blog.Tribulationperiod.com

MEDIA LOVES OBAMA’S CREATION

THE NEW ERA OF TALKING HEADS!

The New Rice UN Vigorous Diplomacy,

Is receiving sensational Media Ratings,

Iran is around Satan’s Seat for Debating,

With Satan’s sons they soon will be Mating,

Obama’s new talking head in United Nations,

Wants a Direct Iran Dialog for Better Relations,

Ending an age with biggest battle since Creation,

Iran dialog and diplomacy go hand in hand in a Plan,

Ending the age by biggest quake since God made Man!

The planet God created he holds in the palm of his Hand,

God will soon cause great shaking along it’ s tectonic Band

s,

On both Seafloors and Dry surfaces Rupturing all of its Lands!

Great Satan’s Seat is the Euphrates River and the land it Spans,

It can’t be Changed by Dialog, Diplomacy, or the Shifting of Sands,

Since Iran Will Pay No attention to Obama’s Talking Head Demands,

It Will be changed when Christ

Returns to change it by His Command!

January 27, 2009

http://www.tribulationperiod.com/

I do believe this new administration by its dialog, diplomacy, and self confidence in its own guile, will be manipulated by the Islamic children of this world into believing their intellectual abilities have attained what all previous administrations lacked the ability to produce, namely, a relative form of peace in Israel – But it will be as phony as a four dollar bill. Nothing is going to satisfy the proponents of the Islamic Jihad excerpt the removal of Israel from the Middle East.

Luke 16:8 – And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.

No technique applied by man, whether by force, dialog, or diplomacy, is going to change the situation permanently in Israel except the Second Advent of Christ. The Scriptures which follow describe what happens as he returns at Armageddon, then the cleanup, and finally the beginning events of his Millennial Reign.

Revelation 16:10-21 – And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain, [11] And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds. [12] And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water

thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared. [13] And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. [14] For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. [15] Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. [16] And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. [17] And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done. [18] And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and

so great. [19] And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. [20] And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. [21] And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great.

Ezekiel 38:16 – And thou shalt come up against my people of Israel, as a cloud to cover the land; it shall be in the latter days, and I will bring thee against my land, that the heathen may know me, when I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes.

Luke 21:25-27 – And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; [26] Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. [27] And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

Now, let’s take a look at the aftermath of this attack after God has destroyed Gog’s army by the greatest geological holocaust that has ever occurred in the land of Israel.

Ezekiel 39:8-16 – Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord God;

this is the day whereof I have spoken. [9] And they that dwell in the cities of Israel shall go forth, and shall set on fire and burn the weapons, both the shields and the bucklers, the bows and the arrows, and the handstaves, and the spears, and they shall burn them with fire seven years: [10] So that they shall take no wood out of the field, neither cut down any out of the forests; for they shall burn the weapons with fire: and they shall spoil those that spoiled them, and rob those that robbed them, saith the Lord God. [11] And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will give unto Gog a place there of graves in Israel, the valley of the passengers on the east of the sea: and it shall stop the noses of the passengers: and there shall they bury Gog and all his multitude: and they shall call it The valley of Hamon-gog. [12] And seven months shall the house of Israel be burying of them, that they may cleanse the land. [13] Yea, all the people of the land shall bury them; and it shall be to them a renown the day that I shall be glorified, saith the Lord God. [14] And they shall sever out men of continual employment, passing through the land to bury with the passengers those that remain upon the face of the earth, to cleanse it: after the end of seven months shall they search. [15] And the passengers that pass through the land, when any seeth a man’s bone, then shall he set up a sign by it, till the buriers have buried it in the valley of Hamon-gog. [16] And also the name of the city shall be Hamonah. Thus shall they cleanse the land.

Verse 8 informs us that the day of the Lord is done. The events daily appearing in the Middle East are presently leading us to that great day of the Lord. Finally, it will be over – God’s wrath will have passed – and a remnant of Jews still in physical flesh will dig themselves out of the ashes of the Great Tribulation Period. They will begin to build a new millennial world with their Messiah, Jesus Christ, as their King.

Verse 9 pictures these Jews gathering the war weapons of Armageddon and smelting them with fire into weapons of agriculture and commerce.

It will be seven years before the metals have all been recycled into materials to be used by a nation in peaceful pursuits.

Verse 10 advises us that wood will not be used to provide the fire necessary for smelting the metal in the weapons of war. They will take the oil of the Arab nations that spoiled them in the Tribulation Period. They will use their oil to produce the fire that fires the metal into useful peacetime products.

Verse 11 describes the massive cleanup of the millions of corpses from the Battle of Armageddon that still clutter the hills of Galilee, Samaria, and Judea. They will bury them in a valley they will name “the valley of Hamon-gog.” Hamon-gog means “multitude of Gog,” and Gog is the Antichrist, so this valley can be referred to as “the graveyard of the Antichrist.” The exact location is unknown. We are merely told it will be to the east of the Dead Sea. You will not find directions listed as being anything other than north, east, west, and south in the Old Testament. Any direction from NE to SE was referred to as east, SE to SW as south, SW to NW as west, and NW to NE as north.

So this burial zone could be anywhere from northeast to southeast of the Dead Sea. I rather suspect it will be to the southeast of the Dead Sea near Petra.

Verse 12 gives the length of time required to cover and bury

the countless numbers of exposed bodies – seven months. However, many bodies will be buried under massive landslides associated with earthquake activity, and it will be necessary to continue to search for bodies for a much longer period of time.

Verse 13 tells us that all the Israelites will take their turn during the seven-month period of massive burials. It may be that each Israelite will be required to do one months service during the period. By the end of the seven-month period they will have buried most of the bodies.

Verse 14 advises us the compulsory graveyard service of all the Israelites will end after seven months, but that a new system will be instituted to continue the search as long as is required. It may work something like this: the nation of Israel will take some of its men, employed in other aspects of continuous nation rebuilding, and divert them to a full-time job of overseeing and performing the removal of the remaining bodies from the land. These full-time body disposers will work together with other Israelites (passengers) that travel routinely through the land.

Verse 15 describes how the full-time grave providers and passengers will work toge

ther toward a common goal. After seven months only skeletons will remain, so when a traveler happens across a skeleton, in his normal daily pursuits, he will stick up a clearly visible marker by it. When the full-time grave providers see the marker, they will carry the bones to the Antichrist’ s graveyard for burial.

Verse 16 informs us there will be so many grave provider personnel that a city named Hamonah will spring up by the Antichrist’s graveyard. Since the name Hamonah means “multitude,” it is only natural to assume the city is named in memory of its permanent residents.

Malachi 4:3 – And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts.

Eventually, the land will be restored to the condition described in Zechariah 14:11.

Zechariah 14:8-12 – 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. [10] All the land shall be turned as a plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem: and it shall be lifted up, and inhabited in her place, from Benjamin’s gate unto the place of the first gate, unto the corner gate, and from the tower of Hananeel unto the king’s winepresses. [11] And men shall dwell in it, and there shall be no more utter destruction; but Jerusalem shall be safely inhabited.

Begin Excerpt from Jerusalem Post

US Ambassador to UN: We will engage in diplomacy with Iran

January 26, 2009

Associated Press , THE JERUSALEM POST

US President Barack Obama’s administration will engage in “direct diplomacy” with Iran, the newly installed US ambassador to the United Nations said Monday.

