Olmert calls for world to stop Iran nuclear bomb NOV 16,08
JERUSALEM – Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday that Iran is still trying to build nuclear bombs and the world must make a concerted effort to stop the project.Iran has not terminated its pursuit of nuclear weapons, Olmert told a gathering of North American Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. Iran cannot become nuclear. Israel cannot afford it...the free world must not accept it. We must all do whatever we can to prevent it.Israel considers Iran a strategic threat because of its nuclear program, its development of long-range missiles and repeated threats to destroy the Jewish state.Olmert did not give specific warnings about possible Israeli actions against Iran.Iran denies its nuclear program is aimed at producing weapons.
Israel PM accuses Hamas of shattering Gaza truce by Ron Bousso Ron Bousso – NOV 16,08
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Interim Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert accused the Islamist Hamas movement on Sunday of shattering the Gaza truce after two rockets hit Israel, prompting an air strike which killed four Palestinian militants.Olmert told the weekly cabinet meeting that Israel could not stand idly by while it came under repeated rocket fire and said he had ordered security chiefs to draw up action plans against Hamas's 17-month-old rule in Gaza.But several more rockets fired from Gaza hit Israel late on Sunday afternoon, leaving one person with light shrapnel wounds to the head and the arm, the army said.Defence officials said that Israel's border crossings would remain closed to humanitarian deliveries to the aid-dependent territory, despite mounting international pressure for a resumption of desperately needed food and fuel.Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas was expected to press Olmert on the issue in talks on Monday, following appeals from both the European Union and the United Nations.Olmert said that the responsibility for the shattering of the calm and the creation of a situation of prolonged and repeated violence in the south of the country is entirely on Hamas and the other terror groups in Gaza.He said he had asked security chiefs to present different action plans against the Hamas terror rule without its hampering our ability to use all necessary force in our response to violations of the calm.Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni meanwhile told her visiting British counterpart David Miliband that she expected the international community to support the tough stand in Gaza.Israel can not just watch its citizens being attacked... The international community can not turn a blind-eye, Livni said.But the head of the Hamas administration in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, said Israel, not the Islamists, was violating the truce and demanded that Jewish state prove its interest by keeping to its side of the bargain.
Israel must turn its words about a truce into actions by halting the aggression and lifting the unjust siege, Haniya said.He also dismissed calls by some Israeli leaders for a resumption of so-called targeted killings against Hamas leaders saying such threats don't even scare the smallest Palestinian child.During Sunday's cabinet meeting, a senior official quoted Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz as saying: We must stop talking and start a policy of targeted killing against the Hamas leadership.
Haniya made his comments at the funeral of four Palestinian militants from the Popular Resistance Committees, a small armed group not linked to Hamas, who were killed in an Israeli air raid on Gaza City earlier Sunday.The army said the four were preparing to fire rockets at Israel, and that the raid followed two hits which caused neither casualties nor damage.Olmert's speech to the cabinet exposed a mounting rift with Defence Minister Ehud Barak over the Egyptian-brokered truce with Hamas which went into force on June 19 and which, despite sporadic violations by both sides, had led to a prolonged calm on the border until earlier this month.Barak took a far more conciliatory line than his colleagues, saying Israel should be prepared to consider a return to the deal. If the other side wants the calm, we will consider it seriously, he said.Any major change of policy will have to be approved by Israel's security cabinet which is expected to meet later this week. Since violence flared on November 5, Israeli forces and militants, some of them from Hamas, have engaged in almost daily tit-for-tat exchanges and Israel's border with Gaza -- its sole gateway for vital goods -- has remained almost continuously closed.
On Sunday, Israel maintained the crippling blockade which has forced the United Nations to suspend food distribution to 750,000 Gaza residents and the territory's sole power plant to shut down. The crossings will remain closed until further orders, said Israel's liaison officer for the Palestinian territories, Peter Lerner.
Top Barak aide Amos Gilad, who negotiated the informal truce with the Egyptians, said Israel could reopen the crossings to limited humanitarian deliveries. Israel does not want a humanitarian crisis, he said.
Israel urges greater force vs Iran nuclear work NOV 16,08
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called on Sunday for a stronger international campaign against Iran's nuclear programme to thwart it with greater force.We must increase our measures to prevent Iran from achieving its devious goals, Olmert said in a speech to Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. Iran cannot become nuclear. Israel cannot afford it ... the free world must not accept it.We must unite our forces as part of the international community, led by the United States of America. We must confront Iran's malevolent diligence and thwart it with greater force.Israel and the West fear Iran may be using its nuclear programme to develop a nuclear weapon, which the Jewish state sees as a potential threat to its existence. Iran says its atomic programme is solely for energy purposes.Israel is widely believed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal, although it has never confirmed nor denied it.Israel has backed Western economic sanctions against Iran but has said it is keeping all options on the table in its bid to halt Iran's nuclear programme.Israeli leaders have voiced concern about U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's stated readiness to seek dialogue either alongside or instead of sanctions as a method of persuading Iran to change its policies.Iran has not terminated its pursuit of nuclear weapons, Olmert said.He also accused the Islamic Republic of continuing to fund Palestinian militants and gunmen in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.Olmert called for further sanctions against Iran, saying: It must become more costly to Iran to pursue nuclear weapons than to give it up.Olmert resigned as prime minister in September in the heat of a corruption investigation, but is staying on as caretaker prime minister until a new Israeli government can be formed after a February 10 election.(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
Miliband urged to support Israel's stand on Gaza by Steve Kirby Steve Kirby – Sun Nov 16, 1:54 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Sunday told her visiting British counterpart David Miliband that she expected the international community to support the Jewish state's tough stand in Gaza.Israel can not just watch its citizens being attacked... The international community can not turn a blind-eye, Livni said during talks with Miliband.The British foreign secretary arrived in the region on Sunday for talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders amid renewed violence in and around the Gaza Strip that threatened to end a five-month-old calm in the area.Palestinian militants in the Hamas-controlled territory continued to fire rockets against southern Israel on Sunday, wounding one person after four militants were killed in an Israeli air strike.Miliband, who will tour the rocket-battered Israeli town of Sderot together with Defence Minister Ehud Barak on Monday, said he was looking forward to showing solidarity in my visit tomorrow.He, nevertheless, did not echo calls from the United Nations and the European Union for Israel to ease its crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip that has deprived the densely-populated area of vital foodstuff and goods.Miliband earlier met outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to discuss efforts to launch direct Israeli-Syrian peace talks, ahead of the foreign secretary's visit to Damascus this week, a British embassy spokeswoman told AFP.
Last month Olmert asked the Turkish government to present the Syrians with a proposal to resume indirect talks which were put on hold after the premier announced on July 30 he would step down over a corruption scandal.Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has yet to reply to the proposal.Miliband was also due to meet right-wing opposition Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who together with Livni are the two frontrunners to head a new government in Israel's February elections.The visit also comes amid growing tensions after Britain's recent bid to press its European Union partners to stop Israeli exports to the bloc that are manufactured or largely manufactured in Jewish settlements, in what London sees as a breach of a 2000 free trade agreement between the two sides and an encouragement to settlement expansion.
According to the spokeswoman, Miliband and Olmert had a clear exchange of views on the issue that has raised heavy criticism in Israel.The foreign secretary made it clear that Britain was not trying to move the goalposts on the agreement but rather to follow up on representations which have been made to us on the workings of the system, she said.Israel has also expressed concerns over the threat of war crimes prosecutions in Britain against senior Israeli army officers.In September 2005, Major General Doron Almog narrowly missed arrest by police at London's Heathrow airport when he flew straight back to Israel following a tip-off that he faced detention on suspicion of war crimes over the destruction of more than 50 homes in Gaza in 2002.After Israel, Miliband will go on to West Bank talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas as part of his efforts to bolster support for the peace negotiations relaunched in the US city of Annapolis last November that have failed to achieve their target of an agreement by the end of this year.I will reinforce the UK's support for the Annapolis peace process and a viable two-state solution when I meet Israeli and Palestinian representatives, Miliband has said.I do not underestimate the scale of the challenge or the size of the task to realise the goal of a two-state solution -- a goal shared by the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships, as well as the entire international community. It is precisely the scale of this challenge that makes our engagement all the more necessary.
Jewish settlers given 72 hours to leave Hebron house Sun Nov 16, 9:54 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel's High Court on Sunday ordered Jewish settlers to evacuate within three days a house in the flashpoint West Bank town of Hebron whose ownership is contested.The ruling, which was slammed by settler leaders, follows a series of violent clashes between Israeli security forces and hardline Jews seeking to erect unauthorised outposts in the West Bank, which Israel occupied in 1967.The court rejected an appeal by two rightwing organisations against an order issued by the state to evacuate the Hebron house, which the settlers claim they had purchased from a Palestinian, who denies selling the house.The controversial house was occupied by dozens of hardline Jewish settlers in March 2007. They have remained in the four-storey building which they dubbed the house of peace despite the evacuation order.
The court ruling said the settlers should turn to the appropriate legal bodies to prove their ownership over the house and refrain from taking the law into their own hands by occupying the property against the will of its owner.It ordered the settlers to leave the house within three days. If they are not out by then, the ruling said, they can be subject to forceful evacuation by police.The settler representatives claimed the house had been bought for 700,000 dollars, but Palestinian Faez Rajabi said he had documents proving he was the legal owner and that the deal had never been completed.While the ruling said there were contradictions and queries in Rajabi's claims, it also said that documents presented by the settlers in a bid to show ownership of the house were found by police investigators to be forged.A spokesman for the Yesha Council, the main settler organisation, called on interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to meet them and urged him to allow the settlers to stay in the house.The settlers have proved beyond any doubt that they bought the house, but still the government, the state prosecution and the High Court collude to remove them from the house, Yishai Hollander said.The Yesha Council and the settler representatives will together examine their actions in view of the ruling.
Gaza militant killed readying rocket Sat Nov 15, 5:52 am ET
GAZA CITY (AFP) – A Palestinian militant was killed and another wounded in an explosion as a group prepared to fire a rocket, medics and witnesses said on Saturday.The witnesses said that the blast in northern Gaza was the result of an Israeli air strike but the Israeli army denied that they had undertaken any attack in the area.We haven't carried out a strike in northern Gaza in recent hours. The explosion might be due to mishandling of weapons, an army spokesman said.A doctor at Beit Lahiya hospital said that the wounded militant was in a critical condition.
Israeli, Palestinian leaders to meet Monday Sat Nov 15, 4:54 am ET
JERUSALEM, (AFP) – Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will meet Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Monday to discuss tensions in the Gaza Strip and the sluggish peace talks, officials said on Saturday.Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told AFP that the two leaders will meet on Monday at Olmert's Jerusalem residence. A senior Israeli official confirmed the meeting's timing and location.The meeting, the first in over two months, will focus on the five-month-old ceasefire between Israel and the Islamist Hamas movement that seized power in the Gaza Strip in June 2007, ousting forces loyal to Abbas, the two officials said.The fragile Egyptian-brokered truce is under severe strain following 12 days of tit-for-tat skirmishes between the Israeli army and Gaza militants.Abbas was expected to ask Olmert to alleviate Israel's punishing blockade on Gaza, which it completely sealed off last week in response to renewed rocket fire against southern Israel, Erekat said.The Palestinian leader will also discuss Israel's ongoing settlement activity in the occupied West Bank, notably in the wake of reports that (Defence Minister Ehud) Barak has authorised new construction, Erekat added.The two leaders, who last met on September 16, will also continue the Middle East peace talks, which were practically suspended after Olmert stepped down in September over corruption allegations.The US-backed talks, launched nearly a year ago at an international summit in Annapolis, Maryland, has made little visible progress as both leaders have conceded that they would not meet their declared goal of inking a deal before President George W. Bush leaves office on January 20.
Hamas fires long-range rockets at Israel By Abed Shana Abed Shana – Fri Nov 14, 1:00 pm
GAZA (Reuters) – Hamas Islamists fired long-range rockets at a southern Israel city on Friday after an Israeli air strike on their Gaza stronghold in the 11th day of skirmishes that threaten a five-month-old truce.The armed wing of the Islamist group said it fired five Grad rockets, the longest-range weapon it has used against the Jewish state. Israel said they hit Ashkelon, north of Gaza on the Mediterranean coast, with no casualties.Israel and Hamas blamed each other for the flare-up since November 4, in which 12 Hamas militants have been killed by Israeli forces and scores of rockets fired into Israel. But both shied away from declaring an end to the Egyptian-brokered truce.We will continue to forcefully defend Israeli soldiers and citizens, to thwart attempts to stage attacks when we discover them, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said. At the same time, if the other side wants to continue the calm we will definitely give it positive consideration.
Hamas took a similar stand.
Up to this moment we are committed to the ceasefire, said Mahmoud al-Zahar, a Hamas leader. Self-defense and resistance would continue. We are waiting for the Israelis. If they are really committed (to a truce) we have to address that frankly.The 1960s-era Soviet-made Grad rocket has a range of 25 km (15 miles). Two of them struck Ashkelon.Earlier, Palestinian medics said two Hamas fighters were wounded in an Israeli air strike, which a military spokesman said was in response to an earlier rocket attack.After the air strike, Hamas said it fired eight shorter-range Qassam rockets aimed at the city of Sderot.Two Qassams hit, causing damage to buildings, an Israeli police spokesman said. One Israeli was treated for shrapnel wounds and a number of people suffered shock.
NEXT MOVE
Israel's caretaker prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said in a statement after consultations with defense chiefs that Israel would not tolerate the rocket fire. It would continue to apply economic pressure on Hamas through border crossings.Israel has not allowed humanitarian supplies into the Gaza Strip since November 4, when its troops raided the territory to destroy what the army described as a tunnel built by militants to kidnap Israeli soldiers.Six Hamas gunmen were killed in the raid. Militants responded to the incursion with rocket salvoes.Israel said the crossings would remain shut for now.United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Israel to allow urgently fuel and humanitarian aid into Gaza, where 750,000 Palestinians are in need of food.Short of fuel, Gaza shut down its sole power plant, and rationed electricity it gets from Israel and Egypt. Some Gaza bakeries posted notices on Friday limiting the purchase of bread, although no major shortages were reported.The EU also urged Israel to let aid supplies through. I am profoundly concerned about the consequences for the Gazan population of the complete closure of all Gaza crossings for deliveries of fuel and basic humanitarian assistance, External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said. Israeli troops also killed four gunmen in a raid on Wednesday, prompting more rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza. Hamas is in conflict with the Fatah faction of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas which holds sway in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and is negotiating with Israel on peace terms. The rift between them widened in 2007 as Hamas took control of Gaza. Egypt brokered the Israel-Hamas truce, but Palestinian unity talks it is mediating faltered earlier this month. (Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi and Allyn Fisher-Ilan; additional reporting by Patrick Worsnip at the United Nations and Mark John in Brussels; Writing by Douglas Hamilton; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
Israel's Barak approved settlement construction: report Fri Nov 14, 4:02 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak approved dozens of construction projects in Jewish settlements in the West Bank in recent months despite international commitments to freeze such activity, the Haaretz daily said on Friday.Some of the permits for construction were granted in areas beyond the large settlement blocs Israel wants to keep under any peace agreement reached with the Palestinians, the liberal newspaper said.Israel reiterated a commitment to freeze all settlement activity when Middle East peace talks were revived at a US-sponsored conference in November 2007.The defence ministry slammed the Haaretz article and its headline which read: Barak sanctioned settlement expansion.This article and its headline are riddled with erroneous and biased data, spokesman Ronen Moshe said.
Anyone can judge why such a biased and wrong article was published at this time and what's behind the timing, he said in apparent reference to campaigning for February 10 legislative elections.Ehud Barak, who heads the Labour party, had insisted in January that all Israeli construction projects in the West Bank should go to him for approval.Haaretz said that since April the minister had authorised the marketing of at least 400 homes and plots in the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the construction of 60 homes several kilometres (miles) from the existing Eshkolot settlement and the registration of further construction projects.Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad on Thursday accused Israel of threatening the peace process by failing to comply with its commitments to freeze settlement activity in the occupied West Bank.
Israel not counting on Obama in peace talks: Livni By Claudia Parsons Claudia Parsons – Thu Nov 13, 12:00 pm ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Israel's chief negotiator with the Palestinians said on Thursday Israel did not need any dramatic intervention in the peace process from U.S. President-elect Barack Obama when he takes office in January.Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who could become prime minister after Israel's general election in February, told Jewish leaders in New York the international community should limit itself to backing the talks according to parameters set out at a peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland, nearly a year ago.The talks have been hobbled by violence and bitter disputes over Jewish settlement building and the future of Jerusalem.Livni said she welcomed the outcome of a meeting she attended last weekend in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, with the Quartet -- the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States -- and Arab and Palestinian leaders.Livni said she had told them: We don't ask you to intervene. Please, this is bilateral. We don't want you to try to bridge gaps between us. Don't put new ideas on the table.We know what we are doing, we are responsible enough. We need your help just in supporting the process according to the parameters and the provisions we all set between us.Always remote, the chances of a peace deal this year appeared to evaporate entirely when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced his decision to resign because of a corruption scandal, triggering plans for a February 10 election in Israel.
