Archive for December, 2011

The Majority of Articles Keep Warning of Middle East War in 2012!

Saturday, December 31st, 2011

The majority of articles keep warning of a Middle East war in 2012

But Arabs, Persians, Russians, and Chinese are Not Ready for War

And Will Not Be ready for one until dust from Arab Spring Settles

 And a strong popular ruler rises in what was once greater Syria.

The Many Predictions of the END of the Age in 2012 Are Wrong.

Many threats, stalling, and saber rattling, but NO Mid-East War.

December 31. 2011

http://www.tribulationperiod.com/

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Begin Excerpt from DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

Iran raises anti-US threat level. Israel’s C-of-S warns of potential for regional war

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

December 29, 2011, 6:28 PM (GMT+02:00)

 Thursday afternoon, Dec. 29, Tehran raised the pitch of its threats to the United States when Dep.

Chief of the Revolutionary Guards Gen. Hossein Salami declared: “The United States is in no position to tell Tehran what to do in the Strait of Hormuz,” adding, “Any threat will be responded [to] by threat… We will not relinquish our strategic moves in Iran’s vital interests are undermined by any means.”

The Iranian general spoke after the USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier and its strike group passed through the Strait of Hormuz to the Sea of Oman and into the area where the big Iranian naval war game Veleyati 90 is taking place.

At around the same time, Israel’s chief of staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz spoke of “the rising potential for a multi-arena event,” i.e. a comprehensive armed conflict. Facing in several directions as we are “between terrorist organizations and Iran’s progress toward a nuclear weapon… we can’t afford to stay on the defensive and must come up with offensive measures,” he said.

Earlier Thursday, Dec. 29, debkafile reported that an Iranian plan to mine the Strait of Hormuz had put US and NATO forces in the Persian Gulf on the alert.

US and NATO task forces in the Persian Gulf have been placed on alert after US intelligence warned that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are preparing Iranian marine commandos to sow mines in the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

 The new deployment, debkafile’s military sources report, consists of USS Combined Task Force 52 (CTF 52), which is trained and equipped for dismantling marine mines and NATO Maritime Mine Counter measures Group 2 (SNMCMG2). The American group is led by the USS Arden mine countermeasures ship; NATO’s by the British HMS Pembroke minesweeper. Other vessels in the task forces are the Hunt-class destroyer HMS Middleton and the French mine warfare ships FS Croix du Sud and FS Var.

Also on the ready are several US Expeditionary Combat Readiness units of the US Fifth Fleet Bahrain command. Seventeen of these special marine units are attached to the Fifth Fleet as America’s answer to the Iranian Navy’s fast assault boats and marine units.

US military sources told debkafile Wednesday, Dec. 28, that United States has the countermeasures for sweeping the waterway of mines and making it safe for marine passage after no more than a 24-48 hour interruption. 

At the same time, leading military and naval officials in Washington take Tehran’s threats seriously. They don’t buy the proposition advanced by various American pundits and analysts that Iran would never close the Strait of Hormuz, though which one third of the world’s oil passes, because it would then bottle up its own energy exports.

Those officials, according to our sources, believe that Tehran hopes the mines in the waterway will blow up passing oil tankers and other shipping. It doesn’t have to be sealed hermetically to endanger international shipping; just a few mines here and there and an explosion would be enough to deter shippers and crews from risking their vessels.

As Adm. Habibollah Sayari commander of the Iranian Navy put it Wednesday, Dec. 28: “Shutting the strait for Iran’s armed forces is really easy – or as we say in Iran, easier than drinking a glass of water.” He went on to say: “But today, we don’t need [to shut] the strait because we have the Sea of Oman under control and can control transit.”

debkafile‘s Middle East marine sources said the Iranian admiral’s boast about the Sea of Oman was just hot air.  For the big Iranian Velayati 90 sea exercise which began Saturday, America has deployed in that sea two large air and sea strike groups led by the USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier and the USS Bataan aircraft amphibious ship.

And they are highly visible: Thursday morning, Dec. 29, Iranian Navy’s Deputy Commander Rear Adm.

Mahmoud Mousavi reported an Iranian Navy aircraft had shot footage and images of a US carrier spotted in an area where the Velayat 90 war games were being conducted – most probably the Stennis. Its presence, he said, demonstrated that Iran’s naval forces were “precisely monitoring all moves by extra-regional powers” in the region.

Clearly, the US navy is very much on

the spot in the Sea of Oman and other areas of the Iranian war game.

Middle East sources warn however that the repeated threats to close the Strait of Hormuz coming from Tehran this week and the framework of its naval exercise clearly point

to the manner in which Iran intends to hit back for the tough new sanctions which the West plans to approve next month.

The new round is expected to shear off 80 percent of the Islamic Republic’

s revenues.

