LUKE 21:28-29
28 And when these things begin to come to pass,(ALL THE PROPHECY SIGNS FROM THE BIBLE) then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption (RAPTURE) draweth nigh.
29 And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree,(ISRAEL) and all the trees;(ALL INDEPENDENT COUNTRIES)
30 When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand.(ISRAEL LITERALLY BECAME AND INDEPENDENT COUNTRY JUST BEFORE SUMMER IN MAY 14,1948.)
JOEL 2:3,30
3 A fire devoureth (ATOMIC BOMB) before them;(RUSSIAN-ARAB-MUSLIM ARMIES AGAINST ISRAEL) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(ATOMIC BOMB AFFECT)
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their eyes shall consume away in their holes,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB)(BECAUSE NUKES HAVE BEEN USED ON ISRAELS ENEMIES)(GOD PROTECTS ISRAEL AND ALWAYS WILL)
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.(1/2-3 BILLION DIE IN WW3)(THIS IS AN ATOMIC BOMB EFFECT)
EZEKIEL 20:47
47 And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the LORD; Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein.
ZEPHANIAH 1:18
18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD'S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
MALACHI 4:1
1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven;(FROM ATOMIC BOMBS) and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
And here are the bounderies of the land that Israel will inherit either through war or peace or God in the future. God says its Israels land and only Israels land. They will have every inch God promised them of this land in the future.
Egypt east of the Nile River, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, The southern part of Turkey and the Western Half of Iraq west of the Euphrates. Gen 13:14-15, Psm 105:9,11, Gen 15:18, Exe 23:31, Num 34:1-12, Josh 1:4.ALL THIS LAND ISRAEL WILL DEFINATELY OWN IN THE FUTURE, ITS ISRAELS NOT ISHMAELS LAND.12 TRIBES INHERIT LAND IN THE FUTURE
US lawmakers make fact-finding trip for Jerusalem embassy move-Congressional group meets with Netanyahu, touring sites around Jerusalem; Fatah warns move will ‘explode situation in region’-By Raphael Ahren March 5, 2017, 3:41 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
A group of American lawmakers visited Israel Sunday to examine a possible transfer of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, taking a tentative first step toward the measure despite indications from the Trump administration that the controversial move may no longer be a priority.The delegation, made up of members of the Subcommittee for National Security of the House Oversight Committee, met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior Israel officials on Sunday morning.Led by Representative Ron DeSantis of Florida, the group was set to visit possible sites for the American Embassy during its one-day trip.There are a number of options for a US Embassy location in Jerusalem, including two consular buildings and a parcel of land on Hebron Road purchased in 1989 for the purpose of housing the embassy.The panel is expected to brief Congress and the administration of its findings.Likud MK Yehudah Glick, a US-born lawmaker who briefed the delegation on the city’s history and political significance, called on US President Donald Trump to keep to his campaign promise to move the embassy.“Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish people for thousands of years, since King David. That’s a fact that nobody can deny,” he said. “Now is the time for the US president to keep his promise and the law passed by Congress in 1995 and lead the free world to recognize reality and declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel and the Jewish people.”Officials in the Arab world and elsewhere have warned against the embassy move, saying that it could threaten regional stability and spark violence. Palestinian officials have threatened a raft of punitive measures in response, including revoking recognition of Israel by the Palestine Liberation Organization.Fatah spokesperson Ziad Khalil Abu Zayyad said in a statement Saturday night that the US lawmakers “should understand that moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem will not only explode the situation in Palestine but the whole … region,” according to the Palestinian Ma’an news outlet.Trump had promised several times while running for president to move the embassy, but since taking office he and other officials have indicated that the move was only in the initial stages of being studied and may not come to fruition.“I don’t want to talk about it yet. It’s too early,” Trump told Fox News when asked about the embassy move in late January.Israeli lawmakers have long pushed for the embassy to move from Tel Aviv, where nearly all countries have their missions, seeing it as American recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.In 1995, Congress passed a law legislating the embassy move, but inserted a waiver to delay the measure for security reasons, which has been signed by every president every six months since.The current waiver will expire at the end of May, forcing Trump to decide if he will extend it or comply with the congressional order.
Trump expected to sign revised travel ban Monday-Details hazy on new stipulations after last month’s attempt sowed chaos at airports, was frozen by courts-By AFP March 5, 2017, 12:52 am-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
WASHINGTON – US President Donald Trump is expected to sign a revised travel ban on Monday, just over a month after his original decree sowed controversy across the United States and chaos at airports, US media reported.The president will sign the new executive order at the Department of Homeland Security, according to Politico, which cited senior government officials.It was unclear what changes Trump planned to make, according to the publication.Trump’s original January 27 order was widely criticized as amounting to a ban on Muslims, and also for being rolled out sloppily — with virtually no warning to the public or preparation of the agencies tasked with enforcing it.The order, which temporarily barred people from seven Muslim-majority countries from traveling to the United States for 90 days, as well as all refugees for 120 days and Syrian refugees permanently — triggered worldwide outrage as well as protests in the United States.It also caused chaos in the first days of its implementation as people arriving at US airports from targeted countries were detained and sometimes sent back to where they came from.However, the order was halted after two judicial setbacks — a nationwide freeze on Trump’s ban by a US district judge in Seattle and a subsequent ruling by San Francisco’s Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the suspension.
