Speaking Out for Persecuted Christians 
by Rev. Fumio Taku
President of Christians and Jews United for Israel


Over the last weekend, at least 100 Nigerian Christians were brutally murdered and 6 churches were burned down by Boko Haram, an Islamic terror group, whose aim is to spread Islamic fundamentalism, under Shariah, throughout Nigeria. Bok Haram is also linked with al Qaeda and other global Jihadists who aim to destroy Israel.

This is not an isolated incident. Violent attacks against Christians by Muslim terror groups are spreading across the Islamic world.

Why do we not see more pastors, imams, and rabbis publicly speaking out to denounce these terror acts?

I am neither an imam nor a rabbi, so I could not speak for them. But, as a Christian minister, I may speak for pastors.

Millions of Christians around the world will pray for persecuted Christians this Sunday, the "International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church."  Prayer is at the heart of our faith, as we seek His divine protection over our loved ones, "by prayer and supplications."
  
I know, personally, the power of prayers. Thirty-six years ago, I was an atheist whose life was completely transformed by God's miraculous intervention through the ardent prayers of my wife and other Christians. I heard His call, and I responded, "Here I am, send me!"

Along with their prayers, pastors desire to lead Christians to be God's channel of love for others, with their own lives being an example.  In the same way Jesus demonstrated God's mercy and forgiveness to us, we are to offer the same to others, both our neighbors and strangers alike.

Pastors must also be God's spokespersons in calling out what is godly as good and ungodly as evil. Murdering innocent lives is always ungodly and evil.  Saving innocent lives is always godly and good and must be pursued relentlessly with both prayer and actions aimed at rescuing them from danger.  We must do all we can, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to help them, feed them, and save them.

In November 9-10 of1938, thousands of Jews were murdered and hundreds of synagogues were burned down in the rage of Kristallnacht. But, most pastors and churches remained silent. Not enough Christian leaders rose up to publicly speak out against the Nazis and their evil intention of annihilating the European Jews.

Today, we need Christian leaders everywhere to pray, yes, but also to lift up their voices publicly and forcefully, to condemn the terrorists and to speak up for the persecuted Christians. We must never again remain silent!  Our call-to-action is not to be confused with getting involved in "politics." No, we are urging pastors to publicly stand up for what is good and just and right, in order to help deliver those who are being persecuted and often targeted for brutal murder. 

We need more denominational leaders (who oversee thousands of ministers and churches) to speak-up openly and to identify evil as evil and good as good. We need to see godly leaders of America standing up in front of the White House and the US Congress imploring the President and congressmen to take a higher moral ground on behalf of our persecuted brothers and sisters.

In Nigeria, Shekau, the leader of the terrorist group Boko Haram, has called on its Muslim members to increase violence against Christians.  Egypt's grand mufti, Sheikh Ali Gomaa, publicly pronounced Christians as kuffar, an infidel and evil doers, further inciting more violence against local Christians.  It is now time for Christian leaders to arise and let their voices be heard! 

Let us heed to the Lord's warning to His watchmen in Ezekiel 33:6, "But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet and the people are not warned, and a sword comes and takes a person from them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood I will require from the watchman's hand."

The Myth of Occupied
Arab East Jerusalem
by Dr. Richard Booker

Shalom! When the highly paid professionals at Myth News Network report the latest happenings in Israel, they invariably talk about “occupied Arab East Jerusalem.” They usually mean the Old City and its surroundings. The idea planted in our minds is that the Arabs have been living in East Jerusalem for centuries, but the Jews, who are recent arrivals, forced them from their homes. What are the facts?

My wife and I have had the great privilege to take tour groups to Israel for over twenty years. The most exciting part of the tour is when we walk into the Old City of Jerusalem. The sights, the sounds, the smells, the history, the people, and the spiritual connection to Jerusalem are an experience the people never forget. You cannot explain Jerusalem, you experience Jerusalem.

We share how the wonderfully exciting Old City is divided into four quarters. These are: 1) the Jewish Quarter, 2) the Arab Quarter, 3) the Armenian Quarter, and 4) the Christian Quarter. But it was not always so divided, nor has it ever been “occupied Arab territory.” How did this “myth” become a “fact?”

As I have written in previous articles, the Jewish people have had an unbroken presence in the land for 3,000 years. There is archeological evidence of their presence in Jerusalem since 438 CE. The only time they were not allowed in Jerusalem was under Byzantine rule (135-438 CE) and during the Crusades (1099-1187 CE).

When the Crusades ended, the Jews returned to Jerusalem where they had lived as the majority population since the 1820’s.

