Evangelical Christians, Jews and Israel Conference-January 18th

Nadene Goldfoot                                                    

David Suissa of Los Angeles's Jewish Journal
an advertising executive, is a weekly columnist for the Jewish Journal, founder of OLAM magazine and Meals4Israel.com.

              Exciting January 18 conference on Israel in LA

November 19, 2015 from Gerald McDermott

Top scholars will gather in Los Angeles on January 18 to discuss the growing threat to Israel and how Christians can respond.

The conference title is “Evangelical Christians, Jews and Israel: Looming Threats To An Historic Friendship.”

It features leading scholars from Israel: 

1,2, (Malcolm Lowe and Reverend Petra Heldt-Pastor, husband and wife );  

3. Leader of the Aramaic community in Israel (Shadi Khalloul, of the Aramaic Maronite Church); 

4. (Brad H. Young- Professor of Biblical Literature in Judeao Christian Studies at the Graduate Department of Oral Roberts University.   He is also founder and President of the Gospel Research Foundation, Inc);    the author of Jesus the Jewish Theologian 

5.  Expert on anti-Judaism in the Church (Tricia Miller), 

6.  (David Suissa) writer in Jewish Journal, the President of Tribe Media Corp. which provides excellent journalism for people who want to strengthen their communities and their world  and the Jewish Journal, which is part of it -"TRIBE magazine" is part of Tribe Media Corp., publishers of America’s largest Jewish news Web site, jewishjournal.com, and the award-winning weekly, The Jewish Journal. "We are not affiliated with any organization or spiritual movement; our only agenda is to bring you meaningful content with a purpose and speakers" 

7. Gerald R. McDermott, author, "Evangelicals Divided", Anglican Chair of Divinity, History and Doctrine
Link:  cameraca.eventbrite.com   Read more about the conference and register for it  if interested.

First, don't people realize that "Palestinians didn't come into being until sometime after 1948  and that in the preceding years between 1880-1948,  they called themselves Syrian Arabs or Syrian Palestinians?

The term Palestine wasn't used until 135  after the Romans had fought  since 132 against the Jewish General Bar Kokhba and his soldiers to regain Israel?  They were so mad about it that they used this term since it connected to the Jewish enemy of long standing-the Phoenecians. 

Islam didn't come about till the time of Mohammad who was born in 570 and died in 632. 

Jesus of the Christian narrative would have been a Jew of the tribe of Judah, not an Arab nor a Palestinian Arab.  We've got to keep the historic facts out there in the face of  the public and not allow these fairy tales to keep on going. 

I hope everyone has read Joan Peters book, From Time Immemorial-the origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine.  Joan is a Christian reporter who started to write in favor of the Palestinian Arabs, but after getting into her research, realized she had been wrong, and started to delve deeply into original papers for information. She has made anti-Israeli writers like Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein jealous with envy at her findings since she contradicts theirs.  

Update: 12/15/15/, 1:54pm 
Resource:  http://www.patheos.com/blogs/northamptonseminar/2015/11/19/exciting-january-18-conference-on-israel-in-la/
http://www.jewishjournal.com/about/author/508
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/author/Malcolm+Lowe
http://honestreporting.com/mission-rev-petra-heldt/-teaches Judaism and Christianity in Israel
http://www.idealist.org/view/org/DcBH8zCD7jjd/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_McDermott

Judea-Samaria Areas A, B, C: Who Lives There and Future

                                                           
Nadene Goldfoot
The Oslo Accords were signed in 1993 and the Judea-Samaria region was divided into areas A, B, and C.  Israel has full control of Area C where most of over 340,000 Jewish residents live.

Area A was assigned to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Assad became Chairman who took over from Yassar Arafat of the PLO terrorists.  Most of the Arabs live in this area.  Area B is under joint control and has large tracts of barren land.  

A conference scheduled for today, the third annual one,  is discussing whether area C should have Israel sovereignty and annex it.  Others feel the whole area should be annexed.  The sub title of the conference  is "From the Edmond Levy Sovereignty" organized by Women for Israel's Tomorrow, known as the "Women in Green."

The Arab population is not known exactly, but a close estimate is 1.5 million.  It's been hard getting accurate statistics because of the habit of Arab demographics in the past being artificially inflated by both  the British and the Palestinians.