Not since before the 1979 Iranian revolution are US officials believed to have conducted wide-ranging direct diplomacy with Iranian officials. But US Ambassador Susan Rice warned that Iran must meet UN Security Council demands to suspend uranium enrichment before any talks on its nuclear program.

“The dialogue and diplomacy must go hand in hand with a very firm message from the United States and the international community that Iran needs to meet its obligations as defined by the Security Council. And its continuing refusal to do so will only cause pressure to increase,” she told reporters during a brief question-and-answer session.

Her comments, reflecting Obama’s signals for improved relations with America’ s foe

s after eight years under former US president George W. Bush, came shortly after she met with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on her first day on the job.

Iran still considers the US the “Great Satan,” but a day after Obama was sworn in, it said it was “ready for new approaches by the United States.” Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said his country would look into the idea of allowing the US to open a diplomatic office in Teheran, the first since 1979.

Rice said the US remains “deeply concerned about the threat that Iran’s nuclear program poses to the region, indeed to the United States and the entire international community.”

“We look forward to engaging in vigorous diplomacy that includes direct diplomacy with Iran,” she said. It would include “continued collaboration and partnership” with the other four permanent members of the Security Council – Britain, China, France and Russia – along with Germany, Rice said.

“And we will look at what is necessary and appropriate with respect to maintaining pressure toward that goal of ending Iran’s nuclear program,” she said.

In recent years, Iranian and American officials have negotiated in the same room on talks about Afghanistan that involved other countries’ diplomats. They also talked face to face in Baghdad but the agenda was limited to Iraqi security.

Begin Excerpts from Arutz Sheva

New US Administration Floats ‘Direct Diplomacy’ With Iran

Shevat 1, 5769, 26 January 09 10:19

By Nissan Ratzlav-Katz

(IsraelNN.com) The US Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, began her term Monday by dropping a not-unexpected bombshell in the UN chambers. The new US administration, she said, would engage in “direct diplomacy” with Iran. Such a policy shift away from isolating Iran, as under the previous administration, is a touchstone of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also made that position very clear at her confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill.

“We look forward to engaging in vigorous diplomacy that includes direct diplomacy with Iran,” Ambassador Rice told reporters after a private meeting with UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon. Rice (no relation to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice) presented her credentials to the head of the international body earlier in the day.

The UN Security Council has already imposed sanctions on Iran three times over its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment activities.

[…….]

Sec. Clinton: ‘Diplomacy Can Work’

In her Congressional Confirmation Hearing on January 13, 2009, the then-incoming Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made clear the sharp turn the new administration would be taking towards diplomacy, even with Iran.

“Diplomacy will be the vanguard of our foreign policy,” Clinton said, adding that “the State Department will be firing on all cylinders to provide forward-thinking, sustained diplomacy in every part of the world…. Diplomacy is hard work. But when we work hard, diplomacy can work, not just to defuse tensions, but to achieve results that advance our security interests and values.”

When asked specifically about Iran, Clinton replied: “Obviously, the incoming administration views with great concern the role that Iran is playing in the world, its sponsorship of terrorism, its continuing interference with the functioning of other governments, and its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

There is an ongoing policy review that the Obama administration has undertaken, but I think as the President-elect said just this past weekend, our goal will be to do everything we can, pursue through diplomacy, through the use of sanctions, through creating better coalitions with countries that we believe also have a big stake in preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear weapon power, to try to prevent this from occurring. We are not taking any option off the table, at all. But we will pursue a new, perhaps different approach that will become a cornerstone of what the Obama administration believes is an attitude towards engagement that might bear fruit.”

Regarding further sanctions, Clinton said, “We’re going to be making the case to members of the Security Council who have been either dubious or unwilling to cooperate up until now that a nuclear, armed Iran is in no one’ s intere

sts, under any circumstances. So Mr. Chairman, it’s hard to predict how successful we will be, but I promise you our very best efforts in doing all that we can to try to achieve greater international support for sanctions and actions that could actually influence the behavior of the Iranian Government, the Supreme Leader and the religious council and the Revolutionary Guard and the Quds Force because, as you know so well, all of these are players. And so our task will be to try to figure out the appropriate and effective pressure that will perhaps lead to us dissuading Iran from going forward.”

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http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.

You may use material originated by this site. However, if you wish to use any quoted copyrighted material from this site, which did not originate at this site, for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner from which we extracted it.

FAMINE Approaching On a Black Horse Rider,

GOD Says Famine will occur and He is Decider,

And Recession going into Depression cries Now,

Plan in Excerpt Puts Forth an Idea of Why & How,

Just how can

nations provide funding in Recession?

ONLY In The Millennium Will Man Learn God’s Lesson,

Before Jesus comes individuals MUST make Profession,

And before God daily their sins to keep truly Confessing!

Donor aid from nations won’t be forthcoming in Recession,

Our repentance toward God and faith in Christ is Remission,

God’s ANSWER provided to man’s hunger for a sinful Condition,

Will to His Soul

for all ETERNITY be continually providing Nutrition!

I hope you are ready for the end time arrival of hunger and Derision,

I’m saying whatever you intend to do about Jesus it’s time for Decision,

The Black Horse Rider WILL KEEP Galloping to Armageddon on His Mission,

Please consider our issue on this in our Archives in a 2003 prophecy Session,

It follows the Scriptures below AND is appropriate to present End Time Season!

January 26, 2009

http://www.tribulationperiod.com/

Acts 20:20,21 – And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have shewed you, and have taught you publickly, and from house to house, [21] Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans 10:9,10 – That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. [10] For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

1 John 1:8,9 – If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. [9] If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Acts 2:20,21 – The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come: [21] And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Acts 4:12 – Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

Begin 2003 Archive Prophecy Update

SPECIAL PROPHECY UPDATE NUMBER 145C

November 10, 2003

The Seals, the Trumpets, and the Vials of Revelation

Part 3 – The Third Seal

The first four seals of Revelation open before the period known as the tribulation period. They occur during the period of time Jesus called “the beginning of sorrows.”

Matthew 24:7,8 – For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.

[8] All these are the beginning of sorrows.

Their primary area of fulfillment is the maximum extent of land occupied by the Roman Empire in the first and second century. The “whole earth,” “all the world,

” and similar expressions in the prophetic writings of both the Old and New Testament periods, in many instances, are hyperbolic, and do not refer to the world as we know it today, but to the world as the people, to whom they wrote, knew it from 600 B.C. to 135 A.D. The most severe judgments of the second, third, and fourth horse riders, along with the mark of the beast, will occur in this area.

I have known for a long time that if I lived to my allotted threescore and ten years, I would see the third seal open in the area known to those that lived in the era of Roman domination. The African continent was known to exist at the time of John’s writings, and that is where I knew it had to start.

Good ole Mr. Wills, my ninth grade teacher in Junior High School, is the one who introduced me to this in 1947. It was such a simple thing, but such a certain thing, that I had no fear of being wrong about it when I wrote my first book in the seventies. It was based on food supply and population increase.

Revelation 6:5,6 – And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. [6] And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.

