By Ryan Jones
As Egyptians prepared to elect a new president on Wednesday, a noted Egyptian philosopher explained that this was not true democracy and polls suggested the future of relations with Israel did not look promising.
Israelis have been warning since the start of the Arab Spring that Egypt's revolution would ultimately result in increased oppression for Egyptians themselves and a straining of ties with Israel that could easily lead to war. Western officials initially brushed aside those concerns, but the recent parliamentary takeover by the Muslim Brotherhood validated the Israeli position.
Now Egyptians are readying to complete their democratic revolution by holding their first truly free presidential election. But the frontrunners in that race only give greater cause for concern.
Of the four men leading the pack of 13 presidential contenders, two are Islamists closely affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Mohammed Mursi is the official presidential candidate fielded by the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that has never hidden its hostile feelings toward Israel. Abdel-Moneim Abolfotoh is a leading Islamist who left the Brotherhood to form his own political movement. Abolfotoh has called Israel an "enemy state" and believes the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in America were an "inside job."
In an interview aired on Sada Al-Balad TV last month, Egyptian philosopher Murad Wahba warned that if either of those men win, the result will not be a democratic and free Egypt.
"We're not even in the ballpark" of democracy, said Wahba. "If the Muslim Brotherhood takes over the presidency, it will herald the beginning of a comprehensive process of Islamization, from top to bottom."
As for external relations, Wahba suggested war with Israel would be inevitable should the Muslim Brotherhood control both the parliament and the presidency.
"For the Muslim Brotherhood, war is something one initiates, in an effort to convert the region and the entire world to Islam. Therefore, the Muslim Brotherhood is ideologically required to start wars," explained Wahba.
When told that even Mursi and Abolfotoh had publicly promised to honor the Camp David Accords, Wahba reminded his interviewer that both men had qualified those promises with a "but."
"I always pay attention to the expressions they use when they talk about their commitment to the international agreements. They always add the qualifier: 'But it's subject to change and to discussion.' That is their tactic," said Wahba. "It is these expressions that will enable them to send the Egyptian army to initiate war against Israel in the future." [Translation of the Wahba interview provided by MEMRI—Middle East Media Research Institute]
What if the Muslim Brotherhood does not take the presidency?
The two leading "secular" candidates are former Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa, who also called Israel an enemy state, and Hamdeen Sabahy, who promised greater Egyptian support for Palestinian terrorism against Israel.
All four candidates seem to be in line with Egyptian popular opinion when it comes to relations with Israel.
According to a Pew poll published last week, 61 percent of Egyptians want to annul their nation's peace treaty with Israel. Another poll conducted by Jerusalem's Menachem Begin Heritage Center found that a small 56 percent majority of Egyptians want to maintain the current peace agreement with Israel, and that only 18 percent desire war with the Jewish state. However, 80 percent of respondents said relations with Israel, whatever form they take, should remain cold.
WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical.
There really does not seem to be any doubts at all that the author of the attached article is one of the best known and gifted of the modern Jewish Christian writers.
Notwithstanding that fact, the purpose of this article is not to denigrate Joel C. Rosenberg as all that I am attempting to do in this instance is to verify that what a person is at the onset of his life he will more than likely maintain his original heritage right throughout his life.
Rosenberg was born a Jew, (and by the obvious favour that he shows towards Israel and the Jews, and in the instance of this article his obvious biased attitude towards the current Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu) he will die a Jew.
As that is the case, even though he may have had a spiritual conversion, to later on in his life, become a Born Again Christian, he was still a Jew first and a Jew is what he will be for the rest of his life, not that there is anything wrong with that at all.
As that is the case, the aforementioned comments are of a derogatory nature against Rosenberg, as that was not the intention at all. The purpose of the aforementioned comments were to simply verify that what a person is at the onset of their lives they will more than likely remain for as long as they live, as blood is always thicker than water.
TIME Crowns Netanyahu “KING BIBI”: The Eyes of the Nations Are Riveted on Israel
By Joel C. Rosenberg
When was the last time the leader of a country with fewer than eight million citizens made the cover of Time magazine?
“Time Magazine devoted its lead story to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is featured on the cover of the renowned publication, under the heading ‘King Bibi,’” reports Ynet News. “Underneath the heading, in the article, titled ‘Bibi’s choice,’ author Richard Stengel describes Netanyahu’s unshakable political stature, writing that he ‘is poised to become the longest-serving Israeli Prime Minister since David Ben-Gurion, the founding father of Israel. He has no national rival. His approval rating, roughly 50%, is at an all-time high.’”
