Al-Aqsa Mosque
News reports tell of more violence in Syria and Israel as well as the partitioning taking place. First notice something related to Syria:
October 16, 2015
GENEVA – Talk of a Holy war in Syria is deeply worrying U.N. advisers and the second ranking United Nations official says the religious or ethnic partition of Syria would be part of an extremely dangerous trend.
U.N. Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson spoke to journalists in Geneva Oct. 15 and was asked to comment on growing fears of a partition of Syria expressed by mediating officials.“Any division of a country is a very painful process and can just lead to a continued civil war. I would, both in the case of Syria and in the case of Iraq, strongly make the case for keeping the nations together.
“I say this also from the perspective of a fear that I have that ethnic and religious factors divide nations more and more. This is an extremely dangerous trend,” said Eliasson, a former Swedish foreign ministry official.
He said there is diversity in practically every nation which is a source of richness.
“It might seem easy way to divide countries to solve the problem, but what you do in fact was you build in, you confirm that religious and ethnic divisions legitimize the separation of a country.
Earlier in the week two senior U.N. human rights specialists expressed alarm at the rise in violent rhetoric by influential religious leaders – including calls for “holy war” against certain faiths – in relation to the situation in Syria.
The U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng, and Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect, Jennifer Welsh issued a joint statement after pronouncements from religious leaders.
HOLY WAR CALLS
In it they condemned the recent call by clerics in Saudi Arabia for Sunni Muslims and their States to support a “holy war” against Shia Muslims and Christians in Syria, as well as against States and non-State armed groups perceived to support them. http://www.ecumenicalnews.com/article/syria-partition-and-holy-war-talk-worries-un-officials-34816
Let me add that secular news sources are concerned that a regional war between the Sunnis and Shi’ites will come. Some believe that the building up of Syria with Russian and Iranian forces will force Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other Sunni nations to arm to deal with the predominantly Shi’ite nation of Iran and its Syrian partner Assad.
Notice also:
October 16, 2015
Syria, ISIS, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya … and the list goes on. Islam is at war with itself. Basically Sunni (Saudi Arabia, et al) vs. Shia (Iran, et al). The Sunnis have the most oil and most of the Islamic population from Saudi Arabia to the Mediterranean and around it on the African side. http://flatheadbeacon.com/2015/10/16/u-s-russia-and-the-middle-east/
The Bible tells of a time when there will be a coalition in the Middle East and North Africa that will form including Egypt in Ezekiel 30:2-9 and Daniel 11:40-43 (see also Is the Future King of the South Rising Up?). Indications are that this will include Syria (see also The Arab and Islamic World In the Bible, History, and Prophecy), hence the situation will ultimately change. Thus its semi-partition will change.
There was another stabbing in Israel today:
October 16, 2015
A Palestinian man wearing a T-shirt with the word “press” written on it in large letters stabbed and wounded an Israeli soldier in the West Bank city of Hebron on Friday before being shot dead by troops, the latest in a monthlong spate of attacks.
The attack took place just meters from a clash between Palestinian stone-throwers and Israeli troops. An Associated Press photographer covering the clash saw the stabbing and then heard several gunshots. Soldiers rushed to the scene, administering aid to the injured soldier who was eventually taken away by ambulance.
The Foreign Press Association for Israel and the Palestinian territories said the attack was carried out by someone posing as a journalist and called on local Palestinian media organizations to verify all credentials.
In Nablus, another West Bank city, Palestinians firebombed a site revered by some Jews as the tomb of the biblical figure Joseph, an attack condemned as “irresponsible” by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Flames blackened exterior walls of the small stone structure, a scene of Israeli-Palestinian clashes in the past.
In the past month, eight Israelis were killed in Palestinian attacks, most of them stabbings. During the same period, 33 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire — 15 labeled by Israel as attackers, and the others in clashes between stone-throwers and Israeli troops.
Many of the Palestinian assailants are from east Jerusalem, the sector of the city captured by Israel in 1967 and sought by the Palestinians as a future capital. The recent attacks have largely been carried out by individuals with no ties to militant groups. The violence comes at a time when a possible partition of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean into two states — Palestine alongside Israel — is fading fast.
In response to the stabbings, Israel has taken unprecedented measures, including setting up checkpoints in Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem this week despite Israel’s long-standing assertion that the city is united.
In one area, men passing through a checkpoint Friday said they lined up and ordered by troops to lift their hands and shirts to show they were unarmed before being allowed to pass.
Israel also imposed restrictions on Muslim worship at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, Islam’s third holiest site in Jerusalem’s walled Old City. Men under 40 were barred from the shrine, and hundreds of young worshippers spread out prayer mats on streets leading to the Old City. http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/palestinian-press-vest-shot-dead-stabbing-soldier-34517214
Men under 50 have been banned from attending al-Aqsa mosque
October 15, 2015
After Israel captured East Jerusalem in 1967, the two parts of the city were united. With the second intifada (2000 to 2005), Israel began to build a fence to separate peripheral Palestinian neighborhoods from Jerusalem. It has now come to pass that for quite some time, Israel has not exercised sovereignty in the eastern part of the city. Government symbols no longer exist there, and the government’s presence is limited. East Jerusalem has become a no-man’s land and a fertile hotbed for despair, alienation, isolation and religious extremism. If one adds to the pot the incitement by such actors as the northern branch of the Israeli Islamic Movement, headed by the radical Sheikh Raed Salah, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the roiling social networks, the result is what we are now witnessing. The request for IDF assistance by the Israeli police in the heart of Israel’s capital can be compared to summoning the US Marines to patrol the streets of Washington. The symbols of Israeli sovereignty are in danger. http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/10/15/why-its-time-for-israel-to-close-temple-mount-to-jews
Sadly, some Palestinians believe actions like stabbings is the best course of action (see Palestinians involved in stabbing attacks in Jerusalem: another intifada?). Of course, the solution to Palestine and Jerusalem is not war and terrorism, but the return of Jesus Christ and the establishment of the kingdom of God. Malik Hussein and others should, “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:6)...
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