Thursday, June 08, 2017

THE DOW WAS UP 37 POINTS WEDNESDAY-YESTERDAY.

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)

HOARDING OF GOLD AND SILVER

JAMES 5:1-3
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.

REVELATION 18:10,17,19
10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.(IN 1 HR THE STOCK MARKETS WORLDWIDE WILL CRASH)
17 For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,
19 And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.

EZEKIEL 7:19
19 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed:(CONFISCATED) their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.

LUKE 2:1-3
1 And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.
2  (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)
3  And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.

REVELATION 13:16-18
16 And he(THE FALSE POPE WHO DEFECTED FROM THE CHRISTIAN FAITH) causeth all,(IN THE WORLD ) both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(MICROCHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark,(MICROCHIP IMPLANT) or the name of the beast,(WORLD DICTATORS NAME INGRAVED ON YOUR SKIN OR TATTOOED ON YOU OR IN THE MICROCHIP IMPLANT) or the number of his name.(THE NUMBERS OF HIS NAME INGRAVED IN THE MICROCHIP IMLPLANT)-(ALL THESE WILL TELL THE WORLD DICTATOR THAT YOUR WITH HIM AND AGAINST KING JESUS-GOD)
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast:(WORLD LEADER) for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM (6006006)OR(60020202006)(SOME KIND OF NUMBER IMPLANTED IN THE MICROCHIP THAT TELLS THE WORLD DICTATOR AND THE NEW WORLD ORDER THAT YOU GIVE YOUR TOTAL ALLIGIENCE TO HIM AND NOT JESUS)(ITS AN ETERNAL DECISION YOU MAKE)(YOU CHOOSE YOUR OWN DESTINY)(YOU TAKE THE DICTATORS NAME OR NUMBER UNDER YOUR SKIN,YOUR DOOMED TO THE LAKE OF FIRE AND TORMENTS FOREVER,NEVER ENDING MEANT ONLY FOR SATAN AND HIS ANGELS,NOT HUMAN BEINGS).OR YOU REFUSE THE MICROCHIP IMPLANT AND GO ON THE SIDE OF KING JESUS AND RULE FOREVER WITH HIM ON EARTH.YOU CHOOSE,ITS YOUR DECISION.

1 KINGS 10:13-14
13  And king Solomon gave unto the queen of Sheba all her desire, whatsoever she asked, beside that which Solomon gave her of his royal bounty. So she turned and went to her own country, she and her servants.
14  Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred threescore and six talents of gold,

GENESIS 49:16-17
16  Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel.
17  Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward.

REVELATION 6:5-6
5 And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.
6 And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.(A DAYS WAGES FOR A LOAF OF BREAD)

DOCTOR DOCTORIAN FROM ANGEL OF GOD
then the angel said, Financial crisis will come to Asia. I will shake the world.

BANK RELATED INFORMATION
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2015/09/bank-related-links.html 
CURRENCIES
http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/currencies
COMMODITIES
http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/commodities 


UPDATE-JUNE 08,2017-12:00AM

DOW MARKET THURSDAY-JUNE 08,2017
09:30AM-5.07
10:00AM-0.27-
10:30AM-10.77-
11:00AM-8.11
11:30AM-23.25
12:00PM-28.61
12:30PM-71.50
01:00PM-64.22
01:30PM-18.55
02:00PM-33.35
02:30PM-26.73
03:00PM-22.30-
03:30PM-2.20
04:00PM-8.84+ 21182.53 - S&P +0.65 2433.79 - NASDAQ +24.38 6321.76
HIGH +72 LOW -36
TSX +50.95 15,423.09 - GOLD $-09.67 $1,277.43 - OIL $-0.01 $45.73

EARTHQUAKES

EZEKIEL 37:7,11-14
7  So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone.(POSSIBLE QUAKE BRINGS ISRAEL BACK TO LIFE-SO NOISE AND SHAKING-QUAKES WILL ALSO DESTROY ISRAELS ENEMIES)
11  Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts.
12  Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.
13  And ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves,
14  And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the LORD have spoken it, and performed it, saith the LORD.

MATTHEW 24:7-8
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.

MARK 13:8
8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:(ETHNIC GROUP AGAINST ETHNIC GROUP) and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.

LUKE 21:11
11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places,(DIFFERNT PLACES AT THE SAME TIME) and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.

UPDATE-JUNE 08,2017-11:55PM

1 Day, Magnitude 2.5+ U.S.20 of 20 earthquakes in map area.

    2.5-33km NW of Fairview, Oklahoma-2017-06-09 00:09:10 (UTC)-6.3 km
    5.6-141km ENE of Pagan, Northern Mariana Islands-2017-06-08 23:23:43 (UTC)-8.1 km
    4.7-South of the Fiji Islands-2017-06-08 21:54:07 (UTC)-543.1 km
    4.8-65km SW of Chimbote, Peru-2017-06-08 21:24:41 (UTC)-35.0 km
    5.3-18km SE of Volcano, Hawaii-2017-06-08 17:01:19 (UTC)-7.1 km
    5.2-77km ENE of Tocache Nuevo, Peru-2017-06-08 14:01:10 (UTC)-117.4 km
    5.1-13km WSW of Tocopilla, Chile-2017-06-08 13:48:49 (UTC)-65.1 km
    4.8-96km NNE of Calama, Chile-2017-06-08 13:05:02 (UTC)-124.4 km
    2.6-10km SW of Rio Dell, California-2017-06-08 12:42:24 (UTC)-28.8 km
    2.5-101km WSW of Gustavus, Alaska-2017-06-08 10:48:41 (UTC)-16.4 km
    2.7-8km S of Mammoth Lakes, California-2017-06-08 10:40:27 (UTC)-6.9 km
    3.3-8km SE of Coso Junction, CA-2017-06-08 08:30:40 (UTC)-2.6 km
    3.0-8km NNE of Little Lake, CA-2017-06-08 08:19:02 (UTC)-2.5 km
    2.6-35km SW of Talkeetna, Alaska-2017-06-08 08:07:36 (UTC)-5.9 km
    3.0-8km NNE of Little Lake, CA-2017-06-08 07:58:11 (UTC)-2.2 km
    3.0-35km SW of Lompoc, CA-2017-06-08 04:30:23 (UTC)--0.2 km
    2.7-31km WSW of Anchor Point, Alaska-2017-06-08 03:25:44 (UTC)-67.3 km
    2.5-87km W of Gustavus, Alaska-2017-06-08 03:18:45 (UTC)-29.5 km
    3.3-16km WNW of Alva, Oklahoma-2017-06-08 03:09:37 (UTC)-10.4 km
    4.6-140km WSW of Tanggulashan, China-2017-06-08 00:56:53 (UTC)-10.0 km
    4.9-16km SSE of Asahi, Japan-2017-06-08 00:25:29 (UTC)-38.2 km

STOCK MARKET AND EARTHQUAKE NEWS
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2017/06/the-dow-was-down-47-points-tuesday.html 
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2017/06/the-dow-was-down-22-points-monday.html 
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2017/06/the-dow-was-up-62-points-friday-new-week.html 
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2017/06/weekend-quake-results-for-june-03.html 
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2017/06/the-dow-was-up-135-points-thursday.html 
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2017/05/the-dow-was-down-20-points-wednesday.html 
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2017/05/the-dow-was-down-50-points-tuesday.html 
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2017/05/the-dow-was-on-holiday-monday-yesterday.html 
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2017/05/the-dow-was-down-02-points-friday-new.html 
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2017/05/weekend-quake-results-for-may-27-282017.html 

NETANYAHU-HALEY AGREE TO TRY TO SCRAP UN RESOLUTION ON SETTLEMENTS.

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

Netanyahu, Nikki Haley agree to try to scrap UN resolution on settlements — report-JUNE 7,17-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley have agreed to work to overturn UN resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements — passed without US opposition in the final months of Barak Obama’s presidency — Channel 2 news reports.The resolution, which passed in December 2016 with 14 yes votes and an American abstention, said Israeli settlements have “no legal validity” and represent “a flagrant violation under international law.” Israel reacted furiously to the resolution, denouncing it as “shameful.”US President Donald Trump condemned the vote at the time, questioning the efficacy of the United Nations, and promising that “things will be different” when became president.Haley has has also promised a different approach than the previous administration.“The days of Israel bashing are over” at the UN, she told the AIPAC pro-Israel lobby in Washington, DC, last week. “That happened but it will never happen again,” she said of Resolution 2334. “You’re not going to take our number one democratic friend in the Middle East and beat up on them,” she said.Furthermore, she declared then that when Resolution 2334 was approved, “the entire country felt a kick in the gut. We had just done something that showed the United States at its weakest point ever,” Nowadays, by contrast, she went on, “everyone at the United Nations is scared to talk to me about Resolution 2334. And I wanted them to know that, Look, that happened, but it will never happen again.”Currently on an official visit to Israel, Haley told Netanyahu on Wednesday that she was actively working to change attitudes toward Israel at the UN.“We’re starting to see a turn in New York. I think they know they can’t keep responding in the way they’ve been responding,” she referring to countries that routinely bash the Jewish state at the UN’s various agencies.Overturning Resolution 2334 would require a new Security Council motion with the support of a majority of its members, and not vetoed by China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and United States.

6 things you didn’t know about the Six Day War-50 years later, small anomalies that, if not forgotten, have faded into the recesses of memory-By Ron Kampeas June 6, 2017, 12:26 am-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL

JTA — The three paratroopers casting eyes upward at the Western Wall. The troops reveling in the waters of the Suez Canal.The sweeping views of a Galilee no longer vulnerable to shelling from atop the Golan Heights.Not to mention Naomi Shemer’s anthem “Jerusalem of Gold,” reissued after the Six-Day War with a new verse celebrating access to the Old City. Or the settlements, the Palestinians, the tensions, the violence.These – and many others – are the images, memories and challenges that persist after 50 years of triumph, soul searching and grief.But there are anomalies – small, telling wrinkles in what the war wrought – that, if not quite forgotten, have faded into the recesses of memory.They are worth reviving to deepen our understanding of an event that changed Jewish history.For 20 years, Jews paid fees to a symbol of Palestinian prideIn the wake of Jerusalem’s reunification, its mayor, Teddy Kollek, was faced with a dilemma: Jewish neighborhoods were sprouting up in the eastern part of the city. Any attempt to extend electricity to them from the electricity provider in Israel would likely elicit local and international protest because the world did not recognize Israel’s claims to the city.Kollek’s solution: Allow the Palestinian-run Jerusalem District Electric Company, or JDEC, predating Israel’s establishment, to continue providing power in and around the Old City, including the new Jewish neighborhoods.So until 1987, Jews living in the Old City and the new neighborhoods received electric bills that seemed a mirror image of their other utility bills: First the text was in Arabic, then in Hebrew.The JDEC held exclusive rights to a radius of 50 kilometers, or 31 miles, around the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Old City site believed to be the site of Jesus’ burial.After 1948, Israel assumed responsibility for providing electricity to western Jerusalem.The JDEC, which had become a symbol of Palestinian aspirations for independence, was helmed by Anwar Nusseibeh, the scion of an ancient Palestinian family.According to the 1999 book “Separate and Unequal,” about relations between Jews and Arabs in Jerusalem, even after the JDEC’s limited capacities were exhausted by the rapidly expanding demand, Israeli authorities balked at extending the Israel Electric Corp.’s reach into eastern Jerusalem. Instead, the Israeli company sold capacity to the JDEC.In December 1987, the government finally – quietly – shifted total responsibility for the Jewish neighborhoods to the Israeli company.“Separate and Unequal,” penned by three Israelis – Amir Cheshin and Avi Melamed, two former municipality liaisons to the city’s Palestinian population, and journalist Bill Hutman – cited the conundrum as an example of the balancing act that Israeli officials had to perform: Maintaining a Jewish claim to the entire city, while at times deferring to Palestinian nationalism, in order to keep the peace.“Israel could not expect to wipe out an important Palestinian national symbol without a reaction, possibly a severe reaction, from the Palestinian public,” they wrote.The JDEC still exists, albeit providing electricity only to Palestinian residents.-King Hussein longed for peace — and liked his Israeli hardware-During most of his reign, King Hussein of Jordan sought a peaceful arrangement with Israel, taking a cue from his beloved grandfather, King Abdullah I, whom he saw assassinated in Jerusalem in 1951 because he was seeking peace with Israel.Like his grandfather, he sought peace in secret but did not escape opprobrium – and was wary of meeting Abdullah’s fate. Hussein felt he had little choice but to join President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt in saber rattling against Israel in 1967 – Nasser, wildly popular in the Arab world, had already taunted the king as being subservient to Israel.Moreover, Israel had humiliated Hussein a year earlier with a massive daylight raid into his territory to exact revenge for an attack carried out by Palestinian Fatah troops, who then operated with relative impunity from Jordanian soil.According to historian Martin Gilbert’s “Jerusalem Illustrated History Atlas,” on June 4, 1967, Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol relayed a message to Hussein: “We shall not initiate any action whatsoever against Jordan. However, should Jordan open hostilities, we shall react with all our might and (Hussein) will have to bear the full responsibility for all the consequences.”At 8:30 a.m. the following day, Jordan started shelling western Jerusalem, and at 9:30 a.m., Hussein broadcast, “The hour of revenge has come.”That kind of talk and the ensuing bloody battles — plus prior years that witnessed the destruction of Jewish properties in eastern Jerusalem and Hussein’s refusal for 19 years to allow Jewish access to the Western Wall — left some Israelis wondering whether Hussein truly sought peace.The answers came over time – King Hussein drove Fatah out of Jordan in 1970 and in 1973 waited out the Yom Kippur War. In 1986, he came close to signing a peace deal with Israel.In 1994, symbols bold and subtle made evident that Hussein had earned the trust of leading Israelis. The king was present at Israel’s Arava terminal when Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed a peace treaty with his Jordanian counterpart, Abdelsalam al-Majali.The next day Maariv, a newspaper then owned by the Nimrodi family, published a full-page photo captioned “1965, collection of Yaakov Nimrodi,” with no other comment. Nimrodi, the clan patriarch, was Israel’s leading private arms dealer.In the photo, a smiling King Hussein is cradling an Israeli-manufactured Uzi submachine gun.When did Israel unite Jerusalem? Did it unite Jerusalem? “The future belongs to the complete Jerusalem that shall never again be divided,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said two years ago on Jerusalem Day, which marks the Hebrew calendar anniversary of Israel’s capture of eastern Jerusalem during the Six-Day War.The adjectives vary – “complete,” “united,” “indivisible” — but the meaning is clear enough: Israel will never cede an inch of the Jerusalem it reunited.Except when it formally reunited Jerusalem is not so clear: 1967? 1980? 2000? Ever? On June 27, 1967, less than three weeks after the war’s end, Israel’s Knesset passed ordinances that allowed Israeli officials to extend Israeli law into areas of their designations. The next day, the Interior Ministry acted on those new ordinances, extending Israeli law into the areas that now constitute the Jerusalem municipality. They included 28 Palestinian villages, the Old City and what had been defined by Jordan as municipal Jerusalem.So, June 28, 1967, apparently is when Israel “united” Jerusalem. Except Ian Lustick, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, published a widely cited paper in 1997 that showed unification was not necessarily the intention of the 1967 ordinances.An Interior Ministry news release on June 28, 1967, said the “basic purpose” of its order was “to provide full municipal and social services to all inhabitants of the city.” Absent was any expression of political purpose.Not long after, Abba Eban, then Israel’s foreign minister, told the United Nations that the ordinances had a practical, not a national consequence.“The term ‘annexation’ is out of place,” he said. “The measures adopted related to the integration of Jerusalem in the administrative and municipal spheres and furnish a legal basis for the protection of the Holy Places.”As Lustick noted, even within these parameters, anomalies persisted: For decades, Jordanian curricula prevailed in Palestinian schools in eastern Jerusalem.In 1980, the Knesset passed a Basic Law – what passes in Israel for a constitution – declaring united Jerusalem to be Israeli. “The complete and united Jerusalem is the capital of Israel,” it said.But left out of the law was a definition of what constituted the “complete and united” Jerusalem. It took until 2000 for the Knesset to pass an amendment to the 1980 Basic Law specifying that Jerusalem was defined by the Interior Ministry order of June 28, 1967.So was 2000 when Israel formally set down in law what constituted the united, indivisible, complete Jerusalem? Not exactly, according to a Haaretz analysis in 2015, which said the 1980 law is essentially declarative: Nowhere does it include the words “annexation” or “sovereignty.”Marshall Breger and Thomas Idinopulos, in a 1998 Washington Institute for Near East Policy tract, “Jerusalem’s Holy Places and the Peace Process,” suggest that these are distinctions without a difference and say that Israeli court decisions that treat eastern Jerusalem as essentially annexed should be determinative.-The first Jewish settlement in the captured territories-There are plenty of dramatic markers in the history of the return of Jews to the areas Israel captured in the Six-Day War:The first homes reoccupied by Jews in the Old City’s Jewish Quarter, in 1969; the Jews, led by Rabbi Moshe Levinger, who moved into a Hebron hotel to mark Passover 1968 and would not leave until the government allowed them to establish the settlement that would become Kiryat Arba; the settlers who would not leave the area of Sebastia in the northern West Bank until the government in 1975 allowed them to establish Elon Moreh.But the first settlement? That would be Merom Golan, a kibbutz originally named Kibbutz Golan, when Israelis quietly moved in on July 14, 1967, just over a month after the war.Why the urgency? A clue is in who founded the kibbutz: Israelis from the eastern Galilee, who had suffered potshots and shelling from Syrian troops for years.The Israeli attachment to the West Bank and to Jerusalem has been from the outset one defined by emotion, history and identity. Occupying and settling the Golan Heights — an area traditionally not defined as within the boundaries of the biblical Land of Israel — was seen as a matter of security and practical necessity: Israel, atop the Golan, was less vulnerable.These days, Merom Golan is a resort.-That ancient church in Gaza? It was a synagogue-The Western Wall, Qumran, Shiloh, King Herod’s tomb – the Six-Day War was a boon for historians seeking evidence of ancient Jewish settlement in the Holy Land.Most of these sites are in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem. But a team of archaeologists rushed to the Gaza Strip within weeks of its capture.Why? In 1966, Egypt’s Department of Antiquities announced the discovery of what it said was an ancient church on Gaza’s coast. Examining the pictures in the Italian antiquities journal Orientala, Israeli archaeologists immediately understood it was no church – it was a synagogue.Visible in one photograph was a Hebrew inscription, “David,” alongside a harpist – King David.According to an article published in 1994 in Biblical Archaeology Review, by the time the Israelis reached it a year later, the David mosaic had been damaged – evidence perhaps that the Egyptians understood that the biblical king’s depiction validated claims of ancient Jewish settlement and sought to erase it.They set about excavating the site, which turned out to be one of the largest Byzantine-era synagogues in the region.At the foot of one mosaic they found the following inscription: “(We) Menahem and Yeshua, sons of the late Isai (Jesse), wood traders, as a sign of respect for a most holy place, donated this mosaic in the month of Louos (the year of) 569.”-The quiet reunifications-This was the myth: Between 1949 and 1967, the heart of a city identified since the beginnings of history with the Jews had been made Judenrein.The myth was largely based in fact, but there were exceptions: Every two weeks, a convoy of Israeli troops would travel through Jordanian Jerusalem to Mount Scopus, the Hebrew University campus that remained Israel’s as part of the 1949 armistice. Intrepid non-Israeli Jews occasionally passed through the Mandelbaum Gate, the gateway between Jordanian and Israeli Jerusalem. Muriel Spark, the Scottish novelist, captured the danger in such a crossing in her 1961 novel “The Mandelbaum Gate.”And then there were stories like this one: In 1991, the building where I owned an apartment obtained permission from the municipality to add rooms and balconies. The contractor subcontracted some of the work. One day, a gregarious Palestinian subcontractor came by to measure my balcony for the railing he would build.But the contractor disappeared just before completing the job. I paid others to complete the work and asked around for the number of the subcontractor.He lived in Silwan, the ancient neighborhood abutting the Old City. I called.A woman speaking fluent Hebrew answered; this in itself was striking. It was not unusual for Palestinian men, who worked throughout Israel, to speak Hebrew, but it was a rarity at the time to encounter a Hebrew-speaking Palestinian woman. Moreover, her Hebrew was unaccented and flawless.She was the subcontractor’s mother. Of course he would come and install the railing, it was gathering dust in their yard, and he had forgotten my exact address, she said not only that, but I wasn’t to pay him a shekel extra, he had been paid for his work and wouldn’t hear of it.I couldn’t resist asking her to explain her Hebrew.She was Jewish, born and raised in Jerusalem. She had married a Palestinian Muslim before independence. And she remained in Silwan after the war. Did she reunite with family? Yes, she said, immediately after the Six-Day War, but would not elaborate.The subcontractor came by.“I spoke to your mother,” I said.“Yes,” he said and smiled.I asked the neighbors who had used the same contractor, I asked other Jerusalemites, and no one expressed surprise.They had heard similar stories of excommunication and then tentative reunification. How many were there? No one knew. No one compiled these stories. There was no shame to the phenomenon, but neither was there a celebration of it.It seemed unresolved, like so much else about the Six-Day War.

Analysis: 50 years since the Six Day War-Why peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians keep failing-On the 50th anniversary of the Six Day War, earnest diplomats and a new US president seem as eager as their predecessors to bring peace to this troubled place — and as blind as those earlier failed do-gooders to the animating roots of this conflict-By Haviv Rettig Gur June 5, 2017, 11:40 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL

For the past 50 years, Palestinians and Israelis have been subjected to the uniquely corrosive institution of belligerent occupation. For fully 25 of those years, they have been subjected to the almost equally scarring peace process that tried to end it. That’s not a flippant comment. The peace process managed to stimulate and intensify the centrifugal narratives on either side: it incentivized Hamas’s steady escalation in brutality, the corresponding — and, for peace prospects, devastating — Israeli public disillusionment, and the anxious race by the ideological settlement movement to expand Israeli settlement deep inside the West Bank in any way it could. It brought all the anxieties, terrors and resistance of a real peace — without delivering the sides any closer to reconciliation or resolution.And that’s no accident. The peace process was forged by a class of individuals possessing an exceptionally well-developed capacity for selective blindness. Some Israeli leaders — Yitzhak Rabin, for instance — believed they could forge with PLO leader Yasser Arafat the sort of cold but dependable standoff Israel had maintained with each Egyptian dictator since Anwar Sadat. Other Israelis — Yossi Beilin is one example — believed they were negotiating a real reconciliation, apparently because they themselves yearned for it so intensely that they could not really fathom that it might not be reciprocated by the other side. Both of these sorts of Israelis were determined to ignore the domestic Palestinian discourse advanced by Arafat and others that resisted reconciliation, elevated the ideological rejection of Israel to the level of civic religion and openly glorified brutality against Israelis — and that was in the happy early years of Oslo peacemaking, the mid-1990s to which more than a few of today’s despairing progressives look for inspiration.The Palestinian side, too, was gripped by a strategic blindness that transformed peacemaking efforts into a recipe for permanent war. The PLO turned to peace talks after the First Gulf War, when American power in the region was on the ascendant. It was a strategic concession, not a historic turnaround. The fundamental Palestinian predicament, even today, is not in any simple sense the specific Israeli presence in the West Bank. Fatah was founded in 1964, not 1967, and saw its mission as addressing a deeper and older problem than the one being marked this week — the problem of a nation dispossessed of its homeland, and whose very identity coalesced around that loss. It is Israel itself, invasive, Jewish, a standing reproach to Arab powerlessness and decline — and more galling, to Muslim incapacity in defending the shrines at Jerusalem’s sacred center.With such deafening emotions pulsing through Palestinian political discourse throughout the years of peace processing, perhaps it is no wonder no Palestinian leader ever seems to have paused, looked carefully at the Israelis across the divide, and discovered that this challenge to the Palestinian, Arab and Muslim worlds was no mere colonialist political project, as so much Arab propaganda has proclaimed over the decades. They might have noticed that Jewish Israelis had a distinct culture and shared history, their own language and identity — and more to the point, nowhere else to go. This realization would have made the strategic turn toward terrorism taken by Hamas and parts of Fatah during those peacemaking years nonsensical. One can murder colonists until they return to their home country or tyrants until they abandon their unjust oppression. But how does one terrorize a nation with nowhere else to go? The Israelis are no more capable of resolving the Palestinians’ primordial predicament of displacement — for example, by fulfilling their redemption fantasy of return across the Green Line — than the Palestinians are of leaving this land quietly to the Jews.Earnest diplomats and ideologues, too-clever politicians with dreams of Nobel Prizes, all bathed in global adulation and funds, and all stubbornly blind to the most fundamental anxieties and yearnings of the two sides — this, too, is part of the legacy being marked on the 50th anniversary of the Six Day War.-Enter President Trump-“There are many things that can happen now that could never have happened before,” US President Donald Trump proclaimed on his visit to Israel last month as he declared his desire to finally bring peace between Israelis and Palestinians.There is little doubt among Israelis that Trump earnestly hopes to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israeli media has dwelt at length on his appointment of two of his closest confidants, son-in-law Jared Kushner and trusted adviser of two decades Jason Greenblatt, to the task. It hardly matters whether he is motivated by magnanimous humanitarianism, hard-nosed policy thinking or merely the validation of an outsized ego; all three motivations were at work with his predecessor Barack Obama, most Israelis will tell you, and presumably all three will be present in his successor’s efforts as well.But perhaps Israelis and Palestinians can be forgiven their skepticism of this latest effort, even as their leaders go out of their way to show a willingness to cooperate so as not to be blamed for the coming failure.Repeated debilitating failure has had one positive outcome: there is less blindness among ordinary folk on either side. Most Palestinians no longer believe the Israelis can be dislodged. Most Israelis do not believe the current state of Palestinian politics is able to reciprocate Israeli concessions with peace. Whether one laments or celebrates these realizations is beside the point; they constitute an awakening for each side to some of the fundamental realities and anxieties of the other.-Urgency-The cynical despondency that now grips Israelis and Palestinians is arguably healthier than a half-blind, violence-inducing peace process, but pessimism alone does not absolve the sides from the unvarnished realities that still cry out for resolution.After 50 years, many Palestinians now ask if it is still reasonable to expect that they will ever become free of Israel, and if it is not, what that might mean for their future. Other Palestinians — the divides are as well-worn and predictable as everything else in this long-running war — will point to the passage of time as proof that implacable, immovable Israel is no mere political problem, but a cosmic-spiritual one to be overcome through tenacious sacred war. Israelis, too, divide in all the old ways. Some lament the self-made trap Israel laid for itself by allowing settlements to grow in the West Bank, others lament the self-made trap the Palestinians laid for themselves by making previous Israeli withdrawals end in bloodshed and disaster, and still others celebrate a simpler story: the 50-year anniversary, a Biblical yovel, of the Jews’ return to surging success in their once-and-future spiritual heartland.All these visions and anxieties are ultimately arguments about the passage of time, about the meaning and purpose of history.It is the sheer durability of the occupation, after all, that makes it a bad thing, that turns a legal instrument originally conceived by the authors of the Fourth Geneva Convention as a means for protecting civilians in wartime into the permanent powerlessness and confining liminality in which West Bank Palestinians live, and which gives their situation its moral urgency and resonance.As a new generation of earnest diplomats champs at the bit for a chance at resolving this stubborn conflict, and as the very real suffering of two peoples calls out for a solution no one has yet been able to deliver, it is worth examining the two sides’ deeper impulses and assumptions that have been so steadfastly ignored by the peacemakers of yesteryear — and without which no new peace attempt is likely to end any differently from the previous ones.-Which Abbas?-Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas seems to embody a great many opposing impulses in the Palestinian national movement. Ostensibly the heir to Arafat’s violent meshing of Islamism and anticolonial nationalism, the octogenarian Abbas has spent the better part of the past two decades battling against the very violence and terrorism that Arafat so eagerly promoted. Yet like his predecessor, he has gone to extraordinary lengths to lionize and celebrate the killers of Israeli civilians, naming city streets and schools after them and providing large budgets for their families’ welfare from the PA’s paltry treasury.The contradictions don’t end there. Abbas demands Palestinian independence, but has vehemently opposed unilateral Israeli withdrawals such as the 2005 pullout from Gaza, as though how Palestine is liberated is more important to him than that it is liberated.Abbas’s relationship with Israel’s Arab citizens is no less bewildering. One example: He is adamant that they must never be given citizenship in the new independent state of Palestine.In 2009, in a conversation with Palestinian negotiators leaked to the British daily The Guardian, Abbas was asked point-blank by an Israeli Arab member of the PA’s negotiating team if he, the Israeli, would be eligible for Palestinian citizenship.“The answer, strategically, is no,” Abbas replied. “You should stay where you, protect your rights are [sic] and preserve your community. You don’t need a passport to prove that you are a Palestinian. In 1948, Palestinians in Israel were 138,000 and now above a million. That homeland is your homeland. You must remain there and this does not detract whatsoever from the fact that you are Arabs and Palestinians…Raise two banners. Equality [in Israel] and an independent state for your brothers in the occupied territory.”This was not a one-off comment. Five years later, in a November 2014 interview with the Egyptian daily Akhbar al-Yawm, translated by MEMRI, Abbas said, “Netanyahu once told me that it was an ‘idea from hell,’ from his perspective, for him to give me the Triangle [an area in northern Israel densely populated with Arab towns] and everything in it. It was occupied in 1949 and at that time it had 38,000 residents. Today, it probably has about 400,000 residents. I said: ‘I will not take anyone. Forget it, because honestly, I will not allow, or force, any Arab to relinquish his Israeli citizenship.’ You might be surprised, but this is important. As far as I’m concerned, this is sacred.”Not only would he refuse to give Palestinian citizenship to Palestinian-Israelis, he would refuse to accept any part of Israel where Palestinian-Israelis live as part of a newly liberated Palestinian state.He didn’t stop there. “For example, in the fourth round of the release of our Palestinian prisoners [as a trust-building measure during the 2014 peace talks], 15 of the 30 are 1948 Arabs [i.e., Israeli Arabs]. [The Israelis] told me: ‘Take them to the West Bank and they will relinquish their citizenship.’ I told them: ‘This is impossible. They should return to their homes and retain their citizenship.’ As far as I’m concerned, Arabs remaining citizens of Israel is a sacred matter.”That round of talks broke down at the end of 2014, so Abbas wasn’t put to the test, but the question remains: Would he have condemned these Israeli Arabs to continued incarceration just to prevent them from losing their Israeli citizenship? In 2013, when then-UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon told him that Israel had agreed to allow terrified Palestinian refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war to go to the West Bank, Abbas, by his own admission, rejected the Israeli offer because of Israel’s precondition: that the refugees sign a document in which they forgo the “right of return” to areas within Israel.He fights terror and praises it. He seeks an independent Palestine alongside Israel, but not one that is home to Palestinian-Israelis. And he seems to prefer — indeed, to view as “sacred” — that Palestinians remain incarcerated in Israeli prisons or trapped in Syria’s killing fields than that they surrender their claims to Israeli citizenship or “return” into Israel’s borders.-‘On my watch’-The apparent paradoxes that make up Abbas have their parallels in Israel’s Netanyahu. And since Netanyahu operates within a freer political domain, they are easier to find.Netanyahu has affirmed his support for a Palestinian state repeatedly and publicly, from his famous 2009 Bar-Ilan University speech to his latest comments to Trump during the US president’s visit to Israel last month. He has also, repeatedly and publicly, affirmed his opposition to such a state and promised it would never be founded “on my watch.”His supporters insist there is no contradiction here. Netanyahu backs a Palestinian state only under certain conditions (among these are demilitarization and recognition of Israel as a Jewish nation-state) but does not believe the Palestinians will be able to meet these conditions anytime soon. “Not on my watch” is thus a prediction, not a rejection.A careful parsing of Netanyahu’s profusion of comments on this point may prove these defenders technically correct, but the political context and timing for each statement suggest Netanyahu himself deliberately fosters the confusion. His most recent vow not to allow a Palestinian state “on my watch” was made in the last days of the March 2015 election campaign in an overt bid to woo Jewish Home party voters to Likud. That is, he made an explicit promise not to allow Palestinian statehood — no caveats about demilitarization or recognition were mentioned — to voters who oppose such a state in principle.So does Netanyahu support a Palestinian state, or oppose it? It is surprisingly hard to answer that question. Netanyahu himself may be undecided. He has a long record of upholding and even advancing peace agreements with the Palestinians. It was Netanyahu, not Labor leaders like Yitzhak Rabin or Ehud Barak, who implemented the Israeli withdrawal from Hebron in the mid-1990s, signed the last agreement actually concluded between Israelis and Palestinians, the Wye River Memorandum of 1998, and faces long-standing accusations from the leaders of the settlement movement that he is choking construction in the West Bank. Netanyahu’s unprecedented ten-month freeze on settlement construction in 2010, a concession to Obama, is entirely in keeping with this record.His opponents dismiss this history as grudging concessions to American pressure. Yet that, too, does not really explain the record. Where was this servility when the prime minister traveled to the US Congress to rail against the Iran nuclear deal under the very nose of a livid American president? Neither Bill Clinton nor Barack Obama, the two presidents who dealt with Netanyahu as premier, remember him as particularly accommodating to their desires or demands, to put it mildly.Ironically, it may be Netanyahu himself who is most responsible for the widespread view that his peace moves over the years were due to American pressure. He often talks up the significance of that pressure to deflect the intense pressure he faces from his rightist flank to expand settlements and annex parts of the West Bank.Yet it is probably equally wrong to suggest that Netanyahu is a secret dove who dresses in wolf’s clothing for domestic politics. In 2005, while then-prime minister Ariel Sharon was leading Likud into the Gaza withdrawal, it was Netanyahu who pushed a resolution through the Likud’s Central Committee formally declaring the ruling party to be opposed in principle to Palestinian statehood. His agitation forced Sharon to leave the party in late 2005 and form Kadima, shattering Likud’s activist base and collapsing its Knesset list to just 12 seats in the 2006 election. And, of course, it was Netanyahu who introduced the Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish nation-state as a fundamental Israeli precondition for peace.Across four decades of political activity and four terms as premier, Netanyahu can be found supporting peace talks and opposing them, making the case for Palestinian independence and the case against it, implementing Israel’s agreements with the Palestinians and delaying or attempting to disrupt them.-True blood-The contradictions contained in these two leaders run too deep to be ignored or brushed off as mere politicking. To foreign diplomats they can be maddening.Yet there is method in this madness. Beyond the political rhetoric, embedded in these incongruities, lies the real conflict, the one that drives the terrorism, the wars, the settlements and the bombastic oratory. It is the underlying, subterranean clash that eluded Barack Obama and George W. Bush and Bill Clinton because it is hard to see something that lies so far outside one’s own assumptions and experience.In his 2014 Akhbar al-Yawm interview, Abbas offered this explanation for refusing Netanyahu’s demand that he recognize Israel as a Jewish nation-state: “We cannot recognize a Jewish state. We will stand against this enterprise, not out of obstinacy, but because it contradicts our interests…. [Israel] will not allow the return of refugees. There are six million refugees who wish to return, and by the way, I am one of them. We need to find creative solutions because we cannot close the door to those who wish to return.”And he adds: “Israel aspires to a Jewish state, and ISIS aspires to an Islamic state, and here we are, suspended between Jewish extremism and Islamic extremism. [IS leader] Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi will have an excuse to establish an Islamic state after the Jewish state law is approved. This is another matter from which we and everyone else suffer.”When Abbas refuses to recognize Israel as a “Jewish state” because it would preclude the entry into Israel of millions of Palestinians from abroad, does that mean he plans to oversee such a migration? Or if, as Palestinian diplomats often say, they do not really mean to flood Israel with millions of descendants of Palestinian refugees, does that mean they can now recognize Israel as a Jewish state? What of the comparison of a Jewish state to Islamic State? Palestine is hardly secular, as Abbas knows well. The Palestinian Basic Law, passed by the Palestinian Legislative Council in 2002, declares in article 4 that “Islam is the official religion in Palestine” and that “the principles of Islamic Shari’a shall be the main source of legislation.” Article 22, in a passage much hated by Israelis that has its roots in this Islamic religious ethos, even provides for the “welfare of families of martyrs” — including, for example, those “martyrs” who carried out religiously motivated mass murders of Israeli schoolchildren.Abbas’s Palestine does not beat around the bush regarding its religious identity. If Abbas really believed that a state should not identify itself with a religion, that “Jewish state” is ipso facto tantamount to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s Islamic State, he’d be as concerned about Islamic Palestine as he is about Jewish Israel.Of course, these arguments are deflections. By pretending that Israeli leaders want him to recognize Israel as religiously Jewish — no Israeli leader has ever made such a request — he neatly avoids the actual Israeli demand: that he recognize Israel as a Jewish nation-state, and thereby recognize the Jews themselves as a nation.This Abbas can never do.Palestinian identity was forged by the memory and continuing experience of dispossession at the hands of the century-old Jewish incursion sparked by the Zionist movement. In the Palestinian view, these interlopers, arriving under cover of European imperialism and bending their society to the task of robbing another, weaker people of its homeland, cannot claim for themselves the same legitimacy, the same authentic peoplehood, that rightfully must belong only to their victims.This is not a conflict between two nations, the Palestinian narrative insists, but between an authentic, rooted people battling a political program sustained by nefarious ideologues. Israel is at its core a “colonial” project, or “apartheid,” or “imperialist” — the specific terminology or injustice Israel is accused of hardly matters. What is important to Palestinian discourse about Israel is the category.That is, Israel is not a nation, but merely a political structure like those from which epithets like “apartheid” or “imperialist” are drawn. And that matters, because political structures can be peeled off a land or a people. Nations cannot. Nations may make mistakes, they may commit crimes, but nothing they do can lose them the one fundamental right granted to all nations by natural law: existence itself.In other words, this is not an argument about Israel’s injustices or inequalities, but about its nationhood, and thus its fundamental legitimacy.As Abbas knows well from his study of the 20th century’s Jewish refugees from Arab countries, only a small percentage of the Jews who founded Israel were motivated by deep-seated Zionist ideology. Most simply had nowhere else to go. The gates of immigration to the West were closed to all but a few of them, and none stood ready to absorb the hundreds of thousands who fled Iraq, czarist Russia, Egypt, Morocco, post-war Poland, Yemen, Syria and other countries in the last century — none except the newly established Israel, whose Jewish population swelled from 600,000 on the eve of independence in 1948 to over 1.3 million just four years later as waves of fleeing Jews sought refuge in its borders.One does not need to be a Zionist or a Palestinian nationalist to see the trap this question holds for Palestinians. If the Jews can claim the simple right to live, and the world offered them no alternative but to live here, then the Palestinians may be able to claim they were wronged, but not that this wrong was wholly and unmitigatedly evil. The Jews, too, were wronged, and had no better option in the face of their own catastrophes.What becomes of the Palestinian story of zero-sum morality and cosmic criminality if it must incorporate that sort of moral ambiguity, if it must reconsider its sacred ethos of victimhood in favor of one that sees two displaced nations clashing in a single narrow stretch of blood-soaked land? And so Arab Israeli groups such as Adalah and Mossawa propose “democratic constitutions” for Israel that rescind the Jewish right of return but open Israel’s gates to unlimited return of the descendants of Palestinian refugees. In this vision, as articulated by Abbas to his negotiators, an Israel of “equality” — that is, without a specifically Jewish identity — is to exist alongside a nation-state with a specifically Palestinian Muslim identity.And so, for Abbas, the only Palestinians who were not displaced by Israel — Israel’s Arab citizens — are the ones who must never become citizens of a new Palestine. His Palestine is a Palestine for the displaced, not the Palestine of final, comprehensive liberation that absolves impostor Israel of its innate criminality. To allow Palestinian-Israelis to become Palestinian-Palestinians is to grant Israeli Jews final and complete moral validation in their usurped land.In Abbas’s vision, Israeli Arabs are to be denied part of their Palestinian story so that Israel can be denied its Jewish one.Netanyahu is often derided for his demand that Abbas recognize Israel as a “Jewish nation-state.” Netanyahu is a politician, and perhaps deserves few allowances for raising a demand he knows the other side is unable to accommodate. But frustration with Netanyahu, so popular in Western capitals, is not enough here. Abbas has refused to recognize Israel as a Jewish nation-state for longer than Netanyahu has been demanding it, and it is Abbas, not Netanyahu, who calls this a “sacred” principle.-‘Three thousand years ago’-This sense of unequal authenticity is just as fundamental, if not as politically debilitating, to the Israeli side. In his 2012 United Nations General Assembly speech (and repeated in one way or another in countless overseas speeches before and since), Netanyahu opened his remarks with these words: “Three thousand years ago, King David reigned over the Jewish state in our eternal capital, Jerusalem. I say that to all those who proclaim that the Jewish state has no roots in our region and that it will soon disappear.”To most Israeli Jews, the Jewish right to this land seems vindicated by hoary antiquity. Arabs have lived here for a long time, sure, but not in any self-conscious sense. Al-Aqsa’s sanctity is clearly a Muslim retelling of the Jews’ original sanctification of the site millennia earlier — and so only a copy of the “real thing.” Jewish identity, and more importantly Jewish attachment to this land, is thus older and more authentic than the copycat Palestinian claims.It is crucial to grasp that this view is not held by most Jews in any conscious way. Many on the left who believe Palestinian national identity is entirely legitimate and morally compelling nevertheless perceive a hierarchy of age and historical validity between the two identities. Ours is unquestionable; theirs is good enough, true enough, believed strongly enough by them to be worth acknowledging and validating for the sake of reconciliation and peace.There are, of course, historical facts to back this Jewish narrative (there are historical facts to back most such narratives): It is true, and Palestinian intellectuals acknowledge it readily, that a distinctive “Palestinian” national identity developed slowly over the course of the 20th century, mostly in response to the pressure of Jewish immigration.But this “proof” of the Jewish hierarchy of authenticity also serves as a “proof” for the competing Palestinian one. To Palestinian nationalists, the simple farmer or town-dweller who lives in the land of his grandfathers, speaks his Arabic and prays to his Allah five times daily is not less at home in his land because he lacks the invading ideologue’s ostentatious affectations of nationalism. In the Palestinian story, the fact that Palestinian nationalism did not coalesce into European-style rhetoric and organized activism until the Jewish influx was already entrenched in the land demonstrates the elemental, unthinking rootedness of the Palestinian presence here. That the Jews raised their flags, retooled their obsolete Hebrew and built for themselves monumental edifices of political institutions — the very things so celebrated by Israeli Jews as the finest achievements of their renewed nationhood — demonstrate in their very intensity of purpose that there is something manufactured and contrived in the Zionist enterprise.-Homelands-The upshot of this clash of competing authenticities for any would-be peacemakers is simply this: Neither Abbas nor Netanyahu, nor anyone likely to inherit them when they leave power, shares the world’s sense of urgency.For Abbas, time is on the Palestinians’ side, no matter how quickly settlements grow or how far the Palestinian economy falls. The higher Palestinian birthrate is only part of this story. Abbas’s entire life has been defined by a fundamental assumption that guides his policy and grants him his equanimity: that the Palestinians are an authentic, indigenous people facing a fundamentally inauthentic ideological movement masquerading as a people. This view is so basic it hardly needs to be uttered. It’s even backed up by religion. Like all monotheistic faiths, Islam’s core promise is that history ultimately arcs toward justice. There will be many agonies along the Palestinians’ journey toward justice, and many battles left to fight, but there is little point in doubting the final triumph of justice.This underlying, unstated theory of authenticity and the meaningfulness of history means Abbas is in no rush to seal a deal. It is also why he sees the question of Israeli Arabs’ citizenship as “sacred.” Israel can never lose its Arab citizens, even in a land swap that would mean a larger and wealthier independent Palestine, because to separate along ethnic lines means the final, principled concession of the Israeli part of occupied Palestine not only to Jewish control, but to the Jewish claim to a right to that control.Netanyahu shares this equanimity, and for similar reasons. The Jewish presence in this land is too old, too fundamental, too much a touchstone of the intellectual and cultural history of so much of humanity to really be threatened by Palestinian demands or Palestinian demographics. The Jews, so Netanyahu believes, found strength and shared purpose in their reunification in their ancient promised homeland. Netanyahu, too, though by all reports less pious than Abbas, is at his intellectual core a monotheist, a believer in history’s purposeful arc toward justice. Nations are not dislodged from their rightful homelands — nor, even after 2,000 years of dispersion, can an authentic people remain forever scattered and divided in someone else’s land.Netanyahu prides himself on his American MBA, on his thoroughly modern view of governance and his careful stewardship of the Israeli economy during the long years of his four terms as premier. He acknowledges the strategic value of separation from the Palestinians, and may even be willing to act on it. But, crucially for would-be peacemakers, he is not frightened by it. The same sense of an unbridgeable authenticity gap gives him a similar tranquility, to the abiding frustration of his critics.-Peace-The lessons here for would-be international peacemakers are not clear-cut. It is not obvious what one does with the realization that when well-meaning foreigners step out of the room, the tug-of-war becomes one of mutually exclusive identity, not land. But perhaps one lesson might be that any hope for peace between warring legitimacies, between competing theories of the meaning of each side’s history, backed in both cases by the still-living memory of generations-long suffering, fear and exile, lies in first acknowledging the depth of the divide. The world has tried to rein in Israel, assuming that but for settlements, Palestinian politics would be magnanimous and peace-loving. And it has tried to buy off Palestinian political factions with money and honorifics, assuming that this frees said factions from the grip of the deeper war, or convinces Israelis something fundamental has changed. In the end, it is the deeper conflict that must be resolved. The anxieties it generates on both sides, the maneuvering for legitimacy and recognition, the competing demands of a land made holy by ancient custom and yearning, are as deafening today as in the past.One obvious example: How can the Jews surrender the Temple Mount, the tether at the heart of their miraculous return, their awakening, their unification from scattered, vulnerable exile, their salvation, in other words, that their lived experience tells them could not have happened anywhere other than in this ancient sacred homeland anchored by that holy mountain? And how can Palestinians give up the 14-century-old shrine at the heart of their long-trampled identity, and on which their place of honor in all the vast realms of Islam depends? These concerns are too powerful and real to the Jews and Palestinians actually engaged in this conflict to be glossed over by the diplomatic remonstrances of the frustrated John Kerrys and Madeleine Albrights of the world.The lesson, put simply, is this: No peace can be reached merely on paper. There must be recognition. Without deep-seated trust, no withdrawal of the IDF or dismantling of the Israeli military governorship in the West Bank assures either peace or actual independence for the Palestinians. More importantly, without validation of the other side’s anxieties and sense of self, none of the delicate policy work of any diplomatic or security agreement will survive its first contact with the first pious patriot who is asked to surrender his or her sacred story to make room for the impostor’s fabricated one.Unlike with Egypt or Jordan, where a cold policy-wonk’s peace was enough because neither side needed much from the other, a Palestinian state cannot extricate itself from Israel. There is too much interlocking geography here, and no viable defense agreement, even one reached with the best of intentions by both sides, could work without placing a future Palestinian state within the IDF’s defensive line against the enemies and convulsions without. West Jerusalem is not really defensible against East Jerusalem, nor Netanya against Qalqilya, or vice versa — unless all are united in a shared security vision that can only come from Palestinians and Israelis believing they are on the same side.The point here is not to call for such a reconciliation, or even to argue it is possible. It is merely to say that the animating roots of this conflict cannot be meaningfully addressed by the shallow veneers currently being applied by outsiders. To pressure Israel on settlements without a concurrent effort at reconciliation is to shore up the Palestinian waiting game. To back Israel “within the Green Line” but thereby deny Israeli Jews the sacred heart of Jerusalem is to drive most Israelis to stubbornly support the Israeli waiting game. Neither side’s leaders, after all, shares the sense of urgency that animates the diplomats from abroad.In the end, even with a fully independent state in the West Bank and Gaza, no complete separation is possible between two people who share so many geographic, religious and cultural touchstones. When cold detachment is unavailable, the only options left are hatred or friendship. Hatred is a reasonable choice when the costs of reconciliation are so high, but a century into this conflict, and five decades into the occupation, it is becoming increasingly clear that it may not be a winnable strategy for either side over the long term.

