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)
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
American UN ambassador to visit Jerusalem’s Old City-Nikki Haley, Trump administration’s most outspoken pro-Israel champion, scheduled to crisscross country, from Gaza periphery to northern border-By Raphael Ahren June 4, 2017, 7:22 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley is due to visit the Old City of Jerusalem this week.Haley, one of the Trump administration’s most staunchly pro-Israel officials, is scheduled to arrive Wednesday morning at Ben Gurion Airport for her first visit to the Jewish state since taking office in January. During her three-day stay, she is set to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin as well as with senior Palestinian dignitaries.She is also expected to go to Tel Aviv, visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem, and take helicopter rides to Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip and the its northern border.“We’re happy to host in our country a true friend of Israel,” Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, said in a statement. “Haley has been standing with Israel for many years now, and especially since she arrived at the UN. Her important visit is an opportunity to present to her our country and the joint challenges that stand before us.”According to a press release, Danon will accompany Haley throughout the visit, but at this point it is unclear whether he also will come with her to the Old City of Jerusalem.Last month, US President Donald Trump visited the Western Wall and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, both located in the disputed Old City. The first US president to make such visits while in office, he visited the sites in a private capacity and without official Israeli accompaniment.Israel captured the Old City and other parts of East Jerusalem during the 1967 Six Day War and subsequently annexed them. The entire international community, including the US, has never recognized Israel’s claim to that part of the city.Many foreign visitors to Israel who want to visit the Old City do so in a private capacity so they don’t appear to be tacitly recognizing Israeli sovereignty in the contested area.In the lead-up to Trump’s Israel visit, some senior US officials refused to say whether they consider the Western Wall part of Israel. Haley was the only senior member of the administration who took a clear stand on the matter.“I don’t know what the policy of the administration is, but I believe the Western Wall is part of Israel and I think that that is how we’ve always seen it and that’s how we should pursue it,” she said in a May 17 interview. “We’ve always thought the Western Wall was part of Israel.”On Monday, Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn is also scheduled to tour Jerusalem’s Old City.On March 27, Haley addressed the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC, garnering more thunderous applause than any other speaker. There’s a “new sheriff in town,” she declared, announcing that “the days of Israel-bashing are over.” If the UN’s member states continue obsessing about and demonizing the Jewish state, “we’re going to kick them every single time,” she pledged.Since then, she has been the uncontested darling of America’s pro-Israel community.
Nikki Haley: Trump sees embassy move as part of the peace process-UN envoy tells CNN the president ‘hasn’t changed his position on moving the embassy,’ but didn’t want to harm negotiations-By Eric Cortellessa June 4, 2017, 6:52 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
WASHINGTON — The US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said on Sunday that President Donald Trump regards the question of the American Embassy’s location in Israel as constituting part of the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians.“I think that he knows that it could be very much a part of the peace process,” she told CNN. “What he did want to do was make sure that he wasn’t interrupting the negotiations that are happening with the peace process.”Last week, Trump formally deferred — at least for now — his campaign pledge to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and recognize the city as Israel’s capital.On Thursday, he signed a waiver that defers a Congressional mandate to relocate the embassy. The 1995 law provides the US president with the prerogative to postpone the move on national security grounds. Each of Trump’s three immediate predecessors — Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama — repeatedly exercised that right.In announcing the decision, the White House said Trump was not fulfilling his campaign pledge because he wanted to “maximize the chances of successfully negotiating a deal,” something he’s been pursuing since assuming office.Haley added to that sentiment, telling interviewer Jake Tapper that, in light of its attempts to forge peace, the administration did not want to interfere with the process.“I think that they feel like it’s moving forward in a constructive way and he didn’t want this to get in the way,” she said.Trump has already hosted both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at the White House, and he visited with both leaders in the region during his first foreign trip two weeks ago.Haley also added to another White House assurance that an embassy move was not ruled out but merely postponed.“The question is not if that move happens, but only when,” Trump’s Press Secretary Sean Spicer said in a statement Thursday.“He hasn’t changed his position on moving the embassy,” Haley said. “It’s all about time. I think that he wants to see how the peace process plays out and then handle it accordingly.”While Trump repeatedly — and emphatically — promised to move the embassy during the campaign, he demurred on that promise early in his presidency.For her part, Haley has not been reluctant to voice her independent beliefs regarding where the embassy should be located.“Obviously, I believe that the capital should be Jerusalem and the embassy should be moved to Jerusalem because if you look at all their government is in Jerusalem,” she told CBN News last month. “So much of what goes on is in Jerusalem and I think we have to see that for what it is.”
