Don't rush it

Make it part of your daily routine

Know where you're going

 Following the lead of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, the Fatah leadership has announced their intention to start a new intifada if USA President-elect Donald Trump follows through on his promise to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. According to MEMRI, Fatah Central Committee member Sultan Abu al-Einein said on Alghad TV, "I believe that any American act of stupidity will ignite the Palestinian territories. We must prepare for a confrontation with the new USA administration, which has clearly and audaciously declared that Israel and its settlements are legitimate and legal." He also blamed his threat on Israeli "arrogance" and "settlement activity," claiming both Israel and the USA would "bear responsibility for the return of bloodshed in the Palestinian territories." (MEMRI) [Comment]

 Israel is not the biggest problem in the Middle East, by a long shot. But you wouldn't know that from the disproportionate way in which the UN has treated the country. To this day, 47 resolutions concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been adopted by the UN Security Council. In 2016 alone, 18 resolutions against Israel were adopted at the UN General Assembly in September, and 12 resolutions were adopted in the Human Rights Council. There is nothing unique about the Israel conflict deserving such disproportionate attention. Baluchistan, Kurdistan, Cyprus, Kashmir, and Taiwan are but a few other disputed territories not fetishized like Palestine is at the UN and in our media. All of these disputes involve deep religious, historic, and political meaning for their respective parties.

Why is it that Israel is expected to integrate - and does a reasonable job of including - the 20% of its population that is Arab, yet a Jewish presence of 500,000 settlers in any future Palestinian state is deemed "an obstacle" to the two-state solution? [Not one Jew, according to peace conditions set up by Palestinian Authority is to remain or be allowed to live in land ceded to the Palestinians in any final agreement. Right now, over a million Arabs live inside Israel.] Are Palestinians assumed to be ethno-fascists? Are they not capable of building a multi-ethnic state just like Israelis? Is this how low the standard is to which the West holds Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims? In reality, Israel has been the perennial excuse used by Arab despots seeking to silence their domestic opponents or the foreign critics of their ferocious repression. To call for greater freedoms in these countries where there was little or none was to be accused of "Zionist collusion." (Daily Beast)

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee slammed UN Security Council Resolution 2334 as an act of hate and contempt against the State of Israel and criticized Secretary of State John Kerry's speech against construction in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria during a visit to the Knesset Tues. 3 Jan. 2017. "I'm not here today to in any way suggest a course of action for Israel. That's the sovereign duty of a sovereign state to decide for itself," Huckabee said in the Knesset. "John Kerry's speech last week was without any historical precedent at all. No perspective. He made the ridiculous and irrational statement that Israel can either be a Jewish State, or it can be a democracy, but it can't be both...Mr. Secretary, it is both."

He accused Kerry of fundamentally misunderstanding Israel. "The only way that statement makes any sense at all is if you take faith and religion out of the equation of who Israel is. Be happy about your history. Be proud. Your history tells you where you came from and where you are going. The UN Resolution was an act of hatred and contempt. Very rarely are Syria, North Korea, Russia, etc. condemned. Israel is condemned far more. There are more condemnations in the UN when Israel builds houses than when Iran builds a nuclear reactor," Huckabee said. "The world doesn't hate you because of where you are, but because of what you are - and especially because of who you are. The Muslim world is far larger and there is no justification for Israel to withdraw from the territories. To divide Jerusalem is like asking King Solomon to divide the baby in half." he added. "I hope that President-elect Donald Trump will not let the people in Washington draw him into the swamp of inactivity. There is a saying: Do it big or go home. You need to do it big, and you are already home," he said in conclusion. (Arutz-7) [Comment]

Israel has been wracked by a wave of stabbings and shootings and rocket attacks from Palestinian terrorists over the last two years [as well as for decades]. Kerry spent a few minutes on that in his recent biased and deeply flawed UN speech targeting Israel for its settlement expansion, but only in order to draw moral equivalence with Jews building additional bathrooms in East Jerusalem, the capital of Israel. "The truth is that trends on the ground, violence, terrorism, settlement expansion, and the seemingly endless occupation, they are combining to destroy hopes for peace on both sides,” Kerry said. This is nonsense. Before there were any Jewish settlements – when Israel did not control Judea, Samaria, or Gaza – the Palestine Liberation Organization called for the "liberation” of Palestine, meaning the complete destruction of Israel. The problem isn’t people building homes. It’s Palestinians murdering Jews, and refusing to accept that any home built by a Jew ought to exist in the Middle East.

