01/24/11

* FM on leaked papers: Radical Islam is the true threat Lieberman says Hamas, not settlements, are the biggest danger to the PA.

* Moscow bombing: Carnage at Russia’s Domodedovo airport Moscow’s Domodedovo airport has been rocked by a bomb explosion that an airport spokesman says has killed 35 people.

* Palestinians attack al-Jazeera distorted talks leaks The Palestinian Authority has accused al-Jazeera TV of distortion, after it leaked documents purporting to show offers of major concessions to Israel.

* Arctic air blast prompts warnings An arctic blast from Canada is bringing brutally frigid air and wind chills expected to dip to 50 below zero to northern New England, prompting officials to warn residents to take precautions against the cold.

* Urgent action needed to avert global hunger A UK government-commissioned study into food security has called for urgent action to avert global hunger.

* Iran: Warships to sail to Mediterranean Fleet of ships may soon enter waters very close to Israeli coast as part of drill, says admiral

* Davos 2011: Who needs a World Economic Forum? Every year some of the world’s most powerful people come to the World Economic Forum in Davos.

* Hezbollah wins enough support to name new Lebanon PM Billionaire businessman and former premier set to clinch the nomination after Hezbollah and its allies, including Druze leader, tip balance with 11-member bloc voting in favor of Mikati.

* French G20 leadership to focus on commodity prices French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said that tackling instability in global commodity markets will be a key aim of France’s presidency of the Group of 20 major economies.

* Anti-Semitism, Circa 2010 The Auschwitz Death Camp was liberated on January 27, 1945.

01/22/11

* Tony Blair: West must prepare to confront Iran Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair urged the west to confront Iran with force in order to face the “looming and coming challenge” from Iran.

* Protesters demand Jordan’s government step down Thousands of Jordanians calling for their government to step down marched in several cities Friday in an outpouring of anger over economic hardship.

* Ashton: World powers ‘disappointed’ with Iran’s stance in nuclear talks The European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton announced Saturday that nuclear talks with Iran have ended with no agreement.

* Shalom says ‘Iranian government’ in Lebanon possible Druze leader Walid Jumblatt’s decision to join forces with Hezbollah against Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri increases the risk that an “Iranian government” will be established in Lebanon.

* Ban Ki-moon: Settlements are illegal, hamper talks United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon criticized the continued building of settlements in the West Bank.

* Hizbullah said to stage coup rehearsals in Beirut The Iran-sponsored Hizbullah organization, which recently collapsed the Lebanon coalition government by withdrawing, is said to have simulated a coup in Beirut.

* Algerian democracy rally broken up Several people have been injured after police broke up a banned pro-democracy demonstration in the Algerian capital, Algiers.

* Muslim World: Iran’s execution binge In the early morning hours of Saturday, January 15 in the isolated and overcrowded Urumiya prison in western Iran, the authorities hanged one of their opponents.

* Abbas: We will not make unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ruled out a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state.

* Afghan Lawmakers Fail to Reach Compromise With Karzai Afghan lawmakers met with President Hamid Karzai on Saturday, trying to resolve a looming constitutional crisis sparked by his decision to delay the newly elected Parliament’s opening.

Yad Vashem Youtube in Persian: Virtual War on Holocaust Denial

By: Hillel Fendel – Arutz Sheva

The Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem has been concentrating on fighting Holocaust denial in Persian of late, in response to Iranian President Ahmedinajad’s blatant put-downs of Holocaust history.

Its latest effort, a Youtube channel explaining the Holocaust (Shoah) in the Persian-Farsi language, will be launched in Yad Vashem this coming Thursday, January 27, which is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The date was chosen because it marks the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp by Allied forces in 1945.

Ahmedinajad has often stated that the number of victims in the Holocaust is much fewer than six million, and that the Shoah was “blown out of proportion” by the Zionist movement and Israel in order to excuse their “theft” of the Holy Land from the Arabs.

Yad Vashem launched a website in Farsi several years ago, and enjoys wide popularity. Yad Vashem says it cannot know how many, if any, Iranian surfers have visited.

