Earth calamities and Rumors of war

[Handmaid for Jesus]

Things are shaping up for Ezekiel 38 imho.

 

[Bible2+]

Wayholka said in post #1180:

My guess is that Putin will realize that Israel is too much of a thorn on their side and may need to take drastic action after speaking with Abbas. They might find some common ground on how to deal with the Israel issue. Gog already has his motivation and now he just may be getting his excuse...

Do you mean that Putin is Gog?

If so, note that the Gog/Magog invasion of Israel (Ezekiel chapters 38-39) will not occur until after the future Millennium (Revelation 20:7-10), when there will be no defensive walls or fear of attack in Israel whatsoever (Ezekiel 38:11). This is the exact opposite of today's situation, when Israel is filled with very high defensive walls and is in constant fear of attack. At the beginning of the Millennium, all present-day weapons of war throughout the world will be destroyed, and they will not be allowed to be remade during the Millennium (Micah 4:3-4). That is why after the Millennium, the Gog/Magog armies will employ only rudimentary, wooden weapons like bows and arrows, spears, shields, and clubs (Ezekiel 39:9), which after the defeat of the Gog/Magog armies will be able to be used as convenient firewood by the people living in Israel at that time, instead of them having to go out and collect or cut down firewood from the forest (Ezekiel 39:10).

The Gog in Revelation 20:8 is the same as in Ezekiel chapters 38-39: an individual human whose personal name is "Gog" (Ezekiel 38:3). He will be the chief leader of a future country which will form somewhere north of Israel (Ezekiel 39:2, Ezekiel 38:15), and which will be called "Magog" (Ezekiel 38:2). It will include at least two major cities and/or tribes which will be called "Meshech" and "Tubal" (Ezekiel 38:2). This country could come into existence during the future Millennium. Gog could be born near the end of the Millennium, and he will be killed and buried at the end of the Gog/Magog event (Ezekiel 39:11).

Both accounts of the event show that the Gog/Magog armies will ultimately be completely defeated by miraculous fire from heaven (Ezekiel 38:22, Revelation 20:9). Also, whereas the Great White Throne Judgment (Revelation 20:11-15) will occur subsequent to the Gog/Magog event (Revelation 20:7-15), nothing requires (as is sometimes claimed) that the Great White Throne Judgment has to happen immediately after that event. For there will be at least seven years (Ezekiel 39:9b) between the end of that event and the Great White Throne Judgment.

Also, the Gog/Magog attack will not have to (as is sometimes claimed) involve only the nations listed in Ezekiel chapters 38-39. Those nations could be just a sampling. For the "nations" (ethnos), or peoples, who will be involved in the Gog/Magog attack will come from all over the earth (Revelation 20:8). They will still be physically part of Jesus Christ's worldwide Kingdom, still legally under His rule, just as they had been during the preceding Millennium (Psalms 72:8-11, Psalms 66:3, Psalms 2). But after the Millennium, they will be deceived by Satan into committing the attack (Revelation 20:7-10).

Also, while the Gog/Magog attack on Israel will not occur until after the future Millennium (Revelation 20:7-10, Ezekiel chapters 38-39), Israel could suffer a different attack before the Millennium, at the start of the future Tribulation of Revelation chapters 6 to 18 and Matthew 24, which attack could result in Israel's total defeat and occupation (Daniel 11:15-17).

Also, the city of Jerusalem could be attacked and totally defeated in the future at least three times before the Millennium: once near the start of the future Tribulation (Daniel 11:22), then again mid-tribulation (Daniel 11:31), and then at the Tribulation's end (Daniel 11:45), right before Jesus Christ's future, Second Coming and the start of the Millennium (Zechariah 14:2-21).

 

[alsughasoughaiuyfygh]

Palestinian leader Abbas tells Putin he wants U.S. peace role diluted: Ifax

Palestinian leader Abbas tells Putin he wants U.S. peace role...

Abbas was quoted as saying he wanted an expanded new mediation mechanism to replace the Middle East Quartet.

“For instance, ‘the quartet’ plus some other countries like the model used to achieve the deal on Iran,” Abbas said, referring to international talks about Tehran’s nuclear program.

Abbas and his allies were left furious in December when U.S. President Donald Trump reversed decades of U.S. policy to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and set in motion the process of moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv.

Trump Tells Putin: 'Now Is the Time' to Forge an Israeli-Palestinian Peace

Trump tells Putin: 'Now is the time' to forge an Israeli-Palestinian peace

WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday told his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, that "now is the time" to work toward an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. The two leaders spoke on the phone shortly before Putin met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

According to statements released by both the White House and the Kremlin, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process was an important part of the conversation between the two leaders.

In the statement, the White House said that after Trump offered his condolences to Putin for the fatal plane crash that took place in Moscow over the weekend, the Russian President noted his meeting with Abbas later in the day, "and President Trump said that now is the time to work toward an enduring peace agreement."

During their meeting, Abbas told Putin he could no longer accept the role of the United States as a mediator in talks with Israel because of Washington's behaviour, the Interfax news agency reported.

"We state that from now on we refuse to cooperate in any form with the U.S. in its status of a mediator, as we stand against its actions," Abbas told Putin at the start of talks in Moscow. He said last week that he hoped Russia could assume a greater role in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, saying the United States "can no longer play a leading role."

Putin mentioned the call with Trump at the start of his meeting with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Monday.

He said: "Naturally we spoke about the Palestinian-Israeli settlement" and told Abbas: "I would like to convey to you his best wishes."

Putin met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu two weeks ago in Moscow. Russia has managed to maintain robust relations with both Israel and the Palestinian Authority government, as well as Israeli rivals Syria and Iran.

The region's situation is "far from what we want to see," Putin said in comments carried by state news agency TASS.

Trump honored a campaign promise in December by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and vowing to relocate the U.S. Embassy there.

The move outraged Palestinians and others across the Muslim world. Palestinian leaders have said it means Washington can no longer serve as a Mideast peace broker.

Putin discusses Mideast with Trump, hosts Abbas

Putin discusses Mideast with Trump, hosts Abbas

WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson does not plan to add a stop in Jerusalem during his visit to the Middle East this week, despite the flare up of tensions along the Israel-Syria border, a State Department official told The Times of Israel on Monday.

“There are no plans on this short trip for the secretary to make a stop in Israel,” the official said. “He is keeping close tabs on the situation.”

Over the weekend, an Iranian drone penetrated Israel’s airspace from Syrian territory, which elicited an Israeli military response of cross-border strikes targeting Iranian assets in Syria. Returning from the mission, one of Israel’s F-16 fighter jets crashed in northern Israel after being hit by anti-aircraft fire from Syrian forces.

Those events transpired after Tillerson announced his five-capital tour of the Middle East and Turkey that did not include Israel on the itinerary. The trip was billed as an attempt to rally allies on US-led initiatives to build on the successes against the Islamic State terror group, and ensuring it does not regain a foothold in the region.

“I wouldn’t read too much into the fact that there’s no Israel stop,” another State Department official told reporters last week before the trip. “These are always very complicated itineraries to pull together. The secretary meets relatively frequently with Israeli officials when they’re in town and stays abreast of the issues.”

But Tillerson’s plans for the trip — which was already considered to be one of the most difficult of his tenure — were further complicated once this military clash ensued. The former head of Exxon Mobil has already faced a barrage of media attention regarding his perceived inability to speak for US President Donald Trump.

He is also expected to try and assuage anger at the president’s December 6 decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a move that ignited widespread indignation across the Arab and Muslim world.

The Palestinians, for their part, have since refused to meet with Trump’s team or US officials in protest of the recognition, including US Vice President Mike Pence, who visited the region last month. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has also said the US can no longer play its traditional role of peace -broker between the sides.

DC insiders have speculated that one other reason Tillerson skipped Israel is that Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner is the administration’s point man on Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, and not Tillerson himself.

Former US ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro said Sunday that this trip — at this moment — was, for Tillerson, “a perfect opportunity to stop in Israel.” Failing to do so, he said, was a mistake.

“But oddly, Israel does not appear on the itinerary. Tillerson’s stops include Amman, Ankara, Cairo, Kuwait City, and Beirut, but not Jerusalem,” the ex-Obama administration official wrote in Haaretz. “That made little sense before the Iranian incursion. It would be malpractice now. The Secretary needs to come to Israel.”

