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It is Christmas Eve 2009 and the hope of the true Messiah lives on. Nothing has changed. Christmas Eve in Bethlehem It is now Christmas Eve in Bethlehem. The reverent silence over the hallowed place where Jesus Christ was born is the same on Christmas Eve 2009 as it was more than 2000 years ago. The winter stars still shine on this most humble of towns; the shepherds, in the same kind of clothes worn by those who witnessed the Child in the Manger, are still there watching their flocks by night. The pictures in the YouTube, provided by LifeInTheHolyLand.com...

The pilgrims will be there as midnight Mass at the Church of the Nativity is again broadcast live around the world this Christmas Eve -- but the town of Bethlehem is fast losing its last few year-round Christian residents. Christians are fleeing the town of Christ's birth, and the much-reported hardship that Israel inflicts on residents of the West Bank town has little to do with it. It's the same reality across the Arab world: rising Islamism pushes non-Muslims away. Islamists frown on real-estate ownership by non-Muslims -- Christian, Jew or anything else. And though the secular Palestinian Authority still...

The remains of the first dwelling in Nazareth that has been dated back to the time of Jesus have been unveiled - just days before Christmas. The find that could shed new light on what the hamlet was like during the period the New Testament says Jesus lived there as a boy, Israeli archaeologists said. The dwelling and older discoveries of nearby tombs in burial caves suggest that Nazareth was an out-of-the-way hamlet of around 50 houses on a patch of about four acres. It was evidently populated by Jews of modest means who kept camouflaged grottos to hide from...

NAZARETH, Israel — Israeli archaeologists say they have uncovered remains of the first dwelling in Nazareth that can be dated back to the time of Jesus.They say the find sheds a new light on what Nazareth might have been like in Jesus' time — probably a small hamlet with about 50 houses populated by poor Jews.Archaeologist Yardena Alexandre of the Israel Antiquities Authority says remains of a wall, a hideout and a cistern were found after builders dug up a convent courtyard.Alexandre said Monday archeologists also found clay and chalk vessels used by Galilean Jews of the time — an...

Just in time for Christmas, archaeologists on Monday unveiled what may have been the home of one of Jesus' childhood neighbors. The humble dwelling is the first dating to the era of Jesus to be discovered in Nazareth, then a hamlet of around 50 impoverished Jewish families where Jesus spent his boyhood. Archaeologists and present-day residents of Nazareth imagined Jesus as a youngster, playing with other children in the isolated village, not far from the spot where the Archangel Gabriel revealed to Mary that she would give birth to the boy. Today the ornate Basilica of the Annunciation marks that...

Although most of the Jewish population of Israel is secular and therefore seemingly unaffected politically by God's promise of the land to Abraham in Genesis, it appears the divine promise that "I will give unto thee and to thy seed after thee the land of thy sojournings" holds ancient power. The pull is unconscious for most but very deep, which has an effect on most Israelis...

Following a day of clashes between security forces and Arab rioters in Jerusalem, Damascus-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal on Sunday evening stated that the fate of the capital would be determined by force, not negotiations. "The fate of Jerusalem will be determined only by confrontation and not by the negotiating tables," Mashaal said in a speech, according to Channel 10. "The Israelis want to divide al-Aqsa Mosque, and this is not all. They want to hold their religious ceremonies in the mosque … in preparation for demolishing it and building their temple there," he reportedly said. Israel is interested in...

Israeli police firing stun grenades faced off Sunday against masked Palestinian protesters hurling stones and plastic chairs outside the Holy Land's most volatile shrine, where past violence has escalated into prolonged conflict. A wall of Israeli riot police behind plexiglass shields marched toward young men covering their faces with T-shirts and scarves, sending many of them running for cover into the Al-Aqsa mosque, one of the Islamic structures in the compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. They remained holed up in the mosque with police outside for several hours until dispersing...

