Does God Exist? Consider ENERGY

Gerrard and Torres!

Man U vs Liverpool 1:4 (2009)

Liverpool: from terrible to terrific!

Now that was a game and a result! Who would have thought that Liverpool would win against Man U? Not me, for sure! But, hey, it's the same old story: never write off Liverpool, especially not in a derby match. But the key question is: can they build on that victory, form, and play? Mascherano says, they must! And he's dead right!

'Yoss da Boss' (Yossi Benayoun) was outstanding - man of the match - together with Jamie Carragher - absolute world-class defending (unlike his recent form...) Even Lucas appears to have had a good game! Tor..Torr...Torres was fantastic, what you would expect. But to be honest, he was disappointed in the past, where as a lone striker he just couldn't get through (e.g., Chelsea defence). But poor Vidic - Torres is his worst nightmare...

Anyhow, tomorrow they'll play Arsenal in the League Cup and then Fulham at Craven Cottege in the Premier League - the game that will really show how they'll deal with Sunday's smashing victory. Liverpool lost four times - and that's about enough for this season, and certainly enough if they want to contend for the title. As I always say, consistency is the key. But it seems that they are getting used to playing with Alonso - something that needed time - and with Yoss da Boss (Yossi Benayoun) being a heck of a force, things are exciting!

You'll never walk alone

Persecutions of Christians by Muslims in the West Bank

Middle East Bias in Faith Schools in the UK

This report shows how British school autorities are concerned over the biased way Muslim pupils are taught about other religions and the Middle East situation. It is alarming, to say the least. If these things are visible in an official visit by the authorities, what is going on when no outsider is present?

A distant relative of mine is a teacher of religion in East London. Most of his pupils are young Muslim boys. When we talked about Islam in the UK, he confirmed all my observations about it - and he is a secular guy who doesn't believe in God and does certainly not subscribe to any religion. What was amazing in what he said about his pupils was that they don't know much about the UK, yet they know exactly who should be killed (foremost Jews and Christians).

Our secular politicians would want to make us believe that the radical part of Islam is only a very tiny minority, yet the truth is that this radical movement is growing fast at grassroot level. These young Muslim pupils are being raised under Wahabbi Islam, the most conservatice Islam from Saudi Arabia. They may not all be suicide-bombers in five or ten years, yet if Muslim politicians and scholars become more influential, things will change very fast and very much to the worse. They make no secret that freedom of speech, tolerance, and other religions - values highly esteemed here - have no place in the kind of Islamic state they want to turn the UK into - the very posters and slogans chanted at Wilders' visit and other demonstrations clearly showed this. Only a fool can deny that these are their aims. 'Islam will dominate' is their declared belief and aim - and they are busy working towards it.

When will people wake up to what is emerging here? Rejecting all articles calling for serious attention to such issues as 'Islamophobic' is foolishness! Let's be honest about it and deal with reality, rather than thinking things are different and that they can be solved by politics and appeasement.

Goldstone Regrets over UN Resolution Draft

"This [UN] draft resolution saddens me as it includes only allegations against Israel . . . There is not a single phrase condemning Hamas as we have done in the [Goldstone] report. I hope that the council can modify the text."

Judge Richard Goldstone

So, what is the UN playing at? What's going on? Who truly controls the UN? Read more, click here.

Who can explain why the UN is only taking the anti-Israel stuff out of the report? Even the HRW had condemned Hamas for what they did! Again, who truly controls the UN?

Liverpool: from bad to worse

Not much can or must be said; Liverpool is going from bad to worse. Last season they were at their best since the last title win, and building on that team would have made the title very likely this season, plus perhaps even the Champions League. Yet Rafa not just messed up that team by selling Alonso - the key man missing now - he also plays wierd tactics in Gerrard's and Torres' absence. Three central defenders? When has that ever worked? They were all over the place and confused; Riera on the bench? The team line-up would have been simple enough: Voronin up front, Kuyt on the right, Riera on the left, and Benayoun as supporting striker (Gerrard's role). Bring Babel on for Riera or Voronin later, or perhaps for a midfield player. Lucas and Mascherano as holding midfielders and a four-men defence (Agger for Skrtl, Aurelio for Insua). It's simply frustrating, and then on top of all that, the beach ball misery... do I have much hope for them to turn it around? Unfortunately not much, yet some improivement is certain (not just because it can hardly get worse...). I just hope it won't be too humiliating this season (e.g., losing the Champions League spot for next season and not making it beyond the group stage in this year's Campions League). It's simply frustrating, but then life is not football - at least not for me.

Goldstone Report accepted by UN

The UN has accepted the controversial Goldstone Report which accuses both Hamas and the IDF of war crimes, yet in the final wording only Israel stands condemned. Even Goldstone objects to this! Nothing new, then, from the UN - the old anti-Israel stands since the 70s...