The population explosion, particularly in Africa, which has suddenly burst on the scene, should be no surprise to the human race. The world’s population has roughly, in a somewhat similar pattern, followed a formula of daily penny doubling. Suppose someone proposed to give you five billion dollars if you would double a penny he gave you for forty days, and then give him all the proceeds of the doubling process on the fortieth day – Would you take the deal? A single penny on the first day would produce two cents on the second day, four cents on the third day, eight cents on the fourth day, sixteen cents on the fifth day, thirty-two cents on the sixth day, sixty-four cents on the seventh day, and only a dollar and twenty-eight cents on the eighth day. So, based on what you’ve read so far, it seems like a pretty good deal. But on day forty you would have to fork over more than five billion dollars. This principle has been the backbone of when

the famine prophecy prediction would occur ever since eight people stepped off the Ark of Noah. This principle opened the famine seal, and will cause it to intensify until Armageddon.

The world’s famine outbreaks in its developing countries have been occurring closer and closer together in time since World War II, and the trend will accelerate until the Second Advent. Why? A few thousand years ago eight men and women descended in an ark “upon the mountains of Ararat,” and then began to multiply. At first, like the penny, the increase was insignificant from a numerical standpoint. When Jesus was born the world population had only reached about 200 million. When Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 it had barely reached 400 million. But, like the multiplying principle of the penny, it began to accelerate noticeably about the time of the Civil War, and exploded after the Great Depression of the thirties. In 1989 the world population reached five billion and, the same year, eleven million of the earth’s residents died of starvation. The population of our planet passed six billion in October

of 1999, and is predicted to reach ten billion in 2030. Some say it will only reach between eight and nine billion by 2030. But even if that is true, how can the additional three plus billion be fed, if eleven million died of starvation in 1989 with a population of only five million.

Some say, “don’t worry, agricultural technology is on the way to solving the famine problem.” No way! The latest U.N. study found ten percent of the world’s soil profile badly damaged. The three-year study accessed the soil conditions on a global scale, and involved more than 250 soil scientists. It marked the first time since World War II that soil profiles had been accessed on a global scale. As reported by Larry B. Stammer in the Los Angeles Times, the study found that “about two-thirds of all seriously eroded land is in Asia and Africa, home to most of the world’s poor. The article, using the report as its basis, proclaimed: “Despite the much acclaimed great green revolution of the past several decades, which have produced unprecedented gains in food production by the introduction of fertilizers and hybrid grains, per-capita food production has declined in some eighty developing countries in the past decade” The 1993 report, “Vital Signs, The Trends That Are Shaping Our Future,” as reported in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette of July 18, 1993, stated: “This new report shows the first clear sign that population is outpacing the available food supply for humans. The trend is mostly because of record world population growth, but also reflects a slowdown after decades of increasing food supplies.

The main sources of food – farms, ranches, and oceans – all are approaching, or may have reached, their maximum per-capita output, according to the Vital Signs Report.”

The simple truth is this, in 1993, for the first time since records began to be kept, world food utilization exceeded world food production. Utilization continued to exceed food production until 1996, and a massive endeavor was made by technology to catch up with utilization. The endeavor allowed food production to pass utilization in 1996, and it continued to exceed utilization until 1999, but the population passed six billion in October of 1999, and the production again fell below utilization, where it has remained to the present. In April of 2003, a report published by the International Committee of the Fourth International, stated that 200 million people in Africa are malnourished. The world food production has not been able to keep up with the stork in the twenty-first century, and the disparity can only increase with an increasing population growth.

The third horse rider will gallop faster and faster as he heads for Armageddon. I contend that the famine now occurring in Africa, which was a part of the prophetic world when the prophecies were written, is the beginning of the fulfillment of those prophecies, and that famine will spread out of this area into all sections of the world that were known at the time the book of Revelation was written by John. There will be a serious food shortage in the United States, but it will in no way be comparable to the famines that ravage what is referred to as the “Old World,” or the pre-Columbus world. I believe the vast majority of “Old World” residents, both religious and non-religious, will take the mark of the beast to get food without hesitation, but I do not believe the mark of the beast will be put on the residents of the United States. I believe that Revelation 13:16,17 applies only to that part of today’s world that was known when John wrote Revelation.

Revelation 13:16,17 – And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: [17] And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

Followers of Islam have no idea whatsoever about even the existence of this prophecy.

The Catholic priests have not taught their masses in Europe about this, and only a handful of Catholics understand anything about it. The same is true among all the different sects of religion that are spread across the “Old World.” They will all take it without hesitation to obtain food.

I believe the antichrist’s empire will, at first, take in the vast Arab area of Islam from Morocco to Pakistan, but it will spread out quickly like water, and when the time for the final battle of Armageddon arrives, he will dominate all of the “Old World.”

Begin Article from UK Guardian

A breakthrough against hunger

Our response to the world food crisis is sadly inadequate – but we are proposing a new initiative tp help

Jeffrey Sachs

guardian.co.uk,

Monday 26 January 2009 09.00 GMT

Today’s world hunger crisis is unprecedentedly severe and requires urgent measures. Nearly 1 billion people are trapped in chronic hunger – perhaps 100 million more than two years ago.

Spain is taking global leadership in combating hunger by inviting world leaders to Madrid ithis week to move beyond words to action. With Spain’s leadership and United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon’s partnership, several donor governments are proposing to pool their financial resources so that the world’s poorest farmers can grow more food and escape the poverty trap.

The benefits of some donor help can be remarkable. Peasant farmers in Africa, Haiti, and other impoverished regions currently plant their crops without the benefit of high-yield seed varieties and fertilisers. The result is a grain yield (for example, maize) that is roughly one-third less than what could be achieved with better farm inputs. African farmers produce roughly one ton of grain per hectare, compared with more than four tons per hectare in China, where farmers use fertilisers heavily.

African farmers know that they need fertiliser; they just can’t afford it. With donor help, they can. Not only do these farmers then feed their families, but they also can begin to earn market income and to save for the future. By building up savings over a few years, the farmers eventually become creditworthy, or have enough cash to purchase vitally necessary inputs on their own.

There is now widespread agreement on the need for increased donor financing for small farmers (those with two hectares or less of land, or impoverished pastoralists), which is especially urgent in Africa. The UN secretary general led a steering group last year that determined that African agriculture needs around $8bn per year in donor financing – roughly four times the current total – with a heavy emphasis on improved seeds, fertiliser, irrigation systems, and extension training.

In addition to direct help for small farms, donors should provide more help for the research and development needed to identify new high-yielding seed varieties, especially to breed plants that can withstand temporary flooding, excess nitrogen, salty soils, crop pests, and other challenges to sustainable food production. Helping the poor with today’s technologies, while investing in future improved technologies, is the optimum division of labour.

This investment pays off wonderfully, with research centres such as the International Rice Research Institute and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre providing the high-yield seeds and innovative farming strategies that together triggered the Asian green revolution. These centres are not household names, but they deserve to be. Their scientific breakthroughs have helped to feed the world, and we’ll need more of them.

