Fatah's Armed Militias Warn Israelis: "You Must Leave!"

by Khaled Abu Toameh
May 20, 2015 at 5:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5785/fatah-militias

• The international community and the media often ignore the fact that Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah has a number of armed groups. Their fight is to destroy Israel, eliminate the "Zionist entity" and achieve the "right of return" for millions of descendants of refugees.
• The Palestinian Authority leadership has never distanced itself from the rhetoric and actions of these groups. Fatah's militias will be the first to reject any peace agreement that includes the slightest concession to Israel.
• Several Fatah leaders, in fact, often speak in English about the need for reviving the peace process, while in Arabic they praise and endorse the Fatah gunmen.

Many in the international community often refer to the Palestinian Fatah faction, which is headed by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, as a "moderate" group that believes in Israel's right to exist and the two-state solution.

What these people do not know is that Fatah, the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), consists of several groups that hold different views than those expressed by Abbas and other English-speaking Fatah officials.
Some of these Fatah groups do not believe in Israel's right to exist and continue to talk about the "armed struggle" as the only way to "liberate Palestine and restore Palestinian national rights."

One of these groups is called The Aqsa Martyrs Brigade - El Amoudi Brigade.
The Aqsa Martyrs Brigades is Fatah's armed wing, established shortly after the beginning of the second intifada in September 2000. Although the Palestinian Authority leadership maintains that the group has been dissolved and its members recruited into its security forces, scores of gunmen continue to operate freely in Palestinian villages and refugee camps in the West Bank.

Based in the Gaza Strip, the El Amoudi Brigade, which consists of dozens of Fatah gunmen, is named after Nidal El Amoudi, a top Fatah operative killed by the Israel Defense Forces on January 13, 2008, after he carried out a series of armed attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers during the second intifada.

During the last war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas ("Operation Protective Edge"), the El Amoudi Brigade claimed responsibility for firing dozens of rockets at Israeli cities and IDF soldiers.

Sources in the Gaza Strip claim that many of the group's members are former security officers, still on the payroll of the PA. Other sources claim that the group is funded by ousted Fatah official Mohamed Dahlan, who is currently based in the United Arab Emirates, and the Lebanese Shiite terror group Hezbollah.
It is worth noting that the Palestinian Authority leadership has never distanced itself from the El Amoudi Brigade's rhetoric and actions.
In addition to an official website, Fatah's El Amoudi Brigade regularly issues threats to pursue the armed struggle against, and destroy, Israel. Last week, the group posted a video with a message to the "Israeli enemy" on the 67^th anniversary of the creation of Israel -- which Palestinians refer to as "Nakba Day" (Day of Catastrophe).

Entitled, "A Message to the Israeli People" and accompanied by Hebrew subtitles, the video declares that the "battle for the liberation (of Palestine) was closer than ever," and warns Israelis: "Our Nakba (catastrophe) is unforgettable; soon you will have to leave because you have no other choice."
The Fatah video shows the group's members during military training in the Gaza Strip, in preparation for the next battle against Israel. "We have prepared the best soldiers," says the song in the background.

In a separate statement on the same occasion, the Fatah group emphasizes that the "armed struggle" against Israel "is the only means to liberate Palestine." It also stresses that the "right of return" for Palestinian refugees to their former homes inside Israel cannot be compromised and is non-negotiable. "Our people reject all alternative options to the right of return," the statement read, repeatedly referring to Israel as the "Zionist enemy."
Elsewhere, the Fatah group boasts that its men have been able to manufacture a new 12-kilometer range rocket called 107 that was used against IDF tanks and soldiers during the last war in the Gaza Strip.

The El Amoudi Brigade is not the only armed Fatah militia operating in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Another significant group in the Gaza Strip, which also participated in the last war against Israel, is called the Martyr Abdel Qader Hossaini Brigade. Like its sister group, El Amoudi Brigade, the Martyr Abdel Qader Hossaini militia also supports the armed struggle against the "Zionist enemy."

A third major Fatah terror group is called the Abu al-Rish Brigades, which has been responsible for many terrorist attacks against Israel and the kidnapping of foreigners in the Gaza Strip. The gang, which describes itself as the "military wing of Fatah," also refers to Israel as the "Zionist enemy" and claims to have participated alongside Hamas in the last war in the Gaza Strip.