The prelude has been intense, especially has Israel had refused to cooperate with the investigation for a very good reason: the terrible anti-Israel bias; it was so bad, eventhough Israel is used to dealing with biased groups, governments and media, that Israel couldn't participate in this unworthy venture. What the Israeli government offers online is for people to read the facts and make up their own mind: check it out!

The simple truth is this: '...the decision harms efforts to protect human rights in accordance with international law and hinders efforts to promote the peace process as well as encouraging terror organizations around the world.' Further, 'The decision ignores the fact that the Israel Defense Forces took unprecedented measures to avoid harming innocent civilians, and the fact that terror organizations used civilians as human shields in Gaza.'

What is shameful, is that the UK abstained; yet well done France for taking action!

Day of Prayer for Israel (4 Oct 2009): My Speech

Today is a Day of Prayer for the peace of Jerusalem; it is a day to pray for Israel and the Jewish people, God's people; it is a day to pray for peace and reconciliation in the Middle East, a time to pray for Jews, Arabs, Christians, and everybody else in and around the Holy Land. Over 200,000 churches in 175 nations around the world are praying for Israel today. We are privileged to be a part of this today.

Yet such an event, the Church praying for the Jewish People, would have been unthinkable 1,500 years ago, when the Church Fathers called the Jews 'Christ-killers' and 'the most worthless of all men,' inflamed Christians at Easter to beat Jews to death for what they allegedly did to Jesus, and condemned the Jews as an evil and perverse sect.

Such an event, the Church praying for the Jewish People, would have been unthinkable a 1,000 years ago, when the Crusaders on their misguided tour to reconquer the Holy Land plundered Jewish homes, slaughtered thousands of Jews, and burned synagogues while triumphantly carrying large wooden crosses and singing hymns from the Book of Psalms, the Jewish prayer book.

Such an event, the Church praying for the Jewish People, would have been unthinkable 800 years ago, when the institutional Church at the time officially approved the oppressive and violent conduct of Christians toward Jews and forced them to wear a yellow badge to single them out for ridicule.

Such an event, the Church praying for the Jewish People, would have been unthinkable 600 years ago, when the Spanish Inquisition forced Jews to convert to Christianity, calling them marranos, Spanish for 'pigs,' and eventually expelling them from Spain in 1492 (one of many expulsions in Europe). Ironically, Columbus, himself thought of as having Jewish blood, set out the same month to discover what later would become a safe-haven for the Jewish people.

Such an event, the Church praying for the Jewish People, would have been unthinkable 500 years ago, when Martin Luther, the great German Reformer, after speaking so highly of Jewish learning, turned against God's chosen people, calling for the burning of synagogues, destroying Jewish homes, depriving them of their books, forbidding rabbis to teach, forbidding Jews to travel, and driving them out of their system in order that 'we may all be free from this insufferable devilish burden—the Jews,' thinking all along that this was honouring to God.

Such an event, the Church praying for the Jewish People, would have been unthinkable 80, 70, or 60 years ago, during the rise and rule of Nazi Germany who saw itself as serving God seeking to rid the world of the Jews. Nations, such as Switzerland, have failed to provide refuge for Jews fleeing the Holocaust Those who opposed Nazi policy against the Jews, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, would often pay the ultimate price. Most churches would shut their eyes, ears, and hearts to the Jewish People even though they knew what was going on; congregations were ordered to sing louder so that the cries of women and children who were buried alive could not be heard.

Yet today, millions of Christians have gathered together to pray for a People the Church once condemned as despised and rejected by God, a people harassed and persecuted from one corner of Europe to another.

The Church wrongly believed that she replaced Israel as God's People; the Church wrongly assumed she was the New Israel, and the old is no longer God's People and that God no longer has a plan or place for Israel; the Church wrongly pursued a course of action we now feel so ashamed of.

Indeed, as Marcel Rebiai wrote in his book on Islam, Israel and the Church,

'With a few exceptions, the Church has failed during the centuries to comfort the Jews... The result is that the heart of the Jewish people was endlessly wounded by all the humiliation and injuries... The problem is that with a few exceptions, the Jewish people has never experienced the Church as the one who is at God's heart.'

But today a large part of the Church of Jesus Christ stands with Israel in all her struggles and sufferings, prays for Israel in all her difficulties and battles, and supports Israel through all her trials and tribulations. Things are different today within the Church, and Israel and the Jewish People know it!

But not only failure of the Church historically should make us support and pray for Israel and the Jewish people. The Apostle Paul himself prayed and interceded for his people, wishing himself to be separated from Christ for the sake of the salvation of his countrymen according to the flesh (Romans 9); in that he followed the example of Moses. And, of course, Jesus gave His own life for the sake of His own people, the Jewish people. These men have demonstrated that a true believer's heart goes out for the salvation and welfare of Israel, God's eternally chosen and covenanted people.

