Displaying items by tag: Palestine

Friday, 02 June 2023 13:09

Palestine: Mission mindset of the Church

2% of Palestinians are Christian, outnumbered and persecuted by their Muslim neighbours, facing marginalisation outside their Palestinian community under occupation. Yet Palestine is a top missionary-sending country, sending out roughly 3,400 missionaries per one million Christians. Jack Sara of Bethlehem Bible College says, ‘Palestinian Christians are very proud of their faith and will share it wherever they are. The situation with occupation and difficulty suffering certainly has made them resilient. This commitment to missions reveals the Gospel heart cultivated in the Palestinian Church and serves as a challenge and encouragement to other believers. The global Church would do a good thing to provide a platform for Palestinian Christians to speak, to come and share experiences and lessons learned from living the Gospel in such hard circumstances. These hard circumstances qualify Palestinian missionaries to connect with people in other countries where life is difficult and offer them the Living Hope of Jesus Christ.’

Published in Worldwide

Settlement expansion is not the only reason why a dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis is almost impossible. The USA, which sponsored talks in the past, has other preoccupations. It is much more concerned with its rivalry with China and the war in Ukraine. The Palestinian political leadership is deeply divided between Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank. They are not capable, as things stand, of making or delivering any sort of deal. The Palestinian Authority is barely capable of exercising its own limited powers. Israel is deep in its own internal political crisis about the nature of its own democracy. Peace between Palestinians and Israelis is as far away as ever. Neither side trusts the other. This year a serious upsurge in violence and death is a serious warning of even worse trouble ahead. Everyone here knows the risks they are running, but there is no realistic plan to head off the deadly trouble that lies ahead.

Published in Worldwide
Friday, 12 August 2022 10:30

Israel: IDF targets Islamic Jihad

Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) is backed by Iran, and its headquarters are in Syria. From 5 to 7 August it fired 600 rockets and mortars into Israel. Israel retaliated with jets, drones, helicopters, tanks, artillery and elite commando units against PIJ military bases, weapon production sites, rocket launching sites, and observation posts. Two PIJ cells were hit, killing twelve operatives and several civilians. Israeli military called this operation Breaking Dawn and said it could last a week. At 11.30 am on 7 August a truce was called. Israel had inflicted significant losses on PIJ in those three days, including killing two senior commanders. By the 11th a further eight individuals with ties to terrorism were arrested in Gaza. PIJ was still insisting on the release of prisoners from Israeli jails, warning that their continued custody was grounds for violence to breakout again.

Published in Worldwide

The International Legal Forum has brought accusations of torture against the Palestinian Authority (PA) before the International Criminal Court, the first request of its kind, ahead of a UN report. They called for it to investigate President Mahmoud Abbas (in his 18th year in office after cancelling numerous scheduled elections) and the PA for ‘rampant, wide-spread and systematic torture’ against Palestinian and Israeli nationals. The forum’s CEO said, ‘The Palestinian Authority is yet to be held accountable under the law for committing such grave crimes as torture.’ Examples include Palestinian human rights activist Nizar Banat, who criticised the PA and died after being beaten in the custody of the security services in 2021. A trial against the officers responsible for his death has not yet concluded. Banat’s family call the trial a ‘farce’. The PA also took two mentally-ill Israelis hostage after they inadvertently crossed into Gaza, and refused to allow the International Red Cross access to them.

Published in Worldwide
Thursday, 17 February 2022 21:15

Israel: ‘jihad’ in the Gaza Strip

Iranian-backed Hamas and PIJ are the two largest groups in the Gaza Strip, but they are not trying to improve the living conditions of their people. They have brought war and destruction on the strip by firing rockets towards Israel, forcing Israel to strike back to defend itself. Instead of building schools and hospitals, the leaders have invested tens of millions of dollars in a tunnel network along the border to attack and kill Jews. Hamas and PIJ leaders don’t live in Gaza; they lead luxurious lives in Doha, Istanbul, and Beirut, and call Palestinians to pursue the fight against Israel from their gyms, jets, and jacuzzis. Some have finally realised that their leaders care only about their personal interest and the well-being of their families and are enjoying the good life. Pray for Palestinians to remove their leaders and move forward with their lives.

Published in Worldwide
Wednesday, 22 December 2021 21:08

Palestine: school of terrorism

The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) says, ‘Schoolchildren are brainwashed by Palestinian leaders and “scholars” teaching hate against Jews on a daily basis. They are assured that anyone who dies while carrying out an attack against Jews is a “martyr” whose place in heaven is guaranteed.’ IMPACT-se discovered that Palestinian leaders failed to fulfill their promise to Western donors to change the textbooks. The newly published schoolbooks, more radical than previous ones, have systematic insertions of violence, martyrdom and jihad across all grades and subjects. Extreme nationalism and Islamist ideologies are widespread through the curriculum, including science and maths textbooks. The possibility of peace with Israel is rejected. One Arabic book has a story describing Molotov cocktails igniting an Israeli bus to burn Jewish passengers alive. This is described as a ‘barbecue party.’