Hamas slams PA official for acknowledging Western Wall is Jewish-Jibril Rajoub’s declaration that holy Jerusalem site ‘must remain under Jewish sovereignty’ is a ‘national crime’ and an ‘abuse of the Palestinian people,’ says terror group-By Times of Israel staff June 4, 2017, 6:04 pm
The Hamas terror organization on Sunday harshly criticized a top Palestinian Authority official for acknowledging that the Western Wall is a Jewish holy site that must remain under Jewish sovereignty.Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem slammed Fatah Central Committee member Jibril Rajoub for his statement, which departed from the formal Palestinian position branding all of Jerusalem’s Old City as occupied territory that must become part of a Palestinian state.“The statement is a national crime,” Qassem said, which constitutes “abuse of the Palestinian people and their holy places.”The Hamas spokesman posted on the terror group’s Arabic website that Raboub’s comments showed the national and moral decay of the Fatah party, by officially relinquishing what he called the sacred, national and historical Palestinian claim to the site. He said that such statements mock “the struggle and sacrifices of the Palestinian people.”Qassem said that the leaders of Fatah — the Mahmoud Abbas-led faction that constitutes the mainstay of the Palestinian Authority — were trying to present themselves as “peace doves” at the expense of the “Palestinian cause and homeland.”“We call upon the Palestinian factions to shoulder their responsibilities and to stifle those who beg for concessions or attempt to undermine the Palestinian cause,” he said.Speaking to Israel’s Channel 2 TV on Saturday, Rajoub, who is also head of the Palestinian Football Association, praised US President Donald Trump’s efforts to reach a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians and commenting on his visit last month to Israel and the West Bank.“He went to the Western Wall, which we understand is a holy place to the Jews. In the end, it must remain under Jewish sovereignty. We have no argument about that. This is a Jewish holy place,” said Rajoub, who is sometimes bruited as a successor to Abbas.His statement ran counter to the Palestinians’ long-running campaign to deny a Jewish historical connection to Jerusalem.Rajoub’s remarks differ sharply from Abbas’s comments after Trump visited the Western Wall and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City less than two weeks ago.At a joint press conference with Trump in Bethlehem, Abbas referred to “your historic visit to holy sites in occupied East Jerusalem.”At the same time, Rajoub insisted that the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, which today houses the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, be given to the Palestinians in any future peace deal.“The Temple Mount is ours, it’s not yours, you need to stop talking about it,” Rajoub said, speaking in Hebrew. “The status quo since 1967, which was set by Moshe Dayan, I think we both need to aim for that,” he said.The current Israeli government is unlikely to agree to such a division of sovereignty, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently saying that the Temple Mount would remain under Israeli sovereignty for eternity.Israel captured East Jerusalem — including the Temple Mount — during the June 1967 war.Then-defense minister Dayan agreed that the day-to-day running of the Temple Mount compound would remain in the hands of Jordanian-run Islamic Waqf, or Muslim trust. Under that arrangement, which still holds, Jews can visit the site, but not pray there.Despite the passage of five decades, the international community does not recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, saying the issue must be resolved in peace talks with Palestinians.In the Saturday interview, Rajoub repeatedly praised Trump and his willingness to reach a deal, saying that the US president is unlike any of his predecessors in his grasp of what it takes to end the conflict. “He’s completely different to the others,” he said.The US has been pressuring both the Israeli and the Palestinians to make concessions in order to get long-dormant peace talks back on track.In an effort not to derail those efforts, Trump backtracked on his election promise to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, signing a waiver earlier this week that delays the move by six months.Announcing the decision, the White House insisted it did not represent a weakening of his support for Israel.“President Trump made this decision to maximize the chances of successfully negotiating a deal between Israel and the Palestinians, fulfilling his solemn obligation to defend America’s national security interests. But, as he has repeatedly stated his intention to move the embassy, the question is not if that move happens, but only when.”Rajoub also appealed to the Israeli public, saying this was a historic opportunity and they should not doubt the commitment of the Palestinians and Abbas to reach a peace deal.Abbas “is the godfather of the Palestinian national movement,” Rajoub said. “He is the only one with the vision and the balls to reach a deal.”