Sunday, October 4, 2009

70 Weeks of Dan.9 - Palestinians Halt Push on War Report to UN – Truth About Israel’s War Crimes - Rapture Hoax

70 Weeks of Daniel 9 - Rapture Hoax, New Khazaria


by Steve Wohlberg:

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes. — Mark Twain (1835-1910)
Christians often debate about whether Jesus Christ will return for His Church before the seven years of tribulation (the “pre-trib” view), in the middle of the seven years (the “mid-trib” view), or at the end of the seven years (the “post-trib” view). Yet by far the most important question worth asking is: Does the Bible really predict a future “seven-year period of tribulation” in the first place?
Shockingly, there is no specific Bible text predicting any seven-year tribulation. The entire theory is based on an interpretation of one primary verse, Daniel 9:27, which says:
He shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease… (Daniel 9:27 KJV).
Modern interpreters often conclude:
“He” is the Antichrist
Antichrist will make a treaty with the Jews for “one week” (the last “week” of the 70-week/490-year prophecy)–meaning seven years of Tribulation.
In the middle of the Tribulation, Antichrist will cause the sacrifices of a rebuilt Jewish temple “to cease.”
Thus Daniel 9:27 is applied to Antichrist, a seven-year Tribulation, and a rebuilt Jewish temple–yet the verse itself says none of this. The fact is that countless credible Bible scholars of the past applied Daniel 9:27 to Jesus Christ, not antichrist.
Matthew Henry’s commentary on Daniel 9:27 states, “By offering himself a sacrifice once and for all, he [Jesus], shall put an end to all the Levitical sacrifices.” (1). British Methodist Adam Clarke’s commentary says that during Daniel 9:27’s “term of seven years,” Jesus Himself would “confirm or ratify the new covenant with mankind.”(2). The Jamieson, Fausset and Brown commentary also says: “He shall confirm the covenant—Christ. The confirmation of the covenant is assigned to Him.” (3).
The following ten points provide solid evidence that Daniel’s 70th week doesn’t refer to any future Tribulation at all. Rather, it was fulfilled nearly two thousand years ago.
The prophecy of “seventy weeks” means seventy straight sequential weeks. There is no example in Scripture (or anywhere else!) of a time period starting, stopping, and then starting again. All biblical references to time are consecutive: 40 days and 40 nights (Genesis 7:4), 400 years in Egypt (Genesis 15:13), etc.
The 70th week follows immediately after the 69th week. If it doesn’t, then it cannot properly be called the 70th week!
It is illogical to insert a 2,000-year gap between the 69th and 70th week. There is no gap between the first seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. Why insert one between the 69th and 70th week?
Daniel 9:27 says nothing about any “tribulation,” “rebuilt” Jewish temple, or “antichrist.” Zero.
Daniel 9:24-27’s focus is the Messiah. After the Messiah is “cut off” (referring to Christ’s death), “the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.” This refers to the destruction of Jerusalem by Roman armies led by Prince Titus in A.D. 70. (4)
“He shall confirm the covenant.” Paul said “the covenant” was “confirmed before by God in Christ” (Galatians 3:17). Jesus Christ came “to confirm the promises made to the fathers” (Romans 15:8). The word “covenant” is Messianic, and always applies to the Messiah, not antichrist.
“He shall confirm the covenant with many.” Jesus said, “This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many…” (Matthew 26:28). Jesus was quoting Daniel 9:27 specifically.
“In the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice…to cease.” After 3 ½ years of ministry, Jesus Christ’s death put an end to all sacrifices in God’s sight. He is the final Sacrifice!
“For the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate” (Daniel 9:27, KJV). It was abominable for the Jewish leaders to put God’s Son to death. This ended their temple. Jesus predicted, “Your house is left to you desolate” (Matthew 23:38).
The 70 weeks applied to the Jewish people (Daniel 9:24). Christ’s public ministry lasted 3 ½ years during which His focus was “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 10:6). After His resurrection and then for another 3 ½ years, His disciples preached mostly to Jews (see Acts 1-6). When the Jewish Sanhedrin stoned Stephen in 34 AD (see Acts 7), the gospel shifted to the Gentiles (see Acts 13:46)–exactly as prophecy predicted.
ne major reason why the Jewish nation as a whole failed to receive its Messiah was because its scholars misinterpreted Daniel 9:27.
The evidence is overwhelming! These eight words found in Daniel 9:27: “confirm… covenant… many… midst… sacrifice… cease… abominations… desolate” all find perfect fulfillment in Jesus Christ and early Christian history. One major reason why the Jewish nation as a whole failed to receive its Messiah was because its scholars misinterpreted Daniel 9:27. They failed to see Jesus Christ as the predicted One who would die in the midst of the 70th week! The same thing is happening today as Christian scholars misapply the same prophecy.
The “seven-year tribulation theory” is like a gigantic bubble. Once Daniel 9:27 is correctly understood and the pin of truth inserted, “Pop goes the seven years!” It’s a fact: There is no Bible text that teaches any “seven-year tribulation.” If you hunt for it, you’ll end up like Ponce de Leon searching for the Fountain of Youth. He never found it.
Jesus Christ confirmed the covenant and caused the sacrifices “to cease.”
May error cease in our minds as we follow God’s truth.

