The Democratic candidates for President of the USA in 2008 were all present in South Carolina this past weekend for the first of several presidential debates. The Moderator and host was Brian Williams of MSNBC. After watching it carefully, we came to the conclusion that this country is in serious trouble! We were quite disappointed in the answers these potential candidates for President gave concerning the recent Supreme Court decision banning partial-birth abortions – one of the most hideous and barbaric acts that could ever be committed against the unborn children in the wombs of the women of this country! It is nothing but MURDER, and the medical profession knows it! While some said it was a “sensitive” issue, not one of the candidates spoke out in favor of the decision. Three of the candidates spoke in praise of Justice Bader who blasted the decision and was part of the four in voted against the ban (the Supreme Court vote was 5-4). One thing is clear – this “abortion” issue is NOT going away quietly!

We were also very disappointed in the handling of the “ISRAEL” issue by Senator Barack Obama. Here is one journalist’s report on it:

OBAMA’S INEXPERIENCE APPARENT AT DEBATE
Monday, April 30, 2007
By Susan Estrich

So who won? Won what? you’re asking. For most Americans, it’s a long way to November 2008, but for the candidates, the campaign is in full swing. The first debate is history. The pundits and pundettes are weighing in. So what if it was as boring as a college baseball game between two schools you didn’t go to. So what if the format stank, half the answers seemed canned and the most interesting guy was the former senator from Alaska whom no one under 40 has ever heard of and who has no chance of winning.

For those of us who live for this stuff, there was plenty to see. The first imperative in debates, particularly for frontrunners, is the political version of the Hippocratic oath. Instead of “do no harm,” we say “make no mistakes.” The moments people remember in debates are the sharp one-liners and the horrible flubs. If you can get off a memorable one-liner, like Reagan’s “there you go again” or Bentsen’s “you’re no Jack Kennedy,” that’s great.

Every candidate wants to move up as a result of a debate, but for those who are in front coming in, the most important thing is not to move down. Frontrunners are generally best off when nothing happens in debates.

Second-tier candidates have a different agenda. For them, debates offer the opportunity to appear on the same stage, at the same level, as the frontrunners. They need to use that opportunity to make something happen, or they’ll leave the debate with as little support as they had coming in, which is what happened in South Carolina.

Richardson and Dodd and Biden were all just fine, but just fine doesn’t do much for you when you’re in the second tier. The depth of experience these three men bring to the contest was clear in their answers and, if anything, it made the three less experienced frontrunners seem just that.

But neither the New Mexico governor nor the two senators with the most time in office said or did anything that ignited the sparks you need to move up in the hierarchy of the race, which inevitably becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and John Edwards will look better when Dodd and Biden and Richardson are off the stage. And that’s where the latter three will be, much sooner than they’d like, unless they can ignite something.

As for Edwards, the former trial lawyer known for his oratorical brilliance didn’t get a chance to show it off or didn’t use the chances he had. Edwards managed to get in his Southern roots, his working-class background and his apology for voting for the war in Iraq; it wasn’t that he did anything wrong. If he were in first place going in, he would be in first place going out. But he isn’t. He’s in third, and nothing he said in South Carolina changed that.

The two people with the most to lose in the debate were the two who entered with the most support, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. While Friday morning’s polls, at least of South Carolina Democrats, gave the edge to Obama, that’s not how I see it. Hillary made no mistakes. Obama did.

Asked about America’s best friends in the world, Obama waxed on about NATO and our European allies before looking east to Japan. I’m not a foreign policy expert, but I’ve been around debates for decades and it was clear that Obama didn’t get that this was the Israel question. He didn’t get that people like me, voters and donors, were waiting to hear the word “Israel” in a way that Japanese Americans were not. Japan doesn’t live under constant threats; Israel does. Japanese Americans don’t worry about Japan’s survival in the way Jewish Americans worry about Israel. Obama’s answer, in my book, was the biggest mistake of the debate.

