Today's World News is a site for the people to know what is exactly going on in the news and the world today. Being there is so much hype and propaganda going on these days. This site will add several links so the viewer can research and see the actual news for themselves. Lord knows main stream won't do that for us. Check the links for yourselves. If you find more. By all means. Please share them so they can be added here.
Israel is gearing up for what could be massive Palestinian protests in September, when the United Nations may move forward with the recognition of a Palestinian state. "The most immediate one is the decision of the Palestinian Authority to reject negotiations with Israel," former Israeli U.N. Ambassador Dore Gold told CBN News.Palestinians want the United Nations to accept them as a member state in September. Gold said they want to use mass demonstrations in the West Bank to challenge Israel.Turning World Opinion"There's a strategy in the field to create an atmosphere of violence that leads TV networks to give it special coverage and forces public opinion, as well as Western governments to shift their position from one of questions about what the Palestinians are doing to strong support for what they're trying to accomplish," Gold explained.
Israeli Messianic leader Chuck Cohen said any such action would be dividing God's land to make an Islamic state in the territory promised to the Jewish people."The Palestinians never had it in the first place, and yet here we are facing this threat," Cohen said.And they want to divide Jerusalem."God is saying, I'm testing your hearts with Jerusalem that I'm giving back to my people," he added.If Israel defies the U.N., author Joel Rosenberg warned that the international community could team up to cut off Israel diplomatically and even economically."Think of what we did with Iraq for example. We built a coalition to cut her off economically and then eventually we sent a military to overthrow a regime," Rosenberg said.Weapons of WarAnd what if Israel agrees to divide its land with the Palestinians?
1 “For behold, in those days and at that time,
When I bring back the captives of Judah and Jerusalem, 2 I will also gather all nations,
And bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat;
And I will enter into judgment with them there
On account of My people, My heritage Israel,
Whom they have scattered among the nations;
They have also divided up My land. 3 They have cast lots for My people,
Have given a boy as payment for a harlot,
And sold a girl for wine, that they may drink. 4 “ Indeed, what have you to do with Me,
O Tyre and Sidon, and all the coasts of Philistia?
Will you retaliate against Me?
But if you retaliate against Me,
Swiftly and speedily I will return your retaliation upon your own head; 5 Because you have taken My silver and My gold,
And have carried into your temples My prized possessions. 6 Also the people of Judah and the people of Jerusalem
You have sold to the Greeks,
That you may remove them far from their borders. 7 “ Behold, I will raise them
Out of the place to which you have sold them,
And will return your retaliation upon your own head. 8 I will sell your sons and your daughters
Into the hand of the people of Judah,
And they will sell them to the Sabeans,[a]
To a people far off;
For the LORD has spoken.” 9 Proclaim this among the nations:
“ Prepare for war!
Wake up the mighty men,
Let all the men of war draw near,
Let them come up. 10 Beat your plowshares into swords
And your pruning hooks into spears;
Let the weak say, ‘I am strong.’” 11 Assemble and come, all you nations,
And gather together all around.
Cause Your mighty ones to go down there, O LORD. 12 “ Let the nations be wakened, and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat;
For there I will sit to judge all the surrounding nations. 13 Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe.
Come, go down;
For the winepress is full,
The vats overflow—
For their wickedness is great.” 14 Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision!
For the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision. 15 The sun and moon will grow dark,
And the stars will diminish their brightness. 16 The LORD also will roar from Zion,
And utter His voice from Jerusalem;
The heavens and earth will shake;
But the LORD will be a shelter for His people,
And the strength of the children of Israel. 17 “ So you shall know that I am the LORD your God,
Dwelling in Zion My holy mountain.
Then Jerusalem shall be holy,
And no aliens shall ever pass through her again.”
WASHINGTON — In an address to a joint meeting of Congress, Israel's prime minister pledged to make "painful compromises" for peace with the Palestinians, but said he would not agree to any deal that threatens Israel's security or its identity as a Jewish state.
Netanyahu, who received a rapturous reception from lawmakers on both sides of the political divide, said Israel wants and needs peace but repeated his flat rejection of a return to what he called the "indefensible" borders that existed before the 1967 Mideast war. He also restated Israel's refusal to entertain the return of millions of Palestinian refugees and their families to land in Israel. And, he maintained that Jerusalem, claimed by both sides as their capital, could not be divided.
"Israel will never give up its quest for peace," Netanyahu said, adding that he is "willing to make painful compromises to achieve this historic peace."