Prior to the British Mandate from 1917 to 1948, the Old City was populated by various religious and ethnic groups. While they had a natural tendency to live next door to their own kind, and dominated their neighborhood, they also lived in different parts of the Old City, which was not divided as it is today.

In 1920, the British established the “mythical Arab quarter” of the Old City. At that time, the Jews were the majority population, followed by Christians, and then Arabs. There were so few Arabs living in the Old City, they did not need a separate quarter for themselves. There was a Jewish Quarter, a Christian Quarter, an Armenian Quarter, and a Mixed Quarter.

In 1914, seventy percent of the residents of the Mixed Quarter were Jews, not Arabs. This means that the Arabs represented less than ten percent of the population of the Old City. The main street in the Mixed Quarter housed 22 synagogues, not mosques, two Jewish learning centers, the printing press for the Hebrew-language newspaper, and other normal institutions to support Jewish life.

The British expelled the Jews from the Mixed Quarter and renamed it the Arab Quarter. The Arab riots in the 1920’s forced the Jews to flee their homes. The pro-Arab British governing Jerusalem kept the Jews from returning while assisting the Arabs to take possession of the deserted Jewish homes. The Arabs occupied East Jerusalem and the Jews, not the Arabs, became refugees.

When Jordan attacked Israel in 1948, the Jordanian army expelled the Jews from their homes in the Jewish Quarter, forbade Jews to enter the Old City, and destroyed any evidence of Jewish life.

Jordan illegally occupied “Jewish East Jerusalem” from 1948 to 1967 at which time they attacked Israel. Israel defeated Jordan and Jerusalem was liberated from the occupying Arab power.
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Dr. Richard and Peggy Booker are the Founding Directors of the Institute for Hebraic-Christian Studies (IHCS), a non-proselytizing, Christian Zionist educational organization. They have dedicated their lives to educating Christians in their Judeo-Christian heritage and the holocaust, building relations between Christians and Jews, and working tirelessly to give comfort and support to the people of Israel.

"The resources of the country are still virgin soil and will be developed by the Jewish immigrants. One of the most amazing things until recent times was that the Palestinian used to leave his country, wandering over the high seas in every direction. His native soil could not retain a hold on him.... At the same time, we have seen the Jews from foreign countries streaming to Palestine from Russia, Germany, Austria, Spain, and America. The cause of causes could not escape those who had a gift of deeper insight. They knew that the country was for its original sons [abna'ihi-l-asliyin], for all their differences, a sacred and beloved homeland. The return of these exiles [jaliya] to their homeland will prove materially and spiritually an experimental school for their brethren who are with them in the fields, factories, trades and all things connected to the land." ¹ (Underline and emphasis mine)

Yesha Leaders Write UN, ‘Bible Records
Israel as Jewish Land’
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
May 4, 2011

A letter to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon from Yesha Leaders explains that the Bible, the Quran, and international agreements document Israel as being the Land of the Jewish People.

The signatories threatened to sue Ban if he continues “to ignore the historical and legal facts enclosed in this letter and continues with the present unjust and illegal policies of the United Nations.”

Citing the Bible as “recording for all time the awarding of the Land of Israel to the forefathers of the Jewish People by the Creator of the world,” the letter tell Ban it gives him the “opportunity to correct the deviation of the nations from international law in accordance with the responsibilities of your position and thus obviate the measures undoubtedly to be inflicted on those who act contrary to the Covenant of the Almighty with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”

It was signed by Shomron (Samaria) Regional Council chairman Gershon Mesika, Beit El mayor Moshe Rosenbaum, Ariel Mayor Ron Nachman and other leaders.

They also wrote Ban, “The entire Land of Israel was promised and granted to the Jewish People…as recorded time and again in the opening Five Books of the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Genesis 15:21; Deuteronomy 1:8 et al.), accepted by the adherents of the Christian faith whose Bible encompasses the aforementioned Books, and confirmed in various places in the holy book of Islam, the Quran (e.g., Sura 2 et al.).”

The document states, “The letter attached herewith also expresses the expectation of its signatories that you, as Secretary-General of the United Nations, lead your organization to reaffirm the already recognized and eternally valid rights of the Jewish People as the sovereign over all parts of the Land of Israel presently under the control of the State of Israel – especially those sections of the Land – Judea and Samaria, mistakenly known also as the ‘West Bank – liberated in June 1967 from the illegal occupation of the Kingdom of Jordan from 1948.”

