LaVrai – The Truth

Palestinian relatives of Tawfiq Qanan, who was killed in an Israeli air strike, mourn during his funeral in Gaza on Dec. 31, 2008. (Suhaib Salem/Reuters)

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, one of our modern day anti-Christs foretold in the Holy Bible, is of course stoking the fires in the Israeli-Gaza conflict, promising, as usual, that Israel is sure to reach its bitter end. [Yes, Israel is promised to suffer at the hands of those who hate her -- but she won't be annihilated. She will be redeemed.]

… Iran considers Israel its archenemy, and its President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for the destruction of the Jewish state. Iran also is Hamas’ main backer, though Tehran denies sending weapons to the Islamic militant group that took control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007. (Source)

Ahmadinejad renews calls for Israel’s destruction:

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said here on Wednesday that Israel is on the verge of collapse, the official IRNA news agency reported.

“Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza which will lead to definite annihilation of the regime,” IRNA quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

“Tel Aviv regime and its allies should know that this illegitimate regime has reached its end and even the big powers’ support can not prevent its collapse”, he said addressing a crowd in Zahedan, the capital city of Iran’s southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan.

On Tuesday, Ahmadinejad said the ongoing Gaza crisis will lead to Israel’s annihilation. (Source)

And Iran has started calling on volunteers to head to fight against Israel in its attacks on Gaza.

About 3,550 people registered Monday with the Combatant Clergy Society’s Web site. The weeklong online campaign gives volunteers three options on ways they can fight Israel: military, financial and propaganda.

The group, which has considerable political and economic power in Iran, did not provide further details on the program including how it would contact the volunteers or implement the program.

The conservative clerics decided to sign up volunteers after Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a religious decree on Sunday that said anyone killed while defending Palestinians in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip against Israeli attacks would be considered a martyr. (Source)

Volunteer fighters, you say? Martyrdom, you say? That could only mean one thing…

Hard-line Iranian student groups have asked the government to authorize volunteers to go carry out suicide bombings in Israel in response to the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip.

The government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had not responded to the call by Wednesday. Volunteer suicide groups have made similar requests in the past and the government never responded to their calls. The groups’ activities appear to be mainly for propaganda purposes, and there has been no sign of Iranians carrying out suicide attacks in Israel. (Source)

Don’t forget, Iran hangs people, especially Christian converts, for public spectacle everyday. If their leader wants to talk about criminal activity, he should start with himself.

And guess who’s forcing his French nose into the matter and making demands?

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Wednesday he would visit the Middle East early next week to try to restore peace to the region, despite Israel’s rejection of a French initiative for a ceasefire in Gaza.

… France called for 48-hour truce to let in humanitarian aid for Gaza’s 1.5 million residents, but Israel has brushed off the idea as “unrealistic”.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is due to meet Sarkozy in Paris on Thursday. A political source in Israel told Reuters Livni would stress that “we do not need ceasefires right now”.

Sarkozy enhanced his international image in August when he swiftly intervened after Russian forces invaded Georgia, brokering a ceasefire between the two sides.

France is anxious for Europe to play a bigger part in the Middle East and Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner persuaded his EU counterparts to attend an emergency meeting on Gaza in Paris late on Tuesday. (Source)

Now tell me this, how is strapping yourself with a vest or whatnot a means of “defending Gaza” or anyone else? These folks hellbent on shedding blood are not looking to defend Palestinian civilians — they are looking to murder innocent people in Israel. They are seeking revenge, not to save the lives of their people.

I also find it ironic that two of the most oppressive, GODless regimes on the planet are calling on Israel to end its Gaza offensive. China, who executes people with no hesitation and persecutes Christians, and Russia — who invaded the Republic of Georgia a couple months with military attacks in the country — are both telling Israel to quit it.

You are left to draw your own conclusions.

