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)
ISRAEL SATAN COMES AGAINST
1 CHRONICLES 21:1
1 And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.
GENESIS 12:1-3
1 Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I (GOD) will shew thee:
2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
3 And I will bless them that bless thee,(ISRAELIS) and curse (DESTROY) him that curseth thee:(DESTROY THEM) and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
ISAIAH 41:11
11 Behold, all they that were incensed against thee (ISRAEL) shall be ashamed and confounded: they shall be as nothing;(DESTROYED) and they that strive with thee shall perish.(ISRAEL HATERS WILL BE TOTALLY DESTROYED)
ISRAELS TROUBLE
JEREMIAH 30:7
7 Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble;(ISRAEL) but he shall be saved out of it.
DANIEL 12:1,4
1 And at that time shall Michael(ISRAELS WAR ANGEL) stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people:(ISRAEL) and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation(May 14,48) even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.
4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro,(WORLD TRAVEL,IMMIGRATION) and knowledge shall be increased.(COMPUTERS,CHIP IMPLANTS ETC)
PA nixes Israeli offer to halt IDF activity in Ramallah, Jericho-Palestinians insist that Israeli army halt activity in all Palestinian cities; officials warn end to security cooperation being seriously considered-By Avi Issacharoff March 14, 2016, 6:35 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
The Palestinian Authority rejected an Israeli proposal to cease IDF operations in the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Jericho, and instead demanded that the army halt its activities in all areas controlled by the Palestinian governing body.The proposal, presented in late February, was raised as part of ongoing talks between Palestinian Authority and Israeli officials over the past weeks regarding the continuation of security coordination in the West Bank, Palestinian security sources told The Times of Israel Monday.According to the sources, Israeli officials in the secret talks had offered an end to IDF operations in Ramallah and Jericho as a first step toward enhancing security coordination, and said only later would the government consider applying a similar measure to other areas in the West Bank.However, the Palestinian Authority officials rejected the offer and demanded that Israel present a comprehensive timetable for a full cessation of military activities in Palestinian-controlled territories.As per agreements reached under the Oslo Accords, Palestinians maintain civilian and security control of territories in the so-called Area A, including Ramallah, Jericho and other major Palestinian population centers. However, Israeli forces often stage raids in these areas, often with the tacit support of the Palestinians, to arrest terror suspects, among other purposes.The Israeli proposal was first reported by Israeli daily Haaretz.Officials in Israel and the PA have expressed interest in continuing security coordination, even as diplomatic ties have withered and amid an ongoing wave of violence.However, senior political Palestinian officials have said behind closed doors that the authority had on several occasions warned Israeli representatives of the Shin Bet security service, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, and the IDF that security coordination between the two sides could not continue as long as the army operates in the West Bank’s Area A territories.According to PA officials, the IDF’s operations in Area A violate the agreements reached in the Oslo Accords, and are damaging to its government’s standing on the Palestinian street.Sources speaking to The Times of Israel on Monday said the Palestinian Authority had decided to reject the Israeli proposal as it did not provide concrete steps toward ending IDF military presence in all major West Bank cities.The sources further stated that while the Israeli side aimed to merely improve the security situation in the West Bank, the PA wanted to progress toward a political process aimed at a final-status agreement.The sources added that while Israeli officials were skeptical of the PA’s threats to end security cooperation, the Palestinian governing body was seriously weighing such an option if its demands were not met.They further said that the PA was indeed on the verge of collapse, but that the Palestinians would rather break up the governing body of their own accord rather than due to Israeli actions.Both sides see the security cooperation as key to keeping Hamas and other terror groups that could threaten Fatah’s control of the PA in check. However, the collapse of the PA would effectively spell the end of any security coordination and likely spiral into a breakout of violence in the West Bank, Israeli defense officials maintain.Israeli officials have warned that the PA may be on the verge of collapse due to the lack of a successor to President Mahmoud Abbas, an unwillingness to hold elections for the presidency, and a surplus of weapons in the West Bank, which would allow policemen, security forces and others with illegal weapons to stage a coup.Adiv Sterman and Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
US faces Russian opposition in push for Iran sanctions at UN-Samantha Power tells Security Council ‘dangerous, destabilizing and provocative’ missile launches ‘merit response,’ but Moscow says agreement not breached-By Tamar Pileggi March 14, 2016, 9:29 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
The United States on Monday convened a UN Security Council meeting aimed at advancing sanctions against Iran over its recent ballistic missile tests that Washington considers to be in violation of a UN resolution.Describing the missile launches as “dangerous, destabilizing and provocative,” US Ambassador Samantha Power noted that Iranian military officials had claimed that the missiles were designed to be a threat to Israel.“These were designed to deliver a nuclear weapon,” said Power. “This merits a council response.”Power though, was met with opposition from Russia and the EU, which both said they did not believe the last week’s missile tests were breaches of the landmark nuclear deal, which called for Iran to desist from developing missiles that can carry nuclear weapons.Ahead of the meeting, Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon called on the council to take action, arguing that failure to do so “will give Iran a green light to continue with its nuclear missile tests.”The meeting was called after Iran launched two mid-range ballistic missiles emblazoned with the words “Israel must be wiped off the map” in Hebrew and Persian on March 9. An Iranian commander boasted after the launch that the missiles had a range of 2,000 kilometers and could hit Israel.The UN meeting concluded with no specific follow-up action other than further discussion on the test-launches within a designated Security Council committee on Iran.“We did agree that it’s not a violation,” Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters, welcoming “a very satisfactory outcome of the discussion.”Russia’s opposition as a veto-wielding member of the council effectively ruled out the possibility of UN sanctions against Iran.During the closed-door meeting, Power accused Russia of “lawyering its way to look for reasons not to act rather than stepping up and being prepared to shoulder our collective responsibility.”Tehran maintains that the latest missile tests, which took place last week, were not aimed at developing a nuclear capability.Churkin noted that the term “called upon” in the new resolution was an important change in legal language from previous adopted texts that barred Iran from developing such technology.“A call is different from a ban, so legally you can’t violate a call,” he said.The new resolution “clearly raises the requirements of proof quite a bit” by stating that the missiles must be “designed” to have nuclear capability, Churkin added.Later on Monday, EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini said the ballistic missile tests were not in violation of its nuclear deal and the European Union was not considering sanctions at this stage.Power said last week’s launches defy provisions of UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which calls on Iran to refrain from developing ballistic missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.Resolution 2231 endorsed the nuclear deal reached between Western powers and Tehran, and came into effect in January of this year.“The technology they used is inherently capable of delivering nuclear weapons and thus inherently defying Resolution 2231,” Powers said, vowing to continue pushing the Security Council to take action on the matter.“We are not going to give up, no matter the quibbling that we heard today about this,” said Power, adding that “we also can consider, of course, our own appropriate national response.”France had warned on Sunday that it risked new sanctions as a result of the tests, but Mogherini said that was a matter for the UN Security Council and not the European Union Foreign Affairs Council.“This is indeed also in our view not a violation of the (nuclear deal) as such,” Mogherini said after meeting the foreign ministers of the 28 EU nations in Brussels.Under the July accord, the lifting of the nuclear sanctions takes place progressively in line with Tehran meeting its commitments.A key provision allows the sanctions to be restored or “snap-backed” immediately if Iran is found in breach of the agreement.The United States slapped sanctions on Iran in January over its ballistic missile program, even as the world hailed the implementation of the historic nuclear deal.Britain and France had both raised concern over the missile launches, but the ambassadors did not specifically say that the tests were a violation of Resolution 2231.“We judge that Iran is in blatant disregard of Resolution 2231,” said British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft.French Ambassador Francois Delattre said that “we are worried, because we are in a case of non-compliance with 2231.”UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last week urged Iran to act with caution and moderation, in response to the two days of missile launches.Given the political atmosphere in the Middle East, Iran should “act with moderation, caution and the good sense not to increase tensions through any hasty actions,” Ban’s spokesman said.Asked about the Israel threat earlier Monday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif lashed out at US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.“I ask you to go ask Netanyahu why is he threatening to use force against Iran every day. Go ask Obama why he is threatening to use force against Iran every day,” Zarif said. “Why are they saying all options are on the table?”AFP contributed to this report
US, Russia pull the strings as Syrian civil war enters sixth year-Major world powers have ‘monopoly’ on resolving crisis, and their interests will take precedence over Syrians’, analyst says-By Sammy Ketz and Olga Rotemberg March 14, 2016, 5:42 am-
BEIRUT (AFP) — The United States and Russia are pulling the strings in Syria’s five-year war, experts say, pressuring opposing sides and leveraging rival regional powers to reach a settlement.As the conflict enters its sixth year, the embattled regime and fractured opposition are in Geneva for indirect peace talks hosted by United Nations peace envoy Staffan de Mistura.But the real solution, experts say, is in Russian and American hands.“The two great powers talk among themselves by phone or in meetings around the world. Then they inform their Syrian allies and de Mistura what they’ve decided,” says veteran opposition figure Haytham Manaa.“Then, Russia and the US give the regional powers the red lines they’re not supposed to cross. The US bans the Turks from a ground incursion in Syria and asks the Saudis to stop sending arms. Russia does the same thing with Iran,” Manaa tells AFP.Syria’s conflict began on March 15, 2011 with a peaceful protest movement calling for President Bashar Assad to step down.But the uprising turned violent after the government launched a brutal crackdown on dissent, and its key players became the various armed forces — regime, opposition, jihadist, Kurdish — and their respective backers.Russia and the United States have exerted their influence over opposing sides of the complex war to broker a landmark truce that has been holding since February 27.“The US and Russia have taken command of, and have a monopoly over, the Syrian issue,” says Joseph Bahout, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington.Bassel Salloukh, political science professor at the Lebanese American University of Beirut, agrees.“Indeed, what started as a non-violent movement demanding reforms metamorphosed into an overlapping domestic, regional, and international struggle over Syria,” Salloukh says.He expects that “the strategic interests of Russia and the US will determine the shape of the settlement in Syria rather than the aspirations of its peoples.”Both the US and Russia were hesitant to become involved in a conflict as complex and unpredictable as Syria.“The notion that we could have… changed the equation on the ground there was never true,” US President Barack Obama has told The Atlantic magazine reporter Jeffrey Goldberg.When the United States did finally get militarily involved in Syria in September 2014, it was as part of a bombing campaign against the Islamic State group.One year later, Russia launched its own air war backing Assad after a devastating string of losses for the regime in the spring and summer of 2015.Moscow’s intervention was a major turning point for pro-Assad forces, shoring up their positions in the south, center, and north.“Moscow long believed that the regime would pull through on its own. It’s Tehran, the regime’s other ally, that sounded the alarm,” a foreign diplomat in Damascus tells AFP.“Iranian officials went to Moscow to tell the Russians that if they didn’t intervene immediately, the regime would collapse,” the diplomat says.“Asking the Syrian actors to agree has proven unsuccessful… because their ideological and territorial disagreements are so profound,” says Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma.“But all actors are so entirely dependent on their sponsors that they must comply with the wishes of their armorers.”But Russian and American leverage over warring parties in Syria has its limits.About half of Syrian territory is controlled by either IS or Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front, complicating the current truce deal and a future settlement.And Assad’s regime has occasionally spoken out of turn.In an interview with AFP in February, Assad said he sought to regain control over all of Syria, spurring the Russian government to slap him down.“Russia has invested very seriously in this crisis, politically, diplomatically and now also militarily,” Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s envoy to the UN, said at the time.“Therefore we would like Assad also to respond.”Fyodor Lukyanov, head of the Russian government-linked Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, says the Russian-US leadership are reminiscent of “the good old times.”“Thirty years after the end of the Cold War, it turns out that the only actors capable of deciding and taking action are Moscow and Washington,” he says.“Russia and the United States are indeed the only ones capable of pushing the warring parties towards peace,” Lukyanov tells AFP.“Other countries will not, or cannot, do it. This is the new world order.”