Abbas Tells Putin: 'We Refuse to Cooperate With U.S. in Any Form'; Putin: Trump Sends Best Wishes

Abbas tells Putin: 'We refuse to cooperate with U.S. in any form'; Putin: Trump sends best wishes

WASHINGTON - At the same time that Jerusalem and Washington were exchanging press releases on Israel's annexation bill, a Russian news agency reported that President Donald Trump spoke on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Putin is hosting Palestinian President Abbas in Moscow today, and he reportedly told Abbas that Trump coveys "his best wishes" to the Palestinian leader, who has been boycotting the U.S. Administration for two months now, ever since Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Abbas told Putin he could no longer accept the role of the United States as a mediator in talks with Israel because of Washington's behaviour, the Interfax news agency reported.

"We state that from now on we refuse to cooperate in any form with the U.S. in its status of a mediator, as we stand against its actions," Abbas told Putin at the start of talks in Moscow. He said last week that he hoped Russia could assume a greater role in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, saying the United States "can no longer play a leading role."

Putin said during the meeting with the Palestinian leader that he had just spoken by telephone with U.S. President Donald Trump.

Putin mentioned the call with Trump at the start of his meeting with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Monday.

He said: "Naturally we spoke about the Palestinian-Israeli settlement" and told Abbas: "I would like to convey to you his best wishes."

Putin met Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu exactly two weeks ago in Moscow. Russia has managed to maintain robust relations with both Israel and the Palestinian Authority government, as well as Israeli rivals Syria and Iran.

 

[alsughasoughaiuyfygh]

 

[alsughasoughaiuyfygh]

 

[alsughasoughaiuyfygh]

'France will strike' if proven chemical bombs used in Syria: Macron

'France will strike' if proven chemical bombs used in Syria: Macron

PARIS (Reuters) - President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday that “France will strike” if chemical weapons are used against civilians in the Syrian conflict in violation of international treaties, but that he had not yet seen proof this was the case.

Macron said last May that the use of chemical weapons would represent a “red line”. In a telephone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday expressed concern over signs that chlorine bombs had been used against civilians in Syria.

“On chemical weapons, I set a red line and I reaffirm that red line,” Macron told reporters. “If we have proven evidence that chemical weapons proscribed in treaties are used, we will strike the place where they are made.”

“Today, our agencies, our armed forces have not established that chemical weapons, as set out in treaties, have been used against the civilian population.”

The Syrian government has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons and said it targets only armed rebels and militants.

Last week was one of the bloodiest in the Syrian conflict as Syrian government forces, who are backed by Russia and Iran, bombarded two of the last major rebel areas of Syria - Eastern Ghouta near Damascus and the northwestern province of Idlib.

Diplomatic efforts have made scant progress toward ending a war now approaching its eighth year, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people and forced half the pre-war Syrian population of 23 million from their homes.

Syria signed the international treaty banning chemical weapons and allowed monitors to destroy its poison gas arsenal after an agreement reached in 2013 to avert U.S. retaliation for what Washington said was a nerve gas attack near Damascus that killed more than 1000 people. Washington again accused Syria of using nerve gas last year and struck Syrian targets.

In recent weeks, rescue workers, aid groups and the United States have accused Syria of repeatedly using chlorine gas, which it possesses legally for uses such as water purification, as a chemical weapon against civilians in Ghouta and Idlib.

France, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, has struggled to wield influence on Syria. Critics who accuse Macron of inaction say he has not given a clear definition of whether use of chlorine would for him constitute a chemical attack.

On Tuesday, the vice-president of the Syria Civil Defence, or “White Helmets”, volunteer force said France should stop talking and take real action.

France and the United Nations have repeatedly called in past months for a ceasefire and the opening of aid corridors to alleviate Syria’s humanitarian crisis. Russia, Assad’s most powerful ally, said last week a ceasefire was not realistic.

Iranian 'winter' coming to northern border, analyst warns

http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-C...oming-to-northern-border-analyst-warns-542550

Three days after Israel’s first direct confrontation with Iran on its northern border, concern remains over the growing danger posed by the Islamic Republic's growing foothold in the neighborhood.

“Winter is coming from the north where we have a concrete threat,” Orit Perlov, a social media analyst for the Institute for National Security Studies, told The Jerusalem Post in an interview just days before an Israeli F16I was downed over the country by Syrian air defenses.

“We know that Iran is trying to build an advanced weapons factories in Lebanon, to consolidate their power in both Syria and Lebanon and Israel is trying to prevent that,” she said.

According to a report by the French Intelligence Online magazine Iran has built two underground factories in Shia areas in Lebanon, one near the town of Hermel in the eastern Bekaa Valley in the north which can produce the fairly accurate Fateh 110 missile with a range of to 300 kilometers with a half-ton warhead. Another is located between the towns of Sidon and Tyre in south Lebanon and is capable of producing surface-to-air and anti-tank missiles as well as unmanned aerial vehicles able to carry explosives.

According to foreign reports Iran has also tried to build factories in the northern Sunni areas in Lebanon.

“In the south it would be a different story, we could very easily bomb it,” she said, adding that bombing a Shi’a area would be viewed differently by pragmatic Sunni Gulf states which behind closed doors are growing closer to the Jewish State.

Officials have repeatedly voiced concerns over the smuggling of sophisticated weaponry to Hezbollah and the growing Iranian presence on its borders with Syria, stressing that both are redlines for the Jewish state.

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman has made it clear that while Israel does not want to start a third Lebanon war, the Jewish state is determined to prevent Iran from using Lebanon to produce precision missiles for Hezbollah that will hit deep inside the Israeli home front.

According to IDF assessments, Hezbollah has at least 100,000 short-range rockets and several thousand more missiles that can reach the center of the country.

Hezbollah is able to mobilize close to 30,000 fighters and has flaunted its tunnel system, complete with ventilation, electricity and rocket launchers.

Israel rarely comments on foreign reports of military activity but it has admitted to carrying out thousands of missions, including 100 air strikes in Syria to prevent Hezbollah from obtaining sophisticated weaponry such as precision missiles or technology and know-how from Iran.

It is believed that these strikes are behind Iran’s reasoning to build indigenous underground weapons factories in Lebanon.

While Liberman stated that “the last thing I want is for a third Lebanon war,” Israel is “determined to prevent Lebanon from becoming one large factory for the production of precision missiles.”

And if Israel does try to prevent that, Hezbollah is expected to respond by firing tens of thousands of missiles at the country.

In the case of another war in the north, the IDF believes that it will not be contained to one front but along the entire northern border with both Syria and Lebanon involved.

Senior officials from Israel’s defense establishment have repeatedly stated that while the chance for escalation on the border is small, the smallest incident or a miscalculation by either side may lead to a large-scale and devastating war.

According to Perlov, it’s a dangerous scenario that Israel cannot afford to have.

“We bombed the facility in Deir al-Zor and we didn’t have a war,” she said. “We prefer to do something and only have a minor price to pay. We don’t want another round because we have no end game. With the US giving us the green light we can find ourselves in Beirut, in Ankara – nobody will tell us to stop.”

Corruption Charges Suggested for Netanyahu

Corruption Charges Suggested for Netanyahu

JERUSALEM — The Israeli police recommended on Tuesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu be charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust, casting a pall over the future of a tenacious leader who has become almost synonymous with his country. The announcement instantly raised doubts about his ability to stay in office.

Concluding a yearlong graft investigation, the police recommended that Mr. Netanyahu face prosecution in two corruption cases: a gifts-for-favors affair known as Case 1000, and a second scandal, called Case 2000, in which Mr. Netanyahu is suspected of back-room dealings with Arnon Mozes, publisher of the popular newspaper Yediot Aharonot, to ensure more favorable coverage.

All told, the police accused Mr. Netanyahu of accepting nearly $300,000 in gifts over 10 years.

Mr. Netanyahu, addressing the nation live on television shortly before the police released their findings around 9 p.m., made clear that he would not step down. “I feel a deep obligation to continue to lead Israel in a way that will ensure our future,” he said, before embarking on a 12-minute defense of his conduct.

“You know I do everything with only one thing in mind — the good of the country,” he said. “Not for cigars from a friend, not for media coverage, not for anything. Only for the good of the state. Nothing has made me deviate, or will make me deviate, from this sacred mission.”

The police recommendations must now be examined by state prosecutors and the attorney general, Avichai Mandelblit, a former military prosecutor and onetime Netanyahu aide.

The final decision about whether to file formal charges lies with Mr. Mandelblit and is subject to a hearing beforehand with Mr. Netanyahu’s lawyers. Reaching that threshold alone could easily take months.