Jerusalem – Ma’an – Christians of several denominations gathered in Jerusalem Friday for a silent vigil in solidarity with besieged Islamic holy sites at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City. “We are here to support Al-Aqsa and those who are confined inside it, we are here in support of Muslims whose dignity is humiliated and religious feelings are harmed by attacks on their holiest sites,” Archbishop Atallah Hana told those gathered. This sit-in was a response to the call of Muslim scholars and clergymen to consider Friday a day of solidarity with Jerusalemites, and Muslim holy...

Satanic “Dome of the Rock” to be removed bythelastcrusade.orgJews in the town of Mitzpe Yericho are taking steps for the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem, by preparing descendents of Cohanim (priests) and Levites for service. At the Mitzpe Yericho rabbinical school, Temple novice priests learn exactly how to conduct the daily Temple service and offer the required sacrifices of doves, lambs, cows, and grain.Today is really a historical event for the Jewish people,” organizer Levi Chazan said as another part of the school was completed. “It is the beginning of the work for the Third Temple.” The school...

Jews in the town of Mitzpe Yericho are taking practical steps to prepare for the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem, by preparing descendents of Cohanim (priests) and Levites for service. At the Mitzpe Yericho school, Temple priest hopefuls learn exactly how to conduct the daily Temple service and offer the required sacrifices.

SNIPPET: "For all his public activity, Bray has rarely, if ever, discussed his life story in detail. His own MAS biography offers vague descriptions of his work as "a long time civil and human rights advocate." A charismatic African-American convert to Islam, Bray spent this entire decade working for Islamist organizations. Prior to joining MAS, Bray was political director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). Those jobs have helped him build a growing public profile and given him access to politicians and policy makers. And that may explain his reluctance to discuss his life before political activism. The Investigative...

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- In what was slated to be the site of a new 122-room hotel, archaeologists say they have discovered one of the world's oldest synagogues in Northern Israel. The site, which was unearthed as preparations were being made for construction of the hotel near the Sea of Galilee, is believed to date back some 2000 years from 50BCE to 100CE. In the middle of the 120 square meter main hall of the synagogue archaeologists discovered an unusual stone carved with a seven branched menorah . "We are dealing with an exciting and unique find," said excavation director and...

JERUSALEM – Israeli archaeologists have uncovered one of the earliest depictions of a menorah, the seven-branched candelabra that has come to symbolize Judaism, the Israel Antiquities Authority said Friday. The menorah was engraved in stone around 2,000 years ago and found in a synagogue recently discovered by the Sea of Galilee. Pottery, coins and tools found at the site indicate the synagogue dates to the period of the second Jewish temple in Jerusalem, where the actual menorah was kept, said archaeologist Dina Avshalom-Gorni of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

Christianity Surrenders to Islam Get Ready for Armageddon ByPaul L. Williams, Ph.D. thelastcrusade.org The Crusades are now being conducted in reverse.The holy war was called to free the Church of Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem from the clutches of Muslims.Nearly one thousand years later, the Obama Administration is in the process of giving the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Temple Mount, and other sacred sites back to the forces of Islam.Militant Christianity is now in full retreat. The surrender of the sites is advocated not only by the Vatican but leading mainline Protestant denominations, including the Presbyterian Church (USA),...

(IsraelNN.com) A first-person account of a US presidential candidate's trip to Israel by a prominent Jewish-American activist reveals a calm man with strong principles. When I received the invitation from Shani Hikind at the Ateret Cohanim/Jerusalem Reclamation Project (JRP) to accompany Republican Presidential candidate and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee on a mission to Israel, I agreed immediately. Having listened to Huckabee speak at the many debates held amongst the candidates, and being a fan of his Fox television show and his ABC radio shows, I knew that traveling with Mike would be a unique and extraordinary experience. It was...