US faces Russian opposition in push for Iran sanctions at UN-Samantha Power tells Security Council ‘dangerous, destabilizing and provocative’ missile launches ‘merit response,’ but Moscow says agreement not breached-By Tamar Pileggi March 14, 2016, 9:29 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
The United States on Monday convened a UN Security Council meeting aimed at advancing sanctions against Iran over its recent ballistic missile tests that Washington considers to be in violation of a UN resolution.Describing the missile launches as “dangerous, destabilizing and provocative,” US Ambassador Samantha Power noted that Iranian military officials had claimed that the missiles were designed to be a threat to Israel.“These were designed to deliver a nuclear weapon,” said Power. “This merits a council response.”Power though, was met with opposition from Russia and the EU, which both said they did not believe the last week’s missile tests were breaches of the landmark nuclear deal, which called for Iran to desist from developing missiles that can carry nuclear weapons.Ahead of the meeting, Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon called on the council to take action, arguing that failure to do so “will give Iran a green light to continue with its nuclear missile tests.”The meeting was called after Iran launched two mid-range ballistic missiles emblazoned with the words “Israel must be wiped off the map” in Hebrew and Persian on March 9. An Iranian commander boasted after the launch that the missiles had a range of 2,000 kilometers and could hit Israel.The UN meeting concluded with no specific follow-up action other than further discussion on the test-launches within a designated Security Council committee on Iran.“We did agree that it’s not a violation,” Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters, welcoming “a very satisfactory outcome of the discussion.”Russia’s opposition as a veto-wielding member of the council effectively ruled out the possibility of UN sanctions against Iran.During the closed-door meeting, Power accused Russia of “lawyering its way to look for reasons not to act rather than stepping up and being prepared to shoulder our collective responsibility.”Tehran maintains that the latest missile tests, which took place last week, were not aimed at developing a nuclear capability.Churkin noted that the term “called upon” in the new resolution was an important change in legal language from previous adopted texts that barred Iran from developing such technology.“A call is different from a ban, so legally you can’t violate a call,” he said.The new resolution “clearly raises the requirements of proof quite a bit” by stating that the missiles must be “designed” to have nuclear capability, Churkin added.Later on Monday, EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini said the ballistic missile tests were not in violation of its nuclear deal and the European Union was not considering sanctions at this stage.Power said last week’s launches defy provisions of UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which calls on Iran to refrain from developing ballistic missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.Resolution 2231 endorsed the nuclear deal reached between Western powers and Tehran, and came into effect in January of this year.“The technology they used is inherently capable of delivering nuclear weapons and thus inherently defying Resolution 2231,” Powers said, vowing to continue pushing the Security Council to take action on the matter.“We are not going to give up, no matter the quibbling that we heard today about this,” said Power, adding that “we also can consider, of course, our own appropriate national response.”France had warned on Sunday that it risked new sanctions as a result of the tests, but Mogherini said that was a matter for the UN Security Council and not the European Union Foreign Affairs Council.“This is indeed also in our view not a violation of the (nuclear deal) as such,” Mogherini said after meeting the foreign ministers of the 28 EU nations in Brussels.Under the July accord, the lifting of the nuclear sanctions takes place progressively in line with Tehran meeting its commitments.A key provision allows the sanctions to be restored or “snap-backed” immediately if Iran is found in breach of the agreement.The United States slapped sanctions on Iran in January over its ballistic missile program, even as the world hailed the implementation of the historic nuclear deal.Britain and France had both raised concern over the missile launches, but the ambassadors did not specifically say that the tests were a violation of Resolution 2231.“We judge that Iran is in blatant disregard of Resolution 2231,” said British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft.French Ambassador Francois Delattre said that “we are worried, because we are in a case of non-compliance with 2231.”UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last week urged Iran to act with caution and moderation, in response to the two days of missile launches.Given the political atmosphere in the Middle East, Iran should “act with moderation, caution and the good sense not to increase tensions through any hasty actions,” Ban’s spokesman said.Asked about the Israel threat earlier Monday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif lashed out at US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.“I ask you to go ask Netanyahu why is he threatening to use force against Iran every day. Go ask Obama why he is threatening to use force against Iran every day,” Zarif said. “Why are they saying all options are on the table?”AFP contributed to this report
Ya’alon: Iran on a path to regional dominance-At Washington think-tank, defense minister warns that Iran deal creates the conditions for Iranian hegemony, says peace with Palestinians won’t be solved in his lifetime-By Eric Cortellessa March 14, 2016, 11:51 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
WASHINGTON — Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said Monday that the Iranian nuclear deal has created the conditions for Iran to attain greater hegemony in the region and that President Barack Obama mishandled attempts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.While maintaining gratitude to Obama for his support of Israel’s security, Ya’alon bewailed the recent lifting of crippling oil and financial sanctions on Iran, which released more than $100 billion in frozen assets. The defense minister conveyed that while the deal has caused the Iranian regime to give up their “timetable” for acquiring military nuclear power, they have not given up their aspirations to eventually do so.The more immediate concern for the next 10-15 years, Ya’alon insisted, was that the Iranians have created a “radical axis” throughout the Middle East that they are exploiting to gain greater dominance in the region.“The regime in Tehran has become a central party in order to solve the problems of the Middle East,” he said.Speaking before an audience at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Ya’alon discussed his concerns regarding the Iranian regime’s regional activities and how that is informing the negotiations currently underway between US and Israeli officials to hammer out a memorandum of understanding that would increase US military aid to Israel for the next 10 years.Ya’alon’s visit to Washington comes as he is set to meet with US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and other senior officials Monday afternoon regarding the defense aid package. While Ya’alon would not comment on the state of the talks — which have been rumored to be at an impasse — he said he hoped “negotiations will be concluded very soon.”Referring to Iran test-firing ballistic missiles last week that carried a Hebrew message saying “Israel must be wiped out,” Ya’alon said that the Israeli leadership believes that Iran is now “more confident, more free to act in the region today with more money as a result of the sanctions relief, violating many UN resolutions, international resolutions regarding the proliferation of arms and terror.”Last week’s episode also coincided with US Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel.Ya’alon told former Middle East peace negotiator Aaron David Miller, a vice president at the Wilson Center who moderated the forum, that he was apprehensive about President Obama allowing Iran to assert its influence over international attempts to ameliorate the Syrian crisis, as Israel borders Syria to its north along the Golan Heights. “To leave us with an Iranian-dominated Syria,” he said, “we can’t agree with it.”Furthermore, Ya’alon highlighted differences between Washington and Jerusalem over how to make progress on Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians, saying that Obama did not apply sufficient pressure on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.“When [Abbas] closed the door in front of both Secretary Kerry in February 2014 and President Obama in March 2014, he wasn’t blamed. Why? He’s too weak to be accountable,” he said, referring to the president offering Abbas the principles for a plan to resolve the conflict and achieve a two-state outcome. “The most important value that is missing in the Middle East is accountability. When [Abbas] closed the door in front of President Obama, he should have been blamed. He should be accountable.”Ya’alon also said the president embraced the “linkage” argument that maintains the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the main conflict in the Middle East that affects all others. “We still hear that the core of instability in the Middle East is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and that without solving it you can’t stabilize the Middle East,” he said. “It was ridiculous in the past and it is ridiculous today. What is the linkage between the uprising in Tunisia and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?”In a recent interview with The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, Obama addressed the linkage theory when asked about his 2009 Cairo reset speech, titled “A New Beginning,” in which he aimed to improve US relations with the Muslim World. “My argument was this: Let’s all stop pretending that the cause of the Middle East’s problems is Israel,” Obama said.The president’s statement dismayed critics, including MK Michael Oren, who was Israel’s ambassador to the US when the speech was given. Oren told the Algemeiner on Thursday that the speech “nowhere mentions that the Israeli-Palestinian issue is not the core of the Middle East’s other conflicts. It actually implied the opposite.”Despite Ya’alon telling Monday’s crowd that Israel doesn’t “want to govern the Palestinians” and that it would be “happy for them to enjoy their own political independence,” he offered a grim assessment of the future of the peace process, telling Miller “it’s not going to be solved in my lifetime.”