The new channel, which joins similar Yad Vashem channels in Hebrew, English, Arabic and Spanish, will be launched in the presence of Prof. David Yerushalmi of the Iran Studies Center in Tel Aviv University; Prof. Yossi Matias, head of Google Israel’s R&D Center; Auschwitz survivor Yaakov Handley; and Yad Vashem Director Avner Shalev.

Please note: These stories are located outside of Prophecy Today’s website. Prophecy Today is not responsible for their content and does not necessarily agree with the views expressed therein. These articles are provided for your information.

Losing the war of ideas to radical Islam

By: Sol Sanders – World Tribune

Imagine two lines on a graph — one zigs and zags, another rises rapidly. They could represent two current unsettling world currents. The first would chart U.S. efforts to eradicate Islamic terrorists, on Afghanistan and Iraq battlefields but also a wider intellectual war against political Islam from Casablanca to Zamboanga. The second would trace a rising tide of embittered frustration leading to seduction of young Muslims — not excluding their progeny in the West — by fanatics, and, ultimately terrorists.

The mid-January rioting in Tunisia [just over 10 million, the size of California] which overthrew Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the country’s only second chief executive ruling since 1987, dramatizes the contest. Seen in the mid-50s at independence as one of the more progressive ex-colonial countries, and although maintaining a 5 percent domestic growth rate and higher rates of literacy than most Muslim states, the regime sank into a swamp of political repression and corruption.

With more than half its population under 30, increasingly unemployed youth want more. It remains to be seen who will come out on top in Tunis. But across North Africa — from Egypt to Morocco – underground religious Muslim opposition festers. Alas! in Tunisia, as elsewhere, the Iranian mullahs’ total corruption and Saudi Arabian hypocritical lifestyle notwithstanding, the Islamicists’ appeal is growing. It promises puritanical reform and return to a nonexistent paradisiacal past under a Muslim caliphate [theocracy] as an alternative to bad copies of Western government.

Meanwhile, whether Vice President Joe Biden returns from his Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq survey — and cheerleading — with new solutions, there’s increasing skepticism of Gen. David Petraeus’ Afghanistan strategy. And with mounting U.S. domestic problems, it will be hard to keep building on the sacrifice of young lives and more than $1 trillion already spent since 9/11 on the worldwide war against terrorism.

The argument over how to win asymmetrical wars against fanatical opponents is raging again. The danger in COIN [counter-insurgency warfare] expounded by Gen. Petraeus is an old American intellectual heresy, scientism. The 19th century philosopher [founder of modern psychology] William James warned against overintellectualizing. Dr. James’ counsel applies to guerrilla warfare. For in the nature of things, insurgencies are particularistic. There’s little commonality among the Moros [whom Gen. “Black Jack” Pershing brutally crushed] in the southern Philippines at the turn of the 20th century, the Vietcong in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam in the 1960s, the Tupamaros on the streets of Montevideo, Uruguay, in the 1970s, or Al Qaida in Afghanistan in 2011. These movements built on specific local conditions. Any formula for combating insurgencies must do likewise. Yes, vacuous “counterinsurgency” generalizations can be formulated: the army should not steal the peasants’ chickens. But learning the ins and outs of Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier Hatfields and McCoys is essential — taking time and patience, not handbooks trying to apply the scientific method to social issues.

For war is not only cruel and brutal but probably the most inefficient human activity since the first caveman hit the second caveman over the head with a club. The weapons are increasingly more sophisticated. But the human animus remains the same. For every sophisticated multidisciplined approach to villagers caught between intimidation by both sides, there have been exponents of brute force. [A cynical old Vietnam War saying: “Grab their ____, and their hearts and minds will come.”] That’s the rationale, perhaps, for U.S. drone attacks on terrorist leaders in Pakistan with grim fallout of civilian casualties, providing a political football for local politicians who hypocritically supply intelligence for the kills.

Almost 10 years ago — one wonders if current “politically correct” discussion of Islam would tolerate it now — a UN commission led by noted [if mostly exiled] Arab intellectuals searched for causes of Araby’s backwardness. Initiated before the 9/11 attacks, they predicted 280 million people in the 22 Arab countries would grow to as many as 459 million by 2020 but emphasized their isolation. Arab translations in the last thousand years, it noted, were only what Spain translates in just one year. Yet there are Arab bestsellers, often obscurantist screeds on the Koran, the word of Allah that no critic is permitted to challenge.