Dozens of low-income, food-deficit countries, perhaps as many as 40 to 50, have elaborated urgent programmes for increased food production by small farms, but are currently held back by the lack of donor funding. These countries have appealed to the World Bank for financing, and the Bank made a valiant effort in 2008 to help through its new Global Food Crisis Response Programme (GFCRP). But the Bank does not yet have sufficient funds to meet these countries’ urgent needs, and has had to ration assistance to a small fraction of the amount that could be effectively and reliably used. Hundreds of millions of people, in the meantime, remain trapped in hunger.

Many individual donor countries have declared that they are now prepared to increase their financial support for smallholder agriculture, but are searching for the appropriate mechanisms to do so. The current aid structures are inadequate.

The more than 20 bilateral and multilateral donor agencies for agriculture are highly fragmented and of insufficient scale individually and collectively.

Despite the dedicated efforts of many professionals, the response to the hunger crisis remains utterly inadequate. The 2008 planting seasons came and went with far too little additional help for impoverished small farmers. African countries search endlessly, and mostly fruitlessly, for the small amounts of funding needed for their purchases of fertiliser and improved seeds. My colleagues and I, serving on an advisory committee for the Spanish initiative, have recommended that donors pool their funds into a single international account, which we call the Financial Coordination Mechanism (FCM). These pooled funds would enable farmers in poor countries to obtain the fertiliser, improved seed varieties, and small-scale irrigation equipment that they urgently need.

Poor countries would receive prompt and predictable financing for agricultural inputs from a single account, rather than from dozens of distinct and fragmented donors. By pooling financial resources into a single-donor FCM, aid programmes’ administrative costs could be kept low, the availability of aid could be assured, and poor countries would not have to negotiate 25 times in order to receive help.

The time for business as usual is over. The donors promised to double aid to Africa by 2010, but are still far off track. Indeed, during the past 20 years, they actually cut aid for agriculture programs, and only now are reversing their course.

Meanwhile, a billion people go hungry each day.

We need a breakthrough that is demonstrable, public, clear, and convincing, that can mobilise the public’s hearts and minds, and that can demonstrate success. History can be made in Madrid at the end of January, when the world’s richest and poorest countries converge to seek solutions to the global hunger crisis. The lives of the billion poorest people depend on it.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more detailed information go to:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.

You may use material originated by this site.

However, if you wish to use any quoted copyrighted material from this site, which did not originate at this site, for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner from which we extracted it.

An Egyptian TRUCE ULTIMATUM FOR Hamas,

Accept the TERMS you are NOW Being Offered,

Or Wait and Take Your Chances on A NEW Israeli

Knesset Government to be voted in on February 10!

Hamas faces 5 conditions on a take it or leave it Basis,

Hamas sees now Israel will be hard nose in future Cases,

If Hamas Returns to its Rockets IDF Will be Off to the Races,

Once Again IAF And IDF Will Return in Gaza

Strip Hamas Faces,

Hamas needs a long truce to rebuild to avoid war that Disgraces,

I Expect Eventual TRUCE Agreement To Extend Into The Year 2010,

And For A Full Fledged Middle East War To initially Begin Before 2015!

January 26, 2009

http://www.tribulationperiod.com/

Egypt cracks the whip for Hamas in long-term truce talks

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

January 25, 2009, 11:10 PM (GMT+02:00)

The Hamas delegation to the long-term truce talks for Gaza in Cairo Sunday, Jan. 25, was given no leeway by Egyptian intelligence minster Gen.

Omar Suleiman, Cairo’s senior negotiator, DEBKAfile’s military sources disclose.

This contradicts the impression given by Hamas.

Either accept our terms, he told them with exceptional brusqueness, or wait two-three months and take your chances on a new Israel government to rise after its Feb. 10 general election.

Their only other option now, said Suleiman, was to return to Damascus, implying that he was throwing Hamas on the mercies of Syrian president Bashar Assad.

When Hamas asked for Turkish monitors to be posted at the Rafah crossing, Suleiman said: Here’s the Turkish prime minister’s phone number. Call him yourselves.

So saying, the Egyptian minister left the conference room, leaving junior officials behind to hear Hamas’ responses, which were uniformly negative.

These are the conditions Cairo put before the Palestinian Islamist organization:

1. Hamas must pledge to halt all smuggling into the Gaza Strip, including arms.

2. It must accept a long-term truce for Gaza. DEBKAfile reports Israel is demanding 10-15 years, to be renewed every three or four, while Suleiman proposed a 10-year period.

3. Hamas armed men will respect a 1 km-off limits belt inside the Gazan-Israeli Israeli border fence, refrain from sniper fire and planting explosives.

4. Hamas must keep its distance from all Gaza’s crossings – 6 on the border with Israel, and one, the Rafah gateway to Egyptian Sinai.

5. The verbal abuse of Egypt must stop forthwith.

The Hamas delegates were summarily brushed aside when they asked for Egyptian help to reconstruct the Gaza Strip. Suleiman said assistance would be forthcoming when the Palestinian factions healed their feud and formed a national unity government – meaning when Hamas accepted the Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority rule in the Gaza Strip.

DEBKAfile adds: Hamas came to the Cairo negotiating table in an inferior position. Most its top leaders in Gaza have not ventured to come out of hiding since before Israel’s Gaza operation began on Dec. 27, for fear that the people will vent their fury over the calamity the Hamas-government brought down on the enclave.

Begin Excerpt from Haaretz

Egypt demanding years-long truce in Gaza

By Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz Correspondent and the Associated Press

January 26, 2009

Talks between senior Hamas members and Egyptian officials in Cairo on a new cease-fire arrangement for the Gaza Strip continued late Sunday night amid an apparent disagreement over the length of the truce.

The Egyptians are demanding a truce of a number of years’ dur ation, while H

amas spokesman in the Gaza Strip, Ayman Taha, said the group would agree to a cease-fire of no more than between one year and 18 months. Another Hamas spokesman, Ismail Radwan, said a long-term cease-fire “kills” the right to resistance by the Palestinians.

Hamas and Israeli officials have also indicated that much of the discussion has centered on control of the border crossings in and out of Gaza. Hamas wants the blockade on Gaza lifted. Israel wants assurances that weapons smuggling into the Gaza strip will stop.

“Hamas listened to the Israeli proposal presented by [Defense Ministry official] Amos Gilad, and with it a proposal for a ceasefire for a year and a half, but Hamas presented a counterproposal of one year only,” Ayman Taha told reporters in Cairo after talks with Egyptian intelligence officials.

The Hamas delegation met with the heads of Egyptian intelligence on Sunday who transmitted to them Israel’s positions. Jerusalem has not yet clarified what stance it had presented.

Meanwhile, Taha reiterated the group’s calls for a lifting of the blockade imposed on the impoverished and devastated Gaza Strip by Israel and Egypt as a condition for the truce.

“[Hamas] called for a complete lifting of the blockade and an opening of all the crossings,” Taha said.

Hamas proposed to Egyptian mediators that European and Turkish monitors be present at the border crossings, but rejected the presence of Israeli monitors, saying Israeli monitoring was “a large part of the problem,” according to Taha.

Asked if Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s forces would be present at the crossings, Taha said: “Hamas is the existing government in Gaza.”
Hamas wrested control of the Gaza Strip from Abbas’s Fatah faction in fighting in 2007. Egypt has ruled out opening the Rafah crossing in the absence of the Palestinian

Authority and European Union observers.

