“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: may they prosper who love you.” Psalm 122: 6
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Janine di Giovanni—The Woman ISIS Wanted to Trade for Foley, Then Sotloff:
Before the Islamic State, the group commonly known as ISIS, murdered American journalist James Foley, the insurgents sent an email to his family saying they were open to a prisoner exchange for “Muslims currently in your detention.”
A woman they specifically mentioned was Aafia Siddiqui. Two weeks after Foley was beheaded, ISIS suggested that it would trade American journalist Steven Sotloff for Siddiqui. There was no deal, and Sotloff, too, was beheaded.
Last month was hardly the first time Siddiqui’s name had come up as a bargaining chip. Besides ISIS, the Taliban and other extremist groups have requested her in hostage exchanges.
So just who is Siddiqui and how has she come to matter so much in America’s war on terror?
Siddiqui, or Lady Al-Qaeda as she is known in counterterrorism circles, was convicted in 2010 in a Manhattan federal court of trying to kill Americans while she was detained in Afghanistan. The 42-year-old neuroscientist, educated at MIT and Brandeis, is still waiting to appeal the 86-year sentence she is serving in the medical center of the special housing unit at the severe confinement prison at Carswell, Texas.
[…]
To continue reading, click here.
SnyderTalk Comment: Refusing to trade “Lady Al-Qaeda” for ISIS hostages was the right thing to do.
Why, then, did the U.S. pressure Israel to release known terrorists and murderers as part of “peace negotiations” with the Palestinian Authority? It wasn’t a show of goodwill because the PA gave nothing in return, and the terrorists who were released have returned to their life of crime against Israel and Jewish people.
That wasn’t just wrong; it was sheer stupidity. Even worse, it was sinful. It exposed the U.S. double standard where Israel is concerned. You have to be spiritually blind not to see it. Neither President Obama nor Secretary Kerry saw it, because they demanded it.
You can be certain about this fact: Yahweh saw it and He won’t forget it. It’s also certain that we will suffer as a nation because of our leaders’ duplicity. I wish that were not true, but it is.
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Daphne Netanyahu: The Fallacy of Moral Equivalency— Judging the morality or immorality of war according to the number of people killed is not just another passing leftist cliché meant for public consumption, but has become the ultimate litmus test for determining the morality of political and military events and actions. The larger the number of casualties on one side, the greater that party’s morality. This is true no matter what the intention of each side was. All that matters, it seems, is the result. This simplistic test, adopted all over the world but especially in the case of Israel, is very convenient for putting Israel in the dock.
Robert Spencer: Islamic State urges Muslims to attack Times Square with pipe bombs— To the Lone Wolves in America: How to Make a Bomb in Your Kitchen, to Create Scenes of Horror in Tourist Spots and Other Targets.” Why would they want to “create scenes of horror”? Could it have anything to do with the Qur’an’s command to “strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah (8:60)? “ISIS supporters urged to attack Times Square with pipe bombs,” by Bruce Golding and Erin Calabrese, New York Post, September 16, 2014: Supporters of the Islamic State terror group are being urged to attack Times Square and other popular American tourist attractions with easily assembled homemade bombs, according to a disturbing report Tuesday.
Michael Doran: What Now for the United States?— No one explains the durability of the status quo in Israeli-Palestinian relations as well as Elliott Abrams. “What Now for Israel?” demonstrates why, despite the strong will of the United States and Europe to broker a two-state solution, a formal peace remains out of reach. Forty-seven years after the Six-Day war, it’s time to conclude that, in the Middle East, there is nothing more permanent than a temporary arrangement. While Abrams focuses almost exclusively on Israeli perceptions, including Israeli perceptions of the American role, his analysis demands that we also ask and try to answer the question, “What Now for the United States?” Before anything else, American leaders need to repudiate, once and for all, what Abrams calls the “epicenter” theory: that is, the notion that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the central strategic question in the Middle East. While no American president has embraced this theory in any formal sense, almost every president since Jimmy Carter—and every secretary of state since Cyrus Vance—has taken it as axiomatic that to formulate a Middle East policy means initiating and presiding over a “peace process.” We can now see that peace in this sense—that is, an allegedly final agreement, however tenuous, sealed with a handshake on the White House lawn—will be unattainable for the remainder of the Obama administration and probably much, much longer.