Photo caption: A Palestinian man shouts as he and others try to find their dead relatives among bodies of Palestinians laid out on the ground outside Shifa hospital on Dec. 27, 2008, in Gaza City, Gaza.

It pains me to see this death and carnage. But this is the way of man, no? I was once of the opinion that Israel perhaps should use restraint in dealing with the dozens of enemies who surround her, and the rest of the world usually voices the same opinion. Today, however, I don’t believe I can say the same thing after reading news reports about what has lead to this open onslaught.

The people of Gaza elected Hamas into government about three years ago and since then, as usual, there have been up-and-down truces between them and Israel. And, as usual, Hamas has taken it upon itself to send a steady barrage of rockets across the border toward Israel. During this most recent truce (which lasted 6 months I believe), Israel didn’t attack Hamas in Gaza with force; they used other means, such as tightening borders and shutting down power to the region. Dozens of people don’t die in Israel when Hamas militans fire their rockets, and that’s not the point even. The point is, the people of Israel are never at peace… and who can’t say that isn’t Hamas’ main goal.

Side note here: Hamas even managed to kill two little girls in their own region recently when they misfired a rocket in their hell-bent desire to continuously harass Israel (Reuters Video).

If another nation decided to lob rockets into U.S. borders continuously over a period of days… would America not be justified to defend itself by either lobbing back rockets or sending in ground troops? Would England, India, Egypt, China, Russia or any other nation under the sun not be required to attempt to end the attacks by whatever means they find neccessary?

Absolutely no man or woman has yet to broker a peace deal between these two peoples since conflicts started decades ago, when Israel took Gaza from Egypt. This fighting is hardly about religion or territory any more — the whole thing is being fueled by hate, deception and confusion — and I suppose fate. For the Holy Bible says Israel will not know peace until Messiah Jesus of Nazareth returns to earth. Someone will come along and pretend to broker peace — but that deal will be dashed to the ground and trampled upon.

No one here on this planet has any real power to solve Israel and her neighbors’ problems. All we apparently do is talk, talk, talk… as world leaders will undoubtedly do ad naseum as Israel’s defense attacks continue. I’ll keep praying, too, not so much for peace — I know that will come. I will be praying for mercy and grace from the LORD our GOD. I will ask the LORD to keep his people — both in Gaza and Israel — and to protect the defenseless — the women, children, elderly, etc.

Israeli officials have basically said they are just beginning, and don’t expect Hamas to humble itself any century soon. And do you know what will happen when the next truce comes around? — Hamas will resume sending rockets across Israel’s border. It is an undeniable fact that if Israel stopped defending it self and just sat quietly 365 days a year and absolutely no nation spoke on her behalf, every enemy around her would gladly go in and do what that demon Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been praying to the devil for for years — wipe Israel off the map. It has been Satan’s eternal goal to destroy the Woman’s seed and he won’t stop until Christ Jesus stops him. That too, is another fact.

Sources:

Massive Israeli Air Raids On Gaza – BBC News

Mideast Fighting: Background – Sky News

IDF Amasses Forces Near Gaza… – Jerusalem Post

Scores Dead In Israel Raid In Gaza – Al Jazeera English

Israeli Air Strikes In Gaza Kill More Than 200 – MSNBC

When I came across this headline, I just had to check out the Web site offering this service: A Christian broadcast services company has launched an on-line video feed of four Jerusalem sites allowing people to bring the Holy Land live to computers screens the world over (source).

So the Web site is IPrayTV.com. You register, download and install the new Microsoft media player SilverLight (if necessary; and works on Macs, too), refresh the page and just watch… and watch… and watch. There are three mini screens up in the player — the Mount of Olives (Dome of the Rock), Golgotha and something called Flashfloods.com, which appears to usually have some type of ministry playing. The other two streams are rather boring (perhaps depending on the time of day you watch…). That being said, the whole concept is very interesting and perhaps, when things start to get a little “crazy” in these areas, these live 24/7 streams (I believe they are 24 hours a day) may prove extremely useful. What do you think?