Even when prompted by Brian Williams, who followed up by pointing out that Obama had neglected to mention Israel, and reminded him of his comment that “no one had suffered more than the Palestinian people,” Obama still didn’t get it right. Sure, he said that Israel is an important ally, but his clarification of his “poor Palestinians” comment only left him further in the hole. His point, he emphasized, was that no one had suffered more than the Palestinian people from the failures in Palestinian leadership. That’s not exactly how I see it, or how many Jewish Americans see it. I don’t think suffering is a contest in which special recognition goes to those who have paid the highest price. The right answer is that there has been plenty of suffering on both sides. The Palestinians may be suffering more in the sense that their standard of living is lower, but whose fault is that? Talk to any Israeli family who has lost a friend or family member to Palestinian terror –- and that means any family in Israel –- and, believe me, they won’t cede the prize for the most suffering to the Palestinians. And they will point out, rightly, I think, that it is the Palestinians and not the Jews who have chosen these terrible leaders and remained loyal to them. Doesn’t that count for something?

The overnight polls of South Carolina voters showed that Obama “won” the debate, with Hillary second and Edwards third, but that will be soon forgotten. By the time anyone votes in South Carolina, there will have been dozens of these encounters, not to mention results from the earlier contests in Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire.

The problem for Obama is that his failure to be more supportive of Israel will not be forgotten by those for whom this is a dealbreaker, which includes not only a fair share of Democratic donors, but also a significant voting bloc in states like New York and Florida. And that could come back to haunt him.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: We are thankful that Senator John Edwards did speak of the impact of the “LORD” upon his life and also referred to the importance of his family. But, the general lack of moral commitment on the part of these candidates was indeed alarming. This was an opportunity to state clearly (with conviction) what they believe about the critical issues of our time. It seemed to us that the only goal was to do more “Bush-bashing” and to speak with great gusto about how they oppose our efforts in Iraq (but, of course, support our soldiers!). Frankly, if the democratic candidates continue this bashing of President Bush, we believe it will come back to haunt them and they will lose the opportunity they have at this time in history.

The Republican debates will take place soon, and it will be interesting to see what differences there are. We believe that our nation is in great need of a moral and spiritual awakening that returns us to the God of the Bible. Repentance of our sins, and public acknowledgement of our long-standing beliefs in the LORD GOD of Israel would help to begin the healing! May God give us all wisdom!

Here is a very important article written by a Jewish writer (Jonathan Rosenblum) about the threat of ISLAM to both Jews and Christians:

Every citizen of the West is threatened by political Islam, which seeks to impose Islamic law over the entire world. The Jewish community feels the threat even more intensely, as Muslims’ separatism and refusal to integrate into their host cultures causes them to be perceived as threats to national cohesion and to democracy. That critique can be easily expanded to encompass every religious-ethnic community, the Jewish community included.

Further, Islamic fundamentalism has helped bring religious belief in general into disrepute, and provided fuel to those who charge that most of mankind’s problems can be traced to religious fanaticism. Within one week of 9/11, for instance, The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman already described the great threat confronting the West not as Islamic fundamentalism but as religious fundamentalism in general, including Christian and Jewish. Thus did traditional Jews find themselves uncomfortably linked with Islamic terrorists under the convenient rubric “fundamentalists.”

Best-selling books depict religion as beneath contempt. The past year has witnessed a plethora of books — several of them best-sellers — against religious belief: Richard Dawkins’ “The God Delusion,” Daniel Dennett’s “Breaking the Spell,” and Sam Harris’s “The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation.” These works are characterized not by their arguments, none of which are new, but their level of invective and in their general attitude toward religious belief as something beneath contempt and incapable of defense by any intelligent person.

Though 9/11 and ongoing Islamic fanaticism helped create an audience for such works, they by no means focus their attack on Islamic fanaticism. Sam Schulman points out in the January 5, 2007 Wall Street Journal, “The atheists focus their peevishness not on Muslim extremists (who advertise their hatred and violent intentions) but on the old-time Christian religion… They conclude: God is not necessary, God is impossible and God is not permissible if our society — or even our species — is to survive.”