Emigrants from burgeoning North Africa [along with South Asians, Muslim and Hindu, West Indians and Africans] have drifted willy-nilly into Western Europe searching for livelihood in these last decades of its enormous prosperity. But daily incidents from the Netherlands, Germany, France, Belgium and even Scandinavia, demonstrate that counter intuitively, the second and third generations have failed to assimilate. Most European leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel now admit “multiculturalism” — leaving migrants to fend for themselves in their own ghettoes off welfare state handouts — has not succeeded. But the gap of willful ignorance now is too often replaced by misplaced tolerance of premodern horrors — discrimination against women, “honor killings”, child marriage, etc., etc. Defensiveness about European traditions and posturing to understand “basic issues” is condescending and as useless as the former disregard.

Somehow, some way, American and Western information and propaganda must find a way to bridge that gap or face new explosions when the two lines on our fictitious graph collide.

Please note: These stories are located outside of Prophecy Today’s website. Prophecy Today is not responsible for their content and does not necessarily agree with the views expressed therein. These articles are provided for your information.

01/21/11

* Angry Palestinians mob French minister in Gaza A crowd of angry Palestinians mobbed the car of French Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie as she toured the Gaza Strip on Friday.

* Lebanon Druze leader backs Hezbollah ahead of parliamentary talks Lebanon’s Druze leader Walid Jumblatt said on Friday his group was committed to support the Islamist movement Hezbollah.

* Tony Blair ‘regrets’ Iraq dead in Chilcot grilling Tony Blair has said he “regrets deeply and profoundly the loss of life” during and after the 2003 Iraq war.

* Iran Nuclear Talks Resume in Istanbul The United States and other world powers went into another round of talks with Iran.

* Bin Laden says France will pay a ‘high price’ for its policies in Afghanistan Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden warned French President Nicolas Sarkozy that his refusal to withdraw troops from Afghanistan was a “green light” to kill French hostages.

* Arab World Won’t Donate to Palestinian Authority Palestinian Authority representatives, who arrived on Wednesday at the Arab League’s economic summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, came equipped with an armload of financial requests.

* In Pakistan, Islamic hard-liners expanding their grip on society The killing of a governor opposed to the nation’s blasphemy law, and the warm reception for his accused killer, has exposed Islamic fundamentalists’ growing sway over the nation.

* Breakthrough after U.S. warns China on North Korea The United States warned China that it would redeploy forces in Asia if it failed to rein in North Korea.

* Muslim World: Iran’s execution binge In the early morning hours of Saturday, January 15 in the isolated and overcrowded Urumiya prison in western Iran, the authorities hanged one of their opponent.

* ‘We won’t allow discussion of nuclear enrichment freeze’ “We will not allow any talks linked to freezing or suspending of Iran’s enrichment activities to be discussed at the meeting in Istanbul,” senior official in the Iranian delegation Massoud Zohrevand said.

China’s Questionable Military Aims

By: -Col. Bob Maginnis

This week President Barack Obama hosts a summit with Chinese President Hu Jintao to discuss pressing issues, but they will likely side-step the most important – why the communist regime needs a sophisticated, assertive and global military.

The leaders will discuss economic and political issues, including tensions on the Korean peninsula and Beijing’s support for Iran. These issues contribute to escalating bilateral tensions but none more than China’s emergence as a security threat across Asia with a significant and growing global power projection capability.

Policy experts like Henry Kissinger, former U.S. secretary of state, caution China’s growing armed capabilities and its assertiveness need not start a cold war. Rather, Kissinger warns in the Washington Post “…globalization and the reach of modern technology oblige the U.S. and China to interact around the world” and he advises the countries to develop an “overarching concept for their interaction.”

That is sound advice but at this point Beijing isn’t cooperative. Rather China is ravenously soaking up resources, manipulating its currency to favor Chinese companies, intimidating its neighbors over territorial disputes and growing its armed forces far beyond what it needs for regional security.