"Now this is not easy for me. It's not easy, because I recognize that in a genuine peace we will be required to give up parts of the ancestral Jewish homeland,'' he said, referring to the occupied West Bank. Netanyahu tells Abbas: Ditch Hamas In outlining his peace vision, Netanyahu said Israel would not negotiate with terrorists and urged Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to rip up a power-sharing agreement that his moderate Fatah faction has signed with the militant group Hamas — which does not recognize Israel's right to exist — and shelve efforts to win U.N. statehood status unilaterally.
"I say to President Abbas 'Tear up your pact with Hamas and sit down and negotiate, make peace with the Jewish state.'"
"The Palestinian attempt to impose a settlement through the United Nations will not bring peace. It should be forcefully opposed by all those who want to see this conflict end," Netanyahu said.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Wednesday he would seek U.N. recognition of Palestinian statehood if there was no breakthrough in the peace process by September.
Addressing a meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Ramallah, he said Israeli Prime Minister BenjaminNetanyahu's vision for peace — outlined in a speech on Tuesday — contained "nothing we can build on."
However, Abbas praised President BarackObama's Mideast parameters, saying they laid a positive foundation for negotiations. Obama has said border talks should be based on the pre-1967 lines.
Netanyahu said explicitly in his speech to Congress that he was prepared to give up some settlements for peace. But he also laid out familiar demands that were unlikely to draw the Palestinians back to the negotiating table.
WASHINGTON — In a tense Oval Office meeting, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sat alongside President Barack Obama on Friday and declared that Israel would not withdraw to the 1967 borders to help make way for an adjacent Palestinian state.
Obama had called on Israel to be willing to do just that in a speech the day earlier.
The Israeli leader said he would make some concessions but Israel would not go back to the lines from decades earlier because they are "indefensible."
Obama listened with a strained look on his face.
For his part, Obama said there were differences of formulations and language but said such disputes are going to happen "between friends."
The president never mentioned the 1967 borders in his comments to reporters.
The two men spoke to the press after a lengthy meeting at the White House. Obama said in his speech on Thursday that the United States supports creation of a Palestinian state, with talks based on the border lines that existed before the 1967 Six Day War, in which Israel forces occupied east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. Obama's speech deeply angered Israel.
"We value your efforts to advance the peace process," Netanyahu said after the meeting. "Israel wants peace, I want peace. ... We want a peace that will endure. ... For there to be peace, Palestinians cannot expect Israel to go back to the 1967 lines."
"We can't go back to the lines. ... I discussed this with the president."
Image via Wikipediahttp://www.whitehousedossier.com/2011/05/19/obama-insists-israel-withdraw-fantasyland
Sometimes I get the impression with President Obama that his wishes and plans steam forward in one lane, while reality marches along in another altogether separate one.
We see this, for example, on the budget deficit, where the president notes the peril it poses, and then goes right ahead and throws around billions in “emergency” stimulus money that take years to dole out. Or adds a trillion dollars in new spending to make his health care dream a reality.
And we saw it again today, in Obama’s latest Middle East Big Think speech.
Despite the coming new regime in the Palestinian Authority, which will include Hamas, Obama has gone along his merry way and made a key concession to the Palestinians, as if Israel’s peril had some how lessened rather than grown.
By making it U.S. policy that the 1967 borders are the STARTING POINT for negotiations, Obama put Israel on the defensive in its fight for security and for its cultural – and the Christian cultural – heritage in Jerusalem.
The statement overturns assurances by George W. Bush to Israel in a 2004 letter that stated a return to the 1967 borders was in fact NOT the policy of the United States. This assurance was made in return for a concrete step, the withdrawal of Israel from Gaza. The concrete step cannot be reversed. The assurance could be reversed by an unreliable ally. Today, it was.
It was a DEAL. A deal is a deal, right? Wrong.
Obama today said the status of Jerusalem is up for grabs. But by declaring as the starting point the 1967 border – under which the Old City portion of Jerusalem and its holy sites were in Arab hands – Israel now has give concessions to keep Jerusalem whole, not get concessions in return for giving it away. And as a practical matter, putting Old City Jerusalem in the hands of the Palestinians at the start of the negotiations means they will never relinquish it.
How well the Arabs will protect Jewish and Christian holy sites there is anyone’s guess.