When Lyndon Baines Johnson was a young congressman, he saved 42 Jews from the Nazis. Indirect evidence shows that he rescued another 400 Jews, including the famed orchestra conductor Erich Leinsdorf. While Johnson didn't risk his life to save Jews, as European non-Jews did, there are those who believe that he should be honored in Yad Vashem, Jerusalem's Holocaust Memorial Museum, for being what the Israelis call a Righteous Gentile. After the 1967 Arab-Israel Six Day War, when he was President, he met with Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin in Glassboro, New Jersey. Mr. Kosygin asked him why America supported Israel...

Former US presidential nominee Mike Huckabee says Israel is much better favored by the American evangelicals than by the American Jewish community. "Maybe one of the hard things is to convince some of our Jewish friends that Evangelicals are the best friends they've got - because I think generally, that's the case," Huckabee said in the epilogue to a three-day visit to Israel. "Evangelicals are so much more supportive of Israel than the American Jewish community," he added in an interview with the CBN News. He said that the evangelical Christians were, unlike Jews, consistently supportive of the Israeli territorial...

One of the central tenets of the Christian belief in a coming Roman Antichrist is under fire because, as the author of a new book shows, the destruction of the Jerusalem in A.D. 70 was actually carried out by peoples from the Middle East, not Europe. As Joel Richardson, author of "The Islamic Antichrist," writes today in WND's commentary section, one of the pillars of the European Antichrist theory is a prophecy in Daniel 9: "The people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary." When the Temple was destroyed in A.D. 70 and...

(IsraelNN.com) A Palestinian Authority university lecturer was the latest PA academic to rewrite history and deny Jewish history in Jerusalem, which was the Jewish capital for a full 1,600 years before Muhammad authored the Muslim Koran. The lecturer denied the Jewish people's connection to the Western Wall of the Jewish Temple.

After a 35-year search, an Israeli archaeologist is certain he has solved the mystery of the biblical figureÂ’s final resting place Shielding my eyes from the glare of the morning sun, I look toward the horizon and the small mountain that is my destination: Herodium, site of the fortified palace of King Herod the Great. I'm about seven miles south of Jerusalem, not far from the birthplace of the biblical prophet Amos, who declared: "Let justice stream forth like water." Herod's reign over Judea from 37 to 4 B.C. is not remembered for justice but for its indiscriminate cruelty. His...

The world of archeology is rocked by evidence of King David's palace unearthed in Jerusalem. How Jewish is Jerusalem? You might think that's a silly question, but in the world of academia, revisionist history and even biblical archaeology, scholars have cast the shadow of doubt over Judaism's intrinsic connection to Jerusalem. The Moslem Waqf, the religious authority that administers the Temple Mount -- the site of Judaism's First and Second Temples -- has been claiming for years that there was never a temple there. But the idea that Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people and Jerusalem its...

Christian families have long been complaining of intimidation and land theft by Muslims, especially those working for the Palestinian Authority. Many Christians in Bethlehem and the nearby [Christian] towns of Bet Sahour and Bet Jalla have repeatedly complained that Muslims have been seizing their lands either by force or through forged documents. In recent years, not only has the number of Christians continued to dwindle, but Bethlehem and its surroundings also became hotbeds for Hamas and Islamic Jihad supporters and members. Moreover, several Christian women living in these areas have complained about verbal and sexual assaults by Muslim men. .....

Christian families have long been complaining of intimidation and land theft by Muslims, especially those working for the Palestinian Authority. Many Christians in Bethlehem and the nearby [Christian] towns of Bet Sahour and Bet Jalla have repeatedly complained that Muslims have been seizing their lands either by force or through forged documents. In recent years, not only has the number of Christians continued to dwindle, but Bethlehem and its surroundings also became hotbeds for Hamas and Islamic Jihad supporters and members. Moreover, several Christian women living in these areas have complained about verbal and sexual assaults by Muslim men. .....

A new Jewish interfaith initiative launched last week argues building the Third Jewish Temple in Jerusalem would not necessitate the destruction of the Dome of the Rock. "God's Holy Mountain Vision" project hopes to defuse religious strife by showing that Jews' end-of-days vision could harmoniously accommodate Islam's present architectural hegemony on the Temple Mount. This vision of religious shrines in peaceful proximity can transform the Temple Mount from a place of contention to its original sacred role as a place of worship shared by Jews, Muslims and Christians," said Yoav Frankel, director of the initiative. The Interfaith Encounter Association at...

