Levitt Letter Extra News

By Tom Flannery, www.WorldNetDaily.com

This month, the world watched (millions with joy, millions of others in absolute rage) as Israel celebrated the 60th anniversary of its miraculous rebirth on May 14, 1948, and the nation’s many astounding accomplishments since that historic day – all of which have unfolded specifically as foretold in Scripture thousands of years earlier.

Indeed, all of Israel’s history – its future history – was recorded in precise detail in the pages of both the Old and New Testaments thousands of years before it ever happened.

Jesus warned as He was being taken to the cross, that the Jewish women weeping for Him should weep instead for themselves (Luke 23:27-31). He was foretelling a future judgment upon the Jewish people and their nation for their rejection of Him, which He had already said would include the complete destruction of the Temple.

Jesus prophesied that “not one stone [of the Temple] shall be left here upon another” (Matthew 24:2), and not one of them was when Rome ransacked Israel, took the Jews into captivity, and reduced the Temple to rubble nearly 40 years later, in A.D. 70. For some 2,000 years after that, the Jewish people were dispersed throughout the world in what is known as the Diaspora.

Many have erroneously taught since then that this represented God washing His hands of Israel and the Jews forever. They promote Replacement Theology—the idea that the Church has replaced Israel in the plan of God.

Yet God Himself assures in His Word that, while He would certainly punish Israel and the Jews for their rebelliousness during the Church Age (as He did in Old Testament times), He would never totally abandon or utterly destroy them (Psalm 89:30-35).

Thus, the Bible asks if a nation can be born “in a day” or “at once” (Isaiah 66:8). That rhetorical question was answered with a resounding “Yes!” on May 14, 1948, when this end-time prophecy foretold by God through Isaiah was miraculously fulfilled more than 2,000 years after it was recorded.

So, has God cast off His Chosen People and left them without hope? No, as this prophecy from Isaiah makes abundantly clear. In the New Testament, Paul answers this same question forcefully by inspiration of the Holy Spirit: “Certainly not! … God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew” (Romans 11:1-2). Thus, there are more Jews coming to saving faith in Yeshua (Jesus) today than at any time since the time of Christ, when the entire Church was Jewish and remained so for many years.

God promised in Ezekiel 37 that rather than forsaking the Jews in the End Times, He would revive them as a people by bringing them “out of their graves” (Hitler’s attempted extermination of the Jewish race in the Holocaust) and back to their homeland (Israel’s miraculous rebirth in 1948).

So much for Replacement Theology!

History has demonstrated that any people displaced from their homeland for more than five generations will be absorbed by the cultures into which they’ve migrated and lose their national identity. The Jews were out of the land for some 2,000 years during the Diaspora and, being persecuted wherever they went (often by those who claimed to be Christians yet violated the teachings of Jesus by their heinous actions), they had every reason to forsake their identity. But they didn’t. God preserved them as a people just as He promised all along (Jeremiah 30:11).

God also promised that when He brought them back into their land, He would never allow them to be uprooted from it again (Amos 9:15). Since that historic day in 1948, He has upheld this promise by supernaturally preserving the People and Nation through a litany of wars, intifadas, and terrorist attacks launched by their Arab enemies.

God’s Word revealed that Israel would be surrounded in the Last Days by enemies who would seek to destroy it but who would instead ultimately be destroyed by God (Zechariah 12:1-3). True to His Word as always, God has consistently blessed His Chosen People with victory through all these assaults over the past six decades, even when Israel was facing seemingly insurmountable odds militarily (starting on May 15, 1948, when the nascent state was attacked by five Arab nations). He has also fulfilled all other promises He made to the Jews about what He would do once He brought them back into their historic homeland.

The first of these promises concerned the land itself. In the 1800s, Mark Twain – a devout atheist – traveled to the Holy Land and mocked the idea that it would ever be of use to anyone ever again. He wrote in his book The Innocents Abroad how it was a desolate, unlivable land where you couldn’t find even cactus growing.

So much for the Bible, he seemed to be saying.

Yet God had promised thousands of years earlier that He would make the desert land bloom once the Jews returned (Isaiah 35:1-2), and that is precisely what He’s done these past decades – so much so that Israel is now a leading exporter of fruit to the world. As God foretold: “Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit” (Isaiah 27:6).

Other key prophecies involved the restoration of the once-dead Hebrew language (Zephaniah 3:9) and the return of Jews to Israel from around the world (Jeremiah 31:8-12, Ezekiel 36:24, etc.), both of which have been miraculously fulfilled.

And just as God has fulfilled His promise to restore Israel as a nation physically, He has also promised to restore the nation spiritually at the time of Christ’s Second Coming. God showed the prophet Zechariah this scene thousands of years in advance and revealed what will take place on that day: “And I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn” (Zechariah 12:10).

Just as Joseph revealed himself to his estranged brothers on their third time into the land and copious tears were shed among them (Genesis 45), Jesus is going to reveal Himself to His estranged brothers (the Jewish nation) now that He has brought them back into their Land for the third time. And when He does, they will weep and mourn for Him as one would for an “only son … for a firstborn.” Jesus is both God’s “only begotten Son” (John 3:16-18) and the “firstborn from the dead” (Colossians 1:18).

God’s self-references in this passage from Zechariah as both “Me” and “Him” underscore the truth of the Trinity – not three distinct Gods, but one true God in three distinct Persons. He is the God whom Scripture tells us never slumbers nor sleeps in defense of Israel, as these past 60 years and all the years of human history before that have continually borne out.

Islamic students reportedly taunted ‘unclean’ animal
www.WorldNetDaily.com

A Muslim high school student’s intolerance for a service dog needed by a student teacher with a disability has reportedly prompted the student teacher to abandon the last 10 hours of his scheduled assignment at Technical High School in St. Cloud, Minn.

The St. Cloud Times online said the situation developed with student teacher Tyler Hurd, 23, of Mahtomedi, who hopes to teach special education.

He’s a student at St. Cloud State University, and was assigned to Technical High School in the St. Cloud district for his 50 hours of student teaching, and took with him his service dog, Emmitt.