That is why Obama should use his summit to discern China’s true military intentions and then adjust our policy.

Last week China’s military alarmed the world. On January 11th, hours before U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates sat down with President Hu in Beijing, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) conducted a test flight of its secret fifth generation fighter. Gates, who previously predicted China was at least a decade away from such a test, mentioned the test to Hu and, according to Gates, Hu acted surprised by the news.

If Hu really did not know about the test, it suggests the regime’s grip on the military is slipping. After two decades of military modernization it appears the PLA is pushing a hard-line agenda and becoming more willing to voice its opinion on foreign policy issues. This is a worrisome development especially as the Chinese leadership, which includes new nationalistic-minded military commanders, takes command in 2012.

This leadership change accompanies China’s eye-popping military transformation. The fifth generation combat aircraft, dubbed the J-20, is the latest in a long series of sophisticated weapon system developments.

Last year Admiral Robert Willard, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, testified “China’s rapid and comprehensive transformation of its armed forces is affecting regional military balances and holds implications beyond the Asia-Pacific region.”

Willard cited China’s submarine force which is now virtually equal in number to the U.S. fleet and rapidly closing the technology gaps. This includes the newest Jin-class nuclear powered ballistic missile submarine which can roam the globe with nuclear-tipped weapons.

The admiral was especially concerned about China’s anti-ship ballistic missile capable of targeting large ships, such as U.S. aircraft carriers. This weapon, the “D” version of China’s DF-21 medium-range missile, combined with China’s new integrated air-defense systems and new power-projection capabilities threaten “archipelagos” in Asia, such as Japan, the Philippines and beyond.

Admiral Willard expressed concern “that elements of China’s military modernization appear designed to challenge our freedom of action” such as its new aircraft carrier program. Beijing’s first aircraft carrier, the Shi Lang (a refurbished Russian Kuznetsov-class), is expected to begin operations this year. The Pentagon anticipates Beijing will build two more aircraft carriers by 2017 to patrol the South China Sea, Western Pacific and Indian Ocean.

The PLA’s air force is the third-largest in the world with over 1,600 combat capable aircraft which includes bombers armed with long-range cruise missiles able to strike targets in Guam. It is also developing airborne early warning and control aircraft for expeditionary operations and has deployed several types of unmanned aerial vehicles.

China’s ground forces include 1.25 million soldiers augmented by 500,000 reservists and a large militia. Its expeditionary forces include three airborne divisions, two amphibious infantry divisions and seven special operations groups – equipped with the latest hardware.

China’s space and cyber capabilities are sophisticated. It is rapidly expanding its space-based systems including a proven anti-satellite capability to prevent the use of space-based assets by potential adversaries. Its cyberwarfare systems already effectively targeted U.S. government computer systems.

How does Beijing intend to use its modern military? The PLA’s white papers, the only official indication of its intentions, suggest its priorities include securing China’s status as a great power, which is not explained.

But the PLA’s menu of current operations may suggest future action. It will continue to conduct internal stability tasks and address natural disasters and accept more international roles. Since 2002 China assumed 22 United Nations missions beyond its borders to include peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance/disaster relief operations.

But perhaps the most troubling missions are those it identifies with its “core” national interests. China uses its military to intimidate its neighbors as well as U.S. warships operating throughout the region. In particular, Chinese warships staged confrontations in the South China Sea with U.S. vessels and over the Spratly and Paracel island groups and more recently it acted aggressive with Japan near the disputed Senkaku islands.

China continues preparing for Taiwan Strait contingencies and vigorously objects to U.S. arms sales to that democratic nation. Beijing’s military build-up opposite Taiwan includes 1,150 short-range ballistic missiles, amphibious forces, air wings and warships.

China, the world’s leading merchant, uses its forces to defend supply lines. That explains its desire to pursue the “string of pearls” strategy by securing forward bases along the sea lines of communication from China to the Middle East. Currently, China has facilities at Hainan Island, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan and others in the Gulf of Aden and Iran are under consideration.