(Washington, D.C., May 20, 2009) — Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has just finished his visit to Washington. Full analysis on my weblog, including a link to the YouTube clip of me on Glenn Beck’s show with a former CIA analyst who says he wouldn’t care if Israel ceased to exist. MUST WATCH:Joel On The Glen Beck Show That said, there’s more troubling news this morning. I’m horrified by credible reports that in his June 4th speech in Cairo, President Obama will say it is time to divide Jerusalem and make the holy city the capital of a Palestinian state. No,...

At the end of December 2008, the word GUILTY was read a total of 108 times in a Dallas court room jury convicted the Holy Land foundation and each of the five defendants of raising money to fund Hamas terrorism. The defendants were guilty of three dozen counts related to the illegal funneling of at least $12 million to the Palestinian terrorist group. Today the Holy Land terror trial defendants were sentenced. But if you look at the Associated Press report they were boy scouts with an attitude problem. The headline which has been picked up by newspapers all across...

Sheikh Raad Salah, leader of the Northern Wing of the Islamic Movement in Israel, believes Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will try to rebuild the Jewish Temple. Speaking at a conference organized by website Islam Online in Doha, Qatar, Salah stated his belief that Netanyahu may try to build the Jewish Temple – which the Islamic preacher called “the false temple” – during his current term after allegedly failing to do so in his first term as Prime Minister in the late 1990s.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu vowed at the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva in Jerusalem Thursday night that the Israeli flag will continue to fly over the Western Wall (Kotel). The first prime minister in years to appear at the venerable yeshiva on Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day), he ignored U.S. President Barack Obama’s apparent trial balloon that he wants to see the United Nations flag fly over the Old City holy sites.

On the Pope's Trip to the Holy Land "I Presented Myself as a Pilgrim of Faith" VATICAN CITY, MAY 20, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave today during the general audience in St. Peter's Square. * * * Dear brothers and sisters, I pause today to speak about the apostolic journey that I made May 8-15 to the Holy Land, for which I do not cease to give thanks to the Lord, because it has shown itself to be a great gift for the Successor of Peter and for the whole Church. I wish...

> In his travel memoir, Twain describes a 1867 trip to the Land of Israel, which he finds a backward and desolate place devoid of culture or law. "Renowned Jerusalem itself, the stateliest name in history, has lost all its ancient grandeur, and is become a pauper village," he states, calling it a country where prosperity had died out, a place of lost splendor and beauty where joy has turned to sorrow, and where silence and death prevail in its holy places.

The world desperately needs Benedict's model of reconciliation.Jerusalem Most Israelis seem to agree that the pope's just concluded trip to Israel wasn't a raving success. Far from healing wounds, his address at the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum garnered harsh criticism for failing to adequately address the horrors memorialized there. I see the visit in a much more positive light.

Saint John’s Gospel has left us an evocative account of the visit of Peter and the Beloved Disciple to the empty tomb on Easter morning. Today, at a distance of some twenty centuries, Peter’s Successor, the Bishop of Rome, stands before that same empty tomb and contemplates the mystery of the Resurrection. Following in the footsteps of the Apostle, I wish to proclaim anew, to the men and women of our time, the Church’s firm faith that Jesus Christ “was crucified, died and was buried”, and that “on the third day he rose from the dead”. Exalted at the...

NAZARETH, Israel, May 14 -- A newly erected concrete spire sliced high into the air over an altar spread beneath, turning a dusty amphitheater here in northern Israel into a church foNational flags and ecumenical banners stood out in the breeze, and quavering Arabic melodies alternated with the sounds of English and Latin. Pope Benedict XVI traveled to the boyhood home of Jesus on Thursday to celebrate the final Mass of his eight-day trip to the Middle East. The ceremony served as a boisterous send-off for the 82-year-old pontiff, who returns to Rome on Friday. "Viva al baba!" the crowd...