“You have a partner on the Palestinian side for a historic compromise between two peoples… Two states for two peoples,” he said, addressing another key Israeli complaint, that the Palestinians refuse to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. The Palestinian Authority has often said that the Palestinians recognize Israel but not as a Jewish state because that would prejudice the rights of Arab Israelis.He said most Palestinians “certainly” believe in the two-state solution, and charged that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “doesn’t want a partner.”“We have to do it today, not tomorrow.” Rajoub said. “I say to the Israelis, let’s do business, let’s flip the cassette, let’s pave the way forward… We recognize your right to your state, to build it and live in it in peace and in security, but in the 1967 borders,” he said.
Analysis / Hundreds of gunmen are being trained to carry out attacks inside Israeli territory-With an army of 27,000, Hamas terror chief Deif readies Gaza for war-The Strip’s Islamist regime may not want conflict yet, but its ‘chief of staff’ is preparing for one. And some believe it is better equipped for conflict than it was in 2014-By Avi Issacharoff June 4, 2017, 6:08 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
If things weren’t bad enough for residents of the Gaza Strip, the ocean — the only place where they could escape the heat and their suffering — has been declared off-limits to bathers in much of the area. The decision was taken by the Gaza municipality, citing the severe pollution of the beaches. Gaza’s sewage-treatment plants have shut down due to the ongoing power shortage, and as a result, untreated sewage has been flowing into the sea.“The only place we could go to have fun has been closed too,” said T., a Gaza City resident, in a telephone interview. “There are a few beaches in the northern Gaza Strip where swimming is still possible, but they’re far away. So where are we going to go? There’s no pay, no power, no beach. We’re swimming in shit,” he added, laughing bitterly.Anyone in Israel inclined toward schadenfreude about the Gazans’ suffering might be advised to reconsider. The Mediterranean currents could easily carry Gaza’s sewage to the beaches of Ashkelon, Ashdod, and farther north.T. said that the despair is growing worse each day. “We’re in the month of Ramadan. There were years when the streets were filled every night with people coming and going, just like in Ramallah.” This year, by contrast, although younger Gazans still crowd the cafes, “people have no money to shop,” said T. “There’s no violence and the situation is relatively calm, but I wouldn’t be surprised if one day you see people starting to march in desperation toward the Erez border crossing.”Hamas has also been talking of a potential mass march toward the Israeli border fence. The terror group held a so-called day of rage on Friday, and said it would continue into this week and that as part of it, Gaza residents would march toward the fence. Hamas’s intention is to channel public anger toward Israel while sending the message to the Israelis that if the power shortage is not relieved soon, the situation could deteriorate into a full-scale conflict.Still, the news out of Gaza is not all bleak.First, Israel did not reduce the amount of electricity that it provides to the Strip on June 1, even though the Palestinian Authority asked Israel, which collects tax money on behalf of the PA and then transfers it on, to decrease the amount it deducts from that sum for paying Gaza’s overdue electric bill.The average resident of the Gaza Strip receives approximately four to six hours of electricity each day. If Israel had reduced the amount of electricity that it provides, this would have gone down to two to four hours each day. Evidently due to pressure from National Infrastructure, Energy and Water Resources Minister Yuval Steinitz, defense establishment officials decided to stop the planned reduction and wait.Second, Hamas is doing everything in its power to prevent another round of armed conflict with Israel from breaking out. If we look closely at its behavior since Operation Protective Edge ended in August 2014, Hamas — an organization sworn to the State of Israel’s destruction — is acting almost like Israel’s own Border Police. While the purpose of the positions it has established along Israel’s border may primarily be to keep a lookout on the enemy, they also prevent armed men who could perpetrate terror attacks against Israeli targets from getting near the fence.Hamas has been working to prevent both terror attacks and rocket fire against Israel. Where it has not managed to prevent the latter, it has arrested and even tortured operatives of jihadist groups responsible for the fire from time to time. So-called “rebel” groups have been responsible for all the rocket-fire incidents that have taken place — 40 in all — since the end of the last war almost three years ago.Hamas officials inspect the drivers who arrive at the Kerem Shalom border crossing from the Palestinian side to thwart any planned terror attacks there. They also speak with Palestinian fishermen before they go out to sea to make sure they do not leave the waters where fishing is permitted.So much for the “good” news. Now for the rest.