DEUTERONOMY 7:7-8
7 The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people;(ISRAEL) for ye were the fewest of all people:
8 But because the LORD loved you,(ISRAEL) and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
ZECHARIAH 2:8
8 For thus saith the LORD of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye.
JEREMIAH 3:14
14 Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am married unto you:(ISRAEL) and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion:
ISAIAH 42:1
1 Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect,(ISRAEL) in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.
ISAIAH 45:4
4 For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.
ISAIAH 65:9,22
9 And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains: and mine elect (ISRAEL) shall inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there.
22 They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect (ISRAEL) shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
1 CHRONICLES 17:9
9 Also I will ordain a place for my people Israel,(IN PALESTINE) and will plant them, and they shall dwell in their place, and shall be moved no more;(ISRAEL-NEVER DESTROYED-FOREVER AN EARTHLY NATION) neither shall the children of wickedness(ISHMAEL-ARAB/MUSLIMS-WORLD ISRAEL HATERS) waste them any more, as at the beginning,(ARAB/MUSLIMS ATTACK ISRAEL ON MAY 15,1948)
ISAIAH 56:5
5 Even unto them (ISRAELIS) will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name,(ISRAEL) that shall not be cut off.
ISAIAH 51:3-4
3 For the LORD shall comfort Zion:(JERUSALEM) he will comfort all her waste places;(FROM NUCLEAR WAR) and he will make her wilderness like Eden,(I BELIEVE THE EZEKIEL-4TH TEMPLE WILL BE BUILT 25 MILES FROM THE CURRENT TEMPLE MOUNT AFTER JESUS RULE FOR THE 1,000 YRS FROM JERUSALEM) and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.(PRAISE TO JESUS IN THE DESERT-COULD BE THE NEW JERUSALEM-4TH TEMPLE BUILT 25 MILES INTO THE DESERT FROM THE CURRENT TEMPLE MOUNT.SINCE EZEKIELS TEMPLE IS WAY TO BIG FOR THE CURRENT TEMPLE MOUNT)
4 Hearken unto me, my people;(ISRAEL) and give ear unto me, O my nation:(ISRAEL) for a law shall proceed from me,(JESUS IN JERUSALEM) and I will make my judgment to rest for a light of the people.(ISRAEL AND THE WORLD)
LUKE 21:28-29
28 And when these things begin to come to pass,(ALL THE PROPHECY SIGNS FROM THE BIBLE) then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption (RAPTURE) draweth nigh.
29 And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree,(ISRAEL) and all the trees;(ALL INDEPENDENT COUNTRIES)
30 When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand.(ISRAEL LITERALLY BECAME AND INDEPENDENT COUNTRY JUST BEFORE SUMMER IN MAY 14,1948.)
JOEL 2:3,30
3 A fire devoureth (ATOMIC BOMB) before them;(RUSSIAN-ARAB-MUSLIM ARMIES AGAINST ISRAEL) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(ATOMIC BOMB AFFECT)
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their eyes shall consume away in their holes,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB)(BECAUSE NUKES HAVE BEEN USED ON ISRAELS ENEMIES)(GOD PROTECTS ISRAEL AND ALWAYS WILL)
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.(1/2-3 BILLION DIE IN WW3)(THIS IS AN ATOMIC BOMB EFFECT)
EZEKIEL 20:47
47 And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the LORD; Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein.
ZEPHANIAH 1:18
18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD'S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
MALACHI 4:1
1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven;(FROM ATOMIC BOMBS) and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
And here are the bounderies of the land that Israel will inherit either through war or peace or God in the future. God says its Israels land and only Israels land. They will have every inch God promised them of this land in the future.
Egypt east of the Nile River, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, The southern part of Turkey and the Western Half of Iraq west of the Euphrates. Gen 13:14-15, Psm 105:9,11, Gen 15:18, Exe 23:31, Num 34:1-12, Josh 1:4.ALL THIS LAND ISRAEL WILL DEFINATELY OWN IN THE FUTURE, ITS ISRAELS NOT ISHMAELS LAND.
12 TRIBES INHERIT LAND IN THE FUTURE
Palestinian-American member of IS surrenders to Iraqi Kurds-Jihadi, identified as Virginia native Mohammed Jamal Amin, gives himself up after wandering into Peshmerga hands-By AP and Times of Israel staff March 14, 2016, 4:52 pm
IRBIL, Iraq — A Palestinian-American member of the Islamic State group on Monday gave himself up to an Iraqi Kurdish military unit in the country’s north, an Iraqi Kurdish general said.The man had been “lurking near the peshmerga lines” since late Sunday night, according to Maj. Gen. Feisal Helkani of the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces, which are playing key role — along with the Iraqi military — in battling the extremist IS group.Helkani said his troops first tried to shoot the man, assuming he was a would-be suicide bomber.“Then in the morning, he walked across and gave himself up,” Helkani said, adding that the man is a Palestinian-American who was fighting with IS in Iraq. The surrender took place on the front lines near the town of Sinjar, which was retaken by Iraqi forces from IS militants late last year.Helkani identified the individual who surrendered as Mohammed Jamal Amin.According to Helkani, Amin was carrying with him a large amount of cash, three cellphones and three forms of identification, including a US driver’s license. The IS fighter is currently being held by the peshmerga troops for interrogation, Helkani added.The Iraqi Kurdish general did not provide further details or a hometown or state for the Palestinian-American.Kurdish news outlet Rudaw reported Amin was from Virginia and was born to a Palestinian father and Iraqi mother.The site published pictures of IDs and credit cards, including a Virginia driver’s license, purported to be from Amin.The Pentagon and US Embassy in Baghdad could not confirm the reports, Reuters reported.A photograph of the IS fighter’s driving license from Virginia was posted on social media sites, identifying him as Mohamad Jamal Khweis, 27, from Alexandria, Virginia.The discrepancy between the fighter’s family name on the license and the one provided by the Kurdish general could not immediately be reconciled. His first name was also spelled differently.In grainy cell phone footage, also posted on social media shortly after the surrender, the man is seen surrounded by Iraqi Kurdish troops and confirming that he is from the United States and that he is Palestinian. In response to an interrogator’s question, he says he was in the city of Mosul, which is under IS control.Though rare in Iraq, Syrian Kurdish fighters battling the Islamic State in neighboring Syria have told The Associated Press that they are seeing an increase in the number of IS members surrendering following recent territorial losses.Last week, Brett McGurk, President Barack Obama’s envoy to the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group, announced that IS had lost more than 3,000 square kilometers (1,158 square miles) of territory in Syria and more than 600 fighters over the past month.In Iraq, the Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for a series of suicide attacks that have killed more than 170 people over the past few weeks. Iraqi officials also say the group has launched a number of chemical weapons attacks.Local officials in the town of Taza in Iraq’s north say a recent attack injured more than 600 people. The attacks follow a string of advances by Iraqi forces backed by US-led airstrikes, including in the western city of Ramadi, which was declared fully “liberated” by Iraqi and US-led coalition officials last month.IS still controls large swaths of land in Iraq and Syria and has declared an Islamic “caliphate” on the territory it holds. The extremist group also controls Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, as well as the city of Fallujah, 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of Baghdad.
Rebels, Germany laud Russian plan to withdraw from Syria-Berlin says pullout, which Moscow claims is designed to signal shift from fighting to diplomacy, will put pressure on Assad as peace talks get underway-By AFP and Times of Israel staff March 14, 2016, 11:25 pm
Syria’s main opposition on Monday hailed Russian President Vladimir Putin announcement that his country would begin withdrawing its forces from Syria on Tuesday, but said it would wait and see what impact the order would have on the ground.“We must verify the nature of this decision and its meaning,” Salem al-Meslet, spokesman for the opposition High Negotiations Committee told reporters in Geneva.“If there is a decision to withdraw the (Russian) forces, it is a positive decision, and we will see it on the ground (but) does this decision mean removing forces or just reducing the number of aircraft in Syria, (that) we will have to check,” he said.Putin earlier Monday ordered the start of the withdrawal of Moscow’s forces from Syria in a shock move, as fresh peace talks began in Geneva.“The task that was set before our defense ministry and armed forces has as a whole been completed and so I order the defense ministry to from tomorrow start the withdrawal of the main part of our military contingents from the Syrian Arab Republic,” Putin told Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in televised comments.German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Monday that should the Russian military withdrawal from Syrian territory materializes, it would put pressure on Assad and force him to take the Geneva talks seriously, according to Reuters.Meanwhile, US officials, who spoke under condition of anonymity, told the news agency that the White House had not been briefed about the Russian pullout, and that Putin’s announcement had caught the US government by surprise.They added that so far there was no indication on the ground of preparations for withdrawal from Syria.The UN special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, who restarted peace talks between the Syrian government and the opposition in Geneva on Monday, said he had no comment on Putin’s announcement when contacted by The Associated Press.But hopes for a breakthrough at the talks remained remote with both sides locked in a bitter dispute over the future of President Bashar Assad, on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the brutal conflict.Vitaly Churkin, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations said, Russia’s decision to begin withdrawing from Syria was designed to help Moscow intensify efforts to reach a political settlement.“Our diplomacy has received marching orders to intensify our efforts to achieve a political settlement in Syria,” Churkin told reporters ahead of a UN Security Council meeting on Syria.Churkin said Russian special forces were being pulled out and the remaining military personnel would mainly be engaged in making sure the cease-fire now underway is maintained.He didn’t respond to questions on whether Russian airstrikes would end.The Kremlin announced that Putin had called Assad to inform Moscow’s long-standing ally of the shock move that appears to end the main part of its controversial bombing campaign that began in September.“The leaders noted that the actions of the Russian airforce allowed to radically change the situation in the fight against terrorism, to disorganize the fighters’ infrastructure and inflict significant damage on them,” the Kremlin said in a statement.“Taking that into account, the President of Russia stated that the main tasks set before the armed forces of Russia in Syria had been completed. It was agreed to carry out the withdrawal of the main part of Russia’s airforce contingent,” the statement said.The two leaders, however, also agreed that Moscow would maintain an airforce facility in Syria to help monitor the progress of a ceasefire in the war-torn country.“Assad noted the professionalism, courage and heroism of the officers of the Russian armed forces that took part in the military operations and expressed deep appreciation to Russia,” the Kremlin statement said.“The Syrian leader underlined his readiness for the quickest establishment of the political process in Syria,” the statement said.Assad said the Russian military would draw down its air force contingent from Syria but won’t leave the country altogether, Syrian state TV reported.Assad said the collaboration between Russian and Syrian forces had secured “victories against terrorism and returned security to the country.”Russia began its airstrikes in support of Assad’s forces in September, a move that helped shore up the Syrian regime’s crumbling forces and allow them to go on the offensive.Russia sent over 50 warplanes to carry out thousands of strikes across the war-torn country arguing that it was targeting “terrorist” groups including Islamic State jihadists.The intervention was slammed by the West and its regional allies, who insisted that Moscow was mainly bombing more moderate rebels fighting Assad.A temporary ceasefire between Assad’s forces and opponents in the country introduced on February 27 has largely held, but it does not cover the IS and Nusra front groups.Putin said he hoped the withdrawal decision would provide a “good signal” for all the warring sides in the conflict.“I hope this will significantly increase the level of trust of all the participants in the political process in Syria,” Putin said at the televised meeting that was also attended by foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists that Moscow’s Hmeimim air base in Syria and its Tartus naval facility would remain functioning and that some military contingents would stay behind.He did not however give any details on how many soldiers would stay in Syria and what the timeframe for withdrawal was.The UN-hosted negotiations in Geneva are the latest effort to end violence that has killed more than 270,000 people and displaced millions.Hopes for a breakthrough at the talks, however, appeared remote with the sides locked in a bitter dispute over Assad’s future.As the Syrian delegations arrived in Geneva over the weekend, Damascus warned that any discussion about removing Assad would be a “red line”.Top Western diplomats immediately condemned the comment from Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem as divisive and provocative.After his first official meeting with the regime on Monday, UN envoy de Mistura told reporters that “strong statements (and) rhetoric” were part of every tough negotiation and that his initial discussions with government representative Bashar Jaafari were “useful.”