SITUATION IS CALM
As leader of the Kadima party, Livni was unable to form a coalition government last month, but she could become prime minister after the election. She said Obama's top priority would be to address the financial crisis in the United States.She said that while there were expectations from Obama on the Middle East, her message to the new administration was: You don't need now to do nothing dramatic about it. The situation is calm. We have these peace talks.Addressing a meeting of the UJA-Federation of New York, she said the United States was a friend but that Israel was not a state that puts its problem on the American table the day after the new administration takes office.It is unclear how much emphasis Obama will place on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and Palestinian officials have repeatedly said they are worried Israel would use any lull in talks to expand Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, lands seized by Israel in a 1967 war.Livni said the only way for Israel to live as a democratic Jewish state in peace and security was to give up some of its land for a Palestinian state, in return for Palestinians dropping their insistence on the right of return of refugees.Some 700,000 people, half the Arab population of Palestine in May 1948, fled or were driven from their homes when Israel was created. Refugees and their descendants now number 4.5 million, with the largest refugee communities in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, as well as the West Bank and Gaza Strip.Livni said the answer to the refugee issue was not to allow a return to Israel, not even to one of them.I'm willing to make this historical reconciliation as long as I know that the creation of a Palestinian state is the answer to their own national aspiration, she said.And if there is a problem of refugees that left in 1948, this is not an Israeli problem any more.Livni was in New York to attend a high-level U.N. General Assembly meeting on dialogue between different religions on the initiative of Saudi King Abdullah. She said King Abdullah had taken a courageous step in calling the meeting, which indicated a recognition that the enemy of Arab states was not Israel but extremism. (Editing by Doina Chiacu)
Mayor-elect vows to bolster Israel's undivided capital by Ron Bousso Ron Bousso – Wed Nov 12, 2:12 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – A secular tycoon celebrating his election as Jerusalem mayor on Wednesday vowed to turn the Holy City into a world metropolis and bolster its disputed status as Israel's undivided capital.Nir Barkat won 52 percent of the vote in Tuesday's poll, routing an ultra-Orthodox rabbi, a scandal-plagued Russian-Israeli billionaire and a pro-cannabis candidate.Media hailed his triumph as a secular revolution after five years under ultra-Orthodox Mayor Uri Lupolianski.
Barkat, 49, swept to victory on a hardline ticket rejecting the cession to the Palestinians of any part of occupied Arab east Jerusalem as part of a peace deal.The successful businessman with a penchant for natty suits faces an uphill battle in a city struggling with rampant poverty, massive debt and a growing gap between Jewish and Palestinian neighbourhoods.This victory belongs to all those who love and appreciate our incredible city, the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Barkat told supporters in a victory speech at his campaign headquarters.The victory belongs to right and left, religious and secular, Jews and Arabs.A former member of caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Kadima, Barkat prides himself on having quit the centrist party after exposing what he said was a plan to divide Jerusalem.His hardline stance won him the backing of the city's religious right-wing parties which represent a hefty part of Jerusalem's population of 700,000.He promised to build new Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as the capital of their promised state, saying it was essential to provide affordable housing to stem the exodus of young Jews.But he insisted there was no necessary contradiction between his determination to expand Jewish settlements and his pledge to serve all the city's residents, including the 250,000 Arabs who overwhelmingly boycotted the election.As someone who believes in a united Jerusalem I am more committed to helping people in east Jerusalem to improve their quality of life, he said.I believe that in building a united Jerusalem, everyone wins. There is no successful example of a split city in the world especially if we want to develop Jerusalem as a tourist site.The vast majority of Jerusalem's Jewish population considers Israel's designation of the city as its eternal and undivided capital a sacred mantra, even though it is rejected by the international community.World governments and and the Palestinians have criticised Israel for continuing Jewish settlement activity in the east of the city, as well as the rest of the occupied West Bank, seeing it as a major stumbling block to peace.The incoming mayor also promised new legislation to attract companies, especially from Israel's large computer industry, in a bid to encourage young families to stay.I see the big picture for Jerusalem, said Barkat, who says his role model is New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.The mayor-elect said he also intends to press the government to rethink the light railway under construction in Jerusalem which has sparked traffic gridlock in large parts of the city. I argue that there are better solutions -- cheaper, faster and better-serving the people of Jerusalem, Barkat said. The Maariv daily commented in an editorial that Barkat had an enormous task in front of him to rebuild the city's economy and tax base. The capital city, which became the poorest and most neglected city in Israel, needs an earthquake that will leave no stone unturned, it said. The tens of thousands of people who abandoned the city have to come back and rebuild everything anew.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
NEW JERUSALEM MAYOR
4 dead as Israelis, Palestinians battle in Gaza By DIAA HADID, Associated Press Writer NOV 12,08
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Israeli troops and Palestinian militants fought with missiles and mortars along the Gaza-Israel border on Wednesday, raising new concerns that an increasingly shaky five-month-old truce might collapse.Four Hamas militants were killed in the exchange, and the Hamas military wing said it would retaliate.
Gaza's Hamas rulers and Israeli leaders have said in recent days they're interested in restoring calm, but the latest fighting highlighted the persistent tensions along the border.Hamas seized control of Gaza in June 2007, and Israel later declared Gaza a hostile entity. An Egyptian-brokered truce took hold in June.The Israeli military and Palestinian militants gave conflicting versions of how the fighting started.
Israel's military said it began when Israeli forces spotted armed militants approaching Gaza's border fence, near the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis. The men were trying to lay an explosive device near the fence, the military said.An exchange of fire erupted. The militants set off an explosive device and fired three mortars at troops, the military said. Israeli soldiers hit four militants and an Israeli soldier was slightly injured, the army said.Later, Israeli aircraft fired two missiles at open fields, the army said.Palestinian militants said the battle began when they spotted Israeli forces crossing into Gaza and fired upon them.The military would not say whether Israeli forces entered Gaza.Palestinian Health Ministry official Dr. Moawiya Hassanain said ambulances later retrieved the bodies of four Hamas militants from the area of fighting.Hamas' military wing threatened retaliation. The anger of our people and our resistance will reach everybody, God willing, and our response to the enemy will be painful, and will spill the Zionists' blood, the wing's spokesman, Abu Obeida, said in a statement.Earlier Wednesday, Gaza's Hamas rulers stopped short of saying the truce was over but said militants would fight any entry of Israeli forces into Gaza. This is a clear violation of the truce, and the resistance has the right to respond to any attack, said Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman.The truce began to unravel last week, after Israeli forces trying to destroy a militants' tunnel entered Gaza, setting off battles that killed seven Palestinian gunmen. The fighting unleased a wave of rocket attacks from Gaza at Israeli border towns.
Israeli officials have warned that truce might not last.We are looking at the relative calm around us and know that under the surface other things are brewing, said Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Tuesday in a visit to the army's Southern Command, in charge of Gaza operations.Associated Press writer Matti Friedman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
Mayor-elect vows to bolster Israel's undivided capital by Ron Bousso Ron Bousso – Wed Nov 12, 3:49 am ET
JERUSALEM, (AFP) – A secular tycooon celebrating his election as Jerusalem mayor on Wednesday vowed to turn the Holy City into a world metropolis and bolster its disputed status as Israel's undivided capital.Nir Barkat won 52 percent of the votes in Tuesday's poll, routing an ultra-Orthodox rabbi, a scandal-plagued Russian-Israeli billionaire and a pro-cannabis candidate.Media hailed his triumph a secular revolution after five years under ultra-Orthodox Mayor Uri Lupolianski.Barkat, 49, swept to victory on a hardline ticket rejecting concessions to the Palestinians of any part of occupied east Jerusalem as part of a peace deal.The successful businessman with a penchant for natty suits faces an uphill battle in a city struggling with rampant poverty, massive debt and a growing gap between Jewish and Palestinian neighbourhoods.Tonight Jerusalem has won, tonight Israel has won, tonight the Jewish people have won, Barkat told supporters in a victory speech at his campaign headquarters.This victory belongs to all those who love and appreciate our incredible city, the eternal capital of the Jewish people. The victory belongs to right and left, religious and secular, Jews and Arabs.A former member of caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Kadima, Barkat prides himself on having quit the centrist party after exposing what he said was a plan to divide Jerusalem.
Jerusalem has to stay unified, he has told AFP.Barkat's hardline stance won him the backing of the city's religious right-wing parties which represent a hefty part of Jerusalem's population of 700,000.He promised during his campaign to build new Jewish neighbourhoods in Arab east Jerusalem, which Palestinians want as their capital of their promised state.The vast majority of Jerusalem's Jewish population considers Israel's designation of the city as its eternal and undivided capital a sacred mantra, even though it is rejected by the international community.The status of Jerusalem is a main sticking point in the US-brokered Middle East peace talks.
The international community and the Palestinians have criticised Israel for continuing Jewish settlement activity in the eastern parts of the city, as well as in the rest of the occupied West Bank.The municipal election, which saw a relatively low turnout of 42 percent, was again boycotted by residents of east Jerusalem, home to some 250,000 Palestinians.Palestinians have shunned the municipal elections since Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it in a move not recognised by the international community.In the municipal polls around the country, although candidates of the ruling Kadima won some 50 of the more than 150 local councils, the vote saw a sharp rise in support for environmentalist parties.
Barkat's victory in Jerusalem highlights the growing rift between religious and secular Jews in Israel's poorest city. I see the big picture for Jerusalem, said Barkat, who says his role model is New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and who wants to turn the Holy City into an international metropolis.The incoming mayor has promised new legislation to attract companies, especially from Israel's large computer industry, and young families in a bid to reverse an exodus of young people from Jerusalem, where over one third of the population lives below the poverty line.
Olmert's change from hawk to dove seems complete By ARON HELLER, Associated Press Writer – Wed Nov 12, 2:44 am ET
JERUSALEM – Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, once one of Israel's leading hawks, is leaving office an outspoken dove.Forced out by corruption charges, Olmert is saying something that used to be fringe opinion among Israelis — that to make peace with the Palestinians, Israel must make sweeping territorial concessions, including Arab parts of Jerusalem.We must relinquish ... parts of our homeland as well as Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem, and return to the seed of the territory that was the state of Israel up to 1967, with the necessary adjustments arising from the reality that has since been created, he said in one of two speeches this week in which he laid out his credo.The ideology he once espoused, of keeping the territory Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war, will not work. It is already not working, he said in speeches Monday marking the 13th anniversary of the assassination of his dovish predecessor, Yitzhak Rabin, by a Jewish nationalist.We were wrong. We did not see the big picture, he said.Unless the land was partitioned into Jewish and Palestinian states, it would morph into one country in which an Arab majority would mean the end of Jewish statehood, he warned.The moment of truth has come, and there is no escaping it ... if God forbid, we drag our feet, we might lose the support for the idea of two states. The alternative is inconceivable.Never before has a serving Israeli prime minister spoken so forcefully for partitioning the land, and it was all the more striking given Olmert's background.Raised in a staunchly nationalist home on an ideology that opposed any territorial concessions to the Arabs, Olmert went on to serve in the hard-line governments of his former Likud Party.In recent years, though, he has come to publicly embrace a land-for-peace deal, but never the formula of complete withdrawal with border adjustments. As deputy prime minister, Olmert helped lead Israel's 2005 unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. He was elected prime minister in March 2006 on a platform calling for a broad withdrawal from the West Bank as well.His latest speeches go further, to the astonishment of the public. They sound close to what has long between the international formula for Mideast peace but is sharply at odds with past Israeli governments that demanded a substantial redrawing of borders to protect the country from surprise attack.
It's amazing, but it is tragic, says Moshe Amirav, a childhood friend of Olmert's who recalls being expelled from Likud 20 years ago for saying what Olmert is saying now.But I am optimistic about the future, added Amirav, a political scientist at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. If he, a right-wing prime minister, is saying this, there is hope.Olmert resigned in September because of corruption charges, but remains in office until a new government is formed after the Feb. 10 election.
Longtime Israeli doves fault him for not speaking up sooner. Lawmaker Yossi Sarid said he found the prime minister's comments to be heartfelt but delivered publicly only when he had nothing left to win and nothing left to lose.It's too bad he woke up so late, Sarid said.Olmert confidants say he couldn't speak out so frankly as long as he had to hold a shaky coalition government together.Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, her centrist Kadima party's candidate to succeed Olmert, quickly distanced herself from his remarks. I am not committed to the words of the outgoing prime minister, she told Israel's Army Radio Tuesday. We can conduct negotiations my way without having to reach the points the outgoing prime minister presented yesterday.
Polls regularly show most Israelis support a two-state solution with the Palestinians, though not necessarily a withdrawal to the 1967 borders. I am saying what this nation truly needs, not what it wants to hear, Olmert said at Rabin's grave. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat praised Olmert for his candor and remembered their first encounter 20 years ago. The man I spoke with then is a totally different man than the one I see before me today, he said. And maybe I am a different man now, too.
Was the U.S. Right About Syria Nukes? By ANDREW LEE BUTTERS / BEIRUT – Tue Nov 11, 6:55 pm ET
Hamas boycotts Palestinian talks BBC Given the Bush Administration's track record, no one ought to have been surprised when much of the Middle East raised a skeptical eyebrow in response to Washington's claim that the Syrian site bombed by Israeli warplanes in September of 2007 was part of a clandestine nuclear-weapons program. The Israelis kept mum about their reasons for attacking the site, but the U.S. let it be known that the target was a secret nuclear reactor being built with North Korean assistance - a claim that was widely viewed through the prism of false U.S. claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and the Bush Administration's animus toward Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime over its support for Hizballah and Palestinian radical groups, as well as its failure to curb jihadist insurgents crossing into Iraq.It turns out, however, that the Bush Administration may well have been right about the Syrian site. Diplomats from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told the press on Monday that the U.N. body's inspectors found traces of uranium when they inspected the site in June. Apparently, the amounts weren't large enough to make a definitive conclusion, but the IAEA is putting Syria - which has no publicly declared civilian nuclear program - on the formal agenda for its year-end meeting in late November. Diplomats at the IAEA say the Syrian government, which denies that it was trying to build nuclear weapons, has balked at the agency's requests for wider inspections. The findings at the Syrian site have yet to be declared in any official IAEA documentation, but whatever the conclusion of the IAEA's investigation, the deepening suspicions toward the Assad regime are coming at an increasingly complicated moment in relations between Damascus and Washington. Late last month, U.S. special forces launched a raid into eastern Syria targeting an alleged al-Qaeda weapons smuggler. In response, the Syrian government shut down an American school and cultural center in Damascus, and forced American Fulbright scholars based at Syrian institutions to leave the country. On Sunday, the New York Times reported that the most recent raid was simply one of dozens that had been conducted on Syrian territory by U.S. special forces under secret orders signed by then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
The sudden uptick in tension comes at a moment when Syria had begun to appear as one of the bright spots in a troubled region. U.S. officials had acknowledged that Syria had begun to stem the flow of insurgents into Iraq, while last spring, Damascus revealed that it had been holding indirect peace talks with Israel. President Assad, moreover, had said peace in the Middle East was possible within two years, if only the U.S. would sponsor direct talks, and hopes were high that the incoming Obama Administration would do just that. The news about the secret U.S. raids into Syria and the possibility of a Syrian nuclear weapons program paint a darker picture of just how deep hostility may have run between the U.S. and Syria. This was a real cold war, says Andrew J. Tabler, former editor of Syria Today, an English-language magazine in Damascus. Improving U.S.-Syrian relations could be a lot harder than we thought.
Obama urged to make Mideast peace top priority: Ban Tue Nov 11, 2:34 pm ET
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The main players in the Middle East peace process hope Barack Obama will make the issue a top priority when he takes over the U.S. presidency in January, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Tuesday.Last weekend the Quartet of Middle East peace mediators -- the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States -- met in Egypt to keep alive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, even though political uncertainty in Israel has scotched hopes for a deal this year.Ban represented the United Nations at the meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.It was expected to be Rice's last trip to the region before Obama takes office in January.We expect negotiations to continue uninterrupted through the coming period of transition, Ban told a news conference.
And all parties will be looking to the incoming U.S. administration to engage early, as a matter of highest priority, he said. The goal remains clear to all -- an end of conflict, an end of occupation, a two-state solution.He added that all members of the Quartet regret that an agreement is unlikely to be reached by ... the end of this year.Ban reiterated that it was important to support the Palestinian government's attempt to build security and improve living conditions for Palestinians.This required action on commitments under the 2003 road map peace framework, including on (Jewish) settlements, as well as a cessation of actions such as house demolitions that are contrary to international law or alter the status quo, including in East Jerusalem, he said.The Quartet members have strongly backed the talks launched at Annapolis, Maryland, nearly a year ago by President George W. Bush, despite expectations that he would fail to meet his year-end target.The Israeli-Palestinian talks have been hobbled from the start by violence and bitter disputes over Jewish settlement building and the future of Jerusalem. There are also worries that the process could fall apart amid political transitions in Israel and the United States.(Reporting by Louis Charbonneau; Editing by David Storey)
Olmert warns of looming confrontation with Hamas Tue Nov 11, 1:56 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned on Tuesday of a looming confrontation with the Islamist Hamas movement which controls the Gaza Strip.
I have no doubt that the situation between us and Hamas is an unavoidable pre-confrontation situation, Olmert said while touring the military headquarters responsible for the Gaza region.It's only a question of time and not a question of if, his office quoted him as saying on the tour.We are not eager for it but we are not afraid either and if there is a need to fight Hamas we will do so. In any event we should be alert and prepared.Israel imposed a blockade of Gaza after Hamas seized control of the territory from forces loyal to Western-backed Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in June last year.A ceasefire in and around the territory went into effect on June 19, but militants have conducted sporadic rocket and mortar attacks to which Israel has responded by tightening the territory's closure.On Tuesday Israel reopened the terminal that handles all fuel supplies to Gaza to allow delivery of diesel to the Palestinian territory's sole power plant one day after it shuddered to a halt.But a UN agency warned it would have to suspend food distribution on which a majority of Gaza's 1.5 million population depends unless Israel also allows in vital foodstuffs.Olmert presented his resignation as premier amid persistent corruption allegations in September but will remain at the head of a caretaker government until after snap parliamentary elections in February.
