" Absolutely Uncertain": Obama, Israel And The Nuclear Threat

A roughly 20-minute YouTube video analyzing President Obama’s relationship with Israel, narrated by a 23-year-old former Obama supporter, has gone viral.  In just three days, the little-reported on video “Absolutely Uncertain” has logged roughly 650,000 hits.

Irina, the 23-year-old “Jewish New Yorker” who narrates much of the documentary, explains that she has always seen American-Israeli relations as a cornerstone of American politics, reaching into both parties.

“So when it was time for me to vote for the first time in 2008, I didn’t doubt for a moment that the strong relationship would continue, no matter who won,” she states.

Adding that many of her fellow students also had “confidence” in President Obama, Irina explains that the more she learns about politics and the Middle East, the more she doubts President Obama‘s ready commitments to Israel’s security.

“I don’t know how many people realize this, but today, Israelis are lining up for gas masks and cleaning out their bomb shelters,” Irina begins.

On Obama’s promises that Iran will be stopped and the Middle East is becoming more “democratic,” the young woman simply says: “I’m not sure I believe it anymore.”

Watch the entire video, below:



Source.

Egypt's Brotherhood Heads Urged Jihad For Jerusalem

Members of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood including now-President Mohamed Morsi (3rdL) take part in a press conference in 2011. The supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, from which Morsi emanated, called on Thursday for a jihad (holy war) to liberate Jerusalem from Israeli rule.

     

AFP - The supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, from which Egypt's President Mohamed Morsi emanated, called on Thursday for a jihad (holy war) to liberate Jerusalem from Israeli rule.
"Jerusalem is Islamic ... and nobody is entitled to make concessions" on the Holy City, said Sheikh Mohammed Badie in his weekly message to supporters.

"The jihad for the recovery of Jerusalem is a duty for all Muslims," he said, stressing that the liberation of the Holy City "will not be done through negotiations or at the United Nations."
Israel, which signed a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979, has watched with concern as Islamists were catapulted to the forefront of politics following a popular uprising that toppled president Hosni Mubarak last year.

Morsi has repeatedly said he would respect international treaties signed by Cairo. But his former movement has also said there is room to revise the accords, without objecting to them in principle.

 Source

Mockery And Honor: Muhammad And Jesus

By John Piper

What we saw this past week in the Islamic demonstrations over the Danish cartoons of Muhammad was another vivid depiction of the difference between Muhammad and Christ, and what it means to follow each. Not all Muslims approve the violence. But a deep lesson remains: The work of Muhammad is based on being honored and the work of Christ is based on being insulted. This produces two very different reactions to mockery.

If Christ had not been insulted, there would be no salvation. This was his saving work: to be insulted and die to rescue sinners from the wrath of God. Already in the Psalms the path of mockery was promised: “All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads” (Psalm 22:7). “He was despised and rejected by men . . . as one from whom men hide their faces . . . and we esteemed him not” (Isaiah 53:3).

When it actually happened it was worse than expected. “They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head. . . . And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ And they spit on him” (Matthew 27:28-30). His response to all this was patient endurance. This was the work he came to do. “Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7).

This was not true of Muhammad. And Muslims do not believe it is true of Jesus. Most Muslims have been taught that Jesus was not crucified. One Sunni Muslim writes, “Muslims believe that Allah saved the Messiah from the ignominy of crucifixion.”1 Another adds, “We honor [Jesus] more than you [Christians] do. . . . We refuse to believe that God would permit him to suffer death on the cross.”2 An essential Muslim impulse is to avoid the “ignominy” of the cross.

That’s the most basic difference between Christ and Muhammad and between a Muslim and a follower of Christ. For Christ, enduring the mockery of the cross was the essence of his mission. And for a true follower of Christ enduring suffering patiently for the glory of Christ is the essence of obedience.

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account” (Matthew 5:11). During his life on earth Jesus was called a bastard (John 8:41), a drunkard (Matthew 11:19), a blasphemer (Matthew 26:65), a devil (Matthew 10:25); and he promised his followers the same: “If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household” (Matthew 10:25).

