Signs, Signs, Everywhere Are Signs. . .

Last week, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution that says the Palestinians "have the right to self-determination and to sovereignty over their territory." By a margin of 140 to 6, the non-binding resolution granting the Palestinians self-determination and sovereignty over the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and eastern Jerusalem was approved.

The resolution was cosponsored by 27 Arab, Muslim and non-aligned nations. Not only does the resolution decree that Palestinians have a right to 'their' territory, but it also says that "Israel, the occupying power, has only the duties and obligations of an occupying power."

The duties of an 'occupying power' under international law are to provide safety and security for the citizens of the occupied state.

Sharon's plan to unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip will cost Israel four settlements and force the relocation of nearly eight thousand settlers. It benefits Israel only in that it would be able to withdraw its troops and seal of its border against terrorists.

This new resolution would force Israel to remove its settlements, relocate its settlers, but still remain obligated to keep order and security in the Gaza Strip.

The resolution also notes the General Assembly's "determination to contribute to the achievement of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and the attainment of a just and comprehensive negotiated peace settlement in the Middle East" resulting in two states.

In 1967, Israel fought back an effort by the combined armies of the Arab world to annihilate the Jewish State. As Israel's then-Prime Minister, Golda Meir, noted at the time, "The Arabs can fight, and lose, and return to fight another day. Israel can only lose once."

For that reason, those parts of Egypt, Jordan and Syria around its borders that were captured at the end of the June, 1967 Six Days' War were annexed by Israel as a 'buffer zone' against future attacks. That buffer zone was the only reason Israel survived the next pan-Arab attempt at its annihilation six years later in October, 1973.

The Jordanians and Arabs that lived in the buffer zones with Jordan and Egypt fled to their home countries, where they were promptly interned in concentration camps by their own countries where they acquired a new nationality, that of 'Palestinian refugees'.

Prior to 1967, there were no such people as the 'Palestinians'. Until the creation of the Israeli State in 1948, the Jews were called 'Palestinians'.

When the First Congress of Muslim-Christian Associations met in Jerusalem in February 1919 to choose Palestinian representatives for the Paris Peace Conference, the following resolution was adopted: "We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographical bonds."

In 1937, a local Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, told the Peel Commission, which ultimately suggested the partition of Palestine: "There is no such country [as Palestine]! 'Palestine' is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria."

The representative of the Arab Higher Committee to the United Nations submitted a statement to the General Assembly in May 1947 that said "Palestine was part of the Province of Syria" and that, "politically, the Arabs of Palestine were not independent in the sense of forming a separate political entity."

A few years later, Ahmed Shuqeiri, later the chairman of the PLO, told the Security Council: "It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria."

All of this is history -- or it was, before the revisionist historians met the antisemitic propagandists. It was love at first sight. The product of the unholy union between them are the modern spin doctors who blather on about 'inalienable Palestinian rights' while simultaneously arguing in favor of ethnic cleansing and denying Israel's right to exist.

The resolution defining 'Palestine' as everything outside Israel's Green Line not only reconfirms the invention of a new 'people' -- it also outlines their national borders by limiting Israel's.

One hundred and forty countries voted for the resolution. Opposing it were Israel, the United States, Palau, the Marshall Islands, and Micronesia.

Israel plays an important role at the United Nations. It is a role so important that, if there WASN'T an Israel, the UN would have to invent one.

Israel is the lynchpin that maintains the equilibrium at the UN. Israel's existence has prevented many wars.

Hatred of Israel is what keeps the Arabs from turning on each other and killing themselves off. Israel is often used to solve disputes between nations.

The UN gets together and tries to figure out a way to blame Israel, thereby allowing face-saving compromises, preventing regional wars and racking up diplomatic 'successes'.

The Jews of Israel continue to fulfill the role they have played from time immemorial -- that of scapegoat.

Traditionally, Sunnis kill Shi'ites, Shi'ites kill Wahabbis, Wahabbis kill anybody. Thanks to the existence of Israel, they all meet regularly at the Arab League to plan ways to kill Israel, instead.

If they aren't engaged in jihad against Israel, they are warring among themselves over who hates Israel the most. Iraq's invasion of Kuwait split the Arab world in two. Arafat backed Saddam, even though his priniciple financial backers were the Saudis and Kuwaitis. Without Israel to focus Arab rage, it feeds on itself. Or spills out in the form of mindless global terror.

If it weren't for globally sponsored hatred for Israel, the Palestinians would have already rended Yasser Arafat limb from limb for stealing their national treasury while they live in miserable poverty.