Gunmen from Fatah's Abu al-Rish Brigades, which describes itself as the "military wing of Fatah," appear in a September 2014 propaganda video.

The international community and the media often ignore the fact that Fatah has a number of armed groups that are still openly dedicated to the "armed struggle" and terrorism as a way of "liberating Palestine." They also ignore that "moderate" Fatah leaders who speak in favor of peace and the two-state solution do not distance themselves from these groups. Several Fatah leaders, in fact, often speak in English about the need for reviving the peace process, while in Arabic they praise and endorse the Fatah gunmen.

The presence of armed Fatah gangs in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is a sign of the huge challenges that any Palestinian leader would face if and when the Palestinians and Israel reach a peace agreement. Obviously, these Fatah groups will be the first to reject any peace agreement that includes the slightest concession to Israel. Some of these groups are opposed in principle to peace with Israel because they simply do not recognize Israel's right to exist.

This is something that the international community -- first and foremost the U.S. -- needs to take into consideration when dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Decision-makers need to know that opposition to peace with Israel will come not only from Hamas, but also from many groups within Fatah. As the armed groups themselves indicate, their fight is to eliminate "Zionist enemy" and achieve the "right of return" for millions of descendants of refugees to their former homes inside Israel.

Meanwhile, Abbas and other Fatah leaders, who are fully aware of the actions and threats of their loyalists, are doing their utmost to stop the world from hearing what the Fatah gunmen have to say about peace and the two-state solution. The question remains: Until when will the international community continue to bury its head in the sand and pretend that Fatah is a unified, moderate and pragmatic group that seeks peace and coexistence with Israel on behalf of all Palestinians?

Why The Gaps In Prophecy?

Saturday, May 16th, 2015

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• Prophecy

A Bible Study by Jack Kelley

Scattered throughout the Scriptures are prophecies that contain references to both the first and second coming of the Lord in what appears to be a single thought. These dual reference prophecies could only be identified as such after the first coming had already taken place. That’s because they were written in such a way that it was impossible to tell beforehand that the Lord’s first coming would only partially fulfill them. Often the writers switch from the first coming to the second coming in the middle of a sentence without so much as a punctuation mark to alert the reader.


In this study I want to share some thoughts on why I believe God had them written this way. But first, here are a couple of examples of these dual reference prophecies so you can see for yourself how cleverly they were written.
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.  And he will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace  (Isaiah 9:6).

When the Lord had Isaiah write this prophecy 750 years before the fact, no one could have known from reading it that when the Messiah came, He would only fulfill a portion of it. The child was born and the son was given, but the government has never been on His shoulders, and in Israel, to whom He was sent, He has never been called by the names Isaiah attributed to Him.
“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times” (Micah 5:2)

This prophecy calls for a ruler of Israel to be born in Bethlehem but gives no indication that 2,000 years would pass between the ruler’s birth and His ascension to the throne of Israel. When the Parthian priests called Magi arrived in Jerusalem, they asked, “Where is the one who has been born King of the Jews?” (Matt. 2:2).

King Herod asked the Jewish leaders where the Messiah would be born, and they used this prophecy to confirm that He would be born in Bethlehem (Matt. 2:4-6). The Magi hastened there believing they were going to anoint a boy king who would grow up to rule over Israel. For his part, Herod had all the young boys in Bethlehem killed in an unsuccessful effort to eliminate what He perceived to be an imminent threat to his rulership. But while the coming king was born, He has yet to take His place on the throne in Israel.

The Secret Revealed

30 years later, it was Jesus himself who revealed the fact that there was more to these prophecies than meets the eye. Standing in the synagogue in Nazareth at the beginning of His ministry, he called for the scroll of Isaiah and read from what we know as Isaiah 61:1-2.
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19).
Then He said He was the fulfillment of the Scripture He had just read. Comparing this to what Isaiah 61:1-2 actually says shows that He stopped before the end of verse 2, leaving out the phrase “and the day of vengeance of our God.”