The newspaper said Hurd needs a service dog because of a childhood injury that leaves him with seizures, sometimes happening as often as weekly. The black lab is trained to protect Hurd when he has a seizure.

The school district told the newspaper it wasn’t really a threat.

“I think it was a misunderstanding where we didn’t really prepare either side for possible implications,” Julia Espe, curriculum director for the public schools, said.

Hurd, however, reported a student threatened to kill his dog. He said the threat came from a Somali student who is Muslim. Minnesota has a large Somali population, mostly Muslim, and they have been involved in issues over their religion in the past.

At the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, many taxi drivers are Somali Muslims and they have raised objections to carrying passengers with liquor. Airport officials finally threatened to remove from the cab drivers’ line waiting for fares anyone who refused a passenger over the issue.

WND also has reported on the dispute over a taxpayer-funded school in a Minneapolis suburb serving mostly Somali Muslim students and accusations that Islam is being taught at the public facility.

Islam forbids its adherents from touching dogs.

Hurd earlier spent some time student teaching at Talahi Community School, where he said his experience was good. He told the newspaper Somali students there even petted his dog, although they used paper to keep their hands from actually making physical contact.

But at Tech, Hurd reported, students taunted his dog, and he left when he was told a student threatened the animal.

University officials said they waived the remaining 10 hours of work that Hurd was supposed to have finished.

“We came up with a solution because I felt threatened by it,” Hurd told the newspaper.

A meeting was set up involving Kate Steffens, the dean of education at St. Cloud State, and assistant principal Lori Lockhart of Tech, in order to avoid future problems.

“We certainly welcome (Hurd) in our district, and we hope we can get this all resolved so he feels welcome and his dog is welcome,” Espe said.

The college places about 1,000 students in 240 regional schools to help them get ready for careers in teaching.

On the newspaper’s forum, “scorpionthoughts” said: “The last time I checked this is the United States of America!!!!! So many people are getting shipped over here and expect to be treated like they and their beliefs are better …. If you don’t like the way things are in this country – stay in your own … place of origin!!!”

Will King, “Our Man in Jerusalem” for Zola Levitt Ministries, aimed his camera around the city of Jerusalem last week as Israel marked various national days of celebration. For more photos, visit his website www.imagesofisrael.com.

May 7, 208 Israel’s Remembrance Day for Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terror

IDF soldier stands near memorial to fallen armor corps soldiers at Latrun.

A girl points to names on the memorial for fallen armor corps soldiers at Latrun.

The wall of names of fallen armor corps soldiers at Latrun

May 8, 2008 Israeli Independence Day Celebrations

Lightshow in downtown Jerusalem

Lightshow in Downtown Jerusalem

Lightshow in Downtown Jerusalem

Man celebrating Independence Day

Israelis with balloons

Israeli girls dancing

Independence concert in downtown Jerusalem

Israeli girl celebrating Independence Day

Girls wrapped in Israeli flag

Israeli Air Force planes flying in formation over Jerusalem

Israeli Air Force planes flying in formation over Jerusalem

May 11, 2008 40th Anniversary of Jerusalem’s Reunification

Israeli flags on the walls of the Old City in Jerusalem

Sound and light show on the walls of the Old City in Jerusalem

Fireworks over the Old City walls in Jerusalem

May 14, 2008 President George W. Bush Arrives To Celebrate Israel’s 60th Anniversary

President Bush’s motorcade in Jerusalem

Security outside the King David Hotel

Bomb-sniffing dog on streets in Jerusalem

Israeli Shin-Bet security agent

Policewoman near the Old City

By Morton A. Klein, www.JPost.com

Imad Sa’ad is a 25-year old Palestinian Authority (PA) police officer
who has been arrested by Mahmoud Abbas’s forces for providing Israel
with information about the whereabouts of four accused Palestinian
terrorists. The PA had been unwilling to hand over to Israel the four
men whom Sa’ad helped it locate. For this act, Sa’ad has been
convicted as a “collaborator” in a PA court in Hebron by a judge
belonging to Abbas’s Fatah party and sentenced to death by firing squad.

Now wait a minute. The Oslo agreements require the PA to extradite to
Israel wanted terrorists and to cooperate with Israel in combating
terrorism. Under the 2003 road map peace plan, the PA is required to
“disrupt and restrain individuals and groups conducting and planning
violent attacks on Israelis anywhere,” which is exactly what Imad
Sa’ad did. In fact, what Sa’ad did should be routine conduct by PA police.
Instead, it is an exceptional act punishable by death.

Imagine the situation if we were discussing Israel. There cannot be
any doubt that, if an Israeli police officer had tipped off the PA
about an impending terror attack by a Jew upon Palestinians, Israel
would be honoring him as a hero. It would certainly not be arresting
him and sentencing him to death - and there would be (correctly)
outrage if it did. Yet, the PA is doing precisely this - and has done
so many times in the past.

FAR FROM cooperating in the fight against terrorism, the PA has a
long record of executing what it terms “collaborators.” Amnesty
International reported in 2003 that “Scores of Palestinians suspected of
‘collaboration’ with Israeli intelligence services were unlawfully
killed. Most of these killings seemed to have been carried out by
members of armed groups or by armed individuals. Some appeared to be
extrajudicial executions carried out by members of Palestinian
security services. The PA consistently failed to investigate these
killings and none of the perpetrators was brought to justice.”

Despite this episode and Abbas’s continuing promotion of terrorism,
refusal to arrest terrorists, and incitement to hatred and violence
within the PA-controlled media, mosques, schools and youth camps,
President George W. Bush persists in saying of Mahmoud Abbas that
“The president is a man of peace… He’s a man of vision. He rejects
the idea of using violence to achieve objectives.”

Also, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice praised Mahmoud Abbas this
week while visiting Ramallah, and particularly his leadership of the
security services, saying, “It takes some time to deal with the
effects of the intifada, but a lot of it has to do with responsible
actions by the Palestinian government and the Palestinian Authority
which are really now in place… And because of that, I think you are
going to see improvements on the West Bank.”

