“Update, Monday, January 31, 2005.”
 

If you are new to the Updates list, welcome! I hope this is helpful. Please read the articles below, which deserve our prayer.

Today, please take a look at my son Lael’s article, which is appearing on the web site, www.answersingenesis.org.  It is on the harmful effects of evolutionary theory on American education. Lael is 17.

Please pray for authorities in Jordan and in Kuwait, who are on the hunt for al-Qaeda groups planning imminent harm to their countries and leaders.

Please thank the Lord for a relatively successful vote in Iraq. Please pray for the Prime Min. Allawi, and the National Security Advisor George Sada who are friends of freedom to the best of my knowledge. They weren’t up for election, but need favor to stay in power overall, and to continue to encourage freedom of religion in their country. Please pray for the Bible believers in Iraq and for enlarging of freedom of worship and the gospel, which is under attack.

Please pray that Prime Min. Sharon in Israel will stop the suicidal disengagement plan, contrary to those who voted him in. He seems to want to do everything to keep the new Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, Mr. Abbas, looking good to his people. (For example he is planning on releasing a variety of terrorists; see below). However, Mr. Abbas’ party (Fatah) was soundly defeated in the elections in Gaza last week, by Hamas (a hard-core terror group). So how much power does Abbas have, and how practical is it to kow-tow to him and get out of Gaza, release prisoners, and who knows what else Mr. Sharon is doing? Any way we must pray for wisdom for Mr. Sharon, as well as physical protection, and especially his salvation.

Right now, Mr. Abbas is making his first foreign trip, as P.M., and is in Moscow! Let us pray that no bad plans be hatched up there, and that any plan or alliance against Israel, America and our allies will not prosper.

Last Update, I mentioned that Russia was planning to send several advanced late-model missiles to Syria, threatening Israel and American forces in Iraq. We prayed against this, and the worst type was not sold (shoulder-held anti-aircraft missiles). But the other types were contracted to be sold. Let us continue praying that these advanced newer weapons will not fall into the hands of Syria as planned, and also that they not be passed on to any paramilitary terror group like Hezbollah or Hamas.

Thanks for praying, thanks for caring,
David


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From: ICEJ News [mailto:media@icej.org]
Sent: Monday, January 31, 2005 6:27 AM
To: Weinberger, David
Subject: Monday 31 January


News & Analysis from the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem

Monday 31 January 2005

"You are forgiving and good, O Lord, abounding in love to all who call to you." Psalm 86: 5


In Brief
1. Israel to hand over five cities by Wednesday
2. Hamas victories could delay parliamentary ballot
3. 150,000 rally against disengagement
4. PA leadership in 'envelope' reform
5. Syrian government imposes 'terror' tax on employees
6. Tourism takes 40% hike in 2004

Headlines

1. ABBAS TO DEMAND 8000 PRISONERS FREED
Convicted killers among Palestinians held
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is expected to ask Ariel Sharon to release as many as 8,000 jailed Palestinians including virtually all prisoners held by Israel for plotting and carrying out terrorist atrocities in the past four years when the two leaders meet for their first face-to-face summit since Abbas' election next week. (More follows...)



2. UN REBUKES LEBANESE BORDER CLAIMS
Security Council deems Israel in compliance with pullout obligations
The UN Security Council on Friday unanimously rebuked Beirut by declaring that the disputed Shabaa Farms area was not part of Lebanon, Reuters reports from New York. (More follows...)




3. ISRAEL BOWS TO US ON EAST JERUSALEM LAND
Civil Rights lawyers condemn archaic property laws
Israel has promised the United States that it will re-examine a secret decision made last summer to formally confiscate East Jerusalem property owned by Palestinian residents of the territories cut off by the separation fence as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice prepared to express her strong objections to the proposal in talks with senior aides to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Washington on Monday. (More follows...)



In Brief

1. Israel to hand over five cities by Wednesday
The transfer of some five cities to Palestinian Authority security control is expected to take place within days, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said Sunday, according to The Jerusalem Post. PA security officials said the plan was to deploy in Ramallah, Tulkarm, Kalkilya, Jericho and Bethlehem - on Wednesday. However, the heavy influence of Hizb'Allah and Iranian backed terror groups in Nablus, Jenin and Hebron will delay the transfer of those areas. Speaking to Israel Radio, Mofaz said he hoped that no IDF presence would remain in the PA controlled areas by the end of the year.

2. Hamas victories could delay parliamentary ballot
Senior officials from the PLO's dominant Fatah faction are seeking to put off parliamentary elections in the Palestinian Authority in June following the sweeping Hamas victories in municipal ballots held across the Gaza Strip on Thursday. Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar said the results showed that at least 65% of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip support his movement. "This means that the people believe in the armed resistance as the only option," he said. At least 10 people were wounded, meanwhile, some seriously, in an armed confrontation Saturday between Hamas and Fatah supporters in the central Gaza Strip, that erupted when hundreds of Hamas supporters took to the streets to celebrate the movement's victory.