Obama spokesman denies ex-president tapped Trump’s phone-Hitting back at charge by US president, Kevin Lewis says predecessor never ‘ordered surveillance on any US citizen’-By Agencies March 4, 2017, 8:18 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
Former US president Barack Obama never ordered surveillance on any US citizen, a spokesman said Saturday, after current President Donald Trump accused his predecessor of tapping his phones during last year’s campaign.“President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any US citizen,” Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis said in a statement.Trump on Saturday accused Obama of “tapping” his phone, without providing evidence of the explosive charge, in his most virulent attack yet on his predecessor.“I’d bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!” Trump wrote on Twitter.“How low has President Obama gone to tapp (sic) my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!” he wrote in another tweet, referring to the political scandal that toppled president Richard Nixon in 1974.How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017-Top Obama adviser Ben Rhodes issued a searing response on Twitter.“No President can order a wiretap. Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you,” Rhodes wrote.No President can order a wiretap. Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you. https://t.co/lEVscjkzSw— Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) March 4, 2017-Trump leveled the charges in a flurry of tweets shortly after dawn, as his administration remains mired in controversy over communications between Russian officials and some of his senior aides, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions.Trump and Obama frequently traded barbs on the campaign trail, and the Republican real estate magnate was a driving force behind the so-called “birther” movement that questioned whether Obama was born on US soil and eligible to be president.The two men initially adopted a cordial tone as Trump took office, though the president has stepped up accusations against Obama in recent weeks, blaming his predecessor for being behind damaging leaks to journalists.The businessman-turned-politician, who has accused his political foes of conducting “a total witch hunt,” on Saturday directed his Twitter tirade at his Democratic predecessor.“Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found,” Trump wrote a day after departing Washington for a weekend getaway at his Mar-a-Lago Florida resort for the fourth time in five weeks.Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017-The president compared the alleged action to Senator Joe McCarthy’s campaign in the 1950s to root out alleged Communists and sympathizers, which was marked by improper investigative techniques.“Is it legal for a sitting President to be ‘wire tapping’ a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!” Trump said, again providing no proof of Obama’s efforts to seek a court order to spy on the then-candidate.
The fundamental precondition for the Holocaust happening was Adolf Hitler'-Hitler’s tipping point: When extermination of the Jews became official Nazi policy-It was somewhere in the first half of 1942, argues Holocaust scholar Laurence Rees, that the Final Solution became the only solution-By JP O’ Malley March 5, 2017, 11:16 am-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
LONDON — British historian and documentary maker Laurence Rees claims he never set out to have a career where thinking about the horrors of mass genocide and the Nazi murder machine was part of his daily work criteria.But a curiosity about history, as well as a penchant for truth and justice got the better of him.And so, for the past 25 years, Rees has spent much of his working life personally interviewing both victims and perpetrators of one of the most horrific crimes the world has ever witnessed. His newest book, “The Holocaust,” published last month, asks many pertinent questions.Broadly, the book examines the fundamental reasons the Nazis decided to exterminate an entire group of people, gassing, shooting, starving, and beating them to death. It also questions what possessed a society of seemingly, sane, educated and cultured people to implement a policy of barbarism and depraved violence upon the Jews of Europe during World War II.Rees attempts to answer that question early on in the interview by making what appears to be a fairly obvious point.“The fundamental precondition for the Holocaust happening was Adolf Hitler,” he explains from his home in London.“Even as far back as 1921, Hitler said that solving the Jewish question was a central question for National Socialism. And you can only solve it by using brute force.”Hitler had no blueprint for the Holocaust at that point, says Rees. But he did have a pathological problem with Jews.“Hitler believed that something needed to be done,” Rees explains, “and that evolved and changed according to circumstances and political opportunism.”An intriguing part of Rees’s book is his determination to figure out when the collective set of initiatives we now call the Final Solution became official Nazi policy.It’s a question that doesn’t come with a straightforward answer, Rees maintains. What is clear, though, is that in the summer of 1940 there was still no concrete plan in place for the extermination of Jews. Furthermore, up until that point, Rees argues, the Nazis were still clinging to the belief that in the long term, the way to solve what they called “the Jewish question” was by expulsion and hard labor.At that point, mass murder was still not the preferred option.By the summer of 1942, however, a sea change had taken place. By that time, the Holocaust was in full swing. Therefore, within the previous two-year period, Rees points out, there were a number of milestones on the road towards mass extermination. But trying to pinpoint an exact moment where the decision was taken to commit to mass killing is very difficult, says Rees — especially since much of the planning was done in secret without written records.Hitherto, many historians, film makers, and writers have pointed to a single meeting where plans for the Holocaust were finally decided upon in the power structures of Nazi officialdom.This was known as the Wannsee conference. It was held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee in January of 1942, and involved several mid-ranking Nazi officials devising a plot to murder Jews over a shorter timescale and in more efficient ways.But even then, Rees says, no final plans were actually resolved at the infamous conference. He also points out that key figures from the upper tiers of the Nazi hierarchy — Himmler, Goebbels, and Hitler himself — were not actually present.“I cannot see how there can have been a decision in 1941,” says Rees.-‘By that stage you can say a decision to implement what we would now call the Holocaust had been made’-The moment of no return for the Holocaust, says the historian, was in the spring and early summer of 1942, when a decision was taken to kill all of the Jews in the General Government in Poland — a German-occupied zone established by Hitler after the joint invasion by the Germans and Soviets in 1939.