Commenting on the talks, Hamas’s representative in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan, told Al Jazeera satellite television on Sunday that Hamas was unwilling to alter its positions to Israel’s benefit.

“The Israelis must understand that they will not achieve through politics what they failed to do militarily,” Hamdan said.

Israel launched an offensive in the Gaza Strip in late December with the declared aim of ending Hamas rocket attacks on its southern communities. About 1,300 Palestinians, at least 700 of them civilians, were killed during the 22-day offensive, while Israel put its death toll at 10 soldiers and three civilians.

Hamas: No reconciliation with Fatah until it ends Israel peace talks

Hamas official Hamdan also said Sunday that Fatah movement must end peace negotiations with Israel before any reconciliation talks can take place.

The remarks were bound to complicate Arab efforts to reconcile Hamas, which controls Gaza, and the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

Speaking at a rally in Beirut Sunday, Hamdan – a close ally of Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal – said that the group welcomed Palestinian dialogue, but any reconciliation should be based on a resistance program to liberate territory and regain rights.

He also demanded that the PA end security coordination with Israel, and maintained that the Israeli-Palestinian peace process had ended.

“Those who committed mistakes must correct their mistakes through a clear and frank declaration to stop security coordination with the [Israeli] occupation, release [Hamas] prisoners and later end negotiations [with Israel] because the peace process is irreversibly over,” said Hamdan.

“It’s time for us to talk about a reconciliation based on a resistance program to liberate the [occupied] territory and regain rights,” he added.

Asharq Al-Awsat also reported Saturday that Hamas had suggested representatives of the Palestinian Authority be stationed at the Rafah crossing, but that they be residents of Gaza, not the West Bank.

Israel has been allowing some supply convoys into Gaza, though its borders remain largely closed. The Israel Defense Forces says more than 125 trucks a day – on some days nearly 200 – have entered Gaza since fighting ended on January 17th, but aid workers say the numbers are not enough.

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It Will Take the Power of God

To Temporarily Unite the Ten Toes

In Daniel two for a prophecy Fulfillment,

Which I am persuaded is very likely to Begin

At a point in time somewhere twixt 2010 & 2015,

Which will be marked by a replacement of Arab Rulers

From among those the article classifies as Arab Nationalists!

I believe 3 of the rulers will be from Jordan, Egypt, & Saudi Arabia!

January 25, 2009

http://www.tribulationperiod.com/

Barry Rubin and Carolyn Glick are my favorite writers in the Middle East, since I rarely find any thing they write with which I disagree. Their religious beliefs are quite different from mine, but their analysis of Middle East situations and events do always seem to parallel mine. I certainly agree with Barry Rubin’s assessment of the Arab nationalist versus Islamist scenario. From now until Armageddon we will see many Arab nationalist rulers replaced by coup and assassination. Once Islamic Jihad forces begin a major Middle East war with Israel, many Arab nationalists will head for sanctuaries in non-Muslim countries, taking as much of their loot along as possible, since those who had a friendship, relationship, or peace treaty with Israel, the United States, or other branded Western nation, will be cooked gooses. But some of them will repent of their sins against Allah before war begins, and hook up with Iran and Syria in battle against the Israelis as a case of self preservation.

The spirit of Antichrist declares freely that Jesus Christ is not the Son of their God!

I John 2:22,23 – Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. [23] Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: (but) he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also.

The Spirit of Islamist Jihad is the End Time Fullness of the Spirit of Antichrist!

It is now reaching maturity in the Islamic terrorist movement that is affecting all Islam, and it is searing and sealing the consciences of many being drawn into it by the spirit of antichrist. It will reach full maturity among the populations of 10 Arab nations, whose kings will lend their powe

r and strength to the antichrist, who will be the leader of this last day coalition of hate for Jews and Gentile infidels. The 10 toes of Daniel 2 are the same as the 10 horns of Daniel 7 and Revelation 13 and 17.

Revelation 17:12,13,17 – And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. [13] These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast. [17] For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.

Extreme Islamic fundamentalism, now occurring and growing across the earth, is the religious fever behind the disease within the movement, and it is the exposed spirit of antichrist, which was prophesied to be fully visible in the last days.

It is this final spirit of antichrist that is uniting the Arab world in a growing belief they can pull the tails of world powers, causing them to gradually adapt a hands off policy concerning Israel, thereby isolating her from any great amount of outside military assistance, and setting the stage for a spirit led Jihad to come against her from a confederation of Middle East nations. It is the spirit of antichrist in the success of the Jihad movement in the Middle East that is, and will, unite the 10 toes of the great statue in Daniel 2:42-44.

Daniel 2:42-44 – And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken. [43] And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay. [44] And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever. [

The Arab nations have mingled themselves with the seeds of men not descended from Abraham, Gentile seeds, and have never been able to hold themselves together long enough militarily to defeat modern day Israel. But the spirit of Jihad is now drawing them together in a common bond – the destruction of the sons of Israel. And it will hold them together long enough to temporarily defeat Israel and drive her into the Negev Wilderness, where she will remain for 1260 days or “a time and times and the dividing of time.”

Revelation 12:6 – And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.

The 10 horns of Revelation 13 and 17 are the same as Daniel’s 10 toes in chapter 2 and the 10 horns in chapter 7.

Daniel 7:24,25 – And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings. [25] And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.

The Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815 with the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo and the signing of the Treaty of Paris. Before the rise of Napoleon in 1803, I only found a single book that had the antichrist coming out of Europe, other than those reformation writers that identified him as a Pope of Rome. I AM NOT saying that other books do not exist. In fact, I rather suspect that several do exist, but I could not locate them. The books that I encountered brought the antichrist out of the old Syrian Empire, which was one of the four divisions made when the vast

Empire of Alexander the Great was partitioned. The majority made the false prophet of Revelation 13:12 represent the Pope of Rome. It was also apparent to some that the antichrist’s empire was connected with Islam because of a conquest of the entire Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) by their forces in the eighth century.

And the fact Islam was not driven out completely until 1492, when Christian forces drove them out, made it easy for the people of 1803 to believe the antichrist would come out of the old Syrian Empire which was, at that time, and is even to the present day, of the Islamic faith. This natural fear across Europe of an Islamic antichrist, where most of the books were being published following 1455, is easy to understand. In addition to the Iberian penetration into Europe, part of which was still in place in 1455, there was an Islamic invasion of Europe going on when books began to be printed. In 1453 Constantinople fell to the great Muhammad II. The followers of Islam continued to drive into southeastern Europe under Suleyman I, and reached the gates of Vienna in 1529. During the 1700’s and 1800’s their decaying Ottoman empire fought against Russia, and Greece won its independence.

So how did the focus shift to Europe as the designated place of the antichrist’s rise to power? When the old Islamic Ottoman Empire let the Young Turk movement lead them to join with Germany in World War I, and were soundly defeated along with Germany, in a war dominated by great battles in Europe, then the antichrist watchers begin to look toward Europe. But most Bible teachers continued to bring the antichrist out of the old Syrian (Seleucid) Dynasty until World War II.