The concerns raised by the threat of Islamism can in no way be dismissed. Indeed, as citizens of the West, we should all be grateful that the nature of the threat posed is finally registering societal elites. The internal Islamist threat is greatest in Europe. A combination of well-below-replacement birthrates among Europeans, high Muslim birthrates and Muslim immigration have paved the road for a Muslim majority in Europe within two or three generations.

Most of the approximately 20 million Muslims living in Europe today have not integrated into their host societies. In a recent poll in Britain, 40-60% of Muslims said that they would prefer to live under Sharia, Islamic law. British security forces consider at least 14,000 British Muslims to be security threats, and keep 1,000 under active surveillance. Tens of thousands of British citizens of Pakistani descent visit their ancestral homeland each year, and many of those are indoctrinated by Islamist groups while there.

Nor has the threat remained theoretical, as demonstrated by the 7/7 bombings on the London Underground, which claimed 52 lives, and the uncovering last August of a plot by British Muslims to blow up 10 transatlantic airliners. At least 13 students at British universities have been convicted of terrorism and four became suicide bombers.

Increasingly, mosques and Islamist religious institutions are fostering Muslim separatism. A recent British TV documentary featured preachers at numerous mosques, including those allegedly dedicated to moderation and interfaith dialogue, condemning integration into British society, democracy, preaching hatred for Jews and Christians, and celebrating the killing of British soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The 2004 rioting in the “cities of darkness” ringing Paris and other major French cities revealed the extent of alienation of young, mostly second generation Muslims in France. Social critic Theodore Dalrymple describes how the “sweet dream of universal cultural compatibility has been replaced by the nightmare of permanent conflict,” in France and numerous other European cities, in which police and firefighters do not dare venture into Muslim areas, and where copycat riots followed those in France: “A kind of anti-society has grown up in [these cities of darkness] — a population that derives the meaning of its life from the hatred it bears for the other ‘official’ society…This alienation…is written on the faces of the young men, most of them permanently unemployed, who hang out in the pocked and potholed open spaces between their dwellings. When you approach to speak to them, their immobile faces betray not a flicker of recognition of your shared humanity…”

In the UK, when British Home Secretary John Reid urged Muslim parents in East London to supervise their children and to make sure that they are not being initiated into a death cult in their local mosque or Muslim school; when a heckler shouted at him that he had no business coming to a Muslim area, Reid sharply rejected the suggestion that there is any area in Britain that is off-limits to Her Majesty’s government. And he denounced the attempt to Balkanize Britain into semi-autonomous communities, each with its own values.

In Reid’s reply, we hear the growing apprehension that extreme multiculturalism threatens the unity and strength of the nation-state. That fear is well-taken. Citizens of democratic societies feel a greater stake in the country and a greater identification with one another. Yet where citizens do not identify with the state or a common set of national values, but rather view themselves only as members of insular sub-communities, that national strength is lost. Opponents of bi-lingual education make the same point: loss of a common national language weakens a country.

To date, the United States has experienced nothing like the bombings in London or the Madrid train blasts. And Muslims in America appear to have integrated more successfully than in European countries. The median average income of American Muslims is approximately the same as American whites, and their educational levels are higher. From the beginning, America has conceived itself as a melting-pot of immigrants from many different countries; national identity is not assumed to be based on descent from some group of ethnically homogenous ancestors, as in European countries. Further, the deep religiosity of America and the fact that there was never a national church in America, but rather a multitude of sects and religions, have made it easier for Muslims to maintain their religious identity and assume their place in the rich tapestry of American religious pluralism. (American religiosity and the lack of a national church stand in stark contrast to Europe.)

Nevertheless, fanatic forms of Islam have found a receptive audience among black inmates in prisons. Anti-terrorist expert Daniel Pipes has repeatedly warned of radical Islamic groups in the United States as well, a warning given more credence by the January expulsion from the United States of an Ohio imam on charges stemming from his fundraising for Islamic Jihad. The plot of 17 Canadian Muslims to blow up the Canadian parliament and behead the Prime Minister further suggests that the United States should not consider itself immune from homegrown Islamists.