Israel's Livni distances herself from Olmert on peace Tue Nov 11, 9:24 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni distanced herself on Tuesday from comments by outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert calling for painful territorial concessions for Middle East peace.In an interview with army radio, Livni, who will lead Olmert's centrist Kadima party into a snap February election, said she was not bound by his policies.I am bound by the Kadima platform that I drafted and in which I laid down principles for negotiations with the Palestinians that the whole world can support, said Livni, who is Israel's lead negotiator in the peace talks.It is possible to conduct the negotiations in my own way without having to arrive at the outcome raised by the outgoing prime minister.In a speech to parliament on Monday marking the anniversary of the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, Olmert said Israel needed to give up large tracts of land in the West Bank, including Arab east Jerusalem, and on the Golan Heights, in exchange for peace.There were times when we wanted to seal our presence on every inch of land -- and I was one of those people -- but we were wrong, he said to jeers from right-wing MPs.Olmert had made similar comments at a memorial ceremony by Rabin's graveside on Monday.If we are determined to preserve the Jewish and democratic character of the state of Israel, we must inevitably relinquish, with great pain, parts of our homeland, and we must relinquish Arab neighbourhoods in Jerusalem, he said.The comments drew accusations from the right-wing opposition that the outgoing premier was abusing Rabin's memory for political ends.Olmert's speech was a disgraceful exploitation of the official occasion for a sermonising political speech in the spirit of the radical left, charged MP Gidon Saar, whose Likud party is running neck-and-neck in the opinion polls with Kadima.Rabin is turning over in his grave after Olmert overtook him from the left, said Zvulun Orlev from the pro-Jewish settler National Religious Party.
Israel's Netanyahu softens line on peace talks By STEVE WEIZMAN, Associated Press Writer – Mon Nov 10, 11:22 am ET
JERUSALEM – Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday pledged to continue negotiations with the Palestinians if he wins February elections, backing away from earlier hints he would abandon U.S.-backed peace talks.But Netanyahu gave no indication he would make significant concessions.Netanyahu refuses to discuss the future of the disputed city of Jerusalem, one of the core issues in negotiations for the past year. On Sunday, international Mideast mediators reaffirmed this framework, even as Netanyahu's office said he did not. Netanyahu's position on other key issues also falls far short of Palestinian and international demands.
His statement that peace talks would move forward if he is elected prime minister appeared to be aimed at easing international concerns and sending a message to the Israeli electorate that he can get along with the rest of the world.Speaking to reporters after meeting international peace envoy Tony Blair, Netanyahu said that if his hawkish Likud party returns to power in February elections, he would emphasize efforts to boost the ailing Palestinian economy but would not halt political talks.
We will move both the political negotiations forward and the economic peace that we've been working on, Netanyahu said.A day earlier, his office said there was no point continuing the talks the talks inaugurated at an international conference in Annapolis, Md., last November.The talks call on Israel and the Palestinians to resolve all outstanding issues between them, including the conflicting claims to the holy city of Jerusalem and a final border between Israel and a future Palestinian state.Netanyahu gave few details on his vision for peace. But in a recent speech to parliament, he said Israel would have to retain all of Jerusalem and large chunks of West Bank territory claimed by the Palestinians.In the West Bank, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki said if Netanyahu wins, we want to test these statements ... to see if he is serious or just maneuvering.Polls currently place Likud and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's centrist Kadima neck and neck ahead of the Feb. 10 vote. Israel is holding the election, a year and a half ahead of schedule, because a corruption scandal is driving current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert from office.Livni has been leading Israel's negotiations for the past year and has acknowledged that Israel will have to make tough concessions for peace.
Jordan king urges Obama to work directly for peace Sun Nov 9, 2:15 pm ET
AMMAN (AFP) – Jordan's King Abdullah II on Sunday urged US president-elect Barack Obama's new administration to become directly involved in efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East.I look forward to working with US president-elect Barack Obama to end the (Palestinian-Israeli) conflict in the region and reach comprehensive peace based on a two-state solution, the king told editors of Jordanian dailies.We hope the new administration is going to be directly involved in regional peace efforts.
The king, a key US ally in the region, said that Jordan which signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994 will continue its efforts to end the suffering of the Palestinians, according to a palace statement.The Middle East Quartet -- the European Union, Russia, United Nations and United States -- called on Sunday on Israel and the Palestinians to press on with peace negotiations, at a meeting in Egypt's resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.The Quartet has long backed a peace deal that would see the establishment of an independent Palestinian state living side by side in peace with Israel based on a so-called roadmap drafted in 2003.Meanwhile, the king discussed the Middle East peace process on Sunday with visiting Austrian President Heinz Fischer.There is a growing need for Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations to continue at this very critical stage, the two leaders said in a joint statement after their talks.Fischer, whose country is poised to become a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council on January 1, is in Jordan on a three-day state visit that focuses on the peace process.He is is to attend the inauguration of two Austro-Jordanian chambers of commerce and discuss ecology technology, particularly solar power.
Quartet pushes Israel, Palestinians to stick to peace talks by Sylvie Lanteaume and Hala Boncompagni – Sun Nov 9, 11:25 am ET
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (AFP) – The Middle East Quartet called on Israel and the Palestinians on Sunday to press on with peace negotiations even though a year-end target date for a deal is dead in the water.It also called for a halt to Jewish settlement activity on occupied Palestinian land, one of the thorniest issues in the peace talks, and for the dismantling of terrorist infrastructure.The Quartet called for the continuing of the peace process in the framework of Annapolis, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said after a meeting of the Quartet in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.He was referring to the US city where negotiations were revived in November 2007 after a near seven-year hiatus, with both sides committing to reaching a long-elusive deal by the end of this year.But with Israel now counting down to early elections in February and rival Palestinian groups still locked in a damaging political feud, all sides have ruled out any chance of meeting the target.Without minimising the gaps and obstacles that remain the representatives of the parties shared their assessment that the present negotiations are substantial and promising, the final statement said.The Quartet reiterated its call to the parties to fully implement their obligations under phase one of the roadmap including in relation to freezing settlement activity and dismantlement of the infrastructure of terrorism.
The Quartet -- the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States -- met to discuss progress in resolving core problems such as the status of Jerusalem, the borders of a future Palestinian state and refugees.Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said she would not sign any agreement that does not serve Israel's interest and that is not detailed enough to be put into effect. We are not there yet and it could take time.US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on her 19 trip to the region in two years and what may be her last, has tacitly admitted that a deal is unlikely by the time US President George W. Bush leaves office in January.
But she said on Sunday: We have an international strategy now to finally establish the two-state solution which President Bush set as a goal several years ago.Both sides, Rice said, believe that their negotiations are producing an atmosphere of trust as well as the foundation in which to build.In the absence of a full accord, however, Rice is pushing the two sides to define the outlines of a deal before she hands over the dossier to the administration of president-elect Barack Obama.The Quartet has long backed a peace deal that would see the establishment of an independent Palestinian state living side by side in peace with Israel based on a so-called roadmap drafted in 2003.But the peace process has been clouded by the resignation of Israel's scandal-plagued Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that led to the scheduling of snap elections for February.It has also been complicated by the ongoing feud between the Islamist Hamas movement, which seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, and Abbas's Fatah party, which has held on to the West Bank.
Reconciliation talks between the rival Palestinian groups due to begin on Monday in Cairo were called off after a Hamas boycott.Abbas adviser Nabil Shaath said in Cairo on Sunday the talks were now expected to resume within a fortnight. Based on available information we have from the Egyptians I expect the resumption of Palestinian talks in Cairo in 10 days, or two weeks at the most, he told reporters.
Israeli opposition leaders have said the peace process should be put on hold but Livni, who hopes to become premier, stressed that Washington should sustain the momentum. Abbas has also called on Obama to keep the peace process a US foreign policy priority and speed up efforts to help seal an agreement. We know that we are unable now to reach peace but we will continue in order to reach it, he said. Quartet envoy Tony Blair, Britain's former prime minister, echoed Abbas. The single most important thing for the new US administration is to press this issue from day one... knowing that for the first time we have comprehensive political negotiations through the Annapolis process, he said.
US, EU officials meet with Arabs on Iran By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writer
SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt – Senior U.S. and European officials met with several Arab leaders Sunday who are worried about the international community negotiating a deal with Iran that would give the Islamic Republic more power in the Middle East, said a U.S. official and a meeting participant.The meeting comes less than a week after the victory of President-elect Obama, who has said he is more open to holding talks with Iran on the country's controversial nuclear program.The sentiment expressed in the meeting by the foreign ministers of Bahrain, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates indicates they are concerned about what Obama would be willing to offer Iran to strike a deal.Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who attended the meeting along with European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, assured the Arab foreign ministers that Washington would not offer Iran greater influence in exchange for nuclear concessions, said a meeting participant.The United States' view is that Iran should not gain a privileged role in the region, the meeting participant quoted Rice as saying during the discussions, which were held on the sidelines of a meeting on Israeli-Palestinian peace in the Egyptian Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheik.
The Arab foreign ministers were most concerned about Iranian influence in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and other areas of the Gulf, said the meeting participant, who spoke on condition of anonymity along with the U.S. official because they were not authorized to talk to the media.Rice's assurances may mean little to Arab officials since she is not able to speak for the incoming administration. However, while Obama has signaled a greater willingness to talk to the Iranians, he has also said it is unacceptable for Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon.The U.S. and many of its allies have accused Iran of using its nuclear program as a cover for weapons development. Iran denies the charge, saying it is focused on building reactors to generate electricity.Many Arab countries in the Middle East, which are predominantly Sunni Muslim, have also expressed concern about Shiite Iran's intentions in the region.
Hamas leader says he is ready to talk to Obama Sat Nov 8, 3:42 pm ET
LONDON – Hamas is ready to open talks with U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, who must deal with the Palestinian militant group if he wants to address the wider conflict in the Middle East, the group's leader said in an interview broadcast Saturday.Khaled Mashaal said that Hamas is ready for dialogue with Obama and his new administration on the basis that the American administration respects our rights and our options.Hamas has controlled the Gaza Strip since seizing power by force in June 2007 from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement.The administration of President George W. Bush has boycotted the Islamic militants, as has most of the international community. Hamas refuses to renounce violence or recognize Israel.
The American administration, if they want to deal with the region, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli conflict, they have no other option than deal with Hamas because we are a real force on the ground, effective, Mashaal told Sky News from Damascus, Syria.
The exiled militant leader said that the election of a U.S. president with African roots was a big change — political and psychological and congratulated him on his victory.Denis McDonough, senior foreign policy adviser to Obama, said Hamas had to change its policies before it could engage in any talks.President-elect Obama said throughout the campaign that he will only talk with Hamas if it renounces terrorism, recognizes Israel's right to exist and agrees to abide by past agreements, McDonough said.On Friday, Hamas Gaza strongman Mahmoud Zahar said he hoped Obama's victory would open a new page in relations between the U.S. and the Muslim world. But he said he did not expect the U.S. to talk to Hamas immediately.Obama visited Israel and the West Bank in July, meeting Israeli leaders and Abbas and traveling to an Israeli town that had been hit by Hamas rockets from Gaza.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Israeli troops and Palestinian militants fought with missiles and mortars along the Gaza-Israel border on Wednesday, raising new concerns that an increasingly shaky five-month-old truce might collapse.Four Hamas militants were killed in the exchange, and the Hamas military wing said it would retaliate.
Gaza's Hamas rulers and Israeli leaders have said in recent days they're interested in restoring calm, but the latest fighting highlighted the persistent tensions along the border.Hamas seized control of Gaza in June 2007, and Israel later declared Gaza a hostile entity. An Egyptian-brokered truce took hold in June.The Israeli military and Palestinian militants gave conflicting versions of how the fighting started.
Israel's military said it began when Israeli forces spotted armed militants approaching Gaza's border fence, near the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis. The men were trying to lay an explosive device near the fence, the military said.An exchange of fire erupted. The militants set off an explosive device and fired three mortars at troops, the military said. Israeli soldiers hit four militants and an Israeli soldier was slightly injured, the army said.Later, Israeli aircraft fired two missiles at open fields, the army said.Palestinian militants said the battle began when they spotted Israeli forces crossing into Gaza and fired upon them.The military would not say whether Israeli forces entered Gaza.Palestinian Health Ministry official Dr. Moawiya Hassanain said ambulances later retrieved the bodies of four Hamas militants from the area of fighting.Hamas' military wing threatened retaliation. The anger of our people and our resistance will reach everybody, God willing, and our response to the enemy will be painful, and will spill the Zionists' blood, the wing's spokesman, Abu Obeida, said in a statement.Earlier Wednesday, Gaza's Hamas rulers stopped short of saying the truce was over but said militants would fight any entry of Israeli forces into Gaza. This is a clear violation of the truce, and the resistance has the right to respond to any attack, said Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman.The truce began to unravel last week, after Israeli forces trying to destroy a militants' tunnel entered Gaza, setting off battles that killed seven Palestinian gunmen. The fighting unleased a wave of rocket attacks from Gaza at Israeli border towns.
Israeli officials have warned that truce might not last.We are looking at the relative calm around us and know that under the surface other things are brewing, said Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Tuesday in a visit to the army's Southern Command, in charge of Gaza operations.Associated Press writer Matti Friedman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
Mayor-elect vows to bolster Israel's undivided capital by Ron Bousso Ron Bousso – Wed Nov 12, 3:49 am ET
JERUSALEM, (AFP) – A secular tycooon celebrating his election as Jerusalem mayor on Wednesday vowed to turn the Holy City into a world metropolis and bolster its disputed status as Israel's undivided capital.Nir Barkat won 52 percent of the votes in Tuesday's poll, routing an ultra-Orthodox rabbi, a scandal-plagued Russian-Israeli billionaire and a pro-cannabis candidate.Media hailed his triumph a secular revolution after five years under ultra-Orthodox Mayor Uri Lupolianski.Barkat, 49, swept to victory on a hardline ticket rejecting concessions to the Palestinians of any part of occupied east Jerusalem as part of a peace deal.The successful businessman with a penchant for natty suits faces an uphill battle in a city struggling with rampant poverty, massive debt and a growing gap between Jewish and Palestinian neighbourhoods.Tonight Jerusalem has won, tonight Israel has won, tonight the Jewish people have won, Barkat told supporters in a victory speech at his campaign headquarters.This victory belongs to all those who love and appreciate our incredible city, the eternal capital of the Jewish people. The victory belongs to right and left, religious and secular, Jews and Arabs.A former member of caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Kadima, Barkat prides himself on having quit the centrist party after exposing what he said was a plan to divide Jerusalem.
Jerusalem has to stay unified, he has told AFP.Barkat's hardline stance won him the backing of the city's religious right-wing parties which represent a hefty part of Jerusalem's population of 700,000.He promised during his campaign to build new Jewish neighbourhoods in Arab east Jerusalem, which Palestinians want as their capital of their promised state.The vast majority of Jerusalem's Jewish population considers Israel's designation of the city as its eternal and undivided capital a sacred mantra, even though it is rejected by the international community.The status of Jerusalem is a main sticking point in the US-brokered Middle East peace talks.
The international community and the Palestinians have criticised Israel for continuing Jewish settlement activity in the eastern parts of the city, as well as in the rest of the occupied West Bank.The municipal election, which saw a relatively low turnout of 42 percent, was again boycotted by residents of east Jerusalem, home to some 250,000 Palestinians.Palestinians have shunned the municipal elections since Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it in a move not recognised by the international community.In the municipal polls around the country, although candidates of the ruling Kadima won some 50 of the more than 150 local councils, the vote saw a sharp rise in support for environmentalist parties.
Barkat's victory in Jerusalem highlights the growing rift between religious and secular Jews in Israel's poorest city. I see the big picture for Jerusalem, said Barkat, who says his role model is New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and who wants to turn the Holy City into an international metropolis.The incoming mayor has promised new legislation to attract companies, especially from Israel's large computer industry, and young families in a bid to reverse an exodus of young people from Jerusalem, where over one third of the population lives below the poverty line.
Olmert's change from hawk to dove seems complete By ARON HELLER, Associated Press Writer – Wed Nov 12, 2:44 am ET
JERUSALEM – Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, once one of Israel's leading hawks, is leaving office an outspoken dove.Forced out by corruption charges, Olmert is saying something that used to be fringe opinion among Israelis — that to make peace with the Palestinians, Israel must make sweeping territorial concessions, including Arab parts of Jerusalem.We must relinquish ... parts of our homeland as well as Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem, and return to the seed of the territory that was the state of Israel up to 1967, with the necessary adjustments arising from the reality that has since been created, he said in one of two speeches this week in which he laid out his credo.The ideology he once espoused, of keeping the territory Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war, will not work. It is already not working, he said in speeches Monday marking the 13th anniversary of the assassination of his dovish predecessor, Yitzhak Rabin, by a Jewish nationalist.We were wrong. We did not see the big picture, he said.Unless the land was partitioned into Jewish and Palestinian states, it would morph into one country in which an Arab majority would mean the end of Jewish statehood, he warned.The moment of truth has come, and there is no escaping it ... if God forbid, we drag our feet, we might lose the support for the idea of two states. The alternative is inconceivable.Never before has a serving Israeli prime minister spoken so forcefully for partitioning the land, and it was all the more striking given Olmert's background.Raised in a staunchly nationalist home on an ideology that opposed any territorial concessions to the Arabs, Olmert went on to serve in the hard-line governments of his former Likud Party.In recent years, though, he has come to publicly embrace a land-for-peace deal, but never the formula of complete withdrawal with border adjustments. As deputy prime minister, Olmert helped lead Israel's 2005 unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. He was elected prime minister in March 2006 on a platform calling for a broad withdrawal from the West Bank as well.His latest speeches go further, to the astonishment of the public. They sound close to what has long between the international formula for Mideast peace but is sharply at odds with past Israeli governments that demanded a substantial redrawing of borders to protect the country from surprise attack.
It's amazing, but it is tragic, says Moshe Amirav, a childhood friend of Olmert's who recalls being expelled from Likud 20 years ago for saying what Olmert is saying now.But I am optimistic about the future, added Amirav, a political scientist at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. If he, a right-wing prime minister, is saying this, there is hope.Olmert resigned in September because of corruption charges, but remains in office until a new government is formed after the Feb. 10 election.
Longtime Israeli doves fault him for not speaking up sooner. Lawmaker Yossi Sarid said he found the prime minister's comments to be heartfelt but delivered publicly only when he had nothing left to win and nothing left to lose.It's too bad he woke up so late, Sarid said.Olmert confidants say he couldn't speak out so frankly as long as he had to hold a shaky coalition government together.Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, her centrist Kadima party's candidate to succeed Olmert, quickly distanced herself from his remarks. I am not committed to the words of the outgoing prime minister, she told Israel's Army Radio Tuesday. We can conduct negotiations my way without having to reach the points the outgoing prime minister presented yesterday.