Endnotes:
Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. IV—Isaiah to Malachi, Complete Edition, (New York, NY: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1712) 1094-1095, notes on Daniel 9:27.
The Holy Bible with a Commentary and Critical Notes by Adam Clarke, Vol. IV—Isaiah to Malachi, (New York, NY: Abingdon-Cokesbury, written about 1825) 602, notes on Daniel 9:27.
Rev. Robert Jamieson, Rev. A.R. Fausset, and Rev. David Brown, A Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, Complete Edition, (Hartford, CT: S.S. Scranton Company: 1871) 641, notes on Daniel 9:27.
See notes on Daniel 9:26 in commentaries by Matthew Henry (p.1095), Adam Clarke (p.603), and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown (p.641).

The Dome, The Temple and the Rock of Ages – Truth About the Rapture (Rapio – Steal, Kidnap, Rape)

According to a commonly held belief in Judaism and Christian Zionism, The Temple Mount, is to be the site of the finalThird Temple to be rebuilt with the coming of theJewish Messiah.

View Image

Known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, it is also the site of two major Muslim religious shrines, the Dome of the Rock (built c. 690) and Al-Aqsa Mosque (built c. 710). It is one of the most contested religious sites in the world. Under theJordanian rule of Eastern Jerusalembetween 1948 and 1967, Jews were forbidden from entering the Old City. Both Israel and the The Palestinian Authority claim sovereignty over the site, which remains a key issue in the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Israeli government has granted management of the site to a Muslim Council (Waqf).

View Image

In order for the Third Temple to be built.. the Dome will have to be demolish. This is exactly what the believers of the Rapture and Christian Zionist want to accomplish..by doing so, they would hasten Armageddon and the return of Christ.

What does the Bible have to say about the Third Temple? ABSOLUTLY NOTHING..

Ez. 37 predicted the regathering of the Jewish people but this had already accured..

As I stated in my last article Jesus said in Matt 23:38 “Behold your house is left unto you desolate.” According to the words of Christ.. The third Jewish Temple will never be rebuilt.

Proponents of the Third Temple use Daniel 9:27 to support their spurious theory. Let review it. Dan. 9:27 And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

According the rapturists, they believe that the Anti-Christ will make a covenant or peace treaty with the Jews and cause the sacrifice to cease. In order to for the sacrifice to cease they must be re-instituted in the Temple. Thus you have the argument for rebuilding the Temple because of the bloody sacrifices that was done in the Temple. Historically for almost 2000 years, Bible scholars applied the He in Dan, 9:27 to Jesus…

The entire prophecy of Dan.9:24-27 covers a period of seventy weeks. This is one complete, sequential block of time. Any 1st grader will tell you that 70 come after 69. So the 70th week follows the 69th week. There is no gap. A gap isn’t logical. Dan. 9:27 says nothing about the seven year tribulation or about the Anti-Christ.

Jesus confirmed the covenant with many;

Rom. 15:8 Now is say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the father:

Matt.26:28 “This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many.”

Adam Clark says (The Holy Bible with commentary by Adam Clark, vol. IV p. 602) that during the “term of seven years, Jesus would confirm or ratify the new covenant with mankind.”

Jesus caused the sacrifices to cease.

The 70th week was from A.D. 27-34… After 3 ½ years of ministry, in the middle of the 70thweek, Christ was crucified. When Jesus said it is finish and gave up the ghost, that very momentMatt.27:51 “the veil of the temple was rent (torn) in twain from top to bottom.” This act of God signified that all animal sacrifices had ceased to be of value. Jesus was offered up once and for all time… There is no need of another sacrifice.

In the Matthew Henry Commentary vol. IV p.1095 he said concerning Dan.9:27 “By offering himself a sacrifice once and for all He (Jesus) put an end to all the Levitical sacrifices.” Why do the Anti-Christ conspirators want to give the Anti-Christ credit for what Christ did for mankind on the cross?

The debate concerning pre-tribulation, mid-tribulation, post-tribulation, is frivolous. It doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you don’t believe in the truth.

