Global Focus on the Middle East

From Watch.org (April 17)

  • As talks intensify, Netanyahu mulls narrow coalition

    Likud sources: Initial coalition could include Likud, Kulanu, Habayit Hayehudi and ultra-Orthodox parties, after which Netanyahu would invite Labor to join • PM hopes to seal deal with Kulanu party by Tuesday before final two-weeks of talks commence.
    Coalition talks shifted to high gear on Wednesday when Likud and Kulanu negotiators met to finalize the terms of their emerging coalition deal. Both sides appear poised to sign the deal as early as next week. 
    Netanyahu, who is about to exhaust the 28 days he had been allotted by the president for the coalition talks, is expected to arrive at the President’s Residence on Tuesday to ask for more time. (Under the law, he may get another 14 days, at the president’s discretion.) Netanyahu hopes to have at least one official coalition partner when he makes that request, and has indicated that if he fails to seal the deal with Kahlon, he could turn to the ultra-Orthodox parties — Shas and United Torah Judaism.

  • Hamas calls to abduct Israelis for future swaps

    A senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip called on Thursday for the abduction of Israelis, who would be swapped for Palestinians held by the Jewish State. 
    “We tell the Zionist enemy: you are all a target for us and the resistance, we will fight you until we finally get rid of you and take as many captives as possible to free our heroes,” said Khalil al-Haya, whose Islamist movement de facto rules the Palestinian enclave.
    “Our men, our women, our children all envision kidnapping your soldiers and settlers, wherever they are,” he said on the eve of Prisoners Day which Palestinians mark April 17. 

  • Lapid to Mogherini: EU foreign ministers are calling for a de-facto boycott of Israel

    A call by 16 European Union foreign ministers to label West Bank settlement products is irresponsible, Yesh Atid party head Yair Lapid said Thursday night as he spoke by telephone with the EU’s foreign policy chief Frederica Mogherini.
    “This is a de-facto call to boycott Israel,” he said. “There is no difference between products which are produced over the Green Line and those that are produced within the Green Line.
    “This is an irresponsible call that could create wreak havoc on the Israeli economy. This kind of call is a stain on the EU, and the state of Israel has to fight to prevent this kind of initiative,” he said.
  • Arab world: Egypt’s dangerous stalemate

    Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is fighting for his country’s survival – and his own.
    Islamic terrorism is not abating, hampering vital efforts to bring a better life to the people through a revitalized economy and political stability. Sisi knows he has to show results soon to prevent Egypt from slipping back into anarchy and chaos.
    Despite the army’s all-out effort to defeat Islamist insurgency in Sinai, there is no end in sight. F-16 fighter planes and Apache helicopters have joined the campaign, security forces have killed or wounded hundreds of terrorists, destroying their haunts and their training groups – but more keep coming.

  • On the heels of a bad Iran deal: Obama Says ‘Never forget. Never again,’ in Remembrance Day Message

    US President Barack Obama called for a forceful stand against anti-Semitism in a message marking Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day.
    “It is incumbent upon us to make real those timeless words, ‘Never forget. Never again.’ Yet, even as we recognize that mankind is capable of unspeakable acts of evil, we also draw strength from the survivors, the liberators, and the righteous among nations who represented humanity at its best,” Obama said.
    “With their example to guide us, together we must firmly and forcefully condemn the anti-Semitism that is still far too common today. Together we must stand against bigotry and hatred in all their forms. And together, we can leave our children a world that is more just, more free, and more secure for all humankind.”

  • North Korea Transfers Missile Goods to Iran During Nuclear Talks: Intelligence suppressed by Obama administration

    North Korea supplied several shipments of missile components to Iran during recent nuclear talks and the transfers appear to violate United Nations sanctions on both countries, according to U.S. intelligence officials.
    Since September more than two shipments of missile parts have been monitored by U.S. intelligence agencies as they transited from North Korea to Iran, said officials familiar with intelligence reports who spoke on condition of anonymity.
    Details of the arms shipments were included in President Obama’s daily intelligence briefings and officials suggested information about the transfers was kept secret from the United Nations, which is in charge of monitoring sanctions violations.

  • Putin tells Netanyahu S-300 missiles not a threat to Israel

    After Russia okayed sale of advanced missile defense system to Iran, Netanyahu calls Putin to express concern that sale would bolster Iran’s regional terror activities.
    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with Russia’s president to convey his displeasure over Russia’s decision to sell advanced anti-aircraft missiles to Iran. Putin for his part told Netanyahu that the missiles had only defensive capabilities and “pose no threat” to Israel. 
     Netanyahu’s office said he spoke with Vladimir Putin Tuesday to protest Russia’s planned delivery of advanced S-300 air defense missile systems to the Islamic Republic. The Kremlin confirmed the call in a statement on Tuesday.
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War Machines and Future Holocaust … The Inevitable? Yeah!

EXCEPTS from watch.org gleaned from the web and relayed here come to you with our notion that war machines are gearing up.  These are either movements of force or actual machines at the ready.  And in the midst of the reporting we have Israelis saying another Holocaust may yet come. Technology will kill, but people and their bias and hatred do the killing. How does the Bible link all this together.  First, prophecy has Gentiles at each others’ throats … deposing and waring with each other.  Further still nations hell bent on destroying Israel is simply of biblical proportion!  YOU have to be BLIND not to see what is shaping up in the Middle East … and yet Scripture said so long ago!

One third dies under Hitler, two thirds are in jeopardy today.  In the end of days, at the later part of this era, one third of all Jewish people will constitute the ‘Remnant of Israel.” The other two thirds are perhaps subject to persecution and worse. Unthinkable that any world of civilized peoples would persecute and kill … but have you been watching how extremism is growing like cancer?