And by the way, go to Google and take a look at a map of the 1967 borders. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/borders.html
It doesn’t take some kind of Napoleonic military genius to figure out that the borders are completely indefensible. Israel, again, will have to bargain from a position of weakness – the ’67 borders – to “swap,” as Obama put it, enough of its land for West Bank land to find a marginally secure arrangement of territory.
Look at what the Gaza giveaway has gotten Israel. Missiles regularly lobbed deep into its territory and a funnel for terrorists and arms. What will happen when it releases the West Bank?
The Palestinians don’t want the West Bank. They want it all. They want Tel Aviv. The West Bank will be a ballast used for pushing the Jews into the sea.
Sure, Obama says the Palestinians will have to find a way to reassure Israel with Hamas now at the table. And he promises Israel secure borders. But these are nebulous words, negotiable stuff. The 1967 borders line he read today is policy.
The Good News is Netanyahu looks like he objects to this.
Netanyahu Objects to Obama's Backing of 1967 Borders
Conservatives led by Florida Republican Allen West Thursday were quick to blast President Barack Obama's game-changing recognition of a Palestinian state existing along Israel's pre-1967 borders — a decision that many described as an existential threat for the Jewish state.
"Today’s endorsement by President Barack Obama of the creation of a Hamas-led Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 borders, signals the most egregious foreign policy decision his administration has made to date, and could be the beginning of the end as we know it for the Jewish state," said West, R-Fla., one of the leading Tea Party thinkers in the House Republican freshman class," West said in a prepared statement.
"From the moment the modern day state of Israel declared statehood in 1948, to the end of the 1967 Six Day War, Jews were forbidden access to their holiest site, the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City, controlled by Jordan’s Arab army.
"The pre-1967 borders endorsed by President Obama would deny millions of the world’s Jews access to their holiest site and force Israel to return the strategically important Golan Heights to Syria, a known state-sponsor of terrorism," said West, a career military veteran of the war in Iraq.
"Resorting to the pre-1967 borders would mean a full withdrawal by the Israelis from the West Bank and the Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. Make no mistake, there has always been a Nation of Israel and Jerusalem has been and must always be recognized as its rightful capital.
"In short, the Hamas-run Palestinian state envisioned by President Obama would be devastating to Israel and the world’s 13.3 million Jews. It would be a Pavlovian style reward to a declared Islamic terrorist organization, and an unacceptable policy initiative.
"America should never negotiate with the Palestinian Authority- which has aligned itself with Hamas. Palestine is a region, not a people or a modern state. Based upon Roman Emperor Hadrian's declaration in 73 AD, the original Palestinian people are the Jewish people.
Image via WikipediaObama to get tough with Assad. Syrian-Israeli flare-up expected http://www.debka.com/article/20940
sources report exclusively that President Barack Obama has finally resolved to stamp down hard on Syrian President Bashar Assad in person as the man responsible for the inhuman Syrian crackdown on protest against his regime and the massacre of hundreds of dissenters. Before his much-awaited speech on US relations with Middle East Muslim nations Thursday, May 19, Obama is preparing to impose sanctions on the Syrian president. The White House is working on the final text of the announcement but has already decided to recall the newly-appointed US Ambassador to Damascus Robert Ford for consultations.
An American ambassador was last recalled from Damascus in 2005. It took five years for Obama to appoint Robert Ford to the post in late 2010.
The administration has also decided to authorize the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna to report to the UN Security Council that Syria was building a plutonium reactor for military purposes at Deir A-Zour, which it was bombed by Israeli in September 2007. Damascus has refused to cooperate with the nuclear watchdog in making the site available for inspection. The IAEA is therefore urged to seek the same Security Council for Syria as those imposed on Iran for its nuclear activities.
Barack Obama was finally convinced that Assad must be stopped without delay by the horrifying discovery of hastily-dug dug mass graves near the protest center of Daraa in southern Syria. The civilian death toll from Assad's savage three-month crackdown on dissent is now well past 1,000.
It is taken into account, debkafile's military sources report that tough American measures targeting Assad will bring forth heightened Syrian-Israeli border tensions, potentially in the form of a limited Syrian military strike into Israel or Lebanon or both. Indeed his cousin Rami Makhlouf threatened that instability in Syria would cause instability in Israel.
