Israel/America Watch

[Matthitjah]

I'm a little irritated that we are being played like political pawns by this administration.

It would seem that we(Christianity) are now negotiating what would be best for Israel. It's like were negotiating away G-ds solemn Word. Also if you read the below article you will see how speachs and statements have been rewritten to play to our itching ears. Wake - Up!.

We are seriously presenting a plan that will divide Israel and Jerusalem and giving the Palestinians a state in sovereign Israel. Meanwhile we hear staements from this Administration about how We will guarentee Israels security.

It smacks of the prophet Daniel. Just because it is not happening the way we have always been taught by the Church by and large. Does not mean it is not happening.

You also see from this article that certain Christain leaders are starting to stand with Israel and even Pray for her in her own language. You'll take notice that the Jews are starting to understand who their best friends are in the end times. They are being provoked to jealousy by our over abundent expression of Love to them.

Who will stand in the end with Israel? Chritianity will. Why? This matter greatly concerns G-d. We should be concerned with the things He's concerned with. We should reflect His will.

How long Oh' Saints before all this breaks down and the Jews and Christians are blamed for our lack of tolerance? Then will the Saints be given into the hand of the deceiver who persecutes the Saints of G-d for 3 1/2 years?

I don't know but I am very leary of this Plan and the trouble it brings. I for one am beggining to rethink who I voted for.

GBU all Richly! Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!Pray Earnestly!

Here is the story enquotefrom MSNBC and Newsweek;

Bush has fostered an alliance with Jewish supporters of Israel and the rapidly-growing ranks of Christian Zionists 

A Very Mixed Marriage   

Evangelical Christians lining up to fight for Israel maybe an unmovable obstacle to Bush

[tsth]

Wow! Pretty important article and sentiments. Thank you for posting it Dr. Luke. Gives me pause for thought......just exactly where we are in God's timeframe?

In His Love,

Suzanne

[rollinTHUNDER]

What

[tsth]

(Boy if you ask me..........Sharon is just a little too willing, a little too quick to comply.................but nobody did.........ask me that is)

Sharon offers to pull IDF troops out of Palestinian cities

By HERB KEINON

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon offered a withdrawal of IDF troops from Palestinian cities in his meeting with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas in Jerusalem Thursday night.

After the meeting, which lasted from 9 p.m. to just before midnight, the Prime Minister's Office issued a statement saying Sharon repeated his demand that the PA take concrete action against terrorism, adding if they do so, he will immediately order an IDF redeployment in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

He said this will be done in a manner that will make it possible for the PA to take security control in these areas, the statement said.

"The IDF will move out of the main cities in the West Bank and decrease Israeli military presence there," the statement said.

With that, Sharon said that if terror reemerges from these areas and the PA does nothing to stop it, the IDF will not hesitate to act.

Sharon announced a series of steps to ease the humanitarian situation in the territories, including lifting the closure in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, increasing the amount of money transferred each month to the PA from funds frozen at the beginning of the violence, and increasing the number of work permits for Palestinians to 25,000.

At the end of the meeting, it was agreed that "talks at a professional level will continue, and this wide-ranging dialogue will be overseen by the two leaders."

However, even before the meeting to discuss steps to implement the road map, disagreements emerged over the idea of a PA temporary cease-fire, or hudna, with Hamas.

"If Israel is ready to stop its military actions against us and start freeing political prisoners, I think we are ready to guarantee a total cessation of violence," PA Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath told Channel 1 Thursday night.

Abbas, in an interview with Yediot Aharonot published Thursday, said he expected to reach a cease-fire agreement with Hamas "by next week."

Sharon, however, has said repeatedly that Israel will not be satisfied with a tactical cease-fire between the PA and the terrorist organizations, but expects the PA to tackle the terror infrastructure. This sentiment was echoed by US Secretary of State Colin Powell on his recent visit.

The five steps expected of the PA are arresting terrorists and bringing them to trial, confiscating and removing illegal arms, disbanding the terrorist organizations, engaging in preemptive acts against terrorists, and ending incitement.

Israel will "definitely not" accept a hudna, Sharon adviser Zalman Shoval said. A cease-fire could only be a first step to beginning "an effective, determined effort against the terror," he said.

"The hudna is a temporary cease-fire; [the terror] can start up again any day if they do not take apart the terror organizations. It is a tap that you open and close," Shoval said.

PA cabinet minister Ziad Abu Amr said the Israelis should not be concerned with the details of how the Palestinians end the attacks.

"The Israelis would do us a service if they would not try to impose solutions on us," he said. "We know what works and what does not work."