Documents presented to Ban include the Balfour Declaration of 1917, that stated British policy of establishing a “National Home for the Jewish People” in Israel, then known as Palestine;

The San Remo Resolution of April 25, 1920, by which the Principal Allied Powers of World War I recognized the sovereignty of the Jewish People over Palestine, just as they recognized the sovereignty of the Arab peoples over the territories of present-day Syria, Lebanon and Iraq; and

The Anglo-French Boundary Convention of December 1920, demarcating the border between French-mandated Syria-Lebanon and British-mandated Palestine.

The letter states that “repeated references by the U.N. to the territories liberated by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War – territories until then illegally occupied by the Kingdom of Jordan – as “occupied Palestinian territory (oPt)” conceals from the public the true legal status of the lands to which you refer and causes the Jewish people unwarranted anguish.”

Detailing the proof that all of Israel belongs to Jews, the latter points out that the United Nations General Assembly ignored Article 80 that guarantees Jewish legal rights in Israel, and instead recommended the Partition Plan of 1947, which the Arab League rejected by going to war against the fledgling State of Israel.

The letter asserts that the Partition “was never legal, was never of an obligatory nature, has been dead for over 63 years and cannot be resurrected.”

The signatories added, “The very opposite is what is required of the U.N. at this time: to recognize the continuity of Jewish legal rights to the entire Land of Israel under Article 80 of the UN Charter.

“The time has undoubtedly come – in fact, it is long overdue, Mr. Secretary-General – for the international community as represented by the U.N. to recognize the fact that the Arabs of the Land of Israel do not want their own state, nor do they want to conclude a peace agreement with the State of Israel; all they desire is the destruction of Israel; the time has indeed come to reaffirm international recognition of the immutable rights of the Jewish People to all of their historical homeland.”

Israel National News (IsraelNN.com)

INN Editorial: The Freedom to Build in Jerusalem
by Rachel Sylvetsky

(IsraelNN.com) Karl Marx accused his fellow Jews of being a “cosmopolitan” people who could not develop roots in any specific area of the world. No Jew lover, he wrote his barbed phrase as though it was an inherent Jewish characteristic, along with usury and other unproductive occupations, without taking into account that it might be an acquired one. After all, Jews could hardly be expected to plant roots when history was replete with banishments, expulsions, pogroms and ghettoizing that hardly served to make the Jewish populace in most countries feel at home.

The Jew’s image in the Diaspora was also that of the People of the Book, a more positive, and continuing, pursuit than that attributed to them by Marx. Intellectualism made up for a normal nations’ construction, farming and production, denied to them for centuries. 

However, the Jewish people certainly had a history of building. It began when they first constructed permanent dwellings in Egypt, but not for their personal use. They were the slaves who build the cities of Pithom and Raamses, but who, once freed on Passover, were satisfied with the tents Balaam described in Numbers 24:5 as “goodly”. This newly- formed people spent forty years in the desert in temporary “booths” where, while they complained about the monotony of their manna menu, they did not demand less flimsy residences for their families.
For them, it was G-d’s cloud of glory that provided the permanence and security a home usually symbolizes. Their central place of ritual in the desert was a portable, curtained Tabernacle, which was brought to Shiloh once they entered Israel.

This was in sharp contrast to what transpired when the Jews had a monarchy in the land of Israel. This was when roots of construction, farming and production were planted in the Promised Land. King David described himself as living in a permanent home, feeling guilty because G-d ‘s Ark had only a temporary one. His son King Solomon spent many years building the First Temple and his own palace, enlisting the help of experts from Lebanon. His people, too, built permanent homes in the land of their forefathers. 

When the first group of Jews was exiled to Babylon, the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel had to tell them that they were to build homes there.  That symbolized permanence to them, and so strong was their yearning for Zion, that they wanted to stay sojourners in their land of exile awaiting the rebuilding of their beloved Temple in Jerusalem.

Throughout the ages, even when their status allowed for beautiful residences, the Jewish people was willing to abandon them for a week and return to those temporary booths, Sukkahs, that reminded them of G-d’s guarding presence in the desert, so longed for during their sufferings in exile. In fact, Rav Tzvi Hirsh Berliner was once asked by the Prince of Mannheim why children don’t ask four questions on Sukkot, as moving into a booth is just as unusual as the Passover seder. He answered that the opposite is true, for leaving one’s home hastily for a temporary haven is the most commonplace of occurrences in the Diaspora with which even a child is familiar.

