Netanyahu Blocks Construction in Jerusalem Neighborhoods
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/134703

EU to recognize East Jerusalem as capital of Palestinian state

Haaretz
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent
Tue., December 01, 2009 Kislev 14, 5770

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1131926.html

European Union foreign ministers are expected to officially call next week for the division of Jerusalem, to serve as the capitals of both Israel and Palestine. A draft document authored by the current holder of the rotating EU presidency, Sweden, and implying that the EU would recognize a unilateral Palestinian declaration of statehood, has been obtained by Haaretz.

Jerusalem is waging a diplomatic campaign to keep the EU from issuing such an endorsement, but diplomats close to the EU deliberations believe it is virtually inevitable.

EU foreign ministers are scheduled to meet on December 7 for a two-day meeting in Brussels on the peace process, after which a statement outlining the body's Mideast policy is expected.

The Swedish draft represents the first official EU articulation of a solution for one of the core issues of the final-status arrangement between Israel and the Palestinians.

The document expressed the EU's concern over the stalemate in the peace process and calls for the immediate renewal of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in accordance with a prescribed timetable. The goal, it states, is "an independent, democratic, contiguous and viable state of Palestine, comprising the West Bank and Gaza and with East Jerusalem as its capital."

The draft refers directly to the situation in East Jerusalem, calling on "all parties to refrain from provocative actions" and stating the EU Council "has never recognized the annexation of East Jerusalem. If there is to be a genuine peace, a way must be found to resolve the status of Jerusalem as capital of two states. The Council calls for the reopening of Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem in accordance with the road map. It also calls on the Israeli government to cease all discriminatory treatment of Palestinians in East Jerusalem."

The document deals only briefly with Israel's announcement of a 10-month moratorium on construction in settlements across the West Bank: "The Council takes note of the recent decision of the government of Israel on a partial and temporary permanent freeze and expresses the hope that it will become a step towards resuming meaningful negotiations." Israel's removal of checkpoints also receives only cursory mention: "Many checkpoints and roadblocks remain in place to protect settlements."

On the issue of borders, the document states that the EU will not accept any changes made by Israel to the 1967 borders unless they have PA approval. The EU, it says, welcomes PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's proposal of a unilateral declaration of statehood and would "be able, at the appropriate time, to recognize a Palestinian state."

Israeli diplomats have been following the Swedish initiative for several weeks. Israel's Brussels-based ambassador to the EU, Ran Kuriel, sent several messages to Jerusalem last week accusing Sweden of leading the union on a "collision course" with Israel. Kuriel wrote that Britain and France support the Swedish position, while Germany, Spain and Italy are disinclined to side with Israel on the matter.

Senior Foreign Ministry officials said the belief is widespread across the foreign policy echelon that Sweden is advancing an explicitly "anti-Israel" line, rendering Europe "irrelevant" to the peace process.

European diplomats privy to the negotiations said that although changes favorable to Israel had been made to the draft, there is virtually no chance of preventing the EU from calling for the division of Jerusalem. They said they believe the EU statement will help Palestinians return to negotiations with Israel, as it gives them guarantees of a Palestinian capital in Jerusalem even though Israel has not frozen construction there.

Thus saith the LORD of hosts; The children of Israel and the children of Judah were oppressed together: and all that took them captives held them fast; they refused to let them go.

Their Redeemer is strong; the LORD of hosts is his name: he shall throughly plead their cause, that he may give rest to the land, and disquiet the inhabitants of Babylon. (Jeremiah 50:33,34)

IAF Maps Existing Construction, as Beit El Mayor Rips Up Order

Arutz Sheva
by David Lev
Published: 11/28/09

Excerpt:
The new building freeze orders issued beginning Friday are far more serious, because they forbid any building whatsoever – even something as simple as turning a porch into an enclosed room, or adding a floor to an existing home. Residents can, if they wish, request a special permit from the Civil Authority for such construction, which until now was granted by the local authority.

Civil Authority officials began distributing the official orders instituting the building freeze on Friday. The freeze strips local authorities of powers to approve any building within the borders of the area under their jurisdiction, and prohibits construction on any site where a foundation for a building has not yet been dug – even if the site has a building permit.

Among the first local authority heads to receive the orders was Beit El's Rosenbaum , who took the orders and ripped them up. In an interview with Arutz 7, Rosenbaum said he spoke to the director of Prime Minister Binyamin Netayahu's office, Eyal Gabai, and told him that to remind Netanyahu that he needed to keep his promises to voters. "This freeze is shameful," said Rosenbaum. "In the British 'White Paper' there were severe restrictions on the sale of land to Jews, and here a Jewish leader in the state of Israel has undertaken a similar racist policy. I am shocked by this decision," Rosenbaum said.

Entire article: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/134661

Gog/MaGog Watch:

IAEA Board Censures Iran Over Nuke Program
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/middle-east/27nov09-iran-iaea-vote-75801022.html

Bible prophecy predicts worldwide financial collapse in the last days right before the Rapture. This has been and is happening now.........

Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.

Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.

Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.

Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.

Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter.

Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you.

Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.

Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh (James 5:1-8)

Dubai Fallout Hurts Stocks
Wall Street Journal
November 27, 2009
By PETER A. MCKAY And DONNA KARDOS YESALAVICH

Stocks slumped as U.S. investors reacted to the global selloff triggered by a debt crisis in Dubai.
Crude oil neared a six-week low, gold tumbled and the dollar soared as worried investors fled riskier assets and moved into safer havens.

The stock market's slide began in Europe on Thursday and continued in Asia on Friday after Dubai said it would delay debt repayments from its investment company, Dubai World. The decision raised broader questions about the safety of emerging-market debt and the strength of the global recovery.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was recently down 131 points, or 1.3%, to 10333.58 and had fallen as low as 10231. All 30 of the Dow components were in the red, led by Microsoft, off 2%, Caterpillar, off 1.9%, and Exxon Mobil, off 1.8%.

Entire article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703499404574561421358490650.html

So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.

And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:

And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. (Revelation 17:3-5)


"After greeting Singh and his wife, Gursharan Kaur, at the North Portico, the Obamas and their guests, including prominent Indian Americans and a sprinkling of Hollywood moguls, went to dinner under a white tent on the South Lawn.

They dined on vegetarian fare prepared with the help of a top New York chef at tables decorated in gold, apple green and purple colors, with a mix of tableware from three presidential china collections.

It was a glittery assembly, a total of 339 guests; black-tie mingled with turbans, sparkly evening gowns mixed with bright saris."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-11-24-white-house-state-dinner_N.htm

And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. (Revelation 13:11)

Obama's Nice Guy Act Gets Him Nowhere on the World Stage

By Gabor Steingart
11/23/2009

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,662822,00.html

AP
US President Barack Obama is back in the US after an Asian trip that produced few results.

When he entered office, US President Barack Obama promised to inject US foreign policy with a new tone of respect and diplomacy. His recent trip to Asia, however, showed that it's not working. A shift to Bush-style bluntness may be coming.

There were only a few hours left before Air Force One was scheduled to depart for the flight home. US President Barack Obama trip through Asia had already seen him travel 24,000 kilometers, sit through a dozen state banquets, climb the Great Wall of China and shake hands with Korean children. It was high time to take stock of the trip.

Barack Obama looked tired on Thursday, as he stood in the Blue House in Seoul, the official residence of the South Korean president. He also seemed irritable and even slightly forlorn. The CNN cameras had already been set up. But then Obama decided not to play along, and not to answer the question he had already been asked several times on his trip: what did he plan to take home with him? Instead, he simply said "thank you, guys," and disappeared. David Axelrod, senior advisor to the president, fielded the journalists' questions in the hallway of the Blue House instead, telling them that the public's expectations had been "too high."

The mood in Obama's foreign policy team is tense following an extended Asia trip that produced no palpable results. The "first Pacific president," as Obama called himself, came as a friend and returned as a stranger. The Asians smiled but made no concessions.

Lost Some Stature

Upon taking office, Obama said that he wanted to listen to the world, promising respect instead of arrogance. But Obama's currency isn't as strong as he had believed. Everyone wants respect, but hardly anyone is willing to pay for it. Interests, not emotions, dominate the world of realpolitik. The Asia trip revealed the limits of Washington's new foreign policy: Although Obama did not lose face in China and Japan, he did appear to have lost some of his initial stature.

In Tokyo, the new center-left government even pulled out of its participation in a mission which saw the Japanese navy refueling US warships in the Indian Ocean as part of the Afghanistan campaign. In Beijing, Obama failed to achieve any important concessions whatsoever. There will be no binding commitments from China to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A revaluation of the Chinese currency, which is kept artificially weak, has been postponed. Sanctions against Iran? Not a chance. Nuclear disarmament? Not an issue for the Chinese.

The White House did not even stand up for itself when it came to the question of human rights in China. The president, who had said only a few days earlier that freedom of expression is a universal right, was coerced into attending a joint press conference with Chinese President Hu Jintao, at which questions were forbidden. Former US President George W. Bush had always managed to avoid such press conferences.

Relatively Unsuccessful

A look back in time reveals the differences. When former President Bill Clinton went to China in June 1998, Beijing wanted to impress the Americans. A press conference in the Great Hall of the People, broadcast on television as a 70-minute live discussion, became a sensation the world over. Clinton mentioned the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, when the government used tanks against protestors. But then President Jiang Zemin defended the tough approach taken by the Chinese Communists. At the end of the exchange, the Chinese president praised the debate and said: "I believe this is democracy!"

Obama visited a new China, an economic power that is now making its own demands. America should clean up its government finances, and the weak dollar is unacceptable, the head of the Chinese banking authority said, just as Obama's plane was about to land.

Obama's new foreign policy has also been relatively unsuccessful elsewhere, with even friends like Israel leaving him high and dry. For the government of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, peace is only conceivable under its terms. Netanyahu has rejected Obama's call for a complete moratorium on the construction of settlements. As a result, Obama has nothing to offer the Palestinians and the Syrians. "We thought we had some leverage," says Martin Indyk, a former ambassador to Israel under the Clinton administration and now an advisor to Obama. "But that proved to be an illusion."

Even the president seems to have lost his faith in a genial foreign policy. The approach that was being used in Afghanistan this spring, with its strong emphasis on civilian reconstruction, is already being changed. "We're searching for an exit strategy," said a staff member with the National Security Council on the sidelines of the Asia trip.

'A Lot Like Jimmy Carter'

An end to diplomacy is also taking shape in Washington's policy toward Tehran. It is now up to Iran, Obama said, to convince the world that its nuclear power is peaceful. While in Asia, Obama mentioned "consequences" unless it followed his advice. This puts the president, in his tenth month in office, where Bush began -- with threats. "Time is running out," Obama said in Korea. It was the same phrase Bush used against former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, shortly before he sent in the bombers.

There are many indications that the man in charge at the White House will take a tougher stance in the future. Obama's advisors fear a comparison with former Democratic President Jimmy Carter, even more than with Bush. Prominent Republicans have already tried to liken Obama to the humanitarian from Georgia, who lost in his bid to win a second term, because voters felt that he was too soft. "Carter tried weakness and the world got tougher and tougher because the predators, the aggressors, the anti-Americans, the dictators, when they sense weakness, they all start pushing ahead," Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker in the House of Representatives, recently said. And then he added: "This does look a lot like Jimmy Carter."

Gog/MaGog Watch:

Azerbaijan says Karabakh talks last chance for deal

Sat Nov 21, 2009
By Lada Yevgrashina

BAKU (Reuters) - Azerbaijan said talks with Armenia on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict would be "decisive" and warned Azeri troops were ready to use force to take back the rebel region if they fail.

Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev meets Armenia's Serzh Sarksyan on Sunday in Munich for the latest in a string of meetings this year on the Armenian-populated mountain region, which broke away from Azerbaijan in the early 1990s.

The conflict has been thrust back into the diplomatic spotlight this year, with Azeri ally Turkey pressing for progress before it seals an historic thaw with neighboring Armenia and opens the border it closed in 1993 during the war.

"That meeting must play a decisive role in the process of negotiations," Aliyev said late on Friday, in comments broadcast by state television on Saturday.

"If that meeting ends without result, then our hopes in negotiations will be exhausted and then we are left with no other option," he said, saying Azerbaijan had the right to use force to take back the mountain region.

Entire article: http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5AK0G420091121

U.S. supporting Palestinian land-grab

Operating in areas under Israeli authority according to Oslo Accords

Posted: November 19, 2009
By Aaron Klein
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=116491

Arab West Bank settlement near Jerusalem

JERUSALEM – While the Obama administration has demanded a halt to Jewish construction in eastern Jerusalem, it is "totally supporting" the building of official Palestinian institutions in those same areas as well as the strategic West Bank, a top Palestinian Authority official told WND.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed a recent report by Israel's Shabak security services that the PA has been opening official institutions in what are termed areas B and C.

According to the 1993 Oslo Accords, territories defined as area A are entirely administered and controlled by the Palestinians; area B is administered by the PA but controlled by Israel; whereas area C, including eastern Jerusalem, is supposed to be entirely administered and controlled by Israel.

In defiance of the accords, the Palestinians in recent months have opened up official institutions, including PA ministry offices, in area C.

A WND investigation previously determined the U.S. has been aiding the Palestinians in developing infrastructure in eastern Jerusalem, including on property legally owned by Jews.

That situation has been unfolding in multiple area C neighborhoods, such as the northern Jerusalem neighborhoods of Kfar Akeb, Qalandiya and Samir Amis, which are close to the Jewish neighborhoods of Neve Yaacov and Pisgat Zeev in Israel's capital. Kfar Akeb, Qalandiya and Samir Amis are located entirely within the Jerusalem municipality.

A tour then of the Jerusalem neighborhoods found some surprising developments. Official PA logos and placards abound, including one glaring red street sign at the entrance to the neighborhoods warning Israelis to keep out.

Another official sign, in Kfar Akeb in Jerusalem, reads in English, "Ramallah-Jerusalem Road. This project is a gift form (sic) the American people to the Palestinian people in cooperation with the Palestinian Authority and PECDAR. 2007."

The sign bears the emblems of the American and PA governments and of the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID. The displays were not present during a previous WND tour of the neighborhoods in 2006.

Some local schools in the Jerusalem neighborhoods are officially run by the PA – some in conjunction with the U.N. – with many teachers drawing PA salaries. Civil disputes are usually settled not in Israeli courts but by the PA judicial system, although at times Israeli courts are used, depending on the matter.

Councils governed by PA President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization oversee some municipal matters. USAID provides the PA funds for road and infrastructure projects.

Israeli security officials said the local Jerusalem police rarely operate in peripheral eastern Jerusalem Arab neighborhoods. Instead, security has been turned over to the Israel Defense Forces and Border Police, who work almost daily with PA security forces. The PA police operate in the Jerusalem neighborhoods in coordination with Israel.

Shmulik Ben Ruby, spokesman for the Jerusalem police, confirmed the arrangement.

"If there are fights between some local families, sometimes we involve the PA police to make peace between the families," he told WND. "Yes, the PA police can operate in these neighborhoods in coordination with the IDF and Border Police."

Dmitri Ziliani, a spokesman for the Jerusalem section of Fatah, confirmed to WND the Palestinians have set up local command in some neighborhoods of Jerusalem.

"We were covering the best ways to improve our performance on the street and how we can be of service to the community," Ziliani said.

Ziliani said the PA holds regular official meetings in Jerusalem in anticipation of a future Palestinian state encompassing all of eastern Jerusalem.

"Our political program, as Fatah, dictates there will be no Palestinian state if these areas – all of east Jerusalem – are not included," Ziliani told WND.

According to Israeli law, the PA cannot officially meet in Jerusalem. The PA previously maintained a de facto headquarters in Jerusalem, called Orient House, but the building was closed by Israel in 2001 following a series of suicide bombings in Jerusalem. Israel said it had information indicating the House was used to plan and fund terrorism.

Thousands of documents and copies of bank certificates and checks captured by Israel from Orient House – including many documents obtained by WND – showed the offices were used to finance terrorism, including direct payments to the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group.

Meanwhile, Obama has demanded a complete halt to Jewish construction in the strategic West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly has refused.

Palestinians routinely build in those territories, and at times the construction takes place illegally on Jewish-owned land.

Earlier this month, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Jerusalem that a settlement freeze should not be a precondition for relaunching stalled talks with the Palestinians. However, WND reported the Palestinian Authority rejected a proposal by Clinton for Israel to largely scale back Jewish construction in exchange for the resumption of talks.