Once Syrian president Bashar al-Assad falls, the country could regroup under a unity government to become a prosperous democratic state or it could experience years of civil war, sectarian atrocities and/or terrorists could take over to create an Islamic totalitarian state.
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“Iran seeks global domination”
Donald Trump Prayed over by Televangelists
Can You Hear it? The UN’s Deafening Silence
On July 6, after much speculation, the Presbyterian Church (USA) narrowly rejected a proposal to divest its portfolio from companies that supply equipment to Israel, which, it alleges, enforce Israeli control in the “occupied territories.”
What was largely overlooked, however, was that the at the end of their biennial national General Assembly in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the commissioners overruled a vote by the membership and voted with a 71% majority to boycott “all Israeli products coming from the occupied Palestinian Territories.”
While the initial vote, by a margin of 333-331 with two abstentions, rejected the motion to divest from Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard and Motorola Solutions, the later decision, called for the boycott of all Israeli products made over the green line.
“Be it planned or inadvertent, the news coverage about the Presbyterian Church (USA), as related to the divest-from-Israel overtures, focused on the July 6th press release rejecting all aspects of the divestment activity,” asserts Fred Taub, President of Boycott Watch and author of Boycotting Peace.
”News reports of the July 7th press release were not reported for two reasons: 1) reports about the Presbyterian Church (USA) accepting divestment would appear blatantly wrong considering the news a day earlier and therefore would be dismissed by the media, and 2) the wording about apartheid was awkward, which I believe was not an accident but deliberate, meant to soften the change of policy,” Taub claims.
“In addition to having a corrupt leadership, the preponderance of the overtures, the committee responses thereof and the actions of the commissioners after a narrow rejection of the decidedly one-sided anti-Israel proposals, indicates a very strong anti-Israel bias within the Presbyterian Church (USA),” he goes on to state.
“Overtures routinely quote anti-Semitic sources and even use word manipulation to make an Israeli government official appear to have said the Iranian threat against Israel is false,” he adds. “They blame Israel for Muslim attacks on Christians in Palestinian Authority controlled areas and moderate proposals were quickly struck down and every mention of companies to divest from and to boycott were completely consistent with the lists put forth by the official Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) campaign – which was created by the Palestinian Authority and is the official policy of the Arab League.”
Sheikh Yusuf Salameh, a preacher at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, denounced on Thursday a statement by Israel’s Attorney General that Israeli law must be applied to the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in Jerusalem.
Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein has said that the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is part of Israeli territory so Israeli law applies there, including antiquities laws and laws regarding building and planning.
At the same time, he said, the law had to be applied with extra sensitivity and pragmatism, due to its unique nature.
In response, Sheikh Salemeh said that “Al-Quds” (the Arabic name for Jerusalem) is an Islamic city, as determined by the creator of the world and as indicated in the Koran.
He said that no decision by one person or another will be able to change this reality, stressing that “Al-Quds” will remain Islamic until the end of time. “Al-Quds threw up its occupiers in the past and it will throw up this occupier, too,” he said.
Sheikh Salameh added that the Al-Aqsa Mosque is spread over 144 dunams of land and includes the entire area within the walls, buildings, roads, terraces, and domes of the mosque. He said the mosque is land belonging to the Waqf both above the ground and below it. Salameh called on UNESCO to bear the responsibility and preserve the historic Islamic sites in the holy city.
This week, Abdul Rahman Abbad, the head of the Muslims’ scholars council in Jerusalem, said that “Muslims are the only ones who own this mosque.”
He insisted that religious authorities are not bound by Israeli decisions, and warned of Israel’s intentions in issuing such a statement ahead of the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims flock to the compound.
The Temple Mount was left in the hands of the Waqf following Jerusalem’s reunification in 1967, a decision of then-Defense Minister Moshe Dayan. The Waqf has taken advantage of this and removed every sign of ancient Jewish presence at the Jewish holy site. At the entrance, a Waqf sign says, “The Al-Aqsa Mosque courtyard and everything in it is Islamic property.”
Police, in an attempt to appease the Waqf, discriminate against Jews. They limit the number of Jewish worshippers allowed on the Temple Mount at one time in order to prevent conflict with Muslim worshippers. They often close the Mount to Jews in response to Muslim riots – despite evidence that Muslim riots have been planned in advance for the specific purpose of forcing Jews out.
Waqf officials recently told a young Jewish man to remove his kippah on the Temple Mount. The young man was visiting the Mount, Judaism’s holiest site, as part of a tour group from Europe. When Waqf officials saw his kippah, they ordered him to remove it, saying, “This is a holy place.”