THE FACES OF TERROR
This is the reality of the life we are all now living here in Jerusalem, where the sight of soldiers and police, armored police cars and security checks are now 'normal'. Any passing motorist can pull out a gun and start firing, or suddenly swerve and run down the people waiting at the bus stop. The woman, or child, walking along the pavement behind you can suddenly pull out a commando knife, or just a kitchen knife, and cut your throat. It can happen in a flash and suddenly your life is over, or changed forever. And yet today I went to the local shopping mall and it was pulsing with people, shopping and drinking coffee with friends, and going about their lives as if it was 'business as usual'.
This week the people of France, and perhaps all of Europe, are facing this new reality too. They are still in shock and wondering how life will go on. But it will. They will adapt, just as we have, and countless others before us throughout all the wars and violence of human history. It just astounds me how we humans have this inbuilt, powerful urge for life, that we do go on and somehow survive, most of us anyway.
One of the ways we cope is by means of a great deal of denial. Who amongst us gets up in the morning and says 'today I will be a victim of terror'? Even though intellectually we know it is possible, but emotionally we believe 'it will never happen to me'. If we didn't think this way, how could we ever function?
I don't want to give the impression that the current situation here doesn't affect people. It does. We live with a constant heightened sense of awareness. Today on the street I jumped a couple of times when someone came up too close behind me. I am always watching the people around me looking for someone who looks suspicious.
The problem with such suspicion is that it can become fear, and fear, if unchecked, can easily develop into anger, hatred and murder. On Saturday night, an 18-year-old Palestinian terrorist attacked and wounded 4 Israelis in Kiryat Gat, a town south of Tel Aviv. Bystanders mistook an innocent Bedouin for a terrorist and repeatedly stabbed him in the back and legs until police intervened. The Bedouin, when interviewed today in hospital said " I wouldn't want those who hurt me to be punished. The terrorist did something bad to them, you can understand them", but he also went on to say "These days I feel scared to walk around, I hardly leave home, really afraid to walk down the street" (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4729142,00.html)
It is not only Jews who are living in a state of fear today but all the residents of Israel and the Territories. Terrorists do not care whom they kill, they just want to kill and become martyrs. This week our news reported a first - a convicted terrorist who expressed regret at his actions. However as I watched the interview I got the strong feeling that the regret was not so much over those whom he had killed and wounded, but rather that he had not been killed and thus made into a martyr. Instead he was just wounded and now faces a long prison sentence - not the glory in Paradise he dreamed of.
PUTTING A FACE ON TERROR
Too often we read the newspapers and hear the statistics and forget that the dead were people. People who had wives, husbands, children, parents, friends and colleagues. They got up one morning, and went off to work or school, not dreaming they would never come home again. Victims of knifings, shootings and vehicular attacks, their lives were suddenly cut off. Add to this list those who are injured, some very seriously. Their lives will never be the same again. Even if and when the physical wounds heal, the memories will haunt them all their lives, in their nightmares, anxieties and fears. Please pray for all those who have lost loved ones or who are injured, not forgetting their families and friends too.
Below are photos of the Israeli victims of terror killed during the months of September and October. Look hard at their faces. As Jewish tradition has it - every soul is a whole world.
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http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4729651,00.html
THE FACE OF COURAGE
Less than a year ago, 12 year old Ayala Shapira suffered serious burns when a Molotov cocktail was thrown at her car as she travelled with her father to their home in the West Bank. Classed as a 'child prodigy' she is in the gifted student's program at Bar Ilan University and asked to meet a scientist. This week she met with Nobel laureate Professor Aaron Ciechanover. Ayala reported that "Towards the end of our meeting Ciechanover asked me what I want to be when I grew up, and was surprised when I said I wanted to be a writer. He asked why I was so specifically interested in science. I responded that I'm interested in many fields, science being just one of them." Pray for this young girl and all the other wounded in terror attacks as they try to put their lives back together. May the life force have victory over the forces of death and murder.
THE OTHER VICTIMS
Jesus taught us to pray for our enemies. I do not have the statistics, but a large number of terrorists have also lost their lives. Many of those were minors, children aged between 11-18 years old. Their minds have been warped and twisted by the teachings of their religious and community leaders, their parents and their teachers. They have been taught to hate and to believe lies, all in the name of their god, Allah. They go out to their deaths hoping for martyrdom and the promise of paradise with 72 virgins. What an empty hope! Even if it were true - how long would the 72 virgins remain virgins? Yet Islam offers no higher hope. There is no promise of eternal life nor of rewards after death except to such martyrs. How sad. All this pain and suffering for what? Please pray that these mainly young impressionable people, brainwashed by their society, will experience doubt and hesitate. Pray that the God of all love will reach them in time. Pray against the Lie of Islam and that the lies these children are being fed regarding Israel and the Jews will be exposed, and that in their place they will receive revelation and truth.
WORLD WAR III ?
