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Correct. There are two narratives surrounding the "Nakba". There are many resources espousing the virtues of each narrative. The mainstream has adopted the narrative that incorrectly attributes Arab migration exclusively Israeli military intimidation. In this thread, you have also been a proponent of this false narrative.

Sometimes I listen to OPPs, which is shorthand for Other People's Problems, and often there is a complaint against God included in their commentaries. Even though the Bible does record complaints against God, these typically are resolved, and in the case of Habakkuk, replaced with triumphant praise and strong commendations of God for providing an upward escape from downward experiences.

First, I am a Daniel guy because it is the only book I have ever studied. But I have heard that Daniel is necessary to understand Revelation. Regarding the 30 minutes in Daniel- I can’t seem to find a time element that speaks to this… It must / will be found in a OT book but I have not yet found it. But I decided to first look at the Sanctuary and the actions within it to see if there is / was a purposeful silent period within the atonement ritual. But it seems you have SO much information at your fingertips! You have offered more than a few thoughts on this… neat stuff! So, the silence in heaven— is that an event that is necessary to take place in heaven or on earth? Is it to occur to show ALL those in the heavenly realm what will take place there .. does it reveal what God will now do to satan … ? Thanks for your thoughts!! Charlie

Stephen Kinzer's All the Shah's Men (John Wiley & Sons, 2003) details how the US wrenched control of Iran's oil from the Iranian government led by Mossadegh, overthrown by a CIA-assisted coup-d'état in 1953 - originally the coup plan was British. The events of 1979 when religious radicals overthrew the US-assisted Shah were a result of this.

I think that is perfectly reasonable. However, as someone with no 'skin in the game', who has followed the conflict for decades and studied the history of the region (including prior to my Christian conversion), I would struggle to come up with 10 instances of the Israel side acting in an egregious, unprovoked, atrocious manner. To be conservative, let's say I missed some - and the true number is closer to 20 or 30. There are, by contrast (and without exaggeration or hyperbole), literally thousands of documented occasions when the Arab side has committed atrocities against Israel. That is, if you list and count them, there have been more attacks against Israel than days past since Israel's declaration of independence over 70 years ago. I understand (and respect) the inclination to want to hear both sides of the conflict. But I can only do so much when the facts tell an overwhelmingly one-sided story, and the mainstream adopts and promotes a false narrative to make the opposite seem true. How many times can the supposedly 'victimized' side of a conflict choose violence over negotiations - before we can start to question their good faith in the negotiation process? Not-to-mention the regional Arab's oft-stated, unequivocal, unhidden, uncompromising goal to snuff out the existence of Israel.

Water issues in the Middle East go back a long way. In 1955 there was the US-brokered Johnston Plan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Valley_Unified_Water_Plan

With regards to the West Bank: In 1967, after the six day war (in which Israel was attacked by most of its neighbors), Israel gained control of the water supply and, unsurprisingly, favored distribution to its own civilians. Even so, for subsequent decades, the West Bank were also receiving ample water supplies for their needs from Israel (which Israel was not obligated to supply to its enemies – whose consistent stated goal is to annihilate Israel). However, since then, the needs of both Israel proper and the West Bank have increased beyond sustainability. Currently, Israel gets most of its water through desalination. Furthermore, all of Israel’s attempts to negotiate water supplies into the West Bank have been stymied by “Palestinian” rejections. For example, in 2004, Israel proposed to build a desalination plant to increase freshwater supplies to the West Bank. The proposal was rejected by the Palestinian Authority. Negotiations over water have been on-and-off depending on the state of the conflict. It is therefore disingenuous, (and simplistic and/or uninformed) to paint this as simply Israel being the big bad meanies regarding this aspect of the conflict. Negotiations have been attempted, but it makes life difficult when you have to periodically dodge an intifada (i.e. when everyone stops talking to each other for years at a time). Regarding Gaza: If only there had been a government in Gaza since 2005, receiving billions of dollars annually in international aid; i.e. a government which could have used that money to secure its own electricity and water supplies. Are you aware that in 2015, Hamas forbade their people from digging wells to get fresh water? Gaza is essentially a mini-state, under the control of an elected terrorist organization. When a state goes to war with another state, there is no reasonable obligation on the attacked state to provide their attackers with resources. I would therefore suggest that this example is a false equivalency - i.e. when compared against the consistent violent aggression against Israel; the constant threat to civilian lives; the thousands of rocket attacks, terrorist attacks (bombings, stabbings, shootings of Israeli Jews) and acts of war committed against Israel in the name of those explicitly seeking Israel’s extinction (not to mention the recent slaughter and kidnap of innocent Jews). The current state of affairs is: Israel gained control of the water supplies in Israel in 1967. Israel cannot sensibly give over control of the water supply (with the potential to compromise Israel’s access to water) to terrorist-inclined parties seeking Israel’s demise. Arabs in the West Bank consider accepting charitable solutions from Israel to be potentially compromising to their own claims over the water supply (a cynic might be inclined to assume the Arabs also gain political momentum from showing the sorrowful state of their people). Therefore, a solution needs to be negotiated – which is hard to do when no one is talking to each other. Perhaps Israel could have been more charitable with regards to supplying more water to their enemies. It’s not an ideal situation. But it’s also not as black and white as your post implies.