Beijing’s arms build-up appears to be intended for missions beyond disputed islands and supply lines. Perhaps that is why the Pentagon’s 2010 report states “The limited transparency in China’s military and security affairs enhances uncertainty and increases the potential for misunderstanding and miscalculation.”

China’s rapid militarization, its growing assertiveness, the questionable civil control of its military and the emergence of a nationalistic military leadership present a serious challenge for America. That is why Obama should use his summit with President Hu to clarify Beijing’s intentions and then prepare for the worst – the emergence of a militarized global peer competitor and bully.

Please note: These stories are located outside of Prophecy Today’s website. Prophecy Today is not responsible for their content and does not necessarily agree with the views expressed therein. These articles are provided for your information.

01/20/11

* Iran: We’ll be able to enrich uranium even if attacked Iran will be able to enrich uranium even in the event of a military attack on its nuclear facilities.

* Saudis end Lebanon mediation, say country at risk Saudi Arabia said on Wednesday it had abandoned mediation efforts in Lebanon between Shiite Hezbollah and Sunni leader Saad al-Hariri.

* Police fire shots to disperse new Tunis protest Tunisian police fired shots into the air on Thursday to try to disperse hundreds of protesters.

* Muslim Brotherhood Plans 2nd Week of Protests in Jordan More unrest is expected to hit Israel’s closest eastern neighbor on Friday when Jordan’s local Muslim Brotherhood chapter leads a second protest against the government.

* Losing the war of ideas to radical Islam Imagine two lines on a graph — one zigs and zags, another rises rapidly. They could represent two current unsettling world currents.

* Yad Vashem Youtube in Persian: Virtual War on Holocaust Denial The Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem has been concentrating on fighting Holocaust denial in Persian of late.

* PA draft resolution: Declare settlements illegal The Palestinians submitted to the Security Council a draft resolution proposing to declare Israeli settlements as illegal.

* Arab League chief says Tunisia is dire warning The secretary general of the Arab League on Wednesday linked the upheaval in Tunisia to deteriorating economic conditions throughout the Arab world.

* U.S. envoys arrive in Israel in bid to advance peace talks with Palestinians U.S. diplomats Dennis Ross and David Hale arrived in Israel Thursday morning in a renewed attempt to revive stagnated peace talks.

* Bombs targeting Shiite pilgrims in Iraq kill 51 Three car bombs blasted through security checkpoints ringing the Iraqi holy city of Karbala.

01/19/11

* Iran urges U.S., Israel to stop ‘interference’ in Lebanon Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday urged Israel, the United States and several European nations to stop meddling in Lebanon.

* China’s Hu Jintao and Barack Obama pledge stronger ties US President Barack Obama has hailed relations with China, saying the two countries have a huge stake in each other’s success.

* Hizbullah ‘Practicing to Take Over Beirut’ Hizbullah’s black-clad terrorist militia are training to take over Beirut’s airport and highways and carried out dry-run maneuvers early Tuesday as Beirut residents fled in panic.

* Syria would suppress a Tunisia-like revolt Syria is prepared for a revolt of the kind recently seen in Tunisia.

* Senators Pressure Clinton to Veto UN Anti-Israeli Resolution Sixteen U.S. senators have urged U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to order a veto of a United Nations resolution condemning Jewish development in United Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.

* Palestinians raise flag at Washington office Palestinians on Tuesday raised their flag over the PLO diplomatic mission in Washington for the first time.

* Arabs submit settlement resolution to Security Council Arab nations have formally submitted a resolution to the UN Security Council condemning Jewish settlement building in Judea and Samaria.

* Russia, Jordan vow to achieve an independent Palestinian state The leaders of Jordan and Russia on Wednesday vowed to work together to achieve an independent Palestinian state and boosted cooperation in the energy sector.

* Iran seeks to boost corps of cyber police Iran’s top police chief envisions a new beat for his forces: patrolling cyberspace.

* Medvedev reaffirms Soviet recognition of Palestine Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday Moscow had recognized an independent Palestinian state in 1988 and was not changing that position adopted by the former Soviet Union.