David Rubin: The Islamic Ghost that haunts Obama— We are all influenced by our backgrounds. With the 2008 election of Barack Obama, who has fundamentally attempted to change America’s orientation in the world, thereby impacting Israel in very negative ways, I began to explore my relationship with the USA as one who was born and raised there. I fully identify as an Israeli – I married in Israel, my children were all born in Israel, my message is fundamentally a message of Israel’s mission, and my work is totally focused on building Israel’s biblical heartland through the children of Israel. Furthermore, when I travel and speak to groups across the United States, Canada, and elsewhere, I am doing so as an Israeli, even though I may have insights into American realities that most Israeli natives probably don’t possess. Nonetheless, I still identify as an American as well, a fact of which I am proud and which I have integrated into my worldview as an Israeli. We are a product of where we come from, in addition to our essence, and in addition to the many influences that we absorb along the way. I am sure that on that sociological point President Obama and I would agree, based as well on his experience living briefly in Hawaii and/or Kenya, and Indonesia and growing up as a (possibly non-practicing) Muslim – or at least being registered as a Muslim attending school in Indonesia before moving to America and later undergoing an interesting religious transformation in a particularly controversial church.
Connie Cass: Al-Qaida’s heirs thrive in Mideast, Africa chaos— Osama bin Laden is dead and al-Qaida dispersed, yet the horrors keep coming. Western hostages beheaded on camera. School girls abducted by gunmen in the night. Families fleeing their homes in fear they might be killed because of their religion. The news from much of the Middle East and Africa is relentlessly brutal. The Islamic State group’s rampage through Iraq and Syria has shocked the United States into launching expanded air strikes at a time when Americans were expecting to pull back from the Middle East after more than a decade of war. Meanwhile, like-minded militants are gunning people down and blowing them up on a smaller scale in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Nigeria, Somalia and beyond.
Rabbi Benjamin Blech: Jews Don’t Say Happy New Year— Ever notice that Jews don’t traditionally wish each other “happy new year”? Instead we say the Hebrew phrase “shanah tovah” which — in spite of the mistaken translation that appears on almost all greeting cards — has no connection at all to the expression “have a happy new year.” Shanah tovah conveys the hope for a good year rather than a happy one. And the reason for that distinction contains great significance. This past January, the Atlantic Monthly had a fascinating article titled There’s More to Life than Being Happy. The author, Emily Esfahani Smith, points out how researchers are beginning to caution against the pursuit of mere happiness. They found that a meaningful life and a happy life overlap in certain ways, but are ultimately very different. Leading a happy life, the psychologists found, is associated with being a “taker” while leading a meaningful life corresponds with being a “giver.”
Sonja Sharp: The Road to the New Jerusalem, Part 2—Earlier this summer, my brother-and-sister-in-law made aliyah. To say the timing was poor would be a dramatic understatement. Objectively, the timing was terrible. Granted, there’s never a very good time to move to Israel, or go there even: The same way an observant Jew might mark time by the holidays (he was born around Purim, she was married by Hanukkah-time), a visitor to the Holyland generally recalls his stay by the conflict that was raging then (I was on Birthright during the Gaza pullout; on our last visit they were drilling for possible gas attacks from Syria). This time there are rocket attacks. In the absence of a more rational option, we download an app that alerts us to let us know when they are. The weekend after Ari and Sarah moved, my husband and my youngest brother-in-law and I took the bus to Hartford, Conn., to visit my aunt and uncle and two of my cousins and to spend a long weekend in their pool, where all seven of us were early Friday afternoon—already Shabbat in Israel—when all seven of our phones began alarming in unison, wailing this mournful, urgent sound.
Seth Frantzman: The Hypocrisy of the 8200 Affair— “The dissenters are citizen heroes,” exclaimed former Knesset Speaker and former Jewish Agency head Avraham Burg. “One would have expected the military establishment to respond to this claim by committing to look into it and fix what needs fixing,” explained popular columnist Nahum Bernea in Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s largest daily newspaper. “The occupation corrupts,” he claimed. “The Israeli policy is a disaster.” What sparked this opprobrium was the decision by 43 army reservists of the elite intelligence collecting unit 8200 to send a public letter to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying they refused to continue performing reserve duty because they felt the work was immoral.