In an action that spoke far louder than words, Pope Benedict yesterday walked out of an interfaith meeting in Jerusalem after the chief Islamic judge of the Palestinian Authority launched into an anti-Israeli diatribe. The pontiff, on his first day in Jerusalem, did not realize at first that Sheikh Taysir al-Tamimi, speaking in Arabic, was condemning the "crimes of the Jewish state" and accusing Israel of having "slaughtered women, children and senior citizens." But as soon as he was told the nature of the sheikh's tirade, he stood and left the meeting, which took place at Notre Dame church, before...

JERUSALEM – If Pope Benedict XVI so fervently supports a Palestinian state – which would split sections of Israel – he also should divide Rome, charged the leader of a coalition of more than 350 Israeli rabbinic leaders and pulpit rabbis. "I was shocked to hear that the first thing the pope had to say when he landed in Israel was that the Holy Land must be divided to make room for a Palestinian state," said Joseph Gerlitzky, rabbi of central Tel Aviv and chairman of the Rabbinical Congress for Peace, which includes some of Israel's most prominent Jewish leaders....

JERUSALEM, MAY 13, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI left Jerusalem for Bethlehem early this morning amidst further carping from the locals; I couldn't help but raise my heart to God in gratitude for this gentle, German Pope. I realized just how unique his mission is in this faction-torn land of continual squabbles over everything from land to doctrinal minutiae. The fact is that the Holy Father didn't come to the Holy Land to play party politics, not even for his own "party." He didn't come merely as a representative of the Catholic Church, but truly on behalf of everyone involved, on behalf...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The Vatican had to play down Pope Benedict's teenage membership of the Hitler Youth on Tuesday as Israeli disappointment at a lack of emotion in his remarks on the Holocaust dogged his tour of the Holy Land. The speaker of the Knesset, echoing many of his compatriots, accused the German-born pope of showing detachment on Monday from Jewish suffering under the Nazis. He referred to Benedict as "a German who joined the Hitler Youth and ... Hitler's army." The Vatican spokesman at first flatly denied that Benedict, 82, was ever in the Nazi youth movement. But when...

Jordanian clerics expressed disappointment that Pope Benedict XVI in an address to Muslim leaders on Saturday failed to offer a new apology for remarks seen as targeting Islam. "We wanted him to clearly apologise," Sheikh Yusef Abu Hussein, mufti of the southern city of Karak, told AFP after the pope's address in Amman's huge Al-Hussein Mosque. "What the pope said (in 2006) about the Prophet Mohammed is untrue. Islam did not spread through the power of sword. It's a religion of tolerance and faith," Hussein said.

  "For this one night, Jesus is in the tomb." These words, spoken to me by a priest on Holy Thursday, haunted my soul as the doors of the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem were locked and I found myself spending the night in the tomb of Christ, which functions as the altar of repose for the basilica. Twelve hours later, exhausted but exhilarated, I left the tomb struggling to process my incredible experience of the reality of Christ and of the Holy Land, the very land where He walked and taught, where He lived and died....

An op-ed published in the New York Times on Tuesday by veteran Vatican reporter John L. Allen Jr. lists four ways Pope Benedict XVI can "move things forward in the Middle East." He recommends the Holy Father endorse the two-state solution, call upon Palestinians to reject extremism, urge support for Holy Land Christians, and advise that Iran be included in regional discussions.   It's easy to agree with all of Allen's suggestions, in part, because he leaves out one of the most important -- and most controversial -- messages Benedict should consider sending: challenging Israel to reject its own...

President Obama told Jordan's King Abdullah to convince the Arab world to modify the Saudi Peace Plan, an Arabic language newspaper said. He wants the UN flag to wave over Jerusalem’s holy sites and the Palestinian Authority flag to flutter over Jerusalem neighborhoods.

