“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)
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There are Palestinians and Then There are Palestinians
A few months ago, an article in The New Yorker by Ruth Margalit titled “An Exile in the Corn Belt” caught my eye. It’s about an Israeli Arab named Sayed Kashua. He’s a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship. His hardships and successes in Israel are enlightening.
Kashua is a Palestinian that I would like if I knew him personally. I’ve met several Palestinians like him in Israel over the years. I’ve learned a great deal from them, but they are the minority.
For example, across the street from the Damascus Gate to the Old City of Jerusalem is a Palestinian Arab neighborhood. There are sites in the area that I enjoy visiting. I used to go there often, but not anymore.
The last time I went there, I was with my wife, Katie. As quickly as we crossed the street, we were followed. Katie was behind me. One of the men behind her attempted to break into her backpack. She felt it move and told me about it. We solved the problem by letting her walk in front of me.
That was before knife attacks were in vogue. We don’t go there anymore.
When I first started exploring Israel about 20 years ago, the Palestinians I met were routinely friendly toward me and toward Israel, or at least they appeared to be. As the years went by, they became increasingly antagonistic toward Israel. Today, it’s not uncommon for Palestinians to tell me, a perfect stranger to most of them, that the destruction of Israel is a high priority for them.
What has changed?
The big change occurred in 1993 with the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords. Since the day the deal was signed, things have been going downhill. This is what Yasser Arafat said to his supporters back home after he signed the deal:
“Since we cannot defeat Israel in war we do this in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel.” (Yasser Arafat speaking on Jordanian television, September 13, 1993—the same day the Oslo Peace Accord ceremony was held in Washington D.C.)
That sums up what I have witnessed, but Arafat didn’t start his quest in 1993. The PLO that he created in the 1960s has been working toward the destruction of Israel all along. This is what Arafat said in Venezuela in 1980:
“Peace for us means the destruction of Israel. We are preparing for an all-out war, a war which will last for generations. Since January 1965, when Fatah was born, we have become the most dangerous enemy that Israel has….We shall not rest until the day when we return to our home, and until we destroy Israel.” (El Mundo, Caracas, Venezuela, February 11, 1980)
The process that culminated with the Oslo Accords was initiated by George H.W. Bush while he was president. Bill Clinton shepherded things along and signed the deal. George W. Bush pushed the Accords while he was president, but not as aggressively as his father or Clinton. That said, W is responsible for Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 and the emergence of Hamas in Gaza. That “peace overture” has been a colossal failure.
A couple of articles in today’s SnyderTalk shed light on the problem. For instance, see “Palestinians: Is Abbas Losing Control?”
It shows how out-of-control the situation is in Gaza and the West Bank. Internal political turmoil spills over into Israel proper every time Palestinian leaders (be they Hamas or Fatah) feel threatened. It’s by design.
Why?
The way to rally the troops in the Palestinian community is to incite violence against Israel and to call for jihad. We are in an accelerated phase of that incitement now with stabbings and car ramming attacks. Palestinian leaders feel threatened politically right now and their fundraising efforts are down.
Nothing raises more money for Palestinian causes and strengthens political support for current leaders than suicide attacks against innocent Israelis.
Few Israelis have been killed, but each time one of them dies, there is dancing in the streets of Palestinian communities in the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel. They rejoice in cold-blooded murder. Those aren’t peace gestures.
And what about this one: “‘Procedural Ruse’ Enables Palestinian Authority to Continue Funneling Foreign Funds to Terrorists”.
Foreign donors pour money into Palestinian coffers thinking that they are doing something positive for humanity. A huge portion of those funds is siphoned off and goes into the pockets of Palestinian leaders. They are filthy rich. Another large percentage of those funds is used to pay the families of terrorists who have murdered Israeli citizens. That’s not a peace gesture, either.
Do those examples support the narrative of so-called “peace loving Palestinians” and their apologists in the West? Obviously not. They support what leaders in Hamas and Fatah and the charters of both groups say explicitly.
Their goal is to annihilate Israel. They do it one step at a time just like Yasser Arafat said, and they do it with funds raised from ignorant donors and naïve political leaders in countries like the United States.