The European Union’s 27 member-states meet in January to approve an embargo on Iranian oil, with effect on 25 percent of Iran’ s energy export

s. Next month, too, President Barack Obama plans to sign into law an amendment authorizing severe penalties for foreign banks trading with Iran’s central bank, CBI, including the loss of links with American banks and financial institutions.

Tehran is expected to strike back hard by sowing mines in Hormuz and in the waters opposite the oil fields and terminals of fellow Persian Gulf oil producers, including Saudi Arabia.

It would not be the first time. In 1987 and 1988, sea mines were sown in the Persian Gulf for which Iran never took responsibility. It was generally seen as Tehran’s payback for US and Gulf Emirates’ backing for Iraq in its long war with the Islamic Republic. A number of oil tankers and American warships were struck by mines, including the USS Samuel B. Roberts. Such disasters can be averted today by means of the sophisticated countermeasures now in US hands.

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Pre-Tribulation Events in Euphrates River Devil’s Seat

Friday, December 30th, 2011

Last chance to believe the Everlasting Gospel is before God’s Wrath

Pre-Tribulation events in the Euphrates River Valley Devil’s Seat

Are now occurring in the areas touched by the great Euphrates

Where Satan will surrender his seat to the Islamic Antichrist

Before God’s tribulation wrath vials Pour Out on the Earth

All who do not believe the everlasting gospel will Perish

In the Wrath of God’s Revelation 16 5th and 6th Vials  

December 30, 2011

http://www.tribulationperiod.com/

THE DRAGON SATAN’S SEAT LIES ALONG THE EUPHRATES RIVER

Luke 21:25-28 – 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. [28] And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.

Acts 2:19-21 – And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke: [20] 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.

Revelation 13:2 – And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and HIS SEAT, and great authority.

Revelation 14:6-11 – And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, [7] Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters. [8] And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. [9] And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, [10] The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: [11] And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.

Revelation 16:10-12 – 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.

Begen Excerpt from MEMRI

Middle East Media Research Institute

December 27, 2011

Inquiry and Analysis Series Report Nr. 77

In Iraq, Sectarian Tensions in Government Threaten Maliki Coalition

By: Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli                                                                 

Introduction

With the dust hardly settled following the departure of the last U.S. troops from Iraq on December 17, 2011, a political crisis of major proportions has erupted, threatening to renew sectarian conflict and undermine Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki’s fragile coalition. Underlying the crisis are allegations of terrorism against the country’s vice president, Tareq Al-Hashemi, a Sunni politician and member of the Al-Iraqiyya political bloc led by former prime minister Ayad Allawi. An arrest warrant has, in fact, been issued by the High Court, but Al-Hashemi has found his way to safety in Iraqi Kurdistan, where he for the moment remains a “guest” of Iraq’s President Jalal Talabani.

Underlying Causes of the Crisis

The most recent Iraqi general election took place in March 2010, and was by most standards fair and transparent.

However, it resulted in a stalemate between Al-Maliki’s Al-Da’wa Party, which is overwhelmingly Shi’ite, and a coalition of primarily Sunni groups called Al-Iraqiyya, led, as mentioned, by Ayad Allawi.

Neither of the two major contenders was willing to cede the top rung of Iraq’s political ladder to the other, resulting in an impasse in forming a new government – one which lasted through November of that year, when a new government was formed on the basis of a power-sharing agreement, crafted by Masood Barazani, president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

Under the agreement, Al-Maliki retained the premiership, and Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, his post as president, while Ayad Allawi was to preside over a curious body called the High Council for Strategic Policies, purportedly meant to shape the country’s strategic policies, both military and economic. Al-Iraqiyya, Allawi’s political bloc, was assigned the vice presidency, to which they appointed Tareq Al-Hashemi, as well as the ministry of defense – one of the two security ministries, the other being the ministry of interior, which is in charge of the national police and was to be assigned to a Shi’ite politician. The agreement formulated by Barazani has come to be known as the Erbil Agreement, having been finalized in Erbil, the capital city of the KRG.

Once confirmed by parliament as prime minister, Al-Maliki sought to water down the responsibilities of the body to be presided over by Allawi, by insisting that it be restricted to a purely advisory role and demanding that it include numerous government officials, thus making the body unmanageable and hence useless. Al-Maliki went one step further by keeping the two security ministries – defense and interior – under his control, serving as acting minister for both. Numerous candidates submitted by Allawi for the ministry of defense were rejected by Al-Maliki as unqualified. On numerous occasions the Al-Iraqiyya bloc threatened to withdraw its support for the government, but Al-Maliki did not deem these threats credible, and was ultimately proven right.

[2] In short, Allawi was completely outmaneuvered by Al-Maliki, who let him twist in the wind. Nonetheless, the crisis in the government did not abate.