From IPray TV’s Web site: I Pray TV, (www.IPray.com) began in 1997 in Jerusalem with a vision of providing ministries with state of the art technology that empowers them to be connected to the center of the universe by live video streaming of the Holy sites. Ministries will be able to share their messages to a worldwide audience while being linked to Jerusalem via live video streaming. In addition to providing the highest quality audio and video feeds over the Internet, we provide ministries with the tools necessary to impact the world to the utmost ends of the earth with the gospel.

Israelis face off against water cannons as they clash with riot police preventing them from approaching an Arab home on Oct. 10, 2008, in Acre, Israel. (Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)

No, I am not an anti-Semite… if I were, I would have a lot to explain to my great-grandmother’s side of the family.  Oh yeah, and to the Messiah Jesus of Nazareth, whom I love and serve.

I am just struck how some religious Jews (who practice Judaism) still want to pretend they are right before GOD. How is attacking your neighbor and burning down his house admissible… and on a holy day, too! This is how the riots that are going on in an Israeli town started, according to media reports:

“Trouble started in Acre after dark Wednesday at the start of the Yom Kippur, the holiest day for Jews, when an Arab drove into a Jewish district, disturbing the start of 24 hours during which many Jews fast and abstain from driving.

As word spread from mosque loudspeakers of Jewish youths stoning the car, Arab crowds responded angrily, causing widespread damage to cars and shops in a main city street.

Relations between Jews and the mostly Muslim Arabs have been sometimes tense in Israel and dog the nature of a peace settlement which still eludes the two communities, 60 years after Israel was established in what was then Palestine.

That is how I know Israel, and any nation called by the LORD’s name, is not right before HIM — we suffer violence. You mean to tell me, on the holiest day for those of Judaism, Jewish men have no problem turning violent because a “stranger” in the land violates their day of observance? Wow. That’s like me sullying my salvation by deciding to beat down a stranger who decides to come into my church and start dancing while we’re partaking of the LORD’s supper.  How would I look to my LORD? Israel, O Israel — when are you going to get it, Jacob! Bent out of shape about the Torah, and you still can’t even observe every letter. It appears this young generation really does not know the LORD. Where are the elders who know and remember to remind them of how one must walk before the LORD our GOD?

Rioters in northern Israel torched two houses and badly damaged several others in the third night of tensions between Jewish and Arab residents of Acre, officials said Saturday.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said Arab residents were evacuated before their homes were set alight and that nobody was injured. He said police remained on very high alert.

Sami Hawary, an Israeli-Arab resident of Acre who heads a group which works for cooperation between Arabs and Jews, said that during the early hours of Saturday angry Jewish residents set fire to two houses and damaged eight others.

“There were scores of angry Jewish residents, mainly younger people who set fire to the homes, the tension is very high here, things are on a knife-edge,” Hawary told Reuters.

Read the rest of the sad story here…

Israeli soldiers stand in front of graves of fallen soldiers on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem on May 6, 2008. The Dome of the Rock, sacred to both Muslims and Jews, is seen in the background. (Yannis Behrakis/Reuters)

For some reason, I was totally unaware that Iraq (that is, it’s officials) hate Israel. It’s illegal for Iraqis to visit Israel, and now Iraqi politicians even want to prosecute a Sunni prime minister for visiting Israel. He could be executed for visiting Israel.

Excerpt:

First his two sons were murdered. Now he faces prosecution. The reason for Mithal al-Alusi’s troubles? Visiting Israel and advocating peace with the Jewish state — something Iraq’s leaders refuse to consider.

The Iraqi is at the center of a political storm after his fellow lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to strip him of his immunity and allow his prosecution for visiting Israel — a crime punishable by death under a 1950s-era law. Such a fate is unlikely for al-Alusi, though he may lose his party’s sole seat in parliament. Read the rest of this entry »