I wrote the above two weeks ago, shortly after the world was shaken by the horrendous attacks in France, in which some 130 people died. Some see that event as a turning point in human history and even the start of World War III. It seems to me that World War III started long ago with the rise of fundamentalist Islamic terror and insurgencies, perhaps beginning with the overturn of the Shah of Iran and the formation of Iran's Islamic Republic, based on Shariyah Law. This victory served to encourage the fundamentalist Islamists that dream of Jihad and the conquest of the whole world for Allah. Iran has also provided the power base and resources to establish and maintain many of the various terror organizations and their activities. The fundamentalist Islamists have made no secret of their goal to destroy Western democratic world, starting with the 'little Satan' (Israel) and finishing with the 'big Satan' (America). Yet the Western world has been reluctant to believe it, and remained blind to the battle and weak in its responses. As Salafist Islam is growing massively in strength and power, western post-Christian democracies are becoming increasingly weak and indecisive. Having lost its Christian anchor, the West is lost in a morass of political-correctness and wishy-washy ethics and morality. Meanwhile Putin's Russia is not troubled by such niceties and is jumping into the fray in support of the main Islamic players in the Middle East, Iran, and Hassad's Syria. Just this week Russia began delivering advanced long-range S-300 missiles to Iran. These missiles can reach Europe.
JEWISH SCAPEGOAT
Throughout European and Middle Eastern history the Jews were blamed for every catastrophe from the Black Death to the attack of 9/11. Today it is no different. Right after the massacres in France, voices were raised blaming Israel. Swedish Prime Minister, Margot Wallstrom, in a television interview had this to say,
“Obviously, we have reason to be worried, not just in Sweden but across the world—because there are so many that are being radicalized. Here, once again, we are brought back to situations like the one in the Middle East, where not least, the Palestinians see that there is not a future. We must either accept a desperate situation or resort to violence” .
http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/54266/after-paris-terror-sweden-and-abbass-palestinian-factions-point-finger-at-israel/#GjrIETVhKxXoOwcu.97
(Note the 'we' Wallstrom employs!)
The Western world is buying into the Lie that the current wave of terror, against Israel, the USA and Europe, is a result of the conflict between Palestinians and Israel, and especially the so-called 'occupation' of the West Bank following the 1967 War. This is just not true. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is merely a side-show and a convenient pretext for the real threat to world peace, Islamic Jihad. Islamic terror long predated the 1967 conquest of the West Bank and the "Occupation". The modern version of it began as soon as Jews began to return to the land of Israel. In 1919 Haj Amin el-Husseini, the leading figure in Palestinian politics during the British Mandate Period first began to organize groups of suicide terrorists to attack Jews in the hope of driving them out of Israel. In the 1920s Arab attacks against Jewish settlements killed 135 Jews and wounded another 300. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/riots29.html In 1929 Arab residents of Hevron (Hebron) massacred 67 Jews, and burned their synagogues and homes. The remaining Jews fled to Jerusalem leaving Hebron empty of Jews for the first time for hundreds of years. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/hebron29.html. I could go on but suffice to say, Arab terrorism is not the result of the 1967 'Occupation'.
The real cause of the Palestinian terror is the offense of a Jewish state daring to exist in the Muslim heartland of the Middle East. It is the failure of Islam to recognize Israel as God's chosen people to whom God gave the Land of Israel for a perpetual possession for ever. As such, the battle is not geopolitical but rather spiritual.
Neither is the current wave of terror primarily motivated by economic hardship and hopelessness. The picture painted by Wallstrom and others of desperate Palestinians forced to carry out such attacks because they have no other hope, is flawed. Several of the terrorists have held well-paying jobs in Israel or the West Bank. Many other peoples around the world suffer hardship but they do not resort to this kind of violence for which there is no excuse under heaven. I do not deny that the Palestinians lack hope for a better future, but had they been willing to accept the existence of Israel, forego terrorism and live side-by-side with us in peace, their future would be much better.  Ahmed Kassem in front of his villa of in the West Bank village of Turmus Aya http://i1.wp.com/jcpa.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/image76.png?resize=450%2C300
BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions)
One of the outcomes of the acceptance of the Lie is the increasing willingness to go along with the BDS movement against Israel. It is interesting and perhaps significant to note that just a few days before the attacks in France, the European Union had signed an agreement to boycott goods made in the Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Is there a link? Judge for yourselves, but the LORD spoke to Abraham saying.
I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you
Genesis 12:3
God has never revoked this proclamation and a study of history will bear it out. Pray for your nations that they will bless Israel and not curse her. Just this week a survey conducted in the US revealed that some 37% of Americans support sanctions against Israel because of the settlement policy.
What does it mean to bless Israel? It does not mean that we must agree with every policy of the government of Israel or not speak out against things we feel are wrong. Within Israel itself there is a very strong degree of debate over this policy. However we must draw the line at taking actions which undermine or harm the existence of the State itself and the BDS movement, initiated and fed by the Palestinian propaganda machine, intends just that. Ultimately its goal is to destroy Israel. I would warn the US and the European Union against supporting BDS. You may find yourselves facing the curse of the LORD himself. Furthermore, the people that will be most harmed by the sanctions are the Palestinians themselves. Jewish settlements and industries in the West Bank provide jobs for tens of thousands of Palestinians who can consequently support their families with dignity. This also injects cash into the Palestinian economy. If you really want to help the Palestinians, pray that their leaders will stop the incitement and the lies which are poisoning the minds of a whole generation of young people and leading them to self-destructive measures such as terrorism. Pray that these men will stop channeling aid money into building themselves mansions and lining their own pockets but rather use it to build schools, universities, hospitals and all the infrastructure of a State. Pray that God will raise up for them leaders who truly have the best interests of the Palestinian people at heart. IS THE WORLD FALLING APART? Sometimes when I contemplate world events I am tempted to despair. Evil seems to be on the rise in every quarter and the darkness grows at a terrifying pace. However, as one of my friends recently remarked,
THE WORLD IS NOT FALLING APART, IT IS FALLING INTO PLACE
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