We now have a whole society rallying around and praising this despicable depravity.

God judges a society not just by what they do, but also by what they allow – and even more by what they celebrate. The official voice of the Palestinian people has praised one of the worst examples of inhumanity that I have ever seen, and not one Palestinian voice has been heard to protest this atrocity.

I know that there are Palestinians who are horrified by the murder of the Fogels, and by how their society has responded. They are horrified and sickened.

Unfortunately, they remain silent.

This is a mistake.

If good and just Palestinians remain silent while their leadership claims to speak for them, then they too will bear the guilt of their nation and suffer the consequences.

There is a Judge, and He is not indifferent to the affairs of mankind.

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants

- Deuteronomy 30:19 (NASB)

Choose life.

On PA TV: Glorification of Fogel family murderers

Mother of Hakim Awad, killer of 5 Fogel family members:

“My greetings to dear Hakim, the apple of my eye, who carried out the operation in Itamar, sentenced to 5 life sentences”

Aunt of Hakim Awad: “Hakim Awad, the hero, the legend”

PA TV host: “We [PA TV] also convey our greetings to them”

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

Twice last week, official Palestinian Authority TV broadcast greetings to the murderers of the Fogel family from the relatives of the killers and from the PA TV host.

On March 11, 2011, five members of the Fogel family were killed in their home in the Israeli town Itamar by Palestinian terrorists from the Awad family. Hakim Awad led the attack, killing the parents Ehud and Ruth and three of their children, aged 11 years, 4 years, and 2 months.

The weekly PA TV program For You dedicated to Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons let the mother and aunt of one of the murderers praise the terrorists as “heroes.” After the mother of the murderer Hakim Awad explained how she is prevented from visiting her son for security reasons, the PA TV host said: “Go ahead, sister, we can convey your voice.”

On the phone, Hakim Awad’s mother “blesses” her “dear son,” and despite the fact that participants in this TV program normally do not mention the terror attacks for which their relatives are serving time, the mother mentions that her son is the one who “carried out the operation in Itamar and sentenced to 5 life sentences,” referring to her son’s brutal killings in the town Itamar.

Hakim Awad’s aunt also participated in the program and referred to the terrorists involved in the killings as “heroes,” calling Hakim Awad “the hero, the legend.” This prompted the PA TV host to add: “We, for our part, also convey our greetings to them.”

It was Hakim Awad who killed Ehud and Ruth Fogel and their young children with a knife. The other Awad family members praised on the program as “heroes” were either accessories to the murders or helped destroy evidence.

Although this was a phone conversation, the editors of the PA TV program and its host did know in advance that the callers were relatives of the Fogel murderers. The host introduced them before the conversation took place and a text with the names of the callers appeared at the bottom of the screen: “Prisoner Hakim Awad’s family / Awarta – Nablus.”

The program was broadcast on official PA TV on January 19 and 21.

Read the rest of the article here.

I just didn’t know anything about his character. Was he a good person?

And yes, if America is going to be the ally that Israel needs, it takes a good person in the White House – someone with integrity, honesty and good morals. You need someone in the White House who can tell their Secretary of State to go get stuffed when he wants to renege on agreements to supply Israel in time of war.

Remember what happened to Israel during the Yom Kippur War? When Kissinger convinced Nixon to withhold vital supplies, when Israelis were dying at the hands of the Syrians and Egyptians?

Oh, Nixon EVENTUALLY overruled Kissinger, but do we want a repeat performance?

Israel desperately needs a man or woman of character in the White House who doesn’t need to deliberate over what is right. Israel desperately needs an ally who KNOWS what is right from the heart.

America needs a President like that.

Herman, you cannot be that man because you aren’t that man.

Like I said about Newt Gingrich:

I’m sorry. A man that cannot stay true to one of the most important commitments in a man’s life, faithfulness to his wife, cannot be trusted to stay true to a lesser commitment, like… say… presidency of the United States of America.

If America is to survive as a nation, it must return what made it great. America can no longer afford to compromise on values. Compromising our values has destroyed us.

They say that the first rule in the process of getting out of a hole… is to stop digging.

So. Let’s do that.

Here’s the latest on Herman Cain:

Georgia Woman Claims 13-Year Affair with Herman Cain

Updated: Tuesday, 29 Nov 2011, 1:02 AM EST

By DALE RUSSELL/FOX 5 I-Team

ATLANTA, Ga. – An Atlanta businesswoman is breaking her silence, claiming she has been involved in a 13-year-long affair with Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain.

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, FOX 5 senior I-Team reporter Dale Russell sat down with Ginger White, who had a story to tell.

“I’m not proud,” White told Russell. “I didn’t want to come out with this. I did not.”

White was worried a political tsunami was headed her way. So, she decided to head it off, by confessing she was involved in a 13-year-long affair with presidential hopeful Herman Cain.