This is my point: there are Palestinians and then there are Palestinians. For every one Sayed Kashua, there must be a hundred others in the Israeli Arab (Palestinian) community who want nothing more than to destroy Israel. They have been raised to hate Jews and Israel. It’s a part of their culture.
My heart goes out to Sayed Kashua and people like him, but he is the exception, not the rule. The New Yorker article that I mentioned at the beginning of this editorial didn’t make that point.
It should have. Not mentioning it is disingenuous at best. It’s a heart wrenching story, but it’s not accurate and it’s not good journalism.
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His Name is Yahweh, the website, is a companion of the book His Name is Yahweh. Both of them explain the importance of God’s Name.
The website is loaded with factual information that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Yahweh is our Savior and that the Messiah is Yahweh.
I hope you will take a few minutes and explore the website. I also hope you will share it with your friends and family.
It’s time for believers to tell the world about our God by His Name—Yahweh.
To see videos that explain the importance of Yahweh’s Name, click here.
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Earl Cox—Hatred of Israel Has Become a Religion: In his celebrated, but tardy, prime time television announcement, President Obama told the world that America is on the right side of history. Wrong, Mr. President. We are living in the wake of terror in America and fearful of more to come. The population is now living in a state of concern when going to a shopping mall, convention center or sports arena – any place where there is a large public gathering. Welcome to the world in which Israelis have been living for decades. The terror which Israelis confront on a daily basis will soon be mirrored on American streets. The proverbial handwriting is on the wall. Those who shout “Death to Israel and Death to America” mean exactly what they say.
SnyderTalk Comment: Who are the people shouting “Death to Israel and Death to America”? Dare I say it?
Why not? They are Muslims, or more precisely, they are Islamists who are Muslims.
Actually, Islamists are the only real Muslims. That statement is offensive to some, too. I can’t help that.
It’s not politically correct to tell the truth about Islam. I can’t help that, either.
Yes, Islamists mean what they say, and yes, they are doing everything they can to bring about the result they chant about. Pretending it isn’t so won’t change a thing.
Like truth, reality is what it is. Some people can see it. Others can’t.
In the end, reality will affect us all—those who see it and those who don’t. Thankfully, those who see it have a better chance of being prepared.
Those who can’t see it and won’t listen to those who can see it are cruising toward catastrophe.
Elliott Abrams—Our New Ally Iran: This photo [the photo is in the article] tells us a great deal about American foreign policy today. Human Rights Watch, not known as a right-wing group, has noted that it appears to violate international agreements prohibiting the use of photos or videos of military detainees for propaganda purposes. Moreover, the entry into Iranian waters (if that happened) by a boat that had lost its engines is obviously “innocent passage” under international law. Nevertheless, Secretary of State Kerry offered effusive praise of Iran. The new relationship with Iran is at the top of his agenda. The old-think concept of “allies” is out. Consider this from the AP.
Robert Spencer—Iran: ‘We Welcome War with the United States’: John Kerry said Monday that “the world is safer today” because of the Iran nuclear deal. Details of how loud and long the mullahs laughed have not been released. In reality, the world is more threatened than ever by an aggressive and assertive Iran, confident and swaggering after besting Kerry at the negotiating table. As the International Atomic Energy Agency certified Iran’s compliance with the stipulations of the nuclear deal and the U.S. and EU ended sanctions against the Islamic Republic, the head of Iran’s armed forces, Major General Hassan Firouzabadi, was not in a conciliatory mood. After Iran seized two U.S. Navy boats and briefly held ten American sailors hostage, Firouzabadi declared: “This incident in the Persian Gulf, which probably will not be the American forces’ last mistake in the region, should be a lesson to troublemakers in the U.S. Congress.”
SnyderTalk Comment: Iran is not our ally. They are our enemy. We know that because they keep telling us. We ignore them at our peril.
The troublemakers are in the Obama administration. The president has friends in Congress, but they are in the minority.
There is a reality. Obama and his people don’t see it. They live in a make-believe world that doesn’t exist.