-Deif’s army-Even as Hamas tries to avoid a conflict now, it is preparing intensively for the next war.And there are some who believe its position today is stronger than it was in the summer of 2014.Hamas is built like an army in every way. It has at its disposal 27,000 armed men divided into six regional brigades, with 25 battalions and 106 companies.Of this military array, 2,500 armed men are members of the Nuhba, Hamas’s elite unit. A third of these troops are intended to be sent to carry out attacks inside Israeli territory. These gunmen are supposed to strike from the sea (the naval commandos), from the air (using flying ATVs or motorized gliders, for example), and, of course, from the ground, mainly via cross-border tunnels, from which they would emerge to raid an Israeli residential community or army base in order to kidnap and kill.The tunnels are the main focus of Hamas’s military efforts.Hamas invests even more in “defensive” tunnels — those it uses inside the Gaza Strip — than in the attack tunnels that are designed to penetrate into Israeli territory. It has tunnels inside Gaza thought to be dozens of kilometers long: an actual city beneath the Strip that will enable the entire rocket operation, as well as Hamas’s command and control echelons, to continue to function even during severe aerial bombardment by Israel.In charge of this entire effort is Mohammed Deif, the terror chief with nine lives. Born in the Khan Younis refugee camp 52 years ago, Deif has been a wanted man since the 1980s, when he was among those who set up Hamas’s military wing.Deif has been wounded several in assassination attempts. One of his wives and two of his children were killed in an Israeli attempt on his life during 2014’s Operation Protective Edge.Not only has he returned to his position despite his injuries, but Deif is also considered the military wing’s supreme commander and is responsible for building Hamas’s military strength and preparing it for war. While Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s overall Gaza chief, is considered a “defense minister” of sorts, Deif concentrates on the military sphere. He has set up a small general staff whose members include his deputy, Marwan Issa, military intelligence head Ayman Nofal, and several Hamas brigade commanders.Deif and his “supervising minister” Sinwar — both of whom are considered radical even by Hamas standards — are cautious and in no hurry to start a war with Israel. This, despite the worsening situation in the Gaza Strip, the ongoing closure of the Rafiah border crossing, and the PA’s threats to force tens of thousands of officials into retirement and cut the salaries of the ones staying on.As far as the old-new Hamas headed by Ismail Haniyeh, Sinwar, and Deif is concerned, the main goal, at least for now, is not another war with Israel, but rather the survival of Hamas’s regime in Gaza and a future takeover of Palestinian power centers — the West Bank and the PLO — in their entirety.-Adapting-One reason Hamas is not eager for another conflict just yet is that Gaza’s population has had its fill of war and catastrophe. The inhabitants of the Strip have adapted to the new situation of prolonged power outages, salary cutbacks, and so on, and, as always, have learned to survive.For example, after the iftar and the tarawih — the evening break-fast meal and the prayer service afterward — the young people hurry off to Gaza’s famous cafés, such as Gahwetna, on the Sheikh Ajlin neighborhood’s polluted beach, and Habiba. The nargila is the item most in demand there, along with coffee, tea, and fruit juice. These establishments are for the young men — the shabab — only. Other places — such as the Al-Deira Café (on the Rimal beach), the adjacent Roots, and Level Up, on the eleventh floor of a building in the Rimal section — have a mixed clientele.The threats by the PA in Ramallah to decrease fund transfers to Gaza continue to loom. T., for one, is sharply critical. “I don’t know what Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) is trying to accomplish with the cutbacks and reducing the payments for electricity. He wants to punish Hamas, but he’s actually punishing two million Gazans.”