Netanyahu Vows to Defend Israel's Borders After Troops Clash With Protesters
May 15: Israeli soldiers take positions as Palestinian youths, not seen, hurl stones during clashes at the Al-Roub refugee camp near the West Bank city of Hebron. The clashes erupted following a demonstration to mark the 63rd anniversary of "Naqba", Arabic for "Catastrophe", the term used to mark the events leading to Israel's founding in 1948. (AP)
MAJDAL SHAMS, Golan Heights – Mobilized by calls on Facebook, thousands of Arab protesters marched on Israel's borders with Syria, Lebanon and Gaza on Sunday in an unprecedented wave of demonstrations, sparking clashes that left at least 15 people dead in an annual Palestinian mourning ritual marking the anniversary of Israel's birth.
In a surprising turn of events, hundreds of Palestinians and supporters poured across the Syrian frontier and staged riots, drawing Israeli accusations that Damascus, and its ally Iran, orchestrated the unrest to shift attention from an uprising back home. It was a rare incursion from the usually tightly controlled Syrian side and could upset the delicate balance between the two longtime foes.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who heads to Washington at the end of the week, said he ordered the military to act with "maximum restraint" but vowed a tough response to further provocations.
"Nobody should be mistaken. We are determined to defend our borders and sovereignty," he declared in a brief address broadcast live on Israeli TV stations.
The violence showed Israel the extent of Arab anger over the Palestinian issue, beyond the residents of the West Bank and Gaza, and came at a critical time for U.S. Mideast policy.
President Barack Obama's envoy to the region, George Mitchell, resigned Friday after more than two years of fruitless efforts. The U.S. president may now have to retool the administration's approach to peacemaking. Obama is expected to deliver a Mideast policy speech in the coming week.
Deadly clashes also took place along Israel's nearby northern border with Lebanon, as well as in the Gaza Strip on Israel's southern flank. The Israeli military said 13 soldiers were wounded, none seriously.
Sunday's unrest -- which came after activists used Facebook and other websites to mobilize Palestinians and their supporters in neighboring countries to march on the border with Israel -- marked the first time the protests that have swept the Arab world in recent months have been directed at Israel.
The events carried a message for Israel: Even as it wrestles with the Palestinian demand for a state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem -- areas Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war -- there is a related problem of neighboring countries that host millions of Palestinians with aspirations to return.
20 “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near. 21 Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those who are in the midst of her depart, and let not those who are in the country enter her. 22 For these are the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. 23 But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! For there will be great distress in the land and wrath upon this people. 24 And they will fall by the edge of the sword, and be led away captive into all nations. And Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
Image via WikipediaNow this I found interesting. Here is a group trying to find ways to rip off grave and find yet more proof that everything in the Bible is not just true but very real in our History.
So many out there trying to claim its all make believe. One of those are the very people who found this. lol http://www.vancouversun.com
Like many ancient structures, it was built on even older foundations dating back to the Roman Empire and the period of the second Jewish Temple. It includes a subterranean complex of caves and tunnels used by Jewish rebels fighting the Romans in the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132 AD.
A group of grave robbers led to the discovery ofthe burial place of the biblical prophet Zechariah. Israeli Archaeologist with the Israeli Antiquity Authority Amir Ganor, shows a Byzantine period church decorated with an impressive mosaic floor.
Photograph by: Manahem Kahana, Getty Images
JERUSALEM – The pursuit of a gang of grave robbers has led to the discovery of an ancient church outside Jerusalem that may contain the burial place of the biblical prophet Zechariah, Israeli authorities said Wednesday.
The hill-top church was destroyed by an earthquake some 1,300 years ago and lay partly buried until detectives from Israel's Antiquities Authority, pursuing a gang of antiquity thieves, noticed an elaborate doorpost poking through the earth. The robbers got away -- they were caught a few months later at a site nearby -- but after weeks of digging, archaeologists uncovered the remains of the church. It was about the size of a basketball court and contained fallen marble pillars and a nearly pristine 10-metre-long mosaic floor.
Beneath the church's altar is a burial chamber that the Antiquities Authority said may have been the tomb of the prophet Zechariah, known from the eponymous book in the Bible, written around 520 BC.
The claim, which a number of experts have based on Christian sources and an ancient diagram known as the Madaba Map, has not been proved and is still being studied, they said.
"It's been years since we've made a find like this," said Amir Ganor, head of the Antiquities Robbery Prevention unit.
Ganor is an archaeologist who carries a handgun. His team spends much of its time trying to catch thieves, spending nights lying in ambush or setting up stings for crooked antiquities dealers.
The thieves often vandalize or destroy archaeological remains before Ganor's unit can catch them.
