Wednesday, December 24, 2014
TO ALL THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST - May the world hear your cries for help - AND WHAT IF JESUS LIVED IN JUDEA TODAY?
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The chance that the West will take appropriate measures to help persecuted Christians is zilch.
The West's only concern is with the Palestinians, used as a tool for the destruction of Israel and the Jews.
The United States and the European Union so-called "humanitarian" concerns center almost exclusively on the Palestinians, while remaining oblivious to the plight of Christians and other minorities oppressed, persecuted, raped and murdered by Muslims in Asia and in parts of Africa.
The US and EU ignore the fact that Palestinians too have been persecuting and driving Christians away from the enclaves they administer, such as Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria (West Bank).
Palestinian Christians have almost disappeared from Arab dominated areas, while those with Israeli citizenship continue to thrive.
And as the US and the EU celebrate Christmas, while viciously giving Israel ultimatums and implementing boycotts and isolation, they pretend not to notice that Israel is the only Mideast country where Christians are safe and able freely practice their religion.
Some Christians continue to blame Jews for the death of Jesus 2000 years ago, but never think of the MILLIONS of Christians who have been enslaved, raped, tortured and killed by Islam over the centuries.
Western Christian Churches have been at the forefront of the anti-Israel campaign, which is nothing less than an anti-Semitic onslaught disguised as humanitarian concern for the Palestinians.
What the pro-Palestinian movement amounts to at its core is a plan to use the Palestinians as tools for a second Holocaust - for finishing the job that the Nazis did not complete.
If you have any doubts, ask any Western pro-Palestinian activist whether he is also working for the benefit of any other oppressed group and in the same measure. The answer is invariably no, and most often than not, attacking Israel is their ONLY humanitarian concern.
IF JESUS THE JUDEAN WERE TO LIVE
IN JUDEA AND SAMARIA TODAY
IN JUDEA AND SAMARIA TODAY
- He would not be called Judean or Israeli.
- He would be called a despised settler, an occupier of his own land, an oppressor.
- The White House and European governments would demand his expulsion to coastal areas, along with his family and all other Jews of his community, in order to hand Judea and Samaria over to Islam.
- He would not be free to walk on his land.
- He would could not travel or live freely anywhere on his land.
- Arabs would pelt him with rocks.
- Arabs would attack him with knives and guns.
- He would live in a protected village, with a fence and armed guards, to prevent attacks from Arab terrorists.
- He would go to sleep wary that Arabs may slip into his home and slaughter him and his family.
- If traveling along the Judean roads, he would be attacked by road terror gangs.
- He would not go out on hikes alone, but as part of a group with an armed guard.
- He would not be safe when in town either, as he and other Jews would be vulnerable to attacks by Arabs armed with knives or guns.
- If he tried to enter the Jewish Temple Mount area, he would be manhandled by guards, or attacked by Arab mobs for "contaminating" the area with his Jewish presence.
- The Temple no longer exists, having been destroyed and looted by the Romans.
- And in its place the Muslim conquerors from the Saudi peninsula have erected a mosque.
- Jesus would be certainly attacked by Arabs during his solitary meditation at the Mount of Olives, and possibly killed .
- If he entered towns populated by Arabs, his life would be in peril, and would be probably lynched.
- Anyway, his murder would be seen as justified for him being an "occupier".
- His thousands-of-years-old Jewish heritage would be delegitimized by Europe, the White House, and the United Nations, and he would be called a colonizer.
- While the descendants from Muslim invaders and conquerors from the Arabian peninsula would be called "indigenous".
- Judea and Samaria would be called "Palestine" and eventually renamed the Islamic state of Palestine..
Disproportionate international aid per capita for Palestinians (in red), to the detriment of desperately poor people all over the world.
Father Gabriel Nadaf with the Israeli PM
PRIEST FROM NAZARETH TO THE UN:
ISRAEL THE ONLY MIDEAST COUNTRY NOT PERSECUTING CHRISTIANS -
Father Gabriel Nadaf pleads for a stop to the campaign against Israel and to those who want to destroy it
Watch video or read transcript of his speech, and access links to related articles
The world justifies, finances, and encourages
Arab murder and terror against Jews
The European Union Court has determined
that Hamas is NOT a terror group
BREAKING NEWS:
Harrowing attack on Jews attending a funeral at Mount of Olives.
Attacked by Arabs with cinder blocks.
Read more
If you are a rabbi in Jerusalem:
Jerusalem rabbis decapitated by Palestinians this year.
Palestinians celebrated.
If you have a Jewish family in Judea,
or if you are a Jewish baby:
or if you are a Jewish baby:
The murder of the Fogel family. A 'moderate' Palestinian infiltrated a Jewish town and got inside a house where the family were sleeping. The parents, the children, and even a baby, had their throats cut like animals.