“By that stage you can say a decision to implement what we would now call the Holocaust had been made,” says Rees with convincing authority.Rees also spends considerable time here — backed up with with a wide array of statistics as well as primary interviews that he’s conducted himself — looking at a multitude of countries across western Europe where collaboration took place. Here, Jews were rounded up and captured, and then subsequently exported to death camps in the east for extermination.It’s worth asking though, Rees says, why some countries in western Europe captured and deported Jews with far greater efficiency than others.Consider, for example, he asks, why 75 percent of Dutch Jews died in the Holocaust, compared to “just” 50% of Norwegian Jews, 40% of Belgian Jews, and 25% of French Jews. Or why did, say, the Vichy regime in France impose such severe anti-Semitic measures to foreign born Jews, when they were not being officially asked to do so by the Nazi regime? The disturbing truth, the historian claims, is that the French collaborators — like other countries across western Europe — simply chose to.“How much collaboration existed in various countries, and levels of anti-Semitism are obviously important here,” says Rees.“But the underlying factor is the will of the Nazis themselves to implement [their policy on Jews] in various different countries,” he adds.As Rees’s book is keen to remind the reader, a deeply entrenched culture of anti-Semitism would certainly assist the Nazis in transporting Jews by train across Europe to meet their deaths.But, most importantly, it would be in the east — in the midst of Hitler’s self-proclaimed war of extermination on Soviet territory — that the Holocaust would officially be born.In the Baltic states in particular, Rees stresses, many of those who committed murder of Jews did so by shooting at close range. These massacres were carried out by locals who collaborated with German security forces.“To understand the Holocaust in the east, you need to focus on how much the Nazis wanted to cleanse a place full of Jews,” Rees explains. “And in the Baltic States it was the most deadly because Hitler talked about creating a ‘garden of Eden’ in the occupied Soviet Union.”Rees points to Lithuania as a prime example where local collaborators had no problem killing Jews to help implement Nazi policy at an alarmingly frantic pace.For example, 96% of the Jewish population within Lithuania — about 220,000 people — were liquidated by the end of the Nazi occupation.This fact is all the more disturbing when one considers that Lithuania — Vilnius, the capital, in particular — had for centuries been a cosmopolitan cultural melting pot for Jews prior to these catastrophic murders.By the 19th century, Vilnius had become home to the Haskalah — otherwise known as the Jewish Enlightenment — and had long been a hub of Jewish scholarship, producing some of the most renowned Talmudic commentaries still studied today.-‘Many in Lithuania believed the lie that the Nazis were peddling at the time, that communism equals Judaism’-“The key thing to understanding [the Holocaust] in Lithuania is the hated occupation by the Soviets as the consequence of the Nazi-Soviet pact,” Rees explains.“Many in Lithuania believed the lie that the Nazis were peddling at the time, that communism equals Judaism and that Jews were aiding the Soviet authorities,” the historian adds.If there had not been the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states immediately preceding the Nazi invasion, Rees says the Holocaust in Lithuania might have gone very differently and many Jews could have possibly survived.Rees continually makes the point throughout the interview that it’s a common misconception in Holocaust history that the gas chambers emerged as the preferred killing method for Nazis simply because of their desire to kill Jews in large numbers.He is keen to emphasize that psychology played an important part too.“The Nazis knew that if they kept shooting people they would have psychological problems for the killers. So the gas chambers solved this problem,” says Rees.-‘The Nazis knew that if they kept shooting people they would have psychological problems for the killers’-Also, he says, the gas chambers prove beyond doubt how the Holocaust was a genocide where modern technology allowed a confluence of two things to happen. Firstly, it propelled the killing forward with clinical speed and precision. Secondly, it allowed the Nazis to distance themselves emotionally from their victims while doing so.“There is something about the idea of the gas chambers that encapsulates a mechanized element to the killing,” says Rees. “And you really do see this in chamber crematoriums that open in Auschwitz in 1943.”“Auschwitz” is also the name of a book that Rees published over a decade ago.In it, Rees argues that until the Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz in the summer of 1944, the death camp in Poland was still only playing a relatively minor role, overall, in the murder of Europe’s Jews.The historian also makes a similar point in his latest book, pointing out that Hitler’s policy for smaller states like Hungary was to “liquidate the Jews as quickly as possible.”Hungary was especially attractive to the Nazis, given the number of Jews that resided there — 725,000 in 1944. Many of these — but not all — were living in Budapest. 440,000 Jews were then transported to Auschwitz between May and July of 1944, where they were murdered.This plan for cold blooded murder was deviously orchestrated by Adolf Eichmann, who at the time was stationed in Budapest.“The Hungarians, in terms of how quick the killing happened, suffered the worst of all the Jews [in Europe],” says Rees.Rees points out that many academics he has has met over the last 25 years when speaking about Holocaust history tend to point to seminars, abstract theories, and week-long conferences. The trouble with such an approach is that the subject can become dehumanized in the process, he says.What is so intriguing about Rees’s approach is his tendency to link the primary individual interviews he has conducted with the wider tragic historical narrative.Crucially, these interviews include interactions with both victims and Nazi perpetrators themselves. This has led Rees somewhat closer to understanding this crime of unspeakable horror. Although even then, he admits, it’s still pretty hard to ever come to terms with how humans could organize depravity on such a mass scale and with such cold calculation.Rees says that if he has learned anything from spending a quarter of a century researching this subject, it’s that many of the low-ranking Nazis murderers he spoke with — and indeed the collaborators, too — did not feel they were simply following orders on a mindless administrative conveyor belt.Rees also makes it clear that he fundamentally disagrees with the thesis proposed by Hannah Arendt about the so called “banality of evil,” a term she famously coined when covering the Eichmann trial in Israel in 1961 for the New Yorker.“The Nazis were fanatics,” says Rees. “But one thing you cannot accuse them of being was banal.”The reason the writer, documentary maker, and historian became so convinced of this was from the answer he often tended to get when directly asking Nazi killers, “What was your motivation for carrying out this killing?”“What we usually found was that there was an internalization of a belief system from Nazis that the murder they were carrying out [against Jews] was the right thing to do,” says Rees.“You also got a sense speaking to Nazi murderers that they felt an immense exhilaration while they were carrying out the killing too,” he adds.