Were it not for Israel, the world would not even contemplate giving Arafat a failed state in-the-making.

Remove Israel from the equation, and what you would have would be the equivalent to the United States endorsing statehood for the Taleban in Afghanistan, with the UN General Assembly passing resolutions ordering the Afghanis to surrender half their territory for their new state.

Under the Taleban, people could be denounced and simply taken out and shot. Under Yasser Arafat, people are routinely denounced as Israeli collaborators and taken out and shot.

In one case, it was evidence of a 'failed' state justifying invasion, yet in the other, the UN has resolved an equally failed state has an 'inalienable right' to statehood. In the natural, it is madness squared.

But the Arab-Israeli conflict is of supernatural origin. Israel's status as the world's scapegoat was predetermined by prophecy, as was Islam's violent and warlike nature.

Of Ishmael, from whom Islam claims its descendancy, Scripture says, "And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren." (Genesis 16:12 ) Although it is prophecy, read from this end of time, it sounds more like Islamic history.

Of Israel, the Bible prophesied; "And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations whither the LORD shall lead thee." (Deuteronomy 28:37)

"Then will I pluck them up by the roots out of my land which I have given them; and this house, which I have sanctified for my name, will I cast out of my sight, and will make it to be a proverb and a byword among all nations." (2nd Chronicles 7:20)

"Thou makest us a byword among the heathen, a shaking of the head among the people." (Psalms 44:14) Although Israel's future was foretold in its distant past, from where we stand on the timeline, it also reads like history.

Israel was scattered among the nations, where Jews were persecuted and reviled wherever they settled. (The first country in history to afford full citizenship to Jews was the United States of America.)

The 'wandering Jew' remains a 'proverb' and a 'byword among the heathen' to this day.

Israel, by its very existence, is an 'astonishment' on numerous levels. No nation ever survived dispersal over millennia, to re-emerge at the end of time with its original language, customs, dietary laws and social structure intact. There are no Chaldeans, Amalekites, Jebusites, etc. All are lost to history. But the Jew remains.

Israel should have been stillborn. During the War of Independence, untrained, ill-equipped and vastly outnumbered Jewish settlers fought off the combined armies of the Arab world, against all odds.

Israel shouldn't have survived the Six Day's War -- and even the Israelis themselves were astonished when they won the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

That Israel remains the most hated nation on the face of the earth is an 'astonishment'. Can anybody explain why Israel deserves less respect than the Sudan or Syria?

Or why only six nations on the whole planet voted to oppose creating, along Israel's border, a terrorist state that is sworn to Israel's destruction by Charter?

Israel should not exist, yet it does, as a sign to the generation that will see the fulfillment of all things and the return of Christ.

"O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times? A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign. . ."

"And He shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth." (Isaiah 11:12)

"And when these things BEGIN to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh." (Luke 21:28)

Excerpted from the Omega Letter Daily Intelligence Digest, Volume 32, Issue 10

Here's another "sign" :

Plan Ahead: Rare Transit of Sun by Venus

By Joe Rao
SPACE.com's Night Sky Columnist
posted: 07:00 am ET
06 February 2004

Put a big red circle around June 8 on your calendar. On that day, you may have a chance to see a celestial event not witnessed by human eyes in 122 years when Venus crosses in front of the Sun.

Venus has been growing brighter and climbing higher into our evening sky lately. It has evolved into an "evening lantern" for those commuting home from work and school.

By the end of May 2004, however, Venus will be rapidly dropping back toward the Sun’s vicinity, ultimately to disappear as it makes the transition back into the morning sky. That transition day will be June 8.

Normally, Venus would pass unseen, hidden in the brilliant glare of the Sun. But not this time.

For on this Tuesday in June an Venus will making itself evident as a small black spot slowly moving across the solar disk. Portions of the hours-long transit will be visible from many locations around the world, including parts of Europe and America. Some folks will need to make travel plans, however, to see the show.

Rare opportunity

This is among the rarest of astronomical events. In fact, between the years 2000 BC and 4000 AD there are only 81 Venusian "transits," as astronomers call them.

Only five times have humans recorded the passage of Venus in front of the Sun (in 1639, 1761, 1769, 1874 and 1882), although it’s not impossible that a transit of Venus might have once been seen by chance in ancient times, near sunrise or sunset. Possibly on such an occasion, some ancient observer with a keen eye, viewing the Sun on an unusually hazy day, might have glimpsed our sister planet's dark image (reporting it as "a dark mark on the Sun") on the solar disk.