But in this case, he said, a group of Palestinians from the West Bank who were plundering ancient coins revealed the location of the lost church, some 40 kilometres south of Jerusalem.
Image via WikipediaThere is more to this story check out the link below. But first. Could it be?
Now I'm not saying this is what Daniel Wrote about this find. But with everything else going on. Is it possible? Just a thought.
Daniel 12 8 Although I heard, I did not understand. Then I said, “My lord, what shall be the end of these things?” 9 And he said, “Go your way, Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. 10 Many shall be purified, made white, and refined, but the wicked shall do wickedly; and none of the wicked shall understand, but the wise shall understand. 11 “And from the time that the daily sacrifice is taken away, and the abomination of desolation is set up, there shall be one thousand two hundred and ninety days. 12 Blessed is he who waits, and comes to the one thousand three hundred and thirty-five days. 13 “But you, go your way till the end; for you shall rest, and will arise to your inheritance at the end of the days.” http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1371290/70-metal-books-Jordan-cave-change-view-Biblical-history.html For scholars of faith and history, it is a treasure trove too precious for price. This ancient collection of 70 tiny books, their lead pages bound with wire, could unlock some of the secrets of the earliest days of Christianity. Academics are divided as to their authenticity but say that if verified, they could prove as pivotal as the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947.
Lines of inquiry: The metal tablets could change our understanding of the Bible
On pages not much bigger than a credit card, are images, symbols and words that appear to refer to the Messiah and, possibly even, to the Crucifixion and Resurrection. Adding to the intrigue, many of the books are sealed, prompting academics to speculate they are actually the lost collection of codices mentioned in the Bible’s Book Of Revelation.
The books were discovered five years ago in a cave in a remote part of Jordan to which Christian refugees are known to have fled after the fall of Jerusalem in 70AD. Important documents from the same period have previously been found there. Initial metallurgical tests indicate that some of the books could date from the first century AD.
Revelation: Experts speculate that the tablets could be the lost collection of codices referred to in the Bible's Book Of Revelation
Hidden meaning: Scrolls, tablets and other artifacts, including an incense bowl, were also found at the same site as the tablets
SHEPHERD'S DISCOVERY THAT UNEARTHED A TREASURE TROVE
The Dead Sea Scrolls, counted among the most important archaeological finds of the modern era, were discovered in a cave (pictured) by a Bedouin shepherd in the West Bank.
The scrolls consist of 30,000 separate fragments making up 900 manuscripts of biblical texts and religious writings from the time of Jesus.
The fragile parchment and papyrus fragments have been the subject of intense study for more than half a century by an international team of scholars who are still trying to understand the significance of some 30 per cent of the texts which are not included in the Bible or any other previously known religious writings.
The scrolls include the earliest known copy of the Ten Commandments, an almost complete Book of Isaiah and many of the Psalms.
Some of the texts were damaged by well-intentioned restoration attempts since the 1950s that included the use of Sellotape, rice paper and perspex glue.
This estimate is based on the form of corrosion which has taken place, which experts believe would be impossible to achieve artificially. If the dating is verified, the books would be among the earliest Christian documents, predating the writings of St Paul. The prospect that they could contain contemporary accounts of the final years of Jesus’s life has excited scholars – although their enthusiasm is tempered by the fact that experts have previously been fooled by sophisticated fakes. David Elkington, a British scholar of ancient religious history and archeology, and one of the few to have examined the books, says they could be ‘the major discovery of Christian history’. ‘It is a breathtaking thought that we have held these objects that might have been held by the early saints of the Church,’ he said.
Image via WikipediaBe sure to check out the entire article at the link below. http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=281293
Social-networking sites, specifically Facebook, are being used to promote a campaign that appears to target the very existence of Israel, with hundreds of thousands worldwide seeking to join in a plan to "return" to and take over the original homes of their families in "Palestine" on May 15.
According to an in-depth report by L. Barkan, a research fellow at the Middle East Media Research Institute, which monitors and analyzes media reports throughout the Middle East, the idea being circulated is "for millions of Palestinian refugees to march en masse in return to the original homes of their families in Israel."
The movement's plans call for this to be much more than just a visit, however. See how radical Islam is threatening "The Third Jihad!"
"All the families of Jewish settlers in the Galilee area, including in the areas of Safed, Tiberias, and all the way down to Acre, must proceed to the port of Haifa and board ships back to their countries of origin in Europe," explained one posting that is part of the campaign.
