‘Israel Will Not Hold Back’: Israel Preps For Battle To Secure Syria’s Chemical Weapons, Soldiers Put On Standby

By Paul Alster, FoxNews.com – “HAIFA, Israel – As Syria’s regime teeters on the brink of collapse, Israeli soldiers and civilians alike are preparing for possible military action to make sure Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons don’t fall into the hands of terrorist groups.

Sources close to the Israel Defense Force told FoxNews.com soldiers have been put on standby and are ready to move, while civilian demand for gas masks has jumped 66 percent over the last few weeks from 2,200 to 3,700 per day. The fears center around the prospect of Hezbollah getting Syrian chemical weapons as the Assad regime shows imminent signs of collapse.

‘Israel…will not hold back and will respond decisively if this happens,’ Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said.

Hezbollah, (the Islamic militant group based in south Lebanon, supported by both Syria and Iran), who has long called for the destruction of Israel, is the prime candidate to take possession of the armaments. Speculation is mounting about when and how Israel will deal with the prospect of chemical weapons being spirited away during the chaos of Assad’s likely fall.

‘It appears the IDF may seek to eliminate Syria’s ability to transport the weapons to proxy forces but not to eliminate the actual weapons themselves by striking at storage facilities,’ Idan Kweller, political correspondent for Israel Army Radio, told FoxNews.com. ‘Israel’s main interest is to ensure the weapons are not passed on to the likes of Hezbollah in south Lebanon.'” Read more.

Flashback: Nasrallah: Hezbollah Already Has ‘Many Surprises’ That Will Change the Face of the Region in a Future War – “The next war with Israel will start in Tel Aviv, not on the northern border, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warned on Friday, the Lebanese Al-Akhbar newspaper reported. ‘If Israel decided to wage a war against Lebanon, we will not only break the Israeli soldiers’ bones, we will smash them,’ Nasrallah was quoted as saying during a meeting with Hezbollah members. ‘The war would be waged without any red lines, and [Hezbollah] would in return commit to the new equations,’ Nasrallah said. ‘[Hezbollah] has many surprises that will change the face of the region,’ he added.” Read more.

U.S. ‘Convinced’ Israel Set To Pounce On Iran Before November Elections

By Gil Ronen, INN – “Channel 2’s veteran Middle East analyst Ehud Yaari, who is back from a trip to the U.S., said Friday night that an Israeli attack on Iran can be expected in October.

‘I will give you an impression,’ he told anchorman Danny Kushmaro on Channel 2 TV’s Ulpan Shishi, ‘and this is just an impression, but it is a strong impression, after conversations with the people one needs to talk with about this matter.’

‘My impression is that the Americans are convinced that there is very high chance that Israel will decide to attack in Iran before the elections in the U.S.,’ Yaari stated.

‘The date that they are talking about – they say that the prime minister will have to make a decision around October. They are getting ready for a possibility like that in the sense that they have to decide what they will do if there is one response or another by Iran, in the follow-up stage.’

‘But when you talk to them, they talk about [an Israeli strike] almost as a given – as a clear, unassailable fact.'” Source – INN.

Retired Egyptian General Believes Egypt Will Join Iran and Syria If They Are Attacked – ‘General Ahmad Mansouri (Ret): “What happened in the past will not happen again. President Mohammed Morsi said at Tahrir Square and elsewhere: ‘We heed the call of Islam! We heed the call of Arabism!’ The joint Arab defense agreement will be activated, Allah willing.'” Watch video.

Book: 200,000 Muslims Convert To Christianity

Leaving the faith of Mohammed for the faith of Christ is infuriating the Beast. Please pray that the Spirit of God move throughout the Islamic world …

“WASHINGTON – It’s not easy to leave Islam in a Muslim country.

It can put one’s freedom and very life at risk.

But thousands are doing it, according to a new book by Jerry Trousdale, director of international ministries for City Team International. In fact, he writes in “Miraculous Movements: How Hundreds of Thousands of Muslims Are Falling in Love With Jesus,” some 200,000 Muslims have converted to Christianity in just the last six years. And they include sheiks, imams, Muslim leaders and ordinary devotees of the faith.