Published in Worldwide
Thursday, 16 September 2021 21:14

Palestine: campaign against political corruption

Deterioration of democratic policies in the Palestinian leadership has caused a coalition of nongovernmental organisations to call it ‘political corruption.’ For years this coalition, named AMAN, focused on administrative and financial corruption. Now the eroding integrity of the Palestinian leadership has forced Transparency International to tackle a corrupt political system that among other things cancelled a long-overdue national election and ordered its security forces to harm a Hebron critic, that led to his death. They have also violently cracked down on demonstrations calling for accountability. An AMAN manifesto recently called Palestinians to reject the anti-democratic slippery slope and ‘fight this political corruption by creating a coalition that can contribute toward a more honest governance structure.’ If the current political corruption is not checked, Palestine will move into a dangerous zone.

Published in Worldwide
Friday, 09 July 2021 09:48

Palestinian human rights violations

The USA is resuming unconditional financial aid to the Palestinians without any stipulation that the PA end human rights violations and assaults on public freedoms. Lawyers for Justice said that the forms of torture in the PA-controlled Jericho Prison included hanging detainees from the ceilings, beatings, verbal abuse and electric shocks. ‘The Future List calls on all electoral lists approved by the Central Elections Committee, all human rights bodies and all honourable people of this country to form a united front to confront the arbitrary political arrests that aim to silence every free voice that rises in the face of tyranny and corruption practiced by the Palestinian Authority.’ It appears the diplomats care little that the PA is arresting, torturing and intimidating social media users and political activists. Western journalists loudly raise their voices when damning Israel. International silence and absolute support for the PA encourages Palestinian leadership to continue their repression.

Published in Worldwide
Friday, 18 June 2021 05:27

Israel: Elections / Ceasefire under threat

Psalm 122:6 tells us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem.  Currently Israel is undergoing significant upheaval whilst still facing threats from Palestinians in Gaza. 

Having seen 11 days of relative peace following a ceasefire agreed between Israeli and Palestinian forces, the Israeli military confirmed an aircraft attack in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday 16th June, retaliating against incendiary balloons deployed by Hamas.

The attack comes barely two days after the ousting of Israel's former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The attack reportedly targeted Hamas armed compounds in response to incendiary balloons that were deployed from the area. The balloons caused 10 fires in fields of southern Israel, Reuters reported.

IPC June 07bAn unwieldy coalition calling itself “Change” has removed Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, after his most recent 12-year run. The eight-party coalition ranges from ultra-right religious nationalists to the secular hard-right, through the centre-right and residue of Israel’s left, to ally for the first time with an Arab Islamist party.

The new government will be led initially by Naftali Bennett, a champion of Jewish settlement. He is opposed to any Palestinian state and wants to annex most of the occupied West Bank and stands to the right of Netanyahu.

Yair Lapid, a former TV anchor and voice of liberal secular Israelis, whose party came second to Netanyahu’s Likud, is supposed to take over from Bennett as premier in 2023 and has provided what glue the coalition has.

Netanyahu’s removal from office has been met with dismay by some evangelical Christian groups whilst others have reaffirmed their support for Israel and a desire to stay out of day-to-day politics. 

Meanwhile, Netanyahu continues to challenge the legitimacy a the newly formed Israeli coalition, calling it the result of “the greatest election fraud” in the history of democracy.

Pray: that His peace may reign over the land of Israel (Psalm 122:6)
Pray: for Naftali Bennett as the new leader of the Israeli Government.  Pray@ that God will Provide him and the Government with the knowledge needed during these most difficult of times.
Pray: that the ceasefire may endure and that a peaceful resolution to this complex conflict may still be found.

Sources / More: The Financial Times, USA Today,

Thursday, 20 May 2021 21:47

Pro-Palestinian protests turn anti-Semitic

Pro-Palestinian demonstrations across Europe have descended into orgies of anti-Semitism by anarchists, hard-left anti-Israel activists, and immigrants from Muslim countries, chanting 'Allahu Akbar'. All are opposed to Israeli action in Gaza and call for the destruction of Israel and death to Jews. This anti-Semitism is a testament to the failure of European multiculturalism which is making Jewish life in Europe increasingly unviable. On 13 May 3,500+ protesters marched across Berlin with anti-Semitic banners calling for total elimination of Israel and many similar sentiments while chanting ‘Bomb Tel Aviv!’ 1,000 police broke up the demonstrations. 93 officers were injured. Bild newspaper stated, ‘Open, disgusting hatred of Jews and Israel is also hatred of our free, tolerant democracy’. 200 highly aggressive people brandishing Palestinian and Turkish flags and shouting anti-Semitic slurs were removed from outside a synagogue in Gelsenkirchen.

Published in Europe
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