MIGRATING BIRDS IN ISRAEL EATS HUMANS FLESH FOR COMING AGAINST ISRAEL-JERUSALEM

EZEKIEL 39:11-12,18
11 And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will give unto Gog (RUSSIA/ARAB/MUSLIMS) a place there of graves in Israel, the valley of the passengers (EAST OF THE DEAD SEA IN JORDAN VALLEY) on the east of the sea: and it shall stop the noses of the passengers: and there shall they bury Gog (RUSSIAN) and all his multitude:(ARAB/MUSLIM HORDE) and they shall call it The valley of Hamongog.(BURIEL SITE OF THE 300 MILLION,RUSSIAN/ARAB/MUSLIMS)
12 And seven months shall the house of Israel be burying of them, that they may cleanse the land.(OF ISRAEL)
16 And also the name of the city shall be Hamonah. Thus shall they cleanse the land.(OF THE ISRAEL-GOD HATERS)

EZEKIEL 39:17-21
17  And, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord GOD; Speak unto every feathered fowl, and to every beast of the field, Assemble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh, and drink blood.(OF RUSSIAN/ISLAMIC HORDES AGAINST ISRAEL)
18  Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bullocks, all of them fatlings of Bashan.
19  And ye shall eat fat till ye be full, and drink blood till ye be drunken, of my sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you.
20  Thus ye shall be filled at my table with horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with all men of war, saith the Lord GOD.
21  And I will set my glory among the heathen, and all the heathen shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid upon them.
22  So the house of Israel shall know that I am the LORD their God from that day and forward.

REVELATION 19:17-18
17 And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God;(AGAINST ALL NATIONS ARMIES THAT COME AGAINST JERUSALEM AND ISRAEL)
18 That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.

EZEKIEL 38:1-7
1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, set thy face against Gog,(RULER) the land of Magog,(RUSSIA) the chief prince of Meshech (MOSCOW) and Tubal,(TOBOLSK) and prophesy against him,
3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog,(LEADER OF RUSSIA) the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW) and Tubal:TOBOLSK)
4 And I (GOD) will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,(GOD FORCES THE RUSSIA-MUSLIMS TO MARCH) and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords:
5 Persia,(IRAN,IRAQ) Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:
6 Gomer,(GERMANY) and all his bands; the house of Togarmah (TURKEY) of the north quarters, and all his bands: and many people with thee.(AFRICAN MUSLIMS,SUDAN,TUNESIA ETC)
7 Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them.

EZEKIEL 39:1-8
1 Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog,(LEADER OF RUSSIA) and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech (MOSCOW) and Tubal: (TUBOLSK)
2 And I will turn thee back,(RUSSIA-ARAB MUSLIM ISRAEL HATERS) and leave but the sixth part of thee,(5/6TH OR 300 MILLION DEAD RUSSIAN/ARAB/MUSLIMS I BELIEVE) and will cause thee to come up from the north parts,(RUSSIA) and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel:
3 And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand.
4 Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands,( ARABS) and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured.
5 Thou shalt fall upon the open field: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
6 And I will send a fire on Magog,(NUCLEAR ATOMIC BOMB) and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I am the LORD.
7 So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.
8 Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord GOD; this is the day whereof I have spoken.