The rise of Hitler in Europe, and Mussolini in Italy, gave rise to many new books saying that the antichrist would rise out of Europe, and the false prophet would be the Pope of Rome. Millions of books were thrown in trashcans when the Axis powers were crushed to powder. But because two great wars had engulfed mankind in chaos, and both involved Germany and Italy, the fear of a third German uprising made what happened next inevitable.

The end of World War II left Europe in shambles, so the Marshal Plan was implemented to assure their economic growth. Six nations decided to link together to promote a more rapid economic growth. In 1957, the countries of West Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxemburg signed the Treaty of Rome, and the European Common Market officially came into existence. It was a foregone conclusion that they would grow in number and reach 10 in a short period of time. It was at this time that a very well known book was written about them. It was probably one of the first books in religious book history written by a dynamic writer with a very readable style, and an exciting manner of expression. Up until World War II religious books were written by old stick-in-the-mud writers like me, whose style of writing was designed to persuade their peers, rather than to gain the attention of the masses. But this well known book sold like wildfire, weaving its way into countless numbers of Sunday school classes, and into millions of sermons proclaimed from pulpits across the world. Today’s younger generation of preachers have no idea what a fantastic impact the book had on prophetic teachings. The writer indicated the European Common Market, or as it came to be called, “The Six,” would grow to 10 in number and, when this happened, the antichrist would arise in Europe and gradually take control of the entire world, as we know it today. He taught that these 10 European Common nations were the 10 toes of Daniel’s great statue, the 10 horns of Daniel’s fourth beast, and the 10 horns on each of John’s two beasts in the book of Revelation.

Well, if that was the correct interpretation, then at the present time the statue has 25 toes, and each of the three beasts has 25 horns.

We were also told that West Germany was a part of the old Roman Empire. Not even a bad historian will tell you that. In fact Germanic tribes eventually conquered Rome.

Because of the rise in power of the Soviet Union at the same time “The Six” were gaining prophetic attention, so we were given a revised interpretation of the word “chief” in Ezekiel 38:2,3 and 39:1. We were advised it meant “Russian,” and that “Gog” would be a Russian prince.

There is no way under heaven the Hebrew word “rosh,” translated as “chief” in Ezekiel, could legitimately mean “Russian.” Because this Hebrew word, when uttered, has the “R” sound of “Russia,” it was used as proof that it meant Gog would be a Russian prince. That is absurd.

You might as well say that since the “A” in Artic proves Gog will come from his place out of the north, and that this distant northern place is the North Pole where Santa Claus lives. I agree that Magog is most likely what we call Russia today, but in all three of the previously listed Scriptures it clearly states that Gog is “the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal.” The primary cluster of the descendants of Meshech and Tubal, when Ezekiel wrote, was centered in what we call Lebanon and Syria today. I made my case concerning the word “rosh” and the location of Meshech and Tubal in Prophecy Updates 27, 28, and 29. Before the Civil War most expositors taught that there was only one war in the last days of this present age, the war of Gog and Magog, which was to last for 3 and ½ years and end with the final battle of this age, the battle of Armageddon. However, in order to justify the antichrist coming out of Europe, another war was added out of which he was supposed to arise BEFORE the tribulation period. Please forgive this diversion. I will now return to the European events that gradually led to what most expositors now teach, that is, that the antichrist will come out of Europe.

Napoleon was supposed to the antichrist. Kaiser Wilhelm II was supposed to be the antichrist. Hitler was supposed to be the antichrist. Stalin was supposed to be the antichrist. But I do not believe we should ever have changed the teaching he was to come out of the area that we identify as Lebanon and Syria.

The Napoleonic Wars across Europe introduced modern man to new killing machines for battlefield destruction. World War I accelerated the process, and mass destruction by many more new destructive inventions produced even more widespread battlefield destruction, also allowing the destruction to begin to spread away from the local battlefields to civilian populations. World War II produced a fantastic arsenal of machines and weapons that terrorized on both land and sea, producing the massive worldwide destruction so well documented on TV. So, it was only natural that, after the Napoleonic Wars, there would be a gradual change in Biblical teaching as to HOW the Biblical prophecies of horrific events would be fulfilled in the tribulation period.

Before 1803 prophetic expositors taught that the events of the tribulation period were God’s unleashing of his power in the form of natural catastrophes in the earth and the heavens.

I am convinced they were right. This viewpoint persisted as the majority teaching until World War II. But after the first two drops of A-bombs, it rapidly became a minority viewpoint, and prophetic teaching of the destruction was matched to the new, and still developing, killing technology and scientific expertise of man.

I also believe prophetic expositors have make a great mistake in expanding the antichrist’s empire since it was first described in the book of Daniel (See Special Prophecy Update Number 73A). As men spread north, south, east, and west across the earth, we expanded the size of the antichrist’s empire to the world we know today. Did God intend for us to do that? Possibly, but I seriously doubt it. I do not believe it will be much larger than territory taken by the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans in the age of their maximum expansions.

In very recent times a series of new fictional books have arrived on the scene, and many more will follow. The 10 most popular of them, by the time you read this prophecy update, will have had more than 36 million copies taken off the shelves, and will continue to sell like hotcakes. The market is being flooded with them, and new follow up series will soon inundate it. All have teachings contrary to those prior to the Napoleonic Wars. They have a 7-year tribulation period, the first part being a 3 and ½ time of peace, and the second 3 and ½ year period filled with tribulation. They all have the saved caught up to be with the Lord when the 7-year period begins, thereby escaping any part of the tribulation period.

I must confess that I don’t have any surveys to back up what I am going to say next. So make your own guess on the answer to this question. How many saved men and wo

men on this earth believe they will be taken out before tribulation begins? My guess is more than 90 percent of them. If that turns out to be incorrect, then it may help to understand the two scriptures that follow.

Bearing in mind that the Koine Greek word translated “fables” is “muthous,” which means “fictional tales,” and that most of this last generation is convinced he is coming the hour the 7-week tribulation period begins, please consider the verses that follow.

II Timothy 4:3,4 – For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; [4] And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

Is that the case? I DON’T KNOW! I know I am saved, so I know I will be taken if He comes 7 years before the battle of Armageddon. If He comes during the tribulation period I know I will be taken. If He comes at the end of the tribulation period I know I will be taken. The most important thing for me, as a believer, is to be living for Him from now until He comes. We will be giving our opinions on when He will come right up until He comes, but IT IS NOT AN OPINION that HE IS COMING, and that we should be living for Him FROM NOW UNTIL HE COMES.

Begin Excerpt from The Australian via World News

The real Mid-East conflict is between Arab nationalists and Islamists

Barry Rubin, Jerusalem

January 16, 2009

Article from: The Australian

IN Iran, elements from within the regime are reportedly offering a $US1 million ($1.5 million) reward for the assassination of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak because of his opposition to Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

In Lebanon, the leader of Hezbollah, backed by Iran and Syria, merely calls for the Egyptian Government’s overthrow.

In response to this, the editor-in-chief of the Saudi newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat, Tariq Alhomayed, describes Hamas as Tehran’s tool and argues: “Iran is a real threat to Arab security.”

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit agrees, and he is not alone. When Arab states met to discuss the Gaza crisis, Saudi Arabia vetoed any action. Even the Palestinian Authority blames Hamas for the fighting.