Turkey points finger at Kurdish rebels over Ankara bombing-PM Ahmet Davutoglu says ‘serious, almost certain findings’ point to involvement of outlawed Kurdish Workers Party in deadly blast-By Fulya Ozerkan March 14, 2016, 10:18 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
AFP — Turkey on Monday blamed Kurdish rebels for a suicide car bombing that killed 35 people in Ankara, the latest in a series of attacks that has raised concerns about security in the country.There has been no claim of responsibility for the Sunday evening blast, which reduced cars and buses to charred husks on a busy road in the heart of the city, wounding more than 120 people.But Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said “serious, almost certain findings” from the investigation pointed to the outlawed Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) and vowed to “take any step required to defend this country.”Officials say that of the 37 people killed in the blast, 35 have now been identified as victims, one was a female suicide bomber and one a man thought to have been her accomplice.Sunday’s carnage, the second major bombing in Ankara in less than a month, will come as an embarrassment to the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose Justice and Development Party (AKP) won parliamentary elections in November promising to save Turkey from “chaos” and smash the PKK.In February a car bombing along very similar lines targeted military personnel in a nearby area of Ankara, killing 29 people.A second attack so soon afterwards in the center of the Turkish capital will add to security fears as Turkey grapples with the twin threat of Kurdish rebels and the Islamic State (IS) group.The February attack was claimed by the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), linked to the PKK, as revenge for Turkish military operations in the southeast. The TAK warned of more attacks to come, including on tourist areas.Turkey has in recent months waged an all-out assault on the PKK, which launched an insurgency against the Turkish state in 1984, fighting for greater autonomy and rights for the country’s largest ethnic minority.“There are very serious, almost certain findings that point to the separatist terrorist organization,” Davutoglu told reporters after visiting the wounded at an Ankara hospital, referring to the PKK.Authorities have detained 11 people over the attack, Davutoglu said, while Turkish jets bombed PKK targets in northern Iraq on Monday, just hours after the blast.Mourners wept as the first of the victims were laid to rest on Monday, some in coffins draped with the scarlet Turkish flag.The country has been hit by a string of major attacks since the middle of last year, most of them blamed on IS, which controls large areas of Turkey’s southern neighbor Syria.Three have targeted Ankara, including a double suicide bombing in October that left 103 people dead.Erdogan vowed late Sunday that the government would “never abandon its right to legitimate defense against the terrorist menace”, but there was anger that security forces had been unable to stop the attack.Just two days before Sunday’s bombing the US embassy warned of a possible plot to attack central Ankara, advising American citizens to avoid the area.“People have been talking about another bomb attack coming for more than a week but the government took no precautions and didn’t warn anyone,” Nihat Gorgulu, the uncle of one of the victims, told AFP.“We are very afraid because the government doesn’t care about the people of this country.”Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the head of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, accused the government of “turning a blind eye” to the threat.“We do not deserve this intolerable situation where parents are burying their children,” he said.The head of the pro-Kurdish HDP party Selahattin Demirtas suggested the government was “politically liable” for the attack.“3 big explosions hit country’s capital in the last 5 months, should we say we congratulate AKP for this? What should we say?” he said on the party’s English-language Twitter account.Targeting civilians would not be a completely new tactic for Kurdish rebels, but would represent an escalation of the current phase of the conflict.Can Acun, an analyst with Turkish think tank SETA, told AFP the rebellion appeared to be getting desperate.“The ‘uprising’ launched by the PKK has not worked. Even the Kurdish population has distanced itself from its operations in the southeastern towns,” Acun said.“In frustration the PKK seems to have chosen to go for more serious acts.”Officials rejected the TAK claim for February’s attack, insisting it was the work of the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which it regards as a branch of the PKK. Both organizations have denied it.
Trump: Man who tried to rush stage at rally connected to IS-Republican front-runner says online search revealed Thomas Dimassimo has ties to jihadist group; IS expert calls claim ‘farcical’-By VIVIAN SALAMA and Jill Colvin March 13, 2016, 5:37 am-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump claimed that the man who tried to rush the stage at his Ohio rally Saturday morning is connected to Islamic State militants — an allegation Middle East experts dismiss as farcical.Trump was mid-speech at a rally at an airport near Dayton when a man, later identified by authorities asThomas Dimassimo of Fairborn, Ohio, jumped a barricade and rushed at Trump.Video from the rally shows Dimassimo was able to touch the stage before security officials tackled him.Speaking at a rally later Saturday in St. Louis, Trump told the crowd about the incident and said that, after learning the man’s name, one of his “Internet people” discovered something shocking: alleged evidence that linked Dimassimo to Islamic State militants.“It was probably ISIS or ISIS-related. Do you believe it?” Trump asked the crowd.He said that an online search had revealed “the guy is playing all sorts of, let’s say music that you wouldn’t be liking, dragging an American flag along the sidewalk, making all sorts of gestures, having all sorts of things on the Internet. And he’s probably or possibly ISIS-related.”Trump appeared to be referring to a video, which was posted on his official Twitter account, that shows student protesters stepping on American flags, declaring, “Black Lives Matter” and talking to reporters while religious music plays.USSS did an excellent job stopping the maniac running to the stage. He has ties to ISIS. Should be in jail! http://ift.tt/1U2Sz9y Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 12, 2016-It appears to be an edited version of a video posted on YouTube in April 2015 captioned, “Students at Wright State University #NotMyFlag protest.The protest occurred to stand in solidarity with the symbolic actions of Eric Sheppard.”The original does not include the religious soundtrack.Hassan Hassan, the co-author of the book “ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror,” says the video is “definitely not an ISIS video” based on its content.“This is utterly farcical; the video is incontrovertibly fake and Trump’s accusations about it being linked to ISIS serve only to underline the totality of his ignorance on this issue,” said Charles Lister, a fellow at the Middle East Institute.Lister noted the video contains a long list of elements that a jihadi video would never include, among them countless uncovered women, men in shorts and tank tops, and a man holding arms with a woman.“Nobody can deny that ISIS poses a threat to US national security, but giving credence to such ridiculous claims is arguably even more dangerous,” Lister said.
Nearly 1,000 people executed in Iran in 2015-With at least 966 put to death, capital punishment at highest level in over 20 years, UN human rights expert says-By AFP March 14, 2016, 10:01 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
GENEVA — Nearly 1,000 people were executed in Iran last year, marking the highest number in 20 years, the UN’s top expert on the human rights situation in the country said Monday.“At least 966 persons — the highest rate in over two decades — were executed in 2015,” Ahmed Shaheed told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.In 2014, 753 people were executed.Shaheed added that “at least 73 juvenile offenders were reportedly executed between 2005 and 2015,” 16 of them in the past two years alone.“At least 160 others are awaiting the same fate on death row,” he told the UN’s top rights body.In a report published in January, rights watchdog Amnesty International slammed Iran as the world’s most prolific executioner of offenders convicted of committing crimes as juveniles.The UN special rapporteur on Iran also voiced concern that in January this year, at least 47 journalists and social media activists reportedly remained detained in the country, after more than 270 Internet cafe businesses were reportedly closed in 2015 for their alleged “threat to societal norms and values.”Amnesty also accused Iran of breaking international law by failing to close a penal loophole allowing a judge to decide that girls as young as nine and boys as young as 15 bear full criminal responsibility — potentially exposing them to capital punishment.On Monday, Shaheed also addressed that issue, urging the Iranian government “to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 18 years and without discriminating between boys and girls.”