Construction is the symbol of permanence.  A “guarding wall and lookout tower” were what early Zionists built with Haganah help to create settlements during the memorable period in which they countered 1936-39  Arab insurgency by creating “facts on the ground”. It is tragic to think that their offspring did not internalize the difference between a people at home and the wandering Jews of Marx and were willing to destroy Jewish homes in Israel and send thousands of Katif Bloc residents to temporary booths as if they were back in the desert of the Diaspora.
It is true that in the Diaspora, when Jews lived in places that were good to them, they built homes, communities and public buildings, such as the hospitals with Jewish names that dot the USA, for the good of the countries who treated them kindly. History showed  most tragically that this does not help Jews achieve permanence. Perhaps all the Jews, even those living most comfortably in the Diaspora, expressed this truth subliminally when they sang “Next year in rebuilt Jerusalem” at the close of the Seder each year.

“Rebuilt Jerusalem”--

Those words once meant the exiles’ hope to return to rebuild the city, but after it was reunited in 1967and the sounds of construction filled the air as Jerusalem grew and expanded naturally in all directions, it seemed to be happening in our time.  Jews still sang those words hoping for the Redemption, when they could rebuild the Holy Temple in the “city in which King David settled”, as Jerusalem is called in a poem of longing and idealism written by Rabbi Avraham Yitschak HaKohen Kook, Israel’s first Chief Rabbi.

“Rebuilt Jerusalem” has taken on another level of meaning these past few weeks. It seems the joyous rebuilding of the past forty three years is not seen as natural growth by much of the rest of the world. The ancient words of the song now are an assertion of the Jewish people’s right to build everywhere in their holy city and a demand for it to be recognized as rightfully theirs.
Let us sing those words with redoubled fervor this year. Jews are building in their own land, as in days of yore. The other nations are mouthing the words attributed to Esau’s—not Ishmael’s-- descendants, Edom, said by our Sages to be “known to hate Jacob”, at the time of the Temple’s destruction: “Destroy, destroy, unto the very foundations” of Jerusalem (Psalm 137).
The psalmist tells G-d to “Remember what the sons of Edom did on the day of Jerusalem” in the previous verse. We too will remember. And we will keep on building, because we have come home.

Shalom! In 1975, the United States Postal Department issued a most unusual commemorative stamp honoring a Jewish man named Haym Salomon. This stamp was honoring Haym Salomon for his contribution to the seemingly lost cause of the American Revolution. What really made this stamp unusual was that it had printing on the front and back.

On the glue side of the stamp, the following words were printed: “Financial Hero – Businessman and broker, Haym Salomon was responsible for raising most of the money needed to finance the American Revolution and later to save the new nation from collapse.”

Haym Salomon was a successful financial broker who bought and sold financial papers to raise money for Robert Morris and the Continental Congress. At that time, the Continental Congress had no power to tax the Colonists. Hum! They could not raise money for Washington’s troops. The war effort was continually on the brink of disaster.

Haym Salomon believed that America would be a safe heaven for the Jew. But he also believed that one day in the distant future, Jerusalem would rise from the dust and the Jews would return to their ancient homeland.

Salomon determined to do all that he could to help finance the American Revolution. Historians who have studied the story of this great American patriot agree that without the money he gave and raised, there would be no United States of America.

Having given his fortune to the cause and with failing health, Haym Salomon died sick and penniless at the age of 45 on January 6, 1787. He left behind a young widow, Rachael, and four children all under the age of seven. There were not provisions left for them as Salomon gave his entire fortune to the Revolution.

It is estimated that the US government owed Haym Salomon $600,000-$800,000. When his widow tried to collect, she was told that all the records were lost.
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Haym Salomon is buried in Philadelphia in the Mikveh Israel Cemetery. Tragically, he rests in a grave which is now unmarked. Since we don’t even know which his grave is, we cannot even pay our respect at his graveside, nor erect a marker.

But the story of Haym Salomon doesn’t end with an unmarked grave. There is a plaque on a brick wall bordering the cemetery that was placed by Haym’s great-grandson, William Salomon in 1917. It says, “To the memory of Haym Salomon … interred in this Cemetery the location of the grave being unknown … .”

Was it just a coincidence that the year this plaque was erected was the same year of the Balfour Declaration issued by the British which begins, “His majesty’s Government views with favor the establishing in Palestine of a national homeland for the Jewish people?”

Was it just a coincidence that in 1975 when the US Postal Department issued the stamp honoring Haym Salomon, that same year the Israeli government issued a stamp honoring Harry Truman, the American president who was the first head of state to recognize Israel?

As Haym Salomon believed, America has been that safe heaven for the Jewish people, Israel has been reborn, and Jerusalem has arisen from her ashes.

We can never repay the great debt we own to this American patriot. We honor him by standing firm in our support and prayers for a safe Israel and a united Jerusalem under the care of Haym Salomon’s descendants, the Jewish people. 