Polls regularly show most Israelis support a two-state solution with the Palestinians, though not necessarily a withdrawal to the 1967 borders. I am saying what this nation truly needs, not what it wants to hear, Olmert said at Rabin's grave. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat praised Olmert for his candor and remembered their first encounter 20 years ago. The man I spoke with then is a totally different man than the one I see before me today, he said. And maybe I am a different man now, too.
Was the U.S. Right About Syria Nukes? By ANDREW LEE BUTTERS / BEIRUT – Tue Nov 11, 6:55 pm ET
Hamas boycotts Palestinian talks BBC Given the Bush Administration's track record, no one ought to have been surprised when much of the Middle East raised a skeptical eyebrow in response to Washington's claim that the Syrian site bombed by Israeli warplanes in September of 2007 was part of a clandestine nuclear-weapons program. The Israelis kept mum about their reasons for attacking the site, but the U.S. let it be known that the target was a secret nuclear reactor being built with North Korean assistance - a claim that was widely viewed through the prism of false U.S. claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and the Bush Administration's animus toward Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime over its support for Hizballah and Palestinian radical groups, as well as its failure to curb jihadist insurgents crossing into Iraq.It turns out, however, that the Bush Administration may well have been right about the Syrian site. Diplomats from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told the press on Monday that the U.N. body's inspectors found traces of uranium when they inspected the site in June. Apparently, the amounts weren't large enough to make a definitive conclusion, but the IAEA is putting Syria - which has no publicly declared civilian nuclear program - on the formal agenda for its year-end meeting in late November. Diplomats at the IAEA say the Syrian government, which denies that it was trying to build nuclear weapons, has balked at the agency's requests for wider inspections. The findings at the Syrian site have yet to be declared in any official IAEA documentation, but whatever the conclusion of the IAEA's investigation, the deepening suspicions toward the Assad regime are coming at an increasingly complicated moment in relations between Damascus and Washington. Late last month, U.S. special forces launched a raid into eastern Syria targeting an alleged al-Qaeda weapons smuggler. In response, the Syrian government shut down an American school and cultural center in Damascus, and forced American Fulbright scholars based at Syrian institutions to leave the country. On Sunday, the New York Times reported that the most recent raid was simply one of dozens that had been conducted on Syrian territory by U.S. special forces under secret orders signed by then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
The sudden uptick in tension comes at a moment when Syria had begun to appear as one of the bright spots in a troubled region. U.S. officials had acknowledged that Syria had begun to stem the flow of insurgents into Iraq, while last spring, Damascus revealed that it had been holding indirect peace talks with Israel. President Assad, moreover, had said peace in the Middle East was possible within two years, if only the U.S. would sponsor direct talks, and hopes were high that the incoming Obama Administration would do just that. The news about the secret U.S. raids into Syria and the possibility of a Syrian nuclear weapons program paint a darker picture of just how deep hostility may have run between the U.S. and Syria. This was a real cold war, says Andrew J. Tabler, former editor of Syria Today, an English-language magazine in Damascus. Improving U.S.-Syrian relations could be a lot harder than we thought.
Obama urged to make Mideast peace top priority: Ban Tue Nov 11, 2:34 pm ET
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The main players in the Middle East peace process hope Barack Obama will make the issue a top priority when he takes over the U.S. presidency in January, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Tuesday.Last weekend the Quartet of Middle East peace mediators -- the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States -- met in Egypt to keep alive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, even though political uncertainty in Israel has scotched hopes for a deal this year.Ban represented the United Nations at the meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.It was expected to be Rice's last trip to the region before Obama takes office in January.We expect negotiations to continue uninterrupted through the coming period of transition, Ban told a news conference.
And all parties will be looking to the incoming U.S. administration to engage early, as a matter of highest priority, he said. The goal remains clear to all -- an end of conflict, an end of occupation, a two-state solution.He added that all members of the Quartet regret that an agreement is unlikely to be reached by ... the end of this year.Ban reiterated that it was important to support the Palestinian government's attempt to build security and improve living conditions for Palestinians.This required action on commitments under the 2003 road map peace framework, including on (Jewish) settlements, as well as a cessation of actions such as house demolitions that are contrary to international law or alter the status quo, including in East Jerusalem, he said.The Quartet members have strongly backed the talks launched at Annapolis, Maryland, nearly a year ago by President George W. Bush, despite expectations that he would fail to meet his year-end target.The Israeli-Palestinian talks have been hobbled from the start by violence and bitter disputes over Jewish settlement building and the future of Jerusalem. There are also worries that the process could fall apart amid political transitions in Israel and the United States.(Reporting by Louis Charbonneau; Editing by David Storey)
Olmert warns of looming confrontation with Hamas Tue Nov 11, 1:56 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned on Tuesday of a looming confrontation with the Islamist Hamas movement which controls the Gaza Strip.
I have no doubt that the situation between us and Hamas is an unavoidable pre-confrontation situation, Olmert said while touring the military headquarters responsible for the Gaza region.It's only a question of time and not a question of if, his office quoted him as saying on the tour.We are not eager for it but we are not afraid either and if there is a need to fight Hamas we will do so. In any event we should be alert and prepared.Israel imposed a blockade of Gaza after Hamas seized control of the territory from forces loyal to Western-backed Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in June last year.A ceasefire in and around the territory went into effect on June 19, but militants have conducted sporadic rocket and mortar attacks to which Israel has responded by tightening the territory's closure.On Tuesday Israel reopened the terminal that handles all fuel supplies to Gaza to allow delivery of diesel to the Palestinian territory's sole power plant one day after it shuddered to a halt.But a UN agency warned it would have to suspend food distribution on which a majority of Gaza's 1.5 million population depends unless Israel also allows in vital foodstuffs.Olmert presented his resignation as premier amid persistent corruption allegations in September but will remain at the head of a caretaker government until after snap parliamentary elections in February.
Israel's Livni distances herself from Olmert on peace Tue Nov 11, 9:24 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni distanced herself on Tuesday from comments by outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert calling for painful territorial concessions for Middle East peace.In an interview with army radio, Livni, who will lead Olmert's centrist Kadima party into a snap February election, said she was not bound by his policies.I am bound by the Kadima platform that I drafted and in which I laid down principles for negotiations with the Palestinians that the whole world can support, said Livni, who is Israel's lead negotiator in the peace talks.It is possible to conduct the negotiations in my own way without having to arrive at the outcome raised by the outgoing prime minister.In a speech to parliament on Monday marking the anniversary of the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, Olmert said Israel needed to give up large tracts of land in the West Bank, including Arab east Jerusalem, and on the Golan Heights, in exchange for peace.There were times when we wanted to seal our presence on every inch of land -- and I was one of those people -- but we were wrong, he said to jeers from right-wing MPs.Olmert had made similar comments at a memorial ceremony by Rabin's graveside on Monday.If we are determined to preserve the Jewish and democratic character of the state of Israel, we must inevitably relinquish, with great pain, parts of our homeland, and we must relinquish Arab neighbourhoods in Jerusalem, he said.The comments drew accusations from the right-wing opposition that the outgoing premier was abusing Rabin's memory for political ends.Olmert's speech was a disgraceful exploitation of the official occasion for a sermonising political speech in the spirit of the radical left, charged MP Gidon Saar, whose Likud party is running neck-and-neck in the opinion polls with Kadima.Rabin is turning over in his grave after Olmert overtook him from the left, said Zvulun Orlev from the pro-Jewish settler National Religious Party.
Israel's Netanyahu softens line on peace talks By STEVE WEIZMAN, Associated Press Writer – Mon Nov 10, 11:22 am ET
JERUSALEM – Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday pledged to continue negotiations with the Palestinians if he wins February elections, backing away from earlier hints he would abandon U.S.-backed peace talks.But Netanyahu gave no indication he would make significant concessions.Netanyahu refuses to discuss the future of the disputed city of Jerusalem, one of the core issues in negotiations for the past year. On Sunday, international Mideast mediators reaffirmed this framework, even as Netanyahu's office said he did not. Netanyahu's position on other key issues also falls far short of Palestinian and international demands.
His statement that peace talks would move forward if he is elected prime minister appeared to be aimed at easing international concerns and sending a message to the Israeli electorate that he can get along with the rest of the world.Speaking to reporters after meeting international peace envoy Tony Blair, Netanyahu said that if his hawkish Likud party returns to power in February elections, he would emphasize efforts to boost the ailing Palestinian economy but would not halt political talks.
We will move both the political negotiations forward and the economic peace that we've been working on, Netanyahu said.A day earlier, his office said there was no point continuing the talks the talks inaugurated at an international conference in Annapolis, Md., last November.The talks call on Israel and the Palestinians to resolve all outstanding issues between them, including the conflicting claims to the holy city of Jerusalem and a final border between Israel and a future Palestinian state.Netanyahu gave few details on his vision for peace. But in a recent speech to parliament, he said Israel would have to retain all of Jerusalem and large chunks of West Bank territory claimed by the Palestinians.In the West Bank, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki said if Netanyahu wins, we want to test these statements ... to see if he is serious or just maneuvering.Polls currently place Likud and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's centrist Kadima neck and neck ahead of the Feb. 10 vote. Israel is holding the election, a year and a half ahead of schedule, because a corruption scandal is driving current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert from office.Livni has been leading Israel's negotiations for the past year and has acknowledged that Israel will have to make tough concessions for peace.
Jordan king urges Obama to work directly for peace Sun Nov 9, 2:15 pm ET
AMMAN (AFP) – Jordan's King Abdullah II on Sunday urged US president-elect Barack Obama's new administration to become directly involved in efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East.I look forward to working with US president-elect Barack Obama to end the (Palestinian-Israeli) conflict in the region and reach comprehensive peace based on a two-state solution, the king told editors of Jordanian dailies.We hope the new administration is going to be directly involved in regional peace efforts.
The king, a key US ally in the region, said that Jordan which signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994 will continue its efforts to end the suffering of the Palestinians, according to a palace statement.The Middle East Quartet -- the European Union, Russia, United Nations and United States -- called on Sunday on Israel and the Palestinians to press on with peace negotiations, at a meeting in Egypt's resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.The Quartet has long backed a peace deal that would see the establishment of an independent Palestinian state living side by side in peace with Israel based on a so-called roadmap drafted in 2003.Meanwhile, the king discussed the Middle East peace process on Sunday with visiting Austrian President Heinz Fischer.There is a growing need for Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations to continue at this very critical stage, the two leaders said in a joint statement after their talks.Fischer, whose country is poised to become a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council on January 1, is in Jordan on a three-day state visit that focuses on the peace process.He is is to attend the inauguration of two Austro-Jordanian chambers of commerce and discuss ecology technology, particularly solar power.
Quartet pushes Israel, Palestinians to stick to peace talks by Sylvie Lanteaume and Hala Boncompagni – Sun Nov 9, 11:25 am ET
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (AFP) – The Middle East Quartet called on Israel and the Palestinians on Sunday to press on with peace negotiations even though a year-end target date for a deal is dead in the water.It also called for a halt to Jewish settlement activity on occupied Palestinian land, one of the thorniest issues in the peace talks, and for the dismantling of terrorist infrastructure.The Quartet called for the continuing of the peace process in the framework of Annapolis, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said after a meeting of the Quartet in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.He was referring to the US city where negotiations were revived in November 2007 after a near seven-year hiatus, with both sides committing to reaching a long-elusive deal by the end of this year.But with Israel now counting down to early elections in February and rival Palestinian groups still locked in a damaging political feud, all sides have ruled out any chance of meeting the target.Without minimising the gaps and obstacles that remain the representatives of the parties shared their assessment that the present negotiations are substantial and promising, the final statement said.The Quartet reiterated its call to the parties to fully implement their obligations under phase one of the roadmap including in relation to freezing settlement activity and dismantlement of the infrastructure of terrorism.
The Quartet -- the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States -- met to discuss progress in resolving core problems such as the status of Jerusalem, the borders of a future Palestinian state and refugees.Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said she would not sign any agreement that does not serve Israel's interest and that is not detailed enough to be put into effect. We are not there yet and it could take time.US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on her 19 trip to the region in two years and what may be her last, has tacitly admitted that a deal is unlikely by the time US President George W. Bush leaves office in January.
But she said on Sunday: We have an international strategy now to finally establish the two-state solution which President Bush set as a goal several years ago.Both sides, Rice said, believe that their negotiations are producing an atmosphere of trust as well as the foundation in which to build.In the absence of a full accord, however, Rice is pushing the two sides to define the outlines of a deal before she hands over the dossier to the administration of president-elect Barack Obama.The Quartet has long backed a peace deal that would see the establishment of an independent Palestinian state living side by side in peace with Israel based on a so-called roadmap drafted in 2003.But the peace process has been clouded by the resignation of Israel's scandal-plagued Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that led to the scheduling of snap elections for February.It has also been complicated by the ongoing feud between the Islamist Hamas movement, which seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, and Abbas's Fatah party, which has held on to the West Bank.
Reconciliation talks between the rival Palestinian groups due to begin on Monday in Cairo were called off after a Hamas boycott.Abbas adviser Nabil Shaath said in Cairo on Sunday the talks were now expected to resume within a fortnight. Based on available information we have from the Egyptians I expect the resumption of Palestinian talks in Cairo in 10 days, or two weeks at the most, he told reporters.
Israeli opposition leaders have said the peace process should be put on hold but Livni, who hopes to become premier, stressed that Washington should sustain the momentum. Abbas has also called on Obama to keep the peace process a US foreign policy priority and speed up efforts to help seal an agreement. We know that we are unable now to reach peace but we will continue in order to reach it, he said. Quartet envoy Tony Blair, Britain's former prime minister, echoed Abbas. The single most important thing for the new US administration is to press this issue from day one... knowing that for the first time we have comprehensive political negotiations through the Annapolis process, he said.
US, EU officials meet with Arabs on Iran By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writer
SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt – Senior U.S. and European officials met with several Arab leaders Sunday who are worried about the international community negotiating a deal with Iran that would give the Islamic Republic more power in the Middle East, said a U.S. official and a meeting participant.The meeting comes less than a week after the victory of President-elect Obama, who has said he is more open to holding talks with Iran on the country's controversial nuclear program.The sentiment expressed in the meeting by the foreign ministers of Bahrain, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates indicates they are concerned about what Obama would be willing to offer Iran to strike a deal.Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who attended the meeting along with European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, assured the Arab foreign ministers that Washington would not offer Iran greater influence in exchange for nuclear concessions, said a meeting participant.The United States' view is that Iran should not gain a privileged role in the region, the meeting participant quoted Rice as saying during the discussions, which were held on the sidelines of a meeting on Israeli-Palestinian peace in the Egyptian Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheik.
The Arab foreign ministers were most concerned about Iranian influence in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and other areas of the Gulf, said the meeting participant, who spoke on condition of anonymity along with the U.S. official because they were not authorized to talk to the media.Rice's assurances may mean little to Arab officials since she is not able to speak for the incoming administration. However, while Obama has signaled a greater willingness to talk to the Iranians, he has also said it is unacceptable for Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon.The U.S. and many of its allies have accused Iran of using its nuclear program as a cover for weapons development. Iran denies the charge, saying it is focused on building reactors to generate electricity.Many Arab countries in the Middle East, which are predominantly Sunni Muslim, have also expressed concern about Shiite Iran's intentions in the region.
Hamas leader says he is ready to talk to Obama Sat Nov 8, 3:42 pm ET
LONDON – Hamas is ready to open talks with U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, who must deal with the Palestinian militant group if he wants to address the wider conflict in the Middle East, the group's leader said in an interview broadcast Saturday.Khaled Mashaal said that Hamas is ready for dialogue with Obama and his new administration on the basis that the American administration respects our rights and our options.Hamas has controlled the Gaza Strip since seizing power by force in June 2007 from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement.The administration of President George W. Bush has boycotted the Islamic militants, as has most of the international community. Hamas refuses to renounce violence or recognize Israel.
The American administration, if they want to deal with the region, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli conflict, they have no other option than deal with Hamas because we are a real force on the ground, effective, Mashaal told Sky News from Damascus, Syria.
The exiled militant leader said that the election of a U.S. president with African roots was a big change — political and psychological and congratulated him on his victory.Denis McDonough, senior foreign policy adviser to Obama, said Hamas had to change its policies before it could engage in any talks.President-elect Obama said throughout the campaign that he will only talk with Hamas if it renounces terrorism, recognizes Israel's right to exist and agrees to abide by past agreements, McDonough said.On Friday, Hamas Gaza strongman Mahmoud Zahar said he hoped Obama's victory would open a new page in relations between the U.S. and the Muslim world. But he said he did not expect the U.S. to talk to Hamas immediately.Obama visited Israel and the West Bank in July, meeting Israeli leaders and Abbas and traveling to an Israeli town that had been hit by Hamas rockets from Gaza.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
3RD AND 4TH TEMPLES IN ISRAEL
REBUILT 3RD TEMPLE (THE EU DICTATORS TEMPLE)
REVELATION 11:1-2
1 And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein.
2 But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.
DANIEL 9:27
27 And he( THE ROMAN,EU PRESIDENT) shall confirm the covenant with many for one week:(1X7=7 YEARS) and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease,(3 1/2 yrs in TEMPLE SACRIFICES STOPPED) and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
AMOS 9:11
11 In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old:
MICAH 4:1
1 But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it.
HAGGAI 2:9
9 The glory of this latter house (4TH TEMPLE) shall be greater than of the former, (3RD TEMPLE) saith the LORD of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the LORD of hosts.
1 CHRONICLES 28:10
10 Take heed now; for the LORD hath chosen thee to build an house for the sanctuary: be strong, and do it.
EXODUS 25:8
8 And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them.
FROM the New Temple and the second coming BY GRANT JEFFREY PAGES 176-179
THE ANTICHRIST,THE ARK,AND THE TEMPLE
At some pointduring the lifetime of this generation, at God's appointed time, the Third Temple will be built, possibly following the War of Gog and Magog. The Holy of Holies in the Third Temple will once again house the ark of the covenant, which was the major object in the Temple that pointed clearly to the second coming of the Messiah. The ark is a profound symbol to the Jews and a guarentee of God's unbreakable covenant with Israel. The presence of the ark also will factor into the evil that will be brought about by the Antichrist during the Tribulation.