The recognition that Muslim schools attempt to create a Muslim identity that prevents integration into the larger society has engendered a response that has important implications for Jewish institutions as well.
In England, Lord Kenneth Baker submitted a bill to Parliament, believed to have the support of the Minister of Education, which would have required all newly opened religious schools to set aside at least 30% of its places for children of different religions. Lord Baker noted that his concern was with Islamic schools that “seek to create a total Muslim personality.” Under Baker’s bill, requirements such as familiarity with the Koran would have been forbidden since the effect of the requirement would have been to eliminate all non-Muslims together.

Though Baker’s bill was ultimately withdrawn, the mere fact that such legislation could be introduced and supported by the Minister of Education gives cause for concern. The implications of such a piece of legislation for the Jewish community would have been immense. Torah day school education also seeks to create a uniquely “Jewish personality.” The presence of 30% of non-Jews in a school would make that goal unobtainable. So would forcing Jewish schools to drop requirements for admission that would exclude all or most non-Jewish students — e.g., familiarity with Jewish prayer, holidays and Bible.

The statute may have been written with Muslim extremism in mind, but it would be naive to think that it would therefore apply to only to Muslim schools and not Jewish ones. Legislators prefer to couch statutes in neutral terms that do not single out any particular religious group for special regulation. It is unlikely that courts would exempt Jewish schools based on ‘good citizenship.’

Most traditional Jews would undoubtedly be shocked at finding themselves linked to Islamic extremists. And they would be right to object. The most salient distinction, of course, is that there are no Jews blowing themselves up on the London Tube or plotting to explode transatlantic airlines. But it remains unlikely that courts would carve out an exemption for Jewish schools based on the generally upstanding citizenship of their graduates.

In at least one case, the United States Supreme Court did carve out a religious exemption to a neutrally drawn statute on the basis of the good citizenship of those asserting the religious claim. Thus in Wisconsin v. Yoder, the Court exempted Amish children who had completed elementary school from the requirement of attending high school until age 16. The Court cited the low rates of criminality among the Amish and the fact that they rarely, if ever, receive state welfare payments. Those were deemed sufficient reason to allow Amish parents to educate their children themselves from ninth grade on.

In a similar way, if a particular statute was drafted to prevent private religious schools from being breeding grounds for terrorists, the lack of Jewish terrorists might be cited in support of an exemption for Jewish day schools from the statute’s application. In all likelihood, however, courts would be reticent to extend the Wisconsin precedent in such a way that Muslim schools alone would be singled out for a particular statutory regulation.

In addition, many regulations drafted with Muslim schools in mind are designed not just to protect against the training of terrorists of the future, but also with the goal of preventing those schools from fostering an identity completely at odds with the dominant national culture. The French ban on the wearing of any religious head-covering in school would be an example of the second kind of legislation, and it applied with equal force to yarmulkes and the hijab worn by some Muslim women. Some have argued that there is no religious liberty argument in the wearing of a hijab because Islamic law does not require it. In support they cite the fact that at least two Muslim countries — Turkey and Tunisia — ban the wearing of a veil altogether, and that it has not been traditional dress in many Muslim societies.

That is not an argument that Jews should be eager to embrace. We would not want a secular court to inquire whether wearing a yarmulke indoors is religiously required, or consider evidence that some observant Jews do not wear a yarmulke at work. A secular court oversteps itself when in acts as a religious authority. The only relevant question in this regard is whether the person asserting the religious liberty claim truly believes that he is religiously required or forbidden to something.

Jewish law requires one to obey the laws of the land.
So it remains true that many Jews, like many Muslims, do wear distinctive garb, and profess an allegiance to God that transcends any allegiance to the secular state. Unlike many Muslims, however, Jewish law recognizes the legitimacy of a secular legal system, and acknowledges the duty to obey the laws of the land (dina d’malchusa dina) and nowhere seek to impose Torah law on the secular state.