Latest: Police arrest knife-carrying Palestinians at West Bank junction-Rivlin: US was, must always remain a safe place for Jews-US lawmakers on visit to explore possible embassy move; ministers take another step toward marijuana decriminalization-By Times of Israel staff March 5, 2017, 2:15 pm
16:05-Police arrest knife-carrying Palestinians at West Bank junction-Border Police officers arrest two Palestinian men at the Tapuah Junction in the northern West Bank on suspicion of planning a stabbing attack at the site.According to a statement by police, a policeman stationed at the junction sees two figures walking through an open field near the intersection.Officers approach the two, find one man in possession of a knife, and arrest them both.According to police, after questioning the men officials conclude one had carried out reconnaissance of the site and sought to carry out an attack.— Judah Ari Gross-15:53-Cuomo calls anti-Semitic attack in New York ‘reprehensible’-Visiting New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says Sunday that a recent rash of anti-Semitic acts in the United States was “reprehensible” and his state would have no tolerance for them.In a visit to Israel, Cuomo makes his first comments following the toppling of headstones at a Jewish cemetery this weekend in Brooklyn. It follows a series of vandalism attacks at Jewish cemeteries and more than 120 bomb threats to Jewish organizations in three dozen states since early January. In New York City alone, anti-Semitic hate crimes nearly doubled in the past year.Speaking at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, Cuomo says the incidents “violated every tenet of the New York State tradition.” He says the state has posted rewards and put together a special police unit to combat the phenomenon.“New York State by its definition is a celebration of diversity, it accepts all, we believe in the spirit of inclusion and we live by discrimination of none. New York’s principles are built on a rock. They will not change and the political wings will not change them,” he says, alongside Israeli President Reuven Rivlin. “We have made it clear that there will be no tolerance for these acts of anti-Semitism.”— AP-15:52-Dutch far-right MP slams Turkey referendum rally plans-AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — Dutch far-right MP Geert Wilders Sunday denounces plans by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu to attend a Rotterdam rally in support of a high-stakes Turkish referendum.“They should not come and interfere here with our domestic problems,” Wilders tells reporters, referring to next Saturday’s rally backing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.Dutch officials, including Prime Minister Mark Rutte, have already condemned the plans to hold the demonstration organized by some of the port city’s sizable Turkish community.“If I would be prime minister today I would declare — until at least the half of April when they have the referendum — I would call the whole cabinet of Turkey persona non grata for a month or two, not allowing them to come here,” Wilders says, speaking in English.“We believe that Dutch public space is not the place to hold a political campaign for another country,” Rutte said on his Facebook page.A Turkish-Dutch political association said Friday that Cavusoglu would attend the rally, hoping to persuade some hundreds of thousands of Turkish-origin citizens to vote “yes” in the April 16 referendum aimed at boosting Erdogan’s powers.German towns last week banned three similar rallies which had been due to be attended by Turkish ministers, provoking anger from Ankara.The Turkish public will decide whether to approve constitutional changes that will expand the role of the head of state and remove the office of the premier.— AFP-15:17-Ministers look to ease enforcement of marijuana use-Cabinet ministers on Sunday vote to establish a top-level committee that will piece together the nuts and bolts of the government’s developing policy of de facto decriminalization of private use of marijuana.In the cabinet decision, ministers formally establish the 13-member committee, which includes the heads of the government’s drug enforcement agency, the Health Ministry’s top official dealing with addiction issues, the directors of the Public Security Ministry, a senior police official, treasury and Justice Ministry officials, and others.The decision follows an announcement last month by Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan that he now supports all but canceling enforcement of anti-marijuana laws in cases of private use in private places. The policy is supported by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked.The committee has until May 7 to submit its recommendations, which, according to the decision, will include a careful examination of all relevant questions of legislation, enforcement, budgets and health policy that the change in policy might entail.-14:41-Rivlin: US was, must always remain a safe place for Jews-Amid a wave of anti-Semitic vandalism and bomb threats targeting Jewish communities across the United States, President Reuven Rivlin tells New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Sunday that the US must always remain a safe place for Jews.“In the time of the Holocaust, few places were safe for Jews. The United States was a rare island of safety. We can never, ever, let that change,” Rivlin says.Cuomo is in Israel on a visit he says is meant as an act of solidarity in the face of the anti-Semitic wave.“Your arrival to Israel at this time is an extremely important signal that the US people and government will not let anti-Semitism win,” Rivlin tells the governor. “Our appreciation goes to [US] President [Donald] Trump who condemned the attacks – and we are deeply touched by Vice President [Mike] Pence, who went and gave a hand – and a voice – in fixing the broken gravestones,” Rivlin adds, referring to Pence’s visit to a Jewish cemetery near St. Louis, Missouri, that had been vandalized. Pence helped workers replace the toppled headstones.-14:30-US lawmakers on visit to explore possible embassy move-A group of American lawmakers is visiting Israel Sunday to examine a possible move of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.The delegation, made up of members of the Subcommittee for National Security of the House Oversight Committee, meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials on Sunday morning.Led by Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis, of Florida, the group is set to visit possible locations for the American embassy and is expected to brief Congress and the administration of its findings.“Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish people for thousands of years, since King David. That’s a fact that nobody can deny,” says Likud MK Yehudah Glick, a US-born lawmaker who briefed the delegation on the city’s history and political significance.“Now is the time for the US president to keep his promise and the law passed by Congress in 1995 and lead the free world to recognize reality and declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel and the Jewish people.”— Raphael Ahren-14:19-Six top Hadassah pediatric cancer physicians resign-All six senior pediatric hematologist-oncologists at Israel’s largest hospital resign on Sunday amid an ongoing wage dispute with hospital management.In a statement, Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem says it “received today a collective resignation letter of the head of the pediatric hemato-oncology department and five senior doctors in the department. Management will do everything possible to ensure that no child is hurt by this collective resignation.”One lawmaker, Zionist Union MK Itzik Shmuley, who heads the Knesset’s caucus for children with cancer, calls on Health Minister Yaakov Litzman to intervene to prevent the resignations.-14:17-Wave of IS car bombs targets Iraqi troops in west Mosul-BAGHDAD — Iraqi troops encounter the “heaviest” clashes yet with Islamic State group fighters Sunday in western Mosul since the start of the new push more than two weeks ago, according to a senior commander.Maj. Gen. Haider al-Maturi of the Federal Police Commandos Division tells The Associated Press that IS militants dispatched at least six suicide car bombs, which are all destroyed before reaching the troops. The militants, he says, are moving from house to house and deploying snipers.The wave of heavy resistance comes as Iraqi forces launch attacks against IS-held neighborhoods in western Mosul from three points Sunday morning. The Federal Police are closing in on the city’s main government complex in the Dawasa neighborhood and Iraq’s special forces are attempting to push into the Shuhada and Mansour neighborhoods.The push on Mosul’s west was launched about two weeks ago after the eastern half of the city was declared “fully liberated” in January. The operation to retake Mosul officially began in October after more than two years of slowly clawing back territory from IS militants.— AP-14:17-Jewish Home irate over reported Netanyahu-Herzog peace bid-At Sunday’s cabinet meeting, Jewish Home ministers demand answers from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over reports that he and opposition leader MK Isaac Herzog nearly formed a unity government last fall.The report, in the daily Haaretz, carried an English-language text drafted by Netanyahu and Herzog that would have committed Israel to reduced settlement construction, explicitly welcomed a two-state solution to the conflict with the Palestinians and sought wider Arab states’ backing for such a move.According to Channel 10, Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who heads the Jewish Home party, demands to know if the report is accurate.Netanyahu tells the ministers the leak comes as part of internal political wrangling within Herzog’s Labor party.Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, Bennett’s number two, reportedly retorts that the leaked document reached Haaretz not from Labor, but from staffers of former US secretary of state John Kerry.