‘There is tremendous dissatisfaction and discouragement among the very people who know the Quran the best and who are themselves desperate for assurance in their own religion,’ says Trousdale.

City Team has locations in California, Pennsylvania and Oregon and partnerships in 42 countries around the world. Since 1998, the organization has cared for people around the world by training, equipping, mentoring and coaching local leaders to care for those in need in their communities. This includes training 600,000 new Christians who have started over 18,000 new churches in the past seven years.

‘We’re starting a whole new thinking about the nature of church,’ says Trousdale. ‘The model of the church that is emerging is so very different from traditional church. Disciple-making movements are reaching entire nations around the world. It’s incredibly exciting to be a part of seeing people’s lives radically changed by the gospel.'” Read more.

Related: A Few Simple Questions for Muslim Visitors

Officials: Deadly Ebola Virus Outbreak Strikes Uganda, Many Flee In Fear

“KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) – The deadly Ebola virus has killed 14 people in western Uganda this month, Ugandan health officials said on Saturday, ending weeks of speculation about the cause of a strange disease that had many people fleeing their homes.

The officials and a World Health Organization representative told a news conference in Kampala Saturday that there is ‘an outbreak of Ebola’ in Uganda.

‘Laboratory investigations done at the Uganda Virus Research Institute…have confirmed that the strange disease reported in Kibaale is indeed Ebola hemorrhagic fever,’ the Ugandan government and WHO said in joint statement.

Kibaale is a district in midwestern Uganda, where people in recent weeks have been troubled by a mysterious illness that seemed to have come from nowhere. Ugandan health officials had been stumped as well, and spent weeks conducting laboratory tests that were at first inconclusive.

On Friday, Joaquim Saweka, the WHO representative in Uganda, told The Associated Press that investigators were ‘not so sure‘ it was Ebola, and a Ugandan health official dismissed the possibility of Ebola as merely a rumor. It appears firm evidence of Ebola was clinched overnight.

Health officials told reporters in Kampala that the 14 dead were among 20 reported with the disease. Two of the infected have been isolated for examination by researchers and health officials. A clinical officer and, days later, her 4-month-old baby died from the disease caused by the Ebola virus, officials said.

Officials urged Ugandans to be calm, saying a national emergency taskforce had been set up to stop the disease from spreading far and wide.” Read more.

‘Unprecedented’: In Mere Days US ‘Extreme Drought’ Zones Triple In Size

By Andrew Gully, AFP – “The drought in America’s breadbasket is intensifying at an unprecedented rate, experts warned, driving concern food prices could soar if crops in the world’s key producer are decimated.

The US Drought Monitor reported a nearly threefold increase in areas of extreme drought over the past week in the nine Midwestern states where three quarters of the country’s corn and soybean crops are produced.

‘That expansion of D3 or extreme conditions intensified quite rapidly and we went from 11.9 percent to 28.9 percent in just one week,’ Brian Fuchs, a climatologist and Drought Monitor author, told AFP.

‘For myself, studying drought, that’s rapid. We’ve seen a lot of things developing with this drought that were unprecedented, especially the speed.’

Almost two thirds of the continental United States are now suffering drought conditions, the largest area recorded since the Drought Monitor project started in 1999.

‘If you are following the grain prices here in the US, they are reflecting the anticipated shortages with a price increase,’ Fuchs said.

‘In turn, you’re going to see those price increases trickle into the other areas that use those grain crops: cattle feed, ethanol production and then food stuffs.’

In some rural areas, municipal water suppliers are talking about mandatory restrictions because they have seen such a dramatic drop in the water table that they fear being unable to fulfill deliveries to customers, Fuchs said.

‘Things have really developed over the last two months and conditions have worsened just that quick and that is really unprecedented,’ he added.

‘Definitely exports are going to suffer because there is going to be less available and the markets are already reflecting that.