12 said killed in Tehran as parliament siege declared over-39 injured in twin attacks claimed by Islamic State on Iran’s parliament building and highly symbolic Khomeini mausoleum-By Times of Israel staff and Agencies June 7, 2017, 3:21 pm

Gunmen and suicide bombers stormed Iran’s parliament and the shrine of its revolutionary leader on Wednesday, killing 12 people and injuring 39 in the first attacks in the country claimed by the Islamic State group.The attacks ended after a standoff lasting several hours, during which the gunmen holed up in parliamentary office buildings.IS released a video of the attackers from inside the building via its Amaq propaganda agency — a rare claim of responsibility while an attack was still going on.A voice on the video praises God and says in Arabic: “Do you think we will leave? We will remain, God willing.” Another voice repeats the same words. The two appeared to be parroting a slogan used by IS spokesman Abu Mohammad al-Adnani, who was killed in Syria last year.ISIS releases video filmed by one of their militants inside #Iran parliament. Can someone recognize accent of the fighter? pic.twitter.com/Qe351ZjMnM— Wladimir (@vvanwilgenburg) June 7, 2017-Police said all the attackers had been killed by around 3 p.m. (10:30 GMT), some five hours after the attack started.The Sunni jihadists of IS consider Shiite Iran to be apostate, and Tehran is deeply involved in fighting the group in both Syria and Iraq.The assaults began mid-morning, when four gunmen burst into the parliament complex in the center of Tehran, killing a security guard and one other person, according to the ISNA news agency.Another video of the Parliament, intense shooting can be heard #Iran pic.twitter.com/GDrd5z130k— Michael Horowitz (@michaelh992) June 7, 2017-An interior ministry official said they were dressed as women and entered through the visitors’ entrance.At roughly the same time, a team of three or four assailants entered the grounds of the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who led the 1979 Islamic revolution, killing a gardener and wounding several other people.Iran’s emergency services said a total of 12 people were killed in the two attacks and 39 were wounded.Two of the attackers at the shrine, one of them a woman, blew themselves up, while another detonated a suicide vest on the fourth floor of the parliamentary office building.#BREAKING#Iran shooting-Moment of explosion on western wing outside Imam Khomeini shrine. pic.twitter.com/4U0OCYyEel— Mehr News Agency (@MehrnewsCom) June 7, 2017-A picture on social media showed police helping staff escape through windows.Large crowds gathered around cordons to watch as police struggled to disperse the crowds.Parliament was in session as the attacks unfolded and members were keen to show they were undeterred, continuing with regular business.Some posted selfies of themselves looking calm, even as gun battles raged in surrounding office buildings and snipers took position on nearby rooftops.The speaker of Iran’s parliament described Wednesday’s terror attack as a “minor incident,” the Iranian Mehr news agency reported.Ali Larijani chaired business-as-usual proceedings within the parliamentary chamber while gunfights went on elsewhere in the building.He described Iran as an “active and effective hub for combating terrorism” and said terrorists wanted to undermine this.As he spoke, some lawmakers shouted, “Death to America.”State news channels said parliament had gone back to work shortly after the first reports of gunfire, while other channels avoided reporting on the attack altogether.An official at Khomeini’s mausoleum in south Tehran said “three or four” people had entered via the western entrance and opened fire, according to the Fars news agency.The intelligence ministry said there had been a third “terrorist” team that was neutralized before the attacks started.The city was on lockdown for several hours, with streets blocked and parts of the metro closed. Journalists were kept away from the shrine by police.Latest on #Tehran: Iranian security forces have surrounded parliamentary building where gunmen might be holding hostages. pic.twitter.com/vZIQC8keYh— Rudaw English (@RudawEnglish) June 7, 2017-“I was passing by one of the streets. I thought that children were playing with fireworks, but I realized people are hiding and lying down on the streets,” Ebrahim Ghanimi, who was around the parliament building when the assailants stormed in, told The Associated Press. “With the help of a taxi driver, I reached a nearby alley.”Police helicopters circled over the parliament building and all mobile phone lines from inside were disconnected. The semi-official ISNA news agency said all entrance and exit gates at parliament were closed and that lawmakers and reporters were ordered to remain in place inside the chamber.Interior Minister Abdolrahman Fazli told ISNA he had convened a special meeting of the country’s security council.Jihadist groups have clashed frequently with security forces along Iran’s borders with Iraq and Afghanistan, but the country has largely escaped attacks within its urban centers.The intelligence ministry said in June 2016 that it had foiled a plot to carry out multiple bomb attacks in Tehran and around the country.IS published a rare video in Persian in March, warning that it “will conquer Iran and restore it to the Sunni Muslim nation as it was before.”Iran, the predominant Shiite power, has been helping both Iraq and President Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria to battle IS.The jihadist group is under increasing pressure in both countries, having lost significant territory in the face of offensives now targeting its last two major urban bastions, Raqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq.Militant groups are also known to operate in Iran’s southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province, which borders Pakistan and has a large Sunni community.Jaish-ul Adl (Army of Justice), which Tehran accuses of links with al-Qaeda, has carried out several armed attacks on Iranian soil in recent years.The Kremlin, which has been fighting IS in Syria and Iraq together with Iran and Syria’s Assad, condemned the attacks in Tehran and called for greater coordination in the fight against the group.“Moscow decisively condemns such terrorist attacks,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, adding that “the continuation of a series of terror attacks again underlines the need for coordinated actions in the fight against terror and IS.”United Arab Emirates also condemned the attacks.“Our position on terrorism is very clear… Any terrorist attack in any country, in any capital, directed at innocent people is something that the UAE abhors and the UAE condemns,” state minister for foreign affairs Anwar Gargash told AFP.The European Unions high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Federica Mogherini, sent her condolences to the victims of the Tehran attacks and said she was following events very closely on this “very sad day again.”

THE EU TO SPEND 1.5 BILLION A YEAR ON JOINT DEFENCE.

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)

EUROPEAN UNION ARMY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hI5_pMvLZd8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytWmPqY8TE0&feature=player_embedded

DANIEL 7:23-25
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast (EU,REVIVED ROME) shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth,(7TH WORLD EMPIRE) which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.(TRADING BLOCKS)
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings(10 DIVSION REGION WORLD GOVERNMENT) that shall arise: and another shall rise after them;(#11 SPAIN) and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.( BE HEAD OF 3 NATIONS)
25 And he (EU PRESIDENT) shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.(3 1/2 YRS)

DANIEL 8:23-25
23 And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king (EU DICTATOR) of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences,(FROM THE OCCULT-NEW AGE MOVEMENT) shall stand up.
24 And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power:(SATANS POWER) and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people.
25 And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes;(JESUS) but he shall be broken without hand.

DANIEL 11:36-39
36 And the king (EU DICTATOR) shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done.
37 Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers,(THIS EU DICTATOR IS JEWISH) nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.(CLAIM TO BE GOD)
38 But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces:(WAR) and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things.
39 Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god,(DESTROY TERROR GROUPS) whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory: and he shall cause them to rule over many,(HIS ARMY LEADERS) and shall divide the land for gain.

REVELATION 19:19
19 And I saw the beast,(EU LEADER) and the kings of the earth, and their armies,(UNITED NATIONS TROOPS) gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse,(JESUS) and against his army.(THE RAPTURED CHRISTIANS)

EU to spend €1.5bn a year on joint defence By Andrew Rettman, Nikolaj Nielsen, Lisbeth Kirk-june 7,17-euobserver

BRUSSELS, Today, 17:58-The European Commission has offered to put aside €1.5 billion a year for joint defence spending in what could be the first step toward the creation of an EU army.It said in Brussels on Wednesday (7 June) the EU should spend €500 million a year of its joint budget from 2020 onward on R&D of new military technologies, such as robotics or cyber defence.It said it should spend a further €1 billion a year on joint procurement of high-technology items such as surveillance drones.R&D projects would be entirely financed from the EU budget. The joint purchases, by groups of at least three firms from at least two EU states, would see the EU pay 20 percent of the cost and the participating countries, which would own and operate the assets, pay the rest.The creation of the so called European Defence Fund was billed as Europe’s response to “the most severe security challenges of the past 60 years” - Russian revanchism and Middle East instability.The fund was unveiled after the new US president Donald Trump shook faith in Nato last month by refusing to stand by its Article 5 obligation on joint defence.It was also unveiled as the UK, the EU’s main military power and the main opponent of EU defence integration, prepares to start exit talks.The Commission and the EU foreign service added in a “reflection paper” also on Wednesday that the fund could in future form part of the bloc’s “common defence and security”.They said that member states’ defence forces could one day “be pre-positioned and be made permanently available for rapid deployment on behalf of the Union”.These joint forces, or what eurosceptics have called an "EU army", would launch “operations against terrorist groups, naval operations in hostile environments or cyber-defence action”.Federica Mogherini, the EU foreign affairs chief, said on Monday that EU states which are also Nato allies would still rely on Nato for territorial defence.But she said they could also rely on EU help if they were attacked on the back of Article 42.7 of the EU treaty, which stipulates that other EU states had “an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power”.She noted that France already invoked this after the Paris terrorist attacks in 2015 and that this had led to “concrete actions” in terms of, for instance, intelligence sharing.Jyrki Katainen, a former Finnish prime minister who is now commissioner for jobs and growth, said EU mutual defence could be of special help in the event of a “hybrid” war that used military and non-military means to attack an EU country.He said a hybrid attack could see “the media shut down, the electricity [supply] shut down, bank transactions have problems, and all these three issues happen together and maybe there are also little green or grey men or women”.The phrase "little green men" refers to Russian special forces without insignia which invaded Crimea in Ukraine in 2014 .-France welcomes plan-The EU plan was immediately welcomed by France.Its armed forces minister, Sylvie Goulard, said on Wednesday the proposed EU defence fund was “a turning point for a better sharing of costs, but also for defence capabilities”.She added that it would give “political impetus” to the EU’s ambition to become “sovereign” in terms of of its technological and strategic capabilities.Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato head, also welcomed the EU initiative.“Stronger European defence … will strengthen the European pillar in Nato”, he said, adding that the defence fund would “help to develop new capabilities”.The British Conservative Party, some far-left politicians, and arms control NGOs spoke out against the scheme.Geoffrey Van Orden, a British Tory MEP, said it was an EU "ego trip" that would create "alternative structures [to Nato] that will merely increase the transatlantic divide".Sabine Loesing, a German far-left MEP, said it was the “start of a very slippery slope” that would lead to an “EU defence budget [that] will presumably be in the hundreds of billions in the near future”.Wendela de Vries from Stop Wapenhandel, a Belgian NGO, said: “These proposals will not lead to peace and security, but will only increase the profits of the arms industry”.But the Commission proposals won support from mainstream groups in the European Parliament, who will be needed to sign off on the fund.Manfred Weber, a German MEP who chairs the centre-right EPP group, the largest in parliament, said on Wednesday: “This is, after the euro, the second major development for Europe. I believe that common defence is … a must”.Guy Verhofstadt, a Belgian MEP who leads the liberal Alde group, said: “The proposed European Defence Fund is an important first step towards much needed joint capabilities on defence”.He said the Commission should have been more bold in its vision of an EU army. “We have to act now, independently and efficiently. That is why I am in favour of … joint action and a real defence union”, he said.-Prototype fund-An EU official noted on Wednesday that the Commission was already allocating €590 million to a prototype of the joint defence fund for the years 2017 to 2020.The official said the €25 million set aside for 2017 was “something that the Commission had never done before” because in the past it had stayed out of military funding.The official added that the EU institutions would not get any of their own military capabilities even if the plan went ahead at full pelt.“Member states are the ones that are going to own the capabilities at the end of the day”, the official said.The Commission noted on Wednesday that past overlaps and complications in member states’ defence planning had led to waste.EU states had 36 “defence platforms and systems” in place versus 11 in the US.It said member states’ joint projects, such as the Eurofighter Typhoon or the Tiger helicopter, had in the past cost too much, taken too long and had to produce aircraft with too many varied specifications. It said one joint helicopter, the NH90, “had to be developed in 23 versions”.But it said other projects, such as the Meteor air-to-air missile, which was developed by the UK, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, and Sweden were a “prime example” of how to work together.It noted that the €590 million for the prototype defence fund would be ripped from the EU’s existing budget for “connecting Europe” (including projects “contributing to sustainable development and protection of the environment”), as well as from the budget for satellite navigation and earth observation, and for resaerch into nuclear fusion.

