blog.Tribulationperiod.com

The Future Role of Iran in the Middle East

August 17, 2005

Supplement to Archive Update 199A

Please take a look at Prophecy Archive Update 199A

to see an outline of how the new regime blends in with the rising spirit of Jihad across the Islamic world.

The extract, which follows, was taken from an August 15 article by Amir Taheri of the Jerusalem Post, titled “Eye of the Storm: Behind the Scenes in Tehran.” I urge you to read the extract, and to remember “the first ingredient of their ideology” in Iran as stated by Taheri.

Extract from Jerusalem Post Article Begins

Eye of the Storm: Behind the Scenes in Tehran

By Amir Taheri, THE JERUSALEM POST

August 15, 2005

Last June’s presidential election represented a turning point in the history of the Islamic Republic for a number of reasons.

This was the first time in a quarter of a century that a non-mullah

was becoming president. Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the man defeated in the election, was one of the two biggest hitters within the clerical ruling elite and regarded as a pillar of the regime since 1979.

That unexpected outcome was made possible by Khamenei, also a mullah, who decided to abandon his turbaned camp and ally himself to the new power coalition represented by Ahamdinejad.

But what does this new coalition consist of?

THE COMPOSITION of Ahmadinejad’s cabinet provides some clues. The backbone of the new coalition consists of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a 350,000-strong parallel army which, if its veterans are taken into account, represents a popular base of between two and three million, including families of officers and men.

That base is further broadened thanks to the Baseej Mustazafin (Mobilization of the Dispossessed), a paramilitary force of some 4.5 million active and reservist fighters.

Of the 21 members of the new cabinet at least eight have backgrounds of service in either the IRCG or the Baseej.

Almost all the posts related to the economy and finance have gone to the tendency known as usulgara or fundamentalist, which consists of politicians and businessmen with strong connections to the traditional bazaars.

Such key ministries as Security, Justice, and the Interior have gone to individuals with long years of service within the so-called intelligence community. But the cabinet also includes a number of technocrats and professional civil servants, including in such key positions as foreign minister. At least six ministers belong to the so-called Ithari (self-sacrificing) faction of which Ahamdinejad himself is a member.

What do these factions have in common

?

The first ingredient of their ideology is a firm belief that the Islamic Republic is destined to play a major historic role by mobilizing the Muslim world against what they see as “the reshaping of the world by the American Great Satan.”

The second element, borrowed from the triemondiste literature of the 1960s, is the belief that the fight against colonialism and neocolonialism is far from over and that, with the physical phase of colonialism now over, the world must cope with the threat of “cultural Imperialism.”

A THIRD element in the common ideology of these groups is a clear desire to broaden the base of the regime away from the mullahs who have monopolized key positions of power since 1979.

This is based on the belief that the ruling mullahs have milked the system and, having become rich, can no longer share the revolutionary aspirations of the poor masses.

The fourth element of this ideology consists of a firm belief in the leading role of the state in the national economy.

This does not mean doing away with the traditional private sector as represented by the bazaars, which backed Ahamdinejad in the election. But it legitimates state control over almost 70 per cent of the gross domestic product and assigns to government the task of redistributing the nation’s wealth, especially the oil income. The new coalition’s economic philosophy also emphasizes self-sufficiency and the need for strict controls over foreign trade and direct foreign investment.

The Rafsanjani-Khatami faction likes to describe itself as “leftist” and “reformist” and has labeled the coalition led by Ahmadinejad as “rightist” or “conservative.” These labels are misleading.

The Usuli-Itahri coalition led by Ahamdinejad is a radical one dedicated to a revolutionary agenda in both domestic and foreign policies.

Extract from Jerusalem Post Article Ends

http://www.tribulationperiod.com/

Strong Right Wing Leader Needed to Enforce Security Barrier

Supplement to Archive Update 170A

August 16, 2005

The article accompanying thi s

Supplement to Archive Prophecy 170A, “Netanyahu’s Lightning Flash,” outlines a distinct possibility to look for in future changes in Israel’s Likud Party. In Archive Prophecy 170A, issued some 16 months ago, I anticipated the possibility of Netanyahu eventually replacing Sharon as Prime Minister.

It now appears possible for what I expected to come to fruition. The following article by Uri Dan in the Jerusalem Post, gives an excellent assessment of the possible future scenario regarding the office of Prime Minister in Israel.

I hope he is right concerning Netanyahu. There is no better leader in Israel than Netanyahu to administer barrier security once the withdrawal is complete from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Netanyahu’s Lightning Flash

By Uri Dan, THE JERUSALEM POST

August 14, 2005

Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s resignation from Ariel Sharon’s government came with the same surprise as Sharon’s resignation from Yitzhak Shamir’s government at the beginning of 1990, when he was minister of Industry and Commerce.