@NConly Yes, hope it turns out much better next time.

@Coruscating There us of course a distinction between the believer and the unbeliever. Philippians 1.6: "He that hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ"

The Lord does not approve of complacency on our part. There is something worth writing about, things I do not share otherwise. Have I endured hardship? Indeed. Hardship was my life in this world until everything except for the life in this body was taken away. This can happen to some in combat zones: the zone changes them so that they can never go home again. There was a soldier during the Gulf War who said this to his section chief: "I can never go home." He never did. Something similar happened to me in this life. After the Lord raised me up to be a man again, He promised that nothing would be the same. I didn't understand His words until they started unfolding before my eyes. Whereas in the past I lived life waiting for the hammer to fall --- it always did, sometimes sooner than later --- the opposite was happening. I would wait for the hammer to fall and instead of disaster, blessings would fall like rain all around me. My adopted mother defeated cancer and the damage to her liver was miraculously "rolled back" so that she wasn't in danger any longer. Her heart softened toward the Lord. No one and nothing disturbed the peace on her land again, and this was the promise the Lord made after He poured His Spirit upon me. She would live the rest of her days in peace knowing that she was loved. Not long before sudden illness took her, the Lord sent a dream wherein He displayed that my time on her land was coming to an end, and that He would take her. When I woke from that dream, He told me not to despair. Nothing on this earth endures forever, said the Lord. I would not remain on her ranch. That's how nothing was the same again. I was no longer ignorant of His will and instead of calamity, the Lord encourages me to stand and walk confident not in myself, but confident in Him. When I said, "Lord, I can be a terrible man." He assured me that I would not lack for a teacher in Him. I continue to overcome the war zone I lived and breathed in for so long, and I learned the wise alternative to expecting the worst: Accepting that whatever befalls me is according to His will and purpose.

Syria in those days was a much wider term; until the 1943 independence of Lebanon it included what is now Lebanon. The Syrian Republic dates from 1946.

@Coruscating You would know of the Mirror, anyway, where the article was.

Yes, the Judgment will be there, but until then we will have everything we need for life.

@Coruscating Great Psalm there. There are also solemn warnings such as in Hebrews 10.26.

I believe God doesn't leave us in the darkness, God lives through darkness with us and Is always at hand, if we want Him, but we are the owners of our choices. "When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward You. Nevertheless, I am continually with You; You hold my right hand. You guide me with Your counsel, and afterward You will receive me to glory." (Psalm 73:21-24)

PS: @Coruscating The Mirror is a British paper, right? Seems like it's becoming really widespread over there also as a means of expression, anyway: ........................................ Paula Castle took up tattooing after being made redundant from a sales job ..."I really did not want to do it. ...But I’m a bit of an all or nothing person so I said ‘yes’ and really pushed myself and I’ve not stopped...About 97% of my clients are female and that is universal across the board." James McCarthy, Mirror dot co dot uk ............................ (Some would likely be faith-based, anyhow.)

