Analysis: Obama’s Cairo Speech (Part 1)

Preface

Obama in Cairo

Okay, okay . . . I know this post is a little late…but it has given me time to read and dissect Obama’s much anticipated speech to the Muslim world. In addition, I have read various news accounts and political pundit’s analyses of the speech and what they believe the significance might be.

Now it’s my turn. I have developed a four part series highlighting the most important issues as I see them. The articles are as follows:

• Part I – Islam and Religious Freedom…A Dilemma
• Part II – Palestinian/Israeli Conflict
• Part III – Why does Osama Bin Laden Hate Obama?
• Part IV – Confusing Turnaround on Iran’s Nuclear Capability

Supernatural Love

Several years ago, through quite unusual circumstances, God gave me a love…a supernatural love for my Moslem Arab cousins. This despite the fact that some of my Arab cousins have waged a fifty year war to destroy Israel and appear to hate the Jewish people. As I shared in the very first TJCR blog, I know that one day soon God will change all of that. I preface this article with a personal revelation because I want you to know that I am speaking what I believe is the truth not with rancor or anger but in love.

Part I – Islam and Freedom of Religion…A Dilemma

Shortly into President Obama’s Cairo speech he stated the following:

I have come to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap and share common principles – principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.

There are two ideas in that Obama’s statement that are just plain wrong. He says:

• Islam is not exclusive and not competitive with us and…
• Islam is tolerant and believes in the dignity of all men.

Along with President Obama, President George W. Bush and others have tried to assert for political reasons that somehow Islam is a peaceful religion and that radical Moslem terrorists have hijacked this peaceful Islamic religion.

This is a myth…a political fable

9-11 Terrorist Attack

The truth is that Islam is intolerant, aggressively competitive and violent at its core. Why. . . because its base theology teaches this. Islam’s objective is not to coexist peacefully in a tolerant world of religious freedom but to convert the world to Islam, if necessary, at the point of a sword. Every Muslim knows this because it is preached in mosques throughout the world.

Here are a few examples from Islam’s holy books:

• “O Ye who believe! Murder those of the unbelievers…and let them find harshness in you.” [Koran, Repentance: 123]
• “Humiliate the non-Muslims to such an extent that they surrender and pay tribute.” [Koran, Repentance: 29]
• According to the Koran, the Jews try to introduce corruption (5:64), have always been disobedient (5:78), and are the enemies of Allah, the Prophet (Mohammed) and the angels (2:97-98)
• A Muslims life is spared even if he kills a Christian intentionally, while a Muslim may only be required to die if he kills another Muslim. On the other hand, if a non-Muslim merely curses a Muslim, he must either be sentenced to death or be converted on the spot. The reason, as Mohammed said is that only Muslims’ blood is regarded equal.
• As hundreds of thousands of Iranian Bahais found out when Ayatollah Khomeini took power, “any non-Muslim who is not a Jew or Christian is to be immediately executed if they do not convert on the spot to Islam. Jews and Christians are allowed to keep their religion as second class slaves with no civil rights and extra taxes not paid by Muslims.”

Islam’s Objective?

Plain and simple…that the world be unified under the crescent moon flag of Islam.

The Dilemma

The US and Western Europe are democracies which hold religious freedom as a fundamental right.  However, these democracies envision a free environment based on the assumption that all religions coexist peacefully.

This is where things go terribly wrong.

Islamic Terrorist

Since Islam’s objective is that the world be converted by whatever means necessary it is by definition subversive and anti-democratic. Islam will simply use the freedom found in the west to subvert a country’s freedom and accomplish its religious objective.

So what does the US and other democratic countries do?

To outlaw the Moslem faith and expel all adherents to Islam would get the job done but would be by definition anti-democratic and contradictory to our own constitutional principle of religious freedom. There is no doubt that there are many nominal/secular in name only Moslems that would be perfectly happy to live a peaceful life in a free society.

However, knowing the true agenda of the radical Islamists and the aggressive combative nature of Islam’s theology, to let Islam grow within our borders unabated would be self defeating and dangerous to the future of freedom in the US.

Our founding fathers never envisioned that the constitution’s very freedoms would be used to undermine its existence by a religion that is subversive to its existence.

What is the answer?

An answer to this dilemma requires the wisdom of Solomon. The only answer I can offer is to pray for a spiritual revival in this country and wait for God to move supernaturally to resolve the Middle East Arab/Israeli crisis as described in the Final Arab/Jewish War.