The Crisis Gathers Momentum

Claiming that Al-Maliki had marginalized it, Al-Iraqiyya announced, following a meeting of its leaders in Al-Hashemi’s home, to suspend its participation in the parliament effective December 17, which coincided with the day of Al-Maliki’s departure for a crucial meeting with American President Barack Obama, on the eve of the final withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. A spokesman for Al-Iraqiyya, Hayder Al-Mulla, explained the suspension as a response to the manner in which Al-Maliki was running the country. He asserted Al-Iraqiyya’s determination to reform the political process, which he said was being dominated by “solitary leadership [coupled with] a dictatorial style.” Al-Mulla also raised the issue of Al-Maliki’s failure to implement “legitimate agreements [i.e., the Erbil Agreement] and to resolve the issue of appointing ministers to the security portfolios.” The spokesman also denounced a spate of random but widespread arrests of alleged Ba’thist officials across the country under the pretext of thwarting Ba’thist plans for a coup.[3] Three days later, following the issue of a court order to arrest Vice President Al-Hashemi, Al-Iraqiyya announced that it would boycott all cabinet meetings. The announcement was made by Deputy Prime Minister Saleh Al-Mutlak, who was subsequently fired by Al-Maliki and refused access to the cabinet room.[4]

Iraqi High Court Orders Al-Hashemi’s Arrest

On December 19, acting at the behest of the interior ministry (as indicated earlier, Al-Maliki is also the acting interior minister), five judges from the Iraqi High Court issued a warrant for the arrest of Al-Hashemi under Iraq’s anti-terrorism law. Prior to issuing the arrest warrant, the Iraqi authorities ordered the vice president not to leave Iraq. Under Article 4 of Iraq’s anti-terrorism law, it should be noted, those convicted of acts of terrorism are subject to the death penalty.[5]

To bolster the case against Al-Hashemi, on December 19, the Iraqi government’s TV channel[6] aired live interviews with three members of the alleged terrorist network to which Al-Hashemi has been linked. The three “confessed” their involvement in the conspiracy and implicated Al-Hashemi, whom they alleged directed them to carry out bombings and assassinations in Baghdad. One of those interviewed, Ahmad Shawqi, who is among the vice president’s bodyguards, claimed that Al-Hashemi had instructed him to meet with and receive instructions from his bureau chief, Ahmad Qahtan (who happens to be Al-Hashemi’s son-in-law). Qahtan allegedly supplied Shawqi with weapons in order to carry out attacks, the first of which was a bombing carried out in 2009 in northern Baghdad. As recompense for the operation, Shawqi was purportedly awarded a gift of $3,000 by Al-Hashemi himself.

[7]

While there is no way of verifying or discrediting the accounts given by these witnesses, doubts should be raised whenever individuals allegedly implicated in crimes offer public “confessions” on government-owned media, whether written or visual, prior to proper legal procedure.

Moreover, the acts of terrorism mentioned took place nearly three years before the arrest warrant was issued. At the time, Al-Maliki was aware of the allegations against Al-Hashemi but agreed with President Talabani, following a judicial review, that there were no grounds for a case against the vice president.[8]

To contain the impending crisis, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani invited his two vice presidents, Al-Hashemi and Khudhair Al-Khazza’i, to meet with him in the city of Sulaymaniyah in Iraqi Kurdistan. By orders from the prime minister, the official plane that was to carry the two to their destination was kept grounded at Baghdad Airport for three hours. Following phone conversations between Talabani and Al-Maliki, the plane was allowed to take off, with the understanding that Talabani would, if necessary, guarantee Al-Hashemi’s return to Baghdad in order to face trial.[9] While Al-Hashemi was cleared to proceed to Sulaymaniyah, his office in the Green Zone was raided and his computers confiscated. Al-Hashemi’s office remains under the army’s control.[10]

Al-Hashemi Speaks Out

In a press conference held in Erbil, Al-Hashemi claimed that the allegations of his involvement in terrorist activities had been fabricated and timed to coincide with the departure of U.S. forces, as a means of forcing Al-Iraqiyya out of the government.

He further claimed that foreign governments, which he later named as Iran and Syria, were behind the attempts to discredit him. He argued that the Iraqi judicial system was completely politicized, adding that he was ready to stand trial in KRG so long as representatives of the Arab League and other Arab judicial bodies were present to ensure a fair trial.[11]

In a subsequent, more in-depth interview with Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Al-Hashemi asked why, if his case were criminal, the prime minister should involve himself in it rather than allowing due judicial process to take its course. He said that he was continuing to carry out his duties as vice president from Suleimaniya, and that he considered himself free to travel outside Iraq should his presence be needed abroad. He stressed that he was not an employee of the prime minister and was under no obligation to follow his orders.[12]

The Reaction of the Kurdish Leadership

President Talabani, who arranged for Al-Hashemi to proceed to Sulaymaniyah, described the arrest warrant against the latter as having been issued hastily and without consideration for political agreements or the dignity and status of the presidency.