Daria Schitrit, Einav Yogev, and Yoram Schweitzer—Suicide Attacks in 2015: Over the past two decades, suicide attacks have become a prominent weapon in the arsenal of terrorist organizations in general, and Salafi jihadist organizations in particular. With rare exceptions, the suicide attacks that took place in 2015 were committed by terrorist organizations associated with radical Islam. Although suicide attacks constitute only a relatively small proportion of terrorist organizations’ operations, the number of these attacks, as well as their geographic distribution, has grown over the years. Once again Israel was not a prominent target for suicide attacks in 2015. Most of the terrorist attacks against Israelis were knifings, car rammings, and gangs bearing firearms. The few isolated attempts to carry out suicide attacks were foiled. However, Salafi groups affiliated with the Islamic State or with al-Qaeda have made explicit threats to carry out terrorist attacks against Israel – including suicide attacks within its borders and throughout the world.
SnyderTalk Comment: The people engaged in suicide attacks are not “ordinary peaceful Muslims”. They are real Muslims.
Tsvi Sadan—Europe’s ‘Non-Violent’ Campaign Against Israel: The European Union’s relentless pressure on Israel to comply with conditions it believes would bring peace amounts to a “non-violent” campaign against the Jewish state. If in the end Israel capitulates to the EU’s terms, the peace enforced upon her would be of the kind Field Marshal Archibald Wavell predicted for post-WWI Europe. Forcing Germany to sign the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, Wavell famously stated, would be a “peace to end peace.”
Times of Israel—Merkel opens Holocaust art expo with anti-Semitism warning: German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday opened a major exhibition featuring works by Jewish concentration camp prisoners, as she pledged to combat a feared rise in anti-Semitism in Germany linked to a record influx of refugees. The show, “Art from the Holocaust”, brings together 100 works on loan from Israel’s Yad Vashem memorial by 50 artists created in secret between 1939 and 1945 while they were confined to the camps or ghettos. Twenty-four of the artists did not survive the Nazi period, even as their works endured.
Denis MacEoin—The Spreading Scent of Cologne: The city of Cologne, still famous for its scented water, has become, since last New Year’s Eve, best known for the depredations and misogyny of a growing population of immigrants from North Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere. The events of that evening, when hundreds of women were assaulted, manhandled, and even raped by thousands of migrant newcomers who could not be restrained by the police, spread across the world in days if not hours. At first, the police played down the seriousness of the incidents, but by January 10th, the BBC reported that the number of criminal cases had risen to 516, forty percent of which were related to sexual assault.
Yoram Ettinger—Land for peace in the Middle East?: U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, echoes the Obama administration’s pressure on Israel to retreat to the 1949 armistice lines: an 8-15 mile sliver along the Mediterranean, towered over by the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria. Thus, the administration — unlike the American people and Congress — ignores the centrality of Judea and Samaria to Jewish history, religion, culture and nationalism, and provides another victory to wishful thinking over the 1,400-year-old reality of inherent Middle East/Arab violence, unpredictability, tyranny, doublespeak and hate education. If Israel would have caved under U.S. pressure to retreat from the Golan Heights — a site of Jewish battles against the Roman Empire — the Islamic State group and other terrorists would be there, overlooking the Sea of Galilee, traumatizing northern Israel and beyond.
Khaled Abu Toameh—Palestinians: Is Abbas Losing Control?: If Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas loses control of his Fatah faction, who gets to comfort him? Could it be his erstwhile rivals in Hamas? Abbas has been facing increasing criticism in the past weeks from senior Fatah officials in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It seems that they have tired of his autocratic-style rule. Some of them, including Jibril Rajoub and Tawfik Tirawi, have even come out in public against the PA president, demanding that he share power enough at least to appoint a deputy president. Fatah seems to be in even worse shape in the Gaza Strip. Fatah leaders and activists there have accused Abbas of “marginalizing” the faction, and are making unmistakable break-away noises.
Algemeiner—‘Procedural Ruse’ Enables Palestinian Authority to Continue Funneling Foreign Funds to Terrorists: Foreign donors to the Palestinian Authority should not be misled by a “procedural ruse” enabling the continuation of massive funding to terrorists and their families, Israel’s deputy foreign minister said on Sunday. In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Tzipi Hotovely wrote that due to embarrassment caused by a budgetary report compiled by Israel’s Foreign Ministry in June 2014 – revealing that the PA’s annual payments to terrorists amounted to $75 million, which was 16% of the yearly sum received by foreign donors – the PA altered the way it was doling out the cash to the killers of Israelis.