‘It’s anticipated that this drought is going to persist through the next couple of months at least and conditions are not overly favorable to see any widespread improvement.'” Read more.

Planet-Forming Dust Disc Surrounding Distant Star Disappears, Astronomers Now Question How Planets Formed

Uh oh. Looks like these astronomers thought they had it all figured out, but apparently the universe isn’t as easy to understand as they wish it would be. How about this explanation: Uni = one. Verse = a spoken sentence. God said “Let there be”, and there was …

Job 26:7, “He stretches out the north over empty space; He hangs the earth on nothing.”

Psalms 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork.”

By Thomas H. Maugh II, Los Angeles Times – “A disc of planet-forming dust around a distant star has disappeared unexpectedly, leaving astronomers scratching their heads and questioning current theories of how planets are formed. ‘It’s like the classic magician’s trick: Now you see it, now you don’t,’ said astronomer Carl Melis of UC San Diego, who led the team that discovered the phenomenon. ‘Only in this case, we’re talking about enough dust to fill an inner solar system and it is really gone.’ The team has proposed several possible explanations for the disappearance, but ‘none are really compelling,’ Melis said.

The star in question is a called TYC 8241 2652. It is a younger version of our own sun, only about 10 million years old (our own solar system is 4.5 billion years old), and lies 450 million light-years away in the constellation Centaurus. It was first seen in 1983 by NASA’s Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS). The dust disc heats up from absorbed light from its star and re-emits the energy in the infrared, giving the system a characteristic appearance. IRAS has discovered hundreds of such stars.

The team reported Thursday in the journal Nature that they reexamined the star in 2008 using the Gemini South Observatory in Chile and found the same infrared signature observed in 1983. But when they looked at it again in 2009 with NASA’s orbiting Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, about two-thirds of the dust had disappeared. Observations with other telescopes the following year showed that virtually all of the dust was gone. ‘It’s as if you took a conventional picture of the planet Saturn today and then came back two years later and found that its rings had disappeared,’ said co-author Ben Zuckerman of UCLA.

Researchers have offered at least three potential mechanisms for the disappearance. One might be runaway planetary accretion. It is generally believed that the condensation of such dust particle around a star into a planet occurs over long periods — hundreds of thousands of years. In this case, it could have been accelerated by some unknown force, occurring over just a few years. The star is too far away to observe any potential planet, however.

A second possibility is that, for some reason, the dust has all fallen into the star itself, perhaps as a result of the star’s gravity or some external force. The third explanation might be that the dust particles are so small that the constant stream of light from the star has ejected them all into space, where they have cooled off.

‘Many astronomers feel uncomfortable with the suggested explanations for the disappearance of the dust because each of them has nontraditional implications,’ said co-author Inseok Song of the University of Georgia. ‘But my hope is that this line of research can bring us closer to a true understanding of how planets form.'” Source – Los Angeles Times.

Officials: Canada A Refuge For Persecuted Egyptian Christians

Viva la Canada! …

By Daniel Proussalidis – “OTTAWA – Christians in Egypt will increasingly see Canada as their chance to escape from a country whose president belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood, immigration officials warn.

‘The (permanent resident application) volume continues to trend upwards and the number of applications submitted may accelerate, given the election of a new, Islamic government in Egypt,’ a Canadian immigration program officer said in documents obtained by immigration lawyer Richard Kurland through Access to Information requests.

Other Egyptians will seek a shorter stint in Canada through a temporary resident visa (TRV).

‘With the resulting political and economic instability in Egypt, combined with the new government, the push factors are now stronger than ever,’ the program officer said. ‘The minority Christian community is especially concerned and they have been seeking exit from Egypt in record numbers.’

While 2012 statistics on permanent resident and temporary visitor visas in Egypt are not available, figures from previous years show numbers were on the rise even before Islamist Mohamed Mursi won the country’s presidential election last month.” Read more.