The caricature and mockery of Christ has continued to this day. Martin Scorsese portrayed Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ as wracked with doubt and beset with sexual lust. Andres Serrano was funded by the National Endowment for the Arts to portray Jesus on a cross sunk in a bottle of urine. The Da Vinci Code portrays Jesus as a mere mortal who married and fathered children.

How should his followers respond? On the one hand, we are grieved and angered. On the other hand, we identify with Christ, and embrace his suffering, and rejoice in our afflictions, and say with the apostle Paul that vengeance belongs to the Lord, let us love our enemies and win them with the gospel. If Christ did his work by being insulted, we must do ours likewise.

When Muhammad was portrayed in twelve cartoons in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, the uproar across the Muslim world was intense and sometimes violent. Flags were burned, embassies were torched, and at least one Christian church was stoned. The cartoonists went into hiding in fear for their lives, like Salman Rushdie before them. What does this mean?

It means that a religion with no insulted Savior will not endure insults to win the scoffers. It means that this religion is destined to bear the impossible load of upholding the honor of one who did not die and rise again to make that possible. It means that Jesus Christ is still the only hope of peace with God and peace with man. And it means that his followers must be willing to “share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (Philippians 3:10).

Footnotes

1 Badru D. Kateregga and David W. Shenk, Islam and Christianity: A Muslim and a Christian in Dialogue (Nairobi: Usima Press, 1980), p. 141.

2 Quoted from The Muslim World in J. Dudley Woodberry, editor, Muslims and Christians on the Emmaus Road (Monrovia, CA: MARC, 1989), p. 164.

©2012 Desiring God Foundation. Used by Permission.

{ Views expressed in this article are those of the author and they are presented here in an effort to encourage a healthy debate between Muslims and Christians.] Source.

Wake Up, Christians!

We are living in the final days.

We have been sleeping for too long..
It is time to wake up.

There are many spiritual battles going on around us. We cannot afford to stay idle and passive any longer.

We need to put on the full armor of God and get hold of the sword of the Spirit.

The Kingdom of God is under attack everywhere and we need to join the war and fight the good battle.

This is not the time for fairy tales and passive demeanor. Our world is hell-bound and it's imperative that we stand up and are counted.

We need to bring the message of salvation to every corner of the Globe..

It is time to wake up , all of you who claim to be His disciples.
The Enemy is working hard to destroy us through false religion and  doctrines of demons and lying spirits.

Wake up and fight before it's too late. God's Messengers [His Holy Angels] are eagerly waiting for reinforcements. Will you join them?

Turkey's European Course Delayed

BRUSSELS - Turkey's longtime goal of joining the European Union, like a mirage in the desert, seems to fade further into the distance as time goes by. On Wednesday, the goal receded a little further as the EU issued a report that was scathing toward Turkey's regard for fundamental rights and freedom of expression — bedrock values for any country wishing to join the European club.
Turkey slammed the report, calling it a biased attempt by the crisis-burdened EU to delay Turkish membership.

The EU's criticism came in a document produced by its executive branch, the European Commission, that assessed the progress and challenges facing would-be EU members. In customary EU fashion, the report said that each country had made significant accomplishments but had more work to do. The EU has long held out the lure of membership as a way of exporting its democratic values to countries that wish to benefit from its common market.

Croatia, for example, is scheduled to become the next EU member — the 28th — on July 1, 2013. The report said Croatia had made good progress overall, but needed to follow through on increasing transparency in public procurement and party financing. Story continued.

Russian FM: Iran Will Not Use Nuclear Strike Against Israel

Russia does not believe that Iran intends to attack Israel with nuclear weapons, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a top Israeli official on Thursday, adding that there wasn't any proof that the Islamic Republic was developing nuclear arms.

Lavrov's comments came after, on Monday, Foreign Policy reported David Rothkopf claimed that the United States and Israel are considering the possibility of a joint "surgical strike" against Iran's nuclear facilities.

While Israel and the U.S. still don’t entirely agree on the "red line" which would trigger a military response, the report said that the Israelis are now suggesting a more limited attack than was previously debated.

Rothkopf, a former Clinton administration official and international relations expert, quoted a source said to be close to the discussions, which claimed that a small-scale attack is currently viewed as the most likely military option. Such strike, the source said, is likely to only take a few hours and would be conducted by air, using bombers and supported by drones. Continued, here.

Obama's Ring: "There Is No Other God But Allah"

NEW YORK – As a student at Harvard Law School, then-bachelor Barack Obama’s practice of wearing a gold band on his wedding-ring finger puzzled his colleagues.

Now, newly published photographs of Obama from the 1980s show that the ring Obama wore on his wedding-ring finger as an unmarried student is the same ring Michelle Robinson put on his finger at the couple’s wedding ceremony in 1992.

Moreover, according to Arabic-language and Islamic experts, the ring Obama has been wearing for more than 30 years is adorned with the first part of the Islamic declaration of faith, the Shahada: “There is no god except Allah.”

The Shahada is the first of the Five Pillars of Islam, expressing the two fundamental beliefs that make a person a Muslim: There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is Allah’s prophet.

Sincere recitation of the Shahada is the sole requirement for becoming a Muslim, expresses a person’s rejection of all other gods.

Egyptian-born Islamic scholar Mark A. Gabriel, Ph.D., examined photographs of Obama’s ring at WND’s request and concluded that the first half of the Shahada is inscribed on it.

“There can be no doubt that someone wearing the inscription ‘There is no god except Allah’ has a very close connection to Islamic beliefs, the Islamic religion and Islamic society to which this statement is so strongly attached,” Gabriel told WND. Source.

Turkish FM An "Idiot"?

Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu slammed Turkey's foreign policy decisions today, calling Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu "an idiot," daily Hürriyet reported.

"Who is on Turkey's side? Hamas, Barzani, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Syria has Brazil, Iran, Russia and China on its side," Kılıçdaroğlu said. "Is this 'strategic depth,' or strategic blindness?

The process that resulted in Turkey's becoming part of such a meaningless balance comes from a foreign minister whose incompotence is known by the entire world. You don't need deep knowledge to know that. You have to be a real idiot to do that."
Source

Heaven Is Real, Says Neurosurgeon Who Claims To Have Visited The Afterlife

Dr. Eben Alexander claims to have visited the afterlife (Twitter)

Dr. Eben Alexander has taught at Harvard Medical School and has earned a strong reputation as a neurosurgeon. And while Alexander says he's long called himself a Christian, he never held deeply religious beliefs or a pronounced faith in the afterlife.

But after a week in a coma during the fall of 2008, during which his neocortex ceased to function, Alexander claims he experienced a life-changing visit to the afterlife, specifically heaven.

"According to current medical understanding of the brain and mind, there is absolutely no way that I could have experienced even a dim and limited consciousness during my time in the coma, much less the hyper-vivid and completely coherent odyssey I underwent," Alexander writes in the cover story of this week's edition of Newsweek.

So what exactly does heaven look like?

Alexander says he first found himself floating above clouds before witnessing, "transparent, shimmering beings arced across the sky, leaving long, streamer like lines behind them." Continued.

For more details, see Newsweek.

Syrian Passenger Plane Forced To Land In Turkey

Turkish fighter jets have forced a Syrian passenger plane suspected of carrying weapons to land in Ankara.

Military communications devices were reportedly confiscated before the plane was allowed to leave hours later.

The Airbus A320 airliner was travelling from Moscow to Damascus with 35 passengers - far fewer than its 180 passenger capacity - and two crew.

Turkey's foreign minister said Ankara was determined to stop any transfer of weapons to Syria through its airspace.
Tensions have been high since five Turkish civilians were killed by Syrian mortar fire last week, prompting Turkey to fire into Syria for the first time since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began 19 months ago.

Earlier on Wednesday, Turkey's top military commander warned Syria that Ankara would respond with greater force if Syria continued its cross-border shelling.

Continued