Judah was the Jewish state formed out of the division of Israel after the death of King Solomon.  Rehoboam, Solomon's son by  his Ammonite wife Naamah,  was the first king (933-917 BCE). The state had 20 kings with the last being Zedekiah (597-586).

 Israel, the nation created by King David, has been later called Samaria since  Samaria was the capital of Israel, consisting of 25 acres, founded in 880 BCE by King Omri (887-876 BCE) , the 6th King after King Jeroboam (933-912 BCE) on a hill bought from Shemer.    Samaria withstood the siege of the Syrians but fell in 721 BCE to Sargon II of Assyria who carried off 10 of the 12 Israelite Tribes and then  resettled it with Cutheans (idolaters) who intermingled with the rest of the population but were refused marriage with Israelites.    They became the ancestors of the Samaritans.  The name, Samaria, also is applied to the entire northern region, formerly Israel of the central highlands.

 Jordan had illegally grabbed and occupied Judea-Samaria and east Jerusalem in 1948 when Israel was born again. According to the Balfour Doctrine, it was meant to be a part of the Jewish Homeland.  As it was, the 1948 Israel consisted of only 20% of the original promised Jewish Homeland.   It took till the 1967 attack on Israel by 8 Arab nations with Israel the winner that the formerly Jordanian-occupied neighborhoods of Jerusalem, including the Old City were officially incorporated as parts of Israel along with the Golan heights.  Judea and Samaria were never officially annexed by Israel, but the IDF Civil Administration has jurisdiction over the districts.

Abbas is threatening that if Netanyahu doesn't meet his demands, which are completely unreasonable and impossible,  he will not even sit down and talk about peace and is about to quit, putting the "West Bank" (Judea-Samaria) in Netanyahu's hands.  Netanyahu is still all for a 2 state solution.

Resource: Arutz Sheva, news@israelnationalnews.com Conference on Israel's Annexing of Judea-Samaria
http://israelstreet.org/?p=6220 map with A, B, C areas
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/11823 annexing
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://www.schechter.edu/AskTheRabbi.aspx?ID=477
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Bank
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_divisions_of_the_Oslo_Accords

BDS Movement Not Impressing Methodists

Nadene Goldfoot
The Methodist delegates at a general conference in Tampa, Florida have voted to reject divestment from Caterpillar, Motorola Solutions and Hewlett-Packard companies that trade with Israel.  I am most happy to hear this.

Desmond Tutu has been instrumental in getting people to divest from Israel..  He is South Africa's Archbishop who has endorsed this initiative which is like  adding one more pebble to the raft to sink Israel.  Here we had many Jews fighting against apartheid in his country but he doesn't want to  understand that apartheid simply doesn't exist in Israel.

The people behind this divestment are a certain group of Palestinian Christians, the United Methodist Kairos.  They are connected with Hamas and Fatah, who want to bring down Israel.  They keep drumming up antagonism with claiming that Israel violates Palestinian human rights and denial of their freedom.

The truth is that Israel has done everything possible to keep Palestinian  human rights and gives them freedom.  Palestinians of Israel number 1.4 million and are in the Knesset.  It is the Arabs living in Gaza under Hamas's rule that are attacking Israel constantly that don't regard Israel's human rights and freedoms.  It is also the Arabs in Judea and Samaria who are intolerable to Jews who also live there as well.  They want the whole land to become "Palestine" and be Judenrein, without Jews.  They attack Jews as well under Fatah's ruling.  The Druze who live in Israel are wonderful citizens and participate in Israel's Army.

I don't think there is another country on the face of this earth who are under such stress and attack as Israel, and to think that they are keeping their heads up above water and work to be fair to everyone is only a reflection of their inner beliefs.  They are a people surrounded by enemies in a world that seems to reject Jews at every possible chance they have.  This is one time that a group has resisted.

However, there are some holdouts.  There are several regional churches who will divest and they're hoping that they will be copied.  It's too bad they couldn't open up their ears, hearts and minds to find out what's really happening in Israel.  I would suggest they stay in Sderot or Ashkelon for a few days and visit with people there.

As someone whose mother had many Methodist ministers on the family tree, I am grateful that there are people who are rational.

Resource: http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/methodist-church-says-no-to-israel-divestment-initiative-1.427922
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2012/02/kairos-palestine-against-israels.html