As to sermons, I much prefer expository preaching/teaching, word by word through the Bible, to sermons. Why? Because those word by word studies give to me fuller expansion of the significance of the word being shared. All that I may have it come to mind as and when I have need of it. The word and it's fuller exposition being the armor honed and at the ready when I need it. Whereas a lecture, a sermon, is list of don'ts for the most part. Kind of useless to me within the world I face. I need have do's come to mind, not the don'ts, and I need have rather precise clarification that expository presentation provides.

@Coruscating i.e., ....If we keep refusing the light, the Lord may well just give us what we say we want and leave us in the darkness.

Hi @Coruscating I am reminded of the words of the Lord Jesus: "Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth."

@Figure of eighty I don't know you, but your post has been in my mind and you in my prayers. I hope I'm not out of place by answering you like this. Don't go away from God. Your prayer can be as sad as: "Lord, today I want to live as if You didn't exist —but help me not to want this. I feel overwhelmed with the responsibility that being a Christian brings. Every way I turn, I feel like I'm doing something wrong and I am tired. I feel deprived and I'm angry. Help me see. Help me to want to see. Make me want to grow in You; I don't want to do that now, but how good it would be if I wanted to. Meet me where I'm at, because I am weary of thinking that I must be much taller to reach you. I feel small, I need rest in my smallness; let me be still near You, even if my flesh tells me to be away from You, may the spirit be fed by You. Give me faith to believe even in this prayer, help me in my sincerity. My heart is this one, it is in this state, but to whom would I give it if not You?" Because, Figure of Eighty, where you are going now is a very deep well. And when you reach the bottom, where you think it can't get worse, you will find a drain and descend even deeper. There are no free lunches with the other side. There are no grey areas. There are only darkness and light. The neutral space where you think you are entering doesn't exist. The control you think you have, the "I'll check in later", the "then I will do it" is a consequence of a complete blindness to what you are risking. You don't need to love Him out of duty. God is someone to fall in love with, by knowing Him. He can work with a sincere heart regardless of its state. He is patient and He does want to be known. And He is so deserving of love. I pray that you live this.

Thanks to all who voted so far in the poll. NB: If you have not yet voted in the poll, please vote now.

Interesting, but this rather stoic conservative individual sings like never before in his life and raises his arms, (when they will raise), not in outward expression, but as a unity of all my components, a manifestation of inner heart, mind, body, and soul. God knows my heart, - and so do I.

Get real. A verb is not a state of being. Being is a verb. None of which are constant. If they had form they would be resilient to the winds and pressures, but they are constantly shifting. Thus, though they can have shapes, they have no form. This is one of many, many things you'll never understand. You've used claims to support your claims. No evidence. You deny that you are professing a modern heresy and yet all of your evidence comes from the 70's. Here is REAL evidence. Galations 1:6-10 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Thank you MM, that was very good. Look forward to the rest of the series.

"I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" - Isaiah 5:8 As long as I dwell on my own qualities and traits and think about what I am suited for, I will never hear the call of God. The majority of Christians cannot hear anything but themselves -- and cannot hear anything God says. Through an act of consecration we "ask, seek, and knock" (Matthew 7:7) until we come to understand our Christ calling and begin to seek His Kingdom First. "Jesus said to her, 'Give Me a drink.'" - John 4:7 How many Christians are expecting Jesus Christ to quench their thirst when they should be satisfying Him! We should be pouring out our lives, investing our total beings. The goal of our Christ calling is to co-labor with Him in advancing His Kingdom as we disciple others into their Christ identity. AFFIRMATIONS AND MEDITATIONS: I grab hold of the moment that I am in - I do not let the enemy win the moment. God is advancing me forward -- even into a place of glory, I've not known. The light God is beginning to burn in me will draw many fish to me. My supply is there -- I gain momentum -- I stoke my fire -- I break the coldness and the waters -- as I dwell in the Holy Spirit. ALBERT FINCH MINISTRY