Without the benefit of Luke 4:18-19, a reading of Isaiah 61:1-2 would lead us to the conclusion that the day of vengeance, what we now call end times judgments, would take place directly after the Lord had finished preaching the good news, freeing the prisoners, giving sight to the blind and proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor. By stopping where He did and saying He was its fulfillment, He indicated He hadn’t come to fulfill the part He hadn’t read. There would be a separation of time between the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of His vengeance.

There are several other dual reference prophecies that we who already know about the first coming can identify. Perhaps the most obvious is Daniel 9:24-27, the 70 weeks prophecy, where if you didn’t already know that 2,000 years have passed since the fulfillment of the first 69 weeks of the prophecy (Daniel 9:24-26) without any fulfillment of the 70^th week portion (Daniel 9:27) you wouldn’t be able to tell just by reading it, because there’s not even a hint of a gap between them in the text.

Why Didn’t You Say So?

But our purpose is not to identify all these prophecies. The question we want to answer is why did God hide this dual reference aspect of Messianic prophecy so completely that it could only be discovered after the fact? Knowing the end from the beginning, He knew that Jesus was only going to partially fulfill the prophecies that spoke of His coming, so why didn’t He have the prophets present them that way?

Some say He did it to provide “hidden” clues to the Church that He always knew about our time and place in history without alerting Israel to the fact ahead of time.
But as a result of some of my recent studies, I’ve concluded that God had these prophecies written in this particular way to show Israel that they could have been fulfilled just the way they were written. For generations, Israel had been reading and interpreting them to mean that the Messiah would come once and when He did He would fulfill all the prophecies written about Him. In fact it would have been impossible for them to interpret them any other way.

In the time leading up to the first coming, Israel believed when the Messiah came he would vanquish their enemies and restore their kingdom, because that’s what these prophecies said He would do. In fact, even after spending three years with Jesus, the disciples still asked Him if the time had come for Him to restore the Kingdom to Israel (Acts 1:6). This tells us in all His time with them Jesus never mentioned an extended period of time during which Israel would be set aside while His attention would be focused on the Gentiles.
By the way, I think His uncharacteristically vague response to their question is a hint that restoring the Kingdom to Israel at that time was still a possibility. They had just presented Him with a perfect opportunity to lay everything out clearly to better prepare them for the years ahead. But instead, He left them hanging. “It’s not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by His own authority” (Acts 1:7). To me that indicates the offer of the Kingdom to Israel was still open.

They didn’t know for certain that Israel was being set aside in favor of the Gentiles until 20 years later when James told them (Acts 15:13-18) and even then they didn’t know for how long. James only said that when the Lord had taken (carried away) a people for Himself from among the Gentiles He would turn back to Israel again. In other words, He would resume His focus on Israel after the rapture of the Church.

It Could Have Happened Just That Way

The dual reference prophecies were written in a way that would have made the total fulfillment possible at the time of the first coming. Had Israel accepted Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world and let Him die for them, the six objectives laid out by the angel in Daniel 9:24 could have been met within the prescribed 490 year period.
Seventy weeks are determined upon your people and your Holy City to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most Holy (place) (Daniel 9:24).

Sitting upon His heavenly throne, God decreed that six things would be accomplished for Daniel’s people (Israel) and Daniel’s Holy City (Jerusalem) during a specified period of 490 years.
We should be aware that in Hebrew these things read a little differently.  Literally, God had determined to;
1.  restrict or restrain the transgression (also translated rebellion)
2.  seal up their sins (as if putting them away in a sealed container)
3.  make atonement (restitution) for their iniquity
4. bring them into a state of everlasting righteousness
5. seal up (same word as #2) vision and prophecy
6. anoint (consecrate) the most Holy place (sanctuary)

In plain language, God would put an end to their rebellion against Him, put away their sins and pay the penalties they had accrued, bring the people into a state of perpetual righteousness, fulfill the remaining prophecies, and anoint the Temple. This was to be accomplished through their Messiah (Jesus) because no one else could do it.  Had they accepted Him as their savior their rebellion against God would have ended. Their sins would have all been forgiven, and the full penalty paid for them. They would have entered into a state of eternal righteousness, all their prophecies would have been fulfilled and the rebuilt temple would have been consecrated. It should be noted here that although it appears to have been accepted by Him, God never dwelt in the 2nd Temple, nor was the ark of the covenant and its mercy seat ever present therein.