28 And when these things begin to come to pass,(ALL THE PROPHECY SIGNS FROM THE BIBLE) then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption (RAPTURE) draweth nigh.
29 And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree,(ISRAEL) and all the trees;(ALL INDEPENDENT COUNTRIES)
30 When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand.(ISRAEL LITERALLY BECAME AND INDEPENDENT COUNTRY JUST BEFORE SUMMER IN MAY 14,1948.)
JOEL 2:3,30
3 A fire devoureth (ATOMIC BOMB) before them;(RUSSIAN-ARAB-MUSLIM ARMIES AGAINST ISRAEL) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(ATOMIC BOMB AFFECT)
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their eyes shall consume away in their holes,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB)(BECAUSE NUKES HAVE BEEN USED ON ISRAELS ENEMIES)(GOD PROTECTS ISRAEL AND ALWAYS WILL)
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.(1/2-3 BILLION DIE IN WW3)(THIS IS AN ATOMIC BOMB EFFECT)
EZEKIEL 20:47
47 And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the LORD; Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein.
ZEPHANIAH 1:18
18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD'S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
MALACHI 4:1
1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven;(FROM ATOMIC BOMBS) and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
And here are the bounderies of the land that Israel will inherit either through war or peace or God in the future. God says its Israels land and only Israels land. They will have every inch God promised them of this land in the future.
Egypt east of the Nile River, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, The southern part of Turkey and the Western Half of Iraq west of the Euphrates. Gen 13:14-15, Psm 105:9,11, Gen 15:18, Exe 23:31, Num 34:1-12, Josh 1:4.ALL THIS LAND ISRAEL WILL DEFINATELY OWN IN THE FUTURE, ITS ISRAELS NOT ISHMAELS LAND.12 TRIBES INHERIT LAND IN THE FUTURE
US lawmakers make fact-finding trip for Jerusalem embassy move-Congressional group meets with Netanyahu, touring sites around Jerusalem; Fatah warns move will ‘explode situation in region’-By Raphael Ahren March 5, 2017, 3:41 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
A group of American lawmakers visited Israel Sunday to examine a possible transfer of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, taking a tentative first step toward the measure despite indications from the Trump administration that the controversial move may no longer be a priority.The delegation, made up of members of the Subcommittee for National Security of the House Oversight Committee, met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior Israel officials on Sunday morning.Led by Representative Ron DeSantis of Florida, the group was set to visit possible sites for the American Embassy during its one-day trip.There are a number of options for a US Embassy location in Jerusalem, including two consular buildings and a parcel of land on Hebron Road purchased in 1989 for the purpose of housing the embassy.The panel is expected to brief Congress and the administration of its findings.Likud MK Yehudah Glick, a US-born lawmaker who briefed the delegation on the city’s history and political significance, called on US President Donald Trump to keep to his campaign promise to move the embassy.“Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish people for thousands of years, since King David. That’s a fact that nobody can deny,” he said. “Now is the time for the US president to keep his promise and the law passed by Congress in 1995 and lead the free world to recognize reality and declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel and the Jewish people.”Officials in the Arab world and elsewhere have warned against the embassy move, saying that it could threaten regional stability and spark violence. Palestinian officials have threatened a raft of punitive measures in response, including revoking recognition of Israel by the Palestine Liberation Organization.Fatah spokesperson Ziad Khalil Abu Zayyad said in a statement Saturday night that the US lawmakers “should understand that moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem will not only explode the situation in Palestine but the whole … region,” according to the Palestinian Ma’an news outlet.Trump had promised several times while running for president to move the embassy, but since taking office he and other officials have indicated that the move was only in the initial stages of being studied and may not come to fruition.“I don’t want to talk about it yet. It’s too early,” Trump told Fox News when asked about the embassy move in late January.Israeli lawmakers have long pushed for the embassy to move from Tel Aviv, where nearly all countries have their missions, seeing it as American recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.In 1995, Congress passed a law legislating the embassy move, but inserted a waiver to delay the measure for security reasons, which has been signed by every president every six months since.The current waiver will expire at the end of May, forcing Trump to decide if he will extend it or comply with the congressional order.
Trump expected to sign revised travel ban Monday-Details hazy on new stipulations after last month’s attempt sowed chaos at airports, was frozen by courts-By AFP March 5, 2017, 12:52 am-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
WASHINGTON – US President Donald Trump is expected to sign a revised travel ban on Monday, just over a month after his original decree sowed controversy across the United States and chaos at airports, US media reported.The president will sign the new executive order at the Department of Homeland Security, according to Politico, which cited senior government officials.It was unclear what changes Trump planned to make, according to the publication.Trump’s original January 27 order was widely criticized as amounting to a ban on Muslims, and also for being rolled out sloppily — with virtually no warning to the public or preparation of the agencies tasked with enforcing it.The order, which temporarily barred people from seven Muslim-majority countries from traveling to the United States for 90 days, as well as all refugees for 120 days and Syrian refugees permanently — triggered worldwide outrage as well as protests in the United States.It also caused chaos in the first days of its implementation as people arriving at US airports from targeted countries were detained and sometimes sent back to where they came from.However, the order was halted after two judicial setbacks — a nationwide freeze on Trump’s ban by a US district judge in Seattle and a subsequent ruling by San Francisco’s Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the suspension.