Flashback: Canada Condemns Egyptian Anti-Christian Violence, Obama Remains Silent – “Even as he renews his outreach to Muslims, President Obama should seek to stem the growing tide of violence against Coptic Christians in Egypt by condemning last weekend’s attacks that left a dozen people dead and scores injured. The attacks, about which Obama has been silent, also resulted in the burning of Coptic Orthodox churches and the destruction of Christian homes and businesses… Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper Monday ‘strongly’ condemned the violence, saying, ‘We stand behind the Coptic Christian community and their right to practice their faith in safety and security, free of persecution.’ The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Obama is preparing to try to reengage Muslims with a speech…” Read more.

Flashback: Canada: Canadian Government Preparing To Carve Out New Role For Canada As A Champion Of Religious Rights Abroad – “The Harper government is preparing to carve out a new role for Canada as a champion of religious rights abroad, another sign of the Conservative shift in foreign policy and one that has roots in the tragic 2011 assassination of a Pakistani cabinet minister. Early in 2012, the Tories will finally flesh out a campaign promise to install the Office of Religious Freedom within the secular confines of the Department of Foreign Affairs – a controversial pledge that has drawn accusations of vote pandering and blurring lines between church and state. The Conservatives are unapologetic about making a defence of the right to worship a central objective of Canadian foreign policy, noting, as a recent Pew Centre study found, that assaults around the world on religious freedom have increased in recent years.” Read more.

International Olympic Committee Bows To Allah, Sets Up Barrier For Lebanese Judo Team To Separate Jews

In the Muslim world, only Islamic spirits are permitted. The Olympic spirit is clearly forbidden …

“The Lebanese judo team forced International Olympic Committee officials to erect a barrier between themselves and the Israeli judo squad, Friday afternoon in London, just hours before the Games’ opening ceremony, reports Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot.

Both teams were scheduled to train inside London’s ExCeL center but Lebanon’s team did not want to be seen by the Israeli one, and IOC officials heeded to the Lebanese’s demand after the team’s coach demanded separation.

This is not the first time Middle Eastern judo teams have caused a political stir. In February, Egypt’s Ramadan Dawris defeated Arik Zeevi of Israel, but afterwards, Dawris refused to shake the hand of his competitor.” Source – the algemeiner.

Iranian Olympian Claims ‘Gut Infection’ To Avoid Competing Against Israeli – “For 33 years, Iranian athletes have forfeited or withdrawn to avoid matching up against Israeli athletes in international competition. It was all supposed to change in London. Earlier this week, Bahram Afsharzadeh, the head of Iran’s Olympic committee, said ‘we will be truthful to sport. We just follow the sportsmanship and play every country.’ That very same day, the Tehran Times reported that Iranian judokan Javad Mahjoub would be withdrawing from the Olympics with ‘a gut infection.’ Why does this matter? Mahjoub, in the 100kg judo competition, was the only Iranian athlete who could possibly have matched up against an Israeli …” Read more.

Maybe the thought of a humiliating loss to a Jew must have made the poor guy sick. What ever happened to “Allah is Greater”? …

Palestinians Welcome IOC’s Rejection of Moment of Silence for Murdered Israeli Athletes, Saying It Would Be ‘Racist’ – “The Palestinians are praising the International Olympic Committee’s decision not to hold a moment of silence in memory of the 11 Israeli athletes murdered in the 1972 Munich Olympics in the London Games’ opening ceremony, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Friday. Jibril Rajoub, chairman of the Palestinian Olympic Committee, sent a thank you letter to IOC President President Jacques Rogge… ‘Sport is a bridge for love, unification and for spreading peace among the nations,’ he wrote. ‘It must not be a cause for divisiveness and for the spreading of racism.'” Read more.

Egypt: Muslims Burn Down Christian Homes After Christian Laundry Worker Singes Muslim Shirt While Ironing

AFP – “Muslims on Friday set fire to Christian homes in a village near the Egyptian capital after a fight between a Muslim man and a Christian laundry worker who singed his shirt while ironing it, police said.

At least one person was wounded as Muslims and Coptic Christians also traded fire bombs, police officials said.