Center for Security Policy: Why is US Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO) Banquet Featuring Congressional Members Still Secret?— As the United States remembers the 13th anniversary of 11 September 2001 and President Barack Obama deliberates a strategy to manage terror threats from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the United States Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO) and Secretary General Ousama Jammal have not published any audio, video, or transcripts from their inaugural banquet held at the Hilton Crystal City Hotel in June 2014. Two current members of Congress, U.S. Representatives Keith Ellison (Democrat, Minnesota’s 5th District) and André Carson (Democrat, Indiana’s 7th District), spoke at the first U.S. Muslim Brotherhood political party’s event in the Washington, DC area. Not even the respective congressional offices have publicly made available or advertised the remarks of Ellison and Carson at this high level Muslim Brotherhood function during a time when the Obama administration’s foreign policy with Muslim Brotherhood leadership in Egypt and surrounding region is marked by repeated failures.
Jennifer Moses: Dear Fellow Liberals: I’m Done Apologizing for Israel— Some years ago, I was seated at dinner next to a British law professor, whom my husband, also a law professor, had invited to a conference that he’d organized. The conversation soon turned, as conversation often does among professional intellectuals, to Israel, specifically to the then-recent conflict between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian fighters in the West Bank town of Jenin, which my dinner partner (and much of the European press) referred to as the “massacre of Jenin.” Oops—forgot about it already? Here’s a refresher: in 2002, the IDF went into Jenin during the Second Intifada, after Israel determined that the town served as a launching pad for missile and rocket attacks against Israeli civilians. The 10-day operation claimed the lives of around 50 Palestinian gunmen, and 23 Israeli soldiers. My acquaintance, after repeating Palestinian claims of atrocities committed by Israeli forces—claims that had already been roundly debunked—capped off his assessment by saying, “What happened in Jenin was no more and no less than another Holocaust.” Really? As a liberal American Jew, I’m tired of apologizing for Israel’s actions regarding its own security, and as of last month, I’m done with it. I’m done for the following two reasons: my eldest child, Sam, motivated by a desire to do something more meaningful than argue about religion, policy and politics, is currently serving as a lone soldier in the IDF, and he spent much of July in Gaza, as part of a team dismantling terror tunnels.
SnyderTalk Comment: All I can say is better late than never. Why does it take a personal encounter to wake some people up? Why can’t they see past the ends of their noses before they admit reality? Jewish people are very smart. Use your brains.
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Kerry says Iran has role to play in global campaign against Islamic State
Iran moving to comply with extended nuclear deal with powers, UN watchdog says
US House unanimously condemns swell of anti-Semitism in Europe, Middle East
US, Canada send jets to intercept Russian aircraft
Nationalists push for Irish unity vote after ‘inspiring’ Scottish referendum
Egyptian pleads guilty ahead of trial over US embassy bombings
Turkish hostages taken by Islamic State released
Part of White House evacuated; Obama not present
Al Jazeera countersues Al Gore over $65 million
Syria militants kill captive Lebanese soldier, bomb kills two
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France to Turn to UN with Solution to Israel-PA Conflict
The folly of taking Islam out of ISIS
Hamas Accuses Fatah of Splitting Unity Government
Sinai Jihadists Behead Alleged ‘Israeli Spy’
Senate Declares Israel a ‘Major Strategic Partner’
South Africa’s President Promises to Fight Anti-Semitism
IAEA: Iran Meeting its Commitments in Interim Deal
Netanyahu Offers Interior Minister’s Post to Erdan
Scotland’s Leader Steps Down Following Referendum
2 Suspects in ‘Messianic Cult’ Affair to House Arrest
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Israel envoy: Nuclear Iran ‘a thousand times’ more dangerous than Islamic State
Iran’s ‘Happy’ video makers get suspended jail time, lashes
Iran, powers brace for ‘very tough’ nuclear talks
Poll: Israelis care more about peace process and EU than Iran
Israel’s oil wars shift to the Golan Heights
Jews call for government action in Bolivia after attacks
Israel fortifying northern border, Lebanese report
For Netanyahu, another enemy at the gates
Islamic State threatens ancient sites in Iraq, Syria
Latest hostage video shows IS ‘fears isolation and attack’
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New York man accused of supporting ISIS Militants
UK’s price for keeping Scotland: More autonomy
First French airstrikes in Iraq hit ISIL depot
Syrian Kurds fleeing Islamic State cross border into Turkey
Australia hyping homeland fight against ISIS?
