United Nation Recognized Palestine as a State

Source ynetnews.com


The Palestinian leadership is in a state of euphoria following its success in Thursday's United Nations General Assembly vote. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas congratulated the Palestinian people on Friday for their "victory in the UN."

Abbas thanked the Arab and Islamist states, which he said had always stood by the Palestinians and the Palestinian issue.

The Palestinian president promised to continue the national struggle, "until we wave the Palestinian flag over east Jerusalem."

According to Abbas, the UN resolution was a victory for peace, freedom and international law.

Shortly after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the eight countries which voted with Israel against the Palestinian bid, Abbas thanked the 138 countries that voted in favor of upgrading the status of Palestine. Forty-one countries abstained in the General Assembly vote.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad expressed his satisfaction with the diplomatic move as well, saying that "this achievement has greatly benefitted the efforts invested by the PA on all levels in order to prepare for the establishment of a state."

He noted that the international community must implement what the international law requires in order for the Palestinian people to obtain their rights, freedom and independence.

"The PA is in the final stage before becoming an independent state capable of providing services to its people."

Hamas counting on 'heroic resistance'

Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal told Reuters that the de facto recognition of a sovereign Palestinian state should be seen alongside Gaza's latest conflict with Israel as a single, bold strategy that could empower all Palestinians.

"I told Abu Mazen (Abbas) we want this move to be part of a national Palestinian strategy" that includes "the (armed) resistance which excelled in Gaza and gave an example of the ability of the Palestinian people to resist and steadfastly confront the occupier," a confident Mashaal said.


Mashaal, who will visit the Gaza Strip next week, said the short war which claimed 162 Palestinian lives and five Israelis was concluded on terms set by the Palestinian Islamist movement and ended its isolation, creating a new mood that could lead to reconciliation with Abbas' Fatah.

He compared Israel's mood of dejection with the jubilation of Palestinians in Gaza and across the West Bank led by Abbas, insisting that "for the first time a ceasefire was achieved on conditions set by Hamas, and in the presence of the Americans."

The Hamas prime minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, praised the "diplomatic victory," linking the Israeli operation in Gaza to Thursday's vote.

"What happened at the General Assembly is the height of the resistance and sacrifice of the Palestinians, and confirms the victory in Gaza. We must persist with the resistance and jihad."

Izzat Rishaq, a senior Hamas figure in exile, said he welcomed the UN vote as an achievement, but that Hamas counted on "heroic resistance" to create a Palestinian state – underlining the group's deep ideological rift with Abbas who opposes violence.

The Islamic Jihad chose to downplay the resolution. Several hours before the vote, when the results were already known, the organization's Secretary-General Ramadan Salah said his movement did not welcome the Abbas plan but would not lash out at it.

"What Palestine are we talking about? If we were talking about the whole Palestinian homeland from the river to the sea, we would naturally welcome it, but if we are talking about setting a ceiling for the Palestinian rights (the 1967 borders), then as we said sincerely to the PA and our bothers in Egypt – we don't welcome this plan but won't act against it."


Joel 3:2 says,"I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land."

President Obama Snubs Israeli PM: Bless Those Who Bless Thee and Curse Those Who Curse Thee

Source Reuters

In a highly unusual rebuff to a close ally, the White House said on Tuesday that President Barack Obama would not meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a U.S. visit later this month, as tensions escalated over how to deal with Iran's nuclear program.

The apparent snub, coupled with Netanyahu's sharpened demands for a tougher U.S. line against Iran, threatened to plunge U.S.-Israeli relations into crisis and add pressure on Obama in the final stretch of a tight presidential election campaign.

An Israeli official, who declined to be identified, said the White House had refused Netanyahu's request to meet Obama when the Israeli leader visits the United States to attend the U.N. General Assembly, telling the Israelis, "The president's schedule will not permit that."

White House spokesman Tommy Vietor denied that Netanyahu's request had been spurned, insisting instead that the two leaders were attending the General Assembly on different days and would not be in New York at the same time.

Netanyahu has had a strained relationship with Obama, but they have met on all but one of his U.S. trips since 2009. The president was on a foreign visit when the prime minister came to the United States in November 2010.

Genesis 12:3

King James Version (KJV)

³ And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

Disasters have hit America, when an American President has ruled against Israel. 

Urgent Prayer Alert: Washington and Jerusalem at Odd over Iran Nuke Program

Source: Jewish Voices Ministries International

Just got this e-mail this morning from Jewish Voices Ministries International, making an appeal for urgent prayer in regards to USA President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

   

Tensions Between Washington and Jerusalem Break Into Open View

  

It is no secret that the relationship between U.S. President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has been strained. The two men reportedly do not trust each other, and the tension between their differing objectives has only increased the divide. The most central issue is the one posed by Iran’s nuclear program. The recent NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) report from Washington revealed that Iran is making much more rapid progress in their nuclear work than had previously been thought.