Thursday night's meeting at the Prime Minister's Office, the second in two weeks, took place despite rumors throughout the day that it had been postponed.

Government officials said the rumors of a postponement came from the PA and were an indication of the internal battles taking place between Abbas and PA Chairman Yasser Arafat over the current diplomatic process. The Abbas-Sharon meeting was to have taken place on Tuesday, but was pushed off by the PA in a move interpreted by Jerusalem as an attempt by Arafat to exert authority.

Abbas was accompanied by security chief Muhammad Dahlan and Shaath, who was widely perceived as Arafat's envoy in the talks. Sharon was accompanied by his bureau chief Dov Weisglass.

Sharon has indicated that if the PA takes the five concrete steps to tackle terrorism in specific areas in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, he is willing to withdraw the IDF from these areas.

Sharon was expected to tell Abbas that the government will make the humanitarian gestures promised when Powell was here two weeks ago, but which were frozen by a wave of terror. These steps include the lifting of closures and increasing the number of Palestinians allowed to work here. Abbas also wants Israel to release more security prisoners, cease house demolitions, and stop targeted assassinations.

The two sides are also expected to be working on a joint declaration to be made at the Wednesday Akaba summit with US President George W. Bush expressing a commitment to ending the violence and officially launching the road map process.

Although a US diplomatic official said the Bush administration is trying to minimize expectations of anything dramatic emerging from this meeting, he did say that these discussions do contribute to overall progress in moving the process forward.

On Wednesday, US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said that "this is going to be a long process, and it is going to have its ups and downs, as it always has."

Meanwhile, Bush's spokesman Ari Fleischer said the president is going to "look the leaders of the Israelis in the eye and look the leaders of the Palestinians in the eye and say to them, "You must make progress; you must implement the road map; you must carry out your concrete obligations."

The PA must improve security and Israel must provide humane treaty to the Palestinians, he said.

Meanwhile, Israeli diplomatic officials said that in addition to a declaration coming out of the Akaba meeting, they are also expecting a declaration to emerge from Bush's meeting with Arab heads of state in Sharm e-Sheikh that will do something to improve the atmosphere in the region.

One official said it is likely that Jordan and Egypt will declare there that if the IDF withdraws to the lines it held prior to the outbreak of violence in September 2000, they will send heir ambassadors back to Israel. This move could be flowed by the reopening of interest sections here that were closed by Tunisia and Morocco, and perhaps some gesture from Bahrain, which is also slated to be at the Sharm meeting.

Although Israel had said that it did not want the summit held in Egypt because it did not want to reward Egypt by giving it a central part in the diplomatic process, The New York Times reported Thursday that both Egypt and Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah objected to Sharon attending.

One American official said that this is one of the few issues on which the Israelis and Egyptians see eye to eye Sharon didn't want to go Egypt, and the Egyptians weren't crazy about hosting him.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher, meanwhile, said the participation of Abbas and not Arafat at the summit at Sharm "is not an encroachment on the Palestinian legitimacy. His participation, in fact, was upon approval from President Arafat."

Maher made his comments to reporters after meeting with Assistant Secretary of State William Burns, who arrived with National Security Council adviser Elliot Abrams.

[Matthitjah]

Hi all Saints,

It would seem President Bush is committing Political Suicide.

As evidenced by this article from the Jerusalem Post;

Rise up, Republicans, By Michael Freund

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Jun. 3, 2003

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Nearly 20 years ago, while some of my teenage friends were out doing the kinds of things our grandparents' generation would have thought morally reprehensible, I was busy doing something they might have considered even worse handing out flyers on behalf of a Republican presidential candidate.

I still remember the sneers, and the occasional smiles, that my nascent political activity evoked as I stood there in New York's Grand Central Station, a kippa perched on my head, trying to persuade rush-hour commuters to cast their ballots for Ronald Reagan.

At the time, the very idea of a "young Jewish Republican" was still something of an oddity, as most Jews continued to lean leftwards, carrying on what for many was the equivalent of an inviolable family tradition, namely to vote Democratic come thick or thin.

In the intervening years, of course, that has started to change, as increasing numbers of American Jews have begun to find a comfortable ideological home in the GOP, a place where they can park their political identities while still remaining true to their belief in the need for a safe and secure Israel.

But whatever gains the Republican have made among American Jews in recent years are now in danger of being erased, and the person to blame for this may be none other than George W. Bush himself.

Though Bush received just 19 percent of the Jewish vote in 2000, the aftermath of 9/11 and the president's tough stand against Yasser Arafat enthralled numerous American Jews, leading to what many perceived to be a potentially galvanizing shift among the Children of Abraham away from the Democrats and towards the party of Lincoln.

