Another such prophetic indicator flowing from this presidential election–the subject of this essay–is the matter of the president-elect’s promise to move the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Actually, candidate Trump long ago made this declaration during many stump speeches. It is more than noteworthy, therefore, that his selection to be ambassador to Israel has at the center of his thinking the move of the American embassy from where it now sits in Tel Aviv to–you guessed it–Jerusalem.
Trump’s choice, David Friedman, an orthodox Jew, has stated that he looks forward to serving as ambassador to Israel at “the US embassy in Israel’s eternal capital, Jerusalem.”
Former Republican National Committee chairman and now President-Elect Donald Trump’s chief of staff, Reince Priebus, was told in an interview on the December 18, 2016 FOX News Sunday program by Chris Wallace, the show’s host, that Freidman has said he is against the two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
This, Wallace indicated, is against the international community’s determination to make such a “solution” part of a peace deal. The upshot of Wallace’s thought was that this is going to be a highly controversial stand by Friedman and Trump. This, it was implied, will prevent the peace from eventuating, which the globalists want to impose upon Israel and the region.
Zechariah’s prophecy might here come into play as we look forward to the coming months of the Trump presidency.
The establishment of America’s embassy in Jerusalem, thus making recognition of that most controversial city on earth as Israel’s capital ironclad, will almost certainly both drive the Arab-Islamists of the region into a frenzy and cause massive diplomatic headaches for the globalist, international community sort.
The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem.
And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it. (Zechariah 12:1-3)
Like in the prophecy involving Jesus’ days of Noah, days of Lot foretelling, Zechariah’s prophecy regarding Jerusalem looks to be forming. Stay tuned…
The recent military victory of Syrian government forces in Aleppo could prove to be a major turning point in the country’s bloody civil war, which has lasted nearly six years. Similarly, in Iraq, government forces backed by a U.S.-led coalition and Kurdish allies have been engaging in an operation to retake the city of Mosul from the Islamic State terror group.
Yet the major military operations in Syria and Iraq have come with the costs of devastation and immense human suffering. This has been especially true for the region’s minority groups, such as the Christians, who have been targeted for genocide by Islamic extremists while getting caught in the crossfire between more powerful Sunni and Shi’a Muslim governments and armies.
As such, upon the arrival of this year’s Christmas season, the ancient and dwindling Mideast Christian community still finds itself fighting for survival.
“Christianity is a Middle Eastern religion, and it should be our goal to see Christianity preserved in the Middle East as much as possible—not just for our benefit, but because more Christians in the Middle East means a better, more pluralistic and more peaceful region,” said Robert Nicholson, executive director of the Philos Project, an organization that promotes “positive Christian engagement in the Middle East.”
The decline in the Christian populations of Syria and Iraq is stark. In Iraq, there were roughly 1.5 million Christians in 2003, and now there are only 300,000. Prior to the Syrian civil war in 2011, there were roughly between 1.5 and 1.7 million Christians in Syria, or roughly 10 percent of the country’s population. Now, Christian leaders in Syria estimate that roughly two-thirds of that minority population has fled and only about 500,000 remain, Chaldean Catholic Bishop of Aleppo Antoine Audo said earlier this year.
“There were about 250,000 Christians and 45 churches in Aleppo prior to the siege. Today there are only about 30,000 Christians taking refuge in the western, [Bashar] Assad-controlled side of the city,” Nicholson said prior to Assad’s forces retaking the eastern half of the city.
“The reports we get from Aleppo are lack of power, food, water, basic sanitation and shelter. These are all things they are dealing with,” Clancy said. Aleppo, he added, was “one of the major commercial cities in the world in ancient times and on the Silk Road. It has long history with Christianity.”
U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), chair of the House of Representatives panel on global human rights and international organizations, visited Iraq right before the Christmas holiday to meet with families and Christian leaders.
“I met with Christian families who survived the ISIS genocide and have been ignored for two years by the Obama administration. I hope that President-elect [Donald] Trump will act urgently to make sure his administration helps these Christians with the funds Congress has approved for survivors of ISIS atrocities,” Smith said, referring to the Iraq and Syria Genocide Relief and Accountability Act of 2016 that he helped introduce.