This is unmerited praise, to put it mildly. Instead, this event
should serve as a clear, straightforward litmus test: Does Mahmoud
Abbas support preventing terrorism and jailing terrorists? Is he
opposed to terrorism? Does he regard terrorism as the enemy of the
peace to which he tells Western audiences he is dedicated? If so, he
should be applauding and honoring Imad Sa’ad for doing his duty in
fighting terror and assisting the Israelis in doing so, as per the PA’s signed
obligations under Oslo and the road map. At the very least, he
should be immediately releasing Imad Sa’ad from prison. In reality, he has
done the opposite and may even have him executed.

IRONICALLY, AT the very time Abbas’ court sentences to death a
Palestinian who fulfilled a Palestinian signed obligation to
cooperate in the fight against terrorism, Abbas continues to demand
that Israel release terrorists it has succeeded in arresting. If
Abbas was the man of peace and moderation that he is incessantly
described as being by President Bush and Secretary Rice and Prime
Minister Olmert, why would he be imprisoning someone who fights
terror while demanding that jailed terrorists go free?

In the past Yasser Arafat executed swiftly several so-called
“collaborators.” During the intifada, he threatened the late Elias
Freij, then the mayor of Bethlehem, with “ten bullets in the chest”
for the sin of calling publicly for stopping the violence. We see now
that Mahmoud Abbas is little different from Arafat.

If the PA does not release Sa’ad, Israel and the US should
immediately cease all aid and break off talks with Abbas and the PA.
There is no sense or morality in having peace negotiations with
someone who arrests or executes those who help fight terrorists while
protecting real terrorists, inciting hatred and murder that feed
terrorism and demanding that jailed terrorists go free.

By Monika Scislowska, Associated Press

WARSAW, Poland - Irena Sendler — credited with saving some 2,500 Jewish children from the Nazi Holocaust by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto, some of them in baskets — died today, May 12, 2008, her family said. She was 98.

Sendler, among the first to be honored by Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial as a Righteous Among Nations for her wartime heroism, died at a Warsaw hospital, daughter Janina Zgrzembska told The Associated Press.

President Lech Kaczynski expressed “great regret” over Sendler’s death, calling her “extremely brave” and “an exceptional person.” In recent years, Kaczynski had spearheaded a campaign to put Sendler’s name forward as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Sendler was a 29-year-old social worker with the city’s welfare department when Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, launching World War II. Warsaw’s Jews were forced into a walled-off ghetto.

Seeking to save the ghetto’s children, Sendler masterminded risky rescue operations. Under the pretext of inspecting sanitary conditions during a typhoid outbreak, she and her assistants ventured inside the ghetto — and smuggled out babies and small children in ambulances and in trams, sometimes wrapped up as packages.

Teenagers escaped by joining teams of workers forced to labor outside the ghetto. They were placed in families, orphanages, hospitals or convents.

Records show that Sendler’s team of about 20 people saved nearly 2,500 children from the Warsaw Ghetto between October 1940 and its final liquidation in April 1943, when the Nazis burned the ghetto, shooting the residents or sending them to death camps.

“Every child saved with my help and the help of all the wonderful secret messengers, who today are no longer living, is the justification of my existence on this earth, and not a title to glory,” Sendler said in 2007 in a letter to the Polish Senate after lawmakers honored her efforts in 2007.

In hopes of one day uniting the children with their families — most of whom perished in the Nazis’ death camps — Sendler wrote the children’s real names on slips of paper that she kept at home.

When German police came to arrest her in 1943, an assistant managed to hide the slips, which Sendler later buried in a jar under an apple tree in an associate’s yard. Some 2,500 names were recorded.

“It took a true miracle to save a Jewish child,” Elzbieta Ficowska, who was saved by Sendler’s team as a baby in 1942, recalled in an AP interview in 2007. “Mrs. Sendler saved not only us, but also our children and grandchildren and the generations to come.”

Anyone caught helping Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland risked being summarily shot, along with family members — a fate Sendler only barely escaped herself after the 1943 raid by the Gestapo.

The Nazis took her to the notorious Pawiak prison, which few people left alive. Gestapo agents tortured her repeatedly, leaving Sendler with scars on her body — but she refused to betray her team.

“I kept silent. I preferred to die than to reveal our activity,” she was quoted as saying in Anna Mieszkowska’s biography, “Mother of the Children of the Holocaust: The Story of Irena Sendler.”

Zegota, an underground organization helping Jews, paid a bribe to German guards to free her from the prison. Under a different name, she continued her work.

After World War II, Sendler worked as a social welfare official and director of vocational schools, continuing to assist some of the children she rescued.

“A great person has died — a person with a great heart, with great organizational talents, a person who always stood on the side of the weak,” Warsaw Ghetto survivor Marek Eldeman told TVN24 television.

In 1965, Sendler became one of the first so-called Righteous Gentiles honored by the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem for wartime heroics. Poland’s communist leaders at that time would not allow her to travel to Israel; she collected the award in 1983.

Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev said Sender’s “courageous activities rescuing Jews during the Holocaust serve as a beacon of light to the world, inspiring hope and restoring faith in the innate goodness of mankind.”

Despite the Yad Vashem honor, Sendler was largely forgotten in her homeland until recent years. She came to the world’s attention in 2000 when a group of schoolgirls from Uniontown, Kan., wrote a short play about her called “Life in a Jar.”

It went on to garner international attention, and has been performed more than 200 times in the United States, Canada and Poland.

Sendler, born Irena Krzyzanowska, said she lived according to her physician father’s teachings, arguing that “people can be only divided into good or bad; their race, religion, nationality don’t matter.”

She married Mieczyslaw Sendler but they divorced after the war’s end. Sendler then married fellow underground activist Stefan Zgrzembski, and they had two sons and a daughter. One died a few days after birth. The second son, Adam, died of a heart failure in 1999.

Sendler is survived by her daughter and a granddaughter.

See page 28 of April 2008 Levitt Letter.

