Paliwood ('Palestinian' Hollywood) at its best!

 

This shocking picture is being used, for obvious propaganda purposes, by terrorist organisation Hamas and/or their supporters. As you can read, it purports to be "... what the medical personnel saw after the Israeli army left this house in Gaza."

If that were true, then Israel would rightly be the object of much, well-deserved, criticism.  However, please look carefully at the bottom one of the three pictures.  Notice, if you will, the object on the door-post at the top right-hand corner.  That object is, most definitely, a mezuzah.

Now, as anyone who has even limited knowledge of Judaism will be all too aware, a mezuzah is an object of great importance - to Jews!  It is part of their physical response to the command, given in Deuteronomy 11:20, concerning the words of YHWH (Ha'shem to a Jew who would not use the sacred Name as someone such as I would do): "... you shall write them upon the doorposts of your house and upon your gates, ..."   A mezuzah might be found in a Christian home (I have one, gifted by a dear Christian friend from Australia that is normally kept on the doorpost of my study), but never - absolutely never - in an Arab home.   The mezuzah traditionally contains a small scroll with the words of the Shema written thereon (see Deut.6:4ff).   Whatever this home, we may be assured that it is not the home of a 'Palestinian' family in Gaza!

However, we do have knowledge of the origin of the photographs.  In an act of the most obscene deceit, they have been confirmed as photographs of the home of the Jewish Fogel family - slaughtered in their home by Islamist terrorists who cut the baby's throat!   I asked, recently, when Hamas would start using pictures from the Holocaust to promote their own agenda - this suggests that such a possibility is not as remote as some may have thought!

You are unlikely to see any of this in the mainstream media, but please disseminate among your own friends and contacts.  The truth must be known!

I am a 'Nasrani'.

Apparently, this is the Arabic letter 'N' - short for 'Nasrani': the Arabic word for Christian. It is reported that the al-Qaeda-inspired ISIS group (The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), that aims to establish an Islamic Caliphate throughout the Middle East, have spray-painted the Arabic letter on the homes of thousands of Iraqi Christians over the weekend in order to identify them.

An ultimatum, issued by ISIS militants, gave the few remaining Christians a stark choice: stay and convert, pay Islamic tax, or leave. "If they refuse this they will have nothing but the sword," the ISIS statement said.

Let it be known to one and all - I am a 'Nasrani'.

The first casualty.

"In war, truth is the first casualty", is a well-known saying - attributed to a number of people, with the earliest record apparently being from a Greek tragic dramatist named Aeschylus (525-546 BC).  However, regardless of its author, the concept described is demonstratively true!

The modern State of Israel is fighting battles on a number of fronts - not least of which is the media machine. Thankfully, there are those with eyes that are sharp enough to point out the deceit that is being practised. The picture above is just one example. The child on the left is a victim of the ongoing civil war in Syria, from two years ago. The child on the right is quite obviously - even to the untrained eye - the same little girl but, this time portrayed as a victim of Israeli 'aggression' against Palestinians.

One wonder just how long it will be until pictures of victims of the Holocaust will be portrayed as victims of Israeli rockets!

Let us remember that, even a cease-fire recently offered by Israel, was breached by the terrorist organisation, Hamas, with 47 rockets being fired, indiscriminately, at Israeli targets, within a couple of hours!

When will the media begin to understand that they are the unwitting (but gullible?!) tools of Hamas, and start reporting "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth"?

What might have been - and what is!

This blog has been neglected for too long!  The reason is that I have been without internet access for some days.  My wife and I are making our way to Dunkerque, from our static caravan, for a few weeks in Scotland in order to be there to support our younger daughter as she commences chemo-therapy subsequent to the Lumpectomy that she underwent shortly before we left.

We are, at present, at Laulurie - definitely our favourite site in France, and probably our favourite touring site anywhere.  These first two days have been glorious - clear blue sky; temperature into the 30s; gentle breeze; and the conviviality that brings us back here, year after year.

