary, a conservative magazine that does not take positions on candidates, said he was doubtful Trump would garner much support from Jewish Republicans.“There are the Jewish Republicans who are focused on foreign policy, on economic policy – the sense among that group is that Trump doesn’t speak for them,” Tobin said. “And the question is, if he is the nominee – and right now it looks like it – will they vote for him. And I suspect a lot won’t.”A Jewish Republican operative who spoke on condition of anonymity said more than one Republican would secretly cast a vote for Clinton should Trump secure the nomination.“We would prefer we have mainstream candidates who don’t devolve into demagoguery, ethnocentrism and racism,” said the operative, referring to Trump’s recent equivocation over the Duke endorsement.Trump last week brusquely disavowed Duke at a news conference. But in an interview Sunday on CNN, he professed not to know who the former KKK leader was. Then Trump again disavowed Duke on Twitter after the interview aired, chalking up the discrepancy to a faulty earpiece. The following day, the Anti-Defamation Leagueissued a list of extremists that candidates were advised to steer clear of, with Duke’s name at the top of the list.Some Republicans have floated the idea that a Trump candidacy could help rally votes for congressional Republicans, the logic being that Trump is so unappealing, he practically guarantees a Clinton presidency – and that in turn strengthens the case for GOP control of the legislative branch as a means to rein her in. Tobin was skeptical.“Jewish Republicans, like other Republicans, will say that,” he said. “But in a presidential election year, if you don’t like the guy at the top of the ticket, it depresses the turnout. I suspect a lot of Jewish Republicans will sit it out.”As much as Trump repels some Jewish Republicans, he could still command their support, if only because expectations of party loyalty run so deep. Fred Zeidman, a Houston businessman who supported former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, said propriety demanded deference to the winner.“I won’t say anything negative about Donald Trump any more than other [Republican] candidates,” Zeidman said. “I wish he had a different approach, but in America you get to vote, and if most Republicans want to get Donald Trump, that’s what it is. And the fact of the matter is we have to go on to defeat the Democratic candidate.”Some Jewish Republicans remain reluctant to declare. Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson, who is said to be wavering between Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas, took care to cover his ballot sheet when he attended the Nevada caucus last week. But a Wall Street Journal reporter was able to see him check a box on the ballot’s lower third, which included the names of Rubio, Trump and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who has quit the race.Still, Trump is a shock to the system for a Jewish constituency that has prided itself on shaping the party in recent years as unassailably correct on Israel and open to diversity. Fleischer co-wrote a report after the last election on how to reach out to minorities.“He’s given a lot of people a lot of reason to pause and question whether he is a supporter of Israel,” Fleischer said.“The word neutrality is fingernails across a chalk board in the Jewish community. It screams at you, and it sends up all kinds of warning flags about who he is and what he believes.”Norm Coleman, a former Republican senator from Minnesota who backs Rubio, said the fight was not over.“I won’t speak about the unspeakable and I still believe that my party is not going to nominate Donald Trump,” Coleman said. “The prospect of Trump leading our party is deeply troubling. It would be destructive of the party and would harm the nation, and give us four more years of Clinton-Obama foreign policy, which has gravely weakened us in the world and undermined our allies.”
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