At that time, at Sharon’s direction, I secretly prepared his letter of resignation, which he read aloud to the astonishment of Shamir and his m inisters

during a meeting of the Likud Center.

Sharon explained that he was resigning because of the government’s passivity in the face of Palestinian terror, which had even penetrated Jerusalem.

Respect is due to ministers who base their resignation on matters of principle. Very few ministers in Israeli governments have done so.

“It’s very nice to be a minister,”

Sharon has said mockingly for several years, since he is very familiar with the features of the average Israeli ministerial position. Ministers derive great satisfaction from the perks of their office: cars, luxurious offices, frequent trips abroad at the public’s expense, and never consider the idea of resignation.

When Sharon raised the idea of resignation from Ministry of Industry and Commerce for the first time in May 1989, during a meeting held in his office in the Tel Aviv Kirya, I was the only one who supported the idea.

All others present were opposed.

“You would be abandoning a position of strength,” they told him.

Sharon hammered on the glass-topped table in anger, and shouted: “This isn’t a position of strength but of weakness!” He explained once again the impotence of

the national unity government led by Shamir, Peres, and Rabin in its surrender to the PLO and Palestinian terror.

The day after Sharon’s resignation in 1990 he was given a political funeral by the media, and by Likud and Labor politicians.

No one took notice of his warning regarding the government’s failure to address the security situation.

The media laughed at him when he cried, “Who is in favor of fighting against terror?”

SIMILARLY, very few commentators and politicians paid notice to the reasons for the resignation of Netanyahu, who warns against the danger of the Gaza Strip becoming a new, dangerous springboard for Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israel.

Most of the commentators mocking Netanyahu were angry that he dared to resign just before the closing of the Stock Exchange, thus causing the plummeting of share prices and the loss of billions. They seemed more worried about stock profits than the danger to life about which Netanyahu gave warning.

We now have two great people who have at some time resigned from the Likud: Sharon and Netanyahu.

Sharon’s resignation, as I predicted to him in 1990, became a station on his inevitable path toward the position of prime minister. Will Netanyahu’s resignation also advance him toward his declared aim of becoming prime minister again?

A great deal depends on security developments. It may be assumed that Sharon, like Netanyahu, is well aware of the grave dangers from Palestinian terror that will exist even after the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

However, Sharon believes that he will be better able to wage the military and diplomatic campaign after he retreats from Gaza, under the new conditions that will be created. In contrast, Netanyahu declared that Israel’s situation will further deteriorate after Sharon withdraws under such terrible conditions.

These conflicting viewpoints were illuminated by the lighting flash of Netanyahu’s resignation, when he got up and pulled the carpet out from under the feet of his enemies and persecutors, just as Sharon did to Shamir & Co. in 1990.

SIGNS OF THE TIMES – THE COMING OF MESSIAH!

SUPPLEMENT TO ARCHIVE UPDATES 66 & 67

August 14, 2005

The following article, from the Religion Section of Interfax News, cries out in history reminding us of the rejection of the first and only Messiah of Israel and, that indeed, all Chief Rabbis will soon see him return just as he once promised the Chief Rabbi or High Priest of Israel.

Matthew 26:59-64 – Now the chief priests, and elders, and all the council, sought false witness against Jesus, to put him to death; [60] But found none: yea, though many false witnesses came, yet found they none. At the last came two false witnesses, [61] And said, This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days. [62] And the high priest arose, and said unto him, Answerest thou nothing

? what is it which these witness against thee? [63] But Jesus held his peace. And the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God.

[64] Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

Revelation 1:7 – Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.

Matthew 24:30 – And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

I believe the Chief Rabbi, in the following article, is quite correct in his prediction of the arrival of Israel’s Messiah in the not too distant future, but I fear he will be very surprised at who appears in the clouds of heaven.

BEGIN ENTERFAX NEWS ARTICLE

Russia’s Chief Rabbi Predicts Imminent Coming of a Messiah

Moscow, August 9, Interfax – Russia’s Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar believes the Earth will soon see the coming of Messiah to reward everyone according to his deserts.

‘We know that he (Messiah – IF) is very near at hand, but he needs not only to be born

but also to come. The Messiah may well have been born already, but unless he is ordered by God he cannot reveal himself with God’s help and change the world for the better’, the rabbi said in an interview published by

the Gazeta daily on Tuesday.

Lazar explained his assumptions about the imminent coming of a Messiah by the fact that “the world today is in a state described by our sages as ‘hevley mashiah’, that is, labour that precedes the coming of a Messiah’.