According to the police, expensive cigars, jewelry and pink champagne flowed into the prime minister’s official Jerusalem residence in quantities sufficient to stock a small cocktail lounge. The generous patrons included Arnon Milchan, the Israeli movie producer, and James Packer, an Australian billionaire.

But it is the favors Mr. Netanyahu may have given his wealthy friends in return that could herald his downfall. A formal bribery charge would be by far the most serious outcome, and the most ominous for his political survival.

Mr. Netanyahu, who has emerged as one of President Trump’s most ardent allies, is serving his third consecutive term since his election in 2009, and his fourth overall since the 1990s. If he were to remain in the post through July 2019, it would set a record for total time in office, surpassing that of the state’s founder, David Ben-Gurion.

Mr. Netanyahu has vehemently denied any wrongdoing and has vowed to fight on, saying that no police recommendation would prompt his resignation.

His longevity attests to his political agility and to his perfection of a campaigning and governing style in which he casts his political foes and critics as enemies of the broader body politic. Though he has formed previous governing coalitions with those to his left, his current government is often described as the most right-wing and religious in Israel’s history. And he has presided over an increasingly bitter relationship with the Palestinians in the territories Israel has occupied for more than a half-century, whose hopes of soon gaining a state of their own have dwindled as Israeli settlements expand.

But while Mr. Netanyahu has prepared the public for this moment for months, and made strenuous efforts to discredit those investigating him, he has not prepared Israel or his government for the possibility that he may be unable to continue to lead. He has designated no successor, and no single member of his own coalition has emerged as ready to step into his shoes. Meanwhile, a centrist opposition, led by Yair Lapid of the Yesh Atid party, has been gaining strength.

In a twist straight out of a political thriller, a key witness against Mr. Netanyahu, according to Israeli news reports Tuesday night, turned out to be Mr. Lapid himself, who had been Mr. Netanyahu’s finance minister in a previous coalition.

According to a police statement about their recommendations, Mr. Netanyahu promoted the extension of a 10-year tax exemption to expatriate Israelis returning to the country, “a benefit that has great economic value for Milchan,” who has long worked in Hollywood. But the Finance Ministry blocked this legislation, saying it was against the national interest and fiscally unsound.

The Israeli law enforcement authorities have handled the cases with great caution, wary of the possibility of bringing down a prime minister who might then be proved not guilty in court, not least with Israel facing increasing security threats on its northern and southern frontiers.

But Israel’s constant state of alert has led some critics to argue all the more that a prime minister so focused on fighting his own legal battles cannot be entrusted with fateful decisions of peace and war.

Opposition politicians pounced Tuesday night, demanding that Mr. Netanyahu step down, be ousted by his coalition or at least declare himself “incapacitated,” as former Prime Minister Ehud Barak urged on Twitter, calling the police findings “hair-raising.”

“Most of you are honest people,” Stav Shaffir, of the left-leaning Zionist Union party, wrote on Twitter, addressing Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition. “If you have a drop of concern for the future, fulfill your obligation. Free Israel from this madness.”

But some coalition members denounced both the investigation and Mr. Lapid’s role in it. “In a democracy, a regime is changed in an election and not through the army or police,” the coalition’s chairman, Dudi Amsalem, told Walla News.

And Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, whose center-right Kulanu party holds 10 seats in Parliament, giving it the power to sink Mr. Netanyahu’s government, signaled just before midnight that he was not prepared to leave the coalition, saying on Facebook that he would wait for the attorney general’s decision on whether to indict Mr. Netanyahu.

Projecting aplomb, Mr. Netanyahu announced that he would attend a conference of local authorities in Tel Aviv on Wednesday morning.

Mr. Netanyahu long ago earned the nickname “the Magician” for his uncanny knack for political endurance, and even his most ardent opponents have been hesitant to write him off.

At what point he might be legally required to step down, short of a final conviction, is likely to be a matter of increasingly heated debate, though public opinion and political pressure could in the end play a decisive role.

Israel’s Supreme Court has ruled in the past that government ministers or deputy ministers, once indicted, may not remain in their posts. Whether that principle should also apply to the elected prime minister is an open question.

Mr. Netanyahu would be something of a test case as Israel’s first sitting prime minister to be formally charged.

His predecessor, Ehud Olmert, announced his resignation in September 2008, a week after the police recommended that he be charged with bribery, breach of trust, money laundering and fraudulent receipt of goods. That case involved an American businessman and a travel-expense scandal from Mr. Olmert’s days as mayor of Jerusalem and minister of industry and trade.

Mr. Olmert was eventually convicted in various cases and served 19 months of a 27-month prison sentence. He was released last year.

Pre-empting the police recommendations, Mr. Netanyahu told the public to expect them and did his best to minimize their importance.

“Any fair-minded person will ask themselves how people who say such delusional things about the prime minister can investigate him objectively and make recommendations in his case without bias,” he wrote on a Facebook post last week, accusing the police commissioner, Roni Alsheich, of having an agenda.

In December, Mr. Netanyahu told a gathering of his right-wing Likud Party supporters: “The vast majority of police recommendations end in nothing. Over 60 percent of the police recommendations are thrown in the trash. Over 60 percent of the police recommendations don’t get to an indictment.”

Experts have disputed those figures, however, and the prime minister’s opponents have begun quoting from an interview he gave in 2008, at the height of Mr. Olmert’s legal troubles, to turn the tables on Mr. Netanyahu.

Describing Mr. Olmert as “up to his neck in investigations,” Mr. Netanyahu said of his political rival at the time: “He does not have a public or moral mandate to determine such fateful matters for the state of Israel when there is the fear, and I have to say it is real and not without basis, that he will make decisions based on his personal interest in political survival and not based on the national interest.”

In some ways, though, Mr. Netanyahu has been here before.

During his first term in office, in the late 1990s, the police recommended that he be charged with fraud and breach of trust in a complicated case in which Mr. Netanyahu was suspected of acting to appoint an attorney general who would be sympathetic to a minister under investigation for corruption, in return for that minister’s political support. Ultimately, the attorney general closed that case, citing a lack of evidence.

Again, in March 2000, once Mr. Netanyahu was out of office, the police recommended that he be charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust in a case involving his holding on to $100,000 in gifts that were state property and having the state pay for private work on his home. Months later, the attorney general also ordered that case closed.

This time around, the police recruited a state’s witness, Ari Harow, Mr. Netanyahu’s former chief of staff and once one of his closest confidants.

The police have also been making headway in other criminal investigations in which Mr. Netanyahu has not been named as a subject, but that involve associates from his most inner circle. His wife already faces criminal charges of sneaking $100,000 in catered meals into the prime minister’s residence.

But a potentially far more explosive scandal, called Case 3000, involves a $2 billion deal for the purchase of submarines and missile ships from a German supplier. Critics have described that episode as perhaps the biggest corruption case in Israeli history, touching on deep conflicts of interest and national security.

Among those caught up in the shipping investigation are David Shimron, Mr. Netanyahu’s personal lawyer and second cousin, and Yitzhak Molcho, Mr. Netanyahu’s lifelong friend and close adviser, whom he has sent on his most delicate diplomatic missions since the 1990s. Mr. Molcho and Mr. Shimron are partners in a law firm as well as brothers-in-law.

Another possible case may be brewing over suspicions of the exchange of benefits in return for favorable media coverage between Mr. Netanyahu and a close friend who owns Bezeq, Israel’s telecommunications giant.

 

[Handmaid for Jesus]

Hmm?I hope Netanyahu is not complicit in these allegations.

 

[alsughasoughaiuyfygh]

 

[Dave Watchman]

Things are shaping up for Ezekiel 38 imho.

It looks like things might be shaping up for something.

I was looking around the other forums and there was this young woman who was asking about all the earthquakes and if they thought the end times were coming. She has a date for her Baptism and marriage and she was looking forward to having some kids. She put this Fox News Mexican earthquake link up:

Magnitude-7.2 earthquake slams south, central Mexico

So i scroll down that page and it looks like there's others on the list too, one in the north eastern US.

Then i'm scrolling down this thread here where they're talking about the quakes, and right in the thread the New Hampshire quake hits right while the guy is writing his note there.

Earthquakes in various places

I don't usually get too wound up,.

 

[Bible2+]

Dave Watchman said in post #1189:

I was looking around the other forums and there was this young woman who was asking about all the earthquakes and if they thought the end times were coming.