“It was pretty simple,” White said. “It wasn’t complicated. I was aware that he was married. And I was also aware I was involved in a very inappropriate situation, relationship.”

Read the rest of the article here.

 And, here are a couple more:

Woman says she and Cain had 13-year affair; Cain denies accusation

Cain Talks to CNN as Woman Accuses Him of ‘Very Inappropriate’ 13-Year Affair

Remember this verse:

2 Chronicles 7:14
if my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

This is the key to saving America.

America cannot be saved unless the people of God hold true to what is true.

It’s time to stop digging that hole.

And, after much reflection and soul-searching, I can honestly say that I’m glad.

Really.

Yes, the cold-hearted armchair general in me regrets the release of so many talented terrorists and the operational stress that this will impose on the overworked Israeli security services. It is even true that MORE civilians are bound to lose their lives in terrorist attacks perpetrated by these evil miscreants. It will cost more in money, manpower and weapons systems. This trade is going to hurt, a lot.

But, with this trade, one young Israeli for a thousand terrorists, Israel renews its commitment to life.

Every society needs to decide what it is and what that means. And, there come moments in time when a society needs to reaffirm those decisions. The United States did that with the Civil War. Israel has been doing that for almost every year since it began, and it is doing it now with Gilad.

If the world cannot see what Israel really is, through the lens of this moment… they’ll never see it, and they don’t deserve to.

This is the kind of country Israel is. Would that we were all a part of a country like that.

Here are a couple articles that got me thinking about that:

Analysis: What makes Israel unique

By Yaakov Katz 10/18/2011 03:06

While its enemies praise death, Israel sanctifies life, for that reason it is willing to pay heavy price to retrieve one IDF soldier.

If everything goes as planned on Tuesday morning, Gilad Schalit will return home and Israel will once again prove that it is different from the rest of the countries that surround it in the Middle East.

On the one hand, there is no question that for Hamas and Hezbollah, Israel’s decision to release 1,027 convicted terrorists will motivate them to try and kidnap more Israeli soldiers in the future. Some in Israel are calling this move national suicide.

The fact that 450 of the terrorists are responsible for the deaths – directly and indirectly – of over 500 Israelis, just adds to the encouragement.

On the other hand, the exchange of so many prisoners for just one Israeli soldier can also be hailed as the exact difference between Israel and its enemies.

While its enemies praise death, Israel sanctifies life, and for that reason it is willing to pay such a heavy price to retrieve one Israeli soldier and bring him home to his family after more than five years in captivity.

The day after Schalit is released will be possibly the most difficult.

While it will take the media some time to back off from the story – Schalit will likely be hounded by photographers wherever he goes – the focus will shift, either back to the social protests, that until recently were at the top of the papers, or to the next crisis in waiting.

For the IDF this will also be a time of introspection.

Read the rest of the article here.

And then, there’s this one, powerfully written – poignant:

Everyone’s Son

In opposing the mass release of terrorists in exchange for Gilad Shalit’s freedom, I felt as if I was betraying my own son

By Yossi Klein Halevi|October 12, 2011 9:30 AM

For the last five years I have tried not to think of Gilad Shalit. I avoided the newspaper photographs of his first months as an Israel Defense Forces draftee, a boy playing soldier in an ill-fitting uniform. Sometimes, despite myself, I’d imagine him in a Gaza cellar, bound, perhaps wired with explosives to thwart a rescue attempt. And then I would force myself to turn away.

I tried not to think of Gilad because I felt guilty. Not only was I doing nothing to help the campaign to free him, I opposed its implicit demand that the Israeli government release as many terrorists as it takes to bring him home. Israel has no death penalty, and now we would lose the deterrence of prison: If the deal went through, any potential terrorist would know it was just a matter of time before he’d be freed in the next deal for the next kidnapped Israeli.

But the argument could never be so neatly resolved. Each side was affirming a profound Jewish value: ransom the kidnapped, resist blackmail. And so any position one took was undermined by angst. What would you do, campaign activists challenged opponents, if he were your son? “He’s everyone’s son,” sang rocker Aviv Gefen.

One day I passed a rally for Gilad in a park in downtown Jerusalem. Several counter-demonstrators were holding signs opposing surrender to terrorism. “I happen to agree with you,” I said to one of them. “But don’t you feel uneasy protesting against the Shalit family?”

“We’re not protesting against the Shalit family,” he replied. “We’re protesting to save future victims of freed terrorists. Those victims don’t have names yet. But they could be my son or your son.”

Every debate over Gilad ended at the same point: your son.

Read the rest of the article here.

Pray for the peace of Israel.