By Judy Bodmer & Larry Richards, Ph.D., www.crosswalk.com

Each of you must respect his mother and father, and you must observe my Sabbaths. I am the Lord your God. (Leviticus 19:3)

The treatment of women in the Middle East has left us with the impression that this is the way women were treated in biblical times. On the nightly news we see pictures of darkly shrouded figures completely covered except for their eyes. We read stories of how some of these women have been forced to abandon their careers and are treated like slaves by their husbands, and we assume that’s the way it was in the Old Testament times.

But is this true? Were women treated like this? Were they hidden away, never to be seen or heard from? Let’s look at what the Bible has to say.

The Old Testament is full of Scripture commanding the respect of children for both mother and father. In fact, this is such a basic principle that it’s one of the Ten Commandments. In the book of Proverbs, the duty of reverence, love, and obedience of sons to their mothers is emphasized over and over.

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How Others See It: Henry Cloud and John Townsend
“Mothering is the most significant, demanding, and underpaid profession around…. We strongly believe that God ordained the specialness and importance of mothering: ‘Honor your mother and your father’ is a recurring theme throughout the entire Bible.”
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Equality in the Garden

Genesis 1:28, 31: God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” … God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

In the story of the Garden of Eden, Eve is as important as Adam. In fact, the Scripture clearly states that they were given equal responsibility. He didn’t give this command only to Adam, but to them, Adam and Eve. Their roles changed after the fall, but their status didn’t.

Examples From the Bible
Other examples of prominent women in the Bible are:
Sarah (Genesis 12–23): Abraham listened carefully to Sarah’s advice in Genesis 16 when she suggested that her maidservant provide him with a son. Later, God tells Abraham to listen to Sarah again, in Genesis 21:11–12, because she will be the mother of a great nation through Isaac.
Rebekah (Genesis 24–28). Jacob’s chief counselor was his mother, Rebekah (Genesis 28:7).
Miriam (Exodus 15:20). Moses’ sister, Miriam, led the women in Exodus 15:20.
Deborah (Judges 4–5). Judges 4:4 clearly states that Deborah was leading the nation of Israel.
Huldah (2 Kings 22:14). God spoke to the leaders of Judah through the prophetess Huldah, even though the prophets Jeremiah and Zephaniah were alive.

The biblical stories wouldn’t be the same without Leah and Rachel, Delilah, Bathsheba, Ruth and Naomi, Hannah, and Esther.

Women were listed in the lineage of Jesus Christ. This was considered to be the highest honor that could be bestowed upon an Israelite. Another example of the importance placed on women in the Bible.

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How Others See It: Deborah Newman
“Most women accept the subtle messages the world tells us about what we need to be as women—young, sexy, rich, powerful. Others of us try to measure ourselves by certain roles we see outlined in the Bible—submissive, gentle, hospitable. But there is so much more God wants us to experience as women.”
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Ave Maria—A Child Is Born

John 19:26–27: When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Dear woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.

With the birth of Jesus, a new era dawned for women. For two thousand years Mary has been honored and even worshiped.

But she wasn’t the only woman whom Jesus treated with respect. Throughout the New Testament he is shown visiting women in their homes, forgiving their sins, caring for the widows, and healing women of their ailments.

His final act on the cross was seeing to the care of his mother. He asked one of his disciples, John “the beloved,” to take his mother into his home and treat her as if she were his own.

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How Others See It: Henry E. Dosker
“The birth of Christ lifted motherhood to the highest possible plane and idealized it for all time…. What woman is today, what she is in particular in her motherhood, she owes wholly to the position in which the Scriptures have placed her.”
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Where Have All the Mothers Gone?

Colossians 2:8: See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.
The pressures on mothers have never been greater. Seventy-five percent of us are employed or looking for work, and the percentage is higher for mothers with children age twelve and older. This means most of us are trying to do a good job at work, be a first-class mom, keep a house clean, cook, shop, run errands, maybe do some gardening, and, if we’re married, be an excellent wife. When someone gets sick, we’re the nurse. When someone needs a ride, we’re the chauffeur. When someone needs just about anything, we’re it. We’re the fixers, the lovers, the counselors, the bill payers. Let’s face it, there aren’t enough of us to go around. I don’t know how many times I’ve driven to work in the morning with tears running down my face, feeling like a failure at everything.

Everyone else seems to make it look easy. The moms on TV are not only beautiful, but they also solve their problems in half-hour sitcoms that make us laugh. Somehow it wasn’t so funny to me when I’d been up all night with a crying baby and then the next day had to take care of customers or employees’ problems in a professional manner. The other women I worked with seemed to make a go of it. What was wrong with me?

Then there’s the pressure from church. Sometimes it’s subtle, but other times it can be blatant. A sermon on the Proverbs 31 woman can leave us feeling like failures. An afternoon with Mrs. Faultless Christian can leave us wondering why we can’t find fifteen minutes for a quiet time every morning and why our children aren’t perfect like hers.

There were lots of days I dreamed of running away.

Those of us who hang in there and continue to do the best we can need to know we’re not alone. There are many mothers who feel the same way we do. We need to let go of some of the man-made pressures and prioritize what’s most important.

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How Others See It: Mary Whelchel
“If you are sure of God’s direction for you in the working world, then your role there is just as sacred, just as important to God, and of just as much service to him as anything else you could do. It is not second best; it is not the alternative for those who have never sensed a call into a public ministry. It is full-time Christian service!”
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Mother’s Day
On the second Sunday of every May, much of the English-speaking world stops and honors its mothers. Card shops and florists rake in big bucks. Children write poems and make plaster casts of their hands. Breakfast is served to Mom in bed, and someone else, for a change, prepares dinner.

We have Ann Jarvis to thank for coming up with the idea for this special day. After the death of her mother, she brought a group together on the second Sunday of May to honor her memory. The first Mother’s Day was celebrated on May 10, 1908, at Andrews Church in Philadelphia. Two years later the governor of West Virginia officially set aside the second Sunday in May to honor all mothers.