The Tribulation could be just around the corner, simply by looking at the date: i.e. 2018.

For Matthew 24:34 could mean that the temporal generation which would see the 1948 AD reestablishment of Israel, which could be symbolized by the rebudding of the fig tree (Matthew 24:32-34; cf. Matthew 21:19,43, Hosea 9:10, Joel 1:6-7, Luke 13:6-9), will not pass, that is, will not die off completely, until the future Tribulation and Second Coming of Matthew 24 and Revelation chapters 6 to 19 are fulfilled. A temporal generation may not pass until 70 or 80 years (Psalms 90:10), or 120 years (Genesis 6:3).

This does not require that Jesus Christ's future, Second Coming will occur right before, like one year before, that generation will pass: that is, 79, or 119 years after 1948: in 2027, or 2067. And if the Tribulation which will immediately precede the Second Coming and rapture (Matthew 24:29-31; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-8, Revelation 19:7 to 20:6) will last seven years (Daniel 9:27), the Tribulation's first year will not have to be in 2021, or 2061, but could be in a future year (e.g. 2020) earlier than 2021.

Matthew 24:34 could also include the meaning that the figurative, all-times generation of the elect (Matthew 24:22, Luke 16:8b; 1 Peter 2:9, Colossians 3:12; 1 Thessalonians 1:4) will not pass away from the earth during the future Tribulation of Matthew 24 and Revelation chapters 6 to 18, but that some of the elect will survive (Matthew 24:22) until Jesus Christ's Second Coming (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17; 1 Corinthians 15:21-23,51-53), immediately after the Tribulation (Matthew 24:29-31; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-8, Revelation 19:7 to 20:6).

Dave Watchman said in post #1189:

Magnitude-7.2 earthquake slams south, central Mexico

During the future Tribulation, Mexico could suffer not only even-worse earthquakes, but huge volcanic eruptions which will kill millions. For in Mexico there are huge volcanoes close to major cities.

 

[alsughasoughaiuyfygh]

$15 billion worth of Israeli natural gas to be sold to Egypt

Israeli gas company will export gas worth $15 billion to Egypt

The operators of the Tamar and Leviathan natural-gas fields have signed decade-long contracts to sell $15 billion worth of natural gas to Egypt, according to documents made public by Delek Drilling LP on Monday, a sign of strengthening diplomatic ties.

The companies that operate the fields, which include Israel’s Delek Drilling and Houston-based Noble Energy Inc. among other smaller partners, reached an agreement with Egyptian company Dolphinus to ship the gas over the first 10 years after production starts and no later than 2030.

With the news, Israel will now be providing both Egypt and Jordan with natural gas, cementing ties with its two neighbors despite historically “cold” peace treaties.

Delek and Noble will supply Egypt with about seven billion cubic meters of gas annually, with 64 b. cu. m. of gas exported in total – barring major obstacles such as pipeline installations.

Half of the gas will come from the deepwater Tamar reservoir, which is already up and running, and half will come from Leviathan, which is currently under development but plans to begin operations in 2019. The deal still needs to be formally approved by regulators in both countries.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu touted the agreements with Egypt as a sign of Israel’s burgeoning geopolitical sway, adding that it would benefit state coffers with tax revenue.

“Many did not believe in the gas outline,” he said. “We led it forward with the knowledge that it would strengthen our security, strengthen our economy, strengthen regional relations, and above all, it would strengthen the citizens of Israel... This is a joyous day.”

To transfer the gas, the companies are looking at various pipelines, including the pipeline of East Mediterranean Gas, which runs parallel to the Gazan shore. Delek and Noble plan on negotiating with EMG for use of that pipeline. But EMG, which went bankrupt, has been mired in arbitration with Egypt for years after a previous gas deal that was going to supply Israel with Egyptian gas fell through.

Some observers questioned the immediate viability of the plan.

“There’s not even a route determined, so it’s hard to sign a binding agreement,” said Brenda Shaffer, an American-Israeli professor at Georgetown University in Washington who has previously advised the Israeli government on energy policy. “Either EMG would need to agree to transit the gas – and that’s to resolve the whole arbitration process... For years, the Egyptians said they wouldn’t buy Israeli gas until the arbitration is dropped.”

The second option would be to ship the fuel through the existing Pan Arabian pipeline via Jordan.

“If the gas is sent through Jordan, then Jordan has to agree and to establish reverse flow,” Shaffer said. “It’s still somewhat complicated.”

That would come in addition to the gas being pipelined as a result of agreements signed in 2016 to supply Jordan with gas from the Leviathan field. The 15-year contract with the Jordanian National Electric Power Company is worth about $10b. A large pipeline to Jordan from Leviathan is currently being constructed.

A third plan would see a pipeline built through the Negev desert.

There is a chance that all three options could be used simultaneously, according to Miki Korner, a private energy consultant and former chief economist for the Natural Gas Authority.

“The true story is that there’s an economic breakthrough,” he said. “It’s the first time that an Egyptian commercial entity is signing an agreement of this size. Trade with Egypt is very small, and if this succeeds, it can change it... Someone who doesn’t like the peace with Israel may not like the agreement.”

Despite importing supplies from Israel, Egypt plans to export its own gas through its Zohr field by the end of 2019. Yet, the amount of gas produced in that field likely will not keep up with the domestic Egyptian demand, requiring supplements from Israel.

Leviathan is located some 130 km. west of Haifa. Noble Energy has a 39.66% stake in the Leviathan reservoir, while Delek Drilling owns 45.34% and Ratio Oil Exploration holds 15%.

Noble also holds a 32.5% share of Tamar, currently Israel’s only actively operating natural-gas field.

After reports of the Egypt deal, Delek’s shares rallied by nearly 19% on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange as of closing. The company is owned by billionaire Yitzhak Tshuva.

Dolphinus, the Egyptian gas trading company, is a consortium of consumers and distributors founded by Dr. Alaa Arafa, Khaled Abu Bakr and Muhammad Khalifa.

“We have reached an important milestone in realizing the collective vision and dream of making Israel a significant exporter of gas to countries in the region,” Tshuva said, according to Globes. “The agreement will strengthen the relations between Israel and its neighbors and increase economic cooperation between them.”

Mongolia hopes fifth time’s the charm for oil refinery

Mongolia hopes fifth time’s the charm for oil refinery | The UB Post

The construction of an oil refinery at Altan Shiree soum of Dornogovi Province is set to commence in April of 2018, financed with a one billion USD loan from India. The progress of the project has been encouraging for many who are hopeful that the refinery will offset a certain amount Mongolia’s fuel dependence on Russia.

Despite the optimism, there has been a lot of skepticism, rightfully so. An oil refinery has been an elusive objective for Mongolia for decades. Since the transition into a democracy in 1990, Mongolia has for the most part, been able to maintain the integrity of its political security, dictating its own foreign policy.

What Mongolia has not been able to do is fully ensure its economic and energy security. China is Mongolia’s biggest trading partner and largest buyer of its exports. Previously, the predecessor of the Russian Federation, the Soviet Union filled that role for Mongolia. In the 1990s, due to Russia being caught up in its own internal issues, it saw a significantly reduced role in Mongolia’s economy. Where Moscow has been able to make up for that loss is in the fuel sector.

Mongolia is essentially 100 percent dependent on Russia for fuel. Russia, in particular the state-owned Rosneft, is the largest exporter of fuel to Mongolia, accounting for 94 percent of fuel imports in 2016. In 2017, Russia accounted for up to 98 percent fuel imports to Mongolia. The almost absolute dependency of Mongolia on Russia and the fact that the Mongolian government considers fuel a strategic commodity helps maintain some influence of Russia on Mongolia’s economy.

The oil refinery financed by India is part of Prime Minister U.Khurelsukh’s Cabinet’s efforts to ensure that Mongolia produces food, energy, and fuel internally. The sentiment to alleviate Mongolia’s dependence on its two neighbors is not new and the construction of an oil refinery has been discussed for two decades.

The first real discussion regarding construction of an oil refinery began under the first President of Mongolia P.Ochirbat. In 1997, the president marked his white deel with the “black gold” discovered at Tamsag in Dornod Province.

Since then, many administrations have approved several different projects to build an oil refinery, none of which has been successful.

In the absence of an oil refinery, the Mongolian government subsidizes the price of fuel, maintaining prices almost 30 percent lower than the global market prices. This was mainly done through the excise tax on fuel, with the government modifying the tax where needed to manipulate prices.