A quick overview of the seven-year Tribulation period shows that there are two distinct sections: (1)During the first half (three and one half years), the Antichrist presents himself as the messiah-an economic,political,religous and military genius who rules globally and supports Israel. (2)To begin the second period of three and a half years, the Antichrist will stop the Temple sacrifice. He will then be assassinated,and to the wonder of all humanity,he will be satanically resurrected. He will proclaim that he is god and will defile the Holy of Holies. This defilement of the Temple by stopping the daily sacrifice begins the second half of the seven-year Tribulation.
MATTHEW 24:21
21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
The prophet Daniel confirms that the elimination of the daily sacrifice in the Temple by the orders of the Antichrist will begin the three and a half year period (1290 days)that will constitute the Great Tribulation the terrible persecussion of the Antichrist under the Mark of the Beast police totalitarian control system.
DANIEL 12:11
11 And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.
REVELATION 13:16-18
16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
That three and a half year period of the Great Tribulation will end with the cataclysmic battle of Armageddon and Jesus Christ's triumphant return in glory to set up His kingdom on earth.
We know from Daniel that the Antichrist will violate his seven-year treaty with Israel after three and one half years. He will stop the daily sacrifices and enter the Holy of Holies. He shall confirm the covenant with many for one week:and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease,and for the overspreading of obominations he shall make it desolate (DANIEL 9:27).
The apostle paul warned about the son of perdition who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God,or that is worshipped; so that he as God sittith in the Temple of God,shewing himself that he is God (2 Thessalonians 2:4). This prophecy will be fulfilled when the Antichrist enters the Third Temple and defiles the restored ark of the covenant,possibly by touching it or sitting on the mercy seat or worse. This would qualify as the obimination of desolation mentioned by Daniel and by Jesus (Matthew 24:15)
MATTHEW 24:15
15 When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:). The Antichrists defilement of the Holy place is so abominable that the wrath of God will be instantly poured out on Jerusalem. Christ referred to this time:When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation,spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place,(whoso readeth,let him understand:)then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains...For then shall be great tribulation,such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time,no,nor ever shall be (Matthew 24:15-16,21).
When the prince of darkness defiles the Temple,many Jews will recognize that he is a false messiah. After the Antichrist defiles the Temple,someone will kill him with a sword. It may be a Jewish believer who breaks through his security and succeeds in stabbing him with a sword in the head or neck. John's description of the assassination suggests the Antichrist will succumb to a head or neck wound:I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death;and his deadly wound was healed:and all the world wondered after the beast (Revelation 13:3). Revelation 13:12 repeats that his deadly wound was healed. Later in the chapter,John elaborates about the beast which had the wound by the sword,and did live (verse 14).
After Satan raises the Antichrist from the dead,the Antichrist's partner, the False Prophet,will use this incredible event-probably watched by billions on the Internet,Cnn, and other media outlets-to convince the world that the Antichrist is the long-awaited messiah. Once the Antichrist consolidates his control of Jerusalem and the Middl East,the false Prophet will force the people living under the duristiction of his world government to worship the Antichrist as god. The 666 mark of the beast will be globallt enforced as a totalitarian police control system. Those who submit to worship the Antichrist as god will accept the 666 mark on their foreheads or right hands. The righeous ones who reject the 666 will not be able to buy or sell anything and will be forced to go undergound to escape being beheaded by the forces of the Antichrist (Revelation 20:4)
REVELATION 20:4
4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
From that point until the battle of Armageddon,1260 days later,the world will be convulsed with spiritual and physical warefare between the forces of the Antichrist and the Jews and Gentiles who resist them. The Temple will probably be the initial battleground as the righeous priests battle to the death against supporters of the Antichrist. Revelation 12:17 warns that the dragon (SATAN) was wroth (enraged)with the woman (ISRAELIS),and went to make war with the remnant of her seed,which keep the commandments of God,and have the testamony of Jesus Christ.
REBUILT 4TH TEMPLE (THE TRUE MESSIAHS TEMPLE)
ZECHARIAH 6:12-13
12 And speak unto him, saying, Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, Behold the man whose name is The BRANCH; and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the LORD:
13 Even he shall build the temple of the LORD; and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and he shall be a priest upon his throne: and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.
ISAIAH 60:9-10
9 Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from far, their silver and their gold with them, unto the name of the LORD thy God, and to the Holy One of Israel, because he hath glorified thee.
10 And the sons of strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall minister unto thee: for in my wrath I smote thee, but in my favour have I had mercy on thee.
ISAIAH 2:1-5
1 The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
2 And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.
3 And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
4 And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
5 O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the LORD.
MARK 11:9-10,15-17
9 And they that went before, and they that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna; Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord:
10 Blessed be the kingdom of our father David, that cometh in the name of the Lord: Hosanna in the highest.
15 And they come to Jerusalem: and Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves;
16 And would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple.
17 And he taught, saying unto them, Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves.
EZEKIEL 37:26-28
26 Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore.
27 My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
28 And the heathen shall know that I the LORD do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore.
EZEKIEL 40 TO 48 IS THIS 4TH TEMPLE TO BIG FOR THE MOUNT I BELIEVE TO BE BUILT 25 MILES FROM JERUSALEM.
FROM THE NEW TEMPLE AND THE SECOND COMING BY GRANT JEFFREY Pages 179-183
EZEKIELS VISION OF THE MILLENNIAL TEMPLE
One of the most hotly debated questions relate to the future Temple is who will build it,the Jewish people or the coming Messiah? Some Jewish sages held that God's command in the Torah demands that Israel must first rebuild the Temple. EXODUS 25:8 declares, Let them make me a sanctuary;that I may dwell amoung them. However,other authorities held that Israel should wait until the Messiah comes to build the Temple Himself. They pointed to the messianic message of the prophet Zechariah (6:12)where the prophet predicted :Behold the man whose name is The BRANCH;and he shall grow up out of his place,and he shall build the Temple of the LORD.
The resolution of this apparent contradiction will be found in the fact that the scriptures declare there must be two more Temples in Israel's future. The Third Temple will be built by the Jews in the near future on the Temple Mount. This Third Temple is the one that will be defiled by the Antichrist,launching the Great Tribulation. Finally,the Third Temple will be cleansed by the coming of Jesus Christ as Israel's great High Priest and Messiah following His victory over the Antichrist in the battle of Armageddon. The Fourth Temple,described by the prophets Ezekiel and Zechariah,will then be built by Jesus the Messiah during the Millennial kingdom,thus fulfilling both prophecies. The Temple built by the Messiah will be the fourth and eternal Temple for the Millennium. This millennial Temple will exceed even the glory of the Third Temple.
The Millenial Temple will be enormous,with walls extending more than one mile in each direction. In fact, the Fourth Temple will be so large that it could not possibly fit on the existing Temple Mount or even within the bounaries of the walled Old city of Jerusalem. The land measurements given in Ezekiel (Chapters 40-48)indicate that the Messiah will build the Fourth Temple approximately twenty five miles north of the walled city of Jerusalem.
In every detail this Fourth Temple differs from the Third Temple that must be built by the Jews on the present Temple Mount. The scriptures do not say wether the Third Temple will coexist with the Millennial Temple during the Millennium. However,in light of Daniel's prophecies that Christ will cleanse and sanctify the Third Temple after the Antichrist's defilement,it appears that the newly rebuilt Third Temple will continue to be used for worship during the thousand year rule of Christ on earth. Israel will finally enjoy its long awaited peace under the reign of the Messiah.
Additionally,Ezekiel prophecied a thirteenfold division of the land from Dan to Beer-sheba during the Millennium,which will provide each of Israel's twelve tribes with a parallel portion of land streching horizontally from the Mediterranean Sea to the great river Euphrates (see Ezekiel 48:1-35). Each strip will be 25,000 rods in width measuring north to south (225,000 feet or 43.25 miles wide). In the center of Israel a special portion of land called the Prnce's Portion will be reserved for use by the Nassi,the Messiah (see Ezekiel 45:1-4). The Prince's Portion will contain the new,enlarged city of Jerusalem and the Fourth Temple. The dimensions of the new city Jerusalem will be 4,500 rod square,about 7.75 miles on each side.
Dr Alfred Edersheim, the author of the Temple,explained that according to tradition,the boundary line between the ancient tribal allotment of Judah and Benjamin ran directly through the Old City of Jerusalem and the Temple. Ezekiel describes the thirteen portion of the land for the holy oblation (containing the Millennial Temple,the new city of Jerusalem,and the Prince's Portion alloted to the Messiah)as lying between the tribal allotments of Judah and Benjamin once again (see Ezekiel 48:8-10,22). While the other tribes will enjoy possession of their tribal portion forever,the prophet declares that the Levites will not inherit land. Instead,they will dwell in the portion known as the holy oblation with their beloved Messiah and recieve their income from the Temple.
THE SIZE OF THE MILLENNIAL TEMPLE
The new Temple Mount area in the Millennium will be enormous. The Bible states, There shall be for the sanctuary five hundred (rods)in length,with five hundred (rods)in breadth,square round about (Ezekiel 45:2). A rod is equal to 6 cubits or 9 feet,when a cubit is defined as eighteen inches,so each side of the Fourth Temple will measure 4,500 feet-almost one mile long! The world has never seen such a massive structure. This measurement would yield a Temple area of 20.25 million square feet. For the sake of comparison,the Second Temple,built and enlarged by King Herod,was the largest Temple enclosure in history:it encompassed almost thirty-five acres. The entire Temple Mount area that survives today remains thirty-five acres. In other words, Ezekiel's prophecy revealed that the future Millennial Temple will be thirty-six times larger than the Second Temple!
The glory of this Millemnnium Temple will be manifested in the eternal presence of the Shekinah Glory of God. Ezekiel had witnessed in his earlier vision (see Ezekiel 11:22-23)the tragic departure of the Shekinah Glory from Solomon's Temple because of Israel's spiritual rebellion. Fortunately,God's plan of redemption for Israel and the Gentiles includes His promise that Jesus the Messiah will return in His glory to inhabit the Temple of God. When the divine presence dwells once again in Jerusalem, the Jews will take their portion as God's chosen people in their promised Land. Through Israel,God will bless all the nations of the world. God's promise was givin through Ezekiel:Then will I sprinkle clean water uponyou,and ye shall be clean:from all your filthiness,and from all your idols, will I cleanse you (Ezekiel 36:25). The prophecies reveal that it will not be long until the Messiah will return to fulfill all that God has promised concerning the redemption of Israel.
REVELATION 11:1-2
1 And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein.
2 But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.
DANIEL 9:27
27 And he( THE ROMAN,EU PRESIDENT) shall confirm the covenant with many for one week:(1X7=7 YEARS) and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease,(3 1/2 yrs in TEMPLE SACRIFICES STOPPED) and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
AMOS 9:11
11 In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old:
MICAH 4:1
1 But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it.
HAGGAI 2:9
9 The glory of this latter house (4TH TEMPLE) shall be greater than of the former, (3RD TEMPLE) saith the LORD of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the LORD of hosts.
1 CHRONICLES 28:10
10 Take heed now; for the LORD hath chosen thee to build an house for the sanctuary: be strong, and do it.
EXODUS 25:8
8 And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them.
FROM the New Temple and the second coming BY GRANT JEFFREY PAGES 176-179
THE ANTICHRIST,THE ARK,AND THE TEMPLE
At some pointduring the lifetime of this generation, at God's appointed time, the Third Temple will be built, possibly following the War of Gog and Magog. The Holy of Holies in the Third Temple will once again house the ark of the covenant, which was the major object in the Temple that pointed clearly to the second coming of the Messiah. The ark is a profound symbol to the Jews and a guarentee of God's unbreakable covenant with Israel. The presence of the ark also will factor into the evil that will be brought about by the Antichrist during the Tribulation.
A quick overview of the seven-year Tribulation period shows that there are two distinct sections: (1)During the first half (three and one half years), the Antichrist presents himself as the messiah-an economic,political,religous and military genius who rules globally and supports Israel. (2)To begin the second period of three and a half years, the Antichrist will stop the Temple sacrifice. He will then be assassinated,and to the wonder of all humanity,he will be satanically resurrected. He will proclaim that he is god and will defile the Holy of Holies. This defilement of the Temple by stopping the daily sacrifice begins the second half of the seven-year Tribulation.
MATTHEW 24:21
21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
The prophet Daniel confirms that the elimination of the daily sacrifice in the Temple by the orders of the Antichrist will begin the three and a half year period (1290 days)that will constitute the Great Tribulation the terrible persecussion of the Antichrist under the Mark of the Beast police totalitarian control system.
DANIEL 12:11
11 And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.
REVELATION 13:16-18
16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
That three and a half year period of the Great Tribulation will end with the cataclysmic battle of Armageddon and Jesus Christ's triumphant return in glory to set up His kingdom on earth.
We know from Daniel that the Antichrist will violate his seven-year treaty with Israel after three and one half years. He will stop the daily sacrifices and enter the Holy of Holies. He shall confirm the covenant with many for one week:and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease,and for the overspreading of obominations he shall make it desolate (DANIEL 9:27).
The apostle paul warned about the son of perdition who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God,or that is worshipped; so that he as God sittith in the Temple of God,shewing himself that he is God (2 Thessalonians 2:4). This prophecy will be fulfilled when the Antichrist enters the Third Temple and defiles the restored ark of the covenant,possibly by touching it or sitting on the mercy seat or worse. This would qualify as the obimination of desolation mentioned by Daniel and by Jesus (Matthew 24:15)
MATTHEW 24:15
15 When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:). The Antichrists defilement of the Holy place is so abominable that the wrath of God will be instantly poured out on Jerusalem. Christ referred to this time:When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation,spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place,(whoso readeth,let him understand:)then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains...For then shall be great tribulation,such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time,no,nor ever shall be (Matthew 24:15-16,21).
When the prince of darkness defiles the Temple,many Jews will recognize that he is a false messiah. After the Antichrist defiles the Temple,someone will kill him with a sword. It may be a Jewish believer who breaks through his security and succeeds in stabbing him with a sword in the head or neck. John's description of the assassination suggests the Antichrist will succumb to a head or neck wound:I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death;and his deadly wound was healed:and all the world wondered after the beast (Revelation 13:3). Revelation 13:12 repeats that his deadly wound was healed. Later in the chapter,John elaborates about the beast which had the wound by the sword,and did live (verse 14).
After Satan raises the Antichrist from the dead,the Antichrist's partner, the False Prophet,will use this incredible event-probably watched by billions on the Internet,Cnn, and other media outlets-to convince the world that the Antichrist is the long-awaited messiah. Once the Antichrist consolidates his control of Jerusalem and the Middl East,the false Prophet will force the people living under the duristiction of his world government to worship the Antichrist as god. The 666 mark of the beast will be globallt enforced as a totalitarian police control system. Those who submit to worship the Antichrist as god will accept the 666 mark on their foreheads or right hands. The righeous ones who reject the 666 will not be able to buy or sell anything and will be forced to go undergound to escape being beheaded by the forces of the Antichrist (Revelation 20:4)
REVELATION 20:4
4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
From that point until the battle of Armageddon,1260 days later,the world will be convulsed with spiritual and physical warefare between the forces of the Antichrist and the Jews and Gentiles who resist them. The Temple will probably be the initial battleground as the righeous priests battle to the death against supporters of the Antichrist. Revelation 12:17 warns that the dragon (SATAN) was wroth (enraged)with the woman (ISRAELIS),and went to make war with the remnant of her seed,which keep the commandments of God,and have the testamony of Jesus Christ.
REBUILT 4TH TEMPLE (THE TRUE MESSIAHS TEMPLE)
ZECHARIAH 6:12-13
12 And speak unto him, saying, Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, Behold the man whose name is The BRANCH; and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the LORD:
13 Even he shall build the temple of the LORD; and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and he shall be a priest upon his throne: and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.
ISAIAH 60:9-10
9 Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from far, their silver and their gold with them, unto the name of the LORD thy God, and to the Holy One of Israel, because he hath glorified thee.
10 And the sons of strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall minister unto thee: for in my wrath I smote thee, but in my favour have I had mercy on thee.
ISAIAH 2:1-5
1 The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
2 And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.
3 And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
4 And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
5 O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the LORD.
MARK 11:9-10,15-17
9 And they that went before, and they that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna; Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord:
10 Blessed be the kingdom of our father David, that cometh in the name of the Lord: Hosanna in the highest.
15 And they come to Jerusalem: and Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves;
16 And would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple.
17 And he taught, saying unto them, Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves.
EZEKIEL 37:26-28
26 Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore.
27 My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
28 And the heathen shall know that I the LORD do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore.
EZEKIEL 40 TO 48 IS THIS 4TH TEMPLE TO BIG FOR THE MOUNT I BELIEVE TO BE BUILT 25 MILES FROM JERUSALEM.
FROM THE NEW TEMPLE AND THE SECOND COMING BY GRANT JEFFREY Pages 179-183
EZEKIELS VISION OF THE MILLENNIAL TEMPLE
One of the most hotly debated questions relate to the future Temple is who will build it,the Jewish people or the coming Messiah? Some Jewish sages held that God's command in the Torah demands that Israel must first rebuild the Temple. EXODUS 25:8 declares, Let them make me a sanctuary;that I may dwell amoung them. However,other authorities held that Israel should wait until the Messiah comes to build the Temple Himself. They pointed to the messianic message of the prophet Zechariah (6:12)where the prophet predicted :Behold the man whose name is The BRANCH;and he shall grow up out of his place,and he shall build the Temple of the LORD.