Excerpted from: What’s in the Bible for Mothers by Judy Bodmer and Larry Richards, Ph.D. Copyright © 2008; ISBN 9780764203855 Published by Bethany House Publishers. Used by permission. Unauthorized duplication prohibited.

By Nile Gardiner, www.humanevents.com

Few countries in modern times could claim the title “warrior nation.” The United States and Great Britain definitely can, and Israel certainly qualifies for this distinction too. This is the 60th anniversary of Israel’s founding and a reminder of the heroism of the Israeli people. This tiny nation of just 7 million has fought seven wars and survived in the face of insurmountable odds, international hostility and massive intimidation, a tribute to the strength of the human spirit and the willingness of Israelis to fight to defend their freedom.

Six decades on from its establishment, Israel continues to fight for its very existence, and remains the most persecuted nation in the history of the United Nations. The UN has left no stone unturned in its hounding of Israel, a relentless display of hatred and prejudice that shames the world body. Despite being the freest, most democratic country in the Middle East, Israel is the whipping boy for the UN’s Human Rights Council, a discredited basket case of an organization that boasts some of the world’s worst human rights offenders as members, including China, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Russia and Egypt. Roughly three quarters of the HRC’s resolutions in its first year were aimed at Israel, while brutal dictatorships such as Zimbabwe, North Korea, Burma and Sudan barely merited a mention.

Needless to say, the United Nations has remained silent in the face of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s threats to wipe Israel “off the map”, much as the League of Nations dithered in the shadow of Nazi Germany just two generations ago. Iran’s dictator doesn’t mince his words when referring to Israel, calling it a “filthy entity” that “will sooner or later fall” in a speech this January, as well as “a dirty microbe” and “a savage animal” at a rally in February.

There are distinct echoes of the heated discussions in Europe and the United States over the intentions of Adolf Hitler in the mid to late 1930s in today’s debate over Iran. Then as now, there was a constant barrage of calls from political elites on both sides of the Atlantic for direct talks with a totalitarian regime and illusory hopes of reaching out to “moderates” within the government, a general downplaying of the threat level, widespread inaction and hand-wringing, and staggering complacency over levels of defense spending.

The brutal lessons of 20th Century history taught that there can be no negotiation with this sort of brutal dictatorship, and it would be a huge strategic error for the West to do so. There will be endless debate in international policy circles over Tehran’s nuclear intentions, but the essential fact remains that the free world is faced with a fundamentally evil and barbaric regime with a track record of backing international terrorism, repressing its own people, issuing genocidal threats against its neighbors, and of enabling the killing of Allied forces in Iraq.

It is imperative that the United States and Great Britain, Israel’s two main allies, remain united in defending Israel in the face of Iranian aggression. Iran poses the most significant threat to Israel’s security since its founding, as well as the biggest state-based threat to the West of our generation. As Israeli President Shimon Peres warned earlier this year, “a nuclear armed Iran will be a nightmare for the world.”

As the world’s largest sponsor of international terror, and a dangerous rogue regime hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons capability, Iran must be stopped. The Jerusalem Post reported just yesterday that the latest Israeli intelligence assessment is that “the Islamic Republic will master centrifuge technology and be able to begin enriching uranium on a military scale this year. According to the new timeline, Iran could have a nuclear weapon by the middle of next year.” This is several years ahead of the flawed assessment of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), and gives added urgency to the debate over the Iranian nuclear issue.

Every effort must be made to increase the pressure on Tehran through Security Council and European economic, military and political sanctions, including a ban on investment in Iranian liquefied natural gas operations. In particular, extensive pressure must be applied on Switzerland to halt a $30 billion contract between Zurich-based contractor EGL and the National Iranian Gas Export Company.

At the same time, Washington and London must make preparations for the possible use of force against Iran’s nuclear facilities if the sanctions route fails. In addition, the U.S. and UK must be prepared to retaliate against Iranian aggression in Iraq, with Tehran continuing to wage a proxy war against Coalition and Iraqi forces. As General Petraeus made clear in his recent testimony before Congress, Iran is actively supplying mortars, rockets and explosives to Shiite militia groups in Iraq. It has also been revealed by Coalition spokesmen in the last few days that the elite Quds force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has been using Hizbollah guerillas to train Iraqi militias at a training camp at Jalil Azad near Tehran.

As tensions with Iran escalate, and as the stakes are dramatically raised, Britain and the United States should support the admission of Israel into NATO, offering a collective security guarantee in the face of Tehran’s saber-rattling. Israel, which spends nearly 10 percent of its GDP on defense (in contrast to the NATO average of 2.1 percent), would be a major net asset to the Alliance, possessing a first rate army, air force and navy, as well as outstanding intelligence and special forces capability. There is likely to be strong initial opposition to the move by some European countries, including France and Belgium, but it is a debate that NATO should have sooner rather than later.

The next few years will be a critical time for Israel, as it faces the prospect of the rise of a nuclear Iran that has pledged its destruction. If Israel is to survive another 60 years it is imperative that the West confronts the gathering storm and stands up to the biggest threat to international security since the end of the Cold War.

The United States, Great Britain and their allies must reject the illusory promise of “peace in our time” conjured by advocates of an appeasement approach towards the Mullahs of Iran, and ensure the world does not face a totalitarian Islamist regime armed with nuclear weapons. The freedom that Israel currently enjoys was secured through the sacrifice of her soldiers through several wars in the Middle East, as well as the earlier sacrifice of American and British troops in World War Two. It is the same liberty that we cherish today in the West, freedom that must be fought for and defended.

By Rebekah Montgomery, www.crosswalk.com

Most mothers believe their children are special but some stand out for another reason. Before conception, angels notified their mothers-to-be that their baby was a child of promise. Let’s look at what made those children unique and the mothers who were charged with bringing the promise to bear.

Sarah and a New Spiritual Heritage

“Next year, Sarah will have a son.”

The angel’s words turned Sarah’s world upside down, altered the course of history world, and still echo through time.

To 90-year-old Sarah, eavesdropping through the woven goat hair wall of her lonely desert tent, they seemed a joke. So she laughed. A child!