3. 150,000 rally against Disengagement
Buoyed by a Sunday rally which saw one of the largest demonstration ever staged in Jerusalem, opponents of the Prime Minister's disengagement plan prepared for a second day of protest Monday with plans to circle the Knesset seven times alluding to the Biblical account of the fall of Jericho. As many as 150,000 people took part in Sunday's demonstration dressed in the signature orange colors of the anti-disengagement campaign, demanding the pullout plan be put to a national referendum.

4. PA leadership in 'envelope' reform
Members of the numerous, disparate Palestinian security forces who for years received their salaries in cash-stuffed envelopes, have noticed a dramatic change since Yasser Arafat's death, Ha'aretz reports. The envelopes have stopped and with them discretionary payments that were dependant purely on the proximity of the recipient to Arafat's inner circle. Furthermore since the Palestinian Authority elections on January 9, Ramallah is abuzz with rumors of an approaching wave of dismissals or retirements of dozens of Arafat cronies, many of who occupied fictitious posts, in non-existent ministries.

5. Syrian government imposes 'terror' tax on employees
Western diplomatic sources said that in Syria's northern province of Aleppo, authorities began in December to deduct $1 from the monthly salary of each government employee to help Palestinian terror groups based in Damascus, according to the Middle East Newsline.

6. Tourism takes 40% hike in 2004
1.5 million tourists visited Israel in 2004, 41% more than in 2003 but still 38% fewer than in the record year of 2000, the Central Bureau of Statistics has reported, according to the Globes financial daily. American visitors were up by 378,000, almost 40% on 2003, while tourists from Canada, France, Britain and Germany rose by a similar percentage.


News Stories


1. ABBAS TO DEMAND 8000 PRISONERS FREED
Convicted killers among Palestinians held

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is expected to ask Ariel Sharon to release as many as 8,000 jailed Palestinians including virtually all prisoners held by Israel for plotting and carrying out terrorist atrocities in the past four years when the two leaders meet for their first face-to-face summit since Abbas' election next week.

According to a report in the London-based Asharq al-Awsat, Abbas indicated that he would also push for a withdrawal of IDF forces to the lines held prior to the launching of the Palestinian intifada in September 2000.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is to visit Israel and the territories next Sunday, two days before the February 9 talks.

The Americans seek to establish a mechanism supervised by the CIA to sustain the emerging security cooperation between Israel and the PA.




2. UN REBUKES LEBANESE BORDER CLAIMS
Security Council deems Israel in compliance with pullout obligations

The UN Security Council on Friday unanimously rebuked Beirut by declaring that the disputed Shabaa Farms area was not part of Lebanon, Reuters reports from New York.

Its resolution said the "continually asserted position" by Beirut was "not compatible" with past council resolutions or reports by Secretary-General Annan.

Anne Patterson, the U.S. acting ambassador, told the council that the biggest impediment to peacekeeping was "the continued specter of armed militias in southern Lebanon, coupled with the Lebanese government's unwillingness to assert its sole and effective control over all its territory."

The determination totally negates the pretext that Hizb'Allah has been using for continuing its terror attacks against Israel, senior Israeli security sources told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.




3. ISRAEL BOWS TO US ON EAST JERUSALEM LAND
Civil Rights lawyers condemn archaic property laws

Israel has promised the United States that it will re-examine a secret decision made last summer to formally confiscate East Jerusalem property owned by Palestinian residents of the territories cut off by the separation fence as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice prepared to express her strong objections to the proposal in talks with senior aides to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Washington on Monday.

The Israeli climb-down came as the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) on Sunday called the application of Israel's 45-year-old Absentee Property Law, "a severe and disproportionate injury to the right of ownership, freedom of occupation and the right to live in dignity of the property owners," in a letter sent by ACRI legal adviser Dan Yakir to Attorney General Menachem Mazuz.

According to Yakir, the 1950 law was passed during a different period of history and is no longer appropriate, "both in terms of the constitutional regime currently in effect in Israel and the external circumstances that applied then and now."

It is thought that the initial purpose of the decision, made in secret by the cabinet last year, and exposed last week by Haaretz, was to enable the building of Jewish neighborhoods in the disputed, Arab-dominated sector of the city annexed by Israel since 1967.


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News Sources: AP, BBC, CNN, Globes, Ha'aretz, IMRA, International Herald Tribune, IDF, JCPA, Jerusalem Post, MENL, Reuters.
This bulletin was written and compiled by Michael Hines.


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