Hamas leader heads to Egypt for rare talks-Delegation from terror group, headed by Yahya Sinwar, set to discuss conditions in Gaza, opening of Rafah crossing to Palestinians-By Fares Akram June 4, 2017, 8:11 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Hamas’s newly chosen leader in the Gaza Strip on Sunday traveled to Cairo for talks with Egyptian security officials, in the first high-level meeting between the sides in months, a Hamas official said.The delegation left through the Rafah border crossing, which was opened Sunday for the group to cross. The border is mostly closed for the 2 million residents of Gaza, part of an Israeli and Egyptian blockade. Israel and Egypt have enforced the blockade, citing security reasons, since the Hamas terror group seized control of Gaza a decade ago.Salah Bardaweel, a Hamas spokesman, said the delegation will discuss the humanitarian situation in Gaza under the blockade, Egypt’s role in improving conditions and the need to open Rafah crossing for Palestinian travelers.Bardaweel said the three-member delegation was led by Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s newly chosen leader in Gaza, the group’s stronghold. Sinwar, a member of the terror group’s military wing, is second in rank only to the new supreme leader, Ismail Haniyeh, who also is based in Gaza.Hamas and Egypt have had cool relations since Egypt’s Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi, was overthrown by the military in 2013. Morsi came from Hamas’ parent group, the Muslim Brotherhood.Hamas has been trying to convince Egypt that it is a reliable security partner. It has deployed more troops along the border with Egypt’s northern Sinai region, where the Egyptian military is battling Islamic extremists.But over the past month, at least four Gaza residents were killed while fighting alongside the Islamic State terror group’s Sinai affiliate, complicating Hamas’ reconciliation attempts.Hamas made a gesture toward Egypt last month with a new policy document that dropped its longtime association with the Muslim Brotherhood and identified itself as a Palestinian movement fighting only against what it calls Israeli occupation.
21 still in critical condition after London attack-Theresa May pays visit to the wounded, as police continue investigation into latest act of terror in Britain-By AP June 4, 2017, 6:56 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
LONDON — The UK’s National Health Service on Sunday said that 21 people injured in the fatal terror attack in London remain in critical condition.On Sunday, British Prime Minister Theresa May paid a private visit to some of the victims of the terror attack at King’s College Hospital, which is caring for 14 of the 48 people hospitalized after the Saturday night car-ramming and knife attacks on London Bridge and at nearby restaurants in Borough Market.At least one person was wounded after being shot by police trying to thwart the attack, London’s Assistant Police Commissioner Mark Rowley said during a news conference on Sunday.Rowley said the injured civilian’s injuries are not believed to be critical and there will be an independent investigation.Seven people were also killed by the three attackers, who were shot dead by police officers at the scene.Also on Sunday, British police arrested a dozen people in connection to the attack.The major political parties suspended campaigning in the country’s general election for the day, but May said the vote would take place as scheduled on Thursday, because “violence can never be allowed to disrupt the democratic process.”The assault unfolded over a few terrifying minutes Saturday, starting when a van veered off the road and barreled into pedestrians on busy London Bridge. Three men fled the van with large knives and attacked people at bars and restaurants in nearby Borough Market, police and witnesses said.“They went ‘this is for Allah’ and they had a woman on the floor, they were stabbing her,” said witness Gerard Vowls.Romanian chef Florin Morariu, who works in the Bread Ahead bakery, said he saw people running, and some fainting, and then two people approach another and “began to stick the knife in … and then I froze and I didn’t know what to do.”He said he managed to get near one attacker “and I hit him around the head” with a bread basket.