The resolution of this apparent contradiction will be found in the fact that the scriptures declare there must be two more Temples in Israel's future. The Third Temple will be built by the Jews in the near future on the Temple Mount. This Third Temple is the one that will be defiled by the Antichrist,launching the Great Tribulation. Finally,the Third Temple will be cleansed by the coming of Jesus Christ as Israel's great High Priest and Messiah following His victory over the Antichrist in the battle of Armageddon. The Fourth Temple,described by the prophets Ezekiel and Zechariah,will then be built by Jesus the Messiah during the Millennial kingdom,thus fulfilling both prophecies. The Temple built by the Messiah will be the fourth and eternal Temple for the Millennium. This millennial Temple will exceed even the glory of the Third Temple.
The Millenial Temple will be enormous,with walls extending more than one mile in each direction. In fact, the Fourth Temple will be so large that it could not possibly fit on the existing Temple Mount or even within the bounaries of the walled Old city of Jerusalem. The land measurements given in Ezekiel (Chapters 40-48)indicate that the Messiah will build the Fourth Temple approximately twenty five miles north of the walled city of Jerusalem.
In every detail this Fourth Temple differs from the Third Temple that must be built by the Jews on the present Temple Mount. The scriptures do not say wether the Third Temple will coexist with the Millennial Temple during the Millennium. However,in light of Daniel's prophecies that Christ will cleanse and sanctify the Third Temple after the Antichrist's defilement,it appears that the newly rebuilt Third Temple will continue to be used for worship during the thousand year rule of Christ on earth. Israel will finally enjoy its long awaited peace under the reign of the Messiah.
Additionally,Ezekiel prophecied a thirteenfold division of the land from Dan to Beer-sheba during the Millennium,which will provide each of Israel's twelve tribes with a parallel portion of land streching horizontally from the Mediterranean Sea to the great river Euphrates (see Ezekiel 48:1-35). Each strip will be 25,000 rods in width measuring north to south (225,000 feet or 43.25 miles wide). In the center of Israel a special portion of land called the Prnce's Portion will be reserved for use by the Nassi,the Messiah (see Ezekiel 45:1-4). The Prince's Portion will contain the new,enlarged city of Jerusalem and the Fourth Temple. The dimensions of the new city Jerusalem will be 4,500 rod square,about 7.75 miles on each side.
Dr Alfred Edersheim, the author of the Temple,explained that according to tradition,the boundary line between the ancient tribal allotment of Judah and Benjamin ran directly through the Old City of Jerusalem and the Temple. Ezekiel describes the thirteen portion of the land for the holy oblation (containing the Millennial Temple,the new city of Jerusalem,and the Prince's Portion alloted to the Messiah)as lying between the tribal allotments of Judah and Benjamin once again (see Ezekiel 48:8-10,22). While the other tribes will enjoy possession of their tribal portion forever,the prophet declares that the Levites will not inherit land. Instead,they will dwell in the portion known as the holy oblation with their beloved Messiah and recieve their income from the Temple.
THE SIZE OF THE MILLENNIAL TEMPLE
The new Temple Mount area in the Millennium will be enormous. The Bible states, There shall be for the sanctuary five hundred (rods)in length,with five hundred (rods)in breadth,square round about (Ezekiel 45:2). A rod is equal to 6 cubits or 9 feet,when a cubit is defined as eighteen inches,so each side of the Fourth Temple will measure 4,500 feet-almost one mile long! The world has never seen such a massive structure. This measurement would yield a Temple area of 20.25 million square feet. For the sake of comparison,the Second Temple,built and enlarged by King Herod,was the largest Temple enclosure in history:it encompassed almost thirty-five acres. The entire Temple Mount area that survives today remains thirty-five acres. In other words, Ezekiel's prophecy revealed that the future Millennial Temple will be thirty-six times larger than the Second Temple!
The glory of this Millemnnium Temple will be manifested in the eternal presence of the Shekinah Glory of God. Ezekiel had witnessed in his earlier vision (see Ezekiel 11:22-23)the tragic departure of the Shekinah Glory from Solomon's Temple because of Israel's spiritual rebellion. Fortunately,God's plan of redemption for Israel and the Gentiles includes His promise that Jesus the Messiah will return in His glory to inhabit the Temple of God. When the divine presence dwells once again in Jerusalem, the Jews will take their portion as God's chosen people in their promised Land. Through Israel,God will bless all the nations of the world. God's promise was givin through Ezekiel:Then will I sprinkle clean water uponyou,and ye shall be clean:from all your filthiness,and from all your idols, will I cleanse you (Ezekiel 36:25). The prophecies reveal that it will not be long until the Messiah will return to fulfill all that God has promised concerning the redemption of Israel.
Monday, November 10, 2008
THE EU CUMMUNITARIAN AGENDA
EU DICTATOR (WORLD LEADER)
REVELATION 17:12-13
12 And the ten horns (NATIONS) which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.
13 These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.
REVELATION 6:1-2
1 And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.
2 And I saw, and behold a white horse:(PEACE) and he that sat on him had a bow;(EU DICTATOR) and a crown was given unto him:(PRESIDENT OF THE EU) and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.(MILITARY GENIUS)
REVELATION 13:1-10
1 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.(THE EU AND ITS DICTATOR IS GODLESS)
2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.(DICTATOR COMES FROM NEW AGE OR OCCULT)
3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death;(MURDERERD) and his deadly wound was healed:(COMES BACK TO LIFE) and all the world wondered after the beast.(THE WORLD THINKS ITS GOD IN THE FLESH, MESSIAH TO ISRAEL)
4 And they worshipped the dragon (SATAN) which gave power unto the beast:(JEWISH EU DICTATOR) and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?(FALSE RESURRECTION,SATAN BRINGS HIM TO LIFE)
5 And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.(GIVEN WORLD CONTROL FOR 3 1/2YRS)
6 And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God,(HES A GOD HATER) to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.(HES A LIBERAL OR DEMOCRAT,WILL PUT ANYTHING ABOUT GOD DOWN)
7 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints,(BEHEAD THEM) and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.(WORLD DOMINATION)
8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.(WORLD DICTATOR)
9 If any man have an ear, let him hear.
10 He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.(SAVED CHRISTIANS AND JEWS DIE FOR THEIR FAITH AT THIS TIME,NOW WE ARE SAVED BY GRACE BUT DURING THE 7 YEARS OF HELL ON EARTH, PEOPLE WILL BE PUT TO DEATH (BEHEADINGS) FOR THEIR BELIEF IN GOD (JESUS) OR THE BIBLE.
DANIEL 9:26-27
26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come (ROMANS IN AD 70) shall destroy the city and the sanctuary;(ROMANS DESTROYED THE 2ND TEMPLE) and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.
27 And he( EU ROMAN, JEWISH DICTATOR) shall confirm the covenant with many for one week:( 7 YEARS) and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease,( 3 1/2 YRS) and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
EUROPEAN UNION ARMY
DANIEL 7:23-25
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast (EU,REVIVED ROME) shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth,(7TH WORLD EMPIRE) which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.(TRADING BLOCKS)
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings(10 NATIONS) that shall arise: and another shall rise after them;(#11 SPAIN) and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.( BE HEAD OF 3 NATIONS)
25 And he (EU PRESIDENT) shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.(3 1/2 YRS)
DANIEL 8:23-25
23 And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king (EU DICTATOR) of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences,(FROM THE OCCULT) shall stand up.
24 And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power:(SATANS POWER) and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people.
25 And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes;(JESUS) but he shall be broken without hand.
DANIEL 11:36-39
36 And the king (EU DICTATOR) shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done.
37 Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers,(THIS EU DICTATOR IS JEWISH) nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.(CLAIM TO BE GOD)
38 But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces:(WAR) and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things.
39 Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god,(DESTROY TERROR GROUPS) whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory: and he shall cause them to rule over many,(HIS ARMY LEADERS) and shall divide the land for gain.
REVELATION 19:19
19 And I saw the beast,(EU LEADER) and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse,(JESUS) and against his army.(THE RAPTURED CHRISTIANS)
WORLD GOVERNMENT
DANIEL 7:23-25
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.
25 And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.
DANIEL 12:4,1
4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
1 And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.
REVELATION 13:1-3,7,8,12,16-18
1 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.
2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.
7 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
REVELATION 17:3,7,9-10,12,18
3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
7 And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.
9 And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.
10 And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.
12 And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.
18 And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.
The EU Communitarian Agenda
And The New Feudalists By Philip Jones 10-26-8
Communitarianism is a collectivist philosophy that explicitly rejects individualism. It does not merely relegate individualism to a subordinate position, but is openly hostile to it. It is an ideology of civic society which is nothing less than one version of Post-Marxist collectivism which wants privileges for certain wealthy and influential organized groups, and in consequence, a renewed feudalization of society.--Vaclav Klaus.
Communitarianist Ideology
The European Union is a major aspect of the New World Order and the so called sustainable development movement. The main objective of the Federal European State to be, is absolute social, personal and economic control in a collectivist and corporatist society. The philosophy behind the EU is a strange mixture of Capitalism and Communism - a form of Euro Marxism which owes much of its dogma to the Pre World War II Italian Marxist Philosopher, Antonio Gramsci.. The nearest ideology to that practiced by the EU is something called Communitarianism, or what Tony Blair called the Third Way. We are talking of a dialectical trap here, with Corporate money funding Socialism as Thesis, ideological Socialism as Antithesis and Communitarianism or the new imperium as Synthesis. Money grabs and concentrates power, whilst State Socialism promises the total redistribution of ownership and wealth. This contradiction provides an almost irresistible dynamic.Communitarians want to create a post-modern, post-democratic feudal society run by a small number of rich and powerful people with everyone else working as peasants. In order to achieve their objectives they must destroy the middle class and the nation state. Can anyone deny that their goals are firmly on course.One of the most mysterious aspects of the European Union from a lay-man's standpoint is the decision making process. Even with only the bare minimum of research, it becomes clear that we the people have little or no influence on any of the decisions reached in our name and the subsequent diktats which inevitably follow. In this article/essay, I will try and identify the ideology and aims of the key socio- economic decisions that drive the EU, and how because of these decisions, our lives are increasingly no longer our own.
The socio political economic agenda of the EU is carefully and intentionally buried beneath myriad layers of tedious and unintelligible newspeak. Despite this, in recent years, as the pace of so called EU reform has quickened, many researchers like myself have begun to expose and unravel this intentionally obtuse and often ambiguous jargon and reveal it for what it really is: A tool of confusion and misinformation intended towards the enslavement of the peoples of Europe by the rule of diktat and economic servitude..Once the spotlight of investigation is shone directly at the beast, what emerges is a Communitarian Agenda driven solely by corporate interests. Monetary Profit is to be the bottom line on everything from public services to defence to the very useful environmental Trojan Horse. High sounding non descriptions precede cleverly worded specifics that determine that the one and only benchmark be an economic one.The truth is of course that if the people of Europe themselves were to engage in setting the EU agenda, the current programme would almost without question be reversed. Instead of the Mammonistic ideal of profit before all, we would most certainly witness an agenda dominated by life quality issues like real un-politicised education for our children, and a healthcare service not tied to the pharmaceutical conglomerates, and free of political restraint, with a remit to provide the very best treatment available, whether it be of the traditional or alternative varieties.
The Roots And Goals Of The New Feudalism
Anarchists would probably say that the basis of the EU agenda rests squarely with the ruling classes, but although in actuality correct, sooner than leave it at that, it is useful to unravel the ball of string by which the Union's decisions are formulated, created , morphed into diktat and then monitored. For what appears from beneath the shroud are the most corrupting and powerful corporations in Europe. Greed entities with no pretence of any mandate beyond their combined annual turnover of ¤950 million and the fact they employ only around four million workers on a Continent inhabited by almost 500 million people. Much of the ideological base for the EU Agenda can be found in the works of Count Count R. N. Courdenhove-Kalergi
Richard Nicolaus Coudenhove Kalergi 1894-1972
who is justifiably regarded by many as the God-father of the European Union. It was his suggestion that Beethovens hymn be the EU's Anthem, and he was extremely active in connection with the design of the EU logo. It was Coudenhove who founded the Pan European Union in the early part of the 20th century. It is interesting to note that his successor in the movement was Otto Von Hapsburg, an honorary professor of the University of Jerusalem, and recipient of the International Humanitarian Award, of the Anti Defamation-League (ADL) of the Jewish B'nai B'rith Masonery Lodge.
Coudenhove Kalergi's father was a close friend of Theodor Herzle the founder of Zionism.Coudenhove's vision for Europe was of a vast feudal fiefdom, where a small group of Money Aristocrats ruled a population of Serfs through a plutocratic {plutocratic = rule or power through wealth} false democratism which we see today holds thrall over the whole of the continent. His vision was shared, funded and sponsored by the bloodline and moneyed families of both Europe (Rothschild's) and the USA(Rockefellers). In fact, since the end of WWII, the major dynamic behind the Federalist vision has come not from the European side, but from the Eastern Seaboard establishment families such as the Rockefellers, Harrimans, Morgan's, Dulles' and Bush's.
Theatre For The Masses..
The plan, I think, is the old one of world dominion in a new form . . . the money-power and revolutionary power have been set up and given sham but symbolic shapes (Capitalism or Communism) and sharply defined citadels (America or Russia) . . . Such is the spectacle publicly staged for the masses. But what if similar men, with a common aim, secretly rule in both camps and propose to achieve their ambition through the clash between those masses? I believe any diligent student of our times will discover that this is the case.-- Douglas Reed.This theatrical struggle between Capitalism and Communism over the inheritance of their bloodline aristocracy is a fratricidal war of the blood aristocracies a fight between individualistic and socialist, egoist and altruist, heathen and Christian ideals. The Generals in this make believe battle of both parties are recruited from Europe's Secret Societies and Brotherhoods, who can all be canopied beneath the metaphorical tarpaulin of the Illuminati.Both Capitalism and Communism are rational, mechanical constructs. The time of the Old Military Caste nobility has passed. The effect of the synthesis, and it's power, namely the belief in it, along with the hope that it's time is nearing, is now growing exponentially, and with it the audacity and arrogance of the New Aristocracy. Through their puppet politicians sitting furtively in National Parliaments, The Bilderberg Group, Trilateral Commission, Council on Foreign Relations and the plethora of other front organisations, their European Project appears close to becoming a reality, a first step along the road to the New World Order.At the fourth annual conference of the Institute for the Scientific Study of International Relations at Copenhagen in June 1931 which was published in the magazine of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in December of that year, the following Statement was read out.We are at present working discreetly but with all our might, to wrest this mysterious force called sovereignty out of the clutches
of the local national states of our world. And all the time we are denying with our lips what we are doing with our hands, because to impugn the sovereignty of the local national states of the world is still a heresy for which a statesman or a publicist can be,perhaps not quite burnt at the stake, but certainly ostracized and
Discredited.
The Methodology of Communitarianist Fascism
The EU project has up until recently been subtle in the extreme. Step by laborious step, one treaty after the other, they have hidden their true intentions behind an economic smokescreen, aided by a population who have abdicated responsibility for the decision making in their lives to liars, cheats and degenerates who whilst masquerading as elected representatives of the people, have conspired to disenfranchise them completely. Now, as we writhe and squirm amidst the worst economic crisis in living history, the Corporate plan for total control of the continent in the first instance, and the planet in the second, is nearing successful completion. What amazes this writer is that there are still those amateur researchers, who although far more informed than the average State/Media programmed resource still cannot understand that these are not chaotic times. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The project is completely on track and nearing it's conclusion. So arrogant are the Lord and Masters now, that even a minor detail such as the Irish Referendum NO vote does not deter their ambitions. So how were a relatively small cadre of conspirators able to achieve this astonishing level of supremacy over a population of almost 500 million people? A detailed dissection of this question is not feasible in an Essay of this kind, but an examination of the above diagram will help us understand the main instruments of control by which all the countries of Europe (even those outside of the bloc still incredulously clambering for membership) have handed over control to the European Federalists.The Centre : An illegitimate money power without any public mandate drawing it's strength from Usury, Monopoly Capitalism and the Industrial Military Complex.. The source of all great power in the 21st century and the 20th before it is money. And the root and base of this power is Usury, that is the issue of money as interest bearing debt. Since the 1980's, banks and lenders have seemingly been falling over themselves to lend money. Now as we try to ride out our present woes, we are told that money is scarce. Why is it scarce? Because the same people who were lending it so willingly are no longer doing so. They create money as figures on a screen in the form of loans. It is money out of thin air, backed by nothing other than the people's taxes, and a belief that it exists and that it has some worth. In this way, they have enticed millions of people to sign their freedoms away for the promise of a new home, car, kitchen or bathroom. Then when the time was right, NOW, they started calling in unpaid loans, manipulating prices, raising interest rates and destroying jobs and manufacturing production in the process. Then, with the people in fear for their existence, and terrified of what the future might bring, demanding naively that something be done, they come up with the solution they had planned all along; More centralisation of bank ownership. State and Corporate mergers through Government Buyout packages and the call for a uniform across the board single currency not only for Europe, but for the whole planet.When the dust settles, we will see that the middle classes have been so badly damaged, that their political and economic power base will be no more. This is how fiefdoms and servitude is established.The Corporate Media: Supplied with unlimited funds and control over the mass media, the New lords of money have been able to dictate what is given to the public by way of knowledge and information. Through television and radio, they use subliminal messaging technology to entrap and entice people into exchanging their identities as individual human souls for that of consumers. They manipulate all avenues of News reporting ensuring that the Third Way consensus is consolidated and maintained. The European Ideal is paramount and our children are indoctrinated into it by the most subtle and non subtle of means. Popular music and movies, loaded with trigger sounds and words have created a dumbing down effect across the continent which is matched and exceeded only in some respects by what can be found in the same media forum across the Atlantic. With a owned and controlled compliant press in tow, which simply repeats and enlarges upon the lies of the Six O'clock News from the evening before, it is little wonder that the vast majority's idea of reality is totally askew.