Jesus is the Temple…

Mark 14:58“We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this man-made temple and in three days will build another, not made by man.’ “

Jesus is the true Israel.

Gal.3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. vs.29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Dan.9:24-27 is all about Jesus.

The seven weeks (seventy weeks) runs consecutively without a 2000 yr. gap. The gap theory and the rebuilding of the temple are of the Devil and were formulated by Anti-Christ conspirators in high places.

If you can see Jesus in Dan 9:24-27 than the Holy Spirit is leading you… if not than you will be like the Temple…. Jesus said “desolate,” doom for all eternity.

2 Tim. 2:15 Study to show yourself approve unto God, a workman that needeth not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Luciferian Rapture Doctrine – Its Influence and World Domination

The rapture theory is not Biblical and was founded as an Anti-Reformation tool of the Catholic Church. The word rapture comes from the Latin word rapio meaning – seize by force, kidnap, pillage, rob, andrape. Jerome mistranslated harpazo (caught -up) when he translated the Septuagint (Greek Bible) into Latin. The purpose of the rapture theory was threeflod. 1. To destroy the reformation; 2. control protestantism;, capture the Holy Land; 3. Foster the establishment of the New Word Order . The rapture theory has more to do with the racist, arrogant and diabolical concept of British Israel than anything pertaining to the Kingdom of God. The rapture theory is from the pits of hell, created by Luciferians, and promoted by agents of the prince of darkness. The rapture doctrine is the blue-print for the establishment of the pseudo state of Israel.

Barbara Rossing said in her book The Rapture Racket,

” the Rapture is a fraud of monumental proportions, as well as a disturbing way to instill fear in people.

“Whether prescribing a violent script for Israel or survivalism in the United States, this theology distorts God’s vision for the world,” Rossing writes. “In place of healing, the Rapture proclaims escape. In place of Jesus’s blessing of peacemaking, the Rapture voyeuristically glorifies violence and war …. This theology is not biblical. We are not Raptured off the earth, nor is God.

Where did the rapture theory originate and why?

Reformers such as Luther, Calvin, Huss, Zwingli, Melanchthon, Bullinger and others had identified the Catholic Church as Mystery Babylon in Revelation and the Popes as the Anti-Christ. Millions of sincere Catholics were leaving the mother church and joining the reformation movement.. The church set out to neutralize and destroy the protestant movement.. What they could not do through brute force and the military inquisitions they did through political espionage, spiritual intrigue, and using mind control techniques by secret societies. Most of the books published on the rapture are brainwashing the readers mind. All of the books writen by Tim Lahaye’s, John Hagee, Jack van Impe, Jerry Jenkins , John Walvoord and movies such as the Omega Code and Megiddo are design for mind control. This anti-protestant doctrine is taught in many universities and seminaries such as Dallas Theological Seminary, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Southwestern Assemblies of God, Zion Bible College, Moody Bible Institute, Global University, Liberty and Regent University and well as a host of other leading colleges and universities The rapture cult has the largest following than any cult in the US or Europe.

Why were sincere Catholics, priests and monks leaving the Catholic Church.?

People were leaving because of corruptions in the church. If one look at the Babylonian sun worship, and the present Roman Catholic Mass there are many similarities. Baal worship seem to have taken over the Catholic Church. The icon of the virgin mother and child with halos (representing the sun), Mary as the queen of heaven, (Isis – queen of heaven) confessionals, wafer worship, transubstantiation, and priests as exclusive mediators of God were all derived from the Satanic Babylonian religion. Roman Catholicism became a mixture of witchcraft, Judaism, paganism, and perverted Christianity. When this corruptions was exposed by the reformers, Rome was outraged, and staged Holy Inquisitions, design to rid the world of heretics. The Inquisition included torturing and murdering people who didn’t not agree with the Catholic views. Ten of thousands of people were killed and some historians even put the numbers in the millions. Later, in response to the Vatican’s oppressive dogma, Martin Luther, a former Augustinian monk, nailed his 95 theses to the wall of a church in Germany, heralding Protestantism. . The Vatican was shaken as Protestantism spreads rapidly through Europe. In order to stamp out the spiritual rebellion, Pope Paul III ordered Ignatius de Loyola to found the Order of Jesuits, which would act as the intelligentsia and secret militia of the Vatican. Loyola had already founded the occult Illuminati, which he then placed under the umbrella of the Vatican ” Ignatius a Merovingian Jew from Loyola Spain was a member of the Alumbrados before he founded the Illuminati and the Jesuits. The Merovingian Jews claim to be decedents of Jesus and Mary of Magdalene. Thus you have books and movies like DaVinci Code, Prieure de Sion, Passover Plot, Holy Blood Holy Grail, Bloodline of the Holy Grail, being produced and circulated by Hollywood Kabbalist movie studios and publishing houses controlled by the Illuminati. These books are blasphemous teachings design to nullify the true Gospel of Jesus. Many of the Popes, Cardinals, Bishops and Priest were Merovingian Jews whose agenda was to destroy true Christianity and pervert the true gospel.

The Jesuits Oath:

I furthermore promise and declare that I will, when opportunity present, make and wage relentless war, secretly or openly, against all heretics, Protestants and Liberals, as I am directed to do, to extirpate and exterminate them from the face of the whole earth; and that I will spare neither age, sex or condition; and that I will hang, waste, boil, flay, strangle and bury alive these infamous heretics, rip up the stomachs and wombs of their women and crush their infants’ heads against the walls, in order to annihilate forever their execrable race. That when the same cannot be done openly, I will secretly use the poisoned cup, the strangulating cord, the steel of the poniard or the leaden bullet, regardless of the honor, rank, dignity, or authority of the person or persons, whatever may be their condition in life, either public or private, as I at any time may be directed so to do by any agent of the Pope or Superior of the Brotherhood of the Holy Faith, of the Society of Jesus.” It was when Pope Paul III convened the Council of Trent that the church formally addressed the protestant reformation with edicts, dogmas and doctrines. A disciple of Ignatius, Francisco Ribera came up with a theory that would take the attention off the Pope as being the Anti-Christ and put it on some future individual. This was the beginning of the Rapture doctrine. The Jesuits infiltrated the protestant movement, developed protestant theology, and purposely mis interpreted scriptures relating to Bible prophecy. They also controlled the educational system and bribe and blackmailed governments of Europe and America to promote their agenda. Two other groups that were instrumental the origin and development of the rapture theory were the Knights Templars (Masons) and the Knights of Malta (Knights of Columbus).

Barbara Aho said in her article (The Merovingian Dynasty) “it was also the The avowed objective of the Templars was to protect the Christians who came to visit the Holy Places: their secret objective was the re-building of the Temple of Solomon on the model prophesied by Ezekiel.
“This re-building, formally predicted by the Judaizing Mystics of the earlier ages, had become the secret dream of the Patriarchs of the Orient. The Temple of Solomon, re-built and consecrated to the Catholic worship would become, in effect, the Metropolis of the Universe.”
In my up coming blog I will go into more detail about how the Jesuits and the Illuminati set about to implement the Rapture theory to achieve their goal.. Protestant churches, Evangelical seminaries, and bible talking and Bibleprobe preachers like John Hagee, Jack van Impe, Jack Hayford, TD Jakes, Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Pat Robinson, Creflo Dollar, Bishop Charles Blake, Billy Graham, and masons who promote the rapture have been seduced by Jesuits theology and manipulated by the kabbalist practitioners, thus they are part of the world-wide Anti-Christ conspiracy.

the fact that the large majority of surviving Jews in the world is of Eastern European – and thus perhaps mainly of Khazar – origin. If so, this would mean that their ancestors came not from the Jordan but from the Volga, not from Canaan but from the Caucasus, once believed to be the cradle of the Aryan race; and that genetically they are more closely related to the Hun, Uigur and Magyar tribes than to the seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Should this turn out to be the case, then the term “anti-Semitism” would become void of meaning, based on a misapprehension shared by both the killers and their victims. Maybe the two world wars and the Holocaust were pretext for the New Khazaria or Israel hoax. The story of the Khazar Empire, as it slowly emerges from the past, begins to look like the most cruel hoax which history has ever perpetrated.(Arthur Koestler,The Thirteenth Tribe, p. 17).

Old Khazaria existed from about 500 A.D. to about 1000 A.D.

Old Khazaria adopted the religion of Talmudic Judaismabout 740 A.D.

Khazaria was reborn on May 14, 1948.

The most cruel hoax which history has ever perpetrated.

New Khazaria.

As long as Apostate Israel (New Khazaria) exist…there will never be any peace in the Middle East. Modern-day Jewry is of Eastern European/Aryan descent and thus they are not Semitic. Let the truth be told everywhere. Why should American Soldiers die to protect a Hoax?


BubbleShare: Share photos - Play some Online Games.

Obama

Palestinian Memo: Hopes In Obama "Evaporated" After "Zionist Lobby" Pressure


JERUSALEM — An internal document circulated among members of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' political party says all hopes placed in the Obama administration "have evaporated" because of alleged White House backtracking on key issues to the Palestinians.

The Fatah Party memorandum, obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, accuses the United States of backing off from its demands that Israel freeze settlement construction and failing to set a clear agenda for new Mideast peace talks.

It wasn't immediately clear whether the Oct. 12 document reflected Abbas' views or was intended to be leaked as Fatah's attempt to pressure President Barack Obama to bear down harder on Israel.

The document said the Palestinians have lost hope in Obama and accused the American leader of caving in to pressure from pro-Israel lobbyists in Washington.

"All hopes placed in the new U.S. administration and President Obama have evaporated," said the document issued by Fatah's Office of Mobilization and Organization. The department is headed Fatah's No. 2, Mohammed Ghneim.

Obama, it claimed, "couldn't withstand the pressure of the Zionist lobby, which led to a retreat from his previous positions on halting settlement construction and defining an agenda for the negotiations and peace."

Abbas' aides had no comment on the memorandum, and Ghneim couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

The Palestinians were encouraged by Obama's election and expected his much-publicized outreach to the Muslim world would soften the strongly pro-Israel positions of his predecessors such as George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Palestinian children in a school courtyard as Israelis participating in a Sukkot celebration march


home
Palestinian children in a school courtyard as Israelis participating in a Sukkot celebration march through their neighborhood of Silwan in east Jerusalem today. Photograph: Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images

Israel deployed thousands of police on the streets of Jerusalem today to protect a Jewish holiday parade after days of rock throwing and clashes with Palestinians.

The trouble began 10 days ago when crowds of young Palestinian men threw rocks at police, apparently after hearing that a group of religious Jews was about to enter the Haram al-Sharif, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, in the heart of Jerusalem's Old City. Police fired teargas and rubber-coated bullets at the Palestinians and closed access to the holy site.

There was more rock throwing and teargas over the weekend at the start of the Jewish holiday week of Sukkot, a time when many Israeli Jews walk into the Old City to the Western Wall to pray. Dozens of Palestinians were arrested and several police officers injured, including one who suffered a moderate injury when he was stabbed in the neck on Monday while checking identity cards on a Palestinian bus. But today appeared to pass without new clashes.

Violence is rarely far below the surface in the tense city of Jerusalem, and this latest round of clashes appeared to have been sparked by rumours that right-wing Jewish groups were intent on marching onto the Temple Mount. One leading Israeli newspaper, the Yedioth Ahronoth, described the troubles as "Sukkot riots" on its front page yesterday, and the Israeli press variously blamed Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that controls Gaza, and its rival, the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

A number of Israeli cabinet ministers singled out Raed Salah, the head of the Islamic Movement in Israel, as inciting the clashes and said his group should be declared illegal. Israel's police chief in Jerusalem, Aharon Franco, said on Monday that Muslim Palestinians in the city were "ungrateful" after his officers "worked to ensure peaceful prayers" in Jerusalem during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan in September.

Palestinian officials, however, accused Israel of escalating tensions in the city. "Israel is lighting matches in the hope of sparking a fire, deliberately escalating tensions in occupied East Jerusalem rather than taking steps to placate the situation," said Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator. "What makes this all the more dangerous is the vacuum created by the absence of a credible peace process that offers hope instead of more settlements."

Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 war and later annexed it, a move that has not been recognised by the international community. The Palestinians want east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, but Israel has worked hard to exert its control over the area, allowing more than 200,000 Jewish settlers to move in and heavily restricting planning permits for Palestinians, enforced by frequent home demolitions.

On Monday Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, told Yemen's state-run television that Israel was "working on a daily basis to Judaise Jerusalem."

Although Palestinians would agree with Abbas's concern, his comments also helped deflect a widespread frustration among many Palestinians at his decision last week to drop support in the UN Human Rights Council for a vote to endorse a highly critical UN inquiry into the Gaza war.

The inquiry, by the South African judge Richard Goldstone, accused both Israel and Hamas of war crimes and called for international investigations and possible prosecutions of individual commanders. But the Palestinians at the last minute and apparently under intense US pressure dropped their call for a vote to endorse Goldstone's recommendations, handing Israel a significant diplomatic victory.

Dome of the Rock mosque in JerusalemInteractive, 6 Oct 2009:

Sacred to both Jews and Muslims, the Temple Mount (Al-Haram al-Sharif) is still a hugely significant site 3,000 years after it was first built

Gaza

UNITED NATIONS — In a startling shift, the Palestinian delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Council dropped its efforts to forward a report accusing Israelof possible war crimes to the Security Council, under pressure from the United States, diplomats said Thursday.

Israel says that it acted only to halt missile fire from Gaza that terrorized Israeli civilians.