Just in the last decade, five different oil refinery projects were approved by four different administrations. The most recent one outside of the proposed oil refinery in Dornogovi Province was the one planned to be built in Khentii Province in 2016 by the Ch.Saikhanbileg Cabinet.

On February 3, 2016, former Prime Minister Ch.Saikhanbileg and then Ministry of Industry D.Erdenebat announced the decision to build an oil refinery at Bor-Undur soum of Khentii Province.

In 2011 and 2013, a proposed oil refinery in Darkhan City, Darkhan-Uul Province was approved by two different Prime Ministers, Su.Batbold and N.Altankhuyag. In addition to the refinery in Darkhan, Su.Batbold approved the project for another refinery in Dornod Province in 2011.

All five oil refinery projects approved by different administrations were set to begin construction in spring but never reached that stage. In 2013, former Prime Minister N.Altankhuyag approved a refinery with the capacity to produce two million tons of petroleum. According to the plan, the refinery was supposed to become operational by 2015, but just like all the others, it failed.

The consecutive failures of different oil refineries have caused some to be suspicious of Russian obstruction in its interest to maintain a fuel monopoly in Mongolia. Seeing as Rosneft maintains dominance on the Mongolian market, it would be naive to think that the state-owned Rosneft, as an extension the Russian government, would not try to preserve its monopoly.

While it is hard to imagine that Russia would not be heavily involved in Mongolia’s fuel sector, it is more plausible that funding, specifically the lack thereof, instead of Russian obstruction was the main culprit in halting the aforementioned oil refinery projects.

Now that India has essentially guaranteed financing, the biggest obstacle in building an oil refinery has been addressed. In addition, the prime minister has said that a joint task force from the General Intelligence Agency, Independent Authority Against Corruption, and the General Police Department will ensure full implementation of the project step by step.

Once operational, the refinery in Dornogovi will have a processing capacity of 1.5 million metric tons of oil per year and will annually produce 560,000 tons of gasoline and 670,000 tons of diesel fuel, as well as 107,000 tons of liquefied gas.The refinery could boost Mongolia’s gross domestic product by 10 percent, officials have said.

Engineers India Limited has developed the detailed project report of the refinery while Mongolian Oil Refinery will work as the focal agency of the project. The contractor of the project has not been selected yet, but it is expected to be an Indian company. Mongolian Ambassador to India G.Gabold has said that the government will discuss announcing a tender in both India and Mongolia with the Export-Import Bank of India.

With backing and funding from a regional and increasingly global superpower, India, Mongolia is on pace to finally capture that elusive goal of fuel independence.

Times a wastin', Russia. Tick tock tick tock tick tock...

 

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Abbas calls for international conference to advance peace efforts

Abbas calls for international conference to advance peace efforts

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called for an international conference to advance peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinians.

Abbas made the statement in a speech delivered on Tuesday to a meeting of the UN Security Council in New York.

“We call for the convening of an international peace conference in mid-2018, based on international law and relevant UN resolutions, with broad international participation including the two concerned parties and the regional and international stakeholders,” Abbas said in a 30-minute speech.

Since President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and initiated the relocation of the US Embassy in Tel Aviv to the city, Abbas has said the Palestinians will no longer work with an American-dominated peace process and has called for the creation of an alternative peace process to replace it.

In his speech, Abbas said the international conference he envisions should back a new multilateral formula that gives multiple states a role in mediating negotiations of all final-status issues.

Israel has said it will only work with an American-led peace process.

Abbas also said the Palestinians will step up efforts to gain full membership at the UN.

“We will come to this council. We were rejected last time. [But] we will come again and call for [full membership],” Abbas said, later adding, “We are deserving. Oh God, we are deserving of being a full member of the Security Council.”

In 2011, Palestinian efforts to achieve full membership at the UN were unsuccessful.

Both Israel and the US have historically held that the Palestinians should not make efforts to gain full membership at the UN before a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been achieved.

The Palestinians currently have non-member observer state status at the UN.

Abbas also stated that the Palestinians still want countries that have not recognized the “State of Palestine” to do so.

“We have gained recognition from 138 states... but we still are seeking recognition from the rest of the international community, including the member states of the Security Council,” Abbas said.

Last month, Abbas called on member states of the European Union to recognize “the State of Palestine” when he visited EU headquarters in Brussels.

While a handful of EU countries have recognized “the State of Palestine,” the most powerful EU states, including France and Germany, have not made such a move.

Following his speech, Abbas left the Security Council hall, not sticking around to hear Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon’s remarks to the UN body.

Abbas' political plan

Abbas' political plan

In his speech before the Security Council, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas presented a plan for resolving the conflict.

Central to the plan is international recognition of the State of Palestine as a permanent member of the United Nations and establishment of an international framework for negotiations on final status issues.

Additional points in the political plan presented by Abbas include cessation of unilateral actions that may affect the final status agreement, full implementation of the Arab peace plan, and implementation of all relevant UN resolutions.

Other points set by Abbas are: Adherence to the principle of a two-state solution, opposition to partial solutions, a state with temporary borders, and a determination that eastern Jerusalem will be the capital of Palestine.

Abbas also mentioned the principle of deploying an international force to protect the security of both countries and a solution to the refugee problem on the basis of UN Resolution 194 (return and compensation).

U.S. 'finalizing' peace plan despite Abbas vow for international efforts

U.S. 'finalizing' peace plan despite Abbas vow for international efforts

WASHINGTON – US President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace team made an exceptional trip to UN headquarters in New York to attend the address by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, hoping to hear “fresh and constructive ideas” that might lead to talks with Israel toward a peace settlement.

What they received instead was a scolding from the Palestinian leader, still furious over Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and to move the US Embassy there.

"This administration undertook an unlawful decision," Abbas said of Trump's Jerusalem move. He chastised the administration for cutting support to the UN Relief and Works Agency, which offers aid to Palestinian refugees and their descendants, warning that their abandonment might lead some to terror in far reaches of the West.

A White House spokesman, Josh Raffel, said that Kushner and Greenblatt are "finalizing" the administration's peace plan– a detailed document that has produced hundreds of pages, and that offers specific proposals to some of the toughest sticking points in the conflict. But while Abbas claimed he had never turned down an offer to enter talks, he did not express any interest in the pending American plan.

"We have expressed our absolute readiness to reach an historic peace agreement," he said. But he added: "No country alone can solve a regional or international conflict without the participation of other international partners."

Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law leading his peace effort; Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s special representative for international negotiations; and Nikki Haley, US envoy to the UN, sat stone-faced at the Security Council roundtable as the PA president spoke.

"It is essential to set up a multinational international mechanism," Abbas continued, calling for an international peace conference similar to one held in Paris last year.

Abbas refrained from repeating some of the harshest rhetoric he has leveled at the Americans in recent weeks, in which he has dismissed Trump's role in any future peace process outright. But he left the chamber before either the Israeli or the American representatives could respond– a clear diplomatic slight.

"I'm sorry that he declined to stay in the chamber to hear remarks of others," Haley said. Both she and Israel's representative, Danny Danon, remained seated during Abbas' speech. "We welcome you as the leader of the Palestinian people here today."

Haley said the administration "stands ready" to work with the Palestinian leadership. "Our negotiators are sitting behind me," she said. "But we will not chase after you."

"You don't have to like that decision," she said, of Trump's Jerusalem move. "You don't have to praise it. You don't even have to accept it. But know this: That decision will not change."

Haley said that Abbas faced two paths: one of anger toward the Americans and incitement of Palestinians to violence against Israelis, or one of direct negotiations with both.

Of the first, she warned: "I assure you that path will get the Palestinian people exactly nowhere toward the achievement of their aspirations."

JPost Exclusive: Trump team briefs Security Council on Mideast peace plan

JPost Exclusive: Trump team briefs Security Council on Mideast peace plan

WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace team briefed members of the UN Security Council on their plan to jumpstart negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians on Tuesday.

Two sources familiar with the briefing told The Jerusalem Post that Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law leading the diplomatic effort, Jason Greenblatt, his special representative for international negotiations, and Nikki Haley, US envoy to the UN, fielded questions from diplomats for roughly an hour after a public session of the council concluded.

The briefing by senior Trump administration officials followed a speech to the council by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who asked UN members to come up with an international mechanism that would replace any US-led effort.