EU mulls joint defence spending By Andrew Rettman-june 7,17-euobserver

BRUSSELS, Today, 09:19-The EU budget should be used for military research and the bloc could become a defence alliance akin to Nato, the European Commission is poised to say.The Commission is to outline its ideas in a legislative proposal on spending and in an ideas paper on defence due out on Wednesday (7 June).“The development of a new generation of many major defence systems is today beyond the reach of a single EU member state … ‘More Europe’ in defence and security is clearly needed”, the draft proposals, seen by Bloomberg, a US news agency, said.The reflection paper adds that the “nature of the trans-Atlantic relationship is evolving” and that “more than ever, Europeans need to take greater responsibility for their own security”.It outlines three scenarios, one of which speaks of “common defence and security” in which defence of Europe “would become a mutually reinforcing responsibility of the EU and Nato”.It says the EU should have “pre-positioned permanently available forces” for deployment “on behalf of the union” that could be used in anti-crisis or counter-terrorist operations in hostile areas.The less ambitious scenarios speak of voluntary contributions to joint defence on ad-hoc basis.The new military research budget is to be worth €250 million in its first year in 2020 rising to up to €1 billion a year from the €150-billion EU budget.It is to be spent on research into surveillance drones and cyber defence in its initial phase, but this would still mark the first time EU money had been spent directly on military assets.The defence integration is to take place until 2025.The EU reflection on defence began prior to the Brexit vote in the UK and the election of Donald Trump in the US.The UK was the EU’s pre-eminent military power and British prime minister Theresa May has flip-flopped on whether its future EU security cooperation could be withheld if Brexit talks went badly.Trump last week disappointed Nato allies by refusing to say he would honour the Nato treaty’s Article 5 on mutual defence.Germany and Italy have in the past called for the creation of an EU army, but France and Finland, among others, were more sceptical, while the UK has opposed such a move.

Focus-Nordic leaders outline visions for European security By Lisbeth Kirk-june 7,17-euobserver

Bergen, Today, 09:29-The five Nordic countries agree they need to invest more in European security, but differ on whether resources should be spent on Nato or EU defence.“I think the demand that Europe steps up on defence policies and use of money on their defence is very clear and we need to do it because we have a different security situation," Norway’s prime minister Erna Solberg told EUobserver, referring to the new climate in Europe after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea.The extra spending is "not because the Americans are asking us [for it],” the conservative Norwegian politician pointed out.For a long time ”both German politicians and French politicians have wanted the EU to have a stronger say on security issues and to work more on that," said Solberg, who spoke to EUobserver in the margins of a Nordic council meeting in Bergen, Norway, last week.“I still believe that Nato should be the biggest, strongest military capacity … the EU should supplement Nato on much more soft power, much more policing, much more conflict prevention and that type of work,” she said.“I think Nato has a better command structure ... and we don’t need two organisations that in fact have the same type of capabilities.”-Brexit opens way for EU defence-Norway is not a member of the EU but has always been a keen Nato partner. The alliance is currently led by a former Norwegian prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg.Soon Britain will be in the same position - outside the European Union while inside Nato."I don’t think [Brexit] will change so much Nato as it may change the European Union. Of course there will be a stronger focus from Germany and from France also on security issues because we know that Britain has been one of the countries holding back a little bit [on EU defence integration],” Solberg said.Regardless of whether extra funds got to Nato or the EU, “it is important to remember that what we really do is to invest in our own defence,” Norway’s PM said.-Iceland without an army-The transatlantic security situation was highlighted recently when German chancellor Angela Merkel said "Europeans have to take our destiny into our own hands"."The times in which we could completely depend on others are on the way out. I've experienced that in the last few days," Merkel told a crowd at an election rally in Munich, southern Germany on 28 May following US president Donald Trump’s first Nato and G7 meeting.Iceland, as with Norway, is a non-EU member of Nato, but also has a special relationship with the US.“What is indicative of the situation is that things are changing rapidly and Europe needs to adapt immediately,” Iceland’s prime minister Bjarni Benediktsson told EUobserver also in Bergen.“I think one should take notice of both what the president in the US is saying but also to what Merkel is saying. I think they are more or less saying the same thing. Donald Trump is saying that Europe can not in the area of defence and security rely as heavily on their [US] expenditures as they have done in recent years and we have already taken notice of this. That was what happened in Wales,” Benediktsson said.The defence spending goal was a key talking point at the Nato summit in Wales in September 2014, when Nato states pledged "to move towards the 2% [proportion of GDP spent on defence] guideline within a decade."“If we look more closely to our Icelandic situation in the area of defence and security we are a little different as we, number one: don’t have our own army ; number two: we have a special defence agreement with the United States which is still valid and the US is even beefing up their presence in Iceland with those submarines, submarine detecting air planes coming more frequently”, Iceland’s Benediktsson added.Benediktsson said that “it is not self evident that we found the golden rule in 2 percent”, the part of GDP that the Nato says member states should give to defence spendings.He added that we should not “try and solve all issues with force, but also with civilian solutions, introducing the ideology of democracy, equality, security and peace in different ways than only with force on the battlefield."-Merkel said no news-Denmark’s liberal prime minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen also referred to the Wales summit decision and said Merkel had not really said anything new.“I do not think there is any crucial new conclusion,” he told EUobserver in Bergen.“We are the continent that is also most affected by the things that an unstable world sets in motion. We have a refugee and migration flow to Europe that the entire continent of America, both America and Canada, with all fine principles in place, for geographic reasons, can stay out of. So the effects of not having control appear with greater clarity in Europe”, he said.Loekke said the EU enlargement to the east had changed the security situation in Europe.“The threats have come closer and that's why we [Denmark] sent 200 men to Estonia, for example”, he said, referring to Nato forces that were recently posted to the Baltic states to deter Russian aggression.His own son was one of the officers planning the operation, he noted.-Non-aligned Sweden and Finland-Denmark is currently prevented from investing in EU security due to an old op-out from EU defence and security policies.Finland and Sweden, on the other hand, are not likely to invest in Nato forces because of their status as non-aligned countries, but they do participate in Nato drills, such as Baltops 2017, as so-called Enhanced Opportunities Partners.The BALTIC OPERATIONS (Baltops) drill has been held since 1972 and Russia participated in the past, with its last appearance being in 2012. Since 2015 it has not been invited to join the international exercise due to its annexation of Crimea.This year's Baltops kicked off on 1 June and will involve 4,000 shipboard personnel, 50 ships and submarines and more than 50 aircraft from 14 Nato countries plus Sweden and Finland.It is designed to ”demonstrate resolve among forces from allied and partner nations to ensure stability in and, if necessary, defend the Baltic Sea region,” according to Nato.-Putin warning Sweden-In the run-up to Baltops 17, Russia’s president Vladimir Putin has warned Sweden directly against joining Nato."If Sweden joins Nato, it will negatively affect our relations because it will mean that Nato facilities will be set up in Sweden so we will have to think about the best ways to respond to this additional threat," Putin said at a meeting in St. Petersburg on 1 June, the same day as the drill began, Russian state news agency Tass reported."We will consider this [Sweden’s joining Nato] as an additional threat for Russia and will search for the ways to eliminate it," Putin added.But there is currently no reason for Moscow to fear that Sweden is applying for membership of Nato.“We will stay non-aligned, because we believe that is, we are convinced, that is the right position,” Sweden’s social democrat prime minister Stefan Loefven said when talking to EUobserver.“We have different kind of co-operations already, we are one of the partners of Nato but we are not aligned.”Asked what the EU could contribute to strengthen Swedish security, Loefven said that "it could be anything from research, developing of defence materials but also we have already - since year’s ago - formed battle groups that take part in international conflicts for example. There is a lot of co-operation that we can do,” he said mentioning cyber security as a "very important field to cooperate on.”-Finland keen on EU security-Finland is on the same path as Sweden, but its prime minister appeared even more enthusiastic about investing in security via the EU.“There is a positive chance or possibility to have a deeper cooperation inside the European Union and we are very much in favour on that approach from Finland. For example cyber threats and hybrid threats - these are the areas we can cooperate much more on inside European Union and this is something we are going to discuss in the next European council meeting,” Finnish prime minister Juha Sipilae told EUobserver.“We are in favour of this kind of approach also because there is a lot of things which are not overlapping Nato’s meaning or targets,” he said,EUobserver asked him whether the European Union could develop a new security dimension with his support.“Yes, exactly. Security and defence co-operation. It is very important for us,” he said.

DRUG PUSHERS AND ADDICTS

1 PET 5:8
8 Be sober,(NOT DRUGED UP OR ALCOHOLICED) be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:

REVELATION 18:23
23 And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries (DRUGS) were all nations deceived.

REVELATION 9:21
21 Neither repented they of their murders,(KILLING) nor of their sorceries (DRUG ADDICTS AND DRUG PUSHERS), nor of their fornication,(SEX OUTSIDE MARRIAGE OR PROSTITUTION FOR MONEY) nor of their thefts.(STEALING)

Almost 2,500 Canadians died from opioid-related overdoses last year: data-[The Canadian Press]-yahoonews-June 6, 2017

OTTAWA — New data suggests almost 2,500 Canadians died from opioid-related overdoses in 2016 — deaths that federal Health Minister Jane Philpott says were preventable.The data released Tuesday by the Public Health Agency of Canada found an estimated 2,458 people died of opioid overdoses, a national death rate of 8.8 per 100,000 people.And the agency found western Canada is feeling the brunt of the impact, with opioid-related death rates of over 10.0 per 100,000 population in Yukon, Northwest Territories, British Columbia and Alberta."The data gives us confirmation of the severity of the problem," Philpott said in an interview."These are preventable deaths."Information from Quebec was not available but Philpott said discussions with provincial officials are ongoing."We hope to eventually be able to fill out all of the details of the data but the systems for data collection are different," she said. We will hopefully work toward that in the months to come."The figures remain the best possible estimate right now, Philpott added."This remains a very serious public health threat," she said."We need all players to participate in the response ... We are very, very active on this file but we would certainly be encouraging provincial and territorial governments to be diligent, to be very active in providing a comprehensive response."The numbers were released by the agency on behalf of a federal, provincial and territorial advisory committee on the opioid overdose epidemic.The committee, created in December 2016, is chaired by Canada's interim chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, and Dr. Robert Strang, Nova Scotia's chief public health officer.Health Canada says opioids affect the part of the brain that controls breathing and taking too many pills can cause breathing to slow, contributing to unconsciousness and death.Elaine Hyshka, an assistant professor at the University of Alberta School of Public Health, said it's positive to see Canada  moving closer to compiling a national picture of the crisis."It is encouraging that we are seeing some progress but ultimately this is a national epidemic," she said.At some point, Canada must do better, Hyshka added, noting that this country falls far short of the U.S. when it comes to overdose death reporting."Our surveillance systems are a decade behind where they should be but if we are going to take this seriously as a public health crisis ... then we need the numbers and we need the counts to show this," she said."If that requires an injection of resources, if that requires compelling the provinces and territories to report data more quickly and figuring out different strategies to do that, that should all be on the table because we can't respond to this effectively without understanding it."The process of compiling the new figures revealed challenges in public health infrastructure and the national agency's authority to gather provincial and territorial data, Philpott said."We are working to remedy the challenges that have been identified."Any loss of life as result of an opioid overdose is a needless, preventable tragedy, Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins said in a statement."Through increased partnership, enhanced surveillance and data collection, modernizing prescribing and dispensing practices, and connecting patients with high quality, holistic care we will continue to take co-ordinated action to combat the opioid crisis in Ontario and across the country," he said.—Follow @kkirkup on Twitter-Kristy Kirkup, The Canadian Press.

WORLD POWERS IN THE LAST DAYS (END OF AGE OF GRACE NOT THE WORLD)

EUROPEAN UNION-KING OF WEST-DAN 9:26-27,DAN 7:23-24,DAN 11:40,REV 13:1-10
EGYPT-KING OF THE SOUTH-DAN 11:40
RUSSIA-KING OF THE NORTH-EZEK 38:1-2,EZEK 39:1-3
CHINA-KING OF THE EAST-DAN 11:44,REV 9:16,18
VATICAN-RELIGIOUS LEADER-REV 13:11-18,REV 17:4-5,9,18

WORLD TERRORISM

OH BY THE WAY WHEN THE MEDIA SAYS ALLU-AK-BAR MEANS GOD IS GREAT LIE. IN ISLAM ALLU-AK-BAR MEANS OUR GOD IS GREATER OR GREATEST. THIS IS HOW THE MEDIA SUCK HOLES UP TO ISLAMIC-QURANIC-MUSLIMS. BY WATERING DOWN THE REAL MEANING OF THE SEX FOR MURDER DEATH CULT ISLAM. TO MAKE IT SOUND LIKE A PEACEFUL RELIGION (CULT OF DEATH AND WORLD DOMINATION).