Make no mistake about it.  Jesus had to die so these 6 promises could come true.  No one else in Heaven or on Earth could accomplish this.  We can only imagine how different things would have been if they had accepted Him as their Messiah and let Him die for their sins so He could bring them into everlasting righteousness with His resurrection.

The Sign Of The Prophet Jonah

And even though the religious leaders had fought Jesus tooth and nail throughout His ministry, He gave them one more chance by offering the clearest and most convincing sign possible. He promised that when they put Him to death He would come back to life three days later (Matt. 12:38-40). Since they wouldn’t know if He fulfilled this promise until after the fact, He determined to wait for them to recognize that He had. I believe this is why He stayed around for 40 days after the resurrection.

Even though there were over 500 witnesses who could attest to having seen him after the resurrection (1 Cor. 15:6), there’s no indication that any official inquiry was undertaken to confirm that He had fulfilled His promise to return from the dead. Finally He left, but only until they admit their guilt (Hosea 5:15). As soon as they do He will forgive them (Joel 3:21) and restore their kingdom as He always intended to do.

In the mean time the Church was born into the gaps in these prophecies. Not as an alternative fulfillment like the replacement theologians would have you believe, but as a parallel track. When time stopped for Israel, it began for the Church, and when it ends for the Church it will begin again for Israel.
This is what the Lord says:
“Only if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below be searched out
will I reject all the descendants of Israel because of all they have done,” declares the Lord (Jeremiah 31:37) You can almost hear the footsteps of the Messiah 05-16-15.

Exclusive: Iranian embassy blown up in Damascus: Nusra Front suspected

Reblogged from debka.com

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report May 21, 2015, 1:11 AM (IDT)

Tags:  Iran in Syria,  embassy attack,  Palmyra,  ISIS,

Iranian embassy in Damascus - before bomb blast 

A mighty explosion struck the Iranian embassy in Damascus Wednesday night, May 20, debkafile’s exclusive intelligence and counter-terrorism sources reveal. First reports are of “heavy casualties” and serious damage to the embassy compound. The Iranian and Syrian governments have clamped a curtain of secrecy down over the disaster, although the thunder of the explosion and rush of special forces and relief teams to the scene in the Syrian capital could not be concealed. 

 

Debkafile’s sources add: The explosion has initially been attributed to the Syrian arm of al Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusra. A day earlier, Tuesday, Ali Akbar Velayati, senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was known to be present at the embassy building in Damascus. It is not known whether he was still there when the explosion occurred or had meanwhile departed for Tehran. 

 

The Iranian embassy is a pivotal point for the Syrian conflict. As the Revolutionary Guards general staff center, it is the venue for the joint Iranian-Syrian military and logistic decisions taken in the conduct of the war. It also served as the Iranian command center for its operations in Lebanon, including military liaison with the Lebanese Hizballah, whose forces are fighting with Bashar Assad’s army in Syria. From there, Al Qods Brigades chief Gen. Qassem Soleimani issued his war directives when he was present in the Syrian capital. 

 

The embassy building was therefore one of the most heavily fortified and guarded premises in the Syrian capital. 

 

Its destruction by a bomb explosion came on the heels Wednesday of the fall of the ancient city of Palmyra to the Islamic State - the second devastating blow for the Assad regime and its backers in a single day. The fate of its rare heritage sites is not the only concern. With Palmyra ((Tadmor - est. pop. 120,000), the Islamic State also gained access to important military sites, including the biggest Syrian air force base. 

 

The disaster may be compared to the ISIS conquest in January of the northern Syrian town of Raqqa, today the Islamists’ headquarters in the country. Palmyra is the second major Arab city to fall to the group this week after the Iraqi town of Ramadi on Sunday. 

 

For Iran, the loss of Palmyra is a major setback in the sense that it removes from Syrian military control the main air base where Iranian flights delivered war materiel for the Syrian army and Hizballah day by day.

 

Should Israel Take Obama’s Iran Payoff?