Muslims show a much greater propensity for imposing their religious beliefs on others. In one case that attracted a great deal of notoriety, Muslim taxi drivers in Minneapolis have been refusing to take passengers caring pork or liquor products. The airport authority was initially inclined to accommodate the Muslim drivers until columnist and scholar Daniel Pipes aroused a national uproar, at which point the drivers were told that they would have to take all passengers or forfeit their license.

Here the claim of the airport authority seems particularly strong. Taxi licenses are a limited public resource, and the state has a clear interest in ensuring that holders of those licenses use them to best serve the public. (It is hard to imagine a Jewish taxi driver refusing to transport a passenger carrying pork products, even if the passenger were Jewish.)

The religious curriculum will introduce students to a variety of different religions, and seek to imbue them with an attitude of tolerance to all of them, including those which according to halachah constitute idol worship. In addition, students will learn that many people derive their ethical moral beliefs from sources other than revealed religion. The message is the same that anti-religious writers are forever proclaiming: One need not be religious in order to be a moral person, and indeed religious people are no more moral than others.

The authors of the curriculum emphasize that some values are growing stronger in the contemporary world and other traditional values waning. They make clear that their preferences rest on the side of the contemporary over the received values of the past. But the very description of such value changes contradicts the view of Torah as the source of eternal values binding on the Jewish people forever.

Underlying the proposed curriculum is a strong emphasis on tolerance that derives, at least in part, from the fear of the Islamic intolerance and even violence. The emphasis on the moral autonomy of each person and the need to recognize multiple sources of ethical values betray a bias against revealed religion in general.

It is hard to imagine any Torah Jew allowing his children being subjected to a curriculum in which Torah is just one among many options. But the question we must ask ourselves is whether any political entity might nevertheless mandate such curriculum.

In the United States the right of parents to provide their children with a parochial education was settled by the Supreme Court almost a century ago. If anything, that right has even become more firmly entrenched with the rapid growth of the home-schooling movement. At the same time, the state’s substantial interest in the regulation of private education has long been recognized.

As suspicion grows against certain religious-ethnic groups, it would be prudent for the Jewish community worldwide to carefully monitor the effect this has on their own rights and educational autonomy. As such, this becomes yet another chapter in our millennia-long effort to preserve our unique and precious Jewish heritage.

This weekend we celebrate and remember the death and resurrection of our Lord Yeshua. Because He lives, we have HOPE BEYOND THE GRAVE! I Thessalonians 4:14 makes it clear that our future hope is based on His resurrection. The KJV English words “even so” are from the Greek “houto” meaning “in the same manner.”
Read John 20:4-9; Romans 8:18-25; Philippians 3:20-21; and I John 3:1-3 and lift your heart of praise up to the Lord and worship Him!

FACTS ABOUT BELIEVERS WHO DIE

Death is NOT the end! It is simply the “release” of our soul/spirit into the presence of the Lord. The physical body that is put into the grave will one day be resurrected – believers truly have HOPE BEYOND THE GRAVE.

1. According to the Bible, believers are carried by angels into the present of the Lord and to Abraham, the father of all who believe – Luke 16:22

2. The Bible teaches that when we die we will then be “comforted” – Luke 16:25

3. The Bible makes it clear that our souls and spirits are not simply vapor or gasses floating in space; we will have a temporary body of some sort awaiting the final resurrection body – read II Corinthians 5:1-9 and Revelation 6:11 where we are told that believers who have died are given “white robes.”