1 CHRONICLES 21:1
1 And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.
GENESIS 12:1-3
1 Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I (GOD) will shew thee:
2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
3 And I will bless them that bless thee,(ISRAELIS) and curse (DESTROY) him that curseth thee:(DESTROY THEM) and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
ISAIAH 41:11
11 Behold, all they that were incensed against thee (ISRAEL) shall be ashamed and confounded: they shall be as nothing;(DESTROYED) and they that strive with thee shall perish.(ISRAEL HATERS WILL BE TOTALLY DESTROYED)
ISRAELS TROUBLE
JEREMIAH 30:7
7 Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble;(ISRAEL) but he shall be saved out of it.
DANIEL 12:1,4
1 And at that time shall Michael(ISRAELS WAR ANGEL) stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people:(ISRAEL) and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation(May 14,48) even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.
4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro,(WORLD TRAVEL,IMMIGRATION) and knowledge shall be increased.(COMPUTERS,CHIP IMPLANTS ETC)
PA nixes Israeli offer to halt IDF activity in Ramallah, Jericho-Palestinians insist that Israeli army halt activity in all Palestinian cities; officials warn end to security cooperation being seriously considered-By Avi Issacharoff March 14, 2016, 6:35 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
The Palestinian Authority rejected an Israeli proposal to cease IDF operations in the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Jericho, and instead demanded that the army halt its activities in all areas controlled by the Palestinian governing body.The proposal, presented in late February, was raised as part of ongoing talks between Palestinian Authority and Israeli officials over the past weeks regarding the continuation of security coordination in the West Bank, Palestinian security sources told The Times of Israel Monday.According to the sources, Israeli officials in the secret talks had offered an end to IDF operations in Ramallah and Jericho as a first step toward enhancing security coordination, and said only later would the government consider applying a similar measure to other areas in the West Bank.However, the Palestinian Authority officials rejected the offer and demanded that Israel present a comprehensive timetable for a full cessation of military activities in Palestinian-controlled territories.As per agreements reached under the Oslo Accords, Palestinians maintain civilian and security control of territories in the so-called Area A, including Ramallah, Jericho and other major Palestinian population centers. However, Israeli forces often stage raids in these areas, often with the tacit support of the Palestinians, to arrest terror suspects, among other purposes.The Israeli proposal was first reported by Israeli daily Haaretz.Officials in Israel and the PA have expressed interest in continuing security coordination, even as diplomatic ties have withered and amid an ongoing wave of violence.However, senior political Palestinian officials have said behind closed doors that the authority had on several occasions warned Israeli representatives of the Shin Bet security service, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, and the IDF that security coordination between the two sides could not continue as long as the army operates in the West Bank’s Area A territories.According to PA officials, the IDF’s operations in Area A violate the agreements reached in the Oslo Accords, and are damaging to its government’s standing on the Palestinian street.Sources speaking to The Times of Israel on Monday said the Palestinian Authority had decided to reject the Israeli proposal as it did not provide concrete steps toward ending IDF military presence in all major West Bank cities.The sources further stated that while the Israeli side aimed to merely improve the security situation in the West Bank, the PA wanted to progress toward a political process aimed at a final-status agreement.The sources added that while Israeli officials were skeptical of the PA’s threats to end security cooperation, the Palestinian governing body was seriously weighing such an option if its demands were not met.They further said that the PA was indeed on the verge of collapse, but that the Palestinians would rather break up the governing body of their own accord rather than due to Israeli actions.Both sides see the security cooperation as key to keeping Hamas and other terror groups that could threaten Fatah’s control of the PA in check. However, the collapse of the PA would effectively spell the end of any security coordination and likely spiral into a breakout of violence in the West Bank, Israeli defense officials maintain.Israeli officials have warned that the PA may be on the verge of collapse due to the lack of a successor to President Mahmoud Abbas, an unwillingness to hold elections for the presidency, and a surplus of weapons in the West Bank, which would allow policemen, security forces and others with illegal weapons to stage a coup.Adiv Sterman and Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
US faces Russian opposition in push for Iran sanctions at UN-Samantha Power tells Security Council ‘dangerous, destabilizing and provocative’ missile launches ‘merit response,’ but Moscow says agreement not breached-By Tamar Pileggi March 14, 2016, 9:29 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
The United States on Monday convened a UN Security Council meeting aimed at advancing sanctions against Iran over its recent ballistic missile tests that Washington considers to be in violation of a UN resolution.Describing the missile launches as “dangerous, destabilizing and provocative,” US Ambassador Samantha Power noted that Iranian military officials had claimed that the missiles were designed to be a threat to Israel.“These were designed to deliver a nuclear weapon,” said Power. “This merits a council response.”Power though, was met with opposition from Russia and the EU, which both said they did not believe the last week’s missile tests were breaches of the landmark nuclear deal, which called for Iran to desist from developing missiles that can carry nuclear weapons.Ahead of the meeting, Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon called on the council to take action, arguing that failure to do so “will give Iran a green light to continue with its nuclear missile tests.”The meeting was called after Iran launched two mid-range ballistic missiles emblazoned with the words “Israel must be wiped off the map” in Hebrew and Persian on March 9. An Iranian commander boasted after the launch that the missiles had a range of 2,000 kilometers and could hit Israel.The UN meeting concluded with no specific follow-up action other than further discussion on the test-launches within a designated Security Council committee on Iran.“We did agree that it’s not a violation,” Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters, welcoming “a very satisfactory outcome of the discussion.”Russia’s opposition as a veto-wielding member of the council effectively ruled out the possibility of UN sanctions against Iran.During the closed-door meeting, Power accused Russia of “lawyering its way to look for reasons not to act rather than stepping up and being prepared to shoulder our collective responsibility.”Tehran maintains that the latest missile tests, which took place last week, were not aimed at developing a nuclear capability.Churkin noted that the term “called upon” in the new resolution was an important change in legal language from previous adopted texts that barred Iran from developing such technology.“A call is different from a ban, so legally you can’t violate a call,” he said.The new resolution “clearly raises the requirements of proof quite a bit” by stating that the missiles must be “designed” to have nuclear capability, Churkin added.Later on Monday, EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini said the ballistic missile tests were not in violation of its nuclear deal and the European Union was not considering sanctions at this stage.Power said last week’s launches defy provisions of UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which calls on Iran to refrain from developing ballistic missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.Resolution 2231 endorsed the nuclear deal reached between Western powers and Tehran, and came into effect in January of this year.“The technology they used is inherently capable of delivering nuclear weapons and thus inherently defying Resolution 2231,” Powers said, vowing to continue pushing the Security Council to take action on the matter.“We are not going to give up, no matter the quibbling that we heard today about this,” said Power, adding that “we also can consider, of course, our own appropriate national response.”France had warned on Sunday that it risked new sanctions as a result of the tests, but Mogherini said that was a matter for the UN Security Council and not the European Union Foreign Affairs Council.“This is indeed also in our view not a violation of the (nuclear deal) as such,” Mogherini said after meeting the foreign ministers of the 28 EU nations in Brussels.Under the July accord, the lifting of the nuclear sanctions takes place progressively in line with Tehran meeting its commitments.A key provision allows the sanctions to be restored or “snap-backed” immediately if Iran is found in breach of the agreement.The United States slapped sanctions on Iran in January over its ballistic missile program, even as the world hailed the implementation of the historic nuclear deal.Britain and France had both raised concern over the missile launches, but the ambassadors did not specifically say that the tests were a violation of Resolution 2231.“We judge that Iran is in blatant disregard of Resolution 2231,” said British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft.French Ambassador Francois Delattre said that “we are worried, because we are in a case of non-compliance with 2231.”UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last week urged Iran to act with caution and moderation, in response to the two days of missile launches.Given the political atmosphere in the Middle East, Iran should “act with moderation, caution and the good sense not to increase tensions through any hasty actions,” Ban’s spokesman said.Asked about the Israel threat earlier Monday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif lashed out at US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.“I ask you to go ask Netanyahu why is he threatening to use force against Iran every day. Go ask Obama why he is threatening to use force against Iran every day,” Zarif said. “Why are they saying all options are on the table?”AFP contributed to this report
US, Russia pull the strings as Syrian civil war enters sixth year-Major world powers have ‘monopoly’ on resolving crisis, and their interests will take precedence over Syrians’, analyst says-By Sammy Ketz and Olga Rotemberg March 14, 2016, 5:42 am-
BEIRUT (AFP) — The United States and Russia are pulling the strings in Syria’s five-year war, experts say, pressuring opposing sides and leveraging rival regional powers to reach a settlement.As the conflict enters its sixth year, the embattled regime and fractured opposition are in Geneva for indirect peace talks hosted by United Nations peace envoy Staffan de Mistura.But the real solution, experts say, is in Russian and American hands.“The two great powers talk among themselves by phone or in meetings around the world. Then they inform their Syrian allies and de Mistura what they’ve decided,” says veteran opposition figure Haytham Manaa.“Then, Russia and the US give the regional powers the red lines they’re not supposed to cross. The US bans the Turks from a ground incursion in Syria and asks the Saudis to stop sending arms. Russia does the same thing with Iran,” Manaa tells AFP.Syria’s conflict began on March 15, 2011 with a peaceful protest movement calling for President Bashar Assad to step down.But the uprising turned violent after the government launched a brutal crackdown on dissent, and its key players became the various armed forces — regime, opposition, jihadist, Kurdish — and their respective backers.Russia and the United States have exerted their influence over opposing sides of the complex war to broker a landmark truce that has been holding since February 27.“The US and Russia have taken command of, and have a monopoly over, the Syrian issue,” says Joseph Bahout, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington.Bassel Salloukh, political science professor at the Lebanese American University of Beirut, agrees.“Indeed, what started as a non-violent movement demanding reforms metamorphosed into an overlapping domestic, regional, and international struggle over Syria,” Salloukh says.He expects that “the strategic interests of Russia and the US will determine the shape of the settlement in Syria rather than the aspirations of its peoples.”Both the US and Russia were hesitant to become involved in a conflict as complex and unpredictable as Syria.“The notion that we could have… changed the equation on the ground there was never true,” US President Barack Obama has told The Atlantic magazine reporter Jeffrey Goldberg.When the United States did finally get militarily involved in Syria in September 2014, it was as part of a bombing campaign against the Islamic State group.One year later, Russia launched its own air war backing Assad after a devastating string of losses for the regime in the spring and summer of 2015.Moscow’s intervention was a major turning point for pro-Assad forces, shoring up their positions in the south, center, and north.“Moscow long believed that the regime would pull through on its own. It’s Tehran, the regime’s other ally, that sounded the alarm,” a foreign diplomat in Damascus tells AFP.“Iranian officials went to Moscow to tell the Russians that if they didn’t intervene immediately, the regime would collapse,” the diplomat says.“Asking the Syrian actors to agree has proven unsuccessful… because their ideological and territorial disagreements are so profound,” says Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma.“But all actors are so entirely dependent on their sponsors that they must comply with the wishes of their armorers.”But Russian and American leverage over warring parties in Syria has its limits.About half of Syrian territory is controlled by either IS or Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front, complicating the current truce deal and a future settlement.And Assad’s regime has occasionally spoken out of turn.In an interview with AFP in February, Assad said he sought to regain control over all of Syria, spurring the Russian government to slap him down.“Russia has invested very seriously in this crisis, politically, diplomatically and now also militarily,” Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s envoy to the UN, said at the time.“Therefore we would like Assad also to respond.”Fyodor Lukyanov, head of the Russian government-linked Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, says the Russian-US leadership are reminiscent of “the good old times.”“Thirty years after the end of the Cold War, it turns out that the only actors capable of deciding and taking action are Moscow and Washington,” he says.“Russia and the United States are indeed the only ones capable of pushing the warring parties towards peace,” Lukyanov tells AFP.“Other countries will not, or cannot, do it. This is the new world order.”