Each side faces a critical upcoming event. For Washington, that event is the November election. An outbreak of war in the Middle East would have serious economic impact on the entire world, and that in turn could greatly influence the outcome of the vote, and they are striving to prevent war prior to the election. For Jerusalem, that event is when Iran reaches the “zone of immunity”—the point at which conventional military action will not be able to prevent them from completing their nuclear work.

The latest reports are that Iran has now placed at least 5,000 centrifuges in the underground nuclear facility at Fordow. This site, constructed deep inside a mountain near the Iranian holy city of Qom, would be difficult if not impossible to destroy with anything short of a tactical nuclear attack or a ground invasion.

While both sides agree that a nuclear Iran is not acceptable, their assessment of the time remaining to solve the problem is very different. Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, said Israel’s clock is “ticking faster” than the one in America. It remains unclear whether Israel will take action before November, and if so, to what extent America will support them.

It is crucial that we continue to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and I encourage you today to do so from a position of faith. We do not know the future, but God does, and He is in control of everything that happens on the world stage.

Israel ex-spy warns against "messianic" war on Iran

Story Source Reuters







Former Israeli Spymaster Yuval Diskin Warns Against Attacking Iran

A former Israeli spymaster has branded the country's leaders unfit to tackle the Iranian nuclear program and "messianic" in the strongest criticism from a security veteran of threats to launch a pre-emptive war.

Other veterans have come out against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak.

But the censure from Yuval Diskin, who retired as head of the Shin Bet domestic intelligence service last year, was especially strong and unusual in using the language of religious fervor that Israelis associate with Islamist foes.

"I have no faith in the prime minister, nor in the defence minister," Diskin said in remarks broadcast by Israeli media on Saturday. "I really don't have faith in a leadership that makes decisions out of messianic feelings."

The Prime Minister's Office and Defence Ministry had no immediate response to Diskin's remarks. But Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman rebuked Diskin and questioned his motives.

The catastrophic terms with which Netanyahu and Barak describe the prospect of a nuclear-armedIran have stirred concern in Israel and abroad of a possible strike against its uranium enrichment program. Iran says the project is entirely peaceful and has promised wide-ranging reprisals for any attack.

World powers, sharing Israeli suspicions Iran has a covert bomb-making plan, are trying to curb it through sanctions and negotiations. Those talks resume in Baghdad next month, but Barak on Thursday rated their chance of succeeding as low.

Although Israel has long threatened a pre-emptive strike if diplomacy fails, some experts believe that could be a bluff to keep up pressure on the Iranians, making it harder to interpret the swirl of comments from the security establishment.

In a commentary on Diskin's remarks, Amos Harel of the liberal newspaper Haaretz wrote that the temperature was rising ahead of the nuclear talks.

"Nothing has been determined in the Iranian story, and the spring is about to boil over into another summer of tension," he wrote.

FALSE IMPRESSION

Diskin spoke days after Israel's top military commander, Lieutenant-General Benny Gantz, told Haaretz he viewed Iran as "very rational" and unlikely to build a bomb, comments that apparently undermined the case for a strike.

The former Shin Bet chief was specifically damning of Netanyahu and Barak, who have often crafted strategy alone and whose rapport dates back four decades to when they served together in a top-secret commando unit.

"They're creating a false impression about the Iranian issue," Diskin told a private gathering on Friday, where the comments were recorded. "They're appealing to the stupid public, if you'll pardon me for the phrasing, and telling them that if Israel acts, there won't be an (Iranian) nuclear bomb."

Diskin said he was not necessarily opposed to an attack on Iran, though he cited experts who argue this risked backfiring by accelerating its nuclear program.

Netanyahu's former Mossad foreign intelligence director, Meir Dagan, last year also ridiculed the Israeli war option.

Diskin went a step further by saying that Netanyahu and Barak were not up to the job of opening an unprecedented front with Iran and, potentially, with its allies on Israel's borders.

Netanyahu is a second-term premier with solid public approval ratings and a broad conservative coalition. Barak, a former prime minister, is Israel's most decorated soldier.

"I have seen them up close," Diskin said. "They are not messiahs, the two of them, and they are not people who I personally, at least, trust to be able to lead Israel into an event on such a scale, and to extricate it."

Foreign Minister Lieberman said questions such as how and if to tackle Iran "are not made by the prime minister and defence minister. They are usually made in the security cabinet or cabinet."

Lieberman suggested to Israel's Channel Two television that Diskin might be angry at being passed over for the job as head of the Mossad.