[13] Talabani maintained that he was the last one to know about the pending arrest of his vice president.[14] A statement subsequently issued by the presidential bureau pointed out that Al-Hashemi was Talabani’s guest and that he would present himself to the court when procedures were established to guarantee the fairness of the trial. The statement stressed that only the courts could determine the case against Al-Hashemi.[15]

Masood Barazani, who brokered the partnership agreement that facilitated the establishment of Al-Maliki’s government, warned against the “collapse” of the political process in Iraq. After meeting with former deputy prime minister Al-Mutlak, recently fired by Al-Maliki, and Minister of Finance Issawi, Barazani issued a statement to the press that read: “The situation is heading toward a severe crisis, and partnership in the government is being threatened.” He called on all parties to reconsider their staunch positions and adhere to previous agreements.[16] It was clear that the message was addressed to Al-Maliki.

Al-Maliki has called on the Kurdish leaders to hand over Al-Hashemi for trial in Baghdad, promising him a fair trial like that afforded “the dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein.”[17] Linking Al-Hashemi’s anticipated trial to that of Saddam Hussein demonstrates poor judgment and a lack of sensitivity on Al-Maliki’s part. It is doubtful, however, that the Kurds would hand over Al-Hashemi as they have had their own disagreements with Al-Maliki, specifically regarding their share in oil revenues and the status of Kirkuk and the so-called “disputed territories.” Al-Maliki has warned the Kurds against facilitating any attempt by Al-Hashemi to seek asylum abroad, warning that this would create problems for the Kurds, though he did not elaborate on this point.[18] The threats, in any case, can be considered empty since Al-Maliki lacks the means to force the Kurds to surrender Al-Hashimi.

The Threat of Sectarian Conflict

The absence of a national consensus in Iraq is bound to exacerbate the existing political conflict, which is acquiring an increasingly sectarian flavor. The Sunnis have often argued that the ongoing efforts to arrest former Ba’thists under de-Ba’thfication law has, in reality, turned into a process of “de-Sunnification,” – a factor “largely responsible for the swelling of the ranks of the Sunni Arab insurgency.”[19] The attempt to arrest and try Al-Hashemi, a key Sunni political figure, alongside the concurrent dismissal of Deputy Prime Minister Saleh Al-Mutalk, has intensified Sunni protest against Al-Maliki.  In fact, the Sunnis argue that the two cases are intertwined and meant to strengthen the Shi’ite grip on the levers of government.[20]

As a reminder that the political crisis in Iraq could trigger a sectarian conflict similar to the one that rocked the country in 2006-2007, leaving thousands of Iraqis dead on both sides, 16 simultaneous explosions shook the Iraqi capital three days after the arrest warrant was issued against Al-Hashemi. As a result of these acts of violence, which reportedly struck in predominantly Shi’ite areas, at least 69 Iraqis were killed and another 200 wounded. Iraqi officials were quick to describe the attacks as “a political message driven by the current crisis between Al-Maliki and Vice President Tareq Al-Hashemi, whom Al-Maliki has accused of terrorism.” Al-Maliki issued a statement saying that “the timing of these crimes and the choice of locations once more confirm to all skeptics the political nature of the objectives [of the attacks].”[21] Iran’s mouthpiece in Iraq, Shi’ite cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr, characterized the attacks in Baghdad as “American terrorist explosions under official international cover and international silence.”[22]

A Possible End to the Crisis

Seeing himself faced with a potentially fatal conflict on two key political fronts – namely with Al-Iraqiyya and the Kurdish alliance – Al-Maliki hastily backed down. A laconic statement issued  on December 25 by the same High Court that issued the arrest warrant against Al-Hashemi only a few days earlier said the warrant was based on an investigation carried out by a single judge, and that a five-judge panel would now review his findings.

Shortly thereafter, a spokesman for Al-Maliki announced that his Islamic Da’wa Party respected the integrity of the judicial process and would abide by it, even if it declared Al-Hashemi’s innocence.[23] Just a day later, the same five-judge panel  issued another order confirming the effectiveness of the warrant for the arrest of al-Hashemi.[24]

Conclusion

The recent events in Iraq underscore the following points:

  • The fragility of the political system and process in Iraq, and the general sectarian division of its government institutions. A recent visitor from Baghdad told this author: “The word watani [nationalist] has disappeared from the political lexicon in the country. In today’s Iraq, one identifies with one’s sectarian community or with one’s tribe.” Political consensus in the country is weak to nonexistent.
  • Nouri Al-Maliki has repeated his threats to establish “a political majority” in place of a national unity government, a code for a Shi’ite government, which would further alienate the Sunni minority and push them inexorably into the arms of violent resistance groups.

    At the same time, there are Shi’ite militias armed and supported by Iran that would exploit the mayhem in Iraq to increase their influence on and involvement in its domestic affairs. The possibility of an armed conflict not unlike the civil war that rocked Iraq in 2006-2007 cannot be discounted.