It was as I lay at the side of the pool (on a lounger, of course!) this morning that I found myself day-dreaming.  I started to think of what might have been.  We read, in the Biblical book Genesis, that when Almighty God had finishes His work of creating the heavens and the earth (aka the universe), He looked at His work and "... saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good." (Gen 1:31).  We go on to read of the relationship between man and his Creator, and of the disobedience of man that allowed sin to enter the world.  That sin became, as it were, part of our DNA, and we are sinful creatures from the moment of our conception. (see Ps.51:5)

But what if Adam and Eve had not disobeyed?  What if the enemy, in the guise of a serpent, had not beguiled them?  What if they had remained the perfect creatures that God had made?  All that we may do, of course, is speculate.  As I slipped into the pool for a twenty length (it's 20m long!) swim, I wondered if Adam would have discovered that he could swim in the clear, cool, water of the river that flowed out of Eden (see Gen.2:10-14).  If he could, he would have come out of the water to a much more gentle warmth that I have been doing these past couple of days. Yesterday, I held my private devotions outside - Adam was able walk in the garden with his heavenly Father, and talk with Him face-to-face!   There was no sin, no sorrow, no death.   Little wonder that we speak of it as Paradise!

However, our human ancestors did, in fact, sin, and that is the basic reason why the world in which you and I live is as it is.  That's the basic cause of all of the greed, and violence, and murder, and everything that is negative and that causes harm to any part of the creation.  What might have been was replaced with what, in fact, is!

Yet even that is not the whole story.  Listen to Paul: "For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God.  We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies." (Rom 8:19-23).

Out of His great love for us, Father God did not leave us in our sin.  Instead, He has provided an answer.  Adam and Eve endeavoured to cover their sin by their own works - by making aprons of leaves.   But, right at the beginning, God showed that "... without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins." (Heb 9:22).  We read: "And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins, and clothed them." (Gen 3:21) but, in order that those skin garments be made, an animal (perhaps a lamb?!) had to die.  The central message of the Gospel is that God provided a perfect sacrifice, in Himself, in the Persona of the Son.  He took your place, and mine, on the cross at Calvary.  There, He died the death that you and I deserve to die.  It is as we place our trust in Him, that we may know a new relationship with God the Father, that lasts throughout this mortal life - and into eternity itself!

Perhaps you think that you're not good enough!  Listen to the words of Jesus Himself: "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me; and him who comes to Me I will not cast out." (John 6:37)

Come to Him, acknowledging your sin; accepting that you are incapable of doing anything about it; and assured that He will accept you - and make you a brand new creation, in Him. (II Co.5:11).

If I may be of any further assistance, please feel free to contact me at author@minister.com

I've made up my mind - don't confuse me with the facts!

Humza Yousaf is not someone about whom I would normally post - or even want to post!  He is a List MSP (i.e. not elected by the people, but put in place by the party, in his case, the SNP).  He has a Facebook page which, when I was directed to it yesterday, allowed comments.  Today, it would appear that such a facility is no longer available!

Mr Yousaf is obviously a supporter of the so-called Palestinian people - not surprising given his own apparent ethnic background.  His Facebook page - from what I read of it - swings between informing us that the Palestinians are down-trodden refugees in their own land (okay, he doesn't use those precise words, but I write better prose than does he!), and telling us what a fine fellow he is as he junkets around at the expense of the tax-payer (well, he is a politician!).

Yesterday, I posted some comments, including two links to YouTube videos, that provided an alternative perspective of the current situation in Israel.  I also commented on a number of Mr Yousaf's earlier posts.  Today, I received notification that my comments had been removed, and it was when I checked this out (it is true!) that I discovered that I was unable to redo them.

This would suggest, to me, that Mr Yousaf is:

(a) too biased to permit another viewpoint to be aired;
(b) too cowardly to allow an alternative voice to be heard;
(c) too uneducated to provide a reasoned response;
(d) all of the above.

If Mr Youssaf is an example of the Parliamentarians in Holyrood, then a 'No' vote on September becomes an absolute necessity.  I certainly do not want biased, uneducated, cowards representing me in the Scottish Parliament! 

By the way, one of the two video clips was at:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/07/islamic-state-to-fifa-cancel-the-world-cup-or-well-bomb-it

(Apologies that the 'hot link' appears not to work - but 'copy and paste' seems to do the trick!) 

The other has been taken down by BBC World (possibly a copyright issue), but gave the lie to many of the 'reports' coming out of Gaza - with graphics that are from years ago, and some that are not even from Gaza!

If you hadn't heard it before, you heard it first here!!!!