Read more - Caution - Graphic pictures
Photo: Jewish baby Hadas Fogel, decapitated
by Arabs for being a "settler" in Judea - one of so many Jewish babies murdered by Arabs.
If you are an unarmed Jew on a hike
and are found by Arabs:
and are found by Arabs:
Lynch in Ramallah.
The gruesome murder of two Israeli young men who got lost and ended up on Palestinian-Ramallah.
Their bodies were sliced open, their internal organs removed, with one of the Palestinian murderers holding one of the men's heart in his hands.
The crowd loved it. The Jewish men's remains were left unrecognizable.
Caution, there are photos of explicit violence on the following website.
Read more about the Ramallah lynch -
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UPDATES
A modern-day posted sign leading into Bethlehem warns Jews to keep away.
(Jonathan Feldstein)
WHAT IF JESUS WERE BORN NOW?
Charisma Magazine
The recent wave of terrorist incidents that has Israelis looking over their shoulders—both literally and figuratively—overlapping with the holiday season, got me thinking: What if Jesus were born today? As 2014 ends, Israelis have been plagued with war, increased terrorism, and an ongoing incitement of violence and worse.
Jesus was a Jew. He was born of a Jewish mother, lived what we would call today an Orthodox Jewish life, brought offerings to and worshipped at the Temple, affirmed Himself that he was not to replace the law but to fulfill it, and in doing so his lineage was traced back to the Jewish King David.
So what would happen if a young Jewish couple, dressed in clothes that are identifiable as those of Orthodox Jews, were to pass through Bethlehem today?
How would they be greeted? Would they be welcomed and given a place to stay if all Bethlehem's hotels were overbooked?
First of all, on the approach to Bethlehem, they would encounter a sign telling them that as Israelis, it's illegal and unsafe for them to continue to Area A (under full control of the Palestinian Authority, of which Bethlehem is part according to the 1990s Oslo agreement).
If they proceeded anyway, whether by foot, bicycle, car or donkey—given the current state of affairs—they would likely be met with problems from the get go, including possibly being stoned, firebombed, shot at or lynched. Recent instances of Israeli Jews going into or near other Palestinian Arab communities have played this out.
Yes, the town in which an Orthodox Jewish boy was born a little more than 2,000 years ago has become hostile and inhospitable—and, in fact, dangerous—to Jews today. Yet as much as Jew hatred is common in the region here today, it's not much more hospitable to Christians. Recently the Pope decried the situation that Christians face from throughout the Islamic Middle East as did the Vicar of Baghdad. Bethlehem is no better.
The 2002 siege of the Church of the Nativity by Palestinian Arab terrorists, desecrating the place and the faith, is a distant memory. However, the ideology and thugery behind that remains.
As a result, the town that is not just the birthplace of Jesus but arguably of Christianity, has seen a decrease in its Christian population from 70 percent just decades ago to about 30 percent today. This is not because of Israel's "occupation" or other problems blamed on Israel, but because life in Bethlehem as a Christian is hostile and inhospitable at best, and even downright dangerous.
Today in Bethlehem and in Arab-controlled areas of Judea and Samaria Christians are disappearing
Christians are threatened, intimidated and forced to leave. Churches have become de-licensed by the Palestinian Authority and therefore have no legal standing. It's terribly scary to think that in the birthplace of Christianity, in the coming generations it's possible for Christians to become extinct.
Images of Jesus nowhere to be seen in Arab-controlled Bethlehem
It's not surprising that as Christmas is approaching, remarkably Jesus is missing from Bethlehem's preparation and decoration for the holiday celebrating his birth. According to a Christian Arab friend who spends a good deal of time in Bethlehem and has trouble sharing what's really going on publicly due to threats against him, Christmas has become so devoid of Jesus there that Muslims celebrate it.
So glaring is Jesus' absence from Bethlehem this season, one ministry paid to put up a "radical" billboard celebrating Jesus. But they also had to rent a generator and full-time security people because no private companies would provide electricity to light up the sign, and for fear that someone would deface it or burn it down.
What's behind all of this? How is the situation going from bad to worse? I asked a Christian friend who had spent considerable time in Bethlehem until called in by police and told he was at risk and they couldn't protect him. He packed and left, and I drove him to my home where he couldn't be threatened.
First, he explained, the overall problem is the dominance of extremist and intolerant Islam. As a result, most Christians in Bethlehem have adopted and internalized their dhimi status, that of a "protected" but not equal minority. But he observed those, like him, who don't toe the party line, or who have the audacity to express their biblical support of Israel, are not protected at all.
The Palestinian-Arab liberation theology denies Jesus's Jewish nature
Ultimately, it's the culture that overlays replacement theology with Palestinian-Arab liberation theology that's anti-Jewish, anti-biblical, anti-Christian and anti-God that is dictating this atmosphere. This denies the foundation of both Judaism and Christianity.