Muslims have in the past burned the homes of Copts during sectarian clashes, with dozens of Christians killed in the past 18 months alone since president Hosni Mubarak’s overthrow in a popular uprising.

The Copts, who make up roughly 10 percent of Egypt’s 82-million-strong population, were also targets of sectarian attacks before Mubarak’s ouster in February last year.

Mubarak’s ouster was followed by Egypt this year electing an Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, who has pledged to respect the rights of Christians and says they will be represented in his government.

Muslim-majority Egypt has for decades been marked by deep sectarian tensions, with religious violence between Muslims and Christians often sparked by disputes over land or love affairs between members of the two communities.

In January 2011, a suicide bomber killed more than 20 Christians outside a church in the country’s second city Alexandria, amid accusations by Islamists that the Coptic Church had detained a woman who converted to Islam.” Source – Lebanon Now.

Egypt: Thousands Of Christian Girls Being Kidnapped By Muslims, Forced Into Servitude, Marriage

By Joseph Mayton, bikyamasr – “CAIRO: A new report from George Washington University professor Michele Clark and Coptic rights activist Nada Ghaly has argued that thousands of young Coptic Christian girls in Egypt are the victim of kidnapping and forced servitude by Muslims in the North African country.

‘Women and girls who are found indicate they were befriended by friends or relatives of their kidnappers, or the kidnappers themselves, drugged and then taken in a well-organized plan.

‘Others, like a young mother who testified before the Helsinki Commission last week, were snatched by violent strangers in broad daylight. Her would-be abductor shouted to bystanders while dragging her to a waiting taxi, ‘No one interfere! She is an enemy of Islam’,’ said a report highlighting the new report.

The report, which detailed Clark and Ghaly’s latest description of violence against young Coptic women, goes on to say:

Abduction, many who return home indicate that they were raped and told they could not go home because their families would never accept them back. Many are beaten; others are forced into domestic servitude. They are not allowed to leave where they are held without a member of their captor’s family keeping watch. They eventually are brainwashed into thinking the only way to be safe is to convert. Their families, who have been searching frantically for their daughters, sisters and wives — without any help from the police — often never discover their fate. The lucky ones find out via YouTube and other websites that their daughters are alive and have converted. While some conversions could be legitimate, overwhelming evidence points to abduction, forced marriage and coerced conversion persecuting the Coptic population.

Clark is not new to her outspoken coverage of the plight of Coptic women, issuing near annual reports on the situation, which some observers say embellishes and delivers a picture that is far from accurate.

In recent years, Coptic Christian advocacy groups have lambasted the Egyptian authorities for allegedly not forcing the return of Coptic girls to their families after they have allegedly been kidnapped by Muslim men.” Read more.

Daniel 9:27 And The Confirmation Of The Covenant – A Peace Treaty?

By ICA

Daniel 9:27, “Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week; But in the middle of the week He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, Even until the consummation, which is determined, Is poured out on the desolate.”

Also See: Daniel 9:27 Redux: Will Antichrist Make A False 7-Year Peace Treaty With Israel?

On July 27, 2012, US President Barack Obama signed S. 2165, the United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act in the Oval Office. An official posting on The White House Blog revealed that:

President Obama signed the United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act with an eye toward helping to strengthen the military edge Israel currently enjoys.

“I have made it a top priority for my administration to deepen cooperation with Israel across the whole spectrum of security issues — intelligence, military, technology,” the President said. “And, in many ways, what this legislation does is bring together all the outstanding cooperation that we have seen, really, at an unprecedented level between our two countries that underscore our unshakeable commitment to Israel security.”

Is this the “confirmation of the covenant” that the prophet Daniel spoke about in Daniel 9:27? Some in the Christian community are already wondering if it could be. But, alas, I have to say no, and there will likely never be any sort of “peace treaty” between Israel and the Muslim world surrounding her. Why do I say that, you ask?

Daniel’s 70th Week: Fulfilled or Not Yet Fulfilled?

First, we should understand that there are three views regarding the 70th week of Daniel, the time in which Daniel writes about “confirming the covenant”.  These three views state that the 70th Week