Activists in Hamas’s Palestinian rival Fatah, which runs the authority, make no secret of their hope that Hamas loses the war.

Welcome to the new Middle East, characterised not just by the Arab-Israeli conflict, but by Arab nationalists versus Islamists.

Recognising this reality, the Palestinian Authority and virtually all the Arab countries other than Iran’s ally Syria, want to see Hamas defeated in the Gaza Strip.

Given their strong interest in thwarting Islamist revolutionary groups, especially those aligned with Iran, the Arab states are not inclined to listen to the “Arab street”, which is far quieter than it was during previous conflicts, such as the 1991 war in Kuwait, the 2000-04 Palestinian uprising or the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.

Today’s Middle East is very different from the old one in many significant ways.

First, the internal politics of every Arab country revolves around a battle between Arab nationalist rulers and a radical Islamist opposition.

In other words, Hamas’s allies are the regimes’s enemies.

An Islamist state in the Gaza Strip would encourage those who seek to create similar entities in Egypt, Jordan and every other Arab country.

A tremendous price has been paid in lives and treasure for this nationalist-Islamist conflict.

The violence has included civil wars among the Palestinians and Algerians, massive bloodshed in Iraq and terrorist campaigns in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

In the Palestinian case, after winning an election victory and making a deal with Fatah for a coalition government, Hamas turned on its nationalist rivals and drove them out of Gaza by force.

In return, the Palestinian Authority has been repressing Hamas in the West Bank.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah has been trying to bully its more moderate Sunni Muslim, Christian and Druze rivals into submission.

And because the Arab states confront an Iran-Syria alliance that includes Hamas and Hezbollah, in addition to the internal conflicts there is a regional battle between these two blocs.

A major aspect of this power-struggle is that the largely Sunni Muslim-led states face a largely Shia Muslim-led competitor for regional hegemony.

These two struggles pose far greater dangers to the existing states than does any (largely fabricated) Israeli threat, and the region’s rulers know it.

On the other side of the divide, Iran and its allies have put forward the banners of jihad and “resistance” to the US and Israel.

Their platform includes Islamist revolutions in every country; Iran as the region’s dominant state, backed up by nuclear weapons; no peace with Israel, and no Palestinian state until there can be an Islamist one encompassing all of Israel as well as the West Bank and Gaza Strip; and above all the expulsion of Western influence from the region.

This is a highly ambitious program and probably impossible to achieve. Nevertheless, it is a prescription for endless terrorism and war.

Both pro-Iranian and anti-Iranian Islamists believe that because God is on their side and their enemies are cowardly, they will win — and they are quite prepared to spend the next half-century trying to prove it.

Although this seems to be a pessimistic assessment of the regional situation, the radical Islamist side has many weaknesses.

Launching losing wars may make Islamists feel good, but being defeated is a costly proposition, because their arrogance and belligerence antagonises many who might otherwise be won over to their cause.

And the situation provides a good opportunity for Western policy makers.

The emphasis should be on building coalitions among the relatively moderate Arab states threatened by radical Islamist forces, and on working hard to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, a goal that is in the interests of many in the region.

The worst mistake would be to follow the opposite policy, making an inevitably futile effort to appease the extremists or seek to moderate them.

Such a campaign actually disheartens the relative moderates who, feeling sold out, will try to cut their own deal with Tehran.

The crisis in Gaza is only one aspect of the much wider battle shaking the region.

Helping Hamas would empower radical Islamism and Iranian ambitions, and undercut the Palestinian Authority and everyone else, not just Israel.

Arab states don’t want to help their worst enemy, so why should anyone else?

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs Centre and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs Project Syndicate

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http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.

You may use material originated by this site.

However, if you wish to use any quoted copyrighted material from this site, which did not originate at this site, for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner from which we extracted it.

Secret Hamas-Egypt Cairo talks for Long Term Truce!

Will the U.S., E.U., U.N., and Egypt have a Success

In preventing return of a steady weapon Flow?

Temporarily – Yes————-Permanently – No!

U.S. And E.U. Will Make An HONEST Effort,

Just FORGET ABOUT Egypt and the U.N.

BOTH have JIHAD groups Embedded!

January 25, 2009

http://www.tribulationperiod.com/

Begin Excerpt from Israel News.Net

Egypt hosts secret peace meetings

Israel News.Net

Saturday 24th January, 2009

Behind the scene negotiations have been taking place in Cairo between Egyptian mediators and Hamas representatives, to broker a long-term truce with Israel.

Hamas delegations from both Gaza and Damascus are attending the meetings with the Egyptian staged-peace plan for Gaza at the center of negotiations.

Negotiators are hoping to build on the current ceasefire, before moving on to the questions of re-opening border crossings into Gaza and reconciliation between rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah.

The Israeli envoy, Amos Gilad, was in Egypt last week to discuss Israel’s position with Egyptian Foreign Ministry officials.

Begin Excerpt 1 from Jerusalem Post

Hamas takes control of all Gaza tunnels

January 22, 2009

Yaakov Katz , THE JERUSALEM POST

Hamas has seized control of all the smuggling tunnels under the Philadelphi Corridor in southern Gaza and has been moving additional arms into the Strip since Operation Cast Lead ended on Sunday morning.

During the three-week operation, the IDF destroyed 80 percent of the 300 tunnels that Hamas is believed to have dug under the 14-kilometer stretch of land separating Gaza and Egypt.

Some of the tunnels were not destroyed – like the one that was filmed by foreign media on Wednesday – out of humanitarian considerations.

Several tunnels have pipes that transfer fuel from Sinai to Gaza. The concern in the IDF was that if it bombed such a tunnel, a huge explosion would result – possibly also on the Egyptian side – and civilian casualties.

The IDF was also concerned that if a fuel tunnel were bombed, Hamas would respond by attacking the Nahal Oz fuel depot where there

are gas canisters and fuel tankers, which if detonated would cause major collateral damage in Gaza and Israel.

The tunnels in Rafah are usually run by local Palestinian clans, and Hamas’s decision to take control is believed to be part of the group’s attempts to reestablish its regime in Gaza. Hamas can now decide what is smuggled into the Strip and give priority to weapons

and explosives.

On Wednesday night, CBS News reported that the US Navy had intercepted an Iranian ship in the Red Sea carrying arms allegedly on their way to Gaza. Israel is concerned that Iran will try to transfer long-range Fajr missiles to Hamas capable of hitting Tel Aviv.

Also on Wednesday, Hamas commandeered the trucks carrying humanitarian supplies into the Gaza Strip as part of its effort to show that it is providing for the Palestinian people.

Defense officials told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday that Hamas had also taken over a mental hospital in Gaza City and had kicked out the patients to use the facility as a jail for Fatah supporters.

The officials said Hamas was concerned that Fatah would try to take advantage of its weakened state and attempt to take back control over Gaza. During Operation Cast Lead, Hamas imposed curfews on predominantly Fatah neighborhoods and executed any Fatah member seen on the street.

Also on Thursday, Amos Gilad, the head of the Defense Ministry’s Diplomatic-Security Bureau, was in Cairo for talks about Gilad Schalit

and the new anti-smuggling mechanism.