But the angel’s pronouncement was accurate. They named the baby Isaac or “laughter” to commemorate their own astonishment at what God had done.

Why wait so long to fill Sarah’s aching arms and bring laughter to her tent? God was at work in Sarah’s life, not only so she could pass along her DNA, but also to fully gestate a new sort of spiritual heritage in her — monotheism. This vital heritage she would pass along to her son. While Abraham fathered a number of peoples (Arab nations, Assurites, Letushites, Leummites, and Midianites: Genesis 25) and consequently their religions, it is Sarah who gave birth to Judaism, and eventually, Christianity — not a job for a spiritually immature woman.

It was, however, a job for a protective woman. Sarah recognized the threatening home dynamic with Hagar and Ishmael underfoot. Harsh though it is, she demanded their influence be excluded for Isaac’s sake. So protective was Sarah that we can only speculate upon the potential repercussions to Abraham had she suspected what the trip to Mount Moriah was actually all about.

Elizabeth and a New Sort of Priest

They were seemly the perfect Jewish couple. Zechariah was a priest: Elizabeth the daughter of a priest. But their marriage was marked with a peculiar disgrace: childlessness. What had they done to deserve this? What was their secret sin? They wondered. As did their neighbors and family.

The Scriptures do not tell us how much Elizabeth discovered about Zechariah’s discussion with the angel in the temple. We do see she had more sensitivity to God than her husband Zechariah who was rendered mute for his impudent questioning of Gabriel in the holy of holies.

For the first five months of her pregnancy, she hid herself (Luke 1:24). Perhaps at that time, an angel visited her to catch her up on heavenly plans afoot both in her own home and in the Galilee. Perhaps God’s plans were revealed to her during prayer. Somehow she knew a fact not revealed to her husband — that her virgin cousin Mary was pregnant with the Messiah.

At her newborn son’s circumcision ceremony, we get another peek at Elizabeth’s depth of understanding as well as her spunk. When the entire neighborhood presses to name the baby Zechariah, she protests. “His name is John,” she says. This is so outrageous that they appeal to Zechariah to override her decision. He backs up his wife, upon angelic instruction.

John, born a priest, also stood against the crowd. He preached a revolutionary message threatening temple systems and religious hierarchies: “Sacrifices and rituals aren’t enough. You have to live as people of God.”

Jesus spoke high words of praise for John: “Among those born of women there has not arisen one greater than John the Baptist.” And higher praise for those who heeded John’s message: “He who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John.” Matthew 11:11

Mrs. Manoah and the Champion

Even with miracle children, there are no guarantees. When an angel announces a child’s birth, he may not turn out to be Mama’s pride and joy.

To the barren wife of Manoah, an angel announces the birth of a mighty deliverer of Israel (Judges 13). Wisely, she and her husband ask for instructions on how to rear such a remarkable child. To all indications, they followed his directions, yet their offspring, Samson, was a wild, undisciplined man.

Mary of Nazareth and the Prince of Peace

Mary was little more than a small-town girl when the angel Gabriel asked her to assume a pivotal role in history: the handmaiden of God.

Gabriel promised her none of the prosperity, success, and blessing characterizing modern day calls-to-service. Rather, because God appreciated or “favored” her, Mary was chosen to serve.

Depending upon the religious tradition, Mary’s role in shaping Jesus is minimized or maximized. But in any creed, whether she fully understood Jesus or not, she was faithful both as a mother and a disciple.

Every Mother Gives Birth to a Miracle

There is a lovely Jewish tradition that three partners are necessary in every child’s conception: Mother and father each contribute seed to create a body for the new child; God bestows life by the gift of a soul.

This was probably on David’s mind when he wrote: “You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb… Your eyes saw my unformed body.” (Psalm 139:12,16-NIV)

The astonishing uniqueness of each person’s DNA fingerprint bears witness that God does indeed have a very active, personal hand in each baby’s conception and birth.

True: Some babies were heralded with angelic announcements. But all mothers become mothers because of God’s miracle touch. Each of us is the recipient of that touch. What an awesome gift!

By Willem Dercksen, The Jerusalem Post

Five-year-old Philipp, who has Down’s syndrome, is floating in the water next to a female dolphin and her newborn calf. Gone is his usual impatience. He gently caresses the mother’s back. The mother takes care that her calf is out of his reach.

It is Philipp’s second week at the reef. “He is growing day by day,” his mother Marlit, explains. His first day was hard. “Everything Philipp doesn’t know, he doesn’t want. He didn’t want a wet suit, he didn’t want to go into the water and he didn’t want to be with [trainer] Sophie. We wondered what we started here.”

Philipp’s father Uwe, and his big brother, Pierre, also came to Eilat, in Israel. The care and the security of the family are important for the results of the therapy.

The second day was better. “Philipp was curious, he watched and he accepted Sophie, although he was gesturing all the time that he wanted his father,” Marlit says. Philipp cannot talk yet. His parents taught him a sign language to facilitate the step to talking.

The dolphins are stimulating Philipp. “This second week we see him making efforts to utter words all the time.”

Sophie Donio is one of the pioneers of the Dolphin Reef. She started as a diving master. “I noticed how deeply the dolphins affected our visitors,” she says. After a year, she proposed starting dolphin therapy for disabled children. Her proposal was accepted and she developed the program herself. “Step by step it improved. Still, every day I learn more.”

Now, Donio refers to it as “a supportive experience with the aid of dolphins. We are not trying to cure or heal people. We are giving moral support.”

Kids and Dolphins

The Dolphin Reef pays homage to a distinctive philosophy. The dolphins, a group of bottlenoses, are not forced to interact with humans. They are free to choose between human company and the continuation of their daily routine of hunting, courting, playing and socializing. The reef, a corner in the Gulf of Eilat closed by nets, provides the dolphins with a natural environment. The water is deep and full of fish, allowing them to hunt for most of their food themselves. Their social life is rich. The first time I visited the reef, a baby dolphin had been born. To celebrate, the whole group of dolphins escorted the mother and her calf for an hour and a half as they cavorted along the contours of the reef.