US faces Russian opposition in push for Iran sanctions at UN-Samantha Power tells Security Council ‘dangerous, destabilizing and provocative’ missile launches ‘merit response,’ but Moscow says agreement not breached-By Tamar Pileggi March 14, 2016, 9:29 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
The United States on Monday convened a UN Security Council meeting aimed at advancing sanctions against Iran over its recent ballistic missile tests that Washington considers to be in violation of a UN resolution.Describing the missile launches as “dangerous, destabilizing and provocative,” US Ambassador Samantha Power noted that Iranian military officials had claimed that the missiles were designed to be a threat to Israel.“These were designed to deliver a nuclear weapon,” said Power. “This merits a council response.”Power though, was met with opposition from Russia and the EU, which both said they did not believe the last week’s missile tests were breaches of the landmark nuclear deal, which called for Iran to desist from developing missiles that can carry nuclear weapons.Ahead of the meeting, Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon called on the council to take action, arguing that failure to do so “will give Iran a green light to continue with its nuclear missile tests.”The meeting was called after Iran launched two mid-range ballistic missiles emblazoned with the words “Israel must be wiped off the map” in Hebrew and Persian on March 9. An Iranian commander boasted after the launch that the missiles had a range of 2,000 kilometers and could hit Israel.The UN meeting concluded with no specific follow-up action other than further discussion on the test-launches within a designated Security Council committee on Iran.“We did agree that it’s not a violation,” Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters, welcoming “a very satisfactory outcome of the discussion.”Russia’s opposition as a veto-wielding member of the council effectively ruled out the possibility of UN sanctions against Iran.During the closed-door meeting, Power accused Russia of “lawyering its way to look for reasons not to act rather than stepping up and being prepared to shoulder our collective responsibility.”Tehran maintains that the latest missile tests, which took place last week, were not aimed at developing a nuclear capability.Churkin noted that the term “called upon” in the new resolution was an important change in legal language from previous adopted texts that barred Iran from developing such technology.“A call is different from a ban, so legally you can’t violate a call,” he said.The new resolution “clearly raises the requirements of proof quite a bit” by stating that the missiles must be “designed” to have nuclear capability, Churkin added.Later on Monday, EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini said the ballistic missile tests were not in violation of its nuclear deal and the European Union was not considering sanctions at this stage.Power said last week’s launches defy provisions of UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which calls on Iran to refrain from developing ballistic missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.Resolution 2231 endorsed the nuclear deal reached between Western powers and Tehran, and came into effect in January of this year.“The technology they used is inherently capable of delivering nuclear weapons and thus inherently defying Resolution 2231,” Powers said, vowing to continue pushing the Security Council to take action on the matter.“We are not going to give up, no matter the quibbling that we heard today about this,” said Power, adding that “we also can consider, of course, our own appropriate national response.”France had warned on Sunday that it risked new sanctions as a result of the tests, but Mogherini said that was a matter for the UN Security Council and not the European Union Foreign Affairs Council.“This is indeed also in our view not a violation of the (nuclear deal) as such,” Mogherini said after meeting the foreign ministers of the 28 EU nations in Brussels.Under the July accord, the lifting of the nuclear sanctions takes place progressively in line with Tehran meeting its commitments.A key provision allows the sanctions to be restored or “snap-backed” immediately if Iran is found in breach of the agreement.The United States slapped sanctions on Iran in January over its ballistic missile program, even as the world hailed the implementation of the historic nuclear deal.Britain and France had both raised concern over the missile launches, but the ambassadors did not specifically say that the tests were a violation of Resolution 2231.“We judge that Iran is in blatant disregard of Resolution 2231,” said British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft.French Ambassador Francois Delattre said that “we are worried, because we are in a case of non-compliance with 2231.”UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last week urged Iran to act with caution and moderation, in response to the two days of missile launches.Given the political atmosphere in the Middle East, Iran should “act with moderation, caution and the good sense not to increase tensions through any hasty actions,” Ban’s spokesman said.Asked about the Israel threat earlier Monday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif lashed out at US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.“I ask you to go ask Netanyahu why is he threatening to use force against Iran every day. Go ask Obama why he is threatening to use force against Iran every day,” Zarif said. “Why are they saying all options are on the table?”AFP contributed to this report
Ya’alon: Iran on a path to regional dominance-At Washington think-tank, defense minister warns that Iran deal creates the conditions for Iranian hegemony, says peace with Palestinians won’t be solved in his lifetime-By Eric Cortellessa March 14, 2016, 11:51 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
WASHINGTON — Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said Monday that the Iranian nuclear deal has created the conditions for Iran to attain greater hegemony in the region and that President Barack Obama mishandled attempts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.While maintaining gratitude to Obama for his support of Israel’s security, Ya’alon bewailed the recent lifting of crippling oil and financial sanctions on Iran, which released more than $100 billion in frozen assets. The defense minister conveyed that while the deal has caused the Iranian regime to give up their “timetable” for acquiring military nuclear power, they have not given up their aspirations to eventually do so.The more immediate concern for the next 10-15 years, Ya’alon insisted, was that the Iranians have created a “radical axis” throughout the Middle East that they are exploiting to gain greater dominance in the region.“The regime in Tehran has become a central party in order to solve the problems of the Middle East,” he said.Speaking before an audience at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Ya’alon discussed his concerns regarding the Iranian regime’s regional activities and how that is informing the negotiations currently underway between US and Israeli officials to hammer out a memorandum of understanding that would increase US military aid to Israel for the next 10 years.Ya’alon’s visit to Washington comes as he is set to meet with US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and other senior officials Monday afternoon regarding the defense aid package. While Ya’alon would not comment on the state of the talks — which have been rumored to be at an impasse — he said he hoped “negotiations will be concluded very soon.”Referring to Iran test-firing ballistic missiles last week that carried a Hebrew message saying “Israel must be wiped out,” Ya’alon said that the Israeli leadership believes that Iran is now “more confident, more free to act in the region today with more money as a result of the sanctions relief, violating many UN resolutions, international resolutions regarding the proliferation of arms and terror.”Last week’s episode also coincided with US Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel.Ya’alon told former Middle East peace negotiator Aaron David Miller, a vice president at the Wilson Center who moderated the forum, that he was apprehensive about President Obama allowing Iran to assert its influence over international attempts to ameliorate the Syrian crisis, as Israel borders Syria to its north along the Golan Heights. “To leave us with an Iranian-dominated Syria,” he said, “we can’t agree with it.”Furthermore, Ya’alon highlighted differences between Washington and Jerusalem over how to make progress on Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians, saying that Obama did not apply sufficient pressure on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.“When [Abbas] closed the door in front of both Secretary Kerry in February 2014 and President Obama in March 2014, he wasn’t blamed. Why? He’s too weak to be accountable,” he said, referring to the president offering Abbas the principles for a plan to resolve the conflict and achieve a two-state outcome. “The most important value that is missing in the Middle East is accountability. When [Abbas] closed the door in front of President Obama, he should have been blamed. He should be accountable.”Ya’alon also said the president embraced the “linkage” argument that maintains the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the main conflict in the Middle East that affects all others. “We still hear that the core of instability in the Middle East is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and that without solving it you can’t stabilize the Middle East,” he said. “It was ridiculous in the past and it is ridiculous today. What is the linkage between the uprising in Tunisia and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?”In a recent interview with The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, Obama addressed the linkage theory when asked about his 2009 Cairo reset speech, titled “A New Beginning,” in which he aimed to improve US relations with the Muslim World. “My argument was this: Let’s all stop pretending that the cause of the Middle East’s problems is Israel,” Obama said.The president’s statement dismayed critics, including MK Michael Oren, who was Israel’s ambassador to the US when the speech was given. Oren told the Algemeiner on Thursday that the speech “nowhere mentions that the Israeli-Palestinian issue is not the core of the Middle East’s other conflicts. It actually implied the opposite.”Despite Ya’alon telling Monday’s crowd that Israel doesn’t “want to govern the Palestinians” and that it would be “happy for them to enjoy their own political independence,” he offered a grim assessment of the future of the peace process, telling Miller “it’s not going to be solved in my lifetime.”