It is further evidence that the eyes of the nations are indeed riveted on Israel, the epicenter of the momentous events that are shaping our times and shaking our world.
'King Bibi' Graces Cover of TIME Magazine
The Jerusalem Post reports that “Netanyahu discussed his relationship with the presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, disputing the impression left by a recent New York Times piece that the two have a ‘warm friendship little known to outsiders’ stretching back decades that was ‘nurtured over meals in Boston, New York and Jerusalem.... It was at Boston Consulting [Group] that he met Mitt Romney,’ Stengel wrote. ‘We did not know each other that well,’ Bibi says. ‘He was the whiz kid. I was just in the back of the room.’ In actuality, the article says, Netanyahu has seen Romney only a handful of times over the years and only once this year—when they spoke for 10 minutes during his visit to Washington in March, mainly about Iran. Netanyahu was asked about the cover and Time’s appellation ‘King Bibi’ during a press conference Thursday in Prague. ‘I can tell you one thing,’ he quipped, ‘Israel will remain a democracy, not become a monarchy.’ This was the second time Netanyahu had the weekly news magazine’s cover all to himself, the first time being on June 10, 1996, after he was elected prime minister for the first time. Then the headline was, ‘Can He Make Peace?’
Last month a small portrait of him appeared in a collage on Time’s cover of the ’100 Most Influential People in the World.’
WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical.
I see a problem with the attached information as it only serves to provoke feelings of resentment and anger against Iran that can only lead in one direction, an all out war. Already, there is a great deal of talk of a hostile nature coming from Israel relating to their desire to retaliate against Iran because the former has allegedly stated Israel should be wiped off the face of the map. That is the peril that I see. Even though the reporter in question may be only espousing what he knows to be a fact, by doing so all that he is really doing is nothing more than just adding fuel to inflame a situation already well alight in the Middle East. There is no one who sees a major conflict between Israel and Iran as being necessarily a good thing. On the contrary, war is a terrible thing for all of those who are involved. Accordingly, in that sense those who are misrepresenting what the word of God says proportional to the state of the modern day Israel comparative to the rest of the nations in the Middle East are guilty of the most vile of crimes. Those who are favouring an ideology of biases towards Israel against the Arab nations in the region are not far removed from the persecution of the Jews in Hitler's Germany. This time of course the shoe is on the other foot, and it is not the Jews who are the ones being persecuted. Instead, it is the Jews of Israel who are the ones doing the evil, and not vice versa. As that is the case, it is then just about time that those who think they are Christian began to rethink some of their own misguided doctrines. In addition, begin to rethink what they are coming forth with as all that they are really doing is presenting an immediate danger to the lives of innocent men, women and children in the Middle East, and for that matter the rest of the world. Please keep in mind that Israel has an army that is far ahead in superiority over anything Iran may have at their disposal, and as that is the case an all out war between Israel and Iran is going to result in the deaths of thousands and thousands of innocents, not only in Iran, but Israel as well.
Another Blast from Tehran
By David Dolan
Although it was barely reported by the world press, another serious Iranian threat was issued against Israel during May—a fresh vow that the world’s only Jewish State will be totally erased from the Middle East map. More ominously, the vitriolic pledge came from the country’s senior military leader, Armed Forces Chief of Staff Hassan Firouzabadi. According to the state-controlled Fars news agency, he told a "defense gathering" in Tehran on May 20 that "The Iranian nation is standing for its cause, which is the full annihilation of Israel." The top military commander added that "threats and pressures cannot deter Iran from its revolutionary causes and ideals," meaning international sanctions and warnings of possible military action against the Shiite regime’s manifold nuclear sites will not alter its jihad war against Israel. He called upon the world "to wake up" to the supposed "threats and dangers posed by the Zionist regime," as if the Iranian regime’s repeated vows to destroy Israel while pursuing a rogue nuclear development program were just plot lines in some science fiction film. The Major General was said by Fars to have "reiterated the Iranian nation and Supreme Leader’s emphasis on the necessity of support for the oppressed Palestinian nation and its causes." He reminded his audience that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said earlier this year that "defending Palestine is a full religious duty," adding "he believes that any kind of governance and rule by anyone other than the Palestinians is an instance of usurpation."