Politics: The Financial control and manipulation of politics along with the concerted undermining of private enterprise capitalism combined with a progressive programme of State (EU) interference in all aspects of private commerce, has all but destroyed this once proud and independent feature of the European way of life. The mystery of 21st century European politics is the little understood relationship between Monopoly Capitalism and Marxism. Two irrefutable facts of 20th century history, although not generally known, is that without huge financial support from the west, the Russian Revolution would not have happened, and that the Industrial and Military strength of the USSR was almost entirely a creation of the West. Inside the EU, precisely the same techniques and motives have been powerfully at work, undermining systematically the individual member state's private enterprise capitalist system, substituting in it's stead elements of pure Socialism and not surprisingly, the EU Commission can be seen to have been implementing in many ways Marx's own ten points, which are calculated to bring the whole Bloc under a Socialist Corporatist Imperium. Namely a Communitarian New European Order. The Canadian Professor and author, Henry Makow puts it this way, The Illuminati's revolutionary goal is the New World Order, or authoritarian socialism run by monopoly capital. It is big government in the service of big business. The Left in the service of the Right. Foreign Policy: The European Unionists see their project as a revival of Ancient Rome. A New European Order along the lines of The Roman Empire. A Pax Europa if you will. This vision of a Pan European Superpower has always been the endgame and disciples of this ideal have been growing in both support and popularity within the inner sanctum of the Commission over past few decades. The view is that only within the scenario of Superpower Europe will Greater Europe achieve its rightful world-power potential. Therefore it is rationalised that the final goal of a European state should be pursued. All central political competences (interior, foreign policy, defence, social and economic policies) must be Communitised. The EU, already developing in the direction of Superpower Europe, would always be capable of accepting new members . Thus it would be globally the only system which could continually expand its territory. Then the great political and economic power potential of the EU would achieve parity with the USA.It is necessary to understand that this emerging superbloc is only truly relevant in the context of any future World Government Organisation. A Superpower only in as much as it forms one regional supranational entity as would a North American Union, and an Asia Pacific Union, all subordinated to the World Government and Army.Culture: The subversion of national culture, including literature, art, music and the undermining of institutions and traditions, church, family and morality was a prerequisite to establishing the Communitarian Supranational State. Only by severing the people's roots to these aspects of national life could the conspiratorial goals be realised. Organ transplant surgeons encounter a problem called rejection, whereby the organ receiver's body, programmed by nature, rejects the new organ because it simply does not belong. Similarly, before a population can be expected to tolerate any new system of control, means must be found to reduce said populace to a condition of apathetic servitude. Winston Churchill showed his understanding of this when he wrote back in 1922 that there could be no World Government as envisaged by Marxists except on the basis of an induced state of universal arrested development. Since the end of WWII, the peoples of Europe along with the rest of humankind have been, through various means, reduced to exactly that state. This has been achieved via a diabolical program of culture distortion, using subversive genre's of popular music, ever more degrading and perverse forms of pornography, theatre and cinema themes which distort reality and show an inverted and corrupted ideal of all that is natural, moral and good, together with the encouragement of decadence in every possible form. Briefly put, the substitution of a people's own indigenous culture with forms of entertainment contrived to instil confusion on a mass scale, and paralyse the collective will at source. This undermining and subversion of the culture is openly promoted and encouraged by the media whores of the New Lords Of Money, with the most degraded, drug addicted so called artists being touted as role models for our youth.
Science: Science must be controlled and manipulated in order to prevent any obstruction being placed in the way of the Communitarians. For sake of necessity, there must be truth at least in some of the academic disciplines such as maths, physics, chemistry etc. These the money power need and must have for patently obvious reasons. But it cannot allow at any cost a truth or truths which at last gives pure knowledge to mankind and allows the useless eaters to liberate themselves from the millennia of deception they have been subjected to. Scientific truths about the heavenly bodies during the renaissance were nowhere near as suppressed as are the genuine products of scientific research today in all those fields of inquiry which cause man to explore his own self, such as anthropology, genetics, psychology and history. The persecution and defamation of those who refuse to accept and conform can be traced back time and again to the illegitimate money power, which in reality always decides who is appointed to a teaching post at a university and who is not. Whose work and research is published and whose is condemned to obscurity.
History: The falsification and suppression of history (especially recent history) goes hand in hand with the falsification and suppression of news. People will lose all confidence in the media if they discover that they have been lied to or denied the truth. This holds true whether we speak of events today, or fifty years since. The control and manipulation of more recent history has become a primary factor in modern political warfare. Unless people know the truth about the past, they will not be equipped to understand the present, and without a clear understanding of this fact, will have no way of helping determine what will occur in the future. As George Orwell wrote, Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past. Control of the study of history, especially of the past 100 years is exercised by a system of Intellectual Terrorism intended to suppress knowledge which will arm our minds against an enemy whose greatest power lies in it's capacity for deception. Agitation: The West has been crippled by a corrosive and corrupt ideology-morality that causes our political elite to declare themselves in sympathy with, and in support of the very elements that boldly proclaim their goal to be the destruction of the nation states of the west. Richard Clarke.Nowhere is the merging between the Capitalist super rich and the Marxist supposedly anti-capitalists more clearly established than it is in Brussels. The Communitarians work behind the scenes. Elite communitarian thinkers quietly slide their new laws inside projects and programs few regular people will dare to question. And, just so you won't look any closer, (or open your mouth to ask any dumb questions) the communitarians mask their fascist programs behind all manner of embellished phraseology. The new phrases work so well that if you do stand out and speak up with a validly debateable question, you will be labelled a reactionary and defamed as one who doesn't want to live in a safe and healthy community as so many today are when questioning publicly the whole falsely propagated, climate change deception. And since everyone has to agree in order to reach communitarian consensus, you will be shunned and excluded from the decision making councils that control the new EU regions. Go ahead and try, but the furtive Communitarians will NEVER debate you because their programs are based entirely in a lie called Communism. Religion: There is no doubt in the mind of this writer that the most powerful source of resistance to the illegitimate power will be found in a people's religion. I will state quite clearly at this point that I myself am irreligious, and that is quite likely to be to my detriment in some ways. But I have, through recent close contact with Christians, Muslims and one Buddhist come to realise that through faith comes resilience, determination and strength. The central purpose of religion appears to be a means of giving to the individual a spiritual and intellectual base from which that individual can make relative all the stressors and influences he/she encounters and thereby secure a grounded sense of purpose, direction and belonging. Religion, whichever form it might take must forever be at the core of the culture, sustained by and sustaining the arts. Corruption of religion by powers whose intentions are anything other than religious will have the most destructive of consequences for society in general. Within the EU bloc and further afield,. the result of this corruption has been a secularization and politicisation of the Church along with the creation of the World Council of Churches. As the American Ezra Pound once said, There is no medieval description of hell which exceeds the inner filth of the mentalities of some of the ministers and prelates for whom every species of cruelty and villainy is condoned, even incited, if perpetrated under the banner of the universalist political objectives prescribed by the money power.The Communitarian Supercapitalist Nexus: The world is governed by very different persons to what is imagined by those who are not themselves behind the scene. Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister to Queen Victoria.Even a cursory investigation of the forces shaping our current woeful situation, creating a socio-political climate described by Spengler as Anarchy become a habit would be incomplete, without a more informed look at those two supposed arch opposites, Capitalism and Communism. The key word here is Capitalism. This oft used word actually has two very divergent meanings. In order to grasp why a Supranational would be Federal State such as the EU, representing ostensibly capitalist interests, would adopt social policies which are in almost every way imaginable Communist, we must first understand the two meanings of this word; Capitalist. Actually, we are speaking here of two words in affect;
1) Capitalism, meaning private ownership of property and resources and competitive free enterprise in the supply of goods and services.
2) Super-Capitalism, meaning a highly concentrated finance capitalism which is not only apart from capitalism, but it's antithesis and which sooner rather than later acquires the characteristic of being actively anti-capitalist.It is not possible to continue to concentrate ownership and control of property and resources without simultaneously reducing the number who own and control said property and resources. Similarly, there can be no concentration of Corporate Ownership and control, without a corresponding inhibition and suppression of free enterprise. What has happened within the European Union is a progressive degeneration of Capitalism into a form of Super Capitalism or what should be more properly termed Anti Capitalism which resembles Capitalism less and less and Socialism or Communism more and more. The bare minimum of bona fide capitalist values have been allowed to remain in order to confuse the picture and create difficulties for most people to identify that their traditional economic way of life has in fact been replaced by this new Money Concentration. Capitalism serves only as a means of camouflage for an all encompassing and omnipotent Anti Capitalism dominating both economics and politics. The modern Supercapitalist EU has more in common with the former Soviet Union than anyone not involved in this area of research would ever imagine to be the case. Yes, there are differences and opposing spheres of interest, but these become insignificant in comparison to what they have in common. Both are virulently antagonistic towards Nationalism and are therefore revolutionary in principal, setting themselves as they do in fierce opposition to Nationalist aspirations which are essentially evolutionary. Nationalism, a much maligned and misrepresented political credo is inseparably connected to a people's culture and traditions. This causes it to become the mortal enemy of the Supranationalists whose goal is the Superstate.
The reason that this Supercapitalism lives in eternal dread of Nationalism can be explained by examining the fundamental issue of whether there should in any state construct be an authority superior to economics. Which shall govern, politics or economics? Through ethical nationalism, in spite of it's inherited ailments, the will of the people is made vital, which causes politics to become the master over economics, which no matter how important it might be, is then relegated to it's morally natural subordinate status. Since there is no way that Communism, or more correctly in this the first decade of the 21st century, Communitarianism, can be resisted except by nationalism, it is of no surprise that the Supercapitalists have for the past fifty years and more been ruthlessly dedicated to destroying the nation state and severing from it the love and loyalty of the people.The Communitarians understand that their only weapon against Nationalism is Marxist theory, and that in itself marshals all the forces of the underworld along with the rootless academics using them as a siege gun against any or all nationalist targets (see the murder of Austrian Politician, Jorg Haider).
Conclusion: The European Federal State will usher in a new age of Feudalism for the people of the old continent. The technological advances in recent years have enabled the `designers and planners` to construct a Grid around people's lives, using insidious database technology combined with despicable propaganda and pernicious surveillance of all and every aspect of a citizens life. Yet still, we the people do nothing. There are reported to be around 50,000 concentration camps already in place earmarked for EU dissidents (http://www.rense.com/general81/conce.htm). The Military is still on the streets of Italy, and the Euro Gendarmerie is ready to be unleashed. During the 1930's, even though all the signs were there , people refused to recognise them. Are we going to once again fail to learn from our history. Jean Monnet, the so called founding father of the EU did everything but paint us a picture when he wrote Europe's nations should be guided towards the Superstate without their people understanding what is happening. This can be accomplished by successive steps, each disguised as having an economic purpose, but which will eventually and irreversibly lead to federation. (Letter to a friend 30th April 1952).
Now is a time for Heroes...and time is short.
Ref:
This Age Of Confict - Ivor Benson
The Biggest Secret - David Icke
The Cruel Hoax - Henry Makow
Stop Common Purpose - http://www.stopcp.com/cpbreachesthesevenprinciples.php
Balder.org - http://balder.org/judea/Richard-Coudenhove-Kalergi-Practical-Idealism-Vienna-1925.php
http://www.freenations.freeuk.com
The Matrix is a system, and that system is our enemy. When you are inside it, you look around and what do you see? Businessmen, Teachers, Lawyers, Carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are part of that system and that makes them our enemies. You have to understand that most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many are so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to defend it.
REVELATION 17:12-13
12 And the ten horns (NATIONS) which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.
13 These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.
REVELATION 6:1-2
1 And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.
2 And I saw, and behold a white horse:(PEACE) and he that sat on him had a bow;(EU DICTATOR) and a crown was given unto him:(PRESIDENT OF THE EU) and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.(MILITARY GENIUS)
REVELATION 13:1-10
1 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.(THE EU AND ITS DICTATOR IS GODLESS)
2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.(DICTATOR COMES FROM NEW AGE OR OCCULT)
3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death;(MURDERERD) and his deadly wound was healed:(COMES BACK TO LIFE) and all the world wondered after the beast.(THE WORLD THINKS ITS GOD IN THE FLESH, MESSIAH TO ISRAEL)
4 And they worshipped the dragon (SATAN) which gave power unto the beast:(JEWISH EU DICTATOR) and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?(FALSE RESURRECTION,SATAN BRINGS HIM TO LIFE)
5 And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.(GIVEN WORLD CONTROL FOR 3 1/2YRS)
6 And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God,(HES A GOD HATER) to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.(HES A LIBERAL OR DEMOCRAT,WILL PUT ANYTHING ABOUT GOD DOWN)
7 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints,(BEHEAD THEM) and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.(WORLD DOMINATION)
8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.(WORLD DICTATOR)
9 If any man have an ear, let him hear.
10 He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.(SAVED CHRISTIANS AND JEWS DIE FOR THEIR FAITH AT THIS TIME,NOW WE ARE SAVED BY GRACE BUT DURING THE 7 YEARS OF HELL ON EARTH, PEOPLE WILL BE PUT TO DEATH (BEHEADINGS) FOR THEIR BELIEF IN GOD (JESUS) OR THE BIBLE.
DANIEL 9:26-27
26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come (ROMANS IN AD 70) shall destroy the city and the sanctuary;(ROMANS DESTROYED THE 2ND TEMPLE) and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.
27 And he( EU ROMAN, JEWISH DICTATOR) shall confirm the covenant with many for one week:( 7 YEARS) and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease,( 3 1/2 YRS) and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
EUROPEAN UNION ARMY
DANIEL 7:23-25
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast (EU,REVIVED ROME) shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth,(7TH WORLD EMPIRE) which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.(TRADING BLOCKS)
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings(10 NATIONS) that shall arise: and another shall rise after them;(#11 SPAIN) and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.( BE HEAD OF 3 NATIONS)
25 And he (EU PRESIDENT) shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.(3 1/2 YRS)
DANIEL 8:23-25
23 And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king (EU DICTATOR) of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences,(FROM THE OCCULT) shall stand up.
24 And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power:(SATANS POWER) and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people.
25 And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes;(JESUS) but he shall be broken without hand.
DANIEL 11:36-39
36 And the king (EU DICTATOR) shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done.
37 Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers,(THIS EU DICTATOR IS JEWISH) nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.(CLAIM TO BE GOD)
38 But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces:(WAR) and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things.
39 Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god,(DESTROY TERROR GROUPS) whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory: and he shall cause them to rule over many,(HIS ARMY LEADERS) and shall divide the land for gain.
REVELATION 19:19
19 And I saw the beast,(EU LEADER) and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse,(JESUS) and against his army.(THE RAPTURED CHRISTIANS)
WORLD GOVERNMENT
DANIEL 7:23-25
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.
25 And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.
DANIEL 12:4,1
4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
1 And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.
REVELATION 13:1-3,7,8,12,16-18
1 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.
2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.
7 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
REVELATION 17:3,7,9-10,12,18
3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
7 And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.
9 And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.
10 And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.
12 And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.
18 And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.
The EU Communitarian Agenda
And The New Feudalists By Philip Jones 10-26-8
Communitarianism is a collectivist philosophy that explicitly rejects individualism. It does not merely relegate individualism to a subordinate position, but is openly hostile to it. It is an ideology of civic society which is nothing less than one version of Post-Marxist collectivism which wants privileges for certain wealthy and influential organized groups, and in consequence, a renewed feudalization of society.--Vaclav Klaus.
Communitarianist Ideology
The European Union is a major aspect of the New World Order and the so called sustainable development movement. The main objective of the Federal European State to be, is absolute social, personal and economic control in a collectivist and corporatist society. The philosophy behind the EU is a strange mixture of Capitalism and Communism - a form of Euro Marxism which owes much of its dogma to the Pre World War II Italian Marxist Philosopher, Antonio Gramsci.. The nearest ideology to that practiced by the EU is something called Communitarianism, or what Tony Blair called the Third Way. We are talking of a dialectical trap here, with Corporate money funding Socialism as Thesis, ideological Socialism as Antithesis and Communitarianism or the new imperium as Synthesis. Money grabs and concentrates power, whilst State Socialism promises the total redistribution of ownership and wealth. This contradiction provides an almost irresistible dynamic.Communitarians want to create a post-modern, post-democratic feudal society run by a small number of rich and powerful people with everyone else working as peasants. In order to achieve their objectives they must destroy the middle class and the nation state. Can anyone deny that their goals are firmly on course.One of the most mysterious aspects of the European Union from a lay-man's standpoint is the decision making process. Even with only the bare minimum of research, it becomes clear that we the people have little or no influence on any of the decisions reached in our name and the subsequent diktats which inevitably follow. In this article/essay, I will try and identify the ideology and aims of the key socio- economic decisions that drive the EU, and how because of these decisions, our lives are increasingly no longer our own.
The socio political economic agenda of the EU is carefully and intentionally buried beneath myriad layers of tedious and unintelligible newspeak. Despite this, in recent years, as the pace of so called EU reform has quickened, many researchers like myself have begun to expose and unravel this intentionally obtuse and often ambiguous jargon and reveal it for what it really is: A tool of confusion and misinformation intended towards the enslavement of the peoples of Europe by the rule of diktat and economic servitude..Once the spotlight of investigation is shone directly at the beast, what emerges is a Communitarian Agenda driven solely by corporate interests. Monetary Profit is to be the bottom line on everything from public services to defence to the very useful environmental Trojan Horse. High sounding non descriptions precede cleverly worded specifics that determine that the one and only benchmark be an economic one.The truth is of course that if the people of Europe themselves were to engage in setting the EU agenda, the current programme would almost without question be reversed. Instead of the Mammonistic ideal of profit before all, we would most certainly witness an agenda dominated by life quality issues like real un-politicised education for our children, and a healthcare service not tied to the pharmaceutical conglomerates, and free of political restraint, with a remit to provide the very best treatment available, whether it be of the traditional or alternative varieties.