  • There were hints in some Iraqi dailies that Al-Maliki might seek to amend the country’s constitution and introduce a presidential system of government. With no parliament to contend with, it was claimed, “president” Al-Maliki would wield enormous political power toward silencing his critics.
  • The new situation in Iraq is a serious challenge, if not a downright embarrassment, for President Obama, who, on the eve of the departure of the last U.S. forces, declared, “We have left behind a stable country.” The Iraqis answered his greetings with “a tsunami” of political discord.[25] The attempt by Vice President Joseph Biden to contain the conflict has not been a greatly successful one. Al-Maliki has a difficult task ahead of him in navigating between the United States and Iran, two mortal enemies that are each seeking to assert its influence in the country.

  • Al-Maliki and the Al-Iraqiyya bloc disagree over the issue of Iraq’s support for Bashar Al-Assad’s regime in Syria. The question arises of whether Al-Maliki’s attempt to free himself of Al-Iraqiyya, and particularly Finance Minister Issawi, may have been driven by a hidden agenda to provide financial support to the Syrian regime, which Issawi would have prevented.

* Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli is a senior analyst at MEMRI.

Endnotes:

[1] Al-Quds Al-Arabi (London), December 22, 2011.

[2] Alsumria. tv, July 20, 2011.

[3] Alsumaria. tv, December 17, 2011.

Those arrested were residents of primarily Sunni provinces in northern and western Iraq. See Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, December 20, 2011.

[4] Alsumaria.tv, December 20, 2011; Alrafidayn.com, December 20, 2011.

[5] Al-Arab (Qatar), December 20, 2011.

[6] The channel is also known as Al-Iraqiyya.

[7] Newsabah.com, December 19, 2011.

[8] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), December 26, 2011

[9] Al-Zaman (Iraq), December 19, 2011.

[10] Alrafidayn.com, December 20, 2011.

[11] Alsumaria.tv, December 20, 2011.

[12] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), December 26, 2011.

[13] Aljazeera.net, December 21, 2011.

[14] Darlahayat.com, December 22, 2011.

[15] Alrafidayn.com, December 25, 2011.

[16] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), December 20, 2011.

[17] Al-Quds Al-Arabi (London), December 21, 2011.

[18] Al-Quds Al-Arabi (London), December 21, 2011.

[19] The term “de-Sunnification” was introduced by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi in “Assessing the Surge in Iraq.” See www.meforum.org/3137, December 22, 2011.

[20] Al-Arab (Qatar), December 24, 2011.

[21] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), December 23, 2011.

[22] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), December 24, 2011.

[23] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), December 26, 2011.

[24] International.daralhayat.com December 27, 2011

[25] Darlahayat.com, December 22, 2011

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Churches in this Article are Part of the Apostate Ecumenical Woman!

Thursday, December 29th, 2011

Churches in this Article are Part of the apostate Ecumenical Woman

And they shall be Judged by God in the tribulation for their Conduct 

By Using the Antichrist Forces of Islam to Punish them for Apostasy.

Church buildings across the Old World will burn and many

will Die!

God’s advice to those in Apostate Churches is to Come Out of Them

Support of Many apostate churches for the cause of the Palestinians

Will cause the Antichrist to allow the Woman to Ride on him at First

But he will turn on her in the Tribulation & she will pay for her Ride.

December 29, 2011

http://www.tribulationperiod.com/

THE 6 CHURCHES IN THESE ARTICLES ARE APOSTATE CHURCHES

Most churches today, within the area once encompassed by the Egyptian, Assyrian. Babylonian, Persian, Macedonian, Roman, & Umayyad Empires, are apostate from the faith once delivered to the saints of the earliest churches.  They will be judged by God in the Tribulation Period for their apostasy.  These churches represent the woman on the Revelation beast in Revelation 17 and 18, Today many are more sympathetic to enemies of Israel than to Israel.

Begin Excerpt from ReligiousWatch.Com based on UK News Articles

Preaching Peace

Whilst practicing fisticuffs in church

The cradle of Christianity was rocked by an unholy punch-up when Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests came to blows in a dispute over how to clean Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity.

The ancient place of worship, built over the site where Jesus Christ is said to have been born in a stable more than 2,000 years ago, is shared by various branches of Christianity, each of which controls and jealously guards a part of the holy site.

The brawl apparently began when Greek Orthodox priests set up ladders to clean the walls and ceilings of their part of the church after the Christmas Day celebrations.

Armenian priests claimed that the ladders encroached on their portion of the church, which led the two sects to exchange angry words which quickly turned to blows.

Witnesses said that the robed and bearded priests scuffled for more than an hour using fists, brooms and iron rods as weapons.

 Photographers who came to document the annual cleaning ceremony instead recorded the entire event.

Five priests were lightly injured in the melee, which was eventually broken up by a dozen unarmed Palestinian policemen. Two of the policemen were hurt in ending the brawl.

My Nonsense is Bigger than your Nonsense

Rival Christian groups come to blows in shared church again

Christianity’s holiest shrine, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, was the scene on Palm Sunday of an unseemly brawl when dozens of Greek and Armenian orthodox priests and worshippers exchanged blows.