- A statue of the Virgin Mary was ordered taken away by a court in the French municipality of Publier. Senator Nathalie Goulet slammed the judges as "ayatollahs of secularism".
- A German school in Turkey just banned Christmas celebrations: the school, Istanbul Lisesi, funded by the German government, decided that Christmas traditions and carol-singing would no longer be allowed. A Woolworth's store in Germany scrapped Christmas decorations telling customers that the shop "is now Muslim".
- Europe is already mutilating her own traditions "to avoid offending Muslims". We have become our own biggest enemy.
- Muslims are also reclaiming "the mosque of Cordoba". Authorities in the southern Spanish city recently dealt a blow to the Catholic Church's claim of ownership of the cathedral. Now Islamists want it back.
- The final result of Europe's self-destructive secularism could seriously be a Caliphate.
This Christianophobia is the Trojan Horse of Islam. As Charles Consigny writes in the weekly Le Point, "Through this tabula rasa of the past, France will make a clean sweep of its future". Unfortunately, France is not an isolated case. Everywhere in Europe, a weary, secularist absence of purpose and confused values damns Christianity in favor of Islam.
A jihadist terrorist, targeting a symbol of Christian tradition, last week slaughtered 12 people at a Christmas market in Berlin. But Europe is already mutilating her own traditions "to avoid offending Muslims". We have become our own biggest enemy.
The annual candlelit Saint Lucia ("Sankta Lucia") procession, a Swedish Christian tradition celebrated for hundreds of years, is "dying" out. Uddevalla, Södertälje, Koping, Umeå, and Ystad are among the growing numbers of cities no longer holding this lovely cultural event. According to Jonas Engman, an ethnologist at the Nordic Museum, the declining interest in the St. Lucia procession accompanies a more general alienation from the culture of Christian Sweden. A study conducted by Gallup International reveals that in observing the Christian religion, Sweden is "the least religious in the West". In the meantime, with a young, strong, driven sense of purpose and a set of sharia values, Islam is growing.
In Britain, David Isaac, the new head of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), told employers that they should not suppress Christian tradition out of fear of offending anyone. Previously, Dame Louise Casey, the British government's integration "tsar", warned that "traditions such as Christmas celebrations will die out unless people stand up for British values".
In many Spanish towns, such as Cenicientos, the municipality of this Autonomous Community of Madrid removed the Christian Stations of the Cross. Then, Madrid's mayor, Manuela Carmena, decided to remove the city's traditional Nativity display at the Puerta de Alcalá.
Belgium, the most Islamized democracy in Europe, is also purging its Christian heritage. The Nativity, the traditional manger scene, has not been put up in the Belgian town of Holsbeek, just outside Brussels. Claims were scenes it was scrapped to "avoid offending Muslims".
As reported by the newspaper La Libre, school calendars within Belgium's French speaking community are also using a new secularized terminology: All Saints Day (Congés de Toussaint) is now be referred to as Autumn Leave (Congé d'automne); Christmas Vacation (Vacances de Noël) is now Winter Vacation (Vacances d'hiver); Lenten Vacation (Congés de Carnaval) is now Rest and Relaxation Leave (Congé de détente); and Easter (Vacances de Pâques) is now Spring Vacation (Vacances de Printemps). Then Belgium installed an abstract, de-Christianized Christmas tree in the capital, Brussels.
In the Netherlands, the Christian tradition of Black Pete is under attack and it will soon be abolished. In Italy, Catholic priests this year canceled Christmas to "avoid offending Muslims".
The final result of Europe's self-destructive secularism could seriously be a Caliphate, in which the fate of its ancient and beautiful churches recapitulates those in Constantinople, where the Hagia Sophia, for thousand years Christianity's greatest cathedral, was recently turned into a mosque. The muezzin's call now reverberates inside this Christian landmark for the first time in 85 years.
No comments:
Post a Comment