Obama spokesman denies ex-president tapped Trump’s phone-Hitting back at charge by US president, Kevin Lewis says predecessor never ‘ordered surveillance on any US citizen’-By Agencies March 4, 2017, 8:18 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
Former US president Barack Obama never ordered surveillance on any US citizen, a spokesman said Saturday, after current President Donald Trump accused his predecessor of tapping his phones during last year’s campaign.“President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any US citizen,” Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis said in a statement.Trump on Saturday accused Obama of “tapping” his phone, without providing evidence of the explosive charge, in his most virulent attack yet on his predecessor.“I’d bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!” Trump wrote on Twitter.“How low has President Obama gone to tapp (sic) my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!” he wrote in another tweet, referring to the political scandal that toppled president Richard Nixon in 1974.How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017-Top Obama adviser Ben Rhodes issued a searing response on Twitter.“No President can order a wiretap. Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you,” Rhodes wrote.No President can order a wiretap. Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you. https://t.co/lEVscjkzSw— Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) March 4, 2017-Trump leveled the charges in a flurry of tweets shortly after dawn, as his administration remains mired in controversy over communications between Russian officials and some of his senior aides, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions.Trump and Obama frequently traded barbs on the campaign trail, and the Republican real estate magnate was a driving force behind the so-called “birther” movement that questioned whether Obama was born on US soil and eligible to be president.The two men initially adopted a cordial tone as Trump took office, though the president has stepped up accusations against Obama in recent weeks, blaming his predecessor for being behind damaging leaks to journalists.The businessman-turned-politician, who has accused his political foes of conducting “a total witch hunt,” on Saturday directed his Twitter tirade at his Democratic predecessor.“Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found,” Trump wrote a day after departing Washington for a weekend getaway at his Mar-a-Lago Florida resort for the fourth time in five weeks.Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017-The president compared the alleged action to Senator Joe McCarthy’s campaign in the 1950s to root out alleged Communists and sympathizers, which was marked by improper investigative techniques.“Is it legal for a sitting President to be ‘wire tapping’ a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!” Trump said, again providing no proof of Obama’s efforts to seek a court order to spy on the then-candidate.
The fundamental precondition for the Holocaust happening was Adolf Hitler'-Hitler’s tipping point: When extermination of the Jews became official Nazi policy-It was somewhere in the first half of 1942, argues Holocaust scholar Laurence Rees, that the Final Solution became the only solution-By JP O’ Malley March 5, 2017, 11:16 am-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
LONDON — British historian and documentary maker Laurence Rees claims he never set out to have a career where thinking about the horrors of mass genocide and the Nazi murder machine was part of his daily work criteria.But a curiosity about history, as well as a penchant for truth and justice got the better of him.And so, for the past 25 years, Rees has spent much of his working life personally interviewing both victims and perpetrators of one of the most horrific crimes the world has ever witnessed. His newest book, “The Holocaust,” published last month, asks many pertinent questions.Broadly, the book examines the fundamental reasons the Nazis decided to exterminate an entire group of people, gassing, shooting, starving, and beating them to death. It also questions what possessed a society of seemingly, sane, educated and cultured people to implement a policy of barbarism and depraved violence upon the Jews of Europe during World War II.Rees attempts to answer that question early on in the interview by making what appears to be a fairly obvious point.“The fundamental precondition for the Holocaust happening was Adolf Hitler,” he explains from his home in London.“Even as far back as 1921, Hitler said that solving the Jewish question was a central question for National Socialism. And you can only solve it by using brute force.”Hitler had no blueprint for the Holocaust at that point, says Rees. But he did have a pathological problem with Jews.“Hitler believed that something needed to be done,” Rees explains, “and that evolved and changed according to circumstances and political opportunism.”An intriguing part of Rees’s book is his determination to figure out when the collective set of initiatives we now call the Final Solution became official Nazi policy.It’s a question that doesn’t come with a straightforward answer, Rees maintains. What is clear, though, is that in the summer of 1940 there was still no concrete plan in place for the extermination of Jews. Furthermore, up until that point, Rees argues, the Nazis were still clinging to the belief that in the long term, the way to solve what they called “the Jewish question” was by expulsion and hard labor.At that point, mass murder was still not the preferred option.By the summer of 1942, however, a sea change had taken place. By that time, the Holocaust was in full swing. Therefore, within the previous two-year period, Rees points out, there were a number of milestones on the road towards mass extermination. But trying to pinpoint an exact moment where the decision was taken to commit to mass killing is very difficult, says Rees — especially since much of the planning was done in secret without written records.Hitherto, many historians, film makers, and writers have pointed to a single meeting where plans for the Holocaust were finally decided upon in the power structures of Nazi officialdom.This was known as the Wannsee conference. It was held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee in January of 1942, and involved several mid-ranking Nazi officials devising a plot to murder Jews over a shorter timescale and in more efficient ways.But even then, Rees says, no final plans were actually resolved at the infamous conference. He also points out that key figures from the upper tiers of the Nazi hierarchy — Himmler, Goebbels, and Hitler himself — were not actually present.“I cannot see how there can have been a decision in 1941,” says Rees.-‘By that stage you can say a decision to implement what we would now call the Holocaust had been made’-The moment of no return for the Holocaust, says the historian, was in the spring and early summer of 1942, when a decision was taken to kill all of the Jews in the General Government in Poland — a German-occupied zone established by Hitler after the joint invasion by the Germans and Soviets in 1939.