‘It is a time’, he explained, ‘when many good things are created in the world and the progress of science and technology has made it possible to solve many human problems, to overcome diseases, famine, etc., on one hand.

On the other hand, it is for the first time since God created human beings that humans have taken hold of such means of destruction that the whole of our race and even the globe itself can be destroyed instantly’.

‘We are living on the verge of history; it can be felt everywhere’, Rabbi Lazar is convinced.

Recalling the comparison made by philosopher Maimonides who likened the world to scales, Lazar assumed that ‘perhaps God is waiting for only one deed to be put on the good scale to order the Messiah to reveal himself’.

Speaking about it, Russia’s chief rabbi called upon everyone ‘to add this good deed as one’s contribution may prove decisive’.

END INTERFAX NEWS ARTICLE

Just as the High Priest Caiaphas prophesied that one man had to die in order for the whole nation not to perish, and identified that man as Jesus, so will that same Jesus come to deliver Israel out of the Negev at the battle of Armageddon, that the whole nation does not perish.

John 11:47-53 – Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we

? for this man doeth many miracles. [48] If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.

[49] And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all, [50] Nor consider that it is expedient for us,

that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. [51] And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; [52] And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.

[53] Then from that day forth they took counsel

together for to put him to death.

I am afraid that the Chief Rabbi’s reference to “the labor that precedes the coming of a Messiah,” would be better applied to Jeremiah 30:7, as opposed to labors involving good works.

Jeremiah 30:7 – Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.

Tisha Be’av – Israel

Mourns – Islam Celebrates – False Peace – War – Armageddon – Peace

Supplement to Archive Update 79

Time of Mourning for Israel – Time of Celebration for Terrorists

August 14, 2005

Saturday began the traditional mourning observances of Tisha Be’av in Israel. It is a time of mourning of the destruction of the Jewish temples by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. and by the Romans in 70 A.D. It is an especially great time of mourning this year because Israel will soon begin to mourn the loss of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, losing most of the settlements there.

This week will produce a clash of extremes in the Middle East – Great mourning for Israelis over their centuries of loss, and wild celebrations by the Islamic world over what they will claim is the result of Jihad

by their many terrorist groups in Israel and across the rest of the world.

Israel has made it abundantly clear that any action against the settlers pulling out of Gaza or the West Bank will be met with fierce retaliation and they mean what they say.

The coming months will be tumultuous, but by 2007 the Palestinians will be in place behind the Israel security barrier, and any action on the part of any terrorist group against Israel, linked with those inside the barrier, will see Israel’s IDF launching precision and decisive strikes against them. There current victory celebrations will be turned into wails of mourning if they do not toe

the mark once they are forced on the opposite side of the security barrier from Israel. And Israel’s day of rejoicing will finally occur when the true Moshiach (Messiah) suddenly appears to deliver them from all their enemies at the final battle of Armageddon.

Zechariah 14:8,9 – And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be. [9] And the Lord shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one Lord, and his name one.

The following description of Tisha Be’av comes from the archive pages of THE JEWISH LINK.

BEGIN JEWISH LINK DESCRIPTION

TISHA Be’AV – A TIME OF MOURING FOR ISRAEL

Tisha Be’Av means “the ninth (day) of Av.” usually occurs in the English Calendar during July or August. The Fast of the Ninth of Av, is a day of mourning to commemorate the many tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people, many of which coincidentally have occurred on this ninth of Av. The worst of Jewish tragedies occurred on the 9th of Av, most notably the destruction of both Temples. (the first by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E.; the second by the Romans in 70 C.E.).

Although this holiday is primarily meant to commemorate the destruction of the Temple, it is appropriate to consider on this day the many other tragedies of the Jewish people. In chronological order it’s source began with the sin of the spies whom spoke negatively about the land of Israel to the Jewish nation (noted in the book of Bamidbar of the Torah)

. That same night the Jews mourned for lack of faith. Ever since, G_d had given the nation a real reason to mourn in correction of this lack of faith. Throughout history, the Temples burned, the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, Pogroms and World War I and II have all occurred on this momentous day.

In the future this day of mourning will completely turn into a day of rejoicing as the true Moshiach will be born on this day removing the yoke of the nations around us.

Tisha Be’Av is the culmination of a three-week period of increasing mourning, beginning with the fast of the 17th of Tammuz, which commemorates the first breach in the walls of Jerusalem, before the First Temple was destroyed. During this three-week period, weddings and other parties are not permitted, and people refrain from cutting their hair. From the first to the ninth of Av, it is customary to refrain from eating meat or drinking wine (except on the Shabbat) and from wearing new clothing.