Indeed, a May 8 Boston Globe article noted that "after a year and a half of strong statements from President Bush about fighting terrorism, along with his equally strong backing of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel, some prominent analysts in both parties say they detect a shift in the Jewish community" toward the Republicans.

But that shift is now at risk as Bush heads to Aqaba today for a summit meeting with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Abu Mazen, where he will press for implementation of the road map leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state.

By compelling Israel to make concessions inimical to its security, Bush is gambling not only with the future of the Land of Israel but also with that of the Republican party itself. His pursuit of the road map, and his insistence that Israel turn over territory to its enemies, has rightly evoked a growing sense of anger and frustration among many pro-Israel American Jews and Christians.

After all, how can Bush possibly justify coercing Israel to appease Arab terror at the same time that America is using force against it? And why should the Palestinian regime be rewarded with statehood when the Taliban and Saddam Hussein were punished with removal from power? With next year's presidential election campaign just around the corner, Bush is playing with political fire, making it virtually impossible for American Jews who support Israel to fully embrace him and his party.

Consider, for example, the letter sent to the White House last week by the official Israeli branch of Republicans Abroad, in which the group warned the president that pressing ahead with the road map "will only serve to alienate American Jews and the Christian Right."

In the letter, the group's leaders noted that "We are aware of increasing numbers of American citizens, both here in Israel and in the United States, who are now considering abandoning the Republican party as a result of your Administration's pursuit of the 'Road Map.'"

AND IF you think the Jewish vote doesn't matter anymore in American politics, then think again.

According to a 2001 study by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 55% to 60% of American Jews consistently vote Democratic, 10% are loyal Republicans, while 30% to 35% "can be lured by any party depending on its position." Sprinkled among key battleground states in the campaign, that large group in the middle "adds up to a swing vote representing up to 2% of the electorate in states like Florida and Pennsylvania," says the study.

In either case, "a shift of that amount would have changed the result in that state and, in all probability, singlehandedly crowned the American president. Put another way, the Jewish swing vote, mobilized behind a particular candidate, would have given him the 2000 election."

Thus the Jewish vote remains key and is sure to play an important role in next year's presidential election campaign.

But the political risk to Bush may be even greater than just the loss of Jewish votes, for his strong-arm tactics against Israel have also started to arouse the ire of a key component of his core constituency, the Christian Right.

Just last Thursday, Bush received a political warning shot across his bow from Christian televangelist Pat Robertson, the founder of the Christian Coalition and a former Republican presidential candidate.

Speaking on the Christian Broadcasting Network, Robertson declared, "The president of the United States is imperiling the nation of Israel. Not only is he going against the clear mandate of the Bible, which is very important, but he's also setting up a situation where Israel will no longer have secure borders."

He even suggested that Bush's insistence on establishing a Palestinian state "will be the beginning of the end of the state of Israel as we know it." Those are pretty strong words, the kind of words that could cost Bush and his fellow Republicans a lot of votes next year if they aren't careful.

Sure, Bush's approval ratings may still be riding high after the recent war in Iraq, but as the memory of the victory fades and a lethargic economic recovery sets in, if at all, those numbers will begin to slide, and the president knows it.

Hence, as unlikely as it may seem right now, the outcome of next year's presidential race is far from being a foregone conclusion.

It is therefore imperative that Republicans Christian and Jew alike speak up now, loudly and unequivocally, against the road map.

Not just because it endangers the future of Israel, although that should be reason enough, but also because it threatens to undermine the principled stand which the party has taken in the global war on terror, in the process needlessly driving away countless numbers of sympathetic Jewish and Christian voters alike.

There is simply no good moral, political, or ideological reason for Bush to be twisting Israel's arm, and he needs to understand that he will pay a price at the ballot box if he does.

Republicans who care about Israel, then, need to rise up and send the president a clear and unambiguous message: If you choose Palestine, then come November 2004, we will not hesitate to choose someone else in your stead.

The writer served as deputy-director of Communications & Policy Planning under prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

Or is the President just serving our own selfish interest's?

As evidenced by this article from Arutz Sheva;

Ishmael, Jacob and George

Martin Wasserman

02 June 2003  Email this story

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Why does Israel get so little support from the international community? It clearly wants peace more than the Arabs do, and it

[rollinTHUNDER]

Sorry folks, I went a little overboard with that last post, so I'm editing it out. Sometimes I wear my heart on my sleeve. It would probably be better to be slow to speak and quick to listen, watch, wait and pray. :rofl: