JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.GET SAVED NOW- CALL ON JESUS TODAY.THE ONLY SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE EARTH - NO OTHER. 1 COR 15:23-JESUS THE FIRST FRUITS-CHRISTIANS RAPTURED TO JESUS-FIRST FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT-23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.ROMANS 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.(THE PRE-TRIB RAPTURE)
Iran, Iraq Selling Oil at Lowest Prices in a Decade-As oil prices in Israel begin to creep up again, Iran and Iraq are outdoing each other in offering low prices to Asia.By Hillel Fendel-First Publish: 2/19/2015, 1:43 AM-ISRAELNATIONALNEWS
Both Iran and Iraq, seeking to increase their share of the Asian oil market, are offering unprecedented discounts in that region. Both nations have cut their crude oil prices to Asia for next month to lower than they have been in 12-15 years.Iraq’s Basrah Light crude will sell at the lowest price since at least August 2003, the Washington Post reported. Iran has responded by offering a discount of $2.10 per barrel, bringing its price to lower than it's been in 15 years.Saudi Arabia, the world's largest exporter of crude oil, reduced its own pricing to Asia last week to the lowest in at least 14 years.U.S. oil production, both crude and shale, has eaten into OPEC profits in recent years. Shale oil is an unconventional, synthetic oil produced from oil shale rock fragments. Oil production in the U.S. has jumped from 5 million barrels per day in 2008 to about 8.5 million last year, and is expected to top out at 9.3 million this year, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.The official OPEC price per barrel stood at $56.69 on Tuesday. This compares with the all-time high of $107.89 this past June, and a long-time low of $41.50 two years ago.Prices in Israel have accordingly dropped to their lowest in five years, with one liter of 95 octane gas selling for 6.08 NIS. As prices inch back up, gas is expected to increase by about 20 agorot per liter this coming month.Iran’s Minister of Petroleum Bijan Namdar Zangeneh describes the current status of his country's oil industry as “catastrophic." In his estimation, there will not even be funds to pay salaries of Petroleum Ministry staff.
UN ‘alarmed’ by Hamas rearming-Official says situation in Gaza ‘increasingly worrisome,’ warns financial crisis could reignite hostilities By Tamar Pileggi February 19, 2015, 1:15 am 2-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
A senior UN official warned Wednesday that the lack of available funds for the reconstruction of Gaza and the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas militants could lead to a renewal of hostilities in the coastal enclave.During a Security Council briefing on the Middle East, Jeffery Feltman, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, also expressed “alarm” at reports of Hamas efforts to re-arm. He called the terror group’s test-firing of rockets, and its attempts to smuggle in materials for potential weapons use, “dangerous developments.”Feltman said that the failure of world donors to deliver the billions of dollars in aid pledged to Gaza’s reconstruction, together with Israel’s withholding of PA tax revenues, was creating a dire humanitarian situation that threatened to reignite the conflict.The under-secretary-general told the council that the countries who pledged some $5.4 billion to rebuild Gaza four months ago in Cairo had “yet to fulfill the vast majority of their pledges.”“This is frankly unacceptable, and cannot continue if we hope to avoid another escalation in Gaza,” he told the 15-member council. Feltman warned that the fiscal challenge was putting “an almost unbearable strain on an already highly fractious environment.”Feltman also condemned Israel’s withholding of $200 million of PA tax revenues in retaliation for the Palestinian Authority’s move to join the International Criminal Court. As a result, he said, the PA had been forced to borrow money to pay salaries, an approach he called “neither sufficient nor sustainable.” He called for Israel to reverse its decision immediately.During the briefing, Feltman described the situation in Gaza as “increasingly worrisome,” and pointed to an International Monetary Fund study that found that, in 2014, the Palestinian economy contracted for the first time since 2006.Almost six months after the war that devastated the Strip and left 100,000 Gazans homeless, Feltman said that only 75,000 residents had been cleared to receive construction materials, of whom 47,000 had been able to obtain the materials.Israel and Egypt controls the border crossings into Gaza — including the delivery of construction materials — and seek to prevent the influx of materials that can be used to manufacture rockets or to build tunnels into Israel.Gazan terrorists used the tunnels for several attacks during the summer war, sometimes penetrating deep into Israeli territory. Five soldiers were killed in one attack on an IDF post near Kibbutz Nahal Oz, and 11 soldiers died in all in the tunnel attacks.Hamas, which seized control of Gaza in 2007 and is avowedly committed to destroying Israel, fired over 4,500 rockets at Israel during the 50-day conflict.Unnamed security sources have said recently that Hamas is working to rebuild its tunnel infrastructure as well as rearm its depleted rocket arsenal.In October, a Vanity Fair report confirmed rumors that before the summer’s war, Hamas was planning to insert hundreds of terrorists into Israel via underground tunnels, to kidnap and kill a large number of Israelis.In a sign of growing impatience with the pace of reconstruction efforts, dozens of protesters forced their way into a UN office in Gaza on January 28, after the world body announced it was suspending an aid program to support home repairs and refugee shelter assistance.Justin Jalil and AFP contributed to this report.
UN Pushes Donors to Make Good on Gaza Pledges-UN official warns the Security Council that pledges must be donated to 'avoid another escalation in Gaza.'By Arutz Sheva Staff-First Publish: 2/19/2015, 12:15 AM-ISRAELNATIONALNEWS
The failure by world donors to deliver billions of dollars of aid to rebuild Gaza is jeopardizing efforts to avoid a new flareup in the Palestinian territory, a senior United Nations official warned Wednesday.UN political affairs chief Jeffrey Feltman told the Security Council that donors who had promised $5.4 billion to the Palestinians at the Cairo conference four months ago "have yet to fulfill the vast majority of their pledges," according to AFP."This is, quite frankly, unacceptable, and cannot continue if we hope to avoid another escalation in Gaza," Feltman told the 15-member council during a meeting on the Middle East."Failure to deliver the necessary support is putting an almost unbearable strain on an already highly fractious environment," he said.Much of Gaza's infrastructure was destroyed in Operation Protective Edge, which was spurred by a barrage of Hamas rockets into Israel. Over 100,000 Gazans allegedly lost their homes.Feltman said more than 75,000 people have been cleared to receive construction material to rebuild, and over 47,000 had been able to purchase building supplies.The delivery of construction material is heavily controlled by the United Nations and Israel to prevent supplies from falling into the hands of Hamas terrorists.In a sign of growing impatience with pace of reconstruction efforts, dozens of protesters forced their way into a UN office in Gaza on January 28, after the world body announced it was suspending an aid program to support home repairs and refugee shelter assistance.Feltman described the situation in Gaza as "increasingly worrisome" and cited the slow pace of reconstruction along with security and governance problems as creating "an increasingly toxic environment."The donors' failure to release promised funds comes as Israel withheld for a second month the transfer of tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority in response to the PA joining the International Criminal Court.Over $200 million is owed to the Palestinians, forcing them to turn to private banks for loans to pay salaries of civil servants, Feltman told the council."This approach is neither sufficient nor sustainable," he warned.The United Nations is pushing for Israeli-Palestinian peace talks to resume, but that track appears to have gone into a deep freeze.
Obama: US not at war with Islam, but with those who have perverted it-Amid criticism over reluctance to blame Muslim extremists for attacks in Europe, president says moderates must clarify terrorists don’t speak for them By AP and Times of Israel staff February 19, 2015, 1:28 am
WASHINGTON — Muslims in the U.S. and around the world have a responsibility to fight a misconception that terrorist groups like the Islamic State speak for them, President Barack Obama said Wednesday in his most direct remarks yet about any link between Islam and terrorism.For weeks, the White House has sidestepped the question of whether deadly terror attacks in Paris and other Western cities amount to “Islamic extremism,” wary of offending a major world religion or lending credibility to the “war on terror” that Obama’s predecessor waged. But as he hosted a White House summit on countering violent extremism, the president said some in Muslim communities have bought into the notion that Islam is incompatible with tolerance and modern life.“Leading up to this summit, there has been a fair amount of debate in the press and among pundits about the words we use to describe and frame this challenge. So I want to be very clear,” he said. “Al Qaeda and ISIL and groups like it are desperate for legitimacy. They try to portray themselves as religious leaders, holy warriors in defense of Islam. That’s why ISIL presumes to declare itself the Islamic state. And they propagate the notion that America and the west generally is at war with Islam. That’s how they recruit. That’s how they try to radicalize young people.“We must never accept the premise that they put forward because it is a lie. Nor should we grant these terrorists the religious legitimacy that they seek. They are not religious leaders. They are terrorists,” Obama said. “And we are not at war with Islam. We are at war with people who have perverted Islam.”Added the president: “The terrorists do not speak for a billion Muslims who reject their hateful ideology. They no more represent Muslim than those who would represent Christianity or Hinduism. People are responsible for violence and terrorism,” Obama told the Washington conference on countering radicalism that drew delegates from 60 countries in the wake of a string of brutal attacks in Europe and the Middle East.While putting the blame on IS and similar groups, the president also appealed directly to prominent Muslims to do more to distance themselves from brutal ideologies. He said all have a duty to “speak up very clearly” in opposition to violence against innocent people.“Just as leaders like myself reject the notion that terrorists like ISIL genuinely represent Islam, Muslim leaders need to do more to discredit the notion that our nations are determined to suppress Islam,” Obama said.Issuing such a direct challenge to Muslims marked a clear departure from the restrained, cautious language Obama and his aides have used to describe the situation in the past.In the days after last month’s shootings at a satirical French newspaper that had caricatured the Prophet Muhammad, Obama avoided calling the attack an example of “Islamic extremism,” and instead opted for the more generic “violent extremism.” Recently, the White House also struggled to explain whether the U.S. believes the Afghan Taliban to be a terrorist organization.
The refusal to directly assess any Islamic role in the terrifying scenes playing out in Europe, the Mideast and Africa has drawn criticism from those who say Obama has prioritized political correctness over a frank acknowledgement of reality. National security hawks, in particular, argued that Obama’s counterterrorism strategy couldn’t possibly be successful if the president was unable or unwilling to confront the true nature of the threat.White House aides said they were avoiding associating the attacks with Islam for the sake of “accuracy” and to avoid lending credence to the terrorists’ own justification for violence — a strict interpretation of Islam. Frustrated by what they deemed a manufactured controversy, Obama aides have argued that a focus on terminology has distracted from more fruitful conversations about what can actually be done to stop extremist ideologies from spreading.“These are individuals who carried out an act of terrorism, and they later tried to justify that act of terrorism by invoking the religion of Islam and their own deviant view of it,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said at the time.Yet the argument over terminology has increasingly become a distraction, including this week as Obama gathered law enforcement officials, Muslim leaders and lawmakers for a three-day summit on violent extremism. In his remarks Wednesday, Obama acknowledged it was a touchy subject but insisted it was critical to tackle the issue “head-on.”“We can’t shy away from these discussions,” he said. “And too often, folks are understandably sensitive about addressing some of these root issues, but we have to talk about them honestly and clearly.”Still, the president took care to differentiate militant groups from the “billion Muslims who reject their ideology.” He noted that IS is killing far more Muslims than non-Muslims, and he called for the world community to elevate the voices of those who “saw the truth” after being radicalized temporarily.Obama acknowledged that many Muslims in the U.S. have a suspicion of government and police, feeling they have been unfairly targeted, that has confounded efforts to strengthen cooperation between law enforcement and Muslim communities. He effusively praised Muslims who have served the U.S. in the military or in other capacities for generations.“Of course, that’s the story extremists and terrorists don’t want the world to know: Muslims succeeding and thriving in America,” Obama said. “Because when that truth is known, it exposes their propaganda as the lie that it is.”Obama has long tried to shift his administration’s terror rhetoric away from what he saw as the hyperbolic terminology used by his predecessor, George W. Bush, particularly Bush’s declaration in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that the U.S. was engaged in a “war on terror.”In a high-profile national security address in 2013, Obama declared, “We must define our effort not as a boundless ‘global war on terror,’ but rather as a series of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists that threaten America.”
Anti-Semitism now ‘fashionable’ in the US, warn experts-Attacks against Jews account for close to 60% of hate crimes, despite strong cooperation between government agencies to combat the scourge-By Cathryn J. Prince February 18, 2015, 11:25 pm 28-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
NEW YORK – Not a week seems to go by without an anti-Semitic attack in the United States – either verbal or violent – against Jews.“Unfortunately anti-Semitism has become fashionable again,” Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, executive vice president for the New York Board of Rabbis, told The Times of Israel. “It’s not a big deal to hate the Jews. The first group that gets attacked is the Jews.”This week, a Boise woman attacked her Jewish neighbor and stood on her neck until she said she believes in Jesus. Also this week, swastikas were spray painted on some 30 homes in Madison, Wisconsin.In January, pro-Palestinian protestors stormed a New York City Council meeting that was discussing a resolution commemorating the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. And later in the month in California, two swastikas were found spray painted onto the wall and at the doorstep of the Jewish Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) fraternity at UC Davis.“Unfortunately, far too few have said too little for too long,” Potasnik said.The New York rabbi couples these recent domestic examples of anti-Semitism to what’s going on in the rest of the world. The terror attack this week outside a synagogue in Denmark in which a 22-year-old lone shooter killed volunteer guard Dan Uzan is the latest in a string of violent European incidents.The United States is not immune to the scourge.‘History has shown us the ramifications of silence’“The world is witnessing an alarming rise in acts of anti-Semitism, and we must all do what we can to respond to this growing threat,” said Eric S. Goldstein, CEO of the UJA-Federation of New York. “History has shown us the ramifications of silence.”The Anti-Defamation League warned in a recent statement just what those ramifications are.“There must be a clear and consistently reinforced and maintained understanding that the hatred, bigotry and prejudice against Jews that threatens the future of Jewish life in many places is indeed an assault on the well-being and sense of security for all minorities and on society as a whole,” read an Anti-Defamation League statement.And while the number may wax and wane in the United States from year to year, the fact is more than half of all religiously motivated hate crimes target Jews and Jewish institutions.‘Very disturbingly nearly 60 percent of religious based crimes are against Jews’“Very disturbingly nearly 60 percent of religious-based crimes are against Jews,” said Michael Lieberman, director of the Civil Rights Policy Planning Center for the Anti- Defamation League.Of the 5,928 hate crime incidents reported to the FBI in 2013, crimes motivated by religion accounted for 1,166 of the reported offenses, with 56.7% identified as anti-Jewish cases. (These statistics are the most updated from the FBI.).For the FBI report, 15,000 out of 18,000 police departments in the US reported their data. More than 90 cities with populations over 100,000 either didn’t participate in the FBI’s data collection program or affirmatively reported zero hate crimes.Fewer anti-Jewish hate crimes were recorded in 2013 than in 2012 when 6,573 cases were reported. However, the actual number may be higher because the FBI relies on voluntary reporting to collect its data.‘The types of crimes and the levels of violence perpetuated against Jews in the Diaspora is unprecedented’“It’s a positive step that the number is down… in the last two to three years. But the types of crimes and the levels of violence perpetuated against Jews in the Diaspora is unprecedented,” said Paul Goldenberg, director of the Secure Community Network, SCN, the international homeland security initiative of The Jewish Federations of North America.In April 2014, four people were shot to death outside a Jewish Center in Kansas City. In late August, a visibly Jewish couple was attacked on New York’s Upper East Side by a gang carrying Palestinian flags.Yet, Goldenberg said, in spite of these incidents, “the Jewish community remains open for business.”Goldenberg recently returned from Paris where he coordinated with the French National Police and the French Jewish community in the wake of January’s attacks there. In the US, Goldenberg said that the Department of Homeland Security and the majority of local law enforcement are working with the Jewish community on how to behave and respond when there is a threat.“When something happens, say someone spray paints a swastika on a synagogue, we don’t want the first reaction to be to whitewash it or sandblast it away. Yes, absolutely do that, but first call the police,” the ADL’s Lieberman said.Unlike in Europe, with the exclusion of the United Kingdom and France, Jewish communities in the US aren’t hesitant to report hate crimes-Together with European governments and the Department of Homeland Security, Goldenberg’s SCN developed a national faith-based outreach and engagement strategy, which includes the two-year-old “If you See Something, Say Something” campaign in the Jewish community.Unlike in Europe, with the exclusion of the United Kingdom and France, Jewish communities in the US aren’t hesitant to report hate crimes. There is a trust that law enforcement will respond.The ADL reinforced the need for such cooperation in its recent statement: “Government and political leaders must set the tone and devote the political capital to encouraging every sector of society to recognize the broad dangers posed by expressions of hate and to engage together to combat the scourge.” This inter-community response is vital, the ADL’s Lieberman said. “It takes more than Jews to fight anti-Semitism.”
Iran, Iraq Selling Oil at Lowest Prices in a Decade-As oil prices in Israel begin to creep up again, Iran and Iraq are outdoing each other in offering low prices to Asia.By Hillel Fendel-First Publish: 2/19/2015, 1:43 AM-ISRAELNATIONALNEWS
Both Iran and Iraq, seeking to increase their share of the Asian oil market, are offering unprecedented discounts in that region. Both nations have cut their crude oil prices to Asia for next month to lower than they have been in 12-15 years.Iraq’s Basrah Light crude will sell at the lowest price since at least August 2003, the Washington Post reported. Iran has responded by offering a discount of $2.10 per barrel, bringing its price to lower than it's been in 15 years.Saudi Arabia, the world's largest exporter of crude oil, reduced its own pricing to Asia last week to the lowest in at least 14 years.U.S. oil production, both crude and shale, has eaten into OPEC profits in recent years. Shale oil is an unconventional, synthetic oil produced from oil shale rock fragments. Oil production in the U.S. has jumped from 5 million barrels per day in 2008 to about 8.5 million last year, and is expected to top out at 9.3 million this year, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.The official OPEC price per barrel stood at $56.69 on Tuesday. This compares with the all-time high of $107.89 this past June, and a long-time low of $41.50 two years ago.Prices in Israel have accordingly dropped to their lowest in five years, with one liter of 95 octane gas selling for 6.08 NIS. As prices inch back up, gas is expected to increase by about 20 agorot per liter this coming month.Iran’s Minister of Petroleum Bijan Namdar Zangeneh describes the current status of his country's oil industry as “catastrophic." In his estimation, there will not even be funds to pay salaries of Petroleum Ministry staff.
UN ‘alarmed’ by Hamas rearming-Official says situation in Gaza ‘increasingly worrisome,’ warns financial crisis could reignite hostilities By Tamar Pileggi February 19, 2015, 1:15 am 2-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
A senior UN official warned Wednesday that the lack of available funds for the reconstruction of Gaza and the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas militants could lead to a renewal of hostilities in the coastal enclave.During a Security Council briefing on the Middle East, Jeffery Feltman, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, also expressed “alarm” at reports of Hamas efforts to re-arm. He called the terror group’s test-firing of rockets, and its attempts to smuggle in materials for potential weapons use, “dangerous developments.”Feltman said that the failure of world donors to deliver the billions of dollars in aid pledged to Gaza’s reconstruction, together with Israel’s withholding of PA tax revenues, was creating a dire humanitarian situation that threatened to reignite the conflict.The under-secretary-general told the council that the countries who pledged some $5.4 billion to rebuild Gaza four months ago in Cairo had “yet to fulfill the vast majority of their pledges.”“This is frankly unacceptable, and cannot continue if we hope to avoid another escalation in Gaza,” he told the 15-member council. Feltman warned that the fiscal challenge was putting “an almost unbearable strain on an already highly fractious environment.”Feltman also condemned Israel’s withholding of $200 million of PA tax revenues in retaliation for the Palestinian Authority’s move to join the International Criminal Court. As a result, he said, the PA had been forced to borrow money to pay salaries, an approach he called “neither sufficient nor sustainable.” He called for Israel to reverse its decision immediately.During the briefing, Feltman described the situation in Gaza as “increasingly worrisome,” and pointed to an International Monetary Fund study that found that, in 2014, the Palestinian economy contracted for the first time since 2006.Almost six months after the war that devastated the Strip and left 100,000 Gazans homeless, Feltman said that only 75,000 residents had been cleared to receive construction materials, of whom 47,000 had been able to obtain the materials.Israel and Egypt controls the border crossings into Gaza — including the delivery of construction materials — and seek to prevent the influx of materials that can be used to manufacture rockets or to build tunnels into Israel.Gazan terrorists used the tunnels for several attacks during the summer war, sometimes penetrating deep into Israeli territory. Five soldiers were killed in one attack on an IDF post near Kibbutz Nahal Oz, and 11 soldiers died in all in the tunnel attacks.Hamas, which seized control of Gaza in 2007 and is avowedly committed to destroying Israel, fired over 4,500 rockets at Israel during the 50-day conflict.Unnamed security sources have said recently that Hamas is working to rebuild its tunnel infrastructure as well as rearm its depleted rocket arsenal.In October, a Vanity Fair report confirmed rumors that before the summer’s war, Hamas was planning to insert hundreds of terrorists into Israel via underground tunnels, to kidnap and kill a large number of Israelis.In a sign of growing impatience with the pace of reconstruction efforts, dozens of protesters forced their way into a UN office in Gaza on January 28, after the world body announced it was suspending an aid program to support home repairs and refugee shelter assistance.Justin Jalil and AFP contributed to this report.
UN Pushes Donors to Make Good on Gaza Pledges-UN official warns the Security Council that pledges must be donated to 'avoid another escalation in Gaza.'By Arutz Sheva Staff-First Publish: 2/19/2015, 12:15 AM-ISRAELNATIONALNEWS
The failure by world donors to deliver billions of dollars of aid to rebuild Gaza is jeopardizing efforts to avoid a new flareup in the Palestinian territory, a senior United Nations official warned Wednesday.UN political affairs chief Jeffrey Feltman told the Security Council that donors who had promised $5.4 billion to the Palestinians at the Cairo conference four months ago "have yet to fulfill the vast majority of their pledges," according to AFP."This is, quite frankly, unacceptable, and cannot continue if we hope to avoid another escalation in Gaza," Feltman told the 15-member council during a meeting on the Middle East."Failure to deliver the necessary support is putting an almost unbearable strain on an already highly fractious environment," he said.Much of Gaza's infrastructure was destroyed in Operation Protective Edge, which was spurred by a barrage of Hamas rockets into Israel. Over 100,000 Gazans allegedly lost their homes.Feltman said more than 75,000 people have been cleared to receive construction material to rebuild, and over 47,000 had been able to purchase building supplies.The delivery of construction material is heavily controlled by the United Nations and Israel to prevent supplies from falling into the hands of Hamas terrorists.In a sign of growing impatience with pace of reconstruction efforts, dozens of protesters forced their way into a UN office in Gaza on January 28, after the world body announced it was suspending an aid program to support home repairs and refugee shelter assistance.Feltman described the situation in Gaza as "increasingly worrisome" and cited the slow pace of reconstruction along with security and governance problems as creating "an increasingly toxic environment."The donors' failure to release promised funds comes as Israel withheld for a second month the transfer of tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority in response to the PA joining the International Criminal Court.Over $200 million is owed to the Palestinians, forcing them to turn to private banks for loans to pay salaries of civil servants, Feltman told the council."This approach is neither sufficient nor sustainable," he warned.The United Nations is pushing for Israeli-Palestinian peace talks to resume, but that track appears to have gone into a deep freeze.
Obama: US not at war with Islam, but with those who have perverted it-Amid criticism over reluctance to blame Muslim extremists for attacks in Europe, president says moderates must clarify terrorists don’t speak for them By AP and Times of Israel staff February 19, 2015, 1:28 am
WASHINGTON — Muslims in the U.S. and around the world have a responsibility to fight a misconception that terrorist groups like the Islamic State speak for them, President Barack Obama said Wednesday in his most direct remarks yet about any link between Islam and terrorism.For weeks, the White House has sidestepped the question of whether deadly terror attacks in Paris and other Western cities amount to “Islamic extremism,” wary of offending a major world religion or lending credibility to the “war on terror” that Obama’s predecessor waged. But as he hosted a White House summit on countering violent extremism, the president said some in Muslim communities have bought into the notion that Islam is incompatible with tolerance and modern life.“Leading up to this summit, there has been a fair amount of debate in the press and among pundits about the words we use to describe and frame this challenge. So I want to be very clear,” he said. “Al Qaeda and ISIL and groups like it are desperate for legitimacy. They try to portray themselves as religious leaders, holy warriors in defense of Islam. That’s why ISIL presumes to declare itself the Islamic state. And they propagate the notion that America and the west generally is at war with Islam. That’s how they recruit. That’s how they try to radicalize young people.“We must never accept the premise that they put forward because it is a lie. Nor should we grant these terrorists the religious legitimacy that they seek. They are not religious leaders. They are terrorists,” Obama said. “And we are not at war with Islam. We are at war with people who have perverted Islam.”Added the president: “The terrorists do not speak for a billion Muslims who reject their hateful ideology. They no more represent Muslim than those who would represent Christianity or Hinduism. People are responsible for violence and terrorism,” Obama told the Washington conference on countering radicalism that drew delegates from 60 countries in the wake of a string of brutal attacks in Europe and the Middle East.While putting the blame on IS and similar groups, the president also appealed directly to prominent Muslims to do more to distance themselves from brutal ideologies. He said all have a duty to “speak up very clearly” in opposition to violence against innocent people.“Just as leaders like myself reject the notion that terrorists like ISIL genuinely represent Islam, Muslim leaders need to do more to discredit the notion that our nations are determined to suppress Islam,” Obama said.Issuing such a direct challenge to Muslims marked a clear departure from the restrained, cautious language Obama and his aides have used to describe the situation in the past.In the days after last month’s shootings at a satirical French newspaper that had caricatured the Prophet Muhammad, Obama avoided calling the attack an example of “Islamic extremism,” and instead opted for the more generic “violent extremism.” Recently, the White House also struggled to explain whether the U.S. believes the Afghan Taliban to be a terrorist organization.
The refusal to directly assess any Islamic role in the terrifying scenes playing out in Europe, the Mideast and Africa has drawn criticism from those who say Obama has prioritized political correctness over a frank acknowledgement of reality. National security hawks, in particular, argued that Obama’s counterterrorism strategy couldn’t possibly be successful if the president was unable or unwilling to confront the true nature of the threat.White House aides said they were avoiding associating the attacks with Islam for the sake of “accuracy” and to avoid lending credence to the terrorists’ own justification for violence — a strict interpretation of Islam. Frustrated by what they deemed a manufactured controversy, Obama aides have argued that a focus on terminology has distracted from more fruitful conversations about what can actually be done to stop extremist ideologies from spreading.“These are individuals who carried out an act of terrorism, and they later tried to justify that act of terrorism by invoking the religion of Islam and their own deviant view of it,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said at the time.Yet the argument over terminology has increasingly become a distraction, including this week as Obama gathered law enforcement officials, Muslim leaders and lawmakers for a three-day summit on violent extremism. In his remarks Wednesday, Obama acknowledged it was a touchy subject but insisted it was critical to tackle the issue “head-on.”“We can’t shy away from these discussions,” he said. “And too often, folks are understandably sensitive about addressing some of these root issues, but we have to talk about them honestly and clearly.”Still, the president took care to differentiate militant groups from the “billion Muslims who reject their ideology.” He noted that IS is killing far more Muslims than non-Muslims, and he called for the world community to elevate the voices of those who “saw the truth” after being radicalized temporarily.Obama acknowledged that many Muslims in the U.S. have a suspicion of government and police, feeling they have been unfairly targeted, that has confounded efforts to strengthen cooperation between law enforcement and Muslim communities. He effusively praised Muslims who have served the U.S. in the military or in other capacities for generations.“Of course, that’s the story extremists and terrorists don’t want the world to know: Muslims succeeding and thriving in America,” Obama said. “Because when that truth is known, it exposes their propaganda as the lie that it is.”Obama has long tried to shift his administration’s terror rhetoric away from what he saw as the hyperbolic terminology used by his predecessor, George W. Bush, particularly Bush’s declaration in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that the U.S. was engaged in a “war on terror.”In a high-profile national security address in 2013, Obama declared, “We must define our effort not as a boundless ‘global war on terror,’ but rather as a series of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists that threaten America.”
Anti-Semitism now ‘fashionable’ in the US, warn experts-Attacks against Jews account for close to 60% of hate crimes, despite strong cooperation between government agencies to combat the scourge-By Cathryn J. Prince February 18, 2015, 11:25 pm 28-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
NEW YORK – Not a week seems to go by without an anti-Semitic attack in the United States – either verbal or violent – against Jews.“Unfortunately anti-Semitism has become fashionable again,” Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, executive vice president for the New York Board of Rabbis, told The Times of Israel. “It’s not a big deal to hate the Jews. The first group that gets attacked is the Jews.”This week, a Boise woman attacked her Jewish neighbor and stood on her neck until she said she believes in Jesus. Also this week, swastikas were spray painted on some 30 homes in Madison, Wisconsin.In January, pro-Palestinian protestors stormed a New York City Council meeting that was discussing a resolution commemorating the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. And later in the month in California, two swastikas were found spray painted onto the wall and at the doorstep of the Jewish Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) fraternity at UC Davis.“Unfortunately, far too few have said too little for too long,” Potasnik said.The New York rabbi couples these recent domestic examples of anti-Semitism to what’s going on in the rest of the world. The terror attack this week outside a synagogue in Denmark in which a 22-year-old lone shooter killed volunteer guard Dan Uzan is the latest in a string of violent European incidents.The United States is not immune to the scourge.‘History has shown us the ramifications of silence’“The world is witnessing an alarming rise in acts of anti-Semitism, and we must all do what we can to respond to this growing threat,” said Eric S. Goldstein, CEO of the UJA-Federation of New York. “History has shown us the ramifications of silence.”The Anti-Defamation League warned in a recent statement just what those ramifications are.“There must be a clear and consistently reinforced and maintained understanding that the hatred, bigotry and prejudice against Jews that threatens the future of Jewish life in many places is indeed an assault on the well-being and sense of security for all minorities and on society as a whole,” read an Anti-Defamation League statement.And while the number may wax and wane in the United States from year to year, the fact is more than half of all religiously motivated hate crimes target Jews and Jewish institutions.‘Very disturbingly nearly 60 percent of religious based crimes are against Jews’“Very disturbingly nearly 60 percent of religious-based crimes are against Jews,” said Michael Lieberman, director of the Civil Rights Policy Planning Center for the Anti- Defamation League.Of the 5,928 hate crime incidents reported to the FBI in 2013, crimes motivated by religion accounted for 1,166 of the reported offenses, with 56.7% identified as anti-Jewish cases. (These statistics are the most updated from the FBI.).For the FBI report, 15,000 out of 18,000 police departments in the US reported their data. More than 90 cities with populations over 100,000 either didn’t participate in the FBI’s data collection program or affirmatively reported zero hate crimes.Fewer anti-Jewish hate crimes were recorded in 2013 than in 2012 when 6,573 cases were reported. However, the actual number may be higher because the FBI relies on voluntary reporting to collect its data.‘The types of crimes and the levels of violence perpetuated against Jews in the Diaspora is unprecedented’“It’s a positive step that the number is down… in the last two to three years. But the types of crimes and the levels of violence perpetuated against Jews in the Diaspora is unprecedented,” said Paul Goldenberg, director of the Secure Community Network, SCN, the international homeland security initiative of The Jewish Federations of North America.In April 2014, four people were shot to death outside a Jewish Center in Kansas City. In late August, a visibly Jewish couple was attacked on New York’s Upper East Side by a gang carrying Palestinian flags.Yet, Goldenberg said, in spite of these incidents, “the Jewish community remains open for business.”Goldenberg recently returned from Paris where he coordinated with the French National Police and the French Jewish community in the wake of January’s attacks there. In the US, Goldenberg said that the Department of Homeland Security and the majority of local law enforcement are working with the Jewish community on how to behave and respond when there is a threat.“When something happens, say someone spray paints a swastika on a synagogue, we don’t want the first reaction to be to whitewash it or sandblast it away. Yes, absolutely do that, but first call the police,” the ADL’s Lieberman said.Unlike in Europe, with the exclusion of the United Kingdom and France, Jewish communities in the US aren’t hesitant to report hate crimes-Together with European governments and the Department of Homeland Security, Goldenberg’s SCN developed a national faith-based outreach and engagement strategy, which includes the two-year-old “If you See Something, Say Something” campaign in the Jewish community.Unlike in Europe, with the exclusion of the United Kingdom and France, Jewish communities in the US aren’t hesitant to report hate crimes. There is a trust that law enforcement will respond.The ADL reinforced the need for such cooperation in its recent statement: “Government and political leaders must set the tone and devote the political capital to encouraging every sector of society to recognize the broad dangers posed by expressions of hate and to engage together to combat the scourge.” This inter-community response is vital, the ADL’s Lieberman said. “It takes more than Jews to fight anti-Semitism.”
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