The Roots And Goals Of The New Feudalism
Anarchists would probably say that the basis of the EU agenda rests squarely with the ruling classes, but although in actuality correct, sooner than leave it at that, it is useful to unravel the ball of string by which the Union's decisions are formulated, created , morphed into diktat and then monitored. For what appears from beneath the shroud are the most corrupting and powerful corporations in Europe. Greed entities with no pretence of any mandate beyond their combined annual turnover of ¤950 million and the fact they employ only around four million workers on a Continent inhabited by almost 500 million people. Much of the ideological base for the EU Agenda can be found in the works of Count Count R. N. Courdenhove-Kalergi
Richard Nicolaus Coudenhove Kalergi 1894-1972
who is justifiably regarded by many as the God-father of the European Union. It was his suggestion that Beethovens hymn be the EU's Anthem, and he was extremely active in connection with the design of the EU logo. It was Coudenhove who founded the Pan European Union in the early part of the 20th century. It is interesting to note that his successor in the movement was Otto Von Hapsburg, an honorary professor of the University of Jerusalem, and recipient of the International Humanitarian Award, of the Anti Defamation-League (ADL) of the Jewish B'nai B'rith Masonery Lodge.
Coudenhove Kalergi's father was a close friend of Theodor Herzle the founder of Zionism.Coudenhove's vision for Europe was of a vast feudal fiefdom, where a small group of Money Aristocrats ruled a population of Serfs through a plutocratic {plutocratic = rule or power through wealth} false democratism which we see today holds thrall over the whole of the continent. His vision was shared, funded and sponsored by the bloodline and moneyed families of both Europe (Rothschild's) and the USA(Rockefellers). In fact, since the end of WWII, the major dynamic behind the Federalist vision has come not from the European side, but from the Eastern Seaboard establishment families such as the Rockefellers, Harrimans, Morgan's, Dulles' and Bush's.
Theatre For The Masses..
The plan, I think, is the old one of world dominion in a new form . . . the money-power and revolutionary power have been set up and given sham but symbolic shapes (Capitalism or Communism) and sharply defined citadels (America or Russia) . . . Such is the spectacle publicly staged for the masses. But what if similar men, with a common aim, secretly rule in both camps and propose to achieve their ambition through the clash between those masses? I believe any diligent student of our times will discover that this is the case.-- Douglas Reed.This theatrical struggle between Capitalism and Communism over the inheritance of their bloodline aristocracy is a fratricidal war of the blood aristocracies a fight between individualistic and socialist, egoist and altruist, heathen and Christian ideals. The Generals in this make believe battle of both parties are recruited from Europe's Secret Societies and Brotherhoods, who can all be canopied beneath the metaphorical tarpaulin of the Illuminati.Both Capitalism and Communism are rational, mechanical constructs. The time of the Old Military Caste nobility has passed. The effect of the synthesis, and it's power, namely the belief in it, along with the hope that it's time is nearing, is now growing exponentially, and with it the audacity and arrogance of the New Aristocracy. Through their puppet politicians sitting furtively in National Parliaments, The Bilderberg Group, Trilateral Commission, Council on Foreign Relations and the plethora of other front organisations, their European Project appears close to becoming a reality, a first step along the road to the New World Order.At the fourth annual conference of the Institute for the Scientific Study of International Relations at Copenhagen in June 1931 which was published in the magazine of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in December of that year, the following Statement was read out.We are at present working discreetly but with all our might, to wrest this mysterious force called sovereignty out of the clutches
of the local national states of our world. And all the time we are denying with our lips what we are doing with our hands, because to impugn the sovereignty of the local national states of the world is still a heresy for which a statesman or a publicist can be,perhaps not quite burnt at the stake, but certainly ostracized and
Discredited.
The Methodology of Communitarianist Fascism
The EU project has up until recently been subtle in the extreme. Step by laborious step, one treaty after the other, they have hidden their true intentions behind an economic smokescreen, aided by a population who have abdicated responsibility for the decision making in their lives to liars, cheats and degenerates who whilst masquerading as elected representatives of the people, have conspired to disenfranchise them completely. Now, as we writhe and squirm amidst the worst economic crisis in living history, the Corporate plan for total control of the continent in the first instance, and the planet in the second, is nearing successful completion. What amazes this writer is that there are still those amateur researchers, who although far more informed than the average State/Media programmed resource still cannot understand that these are not chaotic times. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The project is completely on track and nearing it's conclusion. So arrogant are the Lord and Masters now, that even a minor detail such as the Irish Referendum NO vote does not deter their ambitions. So how were a relatively small cadre of conspirators able to achieve this astonishing level of supremacy over a population of almost 500 million people? A detailed dissection of this question is not feasible in an Essay of this kind, but an examination of the above diagram will help us understand the main instruments of control by which all the countries of Europe (even those outside of the bloc still incredulously clambering for membership) have handed over control to the European Federalists.The Centre : An illegitimate money power without any public mandate drawing it's strength from Usury, Monopoly Capitalism and the Industrial Military Complex.. The source of all great power in the 21st century and the 20th before it is money. And the root and base of this power is Usury, that is the issue of money as interest bearing debt. Since the 1980's, banks and lenders have seemingly been falling over themselves to lend money. Now as we try to ride out our present woes, we are told that money is scarce. Why is it scarce? Because the same people who were lending it so willingly are no longer doing so. They create money as figures on a screen in the form of loans. It is money out of thin air, backed by nothing other than the people's taxes, and a belief that it exists and that it has some worth. In this way, they have enticed millions of people to sign their freedoms away for the promise of a new home, car, kitchen or bathroom. Then when the time was right, NOW, they started calling in unpaid loans, manipulating prices, raising interest rates and destroying jobs and manufacturing production in the process. Then, with the people in fear for their existence, and terrified of what the future might bring, demanding naively that something be done, they come up with the solution they had planned all along; More centralisation of bank ownership. State and Corporate mergers through Government Buyout packages and the call for a uniform across the board single currency not only for Europe, but for the whole planet.When the dust settles, we will see that the middle classes have been so badly damaged, that their political and economic power base will be no more. This is how fiefdoms and servitude is established.The Corporate Media: Supplied with unlimited funds and control over the mass media, the New lords of money have been able to dictate what is given to the public by way of knowledge and information. Through television and radio, they use subliminal messaging technology to entrap and entice people into exchanging their identities as individual human souls for that of consumers. They manipulate all avenues of News reporting ensuring that the Third Way consensus is consolidated and maintained. The European Ideal is paramount and our children are indoctrinated into it by the most subtle and non subtle of means. Popular music and movies, loaded with trigger sounds and words have created a dumbing down effect across the continent which is matched and exceeded only in some respects by what can be found in the same media forum across the Atlantic. With a owned and controlled compliant press in tow, which simply repeats and enlarges upon the lies of the Six O'clock News from the evening before, it is little wonder that the vast majority's idea of reality is totally askew.
Politics: The Financial control and manipulation of politics along with the concerted undermining of private enterprise capitalism combined with a progressive programme of State (EU) interference in all aspects of private commerce, has all but destroyed this once proud and independent feature of the European way of life. The mystery of 21st century European politics is the little understood relationship between Monopoly Capitalism and Marxism. Two irrefutable facts of 20th century history, although not generally known, is that without huge financial support from the west, the Russian Revolution would not have happened, and that the Industrial and Military strength of the USSR was almost entirely a creation of the West. Inside the EU, precisely the same techniques and motives have been powerfully at work, undermining systematically the individual member state's private enterprise capitalist system, substituting in it's stead elements of pure Socialism and not surprisingly, the EU Commission can be seen to have been implementing in many ways Marx's own ten points, which are calculated to bring the whole Bloc under a Socialist Corporatist Imperium. Namely a Communitarian New European Order. The Canadian Professor and author, Henry Makow puts it this way, The Illuminati's revolutionary goal is the New World Order, or authoritarian socialism run by monopoly capital. It is big government in the service of big business. The Left in the service of the Right. Foreign Policy: The European Unionists see their project as a revival of Ancient Rome. A New European Order along the lines of The Roman Empire. A Pax Europa if you will. This vision of a Pan European Superpower has always been the endgame and disciples of this ideal have been growing in both support and popularity within the inner sanctum of the Commission over past few decades. The view is that only within the scenario of Superpower Europe will Greater Europe achieve its rightful world-power potential. Therefore it is rationalised that the final goal of a European state should be pursued. All central political competences (interior, foreign policy, defence, social and economic policies) must be Communitised. The EU, already developing in the direction of Superpower Europe, would always be capable of accepting new members . Thus it would be globally the only system which could continually expand its territory. Then the great political and economic power potential of the EU would achieve parity with the USA.It is necessary to understand that this emerging superbloc is only truly relevant in the context of any future World Government Organisation. A Superpower only in as much as it forms one regional supranational entity as would a North American Union, and an Asia Pacific Union, all subordinated to the World Government and Army.Culture: The subversion of national culture, including literature, art, music and the undermining of institutions and traditions, church, family and morality was a prerequisite to establishing the Communitarian Supranational State. Only by severing the people's roots to these aspects of national life could the conspiratorial goals be realised. Organ transplant surgeons encounter a problem called rejection, whereby the organ receiver's body, programmed by nature, rejects the new organ because it simply does not belong. Similarly, before a population can be expected to tolerate any new system of control, means must be found to reduce said populace to a condition of apathetic servitude. Winston Churchill showed his understanding of this when he wrote back in 1922 that there could be no World Government as envisaged by Marxists except on the basis of an induced state of universal arrested development. Since the end of WWII, the peoples of Europe along with the rest of humankind have been, through various means, reduced to exactly that state. This has been achieved via a diabolical program of culture distortion, using subversive genre's of popular music, ever more degrading and perverse forms of pornography, theatre and cinema themes which distort reality and show an inverted and corrupted ideal of all that is natural, moral and good, together with the encouragement of decadence in every possible form. Briefly put, the substitution of a people's own indigenous culture with forms of entertainment contrived to instil confusion on a mass scale, and paralyse the collective will at source. This undermining and subversion of the culture is openly promoted and encouraged by the media whores of the New Lords Of Money, with the most degraded, drug addicted so called artists being touted as role models for our youth.
Science: Science must be controlled and manipulated in order to prevent any obstruction being placed in the way of the Communitarians. For sake of necessity, there must be truth at least in some of the academic disciplines such as maths, physics, chemistry etc. These the money power need and must have for patently obvious reasons. But it cannot allow at any cost a truth or truths which at last gives pure knowledge to mankind and allows the useless eaters to liberate themselves from the millennia of deception they have been subjected to. Scientific truths about the heavenly bodies during the renaissance were nowhere near as suppressed as are the genuine products of scientific research today in all those fields of inquiry which cause man to explore his own self, such as anthropology, genetics, psychology and history. The persecution and defamation of those who refuse to accept and conform can be traced back time and again to the illegitimate money power, which in reality always decides who is appointed to a teaching post at a university and who is not. Whose work and research is published and whose is condemned to obscurity.
History: The falsification and suppression of history (especially recent history) goes hand in hand with the falsification and suppression of news. People will lose all confidence in the media if they discover that they have been lied to or denied the truth. This holds true whether we speak of events today, or fifty years since. The control and manipulation of more recent history has become a primary factor in modern political warfare. Unless people know the truth about the past, they will not be equipped to understand the present, and without a clear understanding of this fact, will have no way of helping determine what will occur in the future. As George Orwell wrote, Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past. Control of the study of history, especially of the past 100 years is exercised by a system of Intellectual Terrorism intended to suppress knowledge which will arm our minds against an enemy whose greatest power lies in it's capacity for deception. Agitation: The West has been crippled by a corrosive and corrupt ideology-morality that causes our political elite to declare themselves in sympathy with, and in support of the very elements that boldly proclaim their goal to be the destruction of the nation states of the west. Richard Clarke.Nowhere is the merging between the Capitalist super rich and the Marxist supposedly anti-capitalists more clearly established than it is in Brussels. The Communitarians work behind the scenes. Elite communitarian thinkers quietly slide their new laws inside projects and programs few regular people will dare to question. And, just so you won't look any closer, (or open your mouth to ask any dumb questions) the communitarians mask their fascist programs behind all manner of embellished phraseology. The new phrases work so well that if you do stand out and speak up with a validly debateable question, you will be labelled a reactionary and defamed as one who doesn't want to live in a safe and healthy community as so many today are when questioning publicly the whole falsely propagated, climate change deception. And since everyone has to agree in order to reach communitarian consensus, you will be shunned and excluded from the decision making councils that control the new EU regions. Go ahead and try, but the furtive Communitarians will NEVER debate you because their programs are based entirely in a lie called Communism. Religion: There is no doubt in the mind of this writer that the most powerful source of resistance to the illegitimate power will be found in a people's religion. I will state quite clearly at this point that I myself am irreligious, and that is quite likely to be to my detriment in some ways. But I have, through recent close contact with Christians, Muslims and one Buddhist come to realise that through faith comes resilience, determination and strength. The central purpose of religion appears to be a means of giving to the individual a spiritual and intellectual base from which that individual can make relative all the stressors and influences he/she encounters and thereby secure a grounded sense of purpose, direction and belonging. Religion, whichever form it might take must forever be at the core of the culture, sustained by and sustaining the arts. Corruption of religion by powers whose intentions are anything other than religious will have the most destructive of consequences for society in general. Within the EU bloc and further afield,. the result of this corruption has been a secularization and politicisation of the Church along with the creation of the World Council of Churches. As the American Ezra Pound once said, There is no medieval description of hell which exceeds the inner filth of the mentalities of some of the ministers and prelates for whom every species of cruelty and villainy is condoned, even incited, if perpetrated under the banner of the universalist political objectives prescribed by the money power.The Communitarian Supercapitalist Nexus: The world is governed by very different persons to what is imagined by those who are not themselves behind the scene. Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister to Queen Victoria.Even a cursory investigation of the forces shaping our current woeful situation, creating a socio-political climate described by Spengler as Anarchy become a habit would be incomplete, without a more informed look at those two supposed arch opposites, Capitalism and Communism. The key word here is Capitalism. This oft used word actually has two very divergent meanings. In order to grasp why a Supranational would be Federal State such as the EU, representing ostensibly capitalist interests, would adopt social policies which are in almost every way imaginable Communist, we must first understand the two meanings of this word; Capitalist. Actually, we are speaking here of two words in affect;
1) Capitalism, meaning private ownership of property and resources and competitive free enterprise in the supply of goods and services.
2) Super-Capitalism, meaning a highly concentrated finance capitalism which is not only apart from capitalism, but it's antithesis and which sooner rather than later acquires the characteristic of being actively anti-capitalist.It is not possible to continue to concentrate ownership and control of property and resources without simultaneously reducing the number who own and control said property and resources. Similarly, there can be no concentration of Corporate Ownership and control, without a corresponding inhibition and suppression of free enterprise. What has happened within the European Union is a progressive degeneration of Capitalism into a form of Super Capitalism or what should be more properly termed Anti Capitalism which resembles Capitalism less and less and Socialism or Communism more and more. The bare minimum of bona fide capitalist values have been allowed to remain in order to confuse the picture and create difficulties for most people to identify that their traditional economic way of life has in fact been replaced by this new Money Concentration. Capitalism serves only as a means of camouflage for an all encompassing and omnipotent Anti Capitalism dominating both economics and politics. The modern Supercapitalist EU has more in common with the former Soviet Union than anyone not involved in this area of research would ever imagine to be the case. Yes, there are differences and opposing spheres of interest, but these become insignificant in comparison to what they have in common. Both are virulently antagonistic towards Nationalism and are therefore revolutionary in principal, setting themselves as they do in fierce opposition to Nationalist aspirations which are essentially evolutionary. Nationalism, a much maligned and misrepresented political credo is inseparably connected to a people's culture and traditions. This causes it to become the mortal enemy of the Supranationalists whose goal is the Superstate.
The reason that this Supercapitalism lives in eternal dread of Nationalism can be explained by examining the fundamental issue of whether there should in any state construct be an authority superior to economics. Which shall govern, politics or economics? Through ethical nationalism, in spite of it's inherited ailments, the will of the people is made vital, which causes politics to become the master over economics, which no matter how important it might be, is then relegated to it's morally natural subordinate status. Since there is no way that Communism, or more correctly in this the first decade of the 21st century, Communitarianism, can be resisted except by nationalism, it is of no surprise that the Supercapitalists have for the past fifty years and more been ruthlessly dedicated to destroying the nation state and severing from it the love and loyalty of the people.The Communitarians understand that their only weapon against Nationalism is Marxist theory, and that in itself marshals all the forces of the underworld along with the rootless academics using them as a siege gun against any or all nationalist targets (see the murder of Austrian Politician, Jorg Haider).
Conclusion: The European Federal State will usher in a new age of Feudalism for the people of the old continent. The technological advances in recent years have enabled the `designers and planners` to construct a Grid around people's lives, using insidious database technology combined with despicable propaganda and pernicious surveillance of all and every aspect of a citizens life. Yet still, we the people do nothing. There are reported to be around 50,000 concentration camps already in place earmarked for EU dissidents (http://www.rense.com/general81/conce.htm). The Military is still on the streets of Italy, and the Euro Gendarmerie is ready to be unleashed. During the 1930's, even though all the signs were there , people refused to recognise them. Are we going to once again fail to learn from our history. Jean Monnet, the so called founding father of the EU did everything but paint us a picture when he wrote Europe's nations should be guided towards the Superstate without their people understanding what is happening. This can be accomplished by successive steps, each disguised as having an economic purpose, but which will eventually and irreversibly lead to federation. (Letter to a friend 30th April 1952).
Now is a time for Heroes...and time is short.
Ref:
This Age Of Confict - Ivor Benson
The Biggest Secret - David Icke
The Cruel Hoax - Henry Makow
Stop Common Purpose - http://www.stopcp.com/cpbreachesthesevenprinciples.php
Balder.org - http://balder.org/judea/Richard-Coudenhove-Kalergi-Practical-Idealism-Vienna-1925.php
http://www.freenations.freeuk.com
The Matrix is a system, and that system is our enemy. When you are inside it, you look around and what do you see? Businessmen, Teachers, Lawyers, Carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are part of that system and that makes them our enemies. You have to understand that most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many are so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to defend it.
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