Tisha Be’Av is an appropriate time for all Jews to mourn what we have lost.

Many of the customs of mourning are in effect during this period, which gives us the opportunity to look deeply into our lives and mourn for what we once had. Mourning requires that we attentively observe our feelings of what has departed from our lives. There’s not much else to do but observe the feelings as they arise without fleeing from them. The more diligently we’re willing to face the feelings, the sooner they will depart from your life. The feelings that accompany loss are often painful, but the effort of making full use of these weeks of grieving is highly cathartic and purifying. Tisha Be’Av is an ideal opportunity for us to complete the process of healing as

an entire community.

The restrictions on Tisha Be’Av are similar to those on Yom Kippur: to refrain from eating and drinking (even water); washing, bathing, shaving or wearing cosmetics; wearing leather shoes; engaging in sexual relations; and studying Torah. Work in the ordinary sense of the word is also restricted. People who are ill need not fast on this day.

Many of the traditional mourning practices are observed: people refrain from smiles, laughter and idle conversation, and sit on low stools.

In synagogue, the book of Lamentations is read and mourning prayers are recited.

The ark (cabinet where the Torah is kept) is draped in black.

The physical connection of the entire Jewish people to Jerusalem comes to the fore, obviously, when King David conquered it from the Jebusites, paid for the holy site on the Temple Mount and made the city his capital.

After the destruction of the First Temple, the majority of the Jewish population was swept into exile in Babylon, by whose rivers they swore to weep for Zion, “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its cunning.

May my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not place Jerusalem above all my joy.”

In the Maccabean era,

the very essence of the fight for Jerusalem was to establish the Jewish nature of the city and drive out pagan practices from Temple ritual and Hellenism from public life. Under other circumstances, there would have been no national uprising against Jewish subordination to the Greeks.

The importance of Jerusalem as a national symbol grew with subsequent periods of foreign domination: during the Great Rebellion and

the Bar Kochba Rebellion, coins were minted in memory of Jerusalem.

It is, however, only after the destruction of the Second Temple that the significance of Jerusalem is transformed into that which we know today – a focal point, around which Jewish life turns and towards which the entire Jewish people’s national aspirations and messianic hopes are directed.

Thus, we find that not only is this a spiritual connection, but also a physical one: all synagogue interiors around the world are built facing Jerusalem. Indeed, the daily and festival prayers abound in references to Jerusalem- in terms referring to the city and in lengthier text; the liturgy contains five major blessings relating to Jerusalem, while many other community and home rituals also describe and commemorate the Holy City.

Jerusalem is the major topic of pre-modern Hebrew poetry, and the Kinot – the mediaeval and subsequent mourning liturgy of Tisha Be’av – focus time and again on Jerusalem as they lament the trials of the Jewish people throughout its history of exile.

As the inevitable cycle of life continues and repeats, traditions connected with Jerusalem have been enshrined to remind us that even joy is not complete without Jerusalem: a plate is broken at the signing of an engagement contract; a groom breaks a glass under the bridal canopy after the ceremony; one small section of the wall in every new house is left unplastered or unpainted – incomplete.

For generations, it was impossible for most Jews to dream of living in Jerusalem themselves, but they participated by supporting those communities which resided there, hosting guests who had travelled from Jerusalem to raise funds. This was more than a form of charity: it brought Jerusalem to everyone and everyone to

Jerusalem – a way of life.

Diaspora Jewish life would be incomplete without Jerusalem: the hope for redemption and for the return of the people to Eretz Yisrael has always focused on Jerusalem. It is a longing and a hope which are most poignantly felt and expressed on Tisha Be’Av.

END JEWISH LINK DESCRIPTION

Supplement to Archive Updates 183B & 185A

August 12, 2005

http://www.tribulationperiod.com/

Dardanelle MBC

The ancient Pool of Siloam, which was fed by the same spring that now runs underground through Hezekiah’s tunnel under the Old City of Jerusalem of King David’s time, has been uncovered as attested in the article which closes this supplement to 183B & 185A.

Priests were required to go down into a cavern under Herod’s temple to immerse nightly in a spring that flowed under it. It was mandatory they do so before coming on duty the following day.

Their self-immersion was a mikvah, or ritual bath, without which they were not allowed to participate in the three daily sacrifices.

For the last 29 years I have lectured about the spring that ran from the southwest to the northeast under the temple on the northern end of Herod’s temple foundation. It continued northeast into the old Pool of Siloam outside the northeastern corner of the temple mount, then east, then southeast, then south down the Kidron Valley, and finally became visible by walking down two flights of stairs to step into the water that flowed south through Hezekiah’s Tunnel for some 1750 feet.

com’>doxycycline cat