It provided instructions for others to report to other ports – all by the middle of March, a deadline long past.
"The message also warned that anyone trying to take 'archeological artifacts [or anything belonging] to the Palestinian heritage, even a single ball of falafel, will be pursued and arrested by Interpol in his new place of residence,'" the report said.
One of the Facebook pages soliciting participants in what apparently would be an invasion and attempted overthrow of the region's existing government has been removed by the Facebook administration, but not before collecting some 350,000 endorsements from readers. Other pages remain. (Story continues below)
Since the end of the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006, the terrorist group has entrenched itself deeply in 270 villages throughout southern Lebanon.
Uzi Rubin, Israel's foremost missile expert, told CBN News the threat to the Jewish state was "severe."
"Those bunkers are not in population centers just by mistake," Rubin said. "The idea here is to attack Israeli population centers from Hezbollah population centers, to attack our population centers in order to terrorize and discourage us and to fire from their population centers in order to use them as a human shield."
1 Now the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 2 “Son of man, set your face against Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh,[a] Meshech, and Tubal, and prophesy against him, 3 and say, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “Behold, I am against you, O Gog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal. 4 I will turn you around, put hooks into your jaws, and lead you out, with all your army, horses, and horsemen, all splendidly clothed, a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords. 5 Persia, Ethiopia,[b] and Libya[c] are with them, all of them with shield and helmet; 6 Gomer and all its troops; the house of Togarmah from the far north and all its troops—many people are with you. 7 “Prepare yourself and be ready, you and all your companies that are gathered about you; and be a guard for them. 8 After many days you will be visited. In the latter years you will come into the land of those brought back from the sword and gathered from many people on the mountains of Israel, which had long been desolate; they were brought out of the nations, and now all of them dwell safely. 9 You will ascend, coming like a storm, covering the land like a cloud, you and all your troops and many peoples with you.” 10 ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “On that day it shall come to pass that thoughts will arise in your mind, and you will make an evil plan: 11 You will say, ‘I will go up against a land of unwalled villages; I will go to a peaceful people, who dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates’— 12 to take plunder and to take booty, to stretch out your hand against the waste places that are again inhabited, and against a people gathered from the nations, who have acquired livestock and goods, who dwell in the midst of the land. 13 Sheba, Dedan, the merchants of Tarshish, and all their young lions will say to you, ‘Have you come to take plunder? Have you gathered your army to take booty, to carry away silver and gold, to take away livestock and goods, to take great plunder?’”’ 14 “Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say to Gog, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “On that day when My people Israel dwell safely, will you not know it?15 Then you will come from your place out of the far north, you and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great company and a mighty army. 16 You will come up against My people Israel like a cloud, to cover the land. It will be in the latter days that I will bring you against My land, so that the nations may know Me, when I am hallowed in you, O Gog, before their eyes.” 17 Thus says the Lord GOD: “Are you he of whom I have spoken in former days by My servants the prophets of Israel, who prophesied for years in those days that I would bring you against them?
Israel holds secret talks with Russia in bid to thwart recognition of Palestinian state
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israel-holds-secret-talks-with-russia-in-bid-to-thwart-recognition-of-palestinian-state-1.353404
Isaac Molho, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s senior adviser and top negotiator on the Palestinian channel, made a secret trip to Moscow on Wednesday and met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The purpose of the visit was to dissuade Russia from supporting the European Union’s intention to present in two weeks’ time a plan for the establishment of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.
Molho was accompanied on the trip by the Foreign Ministry’s legal advisor, Daniel Taub, and spent over an hour with Lavrov. Taub and Molho also met with the Russian envoy to the Middle East, Sergei Yakovlev, and other senior Russian officials. A senior Israeli official told Haaretz that Taub and Molho used the visit “to present new Israeli ideas for re-launching the peace process with the Palestinians.”
Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev (R) and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu walk during their meeting at the Gorki presidential residence outside Moscow March 24, 2011.
Photo by: Reuters
The visit comes just two weeks before the foreign ministers of the Quartet − the United States, Russia, the European Union and the UN − are to meet. France, Germany and the United Kingdom are pushing for announcing a new international peace initiative. The principles of the initiative known so far include setting up two states on the basis of the 1967 borders with territorial swaps; a fair, realistic and agreed-upon solution to the predicament of the Palestinian refugees; Jerusalem as a capital for both states and security arrangements that would protect Israel but not infringe on Palestinian sovereignty.
Image via Wikipedia