“There was a car with a loudspeaker saying ‘go, go’ and they (police) threw a grenade…. and then I ran,” he said.London’s Metropolitan Police said armed officers fatally shot the attackers within eight minutes. The force said the men were wearing what looked like suicide vests that turned out to be fake.Emergency officials said 48 people, including two police officers, were treated at hospitals across London. Some suffered life-threatening injuries. French and Spanish citizens were among the wounded.The death toll of seven didn’t include the three attackers.Police said counterterrorism officers raided several addresses in Barking, an east London suburb, and arrested 12 people there Sunday morning in connection with the attack. Neighbors at the site of one major raid in Barking said a man who lived there resembled one of the attackers shown in news photographs.“He’s lived here for about three years,” resident Damien Pettit said. “He’s one of our neighbors. I’ve said hello in passing more than 50, 60 occasions. He has two young kids. He was a very nice guy.”The rampage was the third major attack in Britain in the past three months, including a similar vehicle and knife attack on Westminster Bridge in March that left five people dead.On May 22, a suicide bomber killed 22 people and injured dozens at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, in northwest England. Grande and other stars are scheduled to perform a benefit concert for victims under tight security in Manchester Sunday night.The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the Manchester bombing, but there hasn’t yet been a claim of responsibility for the London attack, which the prime minister linked to Islamic extremism.May said the attacks weren’t directly connected, but that “terrorism breeds terrorism” and attackers copy one another. She said five credible plots have been disrupted since March.“It is time to say, enough is enough,” she said.Britain’s official terrorism threat level was raised from “severe” to “critical” after the Manchester attack, meaning an attack may be imminent. Several days later it was lowered again to “severe,” meaning an attack is highly likely.Home Secretary Amber Rudd said Sunday that the level would remain at severe because police believe there are no perpetrators still on the loose.Rowley, the Metropolitan Police head of counterterrorism, said that while police believe all the attackers were killed, the investigation is expanding.“We believe three people were involved, but we still have got some more inquiries to do to be 100 percent confident in that,” he said.A large area on the south bank of the River Thames remained cordoned off Sunday, and police told people to avoid the area. London Bridge and the adjacent train station, as well as nearby Borough subway station, were still closed.
Will the UK let May tackle Islamist terror?-Op-ed: The British prime minister plainly recognizes the nature of the struggle. Her opponent in Thursday’s elections, Jeremy Corbyn, equally plainly does not-By David Horovitz June 4, 2017, 3:10 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
With Britain battered by three terrorist attacks in three months, and its security services having thwarted five more in the same period, Prime Minister Theresa May on Sunday morning set out the specifics of her intended strategy “to take on and defeat our enemies.”May’s succinct and determined statement, delivered hours after three terrorists killed at least seven people in a central London murder spree, raises two questions: Does her government have the will to fight back in the way she specified, and, with general elections on Thursday, will it be given the opportunity? Watching her from Israel, which has for so long been forced to grapple with the Islamist death cult, May gave every indication of having internalized what she, Britain, and the rest of our free world are up against.What “bound together” the stream of terror attacks in the UK, she declared, was “the single evil ideology of Islamist extremism.”Terrorism was now breeding terrorism, copycat style. The situation had become intolerable. Enough was enough. “We cannot and must not pretend that things can continue as they are.”Strikingly, she added: “There is, to be frank, far too much tolerance of extremism in our country, so we need to become far more robust in identifying it and stamping it out across the public sector and across society.”To fight back, May called for an overhaul of Britain’s counter-terrorism strategy. She also demanded that terror groups be tackled on the ground in the Middle East. And she sought to battle them and their ideologues in cyberspace — to “turn people’s minds away from this violence.”Has Britain been so shocked and bloodied as to embrace the kind of comprehensive strategy May set out? A more effective counter-terror strategy requires far greater resources; security precautions of the kind