The position of the United States since the Goldstone report was released in early September has been that the Human Rights Council alone should deal with it. But in a compromise, the body is expected to pass a resolution Friday presented by the bloc of Arab and Muslim states that any action will be delayed until the next meeting in March.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, warned the Palestinians and international powers earlier Thursday that any action to advance the report would be a denial of Israel’s “right to self-defense” and would kill any chance of peace talks.

Mr. Netanyahu, speaking during a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, said that any international endorsement of the report would “strike a severe blow to the war against terrorism.”

But most immediately, he said, it would “strike a fatal blow to the peace process, because Israel will no longer be able to take additional steps and take risks for peace if its right to self-defense is denied.” In essence Netanyahu black-mailed the UN with threat of future attacks and more sever war crimes as if to say the Israel is immune to prosecution.

Rights group: Most of 1355 Gazans killed in war were children and women c The vast majority of the Palestinians killed in Israel’s operation in the Gaza Strip last winter were innocent civilians rather than combatants, according to a new report to be published by the B’Tselem organization Wednesday morning. This is the opposite of what the Israel Defense Forces has said.

The political collapse underway has put Hamas, including Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, in a bind. (Wissam Nassar/MaanImages)

The uproar over the Palestinian Authority's (PA) collaboration with Israel to bury the Goldstone report, calling for trials of Israeli leaders for war crimes in Gaza, is a political earthquake. The whole political order in place since the 1993 Oslo accords were signed is crumbling. As the initial tremors begin to fade, the same old political structures may appear still to be in place, but they are hollowed out. This unprecedented crisis threatens to topple the US-backed PA leader Mahmoud Abbas, but it also leaves Hamas, the main Palestinian resistance faction, struggling with fateful choices.

Abbas, accustomed to being surrounded by corrupt cronies, sycophants and yes-men, badly misjudged the impact of his decision -- under Israeli and American instructions -- to withdraw PA support for the resolution at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, forwarding the Goldstone report for further action. After all, the PA had actively sabotaged measures supporting Palestinian rights at the UN on at least two occasions in recent years without much reaction.

This time, torrents of protest and outrage flowed from almost every direction. It was as if all the suppressed anger and grief about PA collaboration with Israel during the massacres in Gaza last winter suddenly burst through a dam. "The crime at Geneva cannot pass without all those responsible being held accountable," the widely-read London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi stated in its lead editorial on 8 October. The newspaper called for the removal of Abbas and his associates who betrayed the victims of Israel's massacres and "saved Israel from the most serious moral, political and legal crisis it has faced since its establishment."

Naming collaboration -- even treason -- for what it is has always been a painful taboo among Palestinians, as for all occupied peoples. It took the French decades after World War II to begin to speak openly about the extent of collaboration that took place with the Nazi-backed Vichy government. Abbas and his militias -- who for a long time have been armed and trained by Israel, the United States and so-called "moderate" Arab states to wage war against the Palestinian resistance -- have relied on this taboo to carry out their activities with increasing brazenness and brutality. But the taboo no longer affords protection, as calls for Abbas' removal and even trial issued from Palestinian organizations all over the world.

Hamas too seems to have been taken by surprise at the strength of reaction. Hamas leaders were critical of Abbas' withdrawal of the Goldstone resolution, but initially this was notably muted. Early on, Khaled Meshal, the movement's overall leader, insisted that despite the Goldstone fiasco, Hamas would proceed with Egyptian-mediated reconciliation talks with Fatah and smaller factions scheduled for later in the month, stating that reaching a power-sharing deal remained a "national interest."

As the tremors continued, however, Hamas leaders escalated their rhetoric -- seemingly following, not leading, public opinion. Mahmoud Zahar, a prominent Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, labeled Abbas a "traitor" and urged that he be stripped of his Palestinian nationality. Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, speaking before a hastily convened session of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said Abbas was personally responsible for the "crime" committed in Geneva, and a senior officer from the Hamas-controlled Gaza police force held a press conference to announce that Abbas and his associates would be subject to arrest if they set foot in Gaza.

All of this puts Hamas in a bind. Before the Goldstone report crisis, Hamas had signaled that it accepted the most recent Egyptian proposals for reconciliation. The Egyptian position paper can be described as technocratic -- it deals with mechanisms for elections, release of prisoners, the formation of committees and other matters. It does not resolve core political and philosophical differences over the role of resistance and armed struggle, which Abbas rejects and Hamas defends. Nor does it deal with the problem of PA "security coordination" with Israel which has resulted in the killing and arrest by the PA of numerous Palestinian resistance fighters and the closure of hundreds of Palestinian organizations and charities.