The new mechanism Israel had set up with the Egyptians to counter the smuggling of weaponry and explosives into the Gaza Strip consists of three layers – intelligence cooperation, obstacles in Sinai and the deployment of new tunnel-detection technology along the border. Defense officials said Gilad would likely travel to Egypt every other week to oversee the mechanism’s effectiveness.

Begin Four Chronological Excerpts from DEBKAfile

Iranian experts devise special containers for clandestine delivery of arms to Gaza

Begin DEBKAfile Excerpt 1

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

January 18, 2009, 10:35 AM (GMT+02:00)

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Israel relayed a warning to Hamas through Egypt that any more Iranian or Syrian attempts to smuggle rockets or other heavy weapons into Gaza by land or by sea would be deemed a breach of the ceasefire and generate Israeli military action to stop them.

Iranian marine experts and engineers, after making a study of submerged Mediterranean currents, have designed special containers for the clandestine shipment of arms to Gaza by sea

Begin DEBKAfile Excerpt 2

US-Egyptian Red Sea ships hunt for Iranian ship carrying 60 tons of arms for Hamas

January 20, 2009, 11:23 AM (GMT+02:00)

US and Egyptian warships were scouring the Gulf of Aden

and Red Sea Tuesday, Jan. 20 to waylay an Iranian freighter carrying scores of heavy rockets for delivery to Hamas.

DEBKAfile’s exclusive sources report they were acting on intelligence that a ship loaded with an estimated 60 tons of arms to replenish Hamas’ depleted war stocks had set out from the Iranian Persian Gulf port of Bandar Abbas on Jan. 17.

The cargo includes 50 Fajr missiles, scores of Grads, armor-piercing missiles and tons of sundry advanced hardware.

Begin DEBKAfile Excerpt 3

US anti-piracy task force to intercept Iran’s Hamas arms ship

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

January 21, 2009, 9:23 AM (GMT+02:00)

The USS San Antonio amphibian warship, heading the Combined Task Force (CTF) 151 patrolling the Gulf of Aden for pirates, has been assigned with hunting down the Iranian cargo vessel carrying 60 tons of rockets and other arms for smuggling into Gaza.

This is revealed by DEBKAfile’s exclusive military sources. Israel’s foreign minister Tzipi Livni flew to Brussels Wednesday, Jan. 21, to discuss adding the European Union to the understanding she signed with the US last Friday for ending the flow of smuggled Iranian weapons to Gaza.

Begin DEBKAfile Excerpt 4

Two US warships escort Iranian ship carrying arms for Hamas out through Suez CanalDEBKAfile Exclusive Report

January 23, 2009, 6:06 PM (GMT+02:00)

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that a US Navy Coast Guard team this week boarded an Iranian arms ship flying a Cypriot flag in the Red Sea and found weapons in its hold.

This was the first time an America warship had ever intercepted an Iranian vessel in international water. The incident activated the Memo of Understanding the former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice signed with Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni a week ago on actions to halt the flow of Iranian arms to Hamas as part of the Gaza ceasefire.

The Iranian ship’s captain showed the US boarding team documents recording the Syrian port of Latakia as its cargo’s destination. DEBKAfile reports that both US and Israeli intelligence are certain the arms were bound for Hamas. But according to international law, the US Navy’s Combined Task Force (CTF) 151, set up last week to combat piracy, was not authorized to confiscate the cargo or stop the ship because no enforcement mechanism was yet in place.

After a few hours, therefore, the US force released the Iranian vessel and two warships escorted it out of Red Sea waters. The ship and its escort are due to enter the Suez Canal heading north Saturday night, Jan. 23, after being prevented from unloading its arms freight on the coast of Sinai or Gaza.

Tehran has so far not reacted to the incident.

DEBKAfile revealed last week that the new US task force policing the waters of the Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean and Red Sea, under the command of Rear Adm.

Terry McKnight, had been additionally assigned with intercepting Iranian ships smuggling arms for Hamas, often in conjunction with Somali pirates and Sinai Bedouin militias.

Massed on the lead ship San Antonio is a helicopter detachment, a “surgical team” for dealing with small speedboats trying to hem the ship in and 14 Navy VBSS members, including two Navy boarding officers. The Coast Guard detachment is made up of eight members, all of them qualified as boarding officers.

Begin Excerpt 2 from Jerusalem Post

Egypt halting the arms flow? Forget it!

January 22, 2009

Q and A: GIORA EILAND , THE JERUSALEM POST

Overall, where do you consider that Israel succeeded, and where did it fail, in Operation Cast Lead?

The most important success is that the operation will produce quiet for a long time in the South.

Israel’s deterrence has been reasserted.

Hamas has suffered a blow to its legitimacy in Gaza. Outside help is required to provide economic assistance to the people there. Hamas has had to make commitments to Egypt, and any breach of those commitments will bring it trouble with Egypt and with others.

The IDF was successful, the public has been reassured, the home front functioned well.

What about the issue of arms smuggling into Gaza?

That’s much more problematic.

To be polite, the Egyptians are telling us stories and we are deluding ourselves.

Egypt was not effective in the past. It doesn’t care about weapons in Gaza.

The smuggling tunnel apparatus also features drugs and televisions and mobile phones, and keeps whole tribes in business. So either Egypt has to truly confront this whole industry or pay off the smugglers. And I’m not sure it’s going to do that.

As for the dramatic signing of an agreement between Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and the previous secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, intended to stop the smuggling, well, without being rude, it’s not serious and it’s not significant.

The United States has had a profound interest in stopping arms smuggling between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and from Iran to Iraq.

But it hasn’t been able to. So preventing a flow of weapons from, say, Somalia to Sudan to Egypt and then to Gaza? No, it’s not going to happen.

The only truly effective way to prevent the smuggling would be for the Egyptians to build a buffer zone five kilometers from the border, fence it off, and control the only road through the sand.

But they won’t do that.

Where does the cease-fire leave Gilad Schalit?

There is now a better climate in which Israel should link his case, in the context of a prisoner exchange, to the other humanitarian concerns – over food and medicine going into Gaza.

As a first step, Israel should be prepared to ease certain border restrictions if the Red Cross is allowed to visit Schalit – and should not ease that access if the Red Cross is not allowed to visit.

How did Israel’s diplomacy fare?

The gathering of leaders in Jerusalem on Sunday signalled international support for our narrative. But we have paid a heavy price with Turkey, and not only in the context of the indirect talks with Syria it was brokering. We had a good relationship with Prime Minister Erdogan, and now he is as anti-Israeli as possible. It reminds me of France in 1967, when President De Gaulle went from being Israel’s best friend before the war to most aggressive rival after it.

How concerned are you that Hamas will now get stronger and pose a more dangerous threat?

Israel does not fight in order to influence the Palestinian dynamic. Would it be better for Israel if one day, someone other than Hamas governs Gaza

? Maybe. But we don’t need to be disappointed that Mahmoud Abbas is weak. A weak Hamas, a strong Abbas – that’s not our interest.

Seeing Gaza and the West Bank reunited as a one unit – that’s not an Israeli interest either. It’s not our problem. We didn’t create that split and it’s not our interest to fix it.

Our interest is long-term quiet and an end to the smuggling.

Maj.-Gen. (res.) Giora Eiland is a former national security adviser and former head of the IDF’s Planning and Operation branches.

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