“By that stage you can say a decision to implement what we would now call the Holocaust had been made,” says Rees with convincing authority.Rees also spends considerable time here — backed up with with a wide array of statistics as well as primary interviews that he’s conducted himself — looking at a multitude of countries across western Europe where collaboration took place. Here, Jews were rounded up and captured, and then subsequently exported to death camps in the east for extermination.It’s worth asking though, Rees says, why some countries in western Europe captured and deported Jews with far greater efficiency than others.Consider, for example, he asks, why 75 percent of Dutch Jews died in the Holocaust, compared to “just” 50% of Norwegian Jews, 40% of Belgian Jews, and 25% of French Jews. Or why did, say, the Vichy regime in France impose such severe anti-Semitic measures to foreign born Jews, when they were not being officially asked to do so by the Nazi regime? The disturbing truth, the historian claims, is that the French collaborators — like other countries across western Europe — simply chose to.“How much collaboration existed in various countries, and levels of anti-Semitism are obviously important here,” says Rees.“But the underlying factor is the will of the Nazis themselves to implement [their policy on Jews] in various different countries,” he adds.As Rees’s book is keen to remind the reader, a deeply entrenched culture of anti-Semitism would certainly assist the Nazis in transporting Jews by train across Europe to meet their deaths.But, most importantly, it would be in the east — in the midst of Hitler’s self-proclaimed war of extermination on Soviet territory — that the Holocaust would officially be born.In the Baltic states in particular, Rees stresses, many of those who committed murder of Jews did so by shooting at close range. These massacres were carried out by locals who collaborated with German security forces.“To understand the Holocaust in the east, you need to focus on how much the Nazis wanted to cleanse a place full of Jews,” Rees explains. “And in the Baltic States it was the most deadly because Hitler talked about creating a ‘garden of Eden’ in the occupied Soviet Union.”Rees points to Lithuania as a prime example where local collaborators had no problem killing Jews to help implement Nazi policy at an alarmingly frantic pace.For example, 96% of the Jewish population within Lithuania — about 220,000 people — were liquidated by the end of the Nazi occupation.This fact is all the more disturbing when one considers that Lithuania — Vilnius, the capital, in particular — had for centuries been a cosmopolitan cultural melting pot for Jews prior to these catastrophic murders.By the 19th century, Vilnius had become home to the Haskalah — otherwise known as the Jewish Enlightenment — and had long been a hub of Jewish scholarship, producing some of the most renowned Talmudic commentaries still studied today.-‘Many in Lithuania believed the lie that the Nazis were peddling at the time, that communism equals Judaism’-“The key thing to understanding [the Holocaust] in Lithuania is the hated occupation by the Soviets as the consequence of the Nazi-Soviet pact,” Rees explains.“Many in Lithuania believed the lie that the Nazis were peddling at the time, that communism equals Judaism and that Jews were aiding the Soviet authorities,” the historian adds.If there had not been the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states immediately preceding the Nazi invasion, Rees says the Holocaust in Lithuania might have gone very differently and many Jews could have possibly survived.Rees continually makes the point throughout the interview that it’s a common misconception in Holocaust history that the gas chambers emerged as the preferred killing method for Nazis simply because of their desire to kill Jews in large numbers.He is keen to emphasize that psychology played an important part too.“The Nazis knew that if they kept shooting people they would have psychological problems for the killers. So the gas chambers solved this problem,” says Rees.-‘The Nazis knew that if they kept shooting people they would have psychological problems for the killers’-Also, he says, the gas chambers prove beyond doubt how the Holocaust was a genocide where modern technology allowed a confluence of two things to happen. Firstly, it propelled the killing forward with clinical speed and precision. Secondly, it allowed the Nazis to distance themselves emotionally from their victims while doing so.“There is something about the idea of the gas chambers that encapsulates a mechanized element to the killing,” says Rees. “And you really do see this in chamber crematoriums that open in Auschwitz in 1943.”“Auschwitz” is also the name of a book that Rees published over a decade ago.In it, Rees argues that until the Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz in the summer of 1944, the death camp in Poland was still only playing a relatively minor role, overall, in the murder of Europe’s Jews.The historian also makes a similar point in his latest book, pointing out that Hitler’s policy for smaller states like Hungary was to “liquidate the Jews as quickly as possible.”Hungary was especially attractive to the Nazis, given the number of Jews that resided there — 725,000 in 1944. Many of these — but not all — were living in Budapest. 440,000 Jews were then transported to Auschwitz between May and July of 1944, where they were murdered.This plan for cold blooded murder was deviously orchestrated by Adolf Eichmann, who at the time was stationed in Budapest.“The Hungarians, in terms of how quick the killing happened, suffered the worst of all the Jews [in Europe],” says Rees.Rees points out that many academics he has has met over the last 25 years when speaking about Holocaust history tend to point to seminars, abstract theories, and week-long conferences. The trouble with such an approach is that the subject can become dehumanized in the process, he says.What is so intriguing about Rees’s approach is his tendency to link the primary individual interviews he has conducted with the wider tragic historical narrative.Crucially, these interviews include interactions with both victims and Nazi perpetrators themselves. This has led Rees somewhat closer to understanding this crime of unspeakable horror. Although even then, he admits, it’s still pretty hard to ever come to terms with how humans could organize depravity on such a mass scale and with such cold calculation.Rees says that if he has learned anything from spending a quarter of a century researching this subject, it’s that many of the low-ranking Nazis murderers he spoke with — and indeed the collaborators, too — did not feel they were simply following orders on a mindless administrative conveyor belt.Rees also makes it clear that he fundamentally disagrees with the thesis proposed by Hannah Arendt about the so called “banality of evil,” a term she famously coined when covering the Eichmann trial in Israel in 1961 for the New Yorker.“The Nazis were fanatics,” says Rees. “But one thing you cannot accuse them of being was banal.”The reason the writer, documentary maker, and historian became so convinced of this was from the answer he often tended to get when directly asking Nazi killers, “What was your motivation for carrying out this killing?”“What we usually found was that there was an internalization of a belief system from Nazis that the murder they were carrying out [against Jews] was the right thing to do,” says Rees.“You also got a sense speaking to Nazi murderers that they felt an immense exhilaration while they were carrying out the killing too,” he adds.