with which Israel has long been familiar; intelligence gathering and monitoring on an entirely different scale. The portents are not particularly encouraging. The July 7, 2005 attacks in central London — a coordinated series of bombings carried out by four homegrown terrorists in which more than 50 people were killed — self-evidently did not prompt the kind of rethink that May is today demanding. Many in Britain preferred to believe that they were being targeted because of then prime minister Tony Blair’s alliance with US president George W. Bush (just as May has lately been derided in certain British quarters for perceived deference to Donald Trump), and Blair became increasingly criticized, even ridiculed, for his relentless calls to face down Islamic extremism.When it comes to intervention on the ground in the Middle East, meanwhile, it might be recalled, the British Parliament in August 2013 voted against any role in military action against Syria’s President Bashar Assad, who had just trampled president Barack Obama’s red line by gassing his own people. The British MPs’ insistence on staying out was a central factor in Obama’s subsequent decision to abort his promised punitive action against Assad — a show of Western weakness celebrated by terrorists and their emboldened state sponsors across the region.As for battling against those who spread the ideology of terrorism, even if May’s declared strategy is implemented, it is inadequate. Stopping the dissemination of hatred in cyberspace is absolutely central to preventing the creation of the next waves of Islamist killers, but the ideology of terror must also be confronted in the education system, among spiritual leaders, and at the political level — and not only inside Britain, but all over the world. What’s needed for that is true global cooperation, with all partner nations using every iota of diplomatic, economic and any other leverage they can muster to marginalize extremism and empower moderation.Nonetheless, May plainly recognizes the nature of the struggle. Her opponent in Thursday’s elections, Jeremy Corbyn, equally plainly does not.Corbyn is notorious for having referred to his “friends” in Hamas and Hezbollah — terrorist organizations that kill civilians with impunity, and cynically place their own host civilian populations in harm’s way.His party’s communications director, Seamus Milne, asserted in 2014, as Hamas (which had seized Gaza after Israel withdrew from the Strip) fired thousands of rockets into Israel, that “it isn’t terrorism to fight back… The terrorism is the killing of citizens by Israel on an industrial scale.” Immediately after 9/11, Milne had declared that “Americans simply don’t get it… Perhaps it is too much to hope that, as rescue workers struggle to pull firefighters from the rubble, any but a small minority might make the connection between what has been visited upon them and what their government has visited upon large parts of the world.”His party’s manifesto for this week’s elections demands an end to the blockade of Gaza — regarded by Israel as crucial to preventing Hamas from importing weaponry for its declared goal of destroying the Jewish state. The Labour manifesto also promises, without requiring negotiations to ensure Israel’s capacity to survive, that a “Labour government will immediately recognise the state of Palestine.”There is no telling how Saturday night’s London terrorism will impact Thursday’s elections. Opinion polls are as correctly ridiculed in the UK as they are in the US and Israel these days; they misjudged the 2015 general elections and wrongly predicted that Britons would vote last year to stay in the European Union. May was deemed unbeatable when she called the elections in April; since then, the surveys have said Corbyn is gaining. She has fought a lousy campaign — appearing cowardly (in refusing to debate Corbyn), cynically expedient (in adjusting her position on Brexit), and wooden in her public appearances — while Corbyn has conveyed both his traditional conviction and a new affability.Will Britons blame May, the former home secretary, for having failed to prevent the wave of terror, or conclude that Corbyn will be disinclined to effectively try to counter it? Will they consider the kind of strategic fightback May unveiled to be the minimal necessity, or prefer to believe that the answer lies in Corbyn-style greater tolerance and openness? The British are a wonderfully stoic people. One can only hope that their extraordinary resilience does not blind them to the root cause of the terrorism now blighting the country — and the imperative to fight back.