SnyderTalk Comment: People who give money to Hamas or Fatah are contributing to people whose sole reason for being is to keep Yahweh from fulfilling His promises. That puts them in the same boat with Yahweh’s sworn enemies. That’s not a good place to be.
Times of Israel— How an Israeli opened Slovakia’s doors for Iraqi Christian refugees: It was an emotional press conference at the Kosice, Slovakia, landing field after 149 Iraqi Christian refugees disembarked on December 10 to start their new lives as strangers in a strange land. In front of international media, their spiritual leader, Father Douglas Al-Bazi, named the behind-the-scenes heroes in the rescue mission. And then he borrowed from a classical Jewish rabbinic text, the Mishnah. He thanked Aron Shaviv and his associate Michal Repa, saying, “There would be no evacuation and resettlement without your ability to open the doors for us. Please consider us as your life-long friends and family. We know that you understand, ‘When you save a life, you save all of humanity.’ Thank you for helping save so many.”
Steve Apfel— Is left wing the good side?: David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker, is a marker of how left wing intellectuals think. To get your opinion published in Remnick’s highbrow journal you have to belong to the community of good. You have to be Left or your position is not enlightened. The Left is for progress. Left is for good, Right is for bad. If it had one position statement would the Left not plump for such an amalgam? Attend to Remnick effectively saying it would — and what subject could have upset the editor more than Israel. And the Right – does it concede blameworthiness? The Right is none too comfortable in its skin. We see that when thought leaders make a case to prove they’re not really on the Right – not too far anyway. Attend to Alex Safian PhD protesting on behalf of Likud and the Israeli electorate.
Michael Barone: Americans Tired of Elites Considering Them Stupid and Vicious: How stupid and vicious do they think we are? That’s a question that I think explains a lot of things about politics and society today — and about this year’s unpredicted presidential race. The “us” in that question are ordinary citizens and the “they” are political and media elites who hold them in contempt — which they do over and over again by trying to obfuscate and cover up the source and motives of terrorist attacks. Barack Obama, who refuses to use phrases akin to “Islamist terrorism” is a prime, but far from the only, offender. His predecessor, George W. Bush, after the attacks of Sept. 11 made a point of visiting mosques and calling Islam a religion of peace.
Washington Post: Hillary’s email excuses are falling apart: Hillary Clinton went into damage-control mode when news broke that the inspector general of the intelligence agencies had identified additional classified emails on her private server, including ones containing intelligence on covert “Special Access Programs.” Her campaign even accused the inspector general — an Obama appointee confirmed by a Democratic-controlled Senate — of engaging in a “coordinated leak” with Republicans “for the purposes of hurting her campaign.” Lash out as she might, Clinton’s constantly changing email story is rapidly falling apart.
Washington Post— Denmark passes controversial bill to seize assets and valuables from refugees: Denmark’s Parliament passed a controversial law on Tuesday that allows authorities to seize valuables and cash from refugees. The measure was part of a larger immigration bill, and its approval seemed certain after the government reached a parliamentary majority for it earlier this month. Much has been written about this small aspect of Europe’s current tendencies to oppose illegal immigration. But while the law applies strictly to Denmark, it could have consequences in other European countries in the future.
SnyderTalk Comment: Islamists packed the “refugee” pool with jihadists. They did what jihadists do when they arrived. Now there is pushback.
It’s regrettable that legitimate refugees are being painted with the same brush as fakers, but that’s what happens when government officials fail to do their job.
Not vetting the refugees properly was a gargantuan mistake. The same kind of thing will happen in the U.S. if we experience the problems that have plagued Europe.
Washington Post—These two articles are interesting: “The last time a pope shook hands with an Iranian leader” and “Italy covers up nude marble statues for Iranian president’s visit”.
SnyderTalk Comment: The pope is a busy man. If he had a wife, most likely she would have worn a veil.
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SnyderTalk Comment: “Ordinary peaceful Muslims” aren’t real Muslims.
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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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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.
“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” (John 17: 22-24)
See “His Name is Yahweh”.