Latest: Police arrest knife-carrying Palestinians at West Bank junction-Rivlin: US was, must always remain a safe place for Jews-US lawmakers on visit to explore possible embassy move; ministers take another step toward marijuana decriminalization-By Times of Israel staff March 5, 2017, 2:15 pm
16:05-Police arrest knife-carrying Palestinians at West Bank junction-Border Police officers arrest two Palestinian men at the Tapuah Junction in the northern West Bank on suspicion of planning a stabbing attack at the site.According to a statement by police, a policeman stationed at the junction sees two figures walking through an open field near the intersection.Officers approach the two, find one man in possession of a knife, and arrest them both.According to police, after questioning the men officials conclude one had carried out reconnaissance of the site and sought to carry out an attack.— Judah Ari Gross-15:53-Cuomo calls anti-Semitic attack in New York ‘reprehensible’-Visiting New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says Sunday that a recent rash of anti-Semitic acts in the United States was “reprehensible” and his state would have no tolerance for them.In a visit to Israel, Cuomo makes his first comments following the toppling of headstones at a Jewish cemetery this weekend in Brooklyn. It follows a series of vandalism attacks at Jewish cemeteries and more than 120 bomb threats to Jewish organizations in three dozen states since early January. In New York City alone, anti-Semitic hate crimes nearly doubled in the past year.Speaking at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, Cuomo says the incidents “violated every tenet of the New York State tradition.” He says the state has posted rewards and put together a special police unit to combat the phenomenon.“New York State by its definition is a celebration of diversity, it accepts all, we believe in the spirit of inclusion and we live by discrimination of none. New York’s principles are built on a rock. They will not change and the political wings will not change them,” he says, alongside Israeli President Reuven Rivlin. “We have made it clear that there will be no tolerance for these acts of anti-Semitism.”— AP-15:52-Dutch far-right MP slams Turkey referendum rally plans-AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — Dutch far-right MP Geert Wilders Sunday denounces plans by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu to attend a Rotterdam rally in support of a high-stakes Turkish referendum.“They should not come and interfere here with our domestic problems,” Wilders tells reporters, referring to next Saturday’s rally backing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.Dutch officials, including Prime Minister Mark Rutte, have already condemned the plans to hold the demonstration organized by some of the port city’s sizable Turkish community.“If I would be prime minister today I would declare — until at least the half of April when they have the referendum — I would call the whole cabinet of Turkey persona non grata for a month or two, not allowing them to come here,” Wilders says, speaking in English.“We believe that Dutch public space is not the place to hold a political campaign for another country,” Rutte said on his Facebook page.A Turkish-Dutch political association said Friday that Cavusoglu would attend the rally, hoping to persuade some hundreds of thousands of Turkish-origin citizens to vote “yes” in the April 16 referendum aimed at boosting Erdogan’s powers.German towns last week banned three similar rallies which had been due to be attended by Turkish ministers, provoking anger from Ankara.The Turkish public will decide whether to approve constitutional changes that will expand the role of the head of state and remove the office of the premier.— AFP-15:17-Ministers look to ease enforcement of marijuana use-Cabinet ministers on Sunday vote to establish a top-level committee that will piece together the nuts and bolts of the government’s developing policy of de facto decriminalization of private use of marijuana.In the cabinet decision, ministers formally establish the 13-member committee, which includes the heads of the government’s drug enforcement agency, the Health Ministry’s top official dealing with addiction issues, the directors of the Public Security Ministry, a senior police official, treasury and Justice Ministry officials, and others.The decision follows an announcement last month by Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan that he now supports all but canceling enforcement of anti-marijuana laws in cases of private use in private places. The policy is supported by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked.The committee has until May 7 to submit its recommendations, which, according to the decision, will include a careful examination of all relevant questions of legislation, enforcement, budgets and health policy that the change in policy might entail.-14:41-Rivlin: US was, must always remain a safe place for Jews-Amid a wave of anti-Semitic vandalism and bomb threats targeting Jewish communities across the United States, President Reuven Rivlin tells New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Sunday that the US must always remain a safe place for Jews.“In the time of the Holocaust, few places were safe for Jews. The United States was a rare island of safety. We can never, ever, let that change,” Rivlin says.Cuomo is in Israel on a visit he says is meant as an act of solidarity in the face of the anti-Semitic wave.“Your arrival to Israel at this time is an extremely important signal that the US people and government will not let anti-Semitism win,” Rivlin tells the governor. “Our appreciation goes to [US] President [Donald] Trump who condemned the attacks – and we are deeply touched by Vice President [Mike] Pence, who went and gave a hand – and a voice – in fixing the broken gravestones,” Rivlin adds, referring to Pence’s visit to a Jewish cemetery near St. Louis, Missouri, that had been vandalized. Pence helped workers replace the toppled headstones.-14:30-US lawmakers on visit to explore possible embassy move-A group of American lawmakers is visiting Israel Sunday to examine a possible move of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.The delegation, made up of members of the Subcommittee for National Security of the House Oversight Committee, meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials on Sunday morning.Led by Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis, of Florida, the group is set to visit possible locations for the American embassy and is expected to brief Congress and the administration of its findings.“Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish people for thousands of years, since King David. That’s a fact that nobody can deny,” says Likud MK Yehudah Glick, a US-born lawmaker who briefed the delegation on the city’s history and political significance.“Now is the time for the US president to keep his promise and the law passed by Congress in 1995 and lead the free world to recognize reality and declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel and the Jewish people.”— Raphael Ahren-14:19-Six top Hadassah pediatric cancer physicians resign-All six senior pediatric hematologist-oncologists at Israel’s largest hospital resign on Sunday amid an ongoing wage dispute with hospital management.In a statement, Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem says it “received today a collective resignation letter of the head of the pediatric hemato-oncology department and five senior doctors in the department. Management will do everything possible to ensure that no child is hurt by this collective resignation.”One lawmaker, Zionist Union MK Itzik Shmuley, who heads the Knesset’s caucus for children with cancer, calls on Health Minister Yaakov Litzman to intervene to prevent the resignations.-14:17-Wave of IS car bombs targets Iraqi troops in west Mosul-BAGHDAD — Iraqi troops encounter the “heaviest” clashes yet with Islamic State group fighters Sunday in western Mosul since the start of the new push more than two weeks ago, according to a senior commander.Maj. Gen. Haider al-Maturi of the Federal Police Commandos Division tells The Associated Press that IS militants dispatched at least six suicide car bombs, which are all destroyed before reaching the troops. The militants, he says, are moving from house to house and deploying snipers.The wave of heavy resistance comes as Iraqi forces launch attacks against IS-held neighborhoods in western Mosul from three points Sunday morning. The Federal Police are closing in on the city’s main government complex in the Dawasa neighborhood and Iraq’s special forces are attempting to push into the Shuhada and Mansour neighborhoods.The push on Mosul’s west was launched about two weeks ago after the eastern half of the city was declared “fully liberated” in January. The operation to retake Mosul officially began in October after more than two years of slowly clawing back territory from IS militants.— AP-14:17-Jewish Home irate over reported Netanyahu-Herzog peace bid-At Sunday’s cabinet meeting, Jewish Home ministers demand answers from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over reports that he and opposition leader MK Isaac Herzog nearly formed a unity government last fall.The report, in the daily Haaretz, carried an English-language text drafted by Netanyahu and Herzog that would have committed Israel to reduced settlement construction, explicitly welcomed a two-state solution to the conflict with the Palestinians and sought wider Arab states’ backing for such a move.According to Channel 10, Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who heads the Jewish Home party, demands to know if the report is accurate.Netanyahu tells the ministers the leak comes as part of internal political wrangling within Herzog’s Labor party.Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, Bennett’s number two, reportedly retorts that the leaked document reached Haaretz not from Labor, but from staffers of former US secretary of state John Kerry.