Case in point is that UN-run schools in Judea, Samaria and Gaza use textbooks which negate the very existence of Israel; teach that the Western Wall and Cave of the Patriarchs are exclusively Muslim holy sites which the Jews strive to occupy. These textbooks - written by the Palestinian Ministry of Education - are used in schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, Judea & Samaria. The UN schools don't teach Palestinian children to recognize Israel as a country - not within the 1947 borders, nor any borders at all. Furthering out-and-out lies and obstacles to peace, late last year, committees of the UN passed resolutions that referred to the Temple Mount only by its Muslim name, denying, despite archaeological, historical and biblical proofs of the Jewish connection to the site of the First and Second Temples, the local of thousands of years of yearning by Jews who mention it daily in their prayers and pray in the direction of the Temple Mount. Muslims pray towards Mecca and the Temple Mount does not appear in the Koran. Even this week, an eminent Israeli archaeologist was nearly ejected by Muslim guards from the holiest site in Judaism, located in Jerusalem, for calling it by its real name - the Temple Mount. (Ynet/Daily Wire/Arutz-7) Pray for corruption in the UN to be exposed and finally dealt with and for its de-funding. [Comment]

I will add action to words 

I will be more compassionate 

I will love more deeply

Congress is already setting the stage to cut off USA funding to the UN in the wake of a contested vote last week in which the Obama administration permitted an anti-Israel resolution to win overwhelming approval, according to congressional leaders, who said that the current administration is already plotting to take further action against the Jewish state before vacating office. Other punitive actions by Congress could include expelling Palestinian diplomats from USA soil and scaling back ties with foreign nations that voted in favor of the controversial measure, according to multiple sources who spoke about the situation both on and off the record. The Obama administration is still under bipartisan attack for its decision to help craft and facilitate the passage of a UN resolution condemning Jewish construction in Jerusalem, Judea & Samaria, a move that reversed years of USA policy on the matter. The Obama administration officials played a key role in ensuring the measure was passed unanimously by the UN Security Council. This included a phone call by Vice President Joe Biden to Ukraine’s president to ensure that country voted in favor of the measure. (Fox) [Comment]

 USA Republican leadership dismissed on Wed. 28 Dec. 2016, Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, vowing a change in policy after President-elect Donald Trump takes office next month. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan disparaged Kerry’s authority, saying that "after allowing this anti-Israel resolution to pass the UN, Secretary Kerry has no credibility to speak on Israeli-Palestinian peace.” Ryan was referring to Friday’s 23 Dec. 2016, Security Council vote condemning Israel’s settlements, in which the USA abstained. Kerry spoke for well over an hour on Wed., revisiting the stinging critique of Israel’s settlement policy that he delivered earlier this month. Miami Senator Marco Rubio said that Kerry had decided to cater to the demands of freedom’s enemies and devote and entire speech to disparaging a country that is one of America’s closest allies. "I look forward to working with President-elect Donald Trump and his incoming team to restore our relationship with Israel to its proper place,” Rubio said.

Republican Jewish Coalition Executive Director Matt Brooks accused the administration of "playing the Jewish community for fools.” "Their recent actions at the UN did nothing more than allow President Obama to take a parting shot at Israel and PM Netanyahu, while at the same time creating new roadblocks to peace. True peace in the region cannot be achieved by isolating Israel in the international community, but rather can only be achieved through direct negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians.” Brooks said that his organization was "confident that President Trump and the Republican Congress will work quickly to reverse these actions, and reestablish the strong bonds between the USA and Israel.” (Times of Israel)

Donald Trump accused Barack Obama on Wed. 28 Dec. 2016, of throwing up 'roadblocks' and making 'inflammatory statements' on his way out of the White House, and urged Israel to 'stay strong' in the face of 'disdain and disrespect' from the outgoing president. Obama angered his successor by ordering his UN ambassador last week to sit out a vote condemning Israel instead of vetoing it. Israelis leaders say Obama himself engineered the vote as a parting shot at PM Netanyahu. "We cannot continue to let Israel be treated with such total disdain and disrespect,” Trump wrote. "They used to have a great friend in the US[A] but not anymore. The beginning of the end was the horrible Iran deal, and now this (the UN vote)! Stay strong Israel, January 20this fast approaching!' he wrote. Obama's own former Middle East peace envoy, former Sen. George Mitchell, said that the president should have either vetoed the UN resolution or delayed it so Trump could set his own Israel policy. (UK Daily Mail) "’No weapon forged against you will prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and this is their vindication from me,’ declares the Lord.” Isa 54:17 [Comment]