GENESIS 6:11-13
11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.(WORLD TERRORISM,MURDERS)(HAMAS IN HEBREW IS VIOLENCE)
12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence (TERRORISM)(HAMAS) through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

GENESIS 16:11-12
11 And the angel of the LORD said unto her,(HAGAR) Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael;(FATHER OF THE ARAB/MUSLIMS) because the LORD hath heard thy affliction.
12 And he (ISHMAEL-FATHER OF THE ARAB-MUSLIMS) will be a wild (DONKEY-JACKASS) man;(ISLAM IS A FAKE AND DANGEROUS SEX FOR MURDER CULT) his hand will be against every man,(ISLAM HATES EVERYONE) and every man's hand against him;(PROTECTING THEMSELVES FROM BEING BEHEADED) and he (ISHMAEL ARAB/MUSLIM) shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.(LITERAL-THE ARABS LIVE WITH THEIR BRETHERN JEWS)

ISAIAH 14:12-14
12  How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer,(SATAN) son of the morning!(HEBREW-CRECENT MOON-ISLAM) how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
13  For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
14  I (SATAN HAS EYE TROUBLES) will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.(AND 1/3RD OF THE ANGELS OF HEAVEN FELL WITH SATAN AND BECAME DEMONS)

JOHN 16:2
2 They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.(ISLAM MURDERS IN THE NAME OF MOON GOD ALLAH OF ISLAM)

Opinion-Why Schengen deserves to be saved By Nicolas Tenzer-june 7,17-euobserver

BRUSSELS, Today, 14:36-Just one week after Emmanuel Macron’s landslide election victory offered a ringing endorsement of the European project in France, the prime minister of Denmark made it clear that the debate over Europe’s open borders is far from over.The European Commission announced last month (2 May) that Denmark would need to lift border controls come November, in compliance with the Schengen agreement.On 16 May, Danish prime minister Lars Rasmussen issued his defiant response: "We will continue border controls unless the EU miraculously finds ways to regain control of its outer frontiers and Italy curbs the flow of refugees … into Europe." This harsh tone needs to be taken in the context of Denmark’s delicate politics.Rasmussen’s minority government relies on parliamentary support from the far-right Danish People’s Party, which shares a strategy with Geert Wilders and Marine Le Pen in using the 26-country passport-free Schengen area as a convenient target for anti-EU platforms.After all, Schengen is one of the key pillars of the European project and its dismantlement would herald the end of one of the most successful and visible achievements of the EU.The far-right candidates have had competition in this year’s high-stakes elections: in France, even some mainstream conservative candidates depicted the Schengen zone as a threat to national security and the control of migration – advocating for the return of border controls within the Schengen area or its wholesale elimination.While these populist stances are part of a transatlantic nationalist narrative that also echoes from the White House of US president Donald Trump, they are based on several fundamental untruths.-The main untruths-First of all, with highly secured passports and a standardised control process for travellers coming from non-Schengen countries, the external borders of the EU (and non-EU Schengen countries: Switzerland, Norway and Iceland) are as secure as any other.Despite widespread fears of foreign terrorists disguising themselves as refugees to cross into Europe, not one of the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks over the last two years fit this alleged profile.Whether in France, Belgium, or Germany, those responsible for these horrendous acts of terror lived in Europe for years prior – and, in most cases, their whole lives.Secondly, the argument that open borders are a drain on national economies is patently false.In reality, from an economic point of view, the disintegration of Schengen would have catastrophic effects – jeopardising trade and growth, and increasing unemployment.A recent study by the French Commissariat for Strategy explained just how much: “In the longer run, widespread permanent border controls would decrease trade between Schengen countries by a factor of 10% to 20%".The study added that "this would be equivalent to a 3% value-added tax on trade, leading to a loss for France of half a percentage point in GDP, or more than €10 billion. This figure does not include the impact on foreign investment and labour mobility."It also outlines the impact it would have on the Schengen area's overall economy: "Overall, the Schengen area’s GDP would be reduced by 0.8 points, equivalent to more than €100 billion. An additional impact on labour mobility, foreign investment and financial flows can be anticipated, but is difficult to quantify."-Opening France-Voters in France were perfectly cognisant of the importance of Europe’s open borders when they went to vote earlier this month.Freedom from internal border controls has a major impact on tourist flows, boosting an industry critical to the economies of many EU countries. This not only includes short-stay travellers, but also those coming from outside the Schengen area as part of a longer trip.By making it easy to visit multiple countries during the same trip – and sparing tourists the burden of multiple national visas – freedom of movement helps spread tourist euros across the EU.Schengen also facilitates regular cross-border movement for millions of Europeans: in France alone, 353,000 people worked in a neighbouring country in 2011.For these workers and others, including those who work in Europe’s freight industries, a return to border controls would be economically disastrous.Most importantly however, losing Schengen would signal a dramatic loss of political capital for the EU – fatally undermining the four basic freedoms of persons, capital, services, and goods.Internal borders and controls are unwelcome vestiges of the old Europe; a continent without borders is a highly political and symbolic asset, especially when compared to the barbed-wire fences being erected in some corners of the world. It also encourages non-Schengen EU countries (such as Romania and Bulgaria) to join the area.Beyond pure economics, Schengen embodies fully-fledged membership and integration into the EU. By governing institutional arrangements made with outside countries, Schengen has also become part of the EU’s soft power.-Reduce borders, increase power-For Eastern bloc countries and other emerging democracies around the world, visa-free access to the Schengen area is a prized objective.Ukraine just received final acceptance from the European Parliament in April 2017, a significant milestone after the 2014 Maidan revolution in the country that was driven by European values.Schengen has also served as a useful bargaining chip in bilateral negotiations outside Europe.Peru, for example, recently celebrated one year after having lifted Schengen visa requirements for its citizens. That newfound access was facilitated by Peru’s new, fully secured biometric passports from France’s Imprimerie Nationale and including the Netherlands' Gemalto, which prevent fraud and contribute to the fight against falsified documents.Paradoxically, while some nationalist European parties are openly considering abandoning the Schengen model, other regional blocs are thinking of embracing it: the Gulf Cooperation Council and ASEAN have just been the latest to seriously consider lifting internal border controls.By exploiting latent fears of uncontrolled immigration across open borders, far-right parties such as the Danish People’s Party, France's Front National, and the UK Independence Party (Ukip) have managed to turn the Schengen area into a political hot potato despite its manifold benefits.Macron’s victory in France has temporarily neutralised this political threat, but he himself has repeatedly assessed that the work is not over.An open Europe must successfully protect its citizens against terrorist threats, aggressive powers, and internal dumping.Otherwise, the narrative being pushed by illiberal and anti-European populists will regain traction sooner rather than later.Nicolas Tenzer is the chairman of the Paris-based Centre for Study and Research for Political Decision (Cerap), editor of the journal Le Banquet, author of three official reports to the government, including two on international strategy, and of 21 books.

Islamic State claims stunning attack in heart of Iran-[The Canadian Press]-yahoonews-June 7, 2017

TEHRAN, Iran — The Islamic State group claimed responsibility Wednesday for a pair of stunning attacks on Iran's parliament and the tomb of its revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which killed at least 12 people and wounded more than 40.The bloodshed shocked the country and came as emboldened Sunni Arab states — backed by U.S. President Donald Trump — are hardening their stance against Shiite-ruled Iran.In recent years, Tehran has been heavily involved in conflicts in Syria and Iraq against the Islamic State, but had remained untouched by IS violence around the world. Iran has also battled Saudi-backed Sunni groups in both countries.Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard indirectly blamed Saudi Arabia for the attacks. A statement issued Wednesday evening stopped short of alleging direct Saudi involvement but called it "meaningful" that the attacks followed Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia, where he strongly asserted Washington's support for Riyadh.The statement said Saudi Arabia "constantly supports" terrorists including the Islamic State group, adding that the IS claim of responsibility "reveals (Saudi Arabia's) hand in this barbaric action."The "spilled blood of the innocent will not remain unavenged," the Revolutionary Guard statement said.Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's supreme leader, used the attacks to defend Tehran's involvement in wars abroad. He told a group of students that if "Iran had not resisted," it would have faced even more troubles."The Iranian nation will go forward," he added.The violence began in midmorning when assailants with Kalashnikov rifles and explosives stormed the parliament complex where a legislative session had been in progress. The siege lasted for hours, and one of the attackers blew himself up inside, according to Iran's state TV.Images circulating in Iranian media showed gunmen held rifles near the windows of the complex. One showed a toddler being handed through a first-floor window to safety outside as an armed man looks on.The IS group's Aamaq news agency released a 24-second video purportedly shot inside the complex, showing a bloody, lifeless body on the floor next to a desk.An Associated Press reporter saw several police snipers on the roofs of nearby buildings. Police helicopters circled the parliament and all mobile phone lines from inside were disconnected.Shops in the area were closed as gunfire rang out and officials urged people to avoid public transportation. Witnesses said the attackers fired from the parliament building's fourth floor at people in the streets."I was passing by one of the streets. I thought that children were playing with fireworks, but I realized people are hiding and lying down on the streets," Ebrahim Ghanimi, who was around the parliament building, told the AP. "With the help of a taxi driver, I reached a nearby alley."As the parliament attack unfolded, gunmen and suicide bombers also struck outside Khomeini's mausoleum on Tehran's southern outskirts. Khomeini led the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the Western-backed shah to become Iran's first supreme leader until his death in 1989.Iran's state broadcaster said a security guard was killed at the tomb and that one of the attackers was slain by security guards. A woman was also arrested. The revered shrine was not damaged.The Interior Ministry said six assailants were killed — four at the parliament and two at the tomb. A senior Interior Ministry official told Iran's state TV the male attackers wore women's attire.Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani called the attacks a cowardly act.Saudi Arabia and Iran regularly accuse each other of supporting extremists in the region. Saudi Arabia has long pointed to the absence of IS attacks in Iran as a sign of Tehran's culpability. For its part, Iran has cited Saudi Arabia's support for jihadists and its backing of hard-line Sunni fighters in Syria.Trump's first overseas visit to Saudi Arabia last month positioned the U.S. firmly on the side of the kingdom and other Arab states in their stance against Iran. His assurances of Washington's support emboldened hawkish royals in Saudi Arabia, which is at war in Yemen against Iranian-allied rebels.The attacks are likely to deepen enmity and sharpen the regional battle for power between the two rivals. Tensions are running high this week following a cut in ties between key Arab powers and Qatar over accusations that the energy-rich nation supports terrorist groups and is aligning itself too closely with Iran.Saudi Arabia has been a target of numerous lethal attacks by IS affiliates who see the kingdom's Western-allied leadership as heretics. The group has also targeted Shiites in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.IS militants are fighting Iranian-backed forces in Syria and Iraq, and they view Shiites as apostates. Iran shares borders with Iraq and Turkey, where extremists could have slipped in.Nelly Lahoud, an expert on extremism at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Bahrain, said IS leaders may be looking to rally supporters through the attacks in Iran as they lose ground in Syria and Iraq."Now that they are unable to maintain the promise of territory, attacking Iran is to their advantage," she said. "It wouldn't surprise me if this were planned for a long time."On March 27, the IS group posted a 37-minute video in Farsi threatening Iran. The Clarion Project said the speakers claimed to represent various Iranian Sunni ethnic groups, such as the Baluchis and Ahvazis, and encouraged Iranian Sunnis to join the group.Wednesday's attacks, during the holy month of Ramadan that is observed by both Sunni and Shiite Muslims, came as the Islamic State is competing with al-Qaida for jihadi recruits.Arab separatists are active in Iran's southern city of Ahvaz, where they killed two policemen three weeks ago. Though most Iranians are Shiite, including separatists in Ahvaz, the eastern Baloch region is majority Sunni, although there are no recent census figures available. There is also a significant Sunni population in southern Hormozgan province.The attacks drew condemnation from Iran's allies — and also from the United States. That was notable because of the deep distrust between Tehran and Washington, which don't have diplomatic relations.State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the U.S. expressed condolences to the victims and their families."The depravity of terrorism has no place in a peaceful, civilized world," Nauert said.Russian President Vladimir Putin sent condolences and confirmed Moscow's willingness to aid its ally. Syria's Foreign Ministry also condemned the attacks, which it said were backed by various governments that it did not specify.The IS group often claims attacks around the world, even when links to the group cannot be confirmed. Iranian security officials have not said who might have been behind the attacks, although state media called the assailants "terrorists."There are concerns that a doubling down on security could lead to a wider clampdown on the opposition in Iran. Rights group Amnesty International urged Iranian authorities to carry out impartial investigations into the attacks.Charlie Winter, a senior research fellow at King's College London, said the attacks could provoke a disproportionate counterterrorism response in Iran."Iranian officials will be called upon to step up intervention in Iraq (and) Syria big time," he said, adding that Wednesday's attacks will significantly boost IS morale amid battlefield defeats.___Batrawy reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi in Tehran; Sarah El Deeb and Phillip Issa in Beirut; Lori Hinnant in Paris; and producers Mohammad Nasiri and Mahdi Fattahi, and cameraman Saeed Sarmadi in Tehran contributed.Amir Vahdat And Aya Batrawy, The Associated Press.