When police tried to break up the fight, they were pummelled with palm fronds.

All hell broke loose when Armenian clergy forcibly ejected a Greek priest from their midst. The pushed him to the ground and kicked him, according to witnesses.

The church, built over the site where Jesus was allegedly buried and resurrected, has an unhappy history of rivalry among several Christian denominations.

Each denomination jealously guards its share of the basilica, and fights over rights of worship at the church have intensified in recent years, particularly between the Armenians and Greeks.Under what is known as the status quo, the Holy Sepulchre is divided among the Armenians, Roman Catholics and the Greek Orthodox who have the largest share. The Coptic, Ethiopian Orthodox and Syrian Orthodox churches also have duties to maintain specific areas.

Fighting Habit..

More fighting amongst monks of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Israeli police have broken up another brawl among rival monks in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, believed by some to be the site of Jesus’s crucifixion, burial and resurrection.

The church in Jerusalem’s Old City, one of the most revered sites in Christianity, is home to six different Christian sects who frequently fight over the rights to maintain and worship in different sections of its hallowed halls.

This time, the fight followed an Armenian procession marking the fourth-century discovery of a cross believed to have been used in Jesus’s crucifixion.

Greek Orthodox monks had apparently wanted to post a monk inside the Edicule, a structure built on what is believed to be Jesus’s tomb, and blocked the procession when the Armenian clergymen refused.

Riot police broke up the fight and arrested a bearded Armenian monk and a Greek Orthodox monk bleeding from a gash on his forehead. 

End Excerpt from ReligiousWatch.Com based on UK News Articles

THE UNFAITHFUL WOMAN IS MADE UP OF CHURCHES APOSTATE FROM THE TRUE FAITH ONCE DELIVERED TO EARLY CHURCHES.

Jude 1:3 – Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.

Revelation 17:1-6,12-17 –  And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: [2] With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. [3] So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.

[4] And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: [5] And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. [6] And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration. [12] 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. [14] These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.

[15] And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. [16] And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.

[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.

Revelation 18:1-8 – And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. [2] And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils,

and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

[3] For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. [4] And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. [5] For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.

[6] Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.

[7] How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.

[8] Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.

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The “Arab Spring” Leaves Now Shoot Forth on its Many Gentile Trees as Well as on the Israel Fig Tree!

Wednesday, December 28th, 2011

BEHOLD THE FIG TREE AND ALL THE TREES.

Prophesied Things Are Coming On The Earth

Pre-Green Arab and Israel Leaves are Here!

The “Arab Spring” Leaves NOW Shoot Forth,

The West DID NOT Make These Revolutions,

And It Cannot STOP them Now,” Is a Reality

Which Shows Mankind’s Inability to Control

Or Change its Own Destiny Foretold by God.

The Fig Tree ‘Israel Spring’ leaves are Seen

The Kingdom of God Is NOW NIGH AT Hand.

I Thank God for His Longsuffering with Man

He’s waited a long time to gather Us Home!

December 28, 2010

http://www.tribulationperiod.com/

II Peter 3:14,15 – Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that

ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless. [15] And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;

Luke 21:25-29 –  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. [28] And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh. [29] And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree, and all the trees; [30] When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand. [31] So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.

Acts 2:19-21 –And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke: [20] 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 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.

II Peter 3:8,9 –  But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years

as one day. [9] The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

Begin Excerpt from the UK Independent via World News

How the West was caught out by the Arab Spring

By Donald MacIntire

December 26, 2011

To understand the momentousness of 2011, it’s worth remembering that this time last year no one knew that, within weeks, revolution would sweep across North Africa, including the most populous and important country in

the Arab world. True, the uprising had already started in Tunisia. But it was impossible to predict that by the end of the year we would have seen the ignominious flight of one tyrant, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, that a second, Hosni Mubarak, would have been imprisoned and on trial, that a third, Muammar Gaddafi, would have been extra-judicially executed, that a fourth, Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh, would have been forced to announce his own departure, and a fifth, Bashar al-Assad, would still be trying to escape his nemesis by sacrificing the lives of thousands of his fellow citizens in a gruesome but increasingly precarious exercise of power.

It goes without saying that the most dynamic impact of these seismic convulsions has been on the Arab world itself. But because the Western powers had, to a greater or lesser extent, regarded the first four as their friends, and had at least, for all his dubious alliances, co-existed, in the coldest of peaces, with President Assad, these outcomes would also require a re-think, at once hasty and profound, of their approach to the region.

In 2005 the then US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, made a speech in Cairo lamenting that for too long the West had sacrificed the need for reform in the Arab world to what it saw as the greater imperative of “stability”. Now, forces in which the West had played no part were confronting it with their stark failure to act on her memorable, but as it turned out, hollow advice.

That was certainly one reason why Western governments – including, notably, the US – initially seemed so slow to grasp the enormity of the changes taking place.