DEUTERONOMY 7:7-8
7 The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people;(ISRAEL) for ye were the fewest of all people:
8 But because the LORD loved you,(ISRAEL) and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
ZECHARIAH 2:8
8 For thus saith the LORD of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye.
JEREMIAH 3:14
14 Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am married unto you:(ISRAEL) and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion:
ISAIAH 42:1
1 Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect,(ISRAEL) in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.
ISAIAH 45:4
4 For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.
ISAIAH 65:9,22
9 And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains: and mine elect (ISRAEL) shall inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there.
22 They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect (ISRAEL) shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
1 CHRONICLES 17:9
9 Also I will ordain a place for my people Israel,(IN PALESTINE) and will plant them, and they shall dwell in their place, and shall be moved no more;(ISRAEL-NEVER DESTROYED-FOREVER AN EARTHLY NATION) neither shall the children of wickedness(ISHMAEL-ARAB/MUSLIMS-WORLD ISRAEL HATERS) waste them any more, as at the beginning,(ARAB/MUSLIMS ATTACK ISRAEL ON MAY 15,1948)
ISAIAH 56:5
5 Even unto them (ISRAELIS) will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name,(ISRAEL) that shall not be cut off.
ISAIAH 51:3-4
3 For the LORD shall comfort Zion:(JERUSALEM) he will comfort all her waste places;(FROM NUCLEAR WAR) and he will make her wilderness like Eden,(I BELIEVE THE EZEKIEL-4TH TEMPLE WILL BE BUILT 25 MILES FROM THE CURRENT TEMPLE MOUNT AFTER JESUS RULE FOR THE 1,000 YRS FROM JERUSALEM) and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.(PRAISE TO JESUS IN THE DESERT-COULD BE THE NEW JERUSALEM-4TH TEMPLE BUILT 25 MILES INTO THE DESERT FROM THE CURRENT TEMPLE MOUNT.SINCE EZEKIELS TEMPLE IS WAY TO BIG FOR THE CURRENT TEMPLE MOUNT)
4 Hearken unto me, my people;(ISRAEL) and give ear unto me, O my nation:(ISRAEL) for a law shall proceed from me,(JESUS IN JERUSALEM) and I will make my judgment to rest for a light of the people.(ISRAEL AND THE WORLD)
LUKE 21:28-29
28 And when these things begin to come to pass,(ALL THE PROPHECY SIGNS FROM THE BIBLE) then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption (RAPTURE) draweth nigh.
29 And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree,(ISRAEL) and all the trees;(ALL INDEPENDENT COUNTRIES)
30 When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand.(ISRAEL LITERALLY BECAME AND INDEPENDENT COUNTRY JUST BEFORE SUMMER IN MAY 14,1948.)
JOEL 2:3,30
3 A fire devoureth (ATOMIC BOMB) before them;(RUSSIAN-ARAB-MUSLIM ARMIES AGAINST ISRAEL) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(ATOMIC BOMB AFFECT)
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their eyes shall consume away in their holes,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB)(BECAUSE NUKES HAVE BEEN USED ON ISRAELS ENEMIES)(GOD PROTECTS ISRAEL AND ALWAYS WILL)
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.(1/2-3 BILLION DIE IN WW3)(THIS IS AN ATOMIC BOMB EFFECT)
EZEKIEL 20:47
47 And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the LORD; Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein.
ZEPHANIAH 1:18
18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD'S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
MALACHI 4:1
1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven;(FROM ATOMIC BOMBS) and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
And here are the bounderies of the land that Israel will inherit either through war or peace or God in the future. God says its Israels land and only Israels land. They will have every inch God promised them of this land in the future.
Egypt east of the Nile River, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, The southern part of Turkey and the Western Half of Iraq west of the Euphrates. Gen 13:14-15, Psm 105:9,11, Gen 15:18, Exe 23:31, Num 34:1-12, Josh 1:4.ALL THIS LAND ISRAEL WILL DEFINATELY OWN IN THE FUTURE, ITS ISRAELS NOT ISHMAELS LAND.
12 TRIBES INHERIT LAND IN THE FUTURE
Palestinian-American member of IS surrenders to Iraqi Kurds-Jihadi, identified as Virginia native Mohammed Jamal Amin, gives himself up after wandering into Peshmerga hands-By AP and Times of Israel staff March 14, 2016, 4:52 pm
IRBIL, Iraq — A Palestinian-American member of the Islamic State group on Monday gave himself up to an Iraqi Kurdish military unit in the country’s north, an Iraqi Kurdish general said.The man had been “lurking near the peshmerga lines” since late Sunday night, according to Maj. Gen. Feisal Helkani of the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces, which are playing key role — along with the Iraqi military — in battling the extremist IS group.Helkani said his troops first tried to shoot the man, assuming he was a would-be suicide bomber.“Then in the morning, he walked across and gave himself up,” Helkani said, adding that the man is a Palestinian-American who was fighting with IS in Iraq. The surrender took place on the front lines near the town of Sinjar, which was retaken by Iraqi forces from IS militants late last year.Helkani identified the individual who surrendered as Mohammed Jamal Amin.According to Helkani, Amin was carrying with him a large amount of cash, three cellphones and three forms of identification, including a US driver’s license. The IS fighter is currently being held by the peshmerga troops for interrogation, Helkani added.The Iraqi Kurdish general did not provide further details or a hometown or state for the Palestinian-American.Kurdish news outlet Rudaw reported Amin was from Virginia and was born to a Palestinian father and Iraqi mother.The site published pictures of IDs and credit cards, including a Virginia driver’s license, purported to be from Amin.The Pentagon and US Embassy in Baghdad could not confirm the reports, Reuters reported.A photograph of the IS fighter’s driving license from Virginia was posted on social media sites, identifying him as Mohamad Jamal Khweis, 27, from Alexandria, Virginia.The discrepancy between the fighter’s family name on the license and the one provided by the Kurdish general could not immediately be reconciled. His first name was also spelled differently.In grainy cell phone footage, also posted on social media shortly after the surrender, the man is seen surrounded by Iraqi Kurdish troops and confirming that he is from the United States and that he is Palestinian. In response to an interrogator’s question, he says he was in the city of Mosul, which is under IS control.Though rare in Iraq, Syrian Kurdish fighters battling the Islamic State in neighboring Syria have told The Associated Press that they are seeing an increase in the number of IS members surrendering following recent territorial losses.Last week, Brett McGurk, President Barack Obama’s envoy to the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group, announced that IS had lost more than 3,000 square kilometers (1,158 square miles) of territory in Syria and more than 600 fighters over the past month.In Iraq, the Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for a series of suicide attacks that have killed more than 170 people over the past few weeks. Iraqi officials also say the group has launched a number of chemical weapons attacks.Local officials in the town of Taza in Iraq’s north say a recent attack injured more than 600 people. The attacks follow a string of advances by Iraqi forces backed by US-led airstrikes, including in the western city of Ramadi, which was declared fully “liberated” by Iraqi and US-led coalition officials last month.IS still controls large swaths of land in Iraq and Syria and has declared an Islamic “caliphate” on the territory it holds. The extremist group also controls Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, as well as the city of Fallujah, 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of Baghdad.
Rebels, Germany laud Russian plan to withdraw from Syria-Berlin says pullout, which Moscow claims is designed to signal shift from fighting to diplomacy, will put pressure on Assad as peace talks get underway-By AFP and Times of Israel staff March 14, 2016, 11:25 pm
Syria’s main opposition on Monday hailed Russian President Vladimir Putin announcement that his country would begin withdrawing its forces from Syria on Tuesday, but said it would wait and see what impact the order would have on the ground.“We must verify the nature of this decision and its meaning,” Salem al-Meslet, spokesman for the opposition High Negotiations Committee told reporters in Geneva.“If there is a decision to withdraw the (Russian) forces, it is a positive decision, and we will see it on the ground (but) does this decision mean removing forces or just reducing the number of aircraft in Syria, (that) we will have to check,” he said.Putin earlier Monday ordered the start of the withdrawal of Moscow’s forces from Syria in a shock move, as fresh peace talks began in Geneva.“The task that was set before our defense ministry and armed forces has as a whole been completed and so I order the defense ministry to from tomorrow start the withdrawal of the main part of our military contingents from the Syrian Arab Republic,” Putin told Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in televised comments.German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Monday that should the Russian military withdrawal from Syrian territory materializes, it would put pressure on Assad and force him to take the Geneva talks seriously, according to Reuters.Meanwhile, US officials, who spoke under condition of anonymity, told the news agency that the White House had not been briefed about the Russian pullout, and that Putin’s announcement had caught the US government by surprise.They added that so far there was no indication on the ground of preparations for withdrawal from Syria.The UN special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, who restarted peace talks between the Syrian government and the opposition in Geneva on Monday, said he had no comment on Putin’s announcement when contacted by The Associated Press.But hopes for a breakthrough at the talks remained remote with both sides locked in a bitter dispute over the future of President Bashar Assad, on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the brutal conflict.Vitaly Churkin, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations said, Russia’s decision to begin withdrawing from Syria was designed to help Moscow intensify efforts to reach a political settlement.“Our diplomacy has received marching orders to intensify our efforts to achieve a political settlement in Syria,” Churkin told reporters ahead of a UN Security Council meeting on Syria.Churkin said Russian special forces were being pulled out and the remaining military personnel would mainly be engaged in making sure the cease-fire now underway is maintained.He didn’t respond to questions on whether Russian airstrikes would end.The Kremlin announced that Putin had called Assad to inform Moscow’s long-standing ally of the shock move that appears to end the main part of its controversial bombing campaign that began in September.“The leaders noted that the actions of the Russian airforce allowed to radically change the situation in the fight against terrorism, to disorganize the fighters’ infrastructure and inflict significant damage on them,” the Kremlin said in a statement.“Taking that into account, the President of Russia stated that the main tasks set before the armed forces of Russia in Syria had been completed. It was agreed to carry out the withdrawal of the main part of Russia’s airforce contingent,” the statement said.The two leaders, however, also agreed that Moscow would maintain an airforce facility in Syria to help monitor the progress of a ceasefire in the war-torn country.“Assad noted the professionalism, courage and heroism of the officers of the Russian armed forces that took part in the military operations and expressed deep appreciation to Russia,” the Kremlin statement said.“The Syrian leader underlined his readiness for the quickest establishment of the political process in Syria,” the statement said.Assad said the Russian military would draw down its air force contingent from Syria but won’t leave the country altogether, Syrian state TV reported.Assad said the collaboration between Russian and Syrian forces had secured “victories against terrorism and returned security to the country.”Russia began its airstrikes in support of Assad’s forces in September, a move that helped shore up the Syrian regime’s crumbling forces and allow them to go on the offensive.Russia sent over 50 warplanes to carry out thousands of strikes across the war-torn country arguing that it was targeting “terrorist” groups including Islamic State jihadists.The intervention was slammed by the West and its regional allies, who insisted that Moscow was mainly bombing more moderate rebels fighting Assad.A temporary ceasefire between Assad’s forces and opponents in the country introduced on February 27 has largely held, but it does not cover the IS and Nusra front groups.Putin said he hoped the withdrawal decision would provide a “good signal” for all the warring sides in the conflict.“I hope this will significantly increase the level of trust of all the participants in the political process in Syria,” Putin said at the televised meeting that was also attended by foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists that Moscow’s Hmeimim air base in Syria and its Tartus naval facility would remain functioning and that some military contingents would stay behind.He did not however give any details on how many soldiers would stay in Syria and what the timeframe for withdrawal was.The UN-hosted negotiations in Geneva are the latest effort to end violence that has killed more than 270,000 people and displaced millions.Hopes for a breakthrough at the talks, however, appeared remote with the sides locked in a bitter dispute over Assad’s future.As the Syrian delegations arrived in Geneva over the weekend, Damascus warned that any discussion about removing Assad would be a “red line”.Top Western diplomats immediately condemned the comment from Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem as divisive and provocative.After his first official meeting with the regime on Monday, UN envoy de Mistura told reporters that “strong statements (and) rhetoric” were part of every tough negotiation and that his initial discussions with government representative Bashar Jaafari were “useful.”