In the last 30, 40 years a tremendous shift has taken place in the Church and biblical scholarship: not only has the Roman Catholic Church corrected its position towards the Jewish People in the 1960s and publicly repented through John Paul II, scholars from different quarters of Christianity have been researching Jesus the Jew, exploring the real setting of His life, and seeking to understand the true meaning of His teaching accordingly. Things are different today within the Church, and Israel and the Jewish People know it!

Thanks to Christian support for Jews and Israel, many rabbis are taking another look at Jesus, and Israel as a nation and people are beginning to trust Christians despite the terrible past. And not to forget a precious movement among Jews who find that Yeshua is truly their Messiah and Saviour, the movement of the Messianic Jews, who sometimes themselves suffer persecution.

All these things have had a tremendous effect on Jewish–Christian relations. Things are different today within the Church, and Israel and the Jewish People know it!

Yet we are not only called to pray for and support Israel. Christians are called to pray and act for the welfare of all people and peoples, but especially those in need. Our hearts must, therefore, also go out to the thousands of Arab civilians, including Arab Christians, who are drawn into the Islamic struggle against Israel as a Jewish State. They are left with no choice but to hate Israel and Jewish people; they are drawn into a hate-filled propaganda that distorts facts and figures, misuses human dignity, and sacrifices its own people to achieve their ultimate goal: the total destruction of Israel. But how can one blame a Holocaust people for defending itself in every possible way after what the Jews have experienced and in view of the aims of their hostile neighbours? Israel needs our prayers; the Arabs need our prayers.

In the midst of all this chaos and injustice, with failures on all sides, God is fulfilling His plans for His people, Israel, and this despite her shortcomings and failures. God is fulfilling His plans for all nations.

The Church must proclaim peace, forgiveness, and reconciliation, and not take sides over against another. While we can stand with Israel, we are equally concerned for the well-being of Arabs—Muslim and Christian—and all other peoples involved. We must not be misled by the Western media-bias and ignorantly condemn Israel with the rest of the world; we must make informed decisions, and not be manipulated or emotionally drawn in by false propaganda.

As the Church we must seek to fulfil our biblical mandate to proclaim peace, forgiveness, and reconciliation through Jesus the Messiah; He is the Prince of Peace.

This is no easy task, yet ministries like that of the Community of Reconciliation lead by Marcel Rebiai in Jerusalem are a witness to love in a world of strife; evidence of forgiveness in a world of bitterness; proof of reconciliation in a world of enmity. Their basis is peace through Jesus the Messiah.

This is no easy task, yet we can always pray; prayer is the very thing we can all do.

In closing, let me refer to the words of a Messianic Jew, Ruben Berger:

'The Lord wants to give his burden of prayer for Israel to many more persons in the Church. The Church is called to seek him in fasting and prayer, in weeping and travail, for the fulfillment [sic] of God's ultimate redemptive purpose in Israel. This event will flow over into the end-time, worldwide salvation and the revelation of God to all humanity.'

God's ultimate aim, my friends, through both Israel and the Church, is to bless all nations, all peoples, and all people. This must be at the centre of our prayer.

Let's pray.

BBC's anti-Israel bias exposed

Honest Reporting has, once again, exposed a major media bias, this time by the BBC. I am appalled that the UK allows such distorations of facts and manipulation of children to go on. Whatever is installed in children will usually remain with them and shape their value system. Such reports are, to state it simple, anti-Semitic propaganda 'nicely' put. It is totally unacceptable and very shameful.

Why the Return to Zion? by Dr. Alex Grobman

Here's a brilliant, yet brief, article by Dr Alex Grobman on why Jews persisted on establishing their home in Eretz Israel (the Land of Israel). To view this article online, click here.

Not long after the establishment of the State of Israel, Abba Eban, Israel's representative to the United Nations, remarked, "The peace on Israel's borders may be no more than the peace of a quiescent volcano; and the crisis of state in its immediate external relationships remain unsolved."(1)

Given the intractable nature of this conflict, many ask why the Jews have been so tenacious in their desire to reconstitute the Jewish state in the land of Israel. What is it about this land that has inspired their love of Zion through centuries of exile?