Jews Must Flee Holland in 2011

By: Giulio Meotti – Arutz Sheva

Jews will flee the multicultural Netherlands before it is too late, says Meotti.. As author Manfred Gerstenfeld, said: “Antisemitism is a perfect prism to understand the failure of Dutch multiculturalism”.

During last summer, a monumental tree trunk collapsed in Amsterdam. It was the old tree seen by Anne Frank, one of the most renowned Jewish victims of the Holocaust, from her hiding place.

The liberal media around the world were focused on this tree to highlight the complaint of a Dutch journalist, Paul Andersson Toussaint: “Antisemitism in Holland is again salonfähig”. This word means socially acceptable.

Sixty percent of Dutch Jews are ready to pack up and leave the country. The cause is a boom of Islamic antisemitism in the famous multicultural Netherlands.

The list of Dutch victims is dramatic: from the killing of the anti-Islamist political leader Pim Fortuyn to the persecution of the Somali dissident Ayaan Hirsi Ali to the murder of the director Theo Van Gogh, condemned to death for his film “Submission,” a denunciation of the crimes of Muslim theocracy. Fortuyn’s successor, Geert Wilders, has lived under 24-hour police protection for many years. Now the Dutch Jews are ready to flee Holland.

While Anne’s tree came down, a Jewish girl of the same age as the author of the famous “Diary” revealed to the newspaper Het Parool that she would not leave her house with a Star of David pendant around her neck. The fear is now dominating the Dutch streets. Prominent Dutch politician Frits Bolkestein just sparked an uproar in the Netherlands by saying that practicing Jews have “no future here and should emigrate to the US or Israel”.

Twenty years ago, Bolkestein wrote an opinion for the newspaper Volkskrant about the problems of Islamic immigration in the Dutch democracy. The left labelled him a “merchant of fear”. At that time there was no talk of Islam, the Soviet Union was collapsing, the Dutch economy was flourishing with multinationals and the second generation of Muslims from Morocco, Turkey and Indonesia was making strides towards integration. The new prophecy of Bolkestein is contained in a new explosive book, “Het Herval,” whose author, Manfred Gerstenfeld, says: “Antisemitism is a perfect prism to understand the failure of Dutch multiculturalism”.

For the first time we are talking about the end of the Jewish presence in the Netherlands. Bolkestein’s remarks echo those of Benjamin Jacobs, the country’s chief rabbi, who said in 2010 ( click to see INN interview with him, ed.)  that “the future for Dutch Jewry is moving to Israel”.

The Ministry of Justice in The Hague has resorted to desperate methods to fight antisemitism. Cops dressed in traditional Orthodox Jewish clothing are walking in the streets. But the escape suggestion was endorsed also by an eminent representative of the Jewish community of Amsterdam, Evers-Bloeme Emdem. An Auschwitz survivor and honorary professor at the local University, Emdem claims to have told her children and grandchildren to leave the country and that only one direction is offered to them: Israel. “The problems will not touch me as long as I live, but I strongly suggest to my children to leave Holland”.

The attacks on the street, the appalling security around Jewish institutions, the attempted burning of synagogues in the south of Amsterdam and Arnhem, the anti-Israeli demonstrations have impressed a country weakened by constant debates on immigration and on which weighs the burden of War World II.

There is much recent hate speech at the highest political levels. Some examples: The former president of the Dutch Parliament, the Socialist Jan Marijnissen, has compared terrorism against Israel to the resistance against the Nazis. Gretta Duisenberg, the widow of former President of the European Central Bank and grand dame of the liberal Dutch, speaks about “our intifada” and openly criticized “the rich American Jewish lobby.” During a radio interview, when asked how many signatures she hoped to collect for its campaign against Israel, she replied, laughing, “six million”. “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas chambers!” was one of the slogans chanted during demonstrations against Israel’s Cast Lead Operation. Among the protesters, a year ago, there were also members of the Parliament, including the Socialist MK Harry van Bommel. Holland’s largest daily, De Telegraf, published an interview with Désirée Röver, 61, who proposed the bird flu pandemic was part of an international “Jewish conspiracy”.