In addition to Donio, the reef has four other trainers. They know the dolphins, they can anticipate their behavior and they know their likes and dislikes. The trainers also have the ability to understand the needs and possibilities of their impaired pupils.

Each therapy session has two parts: in the sea and on a platform. In the water, the trainers mediate contact between the dolphins and their pupil. On the platform, the trainers play games with the children, very often closely watched or supported by one or more curious dolphins. All activities are dependent on the mental and physical abilities of the children.

PHILIPP WAS not planned. Nevertheless, Marlit was flying high when she noticed her pregnancy. After giving birth, she was completely shattered. “On the ultrasound the embryo seemed to be completely in order. I didn’t do an amniocentesis so as not to endanger his life. Now I am glad I didn’t, because during the pregnancy, I would have requested an abortion.”

Uwe and Pierre were a big support after Philipp’s birth. From the first minute they fell in love with him. For Marlit, it took a long time. “After two days I stopped crying for myself and started crying for the baby. But I continued crying for months for the baby I didn’t get.” Later, she understood that her pain was necessary to accept the child she had gotten and to be able to love him and to care for him. “Now, Philipp is my heart and my soul. He changed us all. Material things, like a new car or fashionable clothes, are not that important anymore. We experience that love, and our family is so much more important.”

It is not easy to have a child with Down’s syndrome. “You never know what Philipp will do. You can’t lose sight of him for a second.” Before Philipp was born, Marlit worked as a surgical assistant. She doesn’t have the time anymore. At home, Philipp gets therapy too, speech therapy, music therapy (”He is crazy about music”) and riding therapy (”He loves horseback riding the best”).

Because Philipp was not developing as Marlit and Uwe wanted him to, they began dolphin therapy. Marlit had read about it, and also saw a program on TV in her home in Lindenscheid, Germany. The finances were the main obstacle. The family has only one income, and the trip to Eilat, as well as their two-week stay in a hotel, are expensive. “We organized a flea-market in our home town to collect money. The Dolphin Kids [a German organization informing the public about dolphin therapy] showed a documentary movie, a supermarket sponsored drinks and snacks and a friend contacted the local press. We never thought that so many people were willing to help.”

The more therapy sessions I observe, the more impressive Donio becomes. Although she doesn’t speak German, she is able to communicate with Philipp effortlessly. Everything shows that they understand each other. In the water as well on the platform, Donio keeps eye contact all the time. Thus she knows how far she can go and how long Philipp is keeping his concentration.

She has a very special bond with the dolphins: They like to approach her, and they seem to understand Philipp’s possibilities. During a ball game on the platform, Donio engages one of the dolphins to throw the ball to Philipp a few times, by using his nose. Later, one of the dolphins lends a bottlenose when Philipp drops a plastic basket in the water.

“Today was a very good session,” Donio says close to the end of Philipp’s second week. “In the water he is more and more controlled in his interactions with the dolphins. Today he was really caressing them tenderly. And did you see us playing games on the platform? It was the first time Philipp laughed aloud. Everything shows that he is getting more and more confident and brave. Maybe I will let him swim with a mask tomorrow.”

Marlit and Uwe are equally enthusiastic. “Here in Eilat, Philipp became more loose and relaxed, more independent too,” Marlit says. “At home, he asks for help for everything. Yesterday we saw him take a bottle and pour himself a glass of water on his own.”

During this conversation, Philipp is sitting on one of the many cushions on a floating platform, listening to music on his headphones. “Also in the water you could notice that he gained courage,” Uwe adds. “He is not sticking to Sophie all the time. It is important for his future development that he learns to fight his fears.”

CHAN IS crying on this, his first day. He is in the sea with Donio. When putting his wet suit on, his little finger got stuck and it did hurt. “Maybe it was still painful, or maybe it was just the fright” Donio comments when they climb out of the water. She is satisfied with the start. “Cindy (the paterfamilias of the dolphin family) was with us all the time. Other dolphins came to touch Chan’s feet.”

I had noticed too that dolphins were swimming next to Donio and Chan all the time. It seemed as if the dolphins felt that Chan needed them. “Chan did not react so much to the dolphins,” Donio continues, “but he was watching them. It is amazing to start the session with a crying kid and to get such a happy ending.” She is crazy about Chan. “What a sweet boy.” When I ask her if she has these feelings towards all of her pupils, she just smiles.

Chan, six, lacks control over his muscles. Doctors diagnosed cerebral palsy (or more specifically, spastic quadriplegia) two weeks after his birth. It was caused by an infection his mother, Dunja Franke had caught during the pregnancy.

The bad news hit Franke hard. “I cried and cried and cried. My own parents died when I was six and I wanted to give this child everything I missed. In the first period after his birth, I was not able to feed him, to change his clothes, nothing. Family and friends helped me to get through.”

While still in the hospital in Cologne, Chan received Vojta therapy, stimulation of the sensorimotor system’s reflex points. When Franke started crying during the first session, the therapist told her to leave. “Your child will not gain anything from a crying mother,” she said. “She was right” Franke realizes now. “Looking back, I feel grateful for her remarks.” When Chan smiled for the first time, Franke returned to her old self.

Following the advice of the Vojta therapist, Franke treats Chan as a normal child as far as possible. “His father cannot do that. He doesn’t dare to leave Chan alone for a second. He wanted Chan to sleep in our bed. He didn’t join the therapy sessions and he was crying on a daily basis, also in Chan’s presence.” Franke felt like she had to take care of two babies. “Chan’s father loves him very much, but he cannot accept that his son is impaired.” The parents separated after two years. Now Chan visits his father every other weekend.

Chan had dolphin therapy before they came to Eilat. “When Chan was nearly two years old, the two of us went to Florida. There, in the water, he spoke his first word: mama.” A year later they went to Sharm e-Sheikh. “Unfortunately, in that period no dolphins showed up.” Later, Franke and Chan went to Spain twice. “Chan also learned a lot there.” Suddenly, he used words like “you” and “me.” One evening in Spain he said: “You also eat.” (Franke always feeds Chan first.) The dolphin therapy does not help Chan in physically; there is no cure for his disease. It only works mentally.