Astronomer Joseph Ashbrook (1918-1980) wrote in "The Astronomical Scrapbook" (Sky Publishing Corporation, 1984): "For those who witness the transit of June 8, 2004, there comes the awesome thought that not a single human being remains alive that observed the last transit of Venus, in December, 1882."

There is some neat math involved in Venus transits, all related to the predictability of its orbit, which is closer to the Sun than the annual path of Earth.

The circumstances of the transits of Venus repeat themselves with great exactness after a period of 243 years. The intervals between individual transits (in years) currently go as follows: 8 + 121½ + 8 + 105½ = 243. In other words, a pair of transits may occur over a time span of just eight years, but following the second transit, the next will not occur again for more than a century.

Transits of Venus occurred on Dec. 9, 1874 and Dec. 6, 1882. The transit this June is the first one since 1882, but the next will occur 8 years later on June 6, 2012, although this future event will be visible in its entirety only from the Pacific Ocean and the extreme east coasts of Siberia, Japan and Australia (North Americans will see the opening stages before sunset).

Then it will be a long wait once again. On December 11, 2117, Venus will again pass in front of the Sun.

Transits do not occur each time Venus passes from our evening to our night sky because things have to be lined up just right.

When a transit occurs, the Sun, Venus and Earth are all in a direct line. But Earth and Venus do not orbit in exactly the same plane around the Sun, so often each planet is either above or below the location that would allow a transit.

Think of it this way: Place two hoops on the ground to represent the orbits of the planets. Place a tennis ball in the middle as the Sun. Now lift one portion of one hoop a few inches off the ground. Only where the opposite side of the lifted hoop touches the ground can you imagine a line that connects all three objects.

Locations to watch

On June 8, the entire transit will last just more than six hours and will be visible in some form across approximately three-quarters of our planet.

The beginning will be visible from northern and western portions of Alaska, all of Asia, Indonesia and Australia, the eastern half of Africa and northern and eastern Europe, as well as the northernmost parts of Greenland. The end will be visible over central and western Asia, all of Africa, Europe and Greenland as well as northernmost and eastern sections of North America and northern and eastern parts of South America.

Australians will be able to catch the beginning stages before sunset. Europeans will be able to see most, if not all of the transit, starting at around sunrise with the end coming in the early afternoon with the Sun high in the sky. For much of the eastern United States and Canada, the Sun will rise with Venus already on the Sun’s disk with the transit nearly over.

Unfortunately, those living across the western United States and Canada, as well as Hawaii, will be precluded from seeing any part of this spectacle, as the Sun will be below the horizon when it takes place.

Transits of Mercury are more common. One occurred last May. But Mercury transits are difficult to notice because the planet is so small and far away. Venus is closer to Earth and larger.

Venus transits are readily visible without telescopes or binoculars, but proper protection must be employed. Never look directly at the Sun, or serious eye damage can result. Viewers should use special, approved filters that can be purchased from reputable dealers of astronomy products. Other tricks can be employed, such as pinhole cameras or simple projection methods, to indirectly and safely view the Sun.

When Venus is in transit across the solar disk, the planet appears as a distinct, albeit tiny, round black spot with a diameter just 1/32 that of the Sun. This size is large enough to perceive with the unaided but properly protected eye.

Editor's Note: SPACE.com will provide more detail on the great Venus transit of 2004 in the weeks leading up to the event.

http://www.space.com/spacewatch/venus_transit_040206.html

SHALOM!

The Old Testament is of course THE WORD of The LIVING G-D of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob / ISRAEL.

And contains G-D'S Promises and Covenants to His Chosen Jewish People: ISRAEL.

G-D and HIS HOLY BIBLE IS THE SUPREME AND FINAL AUTHORITY in ALL matters and issues concerning HIS Creation...Humankind and HIS HOLY LAND.

There is another book that I can recommend to you as it will shed much light on the Situation Concerning The "Land" and to Whom The Holy Land belongs.

From Time Immemorial: The Origins of The Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Palestine - By Joan Peters.

JKAP Publications, Chicago, IL, 2002. ISBN -0-9636242-0-2

Mrs. Peters gives a full investigation (including Documents and Maps) into the issue, which is still at this moment a very Volatile situation for Jews, Christians and Arabs/Islamists.

This Book can be obtained through Amazon.Com or any Big Name Book Store in the USA.

PS: I use "G-D" instead of writing/typing HIS Title out of The Solemn Holiness, Utmost Respect - in Holy Fear and sincere Humbleness that HIS NAME Commands of us.

I've never seen this before:

A few years later, Ahmed Shuqeiri, later the chairman of the PLO, told the Security Council: "It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria."

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