Despite the remaining gulf, Hamas wanted to sign a unity deal. Being part of a Western-recognized PA would be Hamas' ticket to the "peace process" --something Meshal has made no secret that Hamas seeks, although on its own terms. Abbas was less keen on a unity deal, as he and his cronies still resist dealing with Hamas as a political force that has popular legitimacy. But after Goldstone, Abbas needs Hamas.

Hamas now cannot have it both ways: it cannot talk about "unity" and "reconciliation" with people that it -- and many Palestinians -- view as "traitors." To seek unity with such people is in effect to say that Hamas wishes to join a government of traitors. For the moment, Hamas is buying time and has asked Egypt to postpone the scheduled Cairo meeting later this month.

Hamas' long-term strategy of trying to join the slowly crumbling edifice of the Palestinian Authority now makes no sense. It now seems more likely that the deal will not go ahead, although Hamas is maneuvering to avoid blame, and to maintain its lifeline to Egypt, which backs Fatah. Perhaps the more likely outcome, at least in the short term, is a continued stalemate, where Abbas, now entirely dependent on Israeli and American forces to remain in power, limps on even though he has no legitimacy or credibility, and is widely despised.

The more difficult question for Hamas will be, what comes next? Will it try to muddle through as it has, or will it rally the Palestinian public to oppose and resist Abbas until the collaborationist PA is dissolved? This would be an enormous strategic shift -- Hamas would likely have to drop the trappings of "government" it has taken up since it won the 2006 legislative elections and return to its roots as a social movement and a clandestine organization.

It will not have much time to decide where it is going. The hopes raised by the Obama Administration's initial foray into peacemaking have been dashed in the wake of Obama's surrender to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over settlements, even though US Middle East envoy George Mitchell continues with utterly sterile "diplomacy" aimed at bringing the rejectionist Israeli government face to face in "negotiations" with the political corpse of Abbas. As Israel accelerates its colonization of the West Bank and its ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem, there is increasing talk of a new intifada.

The political collapse underway offers all Palestinians -- including Hamas -- a new opportunity: to build a broad-based, internationally legitimate popular resistance movement that mobilizes all of Palestinian society as the first intifada did, and to reconnect with Palestinians inside Israel who face an existential threat from escalating Israeli racism. This movement must work with and enhance the global solidarity campaign to put maximum pressure on Israel -- and its collaborators -- to end their repression, racism and violence, and hasten the emancipation of all the people of Palestine.

Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah is author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse.



Latest articles on EI:

Palestine : Human Rights: Following al-Aqsa clashes, Israel mulls banning Islamic movement (8 October 2009)
Palestine : Opinion/Editorial: After Goldstone, Hamas faces fateful choice (8 October 2009)
Palestine : Opinion/Editorial: A poverty of leadership (7 October 2009)
Palestine : Human Rights: Volvo providing armored buses for Israeli settlements (7 October 2009)
Palestine : Human Rights: Haram al-Sharif sovereignty under threat (7 October 2009)
Palestine : Activism News: Israeli highschoolers choose jail over occupation army service (6 October 2009)
Palestine : Development: How Israel bought off UN's war crimes probe (6 October 2009)
Palestine : Art, Music & Culture: Review: Darwish, between the national and the human (6 October 2009)
Palestine : Opinion/Editorial: UN must act on Goldstone and the PA must be dissolved (5 October 2009)
Palestine : Opinion/Editorial: Time to re-engage with people power (5 October 2009)



www.soldiersspeakout.com.

Israeli Soldiers Testify: We Used Gazans as Human Shields!


Once again, the Israeli army admits of committing war crimes in Gaza.
A Golani brigade soldier confessed that the Israeli occupation forces used Palestinians as human shields during Gaza war last January despite a 2005 High Court ruling outlawing the practice. The soldier said his unit employed a variation of the practice, the so-called “neighbor procedure,” when it checked homes for Palestinian resistance fighters.

The soldier’s testimony appears in a collection of accounts being published this week by Breaking the Silence, an organization that collects Israeli soldiers’ testimony on human rights abuses by the military.

In a print and video testimony published on Wednesday by the activist group, the 30 soldiers say they were commanded to shoot first and then worry about civilian causalities adding that the Israeli army’s imperative was to minimize its own casualties to ensure Israeli public support for the Gaza operation. A Palestinian rights group has stated that 1,417 Palestinians were killed, 926 of them civilians, during the Israeli war on Gaza. But Israel has put the death toll at 1,166 and estimated 295 dead were civilians. Ten occupation soldiers and three settlers were also killed.