Remember – There is only one God. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of Israel; and His agenda trumps all others!

Be sure to read Part II – Palestinian/Israeli Conflict, posting tomorrow!

Joel Chernoff

~The views contained in The Joel Chernoff Report are not necessarily views held by the MJAA~

Do I Hear the Voice of Truth in Zion?

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman

What a breath of fresh air! Finally…a clear voice for truth on behalf of Israel. My respect for the new government of Israel is growing every day. While the people of Israel know the newly appointed Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, most of us outside of Israel don’t know much about him.

What I do know is that the world community sees him more as an ultra-nationalist and extreme anti-Arab right winger. However, I was quite amazed at today’s news report on his recent interview with the Jerusalem Post.

I think I am becoming a new fan of FM Lieberman

While  SS Hilary Clinton from the Obama administration is busy warning Israel about this and that and telling Israel what they need to do to be successful in Obama’s new world, Lieberman is sending a marvelously clear and sensible counter message to President Obama and the international community…one I don’t believe they will like.

Here is a simple digest of a few of the truthful, clear and politically incorrect statements he has recently made.

Driving the International Secular/Liberal Elite Crazy

• “The international community has to stop speaking in slogans if it really wants to help the new Israeli government work towards a solution to the Palestinian conflict and help bring stability to the Middle East. Slogans like land for peace and two-state solution are both over-simplistic and ignore the root causes of the ongoing conflict.”
• This one I really love. It shows me he understands the true nature of the Middle East conflict: “The real reason for the deadlock with the Palestinians is not occupation, not settlements and not settlers. This conflict is really a very deep conflict…Today it’s more a religious conflict.”
• The path forward lays in insuring security for Israel, an improved economy for the Palestinians and stability for both.
• Concerning the right of return of Palestinian refugees from earlier wars…”It cannot be on the table. I’m not ready to even discuss the right of return of even one refugee.”
• Though he made clear that a precondition for progress in the peace process is not based on Palestinian recognition of Israel he does state, “But somebody who really wants a solution, somebody who really desires a real peace and a real agreement, must realize that this would be impossible to achieve without recognizing Israel as a Jewish state.”

That’s right Mr. Lieberman…

 …the bottom line is that this conflict is religious or spiritual at its root. It’s a confrontation between the God of Israel and the God of Islam. That’s why the conflict has zero chance of being resolved by political means.

Lieberman is nicely but clearly suggesting to the world that they have it all wrong because they do not know or care what the true basis of the conflict is.

Though Lieberman seems to understand the religious nature of the conflict…

… I wonder whether he, himself, understands that the resolution is rooted in a fundamental spiritual change within Israel’s Moslem Arab neighbors.

In any case Lieberman indicates that the new Israeli government will complete its own foreign policy review over the next two weeks and then make it public when President Obama and PM Netanyahu meets in Washington May 18.

Netanyahu & Obama

Let us pray that our President does not pressure Israel to do things that can only hurt her security and that PM Netanyahu along with FM Lieberman have the fortitude to stand up to the most powerful man and country on planet earth.

Joel Chernoff

~The views contained in The Joel Chernoff Report are not necessarily views held by the MJAA~

Has God Hardened the Hearts of Modern Arab Pharoah’s?

One of the curious and interesting facts about the Exodus account of Israel’s supernatural deliverance from Egyptian oppression is that God says to Moses (Exodus 7:2-4),

“You shall speak all that I command, you and your brother Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go out of this land. But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt,  Pharaoh will not listen to you.” 

The question I ask myself is why would God find it necessary to harden Pharaoh’s heart? Is that really fair to Pharaoh? He could have accomplished the exodus of Israel from Egypt in perhaps one or two plagues…maybe three. I (as Pharaoh) may have been able to “tough it out” through the first two, water to blood and maybe frogs…but the third plague—-gnats-— would have sent me “over the edge” for sure.

The answers are more complex. 

• In previous blogs I outlined how Israel’s deliverance was prophesied to Abraham over 400 years in advance. So the time for mercy was now passed and God’s wrath and judgment on Israel’s oppressor, Egypt, had arrived. Part of that judgment was that God would amplify the pride already resident in Egypt’s king/Pharaoh and turn it against him in judgment.
• He was also judging the Egyptian people and indeed the entire country suffered greatly through each and every plague.
• God is also jealous for His own name. The Egyptians worshiped a pantheon of gods. Every plague targeted one of their gods. In Ex. 7:5 God says… “the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord.” Hardening Pharaoh’s heart had the effect of stiffening Pharaoh’s resistance against letting the Israelites go. He wanted everyone in Egypt to know that the God of Israel alone was God. All others were imposters.