Culturally, during the 18 centuries of Jewish life in the Diaspora, the connection to the land of Israel played a vital role in the value system of Jewish communities and was a basic determinant in their self-recognition as a group. Without the connection to the land of Israel, the people who practice Judaism would simply be a religious community, without national and ethnic components. Jews were distinct from the Muslim and Christian communities in which they lived because of their religious beliefs and practices, and the eternal link to the land of their forefathers. That is why Jews considered themselves - and are seen by others - as a minority living in exile.(2)

As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel explained: "For the Jews and for them alone [the land of Israel] was the one and only Homeland, the only conceivable place where they could find liberation and independence, the land toward which their minds and hearts had been uplifted for a score of centuries and where their roots had clung in spite of all adversity.... It was the homeland with which an indestructible bond of national, physical, religious and spiritual character had been preserved, and where the Jews had in essence remained - and were now once more in fact - a major element of the population."(3)

The Jews did not publicly challenge the occupation of their land by the empires of the East and West. They did so in their homes, sanctuaries, books and prayers. Religious rituals were instituted to remember the destruction of the Temple and the subsequent exile. During times of joy and sorrow, Zion is always part of a Jew's thoughts and liturgy. At least three times a day, observant Jews pray for the redemption of Zion and Jerusalem and for her well-being.(4)

When the Muslims invaded Palestine in 634, ending four centuries of conflict between Persia and Rome, they found direct descendants of Jews who had lived in the country since Biblical times. Rabbinical leaders there continued to argue about "whether most of Palestine is in the hands of the Gentiles," or "whether the greater part of Palestine is in the hands of Israel."

Such a determination was essential, since according to halacha [Jewish law] if Jews ruled the country, then they were obligated to observe religious agricultural practices in one way, and in another if they were not in control.(5)

As Muslim hegemony prevailed, major Arab contributions to history originated in Damascus, Mecca, Cairo and Baghdad. Little came from Jerusalem, indicating the low regard the area held for its captors and its minimal occupation by 16 nations. Similarly, while the land of Palestine was two percent of the Arab-controlled land mass, to the Jewish people it was forever the fount of their religion, their homeland.(6)

In testimony before the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine in 1947, David Ben-Gurion, later Israel's first prime minister, pointed out that more than 3,000 years before the Mayflower left England for the New World, Jews fled from Egypt. Jews even slightly cognizant of their faith know that every spring Jews commemorate and remember the liberation from slavery and the Exodus from Egypt to the land of Israel. Those who observe the Seder (the Passover meal and retelling of the exodus from Egypt), end it: "Next year we shall be in [Jerusalem] the land of Israel. This year we are slaves; next year we shall be free."(7)

Though bound to its religious foundation, a Jewish State also means "Jewish security. Even in countries where he seems secure, the Jew lacks a feeling of security. Why? Because even if he is safe, he has not provided his safety for himself. Somebody else provides for his security. The State of Israel provides such security."(8) There Jews will be "free from fear, dependence, not the objects of pity and sympathy, of philanthropy and justice, at the mercy of others. We believe we are entitled to that as human beings and as a people."(9)

To the Arabs who opposed the Jewish return, Ben-Gurion, said that the "the closer and more quickly we draw together, the better it will be both for us and for you. The Jewish people and the Arab people need each other in the fashioning of their future as free people in this part of the world."(10)

Footnotes
1) Aubrey S. Eban, "The Future Of Arab-Jewish Relations," Commentary (September 1948), 199.
2) Avineri, The Making of Modern Zionism: The Intellectual Origins of the Jewish State, New York: Basic Books, Inc. Publishers, 1981), 3.
3) Abraham Joshua Heschel, Israel: An Echo Eternity (New York: Farrar, Straus, 1967), 57.
4) Ibid. 55, 61-67.
5) Yaacov Herzog, A People That Dwells Alone (New York: Sanhedrin Press, 1975). 33; Ibid. 57. While Jewish settlement in recent times began in 1881, in the 3rd and 4th centuries, Palestine was probably the largest and most significant Jewish community in the world. Benjamin of Tudela, Saadia Gaon, Maimonides and Judah Halevi were there from the 12th century and Nachmanides from the early 13th century. Rabbi Estori HaParhi, author of Kaftor va-Ferah, demonstrates how, since Biblical times, Jews have lived on the land continuously.
6) Heschel, Israel: An Echo Eternity, 59.
7) The Jewish Case Before the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine (Jerusalem: The Jewish Agency For Palestine, 1947), 63.
8) Ibid. 68.
9) Ibid. 65.
10) Ibid. 75.

Tishrei 23, 5770 / 11 October 09

Jewish Lawyers for Muslim Terror Suspects

Did you know that many Jewish lawyers in the US defend Muslim terrorist suspects held at Guantanamo? Read it for yourself! The Jewish tradition is one of justice for all - that is clearly demonstrated by these noble lawyers. While terrorist suspects should be handeled thoroughly, because real terrorists are a serious threat, justice must prevail, and Jews are at the forefront to establish it. Good for them - mazel tov! I hope the Arab world can understand that the Jewish tradition is one of justice, and I hope they can acknowledge that and start to work on an equal basis to find a peaceful solution to all the troubles in and around Israel.

Message by David Wilkerson