Of course, the Palestinians haven’t said much about what they plan to do if they succeed in forcing Israel to withdraw from Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. In Nazi Germany, they called it Judenrein. Today, they would call it, No Jews Allowed. Here’s a quote from IsraelToday:

The Palestinine Liberation Organization (PLO) ambassador to the US, Maen Areikat, told reporters in Washington on Tuesday that the Palestinian state his regime is trying to gain recognition for at the UN next week should be free of Jews.

“I think it would be in the best interest of the two people to be separated,” said Areikat. Of course, any talk by Israeli politicians of removing Arabs from the Jewish state is immediately branded as racism and aggressively dismissed by the international community.

Israeli and Jewish leaders were incensed by the Palestinian official’s remarks.

I’d never really thought too much about the idea of what would happen to those Jews living among the Palestinians. But, that’s without considering that the holiest of Jewish holy sites are in what the Palestinian Authority want to call the State of Palestine. Religious Jews would naturally want to be close to those sites, and have regular access to them. Not so, according to the Palestinians.

No, according to the Palestinians, a future Palestinian state will be entirely Jew free. No Jews in Judea. No Jews in Samaria. No Jews in Jerusalem. If they succeed in their bid for statehood, the State of Palestine would be the only state since Hitler’s Germany to enact laws forbidding Jews from living among them.

And, the liberal media supports this travesty?

But, that’s the future. Let’s talk a Little bit about what has lead us to this point:

The Truth About the Peace Process.

Pay attention to what Danny Ayalon says about 4:14 into the video. He mentions Ehud Olmert’s offer of 100% – with minor land swaps. (Sorta like President Obama’s idea, right?). The result:

Yet another big NO!

Watch this video a couple times, ‘cuz it says volumes about our current situation.

Sha’alu shalom l’Yerushalayim.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

But I’m not, and I don’t ever want to be a person who accepts insanity as a natural part of things. The insanity that I’m referring to is the denial of Israel’s right to exist.

The tactics of those who purvey this perverted logic are as interesting as they are loathsome. As I wrote yesterday, one way that they do this is to cry over HOW Israel defends itself. Another one that I just ran over today claimed that Israel is at fault because she’s SUCCESSFUL, and the Arabs are failures. And, then there’s the one about JUSTICE – the faux sobbing and blubbering over land ‘stolen’ from the Palestinians. There’s also the one where the mere EXISTENCE of Israel is upsetting the Arabs, so we should stop the terrible pain that Arabs suffer by getting rid of Israel.

I love that last one, don’t you?

Now, most people, when they sit down and think things through, can come up with some pretty logical reasons why the situation is the way it is. Let me take you through a bit of it.

Here are a few incontrovertible facts to start us off:

Judaism is a pacifistic religion. Islam is a warlike religion. For instance, the great Jewish symbol is the Star of David, or in Hebrew, the ‘Magen David’. What is this ‘Magen’? It literally means shield. The great symbol of Judaism is the shield. Under Islam? The sword.

The Jews that came to Palestine were educated. They were engineers, doctors, lawyers. Those without university degrees still had a high school level of education. And yes, they were pacifists – or, at the very least, pacifistic.

Palestinians? Well, when the Jews started coming in, quite a few of them came from Syria – because the growing Jewish communities in Palestine brought jobs. Unfortunately, the Arabs had no education whatsoever. They couldn’t read. They couldn’t write. The Arabs also suffered from envy and fear. They envied the wealth of the Jews and feared the new way of life that came with them.

Couple a warlike tendency with ignorance, envy and fear, and you get what?

That’s right, conflict.

And, we haven’t even gotten to the part about how the leaders of the Arabs were thoroughly corrupt and fomented conflict for personal gain. But, we’ll leave that for another article, ‘cuz I want to get to the ironic part.

Here’s a fact that makes this conflict so ironic. Most of the Jews that came to Palestine did not want to create a Jewish State. This revulsion was so strong that there was a point in when one Jewish faction hunted down the Jewish nationalists and turned them over to the British authorities.

Yes, the anti-state philosophy among the Jews was THAT strong. But, that’s not the ironic part.

The irony is that the anti-state Jewish communities were forced to organize community militias because they kept being attacked by groups of Arabs. As the Jewish militias succeeded in defending themselves, the Arab attacks got bigger, and that caused the Jewish militias to get bigger. Eventually, these militias got big enough to become an army that was eventually called the Haganah.

Among other things, it was this Haganah that became the core around which the State of Israel formed.

The irony?

If it wasn’t for the incessant attacks by Arabs on the Jewish communities of Palestine, there would have been no Haganah, which means that there would have been no State of Israel.

If you want to blame anyone for the creation of the State of Israel, the first culprits to point your finger at are the Arabs.

By the way, for those of you who know the history of Israel, I have grossly over-simplified and glossed over a tremendous amount of detail. Nevertheless, the central point remains:

The truest Zionists of the Middle East are Arabs.