Today I see a similar phenomena happening.

Arab leaders seem to act stubbornly and at times irrationally. They resist any notion of coming to a peace with Israel even if there is great benefit for their nation and even themselves. Abba Eban, a recently deceased and great Jewish historian, once put it this way…

“the Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity”

Yasir Arafat was a great example.

President Clinton had negotiated a seeming winning formula for peace, although at great price to Israel. He had convinced Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to return well over 90% of the Judea and Samaria to Arafat and the PLO. Incredibly, Arafat turned it down much to the shock of both Barak and Clinton. This despite the fact that had he made the deal he was essentially being granted his own kingdom with him at the head. In addition it would have significantly weakened Israel’s security had there been a convenient “falling out” at some later date. For many reasons he just couldn’t make the deal.

An amazing opportunity missed…thank God!

There are many strategies our Arab brothers could pursue if they wanted to successfully wrest control of Israel from our people but somehow they seem to always do the thing that makes success impossible.

It seems that each and every Arab leader is suffering from a severe case of God inspired “hardness of heart”. I for one am very thankful for this condition.

One word of caution to Arab leaders around the Middle East…

Hardness of heart is a sure sign that God is preparing to pour out his judgment on Israel’s oppressors or enemies. Beware–God is jealous for His name. The God of Israel and the God of Islam cannot both be God and all agree that there is only one God.

Joel Chernoff

~The views contained in The Joel Chernoff Report are not necessarily views held by the MJAA~

Prophetic Lessons From Passover: Lesson #1

Passover Symbolic Foods

Shalom and Happy Passover,

There are many wonderful and practical lessons to be learned from the Biblical feast of Passover. The Passover is one of the three national feasts of Israel that were commanded by God that Israel as a nation commemorate annually, and they are; Passover, Shavuot (the feast of weeks also know in the Christian world as Pentecost) and Succot (the feast of tabernacles). Each of these feasts also have a powerful prophetic Messianic fulfillment.

Over the next seven days of Passover I will share with you some of the lessons and insights about Passover that I feel might be helpful to you.

Lesson #1:

The Passover, which was the national commemoration of God’s great and supernatural deliverance of Israel from Egypt (Exodus 7-13), foreshadowed the Messiah’s first coming, His death and resurrection.

In traditional rabbinic writings…

…what Messianic Jews would refer to as the Messiah’s first coming and suffering for the sin of man is called the Messiah Ben Joseph or the Suffering Messiah. Rabbis throughout the centuries refer to what we believe is the Messiah’s second coming to reign as ruler of the world and king of the Jews as the Messiah Ben David, i.e. the Messiah Son of David. Despite the fact that most modern rabbis in traditional Judaism would deny or avoid admitting that the rabbis recognized two distinct messianic advents…it is a fact of history and can be easily established from rabbinic writings.

Prophetic Foreshadow

Pharaoh & Moses

What makes the Passover a prophetic foreshadow of the Messiah Yeshua’s coming and sacrifice for sins is contained in the account of the final plague God sent on Egypt. Because Pharaoh hardened his heart and would not let Israel leave Egypt as God called for, God visited the plague of death to all of

The Blood of the Lamb

 the firstborn of both animal and man in Egypt. In order for Israel to avoid the angel of death’s visit to their households God told the Israelites to sacrifice and eat a lamb. More importantly He commanded them to take some of the lamb’s blood and put it on the doorpost of each household. As the angel of death passed over their houses and noted the blood on their lintels they would be spared…and they were.

Messianic Fulfillment

In the same way, we avoid the eternal death for our sins that we richly deserve when God sees the blood of the Suffering Messiah, Yeshua, on the doorposts of our hearts. This is exactly what happens when each of us obeys God and accepts what God so sacrificially provided through His Son the Messiah’s death and eternal atonement. God’s eternal judgment is averted and for those who have accepted His atonement the debt of their sins is covered for eternity.

Mercy was extended to all of those households under the blood of the sacrificed lamb of old and mercy is extended to all of those who dwell under the eternal blood of the Messiah Ben Joseph, Yeshua (Jesus).

Joel Chernoff

~The views contained in The Joel Chernoff Report are not necessarily views held by the MJAA~