Take a minute to explore today’s headlines!

APRIL 14, 2015  Ya’alon: Russia’s S-300 deal with Iran is ‘direct result of Lausanne agreement’

Russia’s decision to lift a ban on the sale of the advanced S-300 air defense system to Iran is a “direct result of the framework agreement reached in Lausanne,” Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said Tuesday, referring to the recent nuclear agreement between the P5+1 and Tehran. …

APRIL 14, 2015  Israel: Iran steps up arms shipments to Hezbollah, Hamas

Israeli officials revealed Monday that the Islamic Republic had stepped up its support for Lebanese Shiite terror group Hezbollah over the past few weeks

According to a Channel 2 report Monday, Israel has observed an increase in Iran weapons shipments to Hezbollah members — in Lebanon and on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights. …

APRIL 13, 2015  Saudi Arabia, Turkey Discussing Unlikely Alliance To Oust Syria’s Assad

Turkey and Saudi Arabia, two nations with a long history of rivalry, are in high-level talks with the goal of forming a military alliance to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad, according to sources familiar with the discussions. …

APRIL 13, 2015  Military strike against Iran with minimal fallout for Israel possible, US senator says

The Republican US senator behind a letter to the Iranian leadership warning that future presidents may not honor any deal that President Barack Obama signs with Tehran said Monday that he believes pinpoint strikes against Iran could be carried out without leading to a long war for the US or regional fallout against Israel. …

He referenced previous statements made by former prime minister Ehud Barak, that “it would just take one night” to launch an effective strike to set back Iran’s nuclear program.

APRIL 13, 2015 Almost half of Israelis say another Holocaust is possible

Nearly half of Israelis believe another Holocaust is possible, according to a report released Monday by the Foundation for the Benefit of Holocaust Victims in Israel

The annual study, released ahead of Holocaust Remembrance Day, which begins on the evening of April 15 this year, found that 46 percent of Israelis believe a second Holocaust can happen, five percentage points higher than last year. And a similar number of Israel’s 189,000 Holocaust survivors, or 47%, agree.

Some 46% of survivors also say that future generations will not remember the Holocaust after they are gone, a spike of nine percentage points from last year’s study. A lower 31% of the general public has the same worry, while half of Israelis under 30, the study found, never knowingly met a Holocaust survivor.

APRIL 11, 2015 Military sites not open for inspection under nuclear deal, senior Iranian army official says

Iran’s military sites will never be open for inspection under a comprehensive nuclear deal with world powers, Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported a senior Iranian commander as saying.

Deputy Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Brigadier General Massoud Jazayeri said on Friday that Iranian officials have already announced “clearly and explicitly” their opposition to the inspection of the country’s military and defense facilities, Tasnim reported. …

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All of the above is sobering and headed in dangerous directions.

God bless you!

Director, WindowView.org

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The LIBRARY of LIFE and EvoDevo: The New Option for Science Research

EvoDevo is Essentially Dead in its Tracks for Now

What is EvoDevo and what is missing in this area of scientific research?  Here is an Internet definition of EvoDevo:

  1. Evolutionary developmental biology (evolution of development or informally, evo-devo) is a field of biology that compares the developmental processes of different organisms to determine the ancestral relationship between them, and to discover how developmental processes evolved.

EvoDevo is Dead?

What puts EvoDevo into a tailspin is some of the facts that have caused real consternation in biology and evolution.  Here are just a few of the problems:

  • Embryos of animals do not exhibit a pattern across taxonomic groups that would reveal an evolutionary pathway up the developmental hierarchy posited to be the evolutionary history of life.  That is embryos of a antecedent species are not always similar to the next level of the taxonomic scale … the planes of division and pattern of development are like “apples and oranges” in their similarity.
  • The embryos drawn by Haeckel are now clearly recognized as a contrived illustration to confirm a notion and not fact
  • At the Cambrian,life appeared suddenly in a narrow, albeit several million year, time horizon.  The stratigraphy do show evidence that fossils would have been captured before the sudden appearance (as documented recently in fossil sponges found embryonic form of 8 cells or more)
  • Fossil evidence captured at the Cambrian represent unique types that serve as starting points for taxonomic groups. They start together, not one from the other.
  • The complexity of the features of each distinct group would traditionally, by conventional evolution theory require much more time than allowed by the observed data and fossil record
  • The complexity in cell types, taxonomic characteristics, and vastly different forms all point to something evolutionists gloss over … very different, specific, and complex information is required to distinguish these Cambrian life forms

In the Face of Show Stoppers

The real point here is: “Why doesn’t the current group of scientific minds accept what the raw data from fossils tell us?” Answers: Dogma? Traditional teaching? Or discomfort that evolution theory fails!

We were taught in school that science is a field that gathers data and objectively looks at that evidence to develop plausible explanations for the natural world and for life on this planet.

EvoDevo in the conceived, older, notion is’ dead (in its traditional thinking). Evolutionary biologists are coming to a point of acknowledging that natural selection working on chance (mutations) is not explanatory … evolution doesn’t work the way textbooks have reported for decades.

Look in the Library!

What EvoDevo needs to do more of is think of the Cambrian animals as distinct starting LIBRARIES of complex and specific information.  That is what initiates the complex molecules that make up biochemical pathways, structures, and all support all the inherited functions from one generation to the next. The real question is: “How complex and how deep is the library of information for each type at the Cambrian?”

If life forms appear suddenly in the history of the earth, then what information where they endowed with and how might that starting point lead to the species that appear over time?

This is the real question EvoDevo needs to address.  We need to start with the appearance of information and then see where that leads … let the evidence, not bias, lead us forward!

Director, WindowView.org

 

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