They claim that Jesus was a "Palestinian" and that the Palestinian Arabs—the majority of whom are Muslim—are the heirs of the land and God's promise to Abraham. With this, they hijack everything sacred and true about God and the Bible.
I live in a town literally across the valley from Bethlehem. I see into Bethlehem from my bedroom window. I have been curious to visit in general, and especially Christian-Arab friends who live there, to show them support. It's a 10-minute car ride, maybe less. Sadly, for a number of reasons, I have concluded that it's just not safe, or worth it.
I hear the Islamic call to prayer broadcast five times a day. I also hear church bells and every time I do I utter a silent prayer that they will never go silent. Because the day that Christianity is eradicated from Bethlehem would be bad enough, but it will be a foreboding of worse things to come for us as Israeli Jews.
I guess it's a good thing my name isn't Joseph, and I am not looking for a place for myself and my pregnant wife to stay on a cold winter night. Things could get very ugly.
If Jesus were born in Bethlehem today, it's likely he'd not have lived to do what he did and be crucified at the hand of the Romans. The world would be a very different place. Sadly, with the rise of extremist and intolerant Islam as depicted in Bethlehem and elsewhere, the world is a very different place.
Jonathan Feldstein was born and educated in the U.S. and immigrated to Israel in 2004. He is married and the father of six. Throughout his life and career, he has been blessed by the calling to fellowship with Christian supporters of Israel and shares experiences of living as an Orthodox Jew in Israel. He writes a regular column for Charisma magazine's Standing With Israel. You can contact Jonathan at firstpersonisrael@gmail.com .
Link to this update by Israeli writer Jonathan Feldman
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If Joseph and Mary tried to reach Bethlehem today, they might get murdered by Palestinian terrorists
- The Washington Post
Muslims distorting history, Judaism and Christianity at their core
Mehdi Hasan, political director of the Huffington Post, UK, has a post up entitled, “If Mary and Joseph Tried to Reach Bethlehem Today, They Would Get Stuck at an Israeli Checkpoint.”
How would that carpenter and his pregnant wife have circumnavigated the Kafkaesque network of Israeli settlements, roadblocks and closed military zones in the occupied West Bank? Would Mary have had to experience labour or childbirth at a checkpoint, as one in ten pregnant Palestinian women did between 2000 and 2007?
Well, since Joseph and Mary were Judeans, i.e., Jews, from Nazareth, they wouldn’t need to be afraid of Israeli roadblocks needed to combat Palestinian terrorism, but of being murdered by terrorists from Hamas or Fatah.
Muslim Anti-Semitism behind historical revisionism of Jesus Judaism
Seriously, this sort of historical revisionism, treating ancient Jewish Judeans as if they were Palestinian Arabs, and then analogizing modern Israel to the oppressors of Jesus and his family, a common trope in the UK, would be laughable if it were not so pernicious.
Pernicious not simply because it’s a ridiculous distortion of history, and not simply because it’s often accompanied by a large dose of anti-Semitism, with Palestinians playing the role of Jesus and the Israelis being the foreign oppressors crucifying him.
The connection between the denial of Jesus Judaism and the Arab denial of Jewish right to Israel - Until that changes, there can be no peace.
But pernicious because it goes to the true heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict–the failure of the Arab side to recognize that the “Zionists” are not the “European settler-colonialists” of Third Worldist imagination, but a people with a three thousand year plus tie to the Land of Israel, whose religion was born there, who ruled two separate kingdoms there, who have prayed toward Jerusalem for two thousand years in their ancient Hebrew language, and so on.
Such denial, coming frequently from even “moderate” Palestinian Authority officials, that there was ever a Jewish kingdom or temple in Jerusalem, or that the Jews otherwise are natives to the area, means that the Arab side can’t see any potential peace agreement as a historic reconciliation between two peoples with strong claims to the land, but as at best a humiliating capitulation to foreign occupation that would have to eventually be reversed.
Until that mindset changes, there won’t be long-term peace, regardless of paper agreements, and regardless of their terms–even a radical one-state solution with an Arab majority wouldn’t work if that majority thought it was being forced to cohabitate with foreign colonialist interlopers. Writers like Hasan are quite simply the enemies of peace.
As a woman pregnant out of wedlock, Mary would be slain victim of community honor killing
Also, as a woman pregnant out of wedlock, if Mary was a Palestinian she’d have a lot more to fear from a potential honor killing than she would from having to traverse and Israeli checkpoint; twenty-seven Palestinian women were victims of honor killings in the West Bank and Gaza in 2013 alone.
Link to David Bernstein's article
Both Jonathan Feldman's and David Bernstein's articles via Carl of Israel Matzav
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