Suspect in Notre Dame attack was ex-journalist, student-[The Canadian Press]-yahoonews-June 7, 2017

PARIS — The Algerian doctoral student suspected of attacking police officers in front of Notre Dame Cathedral — with cries of "This is for Syria!" and a hammer — was identified Wednesday by a relative and a friend as an ex-journalist who firmly believed in democratic values and showed no signs of radicalization.The Paris prosecutor's office said a search of a residence linked to the suspect in the suburb of Cergy-Pontoise uncovered a declaration of allegiance to the Islamic State group. A nephew in Algeria, lawyer Sofiane Ikken, said he was mystified by the finding because his uncle, Farid Ikken, had previously expressed disdain for the extremist group."I really can't understand it or believe it," the nephew said in a telephone interview. "We couldn't believe that Farid committed such an act. Everyone is calling me to say, 'We can't believe it. It's not the person we knew.'"The assault was the latest act of violence targeting security forces at high-profile sites in France, which remains under a state of emergency after a string of Islamic extremist attacks.French government spokesman Christophe Castaner told RTL radio that police quickly classified Tuesday's hammer attack as a "terrorist act" because of "the words he said." The assailant yelled "This is for Syria" while trying to strike officers patrolling outside Notre Dame, Interior Minister Gerard Collomb has said.One officer was injured slightly, police said Tuesday.Surveillance video provided Wednesday to The Associated Press showed a man lunging at officers on the plaza outside the iconic cathedral, then being shot. The attacker remained hospitalized with gunshot wounds.A student identity card showed he was from Algeria and 40 years old.University of Lorraine President Pierre Mutzenhardt told France Bleu radio that the suspect was enrolled as a student at the school in eastern France, where he had been working since 2014 on a thesis about North African media."There'd been no difficulties with him. Nothing strange had been detected," Mutzenhardt said.His thesis director, Arnaud Mercier, told broadcaster BFM that the alleged attacker spoke Swedish, Arabic and French and that his resume stated he had worked as a journalist in Sweden and Algeria."He was someone who believed a lot in democratic ideals, the expression of free thinking, in journalism," Mercier said on BFM. "Nothing, absolutely nothing, foretold that one day he'd be a jihadi who'd want to kill a policeman in the name of I don't know what cause."Neither the university president nor the thesis adviser mentioned the suspect by name.Algerian journalist Kamal Ouhnia, a friend who said he previously worked alongside Ikken on reporting assignments, described him as a bon vivant and a lover of fine wine."I don't believe at all that he was radicalized," he said in a phone interview. "I'm more inclined to think that he has suffered a nervous breakdown."The nephew said that after studying journalism in Sweden, Ikken was hired by a firm in Oslo, Norway, that sent him to Paris to work. He returned to Algeria in 2011, opening a PR agency, establishing an online newsletter and working as a journalist, before moving back to France for doctoral studies.Ikken's family is not religious, according to the nephew. When they last spoke three weeks ago, the nephew said he sensed his uncle was feeling "a little bit alone." He said they discussed Syria in the past and that Ikken was "sensitive about the massacres" there, but gave no indications of having been radicalized.The attack came as newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron is making good on a campaign promise to beef up counterterrorism efforts by creating a new unit to improve intelligence-sharing.It will be based at the presidential Elysee palace, operate 24 hours a day and act directly under the president's authority. The unit will focus on French citizens who joined the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq.The presidency says the counterterrorism unit also will identify strategies to counter propaganda aimed at promoting radicalization and instructions for carrying out attacks.___Aomar Ouali in Algiers, Algeria, and Lori Hinnant, Elaine Ganley and Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed. The story has been corrected to remove reference to the attacker being shot to death.John Leicester, The Associated Press.

Obama-Trudeau Bromance Reignited Over Dinner Date in Montreal-[Newsweek]-Sofia Lotto Persio-yahoonews-June 7, 2017

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former U.S. President Barack Obama finally reunited at a Montreal restaurant on Tuesday.Obama has spent the last few weeks traveling Europe, visiting with leaders and dignitaries in Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom. A speaking engagement in the Canadian city, Trudeau's hometown, provided the perfect occasion to catch up with his old friend, with whom Obama shared many a friendly handshakes and hugs in the past.The two met for dinner at the Liverpool House restaurant, which offers an oyster bar among other “market-inspired comfort dishes,” in the neighborhood St Henri, described by Canadian channel CBC as a former “bastion of Montreal’s francophone working class,” now “a favorite of condo-developers and fine diners.”“Tonight in Montreal, Barack Obama and Justin Trudeau discussed their shared commitment to developing the next generation of leaders,” read a tweet published by the Obama Foundation.“How do we get young leaders to take action in their communities? Thanks Barack Obama for your visit & insights tonight in my hometown,” Trudeau published on his Twitter account.Social media users have other theories about the topic of conversations among the two.For some, U.S. President Donald Trump's “covfefe” tweet was on the table.Others thought they discussed Trump’s recent announcement to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.While some said it was all a show for those who'd been craving for a Trudeau-Obama reunion.Social media users have obsessed over Obama’s friendships, sparking a series of memes about a bromance with his vice-president Joe Biden and recently, Prince Harry.Trudeau too succumbed to Obama’s charm and, at the end of the American president's time in office, the Canadian leader said he was going to miss him. Recently, however, Trudeau appeared to have moved on.During the G7 summit in Italy at the end of May, the Canadian premier was pictured warmly shaking the hand of and embracing French president Emmanuel Macron, sparking a wave of excitement among social media users who thought Trudeau had found another power bromance with a young, progressive leader.But the hug between Trudeau and Obama at the end of the meal suggests that the former American president will always hold a special place in the Canadian leader’s heart.

Liberals to spend extra $14B a year on defence, mostly after 2019 election-[The Canadian Press]-yahoonews-June 7, 2017

OTTAWA — Canada will increase annual defence spending by $13.9 billion over the next decade, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan said Wednesday as he unveiled the Liberal government's long-awaited vision for expanding the Canadian Armed Forces.The money will be used to put another 5,000 troops in uniform and add new modern capabilities, such as letting the military conduct cyberattacks and to buy armed drones for unmanned airstrikes.It will also go towards offsetting the skyrocketing financial — and political — cost of buying new warships and fighter jets."If we're serious about our role in the world, we must be serious about funding our military," Sajjan told a news conference."And we are."Sajjan described the plan as being focused on necessary outputs and capabilities in order to ensure Canada is strong at home, secure within North America and able to meet its international responsibilities."This is a significant investment in defence, 70 per cent incerase in our budget within 10 years," he said."This allows the Canadian Armed Forces now to be able to have the right resources and planned sustainable funding to be able to create the right plan and sustain itself for the future."Sajjan did not directly answer, however, when he was asked whether the additional spending would be financed by higher deficits or spending cuts elsewhere.Transport Minister Marc Garneau characterized the plan as a "new course" for Canada's military to both "meet the complex defence challenges of today" as well as prepare for future demands.It means, once fully realized, an increase in annual defence spending of about 70 per cent, Garneau said.The government will also commit a large amount of money to better support Canada's military personnel, particularly the ill and injured, as well as family members.Still, while some of the money will start flowing right away, the long-awaited defence policy document shows the taps aren't expected to open all the way until after the next election.Officials say the delay is necessary to make sure money is available for when it's needed.But the delay in major new funding is expected to raise concerns among those who wanted to see immediate spending increases as a hedge against future cost-cutting efforts aimed at fighting the deficit.That is what happened with the last such vision, unveiled by the previous Conservative government in 2008 but quickly rendered unaffordable and subjected to billions of dollars in spending cuts.The Liberals' much-anticipated defence policy has been a year in the making and represents the first comprehensive vision for Canada's military in more than a decade.The policy makes the case for a major expansion of Canada's military capabilities by three trends: growing tension between global powers; the changing nature of conflict; and rapid technological advancements.The plan also comes as Canada and other NATO allies have faced pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to dramatically increase defence spending to reach two per cent of GDP.Canada currently spends about one per cent of GDP on defence, which puts it at the back of the pack among NATO members.But the policy document says Canada has been under-reporting its defence spending for years by not including the money spent by other departments on such items as peacekeeping and veterans' benefits.As a result, it says defence spending is actually closer to around 1.19 per cent this fiscal year, and that it will increase to 1.4 per cent of GDP by 2026-27.In real terms, that will mean an increase in cash spending from about $18.9 billion this year to $32.7 billion in 2026-27, with the biggest jump — at least in the short term — in 2020-21.That increase, officials said, lines up with when the government plans to begin spending in earnest on 15 new warships, which are now expected to cost up to $60 billion to build instead of the previous estimate of $26 billion.The government also plans to buy 88 new fighter jets at a cost of between $15 billion and $19 billion, which is significantly more than the $9 billion the Conservatives budgeted for 65 F-35s.But the defence policy also puts off much of the spending until after the next election in 2019.— Follow @leeberthiaume on Twitter-Lee Berthiaume, The Canadian Press.

Myanmar military plane with 120 aboard goes missing-[The Canadian Press]-yahoonews-June 7, 2017

YANGON, Myanmar — A military transport plane with 120 people on board went missing Wednesday on a flight from southern Myanmar to Yangon, a military spokesman said. There were fears it may have crashed into the ocean, since its route would have taken it over the Andaman Sea.Gen. Myat Min Oo said the Chinese-made Y-8 turboprop aircraft was carrying 106 passengers — mostly families of military personnel — and 14 crew members when it went missing Wednesday afternoon. In an earlier statement, the number of passengers was said to be 90. It is not unusual for such flights to carry civilians to offset transportation costs for military families stationed in the somewhat remote south."The military plane went missing and lost contact after it took off from Myeik, and now the military has started a sea and air search with naval ships and military aircraft and is preparing for rescue operations," he said.It was raining at the time, but not heavily, he said.Myeik, also known as Mergui, is a city in southeastern Myanmar on the Andaman coast.An announcement posted on the Facebook page of the commander of the military, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, said the flight took off from Myeik at 1:06 p.m. and contact with it was lost at 1:35 p.m., when it was believed to be about 32 kilometres (20 miles) to the west of Dawei, formerly known as Tavoy.The area is about 440 miles (700 kilometres ) north of the last primary radar contact with Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which vanished on a flight from Malaysia to Beijing on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board. That plane is believed to have flown far off course and crashed into a remote area of the Indian Ocean.The military announcement said Myanmar received the Y-8 plane in March last year, and since then it had logged 809 flying hours.In a second announcement Wednesday night, the commander's office said six navy ships and three military aircraft were searching for the missing plane.Esther Htusan, The Associated Press.

Cosby's chief accuser denies romance before alleged assault-[The Canadian Press]-yahoonews-June 7, 2017

NORRISTOWN, Pa. — Bill Cosby's chief accuser on Wednesday denied they had a romantic relationship before he allegedly drugged and assaulted her at his suburban Philadelphia home.The defence resumed its cross-examination of Toronto native Andrea Constand one day after she broke her long public silence about Cosby by testifying that the comedian gave her three blue pills and then violated her with his fingers in 2004 as she lay paralyzed, unable to tell him to stop.Cosby lawyer Angela Agrusa suggested that Constand, a 44-year-old former employee of the basketball program at Temple University, once enjoyed a romantic dinner at Cosby's home before the alleged assault."You were sitting by the fire. The room was dark. There was a nice mood ...," Agrusa began, paraphrasing Constand's 2005 statement to police."I don't know what that means," Constand said."The lights were dim and the fire was going," the lawyer continued."I don't really remember how dim the lights were, but I did have to eat my dinner," Constand said.Agrusa also spent a painstaking hour going over Constand's phone records, hoping to show she changed her mind about the date she says Cosby assaulted her.Cosby arrived at the courthouse Wednesday accompanied by actress Sheila Frazier, who starred with him in the 1978 comedy "California Suite." Frazier was accompanied by her husband, John Atchison, a celebrity hairstylist whose clients include Cosby and his wife, Camille.Cosby, 79, is charged with aggravated indecent assault. The comedian once dubbed America's Dad could get 10 years in prison if convicted.Constand managed the women's basketball team at Temple, Cosby's alma mater, while he was a high-profile trustee. She said on Tuesday that she felt her continued friendship with Cosby after the alleged assault was important to the school's athletic department.His lawyers have tried to poke holes in Constand's story, citing differences between her courtroom testimony and the accounts she gave to police and in a lawsuit in 2005. The defence has argued the two had a romantic relationship, that Constand wasn't incapacitated and that the sexual encounter was consensual.The defence has pointed out that phone records show Constand called Cosby 53 times after she says he assaulted her. Constand told the jury the calls mostly involved the women's basketball team, especially around tournament time.Before Tuesday, Constand had never spoken about Cosby in public, barred from doing so under the terms of a confidential settlement they reached in 2006. Her deposition from that lawsuit remains sealed.Some 60 women have come forward to say Cosby sexually violated them, all but destroying his nice-guy image, but the statute of limitations for prosecution had run out in nearly every case. Constand's case is the only one in which Cosby has been charged.The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they are sexual assault victims unless they grant permission, which Constand has done.___For more on Cosby, including trial updates, historical photos, videos and an audio series exploring the case, visit: http://www.apnews.com/tag/CosbyonTrial-Maryclaire Dale And Michael R. Sisak, The Associated Press.

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