Tuesday, November 29, 2016

UK Kicks Off Balfour Centennial Celebrations Amid Palestinian Protests, Netherlands One Step Closer To Banning Burqa In Public Places,




UK kicks off Balfour centennial celebrations amid Palestinian protests



A series of events to mark the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration was getting underway in the British Parliament on Tuesday evening, amid Palestinian objections to commemorating the document that paved the way for the creation of the State of Israel.
Tuesday’s ceremony saw the start of a host of year-long programs and events to mark the centenary of the 1917 declaration issued by then-foreign secretary Lord Arthur Balfour, which enshrined British support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine.


Tuesday’s ceremony, hosted by a private organization, was being attended by a number of British lawmakers, Israeli Ambassador to the UK Mark Regev and former Foreign Ministry director-general Dore Gold.

The document was seen as giving the Zionist movement official recognition and backing on the part of a major power, on the eve of the British conquest of the then-Ottoman territory of Palestine.
Palestinian officials have long branded the declaration a “crime,” and earlier this year officials in Ramallah announced plans to sue the British government over the 99-year-declaration.
In a September address to the United Nations, PA President Mahmoud Abbas castigated what he called a “notorious” document, which he said Britain gave “without any right, authority or consent from anyone, the land of Palestine to another people.”


Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the PA over the planned lawsuit, characterizing it as another example of Palestinians refusing to accept Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.

“That’s almost 100 years ago,” Netanyahu said at the UN in September. “Talk about being stuck in the past! The Palestinians might as well sue Iran for the Cyrus declarations, or file a class action suit against Abraham, for buying land in Hebron,” he added, referencing the Biblical patriarch and a Persian edict from 539 BCE allowing Jews to return to Judea.


“This conflict is not about the settlements, it never was,” he said. “It’s always been about the existence of a Jewish state.”








The majority of MPs in Netherlands (132 out of 150) approved a bill seeking to impose a ban on covering faces in public places.

Islamic veils, such as the niqab and burqa, as well as ski-masks and helmets will not be allowed in Dutch schools, hospitals, government buildings and on public transport after the Senate approves the bill and makes it law.

The bill, initiated by Interior Minister Ronald Plasterk, has long been stirring debates in Netherlands as many believe it is primarily targeted against the country's religious minority. However, Prime Minister Mark Rutte refuted the accusations claiming that the bill had no such background.
According to Rutte, the legislation was introduced solely for security reasons and that it only applies in certain situations "where it is essential for people to be seen". It will still be allowed to wear burqas or other face-covering clothes items on the streets, he said.

Security reasons or not, the issue of freedom of religious expression remains, and this is what the bill's opponents rest upon.

The Dutch government said in a statement last year that it worked very carefully on keeping a balance between people's freedom to choose clothes for themselves and the significance of mutual and recognizable communication.

The bill now heads to the senate and if it goes into effect, everyone spotted wearing prohibited clothes in public areas will face being fined up to 405 euros.
The Netherlands is not the first country in Europe to introduce such a bill. Burqa has been banned in France since 2010, with breachers facing a 150 euros fine. Belgium and some parts of Switzerland have followed in the steps of France and similar legislations have been debated in other parts of the region.









The mood in the Washington press corps is bleak, and deservedly so. 
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that, with a few exceptions, we were all tacitly or explicitly #WithHer, which has led to a certain anguish in the face of Donald Trump’s victory. More than that and more importantly, we also missed the story, after having spent months mocking the people who had a better sense of what was going on. 
This is all symptomatic of modern journalism’s great moral and intellectual failing: its unbearable smugness. Had Hillary Clinton won, there’d be a winking “we did it” feeling in the press, a sense that we were brave and called Trump a liar and saved the republic.

So much for that. The audience for our glib analysis and contempt for much of the electorate, it turned out, was rather limited. This was particularly true when it came to voters, the ones who turned out by the millions to deliver not only a rebuke to the political system but also the people who cover it. Trump knew what he was doingwhen he invited his crowds to jeer and hiss the reporters covering him. They hate us, and have for some time.

And can you blame them? Journalists love mocking Trump supporters. We insult their appearances. We dismiss them as racists and sexists. We emote on Twitter about how this or that comment or policy makes us feel one way or the other, and yet we reject their feelings as invalid.


We diagnose them as racists in the way Dark Age clerics confused medical problems with demonic possession. Journalists, at our worst, see ourselves as a priestly caste. We believe we not only have access to the indisputable facts, but also a greater truth, a system of beliefs divined from an advanced understanding of justice. 
You’d think that Trump’s victory – the one we all discounted too far in advance – would lead to a certain newfound humility in the political press. But of course that’s not how it works. To us, speaking broadly, our diagnosis was still basically correct. The demons were just stronger than we realized.