Well into February, a prominent European diplomat – a man justly respected for his knowledge of Egypt – told me in his office with all the certainty he could muster that Mubarak would not step down any time soon.

The failure is easy to ridicule but I can remember around the same time watching a journalists’ march down a central Cairo street in protest at the fatal shooting of a colleague by a police sniper and thinking what an appalling risk they were taking – that at any moment Mubarak’s thugs might pounce as they had bloodily done on Tahrir Square five days earlier – and that unlike at least some of those in the square, the journalists had no rocks with which to defend themselves.

Yet four days later Mubarak had gone.

Given their links with the regimes in question, both Britain and France redeemed themselves somewhat by military intervention to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya. Britain was helped in this, of course, by having a government which less than a year earlier had replaced the Labour one that, reversing years of ostracism, had forged an alliance with Gaddafi’s Libya. On one level that had been easy to defend – a reasonable, and for British commercial interests incidentally lucrative – trade-off of international rehabilitation for an end to Libya’s nascent WMD programme and support for global terrorism. The problem was that it came with too great a tolerance for the internal abuses that the regime continued to perpetrate. There is more to come out about the enforced repatriation of dissidents from the UK to Libya in the latter part of the last decade; and none of it will enhance Britain’s reputation as a human rights defender in that period.

Equally at fault was the faith, at best naïve, that Gaddafi’s son Saif would deliver the reforms he promised. No one who stood, as I did, a few metres away from him in a Tripoli hall as, dressed in his trademark designer blazer and jeans, he delivered his chillingly demagogic “Benghazi we are coming” speech directed at the rebels in eastern Libya, could have doubted where his true instincts lay.

So the British coalition’s embrace of the no-fly zone, underpinned by UN authority, went some way towards exorcising those errors and even rehabilitating the idea of liberal interventionism.

It was true that the government was caught almost unawares when it found itself on a war footing. The absence of a Russian or a Chinese veto of UN Security Resolution 1973 was hardly expected. But once it passed there was no going back, and David Cameron continued to fulfil the resolution throughout those difficult months when the military was complaining of having run out of targets, the so-called front line was shifting raggedly but with alarming rapidity east and west, and British ministers were grumbling about the costs – and seeming lack of result – of intervention.

Nor would the later complaint of, “if Libya why not Syria”, where the geo-strategic risks were of a wholly different order, hold up. It amounted to saying that if you can’t do everything you should do nothing. Moreover, the Libyans wanted it – and not only in the east. Sitting in his small kitchen in the Souk el Jouma district of Tripoli, a wanted anti-Gaddafi activist told me in April how his mood went up and down in direct relation to the intensity of the allied bombing of his home city.

But this was hardly the only challenge posed by the Arab Spring. The second-round Egyptian parliamentary election results announced on Saturday reinforce the success of the Muslim Brotherhood as comfortably the biggest single party – with a less predicted 20 per cent showing for the ultra-religious Salafist Al-Nour party – leaving Western powers pondering how to deal with a democracy in which Islamism is dominant.

Nick Clegg, internally perhaps the government’s strongest advocate of engagement with the newly emerging forces in the Arab world, made congratulatory phone calls to leaders of the successful Hizb Ennhada party after the Tunisian elections. The Foreign Office’s Middle East division has undergone a big, if belated, expansion. Even more significantly, earlier this month James Watt, the British Ambassador in Cairo, quietly met senior figures in the Brotherhood at the headquarters of their Freedom and Justice party after the first round of Egyptian elections – a sign that the UK government currently intends to deal with whoever wields power in the new Egypt.

If it does so, it will be coming down pragmatically on one side of a nascent argument over whether the Brotherhood are Islamists the West can do business with.

It’s one which may well be accentuated if the Republicans capture the US Presidency, since European politicians who have recently met Mitt Romney, supposedly the party’s most centrist candidate, have been alarmed by his tendency to speak airily of “Islamism” as an undifferentiated global threat, with little emphasis, for example, on how the Arab spring has robbed al-Qa’ida of much of its appeal. Unsurprisingly this overlaps with the Mubarak-nostalgia of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who in a Knesset speech in late November argued that the Arab world was “moving backward not forward” and using the uprisings to reinforce his contention that this was no time for “hasty concessions” to the Palestinians. The analysis has divided the Israeli polity, with Tzipi Livni, the opposition leader, arguing against the Netanyahu batten-down-the-hatches approach and for serious negotiations with the Palestinian President. But as long as Mr Netanyahu remains as politically strong as he does today, it will prevail.

In contrast to all this, perhaps the most articulate British political advocate since early in the Arab Spring of not falling into what he called “the rejectionist trap” has turned out to be the former foreign secretary David Miliband.