The soldier, a staff sergeant, said that in his unit and others, Palestinians were often sent into houses to determine if there was anyone inside. “The practice was not to call it ‘the neighbor procedure.’ Instead it was called ‘Johnny,’” the soldier said, using Israeli military slang for Palestinian civilians. The Israeli occupation employed this practice extensively during the second intifada, before it was outlawed by the High Court of Justice in 2005.

In an incident his commanders told him about, three “armed militants” were in a house. Attack helicopters were brought in. “They … again sent the [Palestinian] neighbor in. At first he said that nothing had happened [to the armed men],” the soldier said. “Again they brought in attack helicopters and fired. They again sent in the neighbor. He said there were two dead and one still alive. They then brought in a bulldozer and began to knock the house down on him until [the neighbor] entered.” The soldier said he had been told that the only militant remaining alive was captured and turned over to the Shin Bet security service.

The Golani soldier also testified that his commanders reported incidents in which Palestinians were given sledgehammers to break through walls to let the army enter through the side of houses. The army feared that the doors were booby-trapped.

The soldier said he had heard of other instances in which Palestinian civilians were used as human shields. One time, for example, a Palestinian was put at the front of an Israeli military force with a gun pointed at him from behind.

The Israeli military Spokesman’s Office, for its part, said that “the IDF regrets the fact that a human rights organization would again present to the country and the world a report containing anonymous, generalized testimony without checking the details or their reliability, and without giving the IDF, as a matter of minimal fairness, the opportunity to check the matters and respond to them before publication.”

For his part, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak responded to the report saying that “if anyone has any criticism, information of reservations over the IDF’s operations, they must direct them to me as the State of Israel’s defense minister and to the Israeli government, which was the one to order to IDF to restore calm in the southern communities.” Minister Barak added, “Criticism directed at the IDF by one organization or another is inappropriate and is directed at the wrong place. The IDF is one of the most ethical armies in the world and acts in accordance with the highest moral code.”
Barak asserted after the war that Israel had the “most moral army” in the world.

SHOOT FIRST, WORRY LATER!
Moreover, a number of Israeli occupation soldiers who took part in Israel’s recent Gaza aggression were quoted by Breaking the Silence group as saying that they were urged by commanders to shoot first and worry later about sorting out civilians from combatants. Accordingly, they say, the force went into Gaza with guns blazing.

The 112-page report by Breaking the Silence includes testimonies of 30 soldiers “who served in all sectors of the operation”.

“Better hit an innocent than hesitate to target an enemy,” is a typical description by one unidentified soldier of his understanding of instructions repeated at pre-invasion briefings and during the 22-day war, from Dec. 27 to Jan. 18.

“If you’re not sure, kill. Fire power was insane. We went in and the booms were just mad,” says another. “The minute we got to our starting line, we simply began to fire at suspect places. In urban warfare, anyone is your enemy. No innocents.”

“We did not get instructions to shoot at anything that moved,” said one soldier. “But we were generally instructed: if you feel threatened, shoot. They kept repeating to us that this is war and in war opening fire is not restricted.”

UMBRELLA OF FIRE
The report repeats charges denied by Israel that white phosphorus was fired indiscriminately into Gaza streets. It cites “massive destruction was unrelated to any direct threat to Israeli forces” and “permissive” rules of engagement.

One soldier said that his unit had received an order to “ignite” an area. “The way to do that was to actually fire phosphorus shells from above,” he said. “What the phosphorus does is to let out an umbrella of fire over the target and naturally that ignites the whole house.” The results of a white phosphorus bombardment were “upsetting” another soldier said, “because in training you learn that white phosphorus is not used, and you’re taught that it’s not humane”.

The report also mentions armored bulldozers razing whole areas including gardens, and olive and orange groves. “We didn’t see a single house that was intact … that was not hit. The entire infrastructure, tracks, fields, roads, was in total ruin. The D-9 (bulldozer) had gone over everything,” the report quotes a soldier as saying.

Outcry Against Gaza “War Crimes” Grows: CBS News

Image...

Conflict in Gaza

Palestinians mourn over the bodies of 42 people who were killed yesterday in an Israeli attack on a U.N.-run school building, on Janaury 7, 2009 in Jabalia refugee camp, northern Gaza. The United Nations has denied Israeli army allegations that militants were inside the school compound.

Gaza


Conflict in Gaza

MiddleEast.org – Mid-East Realities

(August 31, 2001) A pamphlet distributed at the United Nations anti-racism conferencein South Africa equating the Star of David with a swastika has

Rothschild – NWO – Israel and Masonry

Who is Really Behind the Tea Baggers/Health Care Revolt? Christian Zionism, KKK, and Religion – Hatred and Racism Rule – Luciferian Rapture Influence –