Journalists increasingly don’t even believe in the possibility of reasoned disagreement, and as such ascribe cynical motives to those who think about things a different way. We see this in the ongoing veneration of “facts,” the ones peddled by explainer websites and data journalists who believe themselves to be curiously post-ideological. 
That the explainers and data journalists so frequently get things hilariously wrong never invites the soul-searching you’d think it would. Instead, it all just somehow leads us to more smugness, more meanness, more certainty from the reporters and pundits. Faced with defeat, we retreat further into our bubble, assumptions left unchecked. No, it’s the voters who are wrong.

As a direct result, we get it wrong with greater frequency. Out on the road, we forget to ask the right questions. We can’t even imagine the right question. We go into assignments too certain that what we find will serve to justify our biases. The public’s estimation of the press declines even further -- fewer than one-in-three Americans trust the press, per Gallup -- which starts the cycle anew.

What’s worse, we don’t make much of an effort to really understand, and with too few exceptions, treat the economic grievances of Middle America like they’re some sort of punchline. Sometimes quite literally so, such as when reporters tweet out a photo of racist-looking Trump supporters and jokingly suggest that they must be upset about free trade or low wages.

We have to fix this, and the broken reasoning behind it. There’s a fleeting fun to gang-ups and groupthink. But it’s not worth what we are losing in the process. 
































6 comments:

Mrs.C said...

Just following a link on a Fox News story about a gentleman trying to locate his wife and daughters in the Tennessee fire :( They had also had a video posted by a gentleman who with his son (I believe) was attempting to escape down the burning roads of a mountain. The video left you kinda hanging, so I clicked on the link to the local news site to try to find out more :)Scrolling down the local news site, THIS sub Headline caught my eye IMMEDIATELY! WHOOOHOOO! This Brother's name is Isaac, and I also checked out his FB page where he had posted this (both the article and his FB page have the picture).In the comments to his post of this, he is solid that this is true, AND others that know him, one who also was there, affirm this to be true! For those who listen to the Lord, He speaks clearly :)
Issac's caption on his post of the pictured burnt single piece Bible page :)

"I just found this while helping our House and Grounds team clean different areas of Dollywood Theme Park. It was under a bench soaking wet. Talk about goosebumps....
Joel 1:15
The day of the LORD is near, the day when destruction comes from the Almighty. How terrible that day will be!
Joel 1:19
To you, LORD, I call, for fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness and flames have burned up all the trees of the field.
Joel 1:20
Even the beasts of the field pant for you because the water brooks are dried up, and fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.

And at the bottom barely visible is:
Joel 2:1
Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand;

#PrayForGatlinburg "

"Dollywood employee finds burned Bible page after Sevier County fires"

http://wate.com/2016/11/29/dollywood-employee-finds-burned-bible-page-after-sevier-county-fires/

Isaac's FB page with the post :)
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10157774589280317&set=a.10151198349700317.796792.561755316&type=3

Mrs.C said...

This is a much more in depth article, with the Knoxville News Sentinel. This on the fence Brother Isaac now Believes much more in his Faith.
XXXOOO*:-* kiss

"Dollywood employee finds burned Bible page after wildfires"
http://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/local/tennessee/2016/11/29/dollywood-employee-finds-burned-bible-page-after-wildfires/94630820/

ally said...

So he lets all the children be molested in pizza gate but he leaves a cryptic message at a burnt out theme park. See these are the things I CAN'T explain to people who won't choose Jesus,specifically because of unanswerable questions like these....I don't, can't understand this either.....yet I still know He is good, still know he has us, still know he is my King, my brother, my father, my soon to be husband. Praying fervently for Tennessee!!! There is monster spiritual battles going on there this moment. Pray people pray!!!
I have something I want to say to y'all, it's about to get mind blowing insane down here on earth. Something GIANT is just around the corner. Please if you are travelling for Christmas, make sure to bring some supplies with you in the car or plane. And if you happen to be very fortunate and can escape the city for the holiday that might be wise too....
I pray peace and blessings over each one of you!!!!!!!!!

ChristineInCleveland said...

@Ally:
Please explain your first line of your post? This does not make sense at all.... 😕

foretastes said...

Hi ChristineInCleveland... Pizza gate is a sinister, nationwide pedophilia ring that has recently surfaced in the alternate news stream. Supposedly many in high places are involved in this.

Ally... I hear you. It doesn't make human sense. I trust that the Lord will explain much to us when we get Home.

Mrs C... an amazing story for sure. Encouraging for those watching, but will unbelievers pay heed to it?

The rampant debauchery has become so incredibly wearisome. Maranatha!!!

Mrs.C said...

Um...He allowed Hitler to come to power too, and many, many other atrocities over the centuries. His Ways are not our ways...His Thoughts, Plans, are not our Plans and thank the Lord, neither are His Thoughts our thoughts...We live in a fallen world, Jesus made that very, very,clear. He never promised that everything was going to be wonderful at all...in fact He said there would be many difficulties, and there would also be many joys. Glory to God! What He did Promise is that through it all He is with us! He Promised He will never, ever leave us or forsake us! He Promised that He is with us every moment of our lives! He Promised that nothing, absolutely NOTHING can ever separate us from His Love! Glory to God in the Highest! Thank you Jesus!