Franke had to be creative, too, to be able to afford the therapy in Eilat. This time a cousin was the guardian angel by donating the revenues from a benefit concert by his punk band. In Eilat she is receiving practical help from her brother and sister. Together they are renting an apartment and both assist on the platform and in transporting Chan. He cannot sit nor move on his own.

Even an outsider can notice that Chan benefits from the therapy. He is shining - in the water, on the platform and after the sessions in a shady spot on the reef’s secluded beach. I get an enthusiastic response when I ask him if he enjoys the therapy. But he doesn’t want me to carry him into the water. “Too tired.”

A BIT SKEPTICAL by nature, I wonder whether the effects of the dolphin therapy will last. Isn’t it just that being on a holiday, in a powerful environment of desert and sea, relaxes a child and his parents, evoking different behavior than at home?

When I express these thoughts to Donio, she walks into her office to get me a book. The doctoral thesis of Nicole Kohn, a German scientist. “Try your best, I cannot read that language myself.”

The thesis reports on the effects of dolphin therapy among 193 multiply disabled children. About half of them received dolphin therapy in Eilat, the others in Key Largo, Florida. It was the first time that a survey on this scale had been done. Kohn bases her findings on interviews with parents, teachers and therapists.

Her research does not leave much doubt that the dolphin therapy has significant positive effects on cognitive, motor and/or emotional development. It also shows that these effects last - she repeated her interviews six weeks after the end of therapy.

Another significant finding is that when the development of a child improves, the parents benefit too. Many parents reported that the quality of their own lives had improved due to the therapy.

Back home, I wait three months before calling Philipp’s parents to ask if they still notice the effects of the therapy. Philipp, Marlit proudly tells me, spoke his first full sentence: “Papa come.” Moreover, his fine motor skills improved, he does not need a diaper anymore at night and he makes an effort to dress and undress himself. “In a way, we also got therapy as a family,” Marlit concludes. “We learned that Philipp is able to do much more than we thought he could and we also learned how to challenge him.”

From Chan’s mother I wanted to know if this time too something beautiful happened to her son. “Chan looks up now if he hears something,” Franke says. “He is using more words, and if I turn a video about dolphins on, he starts laughing and telling me: ‘There, we were also there.’”

The Dolphin Reef in Eilat has a Web site, www.dolphinreef.co.il, that provides information on the therapy program.

Lockheed F-22 Raptors

By Yaakov Katz, www.JPost.com

Israel is increasingly concerned that the United States will allow the sale of fifth-generation, stealth-enabled Joint Strike Fighter jets - aka the F-35 Lightning II - to Saudi Arabia.

But while this could pose a major challenge for the IDF, defense officials said it also presented Israel with a unique opportunity to ask the Americans for new advanced technology that would not be sold to the Saudis, to enable Israel to retain its qualitative edge in the region.

A month ago, the head of the Defense Ministry’s Diplomatic-Military Bureau, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Gilad, met with Pentagon officials in Washington and reached understandings concerning certain arms purchases. A week earlier, Defense Ministry director-general Pinhas Buchris was at the Pentagon for similar talks.

Defense officials said recently that the two visits had been used to present the Americans with a “shopping list” that Israel hoped would be finalized in the coming months. Leading the American side of the talks was Beth McCormick, the acting deputy undersecretary of defense for technology security policy and national disclosure policy.

Last June, Gilad met with McCormick to present Israel’s objections to a proposed U.S. sale of state-of-the-art weaponry, including Boeing’s Joint Direct Attack Munition smart bombs, or JDAMs, to Saudi Arabia. Officials said recently that those concerns had increased following reports that Saudi Arabia planned to ask the U.S. to sell it the Joint Strike Fighter now under development by Lockheed Martin.

“The Saudis want the plane,” one senior official said. “They always look for top-of-the-line technology, and the Americans will have difficulty saying no.”

In light of this possibility, Israel has asked the Americans for a number of new military platforms that have yet to be sold outside the U.S.

One request centers on the F-22 Raptor - a stealth fighter currently operational in the U.S. - which came up during Buchris’s talks in Washington. Israel has asked to be allowed to acquire the jet - foreign sales are currently under congressional ban - in the face of alleged Iranian efforts to obtain nuclear weapons. The F-22 can avoid radar detection and is the world’s most advanced fighter jet to date.

The defense officials also spoke with their U.S. counterparts about receiving two new advanced models of the JDAM to preserve Israel’s qualitative edge over the Saudis, who would receive the standard smart-bomb kit.

One of the models Israel is interested in has a laser-guided system, and the other is protected from electronic-warfare systems and jamming. Both are manufactured by Boeing Co. in the U.S.

Buchris also tried to interest the Americans in investing in the development and production of the Iron Dome, the anti-missile system Israel is developing against Kassam rockets. Officials said an American engineering team was scheduled to visit Israel in the coming weeks to continue talks on the issue.

Buchris also discussed with the Americans the possibility of integrating Israeli defense industries into the production of the Joint Strike Fighter, which the IDF has announced will be the IAF’s next fighter jet. Buchris and Gilad also discussed with the Americans the possibility of moving up the delivery of the plane to Israel from 2014 to 2012, or at the latest, 2013.

Eight countries - including Britain, Turkey, and Australia - are members of the Joint Strike Fighter project. Israel is a Security Cooperation Participant after paying $20 million in 2003 for access to information accumulated during the development of the jet, which will be priced at between $50m. and $60m.

Officials said Israel had convinced the Americans to allow the IAF to install its own technology in the aircraft - a major point of contention between the Defense Ministry and the Pentagon until now.

Defense officials said that the Americans had now agreed, in principle, to allow Israel to integrate its own technology into the plane, as it has done with other fighter jets it has bought in the past from the US, including the F-15 Eagle and the F-16 Fighting Falcon.

“We have closed up the JSF issue, including getting the info on the plane and integrating technology,” an official said. “The Americans know that we will safeguard and protect their interests.”