Kushner, Greenblatt and Haley — who sat in attendance for Abbas’s speech — dismissed that proposal in the briefing, the sources said, noting that it would take perhaps a year to organize yet another conference on Middle East peace bound to fail. Instead they plan on rolling out their peace plan in short time, they added, while declining to specify their timeframe.

According to the diplomatic sources, Kushner and Greenblatt said of the plan that “both sides are going to love some of it, and hate some of it.”

The US team underscored their belief that Israeli settlement activity is unhelpful to the pursuit of peace, but told council members that past US demands for freezes had proven counterproductive. They declined to say whether such a demand would be included in their forthcoming plan.

Kushner and Greenblatt have been working on a plan to get both sides to the negotiating table for over a year. But Trump’s decision in December to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and to move the US embassy there, infuriated the Palestinians and led them to write off the administration as fair arbiters.

The peace team was pressed on allegations of its bias toward Israel in the briefing, to which its members responded that, if they were truly biased, they would have spent less time coming up with such a detailed plan.

They also requested council members encourage the Palestinians to give their peace plan a fair shake upon its release. They have made a similar ask of the Arab League, which also opposed Trump’s Jerusalem decision, but has in recent years sought to warm relations with Israel and resolve its conflict with the Palestinians once and for all.

 

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Wayholka quoted a news article in post #1191:

Israeli gas company will export gas worth $15 billion to Egypt

. . . “There’s not even a route determined, so it’s hard to sign a binding agreement,”

Any route for a gas pipeline could be subject to terror attacks. I.e., an underwater line passing close by Gaza could be attacked by Hamas frogmen. And a line passing through the Sinai would be attacked by Islamic State, which Egypt has been unable to defeat in Sinai. Also, if Israel instead sent the gas to Egypt on ships in LNG form, the LNG facility in Israel would be a prime target for Arab Islamic terrorists.

The best route would be a pipeline directly from the gas rigs south to Egypt, through deep water.

This gas deal is great for Israel because it ties Egypt to Israel economically, making it even less likely that Egypt will attack Israel.

But the sad thing is that both Israel and Egypt could be attacked, defeated, and occupied by a future, huge, Iraqi Baathist army (Daniel 11:15-17, in verse 17 the original Hebrew word translated as "daughter" is "bath"), which the U.S. will have built up with the idea that it would attack Iran instead. (See post #1174 above.)

 

[alsughasoughaiuyfygh]

 

[alsughasoughaiuyfygh]

It is not going well

https://www.economist.com/news/lead...russia-finds-itself-increasingly-bind-its-own

IN DECEMBER last year Vladimir Putin used a surprise visit to Syria to declare that Russia’s mission there was “basically accomplished”. His troops had saved the regime of Bashar al-Assad. And Russia had played the decisive part in a conflict that America had failed to control. Coming after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, his message was clear. Russia is back.

Just ten weeks later, Mr Putin’s boast looks premature. Within a few hours last weekend Iran first sent a large surveillance drone from deep inside Syria into Israeli airspace and Israel responded by shooting it down and destroying its controlling infrastructure near Palmyra. When an Israeli F-16 fighter jet, on its way home from the raid, was brought down by a salvo of Syrian air-defence missiles, Israel hit back by destroying around a third of Syria’s anti-aircraft batteries. Russian military advisers may have been among those killed.

The skirmishes hold two messages. Far from winding down, the war in Syria is entering a new and possibly more dangerous phase. And while fighting rages, Russia must stay.

Easy in, hard out

The air strikes were the most significant Israel has carried out in Syria since 1982. Neither Iran nor Israel, despite their bitter enmity, wants all-out war, but each is testing where the other’s limits lie. Fresh confrontations have become a near-certainty now that the Assad regime and the Iranian-backed militias that are its most effective ground troops have pushed rebel groups out of an area close to the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Israeli commanders say they are braced for attacks launched by Iran from a growing number of bases in Syria.

This puts Russia in a bind. An escalating conflict between Israel and Iran itself may force it to choose sides. Russia and Iran have become close allies in saving Mr Assad. Yet Mr Putin and Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, who is fighting for his political career (see article), are also on cordial terms. Russia has acquiesced in Israeli strikes on Iran’s Hizbullah proxy, as long as they did not threaten the regime’s survival.

Although Mr Putin poses as the arbiter of Syria’s fate and the convener of the peace process, he has little control over other actors, with their own competing agendas. Russian-sponsored peace talks last month in Sochi were a flop. Barely any opposition representatives showed up and the delegation from Damascus rejected calls from the UN and Russia itself for a new constitution. Tension between the other co-sponsors of the conference, Iran and Turkey, reached breaking point when Iranian-backed militias shelled a Turkish convoy in Syria with Russia’s reluctant consent. Turkey and the Syrian Kurds, both of whom Russia has wooed, are now at each other’s throats. Mr Putin attempted to dissuade his Turkish opposite number, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, from charging in, but was ignored.

Meanwhile, casualty-averse Russian voters are wearying of the war. A recent poll suggested that less than a third support continuing military operations. Their mood will not have been helped by reports that scores of Russian contract soldiers may have been killed fighting American-led anti-Islamic State forces in eastern Syria last week. The Kremlin would dearly love to find an exit. But that looks a remote prospect.

Russia achieved a lot in Syria with a small commitment of forces, but it now finds that it is too weak to bang heads together. It may be too soon to talk of Russia getting stuck in a Syrian quagmire, as Barack Obama once glibly predicted, but Mr Putin looks a long way from being able to extricate himself.

If Russia’s Syria gambit unravels, America should take little comfort. The myopic policy shared by both Mr Obama and President Donald Trump of seeing Syria almost solely in terms of defeating Islamic State has left America without influence there against Iran and torn between Turkey, its prickly NATO ally, and its most effective ground forces, the Syrian Kurds.

Russia is finding the going more difficult than it thought. America has made itself, at best, peripheral. Meanwhile, the suffering of ordinary Syrians drags remorselessly on.

 

[Bible2+]

Wayholka quoted a news article in post #1195:

Easy in, hard out

Russia has never had any plans to get "out" of Syria. It wants to maintain its military bases there indefinitely, and so maintain a powerful foothold in the heart of the Middle East.

Also, Russia wants the wars in the Middle East to continue on indefinitely, for they are only to its benefit.

Which brings to mind the verses:

Psalms 120:5 ¶Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!
6 My soul hath long dwelt with him that hateth peace.
7 I am for peace: but when I speak, they are for war.

In this context, Meshech could refer to an ancient people which came to be called the Muscovs, and eventually became the Russians with their capital in Moscow (See Easton's).

Kedar was a son of Ishmael (Genesis 25:13), whom the Arabs claim as their forefather.

So when Psalms 120:5-7 says: "Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar! My soul hath long dwelt with him that hateth peace. I am for peace: but when I speak, they are for war", this could include reference to how the Russians and the Arabs (in a general sense) hate peace, but love war. (This does not mean that they all do, for many Russians and Arabs are peace-loving Christians.)

For example, it was some Russians and (Syrian) Arabs who intentionally bombed the civilians of eastern Aleppo in Syria for an extended period, and who are now intentionally bombing the civilians in Eastern Ghouta in Syria; just as it is (Saudi) Arabs who continue to intentionally bomb Houthi civilians in Yemen.

With regard to Syria, it may be a top, non-Christian, Arab leader in the Syrian military who ordered the past, extended bombing of civilians in eastern Aleppo, and the current bombing of civilians in Eastern Ghouta, with any hesitancy on the part of (Arab) Assad being squelched by his fear of being secretly murdered by this military leader for "being soft" on "terrorists".

Also, while it was the great military prowess (that is, the love of war) of many Russians which enabled Russia to completely defeat even Hitler's unprecedented war machine during World War II, this generalized, Russian love of war, if it is not checked by the U.S. in our future (as it was checked in our past during the Cold War), could bring calamity not only to the Arabs, but also to the Europeans (in the Baltics and other parts of Eastern Europe).

It was the U.S.'s supine posture during the Obama administration which reawakened the Russians' (generalized) love of conquest. Russia is the world's largest nation by land area, and it hopes to make itself even larger and larger still. Note Russia's relatively-recent annexation of Crimea. And this could be just a beginning. For Russia has its huge nuclear arsenal (the largest in the world) as the ultimate hedge against the U.S. pushing back against Russia too strongly in any arena. Also, ethnic Russians form a significant part of the population of the Baltic States, which could be ripe for a Russian invasion and annexation to "permanently protect" these ethnic Russians from "oppression" by the ethnic Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians, who, for example, want to forbid even the speaking of the Russian language within their territories. Russia could also eventually invade and annex northeastern parts of Poland and North Korea, and far-eastern Ukraine, during future cataclysmic events, which could disrupt any ability by NATO or the U.S. to effectively counter Russia's ground invasions into these areas.