Indeed those who choose to depict him as a clone of Tony Blair have to explain away his February blog, less than two weeks after his former boss praised Mubarak’s participation in the “peace process” as “immensely courageous and a force for good”. Mr Miliband instead argued that Mr Mubarak had become “a roadblock to resolution of the Palestinian issue”. Mr Miliband has gone on to challenge a monolithic view of Islamism, pointing to Turkey and Indonesia as potential models for “synthesising Islam with modernity”.

By all accounts the Muslim Brotherhood leadership assured Ambassador Watt this month that they had no wish to cancel the treaty with Israel or impose sharia law on the country. While accepting that not everything the Brotherhood says to Western visitors can be taken at face value, Mr Miliband has pointed to research at the University of North Carolina suggesting that as democracy entrenches itself, Islamist parties tend to lose support and modify their platforms in a centrist direction to attract votes. And he has argued that the “ballast” of Egyptian society remains business and its middle class. Take a single example; it seems doubtful that in a country in which up to 5 million people depended on tourism before the revolution that Egypt will easily accept the bikini/alcohol free “halal tourism” called for by the Salafists.

And despite the frequent and simplistic depiction of the revolution as a deeply uneasy alliance between the “Google kids” and hard-line Islamists, no one who was in Tahrir Square in those heady early days of February could fail to be impressed by the numbers of professionals – lawyers, teachers, accountants, medics – boldly holding their ID cards aloft, complaining of their poverty and the difficulty of securing their children a good education, and declaring that for the first time they felt proud to be Egyptians.

Yet even if the most pessimistic prognoses for the aftermath of the Arab Spring are confounded, many questions will remain. Some concern Israel-Palestine. This is not just a matter of whether dealing with the Muslim Brotherhood will lead in time to engagement with its militant Palestinian offshoot, Hamas; although that could become an issue if Hamas fulfils (some) predictions by declaring a move away from armed combat as part of its reconciliation talks with Fatah.

More broadly, will Western governments – and especially the US – be driven by Israel to see the changes among its neighbours as militating against a solution of the Palestinian conflict, rather than the heavily enhanced incentive it should be to reach one?

But beyond all this, the most hopeful lesson for the West to learn is some humility. It did not make these revolutions, and it cannot stop them now. It can seek to ignore the newly emerging forces in the Arab world, as tragically the EU, thanks to a Franco-German block, chose to turn its back on Turkey by failing to hasten its accession. Or it can engage with them, albeit with its eyes open. There is no other choice.

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2012 Will be a Year of Preparation for the Middle East War!

Monday, December 26th, 2011

Those Walking In Light of God’s Word Won’ t Be Over

taken!

Islam Will Accept the Antichrist As the Mahdi From Allah.

2012 Will Be A Year Of Preparation For Mid-East War,

But I don’t believe it will break out during that Time.

The Prophecies Saying 2012 Is The Year Of Doom

Are numerically greater than Carter’s liver Pills,

But I don’t believe any of them will be Correct.

Israel will be Attacked, but Not during 2012!

But NO MAN Knows The Precise Time Of It,

But I’m of the Opinion it’s likely to Occur

At A Point IN Time Twixt 2013 & 2015!

When the Attack occurs the man of Sin,

That Wicked, is revealed as Antichrist,

1.5 Billion Muslims Shall Accept Him,

Plus Multiple Other False Religions.

True believers are’nt in Darkness,

So They should not be Overtaken

By that day as a nighttime Thief

Walking in His WORD Of Light.

December 27, 2011

http://www.tribulationperiod.com/

II Thessalonians 2:8-12 – And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: [9] Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, [10] And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.

[11] And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: [12] That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

Revelation 17:17 – 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.

I Thessalonians 5:1-5 – But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.

[2] For yourselves know perfectly that the day of

the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. [3] For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. [4] But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.

[5] Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.

Begin Excerpt from THE JERUSALEM POST

A nuclear Iran and potential war with Syria

By YAAKOV KATZ

12/20/2011 11:52

Hezbollah and Hamas are just some of the challenges Israel could face in the coming year of 2012.

With Iran continuing what appears to be an unstoppable race towards obtaining nuclear weapons, 2012 appears to be turning into the year which might be the last chance to stop the Ayatollahs from obtaining the bomb.

Hezbollah, Israel believes, has obtained 50,000 rockets and missiles of various sizes and ranges that encompass the entire State of Israel and could be fired in a future war. This is in comparison to the 15,000 rockets it had just five years ago during the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

With predictions that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s days are numbered, concern is growing in Israel over the possibility that in the twilight days of his regime, Assad will attack Israel, possibly with his long-range Scud missiles

And then there is the uncertainty surrounding the future of the Middle East – the American pullout from Iraq, the future withdrawal from Afghanistan, the revolution in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya – all of which can impact Israel’s security.

It is under this climate that The Jerusalem Post will be holding its first conference in New York on April 29, 2012.

As the paper’s military correspondent and defense analyst, I strongly recommend that you attend the conference and come hear from Israeli leaders and some of our leading analysts and reporters.

2012 is shaping up into one of the most important years in Israel’s existence. Come be a part of it.

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