4. The Bible indicates that we are not unconscious after death, nor are we sleeping! It is the physical body that is pictured as sleeping in the grave. According to the Bible believers are fully conscious and able to communicate – Revelation 6:9

5. Interestingly, believers who have died are described as having concern about God’s prophetic plans – Revelation 6:10

6. One of the strongest statements about what we will be doing after we die is found in Psalm 16:11 and in Luke 15:7 and 10: We will experience “fullness of joy” and have “joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth”

7. Believers who have died are also urged to be contented until the day of the Resurrection – Revelation 6:11; 14:13

8. One of the most blessed teachings of the Bible is that believers who are alive will one day be reunited with those who have died and already are “with the Lord” – the Lord has planned a great reunion – a “meeting in the air” – what a day that will be!
I Thessalonians 4:16-17

9. The Bible makes it quite clear that this HOPE BEYOND THE GRAVE is a remedy for all our worries, troubles, and fears. I Thessalonians 4:18 tells us to “comfort one another with these words” – consider the results of this remedy:

It eliminates mental DIFFICULTIES – I Thessalonians 4:13 – “I would not have you to be ignorant”

It eliminates emotional DEPRESSION – same verse says “sorrow not as others who have no hope”

It eliminates personal DISCOURAGEMENT – I Thessalonians 5:4-11 explains this HOPE BEYOND THE GRAVE that will spare us from the coming “wrath of God” upon this planet during the “Day of the LORD” – God did NOT appoint church-age believers to experience that coming day of terror. We are exhorted to “comfort one another” once again!

(Editor’s NOTE: You may want to get copies of David’s very special booklet entitled “HOPE BEYOND THE GRAVE” – it is an excellent tool to give to family and friends concerning life after death and presents the true gospel to them!)

The recent pressure of Syria upon the United Nations and the European Union, and its discussions with Congressional House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – arguing that in order to have peace Israel must give back the Golan Heights is an old argument and absolute nonsense! Syria would immediately use that advantage to attack Israel as they have done in the past. Islam has no desire to ever make peace with Israel, and this has been their long-standing argument.

THE BIBLE HAS SOMETHING TO SAY TO SYRIA!

There is a very important passage about Syria (Damascus) in Isaiah 17. It begins with the words “The burden of Damascus.” The text continues: “Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.” In this important chapter we are told clearly the following: THE MESSAGE COMES FROM THE LORD HIMSELF! He is called “the LORD GOD of ISRAEL.” Anyone who attacks Israel is attacking God Himself! His judgment is going to fall upon Damascus – it is just a question of time.

Damascus is one of the oldest cities in the world. Archaeological excavations have shown civilization to exist here at least 8000 years ago. It has continued throughout history to be a “city” even though it was conquered by many foreign powers before the time of our Lord Yeshua. The Assyrians captured Damascus in 732 BC, and the city became captive to Babylon, Persia, Greece, the Ptolemies and Seleucids, and finally Rome under Pompey in 64 BC. Two major highways went through Damascus: The VIA MARIS and the KING’S HIGHWAY. Tablets from Ebla mention Damascus as early as 2300 BC and even Thutmose III of Egypt claimed to have conquered the city around 1475 BC.

Syria has been controlled in recent years by Sunni Muslims and in particular, the Baath Party of which the late Sadaam Hussein was the leader. The current leader, Bashar Assad is the son of the deceased Hafez Assad who was a constant “thorn” in Israel’s side and who launched major attacks against Israel. In the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel was about to capture the entire city before the USA and world leadership begged them to stop. From that point until now, the Golan Heights (a beautiful area with rich agricultural advantages to Israel) has belonged to Israel and has been a strategic deterrant to any Syrian plans for attack.

It was Syria (with the encouragement of Iran) who equipped, trained, and supplied sophisticated weapons to Hizb’allah in the war of last summer. It was one of the ways in which this Islamic regime was seeking revenge against Israel for the loss of the Golan Heights in 1967.

Never forget that the gospel came to Damascus under the leadership of the Apostle Paul who was converted on the “road to Damascus” according to the Bible. Acts 9:22 says: “But Saul (Paul) increased the more in strength, and confounded the Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is very Messiah (Christ).” Our desire for Damascus and for all Syrians is that they come to believe and worship the Messiah of Israel, our blessed Lord Yeshua!