Also, Russia has a huge strategic advantage with regard to attacking the Baltic States. For it can easily "close the gap" between Belarus (its ally) and Kaliningrad (its highly-armed exclave), blocking NATO ground troops from moving northeast from Poland in order to help the Baltic States. And the nominal number of NATO troops now stationed in the Baltic States can be untargeted and treated well by the Russians during an invasion so as to avoid any excessive riling up of Western antipathy toward Russia. The Western masses care little for the Baltics, and would care even less for them if Russia says that if Western troops mass in northeastern Poland in order to try to take back the Baltics, they will be nuked by Russian tactical nukes launched from Kaliningrad. For the Western masses could say that the tiny Baltics just are not worth a nuclear war with Russia, which would be able to obliterate the U.S. and Europe with its vast nuclear arsenal.

All the West could do then (i.e. after Russia has annexed the Baltics) is impose harsh sanctions on Russia. But Western Europe is still dependent on Russian energy supplies, just as the U.S. is still dependent on Russian rocket engines for its important military space launches. So the West will still have to deal economically with Russia, which could also greatly increase its trade with huge China in order to make up for any loss of trade with the West.

So what the West has to do is skip the insufficient idea of putting only a nominal number of troops in the Baltics and Poland as a "tripwire", and instead put huge numbers of troops in the Polish "gap" between Belarus and Kaliningrad, and in the Baltics themselves, so that these troops can actually defeat any possible Russian invasion.

The problem is that the Russian military is just too big. NATO does not have the resources to permanently station enough troops in northeastern Poland and in the Baltics in order to be able to hold off any Russian ground invasion.

This is where NATO's long failure to enforce its two-percent-of-GDP, defense-expenditure rule will come home to roost. NATO failed to prepare, while Russia has been assiduously spending billions in order to prepare for future wars. And Russia relatively-recently showed off its might in "Zapad" ("West"), a military exercise which could have been a rehearsal for a future invasion and annexation of Baltic territory, just as a previous Russian military "exercise" ended up permanently occupying parts of the country of Georgia (in the Caucasus).

Wayholka quoted a news article in post #1195:

Neither Iran nor Israel, despite their bitter enmity, wants all-out war . . .

False, insofar as Iran's ultimate goal is "the eradication of Israel", as Iran's most powerful military leader (Soleimani) said recently.

But Israel would rather just leave Iran alone, if only Iran would leave Israel alone.

Wayholka quoted a news article in post #1195:

This puts Russia in a bind. An escalating conflict between Israel and Iran itself may force it to choose sides.

It chose sides long ago, in favor of Iran. That is why it is allowing Iran to build bases in Syria in order to threaten Israel.

Wayholka quoted a news article in post #1195:

Yet Mr Putin and Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, who is fighting for his political career (see article), are also on cordial terms.

Only so long as Putin makes false assertions to Israel.

Wayholka quoted a news article in post #1195:

Russia has acquiesced in Israeli strikes on Iran’s Hizbullah proxy, as long as they did not threaten the regime’s survival.

Russia cannot stop any Israeli strike on Hezbollah, without starting a war with Israel.

Wayholka quoted a news article in post #1195:

Although Mr Putin poses as the arbiter of Syria’s fate and the convener of the peace process, he has little control over other actors, with their own competing agendas.

He doesn't want control over every actor. For he loves chaos, continual chaos in the Middle East. As this only works in his favor there. For chaos eventually creates power vacuums which he and his allies can then fill.

Look how Russia has increased its foothold in Syria due to the chaos of Syria's civil war.

 

[alsughasoughaiuyfygh]

ANALYSIS - Gas fields: Enough reason for Israeli-Lebanese war?

Gas fields: Enough reason for Israeli-Lebanese war?

Robert Frost, the famous American poet, concludes his poem “Mending Walls” with the assertion that “good fences make good neighbors”. While this might generally be the case, for both Lebanon and Israel, it seems that neither a fence nor border demarcation can keep these two nations from a recurrent conflict.

In the past, Israel has on many occasions attacked Lebanon due to the latter’s inability to prevent non-state actors, such as the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), and later Hezbollah, from launching attacks into its territories. The last such Israeli act was in July 2006, when the Israeli Army launched a 33-day attack against Lebanon and Hezbollah. However, the peace that has dominated the border between these two countries for over 12 years is at risk of collapsing again, but this time the confrontation has moved to the territorial waters.

Just recently, following an arduous and less-than-transparent process, the Lebanese government issued licenses to an oil and gas consortium (Total S.A, Eni International BV, and JSC Novatek) to commence exploration and production in blocks 4 and 9, the latter block being partly disputed by Israel, which claims that 860 sq km of the 1,742 sq km belongs to her. Instead of simply referring this maritime border dispute to international arbitration, Israel’s Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman took to the offensive, describing Lebanon’s move as a “very challenging and provocative conduct”.

To many, Lieberman’s words could be a preamble to an all-out military confrontation that would involve Hezbollah and its regional patron Iran. Yet despite the potential of such an apocalyptic scenario unraveling, most of the signs and current circumstances seem to indicate otherwise. While Israel certainly has the military advantage in any potential showdown, a dispute over a gas field that could be considered somewhat normal is not sufficient reason for Israel to fully mobilize its forces and disrupt the resounding peace that has dominated its northern border with Lebanon for a long time now.

The Syrian crisis with the presence of an assortment of pro-Iranian forces in Syria operating under the direction and support of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRG) is the real threat to Israel, a threat that the Israeli army has until now tried to contain through its use of airstrikes. Yet if such tangible Iranian threats against Israel and the downing of its F-16 fighter jet by the Syrian air defense were not enough to go to war in Syria, would a measly gas field suffice?

For Iran’s vessels in Lebanon and the region, the gas war is imminent, with Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah assuring that his party and their cache of missiles will rain down on any Israeli attempt to steal Lebanon’s valuable resource. Nasrallah’s statements were naturally meant to leverage his party’s supposed role as the protector of Lebanon against the omnipresent Israeli aggression and to divert attention further from the fact that his forces are fully engaged in defending the Assad regime and thus have put their war with Israel on the backburner.

More importantly, no sooner had the gas dispute arisen between Israel and Lebanon than the United States took swift diplomatic measures to deescalate the situation. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who had announced his intention to visit Lebanon, dispatched his acting Assistant for Middle East Affairs David Satterfield to both Lebanon and Israel. Satterfield delivered a clear message that such a maritime dispute need not develop into an open conflict.

Equally, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his warmongering cabinet waste no chance to hurl threats of using military force, the political reality currently unfolding within Israel is preventing such threats from becoming a reality. As it stands, Netanyahu is under investigation by the police, who have recommended to the Israeli attorney general to press charges against the head of the Likud party for bribery, fraud, and corruption. Consequently, if such a scenario does prove to be the case, Netanyahu will have to step down as prime minister, and the country will head for early parliamentary elections, during which no Israeli politician would be able to advocate going to war.

Nevertheless, while this gas field quarrel might not bring about the next Israeli war, the ever-increasing presence of Iran and its militias in the southern Syrian border with Israel does not bode well for Lebanon. While Hezbollah might prefer to use Syria as a battleground and avoid a showdown in Lebanon, which would afflict its Shiite constituency, ultimately a spillover is inevitable, one that will endanger Lebanon’s newly discovered natural resources as well as its people.

"Sheba and Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish and all her villages will say to you, "Have you come to plunder? Have you gathered your hordes to loot, to carry off silver and gold, to take away livestock and goods and to seize much plunder?"'" ~Ezekiel 38:13

 

[alsughasoughaiuyfygh]

U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem to open in May

U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem to open in May

The State Department confirmed on Friday that the United States will open a new embassy in Jerusalem in May to coincide with Israel’s 70th Independence Day.

The embassy will be in located in the building that houses the consular operation in Jerusalem before moving to a separate annex by the end of 2019, the State Department said, according to Reuters.

The announcement confirms earlier statements by officials in the Trump administration regarding the embassy.

A senior State Department official had said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had approved a security plan late Thursday for an embassy location to open in Jerusalem.

The embassy would be in an annex of an existing U.S. facility in the neighborhood of Arnona.