Reblogged from https://www.commentarymagazine.com via Caroline Glick FB

Jonathan S. Tobin | @tobincommentary 05.20.2015 - 4:20 PM 

 

For months, President Obama has been trying to find a way to silence Israeli objections to a nuclear deal with Iran. Up until now, Prime Minister Netanyahu has been adamant in his opposition to what he and many Americans feel is an effort to appease the Islamist regime that will have catastrophic consequences for the security of both the United States and Israel. But, if reports are correct, the Israeli government is preparing to make the best of an awful situation by accepting a massive military assistance package from the U.S. in exchange for what an unnamed senior administration official describes as “some quiet from the Israelis.” While it can be argued that expediency demands that Netanyahu seek to get what help from the Americans that he can, with the outcome of the nuclear negotiations still hanging in the balance, this isn’t the moment for the Israelis to go into the tank for Obama on Iran.

As the Israeli press is reporting, the Americans are prepared to pay what the administration official called, “a hefty price” for Israel’s silence in the upcoming months as a nuclear agreement is debated in Congress. That price will supposedly include up to 50 advanced F-35 fighter jets and anti-missile batteries. Given the importance of maintaining Israel’s qualitative edge over potential Arab and Iranian foes, it’s a tempting offer. Especially alluring for the Israelis is the prospect of more Iron Dome batteries as well as funding for more short-range David’s Sling batteries and the long-range Arrow-3 missile defense.

If, as seems likely, there is nothing Israel can do to prevent the U.S. from appeasing Iran and signing a weak deal that may not even guarantee rigorous inspections, then perhaps the only rational alternative is to accept a bribe from the administration for their silence. The same reasoning led some Arab countries to attend a summit here last week which, though boycotted by the kings of both Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, resulted in a U.S. promise about selling them more advanced military hardware. Even if it was accompanied by a weak guarantee of their security that impressed no one, let alone Iranians, the Arabs were not so proud that they turned down U.S. assistance.

Moreover, it can be argued that if Israel doesn’t accept Obama’s bribe now, the offer may be off the table once the nuclear agreement is a done deal. The U.S. has been openly threatening to abandon Israel at the United Nations once the nuclear deal is put to bed. It’s not likely that they’ll be as forthcoming in the next year and a half. Given the ongoing threat of another war with Hezbollah or Hamas, anything that can help augment the Jewish state’s anti-missile defense arsenal is vital.

But even though the outcome of the Iran talks seems like a foreordained conclusion now, Netanyahu would be foolish to throw in the towel on the nuclear question. There are four key reasons why this is so.
 
The first is that no matter how much of a done deal the Iran negotiations seem, there is still no guarantee that the Iranians won’t ultimately pull out of them. Given the sweet deal that Obama has given them that would make no sense. The president hopes to create a new entente with Tehran but predicting Iran’s behavior is never easy. It is always possible that the Iranians will torpedo the talks in the hopes of getting an even sweeter offer from an administration that is desperate for detente with the Islamist regime. Until proven otherwise, the Israelis should not do anything that would be seen as a seal of approval for even more far-reaching Western concessions.

Second, though the process by which Congress will vote on a potential deal with Iran is geared towards guaranteeing its passage, there is still a sliver of hope that opponents of a dangerous deal will be able to hold support for the president to lower than one-third of the House and Senate thus preventing a presidential veto. If the Israelis were to take Obama’s bribe, it would be even more difficult to persuade many Democrats to vote against the president’s wishes. It would also give the false impression that the strong arguments they raised against the Iran deal appeasement were insincere.

Third, as important as the planes and anti-missile batteries are, they aren’t a real answer to the strategic threat that Iran poses for Israel. As the Arab states have also realized, Iran’s bid for regional hegemony has gotten a shot in the arm from Obama. Addressing Iran’s dangerous adventurism in the region will require more than an arms package.

Last, as weak as their position may be vis-à-vis Obama, the Israelis shouldn’t act as if they are desperate. As desperate as the situation seems, Congress still has Israel’s back and will likely vote in all the arms Israel needs, even if the administration doesn’t request it. Just as important, Obama won’t always be president. In 20 months, someone else will be sitting in the Oval Office. While there are no guarantees, the likelihood is that his successor won’t be making the same mistake and seeking to distance the U.S. from Israel. Anything Obama is offering now will likely still be available for them in the future. Surrendering a principled position on Iran simply isn’t worth the hardware that Obama is offering them. Netanyahu must hang tough and hope for the best, confidant that both Congress and the next president will be someone that he can trust more than Obama.

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