Coming to Grips With Sharia
By Frank Gaffney
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/gaffney081010.php3

Suddenly, it seems, everyone is talking about Shariah.  In particular, growing controversies over proposed mosques at Ground Zero and other sites are becoming powerful "teaching moments" - raising awareness about the repressive theo-political-military-legal doctrine that animates the builders and that their fellow adherents seek to impose on the entire world.

This is a most welcome development in light of the grave and growing threat posed by this agenda and the concerted effort being made - here and elsewhere, through violent jihad and the stealthy kind - to realize that goal.

Unfortunately, too many Americans still remain unaware of the magnitude of the danger we face from Shariah.  Worse yet, their ability to comprehend this threat, let alone respond appropriately to it, is being seriously disserved by people who know better - or should. Specifically, the public is being seriously misled by 1) some journalists and politicians who are obscuring the true nature of Shariah and 2) Shariah practitioners who engage in deliberate deception to facilitate the penetration of their doctrine into Western societies.

As an example of the former, consider the article that led the New York Times front page on Sunday entitled "Battles around Nation over Proposed Mosques."  It accurately reported that Americans from the Ground Zero neighborhood in Lower Manhattan to San Bernardino are expressing growing concern about Muslim mosques that "seek to replace the U.S. Constitution with Islamic Shariah law."

Yet, the Times proceeded to dismiss the idea that such mosques are a problem.  It cited "interfaith groups led by Protestant ministers, Catholic priests, rabbis and clergy members from other faiths [who] have defended the mosques." One such individual was quoted as saying that the opponents "have fear because they don't know" those involved in such mosques.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg went even further last week declaring that those critical of the construction of a permanent symbol of Shariah adherents' victorious destruction of the World Trade Center "ought to be ashamed of themselves" for being intolerant.  Moreover, he categorically rejected the idea that it was reasonable, let alone necessary, to determine the source of funds for the $100-plus million mega-mosque near Ground Zero.

In other words, the Mayor seemingly is indifferent to whether the funding for the mosque sponsored by the Cordoba Initiative (named for the capital city of the Moorish conquerors of Spain and the site where they triumphally transformed a Catholic church into a massive mosque) might be the Saudis, with their version of Shariah known as Wahhabism.

This cavalier attitude is absolutely stupefying insofar as two years ago this month, the New York Police Department issued a report warning that Wahhabi mosques in America were incubators for "homegrown" Islamic radicals.

The Mayor has a duty to know a lot more than he evidently does about Shariah.  He certainly has an obligation to figure out whether - as is true of, by some estimates, 80% of the mosques in America - the Ground Zero Mosque is going to fit the profile of a Wahhabi-associated facility.

The challenge of assuring public awareness of the Shariah threat would be hard enough if the only impediment were ill-informed politicians and journalists.  Matters are made much worse by the skill with which Shariah's adherents dissemble, or simply lie.

For example, the New York Times article cited Camie Ayash, a spokeswoman for the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, Tennessee - the sponsors of a proposed 52,000 square foot mosque that has precipitated an intense local backlash.  It reported that Ms. Ayash "lamented that people were listening to 'total disinformation' on Islam."  She then engaged in a classic example of real disinformation - or what Shariah calls taqqiya - claiming, "There's no conflict with the U.S. Constitution in Shariah law."

Now, even the most superficial review of Shariah shows that statement to be preposterous and misleading.  In fact, among other Constitution-affronting features, Islamic law prohibits democratic law-making.  It requires the replacement of constitutions and governments like ours with a global theocracy governed by Islamic law.  It brutalizes women and otherwise treats them as second-class citizens and authorizes the murder of homosexuals and apostates.

Shariah is, in short, wholly incompatible with our legal system, freedoms and way of life.

Then, there was this gem from Ihsan Bagby, an associate professor in Islamic Studies at the University of Kentucky.  The Times quoted him as saying that while "radicalization of alienated Muslim youths is a real threat, the youth we worry about are not the youth that come to the mosque[s]."

Look no further than the NYPD report for a reality check.  It reported that:  "This [Shariah] ideology is proliferating in Western democracies at a logarithmic rate.  The Internet, certain Salafi-based non-governmental organizations, extremist sermons/study groups, Salafi literature, jihadi videotapes, extremist-sponsored trips to radical madrassas and militant training camps abroad have served as "extremist incubators" for young, susceptible Muslims - especially ones living in diaspora communities in the West." (Emphasis added.)

Americans across this country are struggling to understand the true nature of the threat we face from Shariah.  They are entitled to straight talk about the extent to which it is being insinuated, promoted and legitimated not only in mosques but by financial institutions, banks, academic institutions and government agencies.  Those who fail to provide such unvarnished truths are part of the problem, and should be treated accordingly.

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