The official told Fox News that the hope is for the U.S. to develop only a “footprint” there in May, with a target of a fuller complement and facility by the end of 2019.

Administration officials said that Congress would be notified of the May move on Friday.

Moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was a central campaign promise of President Donald Trump’s. In December, he announced that he recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and ordered the State Department to begin preparations for the embassy move.

Friday’s news is in line with a recent report which indicated the move to Jerusalem is indeed expected by 2019, with the plan being to convert an existing consular building in Arnona, a neighborhood in western Jerusalem.

Earlier this month, the State Department said it was prioritizing funding for a facility for the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem in its Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 budget proposal

A State Department official told Fox News on Friday that Tillerson stressed that the State Department would do nothing to compromise the safety of those who work and visit the embassy.

The May opening of the new embassy is ahead of schedule, as Vice President Pence said that it would open by the end of 2019, and Tillerson initially suggested it could take years.

The first “footprint” of the embassy will consist of just a few offices inside an existing U.S. facility in Jerusalem.

Palestinians angry at decision to move US Embassy to Jerusalem in May

Palestinians angry at decision to move US Embassy to Jerusalem in May

RAMALLAH, West Bank/GAZA - Palestinians reacted on Friday with anger to reports that the United States will move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem within months, saying this could destroy the prospect of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Clashes erupted in Gaza and the West Bank earlier on Friday in a weekly protest against US President Donald Trump's stance on Jerusalem, which has also angered Arab political and religious leaders across the region and dismayed European allies.

Palestinians claim east Jerusalem -- seized by Israel in 1967 and later annexed -- as the capital of a future state.

Saeb Erekat, senior Palestinian negotiator, said the US move showed a "determination to violate international law, destroy the two-state solution and provoke the feelings of the Palestinian people as well as of all Arabs, Muslims and Christians around the globe."

Erekat, who is also secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said: "Trump and his team have disqualified the US from being part of the solution between Israelis and Palestinians; rather, the world now sees that they are part of the problem."

Trump announced in December that the United States would recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, setting in motion the embassy move and contravening decades of policy by the international community.

A US official told Reuters on Friday that the United States was expected to open its embassy to Israel in Jerusalem in May. This would be shortly after Israel's 70th anniversary.

"This is an unacceptable step. Any unilateral move will not give legitimacy to anyone and will be an obstacle to any effort to create peace in the region," said Nabil Abu Rdainah, a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas.

Abbas has rejected US-led Middle East peace efforts as "impossible" since Washington's decision.

Abu Rdainah said the only way to achieve peace, security and stability was Abbas's proposal -- outlined in an address to the United Nations Security Council in New York on Tuesday -- that an international conference should be held to kick-start the peace process, including a "multilateral mechanism" to oversee it.

Abbas is still in the United States after undergoing medical checks in Baltimore on Thursday but will leave on Saturday, Abu Rdaineh said.

In Gaza, a Hamas official, Sami Abu Zuhri, said: "Moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem is a declaration of war against the Arab and Muslim nation, and the US administration must reconsider its move."

Palestinian health officials said at least 20 Palestinians, most of them in Gaza, have been killed in protests against Trump's decision since the Dec. 6 announcement.

Report: Philanthropist to help pay for US embassy move

Report: Philanthropist to help pay for US embassy move

The Trump administration is considering an offer from billionaire business magnate and philanthropist Sheldon Adelson to pay for part of the US Embassy's move to Jerusalem, The Associated Press reported.

The report noted that the US State Department is investigating whether private donations may be accepted for the purpose.

Adelson made his offer in December 2017, shortly after US President Donald Trump officially recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital and promised to move the Embassy there.

On Thursday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signed a security plan for moving the US Embassy from its current location in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, anonymous officials reported.

Adelson donated $5 million to US President Donald Trump's inaugural committee, and he is one of the Republican party's largest donors. Adelson finances the Hebrew-language daily freebie, Israel Hayom, which continuously ranks as Israel's most popular paper.

Both the White House and Adelson declined to comment on the report. And the State Department said it had "nothing to announce" and "no confirmation or details" about whether Adelson would finance the move.

Netanyahu: A great day for the people of Israel

Netanyahu: A great day for the people of Israel

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Friday hailed the U.S. announcement that it would move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in May as “a great day for the people of Israel”.

“President Trump’s decision to move the United States Embassy to Jerusalem on the coming Independence Day follows his historic declaration in December to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital,” he said in a statement issued by the Israeli Embassy in Washington.

“This decision will turn Israel’s 70th Independence Day into an even bigger celebration. Thank you President Trump for your leadership and friendship,” it added.

Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon also welcomed the announcement by the United States.

“President Trump’s bold decision to move the American embassy to Jerusalem this May, in honor of our seventieth Independence Day, is a testament to the unbreakable alliance and true friendship between the U.S. and Israel,” said Ambassador Danon.

“The time is now for all UN member-states to follow in the footsteps of the U.S. and declare that they too recognize Jerusalem as the eternal capital of the State of Israel,” he added.

Transportation and Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz (Likud) also welcomed the American announcement on Twitter.

“I would like to congratulate Donald Trump, the President of the US, on his decision to transfer the US Embassy to our capital on Israel's 70th Independence Day. There is no greater gift than that! The most just and correct move. Thanks friend!” he wrote.

Earlier on Friday, the State Department confirmed that the United States will open a new embassy in Jerusalem in May to coincide with Israel’s 70th Independence Day.

The embassy will be in located in the building that houses the consular operation in Jerusalem before moving to a separate annex by the end of 2019, the State Department said.

Moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was a central campaign promise of President Donald Trump’s. In December, he announced that he recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and ordered the State Department to begin preparations for the embassy move.

 

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Nikki Haley says Trump's Middle East peace plan nearly ready

Nikki Haley says Trump's Middle East plan nearly ready

United States Ambassador to the United Nations on Thursday night said that President Donald Trump's Middle East peace plan is nearly ready while speaking at the University of Chicago's Institute of Politics.

During a question-and-answer session led by the Institute's current head, David Axelrod, she said: "They're coming up with a plan. It won't be loved by either side, and it won't be hated by either side...I think they're finishing it up."

Axelrod further questioned Haley on the matter, asking her whether the United States' peace proposal would be built around the basis of a Palestinian State, as US policy has consistently been in the past.

"It's for them to decide," she replied, adding that "it is hard for me to see how they would want [a single state]...they are pushing toward a two-state outcome."

These comments came two days after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas made a speech to the UN Security Council in which he requested the UN find an alternative to solely US-mediated negotiations.

Soon after, Trump's peace team briefed members of the UN Security Council on their plan to jump-start negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, dismissing Abbas's request.

 

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Wayholka quoted a news article in post #1198:

The official told Fox News that the hope is for the U.S. to develop only a “footprint” there in May, with a target of a fuller complement and facility by the end of 2019.

This is a good thing. Trump is the only one with the guts to do it.

Also, the harmless embassy "footprint" in Jerusalem which will soon be made by the currently most-powerful Gentile nation contrasts with the horrible future, when, during the literal, 3.5-year reign of the future Antichrist (the individual-man aspect of Revelation's "beast"), the Gentile nations will trample Jerusalem:

Luke 21:24 . . . and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.

Revelation 11:2 . . . the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.

Revelation 13:4 And they worshipped the dragon [Satan] which gave power unto the beast [the Antichrist]: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?
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.
6 And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.
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.
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.

Wayholka quoted a news article in post #1198:

In Gaza, a Hamas official, Sami Abu Zuhri, said: "Moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem is a declaration of war against the Arab and Muslim nation, and the US administration must reconsider its move."

Note that he admits that the Palestinians are Arabs, something which people usually don't consider.

That is, why should someone become hyper-concerned about the Israelis' dispossession of such a small sliver of the Arabs' total land, which stretches all the way from Oman to Morocco? Why not also become hyper-concerned about, for example, the U.S.'s and Canada's dispossession of almost all of the American Indians' land, stretching across North America? Or Australia's and New Zealand's dispossession of almost all of the aborigines' land? Also, why would someone completely reject the Jews' ancestral/historical/Biblical claim to the land of Canaan? Is it possible that anti-Semitism is involved in some way? Why cannot the Jews have even such a small piece of land for themselves, especially in light of what happened to them in the Holocaust?

Also, because the Palestinians are simply Arabs, they are not their own race which needs their own nation-state. They can live on any Arab land within the truly gigantic Arab territory stretching all the way from Oman to Morocco.