Paradoxically, the place where Jesus died is a death trap. Petty rivalries inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre are preventing a necessary solution. And When Israel moves to protect pilgrims on Christian holy days, anti-Israel Christians call it oppression. It's time for church leaders to grow up and fix this problem.
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Why does Bethlehem Pastor Mitri Raheb argue that today's Jews are "an invented people," then march on the Temple Mount implicitly celebrating the murder of two Israelis there?
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Mainstream media often alleges that Israel is inhospitable toward its Christian inhabitants resulting in a dramatic decline in their numbers. In fact, just the opposite is true.
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A small group of Palestinian Christians are actively promoting an anti-Israel narrative built on a re-definition of the gospel. Increasingly in the West, Christianity is embracing that narrative. The new church struggle is the challenge of saying yes to God by saying no to Islamic dhimmitude.
Because I am a Christian, many people assume it is my religious faith that is the primary motivation for my advocacy for Israel. But that is not the case. Like all true Zionists, my strongest motives are more visceral, more mysterious than any creed or pledge.
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This is scandalous. Instead of preventing evil, God has chosen to use it against its will. He has chosen it to instruct us. His use of evil, and his method for defeating it, are shocking. And yet they are his means for bringing joy from sorrow, gain from loss, life from death. Why? It is all about the power he has given us to choose.
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Last week and back-to-back, Netanyahu and Erdogan made day trips to the Russian capital for personal meetings with Vladimir Putin. Polite to both, he also dismissed the worries that brought his guests to Moscow. Why?
Like the setup for a volleyball slam, Putin launched an easy serve with greetings for the Jewish holiday of Purim. Netanyahu returned the volley by comparing today's would-be Persian empire to yesterday's enemy of biblical lore, Haman. With a smile on his face, that's when Putin spiked the ball. That happened "in the 5th century BC," he said. "We now live in a different world."
As the US sends B-52 nuclear bombers to South Korea, North Korea must decide whether or not it wants to go to war. Because of North Korea's close ties with Iran, supplying missile and nuclear technology, conflict there could light a short fuse to the Middle East.
The shortage of available water for Israel's needs is the largest the country has seen in 100 years.