The latest Iranian vow to annihilate Israel came just days before diplomats from the so-called P5+1 nations, the USA, UK, Russia, China, France, plus non-nuclear Germany, held crucial talks with their Iranian counterparts. After two days of discussions in Baghdad, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton admitted that "significant differences" were evident at the talks. Speaking more bluntly, British Foreign Secretary William Hague told reporters only "limited progress" had been made. He also warned that the defiant Shiite regime would face intensifying economic sanctions and the growing prospect of military action unless Iranian leaders took what he termed "urgent, concrete steps" to scale back their uranium enrichment program. This came after chief Iranian negotiator Said Jalili insisted once again that Iran "has every right to enrich uranium" for supposedly peaceful purposes. Days later, Iran announced it would begin constructing a second nuclear power plant in the south of the country next year.
After hearing the unimpressive results of the latest talks with Iran, PM Netanyahu repeated his government’s position that the belligerent Iranian regime was merely stalling for time as it proceeded full speed with its insidious nuclear weapons program. Earlier in the month, Brad Gordon, a former US government arms control official who now works for the AIPAC pro-Israel lobby in Washington DC, told a conference in New York that Iran has enough uranium already enriched to twenty percent grade to produce several nuclear warheads in short order. He pointed out that although such uranium must be fortified to ninety percent to reach weapons grade, the spinning process to reach that level is a rapid one.
Gordon’s chilling assessment was echoed by the Iran Watch American group, which posted disturbing information on its website revealing that with existing uranium stockpiles, Iran could produce a bomb equivalent to the one which destroyed much of Hiroshima Japan in 1945 in less than two months time. Another American group, the Institute for Science and International Security think tank, said Iran has enriched enough uranium to build five nuclear warheads if refined to ninety percent. The reports came just before the UN’s Atomic Energy Agency issued its latest review of Iran’s nuclear program on May 25, saying the Islamic state is pressing ahead with its uranium enrichment program. It said Iran has produced an additional 750 kilograms of enriched uranium since its last report was issued in February, with monthly production rising by around a third since then.
With this tumultuous region at the heart of planet earth now spinning around at a dizzying pace, it is wonderful to know and worship the One who holds the whole world in His unshakable hands:
"For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope" (Jeremiah 29:10:12). End of quote.
WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical.
By Nicole Perlroth
A complex computer virus has been pilfering confidential information from computers in the Middle East for at least two years, according to a security report released on Monday.
The virus, called Flame, has been infecting computers in Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Sudan, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
It has been grabbing images of users’ computer screens, recording their instant messaging chats, remotely turning on their microphones to record their audio conversations and monitoring their keystrokes and network traffic, according to a report by Kaspersky Labs, a Moscow-based security research firm.
If the report’s findings prove to be true, Flame would be the third major Internet weapon to have been discovered since 2010. The first, named Stuxnet, was intended to attack software in specialized industrial equipment, and was used to destroy centrifuges in an Iranian nuclear facility in 2010. The second virus, called Duqu, like Flame, performed reconnaissance. Security researchers believe Duqu was created by the same group of programmers behind Stuxnet.
The researchers said Flame appeared to have been developed by a different group of programmers. It contains 20 times more code than Stuxnet and is much more widespread than Duqu. Researchers believe Duqu hit fewer than 50 targets worldwide. Kaspersky’s researchers said they had detected Flame on thousands of computers belonging to individuals, private companies and universities across the Middle East.
“Flame can easily be described as one of the most complex threats ever discovered,” Alexander Gostev, the head of Kaspersky’s Global Research and Analysis team, wrote in a blog post on Monday. “It’s big and incredibly sophisticated. It pretty much redefines the notion of cyber war and cyber espionage.”
Researchers say they do not know who is behind the virus, but given its complexity and the geography of its targets, they said it was most likely being staged by a government. The authors of Stuxnet and Duqu are also unknown but their targets and digital evidence suggest to some researchers that they may have been part of a joint American-Israeli project to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program.
Kaspersky’s researchers said the majority of computers infected with Flame were located in Iran. Like Duqu and Stuxnet, Flame infects machines through a known security hole in the Windows operating software.
Researchers discovered Flame while investigating reports that another computer virus, called Wiper, had been erasing computer programs in Iran. The International Telecommunications Union, a Nations agency, had asked Kaspersky’s researchers to look into Wiper when they discovered that thousands more computers had been infected with Flame
WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical.
By Ryan Jones 
According to a Pew poll published last week, 61 percent of Egyptians want to annul their nation's peace treaty with Israel. Another poll conducted by Jerusalem's Menachem Begin Heritage Center found that a small 56 percent majority of Egyptians want to maintain the current peace agreement with Israel, and that only 18 percent desire war with the Jewish state. However, 80 percent of respondents said relations with Israel, whatever form they take, should remain cold.