From the data of the last report of the Dutch police, the number of anti-Semitic acts in the country has increased by 48 percent this year. In an open letter to the newspaper NRC Handelsblad, the twenty-five Lester M. Wolff van Ravenswade described the difficulties faced by Jews living in Amsterdam.” “I cannot go to public events dressed as a Jew, let alone go out on Saturday night. Which party do I have to vote for in order to live safely with the kippah on my head? “.

Twenty percent of history teachers stopped giving lessons on the Holocaust because of the growing presence of Muslim pupils in public schools. If this were not enough, the major Islamic organizations officers, as the Dutch Moroccan Council of Mosques, the Islamic Foundation of the Netherlands and the Turkish Milli Görüs, have promoted a boycott of Israeli goods.

Speaking to the daily Het Parool, a leading member of the Jewish community of Amsterdam has announced his intention to leave the country with his pregnant wife for “security reasons”. This is Benzion Evers, the son of the Rabbi of Amsterdam. “Emigration is a solution for us. And will be done by sixty percent of the community. My father will follow me”.

The Jewish TV channel, Joods Omroep, sent three cameramen dressed as Orthodox Jews in the streets of Amsterdam. The film, of which a fragment is also available on Youtube, shows young Muslims cheering Hitler. The newspaper NRC Handelsblad writes that “anti-Semitism in Amsterdam has become the norm rather than the exception.” The last memorial commemmorating the deportation of Jewish children during the war was also violently interrupted by chants praising Hitler. This autumn the ancient synagogue of Weesp became the first synagogue in Europe since the Second World War to cancel Shabbat services due to the threats to the safety of the faithful.

Leon de Winter is one of the most successful Dutch writers, author of best-selling novels. On a visit to Westerbork – the transit camp from which Jews were leaving for the Netherlands to concentration camps in Germany or Poland – the author observed that “those who speak today of the Dutch Jews have to have a sense of irony. How many Jews in Amsterdam are still ‘recognized’ as Jews? A few hundred? The Jews that I know are not flashy, but disciplined. Most Dutch Jews held for years a secret, packed suitcase.”

After the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh at the hands of an Islamist, Rob Oudkerk, leader of the Social Amsterdam, used the euphemism by which Dutch-Jewish philosopher Spinoza called  the city, instead saying: “This Mokum [place, ed]  is not anymore my Mokum”.

The remnant of European Jewry is going to flee once again. And as opposed to World War II, when no one would accept them, Israel is able to be the shelter for the Jews.

Please note: These stories are located outside of Prophecy Today’s website. Prophecy Today is not responsible for their content and does not necessarily agree with the views expressed therein. These articles are provided for your information.

01/18/11

* Israel Crosses into Gaza after Bombing Attempt Israeli tanks and bulldozers crossed several hundred feet into Gaza Tuesday afternoon and killed one terrorist.

* Jews Must Flee Holland in 2011 During last summer, a monumental tree trunk collapsed in Amsterdam.

* Iran: Sanctions won’t stop nuclear drive Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that Teheran is making steady progress in its nuclear program.

* ‘European countries may recognize Palestinian state’ Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) chief Yuval Diskin said on Tuesday that he believed that international recognition of a Palestinian state will spread.

* Medvedev: As we did in 1988, Russia still recognizes an independent Palestine Russian President Dmitry Medvedev endorsed a Palestinian state on Tuesday, saying Moscow had recognized independence in 1988.

* PM determined to advance peace talks Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is determined to speed up the dialogue with the United States in a bid to renew the regional peace process.

* EU intelligence services opening up to collaboration EU member states’ intelligence services are among the most jealously-guarded national assets despite five decades of integration.

* New Year message: ‘Geriatric’ EU needs ‘vigorous’ Turkey Turkish leader Recep Tayip Erodgan has lambasted the EU as a spent force on the international stage.

* Tunisia coalition hits trouble on day two Tunisia’s new coalition government hit trouble on Tuesday when four ministers quit and an opposition party threatened to walk out.

* Will Obama and Hu Jintao Find Middle Ground? One Chinese saying about the country’s ties with the U.S. goes like this: the U.S. and China are too dependent on one another for their relationship to be terribly bad.