Irondale, Ala., May 4, 2009 / 01:17 pm (CNA).- Those wanting to follow Pope Benedict XVI’s historic trip to the Holy Land will be able to tune in to EWTN’s television, radio or internet broadcasts and walk with the Pope in the footsteps of Jesus. EWTN will follow the Holy Father across the region as he visits such sites as Bethany Beyond the Jordan, where Jesus Christ was baptized; the Grotto of the Annunciation, where Mary learned she would carry the Messiah; the Caritas Baby Hospital, the only pediatric hospital in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip that cares...

Vatican City, May 4, 2009 / 10:27 am (CNA).- Members of the Papal Foundation met with Pope Benedict on Saturday and heard him speak about his trip to the Holy Land later this week. He told the foundation that he will go as "a pilgrim of peace" to a land that has been marred by violence and injustice for 60 years.Pope Benedict began the audience by greeting Cardinal William Keeler, the other cardinals and bishops present and the lay members of the foundation with St. Paul’s words-- "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus...

JERUSALEM, APRIL 30, 2009 (Zenit.org).- More than a hundred rabbis of various denominations will sign a message welcoming Benedict XVI to the Holy Land and encouraging dialogue between Jews and Christians. The presidents of the International Foundation for Interreligious and Intercultural Education, Adalberta and Armando Bernardini, told ZENIT that the message is due to be published on the Web site of an Israeli newspaper, "Ha'Arezt." The initiative is being promoted by one of the foundation's members, Rabbi Jack Bemporard, also director of the New Jersey based Center for Interreligious Understanding. From May 8 to 15 the Pope will visit the...

JERUSALEM (CNS) -- Daniel Rossing uses one word to sum up the extent of teaching about Christianity in Israeli public schools: none. "The answer is very simply no. Israeli students do not learn about Christianity in school," said Rossing, director of the independent Jerusalem Center for Jewish-Christian Relations. "All indications are that there is a very widespread ignorance with regard to Catholicism in general and in particular in regard to the revolutionary changes which have taken place in the Catholic Church regarding Judaism and the Jewish people," said Rossing, who is an Orthodox Jew. Rossing is considered an expert in...

JERUSALEM (CNS) -- The Old City of Jerusalem was more packed than it had been in many years as the Catholic Easter coincided with the Orthodox Palm Sunday and the Jewish priestly blessing at the Western Wall for Passover. People jammed the alleyways of the outdoor market as pilgrims made their way to Easter Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Taking the same path, members of the Orthodox churches headed toward their Palm Sunday services while Jews rushed to the Western Wall for the traditional blessing by the cohanim, priests who are descendants of the priests who served...

Over 50,000 people took part in the Birkat Hahama prayers at Jerusalem's Western Wall on Wednesday morning. The special event, a blessing of thanks for the world's creation, occurs when, the Talmud says, the sun reaches the same spot in the firmament as when it was created. It will not occur again for another 28 years. Following the event, all roads surrounding Jerusalem's Old City were blocked. Police have requested that those attending the ceremony leave the Old City using public transportation. In hundreds of places around the world, observant Jews planned to rise before dawn for outdoor prayers and...

...Obama wrapped up his trip in predominantly Muslim Turkey on Tuesday with a plea to the Muslim world and to Israel to accept each other. He stated that the Islamic faith "has done so much over the centuries to shape the world - including in my own country.”.... George Mitchell is expected to visit Israel next week....President Obama will visit Israel and the PA in June.

Over dinner at the Ambassador Hotel in East Jerusalem, I talked with Danny Seidemann, a Jewish man from upstate New York who moved to Israel as a youth more than 30 years ago. Danny is recognized worldwide as an expert on the religious and cultural differences that divide, and potentially unite, Jerusalem. "The Christian community of Jerusalem is the canary in the coal mine," he told me. "When it starts dying, we know all of us are going to die."   Seidemann, himself a Zionist, believes preserving the Christian presence in the Holy Land is crucial to its future....