Turkey points finger at Kurdish rebels over Ankara bombing-PM Ahmet Davutoglu says ‘serious, almost certain findings’ point to involvement of outlawed Kurdish Workers Party in deadly blast-By Fulya Ozerkan March 14, 2016, 10:18 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
AFP — Turkey on Monday blamed Kurdish rebels for a suicide car bombing that killed 35 people in Ankara, the latest in a series of attacks that has raised concerns about security in the country.There has been no claim of responsibility for the Sunday evening blast, which reduced cars and buses to charred husks on a busy road in the heart of the city, wounding more than 120 people.But Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said “serious, almost certain findings” from the investigation pointed to the outlawed Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) and vowed to “take any step required to defend this country.”Officials say that of the 37 people killed in the blast, 35 have now been identified as victims, one was a female suicide bomber and one a man thought to have been her accomplice.Sunday’s carnage, the second major bombing in Ankara in less than a month, will come as an embarrassment to the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose Justice and Development Party (AKP) won parliamentary elections in November promising to save Turkey from “chaos” and smash the PKK.In February a car bombing along very similar lines targeted military personnel in a nearby area of Ankara, killing 29 people.A second attack so soon afterwards in the center of the Turkish capital will add to security fears as Turkey grapples with the twin threat of Kurdish rebels and the Islamic State (IS) group.The February attack was claimed by the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), linked to the PKK, as revenge for Turkish military operations in the southeast. The TAK warned of more attacks to come, including on tourist areas.Turkey has in recent months waged an all-out assault on the PKK, which launched an insurgency against the Turkish state in 1984, fighting for greater autonomy and rights for the country’s largest ethnic minority.“There are very serious, almost certain findings that point to the separatist terrorist organization,” Davutoglu told reporters after visiting the wounded at an Ankara hospital, referring to the PKK.Authorities have detained 11 people over the attack, Davutoglu said, while Turkish jets bombed PKK targets in northern Iraq on Monday, just hours after the blast.Mourners wept as the first of the victims were laid to rest on Monday, some in coffins draped with the scarlet Turkish flag.The country has been hit by a string of major attacks since the middle of last year, most of them blamed on IS, which controls large areas of Turkey’s southern neighbor Syria.Three have targeted Ankara, including a double suicide bombing in October that left 103 people dead.Erdogan vowed late Sunday that the government would “never abandon its right to legitimate defense against the terrorist menace”, but there was anger that security forces had been unable to stop the attack.Just two days before Sunday’s bombing the US embassy warned of a possible plot to attack central Ankara, advising American citizens to avoid the area.“People have been talking about another bomb attack coming for more than a week but the government took no precautions and didn’t warn anyone,” Nihat Gorgulu, the uncle of one of the victims, told AFP.“We are very afraid because the government doesn’t care about the people of this country.”Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the head of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, accused the government of “turning a blind eye” to the threat.“We do not deserve this intolerable situation where parents are burying their children,” he said.The head of the pro-Kurdish HDP party Selahattin Demirtas suggested the government was “politically liable” for the attack.“3 big explosions hit country’s capital in the last 5 months, should we say we congratulate AKP for this? What should we say?” he said on the party’s English-language Twitter account.Targeting civilians would not be a completely new tactic for Kurdish rebels, but would represent an escalation of the current phase of the conflict.Can Acun, an analyst with Turkish think tank SETA, told AFP the rebellion appeared to be getting desperate.“The ‘uprising’ launched by the PKK has not worked. Even the Kurdish population has distanced itself from its operations in the southeastern towns,” Acun said.“In frustration the PKK seems to have chosen to go for more serious acts.”Officials rejected the TAK claim for February’s attack, insisting it was the work of the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which it regards as a branch of the PKK. Both organizations have denied it.
Trump: Man who tried to rush stage at rally connected to IS-Republican front-runner says online search revealed Thomas Dimassimo has ties to jihadist group; IS expert calls claim ‘farcical’-By VIVIAN SALAMA and Jill Colvin March 13, 2016, 5:37 am-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump claimed that the man who tried to rush the stage at his Ohio rally Saturday morning is connected to Islamic State militants — an allegation Middle East experts dismiss as farcical.Trump was mid-speech at a rally at an airport near Dayton when a man, later identified by authorities asThomas Dimassimo of Fairborn, Ohio, jumped a barricade and rushed at Trump.Video from the rally shows Dimassimo was able to touch the stage before security officials tackled him.Speaking at a rally later Saturday in St. Louis, Trump told the crowd about the incident and said that, after learning the man’s name, one of his “Internet people” discovered something shocking: alleged evidence that linked Dimassimo to Islamic State militants.“It was probably ISIS or ISIS-related. Do you believe it?” Trump asked the crowd.He said that an online search had revealed “the guy is playing all sorts of, let’s say music that you wouldn’t be liking, dragging an American flag along the sidewalk, making all sorts of gestures, having all sorts of things on the Internet. And he’s probably or possibly ISIS-related.”Trump appeared to be referring to a video, which was posted on his official Twitter account, that shows student protesters stepping on American flags, declaring, “Black Lives Matter” and talking to reporters while religious music plays.USSS did an excellent job stopping the maniac running to the stage. He has ties to ISIS. Should be in jail! http://ift.tt/1U2Sz9y Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 12, 2016-It appears to be an edited version of a video posted on YouTube in April 2015 captioned, “Students at Wright State University #NotMyFlag protest.The protest occurred to stand in solidarity with the symbolic actions of Eric Sheppard.”The original does not include the religious soundtrack.Hassan Hassan, the co-author of the book “ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror,” says the video is “definitely not an ISIS video” based on its content.“This is utterly farcical; the video is incontrovertibly fake and Trump’s accusations about it being linked to ISIS serve only to underline the totality of his ignorance on this issue,” said Charles Lister, a fellow at the Middle East Institute.Lister noted the video contains a long list of elements that a jihadi video would never include, among them countless uncovered women, men in shorts and tank tops, and a man holding arms with a woman.“Nobody can deny that ISIS poses a threat to US national security, but giving credence to such ridiculous claims is arguably even more dangerous,” Lister said.
Nearly 1,000 people executed in Iran in 2015-With at least 966 put to death, capital punishment at highest level in over 20 years, UN human rights expert says-By AFP March 14, 2016, 10:01 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
GENEVA — Nearly 1,000 people were executed in Iran last year, marking the highest number in 20 years, the UN’s top expert on the human rights situation in the country said Monday.“At least 966 persons — the highest rate in over two decades — were executed in 2015,” Ahmed Shaheed told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.In 2014, 753 people were executed.Shaheed added that “at least 73 juvenile offenders were reportedly executed between 2005 and 2015,” 16 of them in the past two years alone.“At least 160 others are awaiting the same fate on death row,” he told the UN’s top rights body.In a report published in January, rights watchdog Amnesty International slammed Iran as the world’s most prolific executioner of offenders convicted of committing crimes as juveniles.The UN special rapporteur on Iran also voiced concern that in January this year, at least 47 journalists and social media activists reportedly remained detained in the country, after more than 270 Internet cafe businesses were reportedly closed in 2015 for their alleged “threat to societal norms and values.”Amnesty also accused Iran of breaking international law by failing to close a penal loophole allowing a judge to decide that girls as young as nine and boys as young as 15 bear full criminal responsibility — potentially exposing them to capital punishment.On Monday, Shaheed also addressed that issue, urging the Iranian government “to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 18 years and without discriminating between boys and girls.”
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