Modi Says Al-Qaeda’s Push to Woo India’s Muslims Will Fail
Top Saudi clerics issue edict against terrorism
Interior minister stuns political arena by resigning
Kerry: Anti-Islamic State effort must ‘begin to put real Islam out there’
SnyderTalk Comment: John Kerry is an idiot.
Watch: ISIS Terrorist ‘Tough Guys’ are Reduced to Tears & Whimpers After Being Captured
SnyderTalk Comment: That’s typical of bullies and tyrants. When they fear that they might suffer the same fate that they inflict on others, they cry like babies.
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Email Distribution List:
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Genesis 30: 25-36
25 Now it came about when Rachel had borne Joseph, that Jacob said to Laban, “Send me away, that I may go to my own place and to my own country. 26 Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you, and let me depart; for you yourself know my service which I have rendered you.” 27 But Laban said to him, “If now it pleases you, stay with me; I have divined that Yahweh has blessed me on your account.” 28 He continued, “Name me your wages, and I will give it.” 29 But he said to him, “You yourself know how I have served you and how your cattle have fared with me. 30 For you had little before I came and it has increased to a multitude, and Yahweh has blessed you wherever I turned. But now, when shall I provide for my own household also?” 31 So he said, “What shall I give you?” And Jacob said, “You shall not give me anything. If you will do this one thing for me, I will again pasture and keep your flock: 32 let me pass through your entire flock today, removing from there every speckled and spotted sheep and every black one among the lambs and the spotted and speckled among the goats; and such shall be my wages. 33 So my honesty will answer for me later, when you come concerning my wages. Every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and black among the lambs, if found with me, will be considered stolen.” 34 Laban said, “Good, let it be according to your word.” 35 So he removed on that day the striped and spotted male goats and all the speckled and spotted female goats, every one with white in it, and all the black ones among the sheep, and gave them into the care of his sons. 36 And he put a distance of three days’ journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob fed the rest of Laban’s flocks.
SnyderTalk Comment: Read His Name is Yahweh.
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His Name is Yahweh explains why the Name of God, Yahweh, is so important. It’s available in eBook format and in paperback. It’s also available for free in PDF format.
- God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘Yahweh, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ This [Yahweh] is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.” (Exodus 3: 15)
- “Therefore behold, I am going to make them know—this time I will make them know My power and My might; and they shall know that My name is Yahweh.” (Jeremiah 16: 21)
- “Behold, the days are coming,” declares Yahweh, “when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch; and He will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land. In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely; and this is His name by which He will be called, ‘Yahweh our righteousness.’” (Jeremiah 23: 5-6)
- Yeshua said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.” (John 8: 58)
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Do we all worship the same god?
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Blessings in the Book of Revelation is a book that you need to read, especially now. There are blessings throughout the Scriptures but Revelation is the only book in the Bible actually containing a specific blessing for reading it. It’s repeated twice, once at the beginning and again at the end. This is the reason that I believe Revelation should be the first step toward studying biblical prophecy. Though not easy to do, Revelation can be broken down and understood by anyone, not just the academic elite. So, Revelation’s blessings are for everyone. Click here to order the eBook. Click here to order the paperback.
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Other Books by Neil Snyder
- Stand! is a suspense novel that exposes the lies, corruption, and greed underlying the theory that man-made CO2 emissions are responsible for global warming. Professor Wes Carlyle and Karen Sterling, his research collaborator, carefully scan the audience for their would-be attacker—a member of the enviro-gestapo who has been following them for days. Wes spots his man in the back of the room leaning against the wall. Suddenly, another man in the audience steps forward and moves toward Karen at a menacing pace. With a vicious stroke, he swings a billy club at her head. Click here to order the eBook. Click here to order the paperback.
- What Will You Do with the Rest of Your Life? deals with a question that every Christian has to consider: what should I do with my life? Click here to order the eBook. Click here to order the paperback.
- Falsely Accused is a true story about a young woman who was accused of committing a double homicide. It’s about a travesty of justice, and it reveals Yahweh intervening in the life of a believer to rescue her from danger in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Everyone will enjoy the book, but young people in particular need to read it because the mistakes made that led to the problem could have been avoided. They were the kinds of mistakes that young people are prone to make. As they say, forewarned is forearmed. Click here to order the eBook. Click here to order the paperback.
