During The Trump Era, Will Men Finally Start Acting Like Men Again?

Men Silhouette - Public DomainOne of the primary reasons why Donald Trump is in the White House today is because he didn’t act like a typical wimpy politician during the campaign.  The American people were hungry for someone who is strong, someone who is a fighter and someone who will stand up for what he believes.  In other words, they wanted a man and not a wimp.  Yes, Donald Trump has done and said some things that are very regrettable over the years, but many Americans were willing to overlook those imperfections because at least he was willing to go to battle.  Now that he is president, will he inspire millions of other men to finally start acting like men again?

Too many men today would rather go to the spa than pick up a shovel.

Too many men today speak of the need for “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings”.

Too many men today are living in a state of suspended adolescence and are putting off marriage and family indefinitely.

Too many men today are more likely to be called a “snowflake” rather than a “warrior”.

In an absolutely remarkable article that was published earlier this week, author Todd Starnes made some keen observations about modern “men”.  The following is a short excerpt…

In today’s reengineered version of manhood, guys no longer have friends – they have bromances and they settle disputes by hugging it out.

Men’s magazines are now filled with articles like, “Should a Man Show Nipple?” and “What Men Know about Wearing Eyeliner.”

In America today, boys generally don’t do as well as girls in school.  And young women are far more likely to go to college than young men.  In fact, we have almost gotten to the point where 60 percent of the students in our colleges are women.

And when they leave school, young men are far more likely to move back in with their parents than young women are.  In a previous article, I noted that the percentage of Americans in the 18 to 34-year-old age bracket that are living with their parents is now the highest that it has been in 75 years.  If young men were living independently at the same rate that young women are, this crisis wouldn’t even exist.

And the truth is that young women are looking for young men that are willing to be independent.  A few years ago, Todd Starnes “conducted an unscientific poll to determine what the average American woman looks for in a man”, and this is what he discovered

1. Has a job;

2. Drives a pickup truck;

3. Uses the bathroom standing up;

4. Eats meat;

5. And is willing to carry them out of a burning building.

In other words — they want the kind of man made in God’s image — not the image of some effeminate intellectual stuffed in skinny jeans sipping chai tea with his pinky finger extended.

And a more scientific survey that was conducted a few years ago found that 75 percent of all American women do not have any interest in dating unemployed men.

Women want men that will love them, protect them and provide for them.

Unfortunately, those kinds of men are being systematically demonized in our society today.  To the liberal mind, the “traditional man” has come to represent “male oppression” that must be eradicated at all cost.

This may sound strange to you, but this is the kind of philosophy that is being pounded into the minds of impressionable young adults at colleges and universities all across the nation.  And some of these impressionable young adults buy into this philosophy to a frightening degree.

For example, one very prominent feminist blogger has actually called for the eradication of all men

A controversial video blogger has suffered a social media backlash after a video of her suggesting that the male species be wiped out – including babies – re-surfaced.

US vlogger Jenny McDermott, 33, made the bizarre ‘kill all men’ content in July last year and posted it on her YouTube channel.

The 33-year-old, who’s Twitter bio describes her as a secular humanist and trans loving feminist, rants in the short video that she’s ‘sick of being a baby factory that produces more men, that in the future will subjugate me.’

Someone might want to tell her that the human race would cease to exist without men, because apparently she hasn’t thought that far ahead.

But while McDermott may be on the outer fringe, the truth is that she is just a very small part of a very powerful “anti-male” movement in this country.

If you can believe it, at this point even some divinity schools are telling their professors not to use male pronouns for God

Two prominent divinity schools have instructed their professors to use gender-neutral language when referring to God.

According to National Review, the divinity schools at Duke and Vanderbilt Universities have told their faculty to give “consistent attention to the use of inclusive language, especially in relation to the Divine,” in an effort to be more “inclusive” and to “mitigate sexism.”

Of course if men want to be respected, they need to start acting like gentlemen instead of like deranged animals.

I often quote from two different surveys when I talk about the state of men in our country.  One of those surveys found that 64 percent of all Christian men in America watch pornography at least once a month, and another survey found that 68 percent of all Christian men in America look at it “on a regular basis”.

That is not how men are supposed to behave.

A gentleman is self-controlled, patient, strong, temperate and willing to make sacrifices for others.

But how many men could be described that way today?

In the old days, men dedicated themselves to God, family and country, but today many men appear to be self-obsessed narcissists that are constantly chasing whatever they think will make them feel good in the moment.

If we want to make America great again, then men (and women) need to start dedicating themselves to becoming great again on an individual level.

So ultimately the fate of this nation is not going to be determined by any politician.

Rather, the fate of this nation is going to be decided by what goes on inside our own hearts.

Employment Boom: 10 Companies That Have Promised To Add Jobs In The United States Since Trump Was Elected

Hiring - Public DomainOne of the primary things that Trump’s presidency will be judged upon is his ability to encourage the creation of good paying jobs for American workers, and so far the results have been quite promising.  Since Trump’s surprise election victory in November, a whole bunch of companies have either promised to bring jobs back into the country or have pledged to create new ones.  Ultimately time will tell if those jobs actually materialize, but for the moment there is a tremendous amount of optimism in the air.  In fact, I don’t know if we have ever seen anything quite like this at the beginning of a new presidency.  The following are 10 companies that have promised to add jobs in the United States since the election of Donald Trump…

#1 Kroger says that it intends to fill 10,000 permanent positions in the United States this year.

#2 IBM has announced that it will be hiring an additional 25,000 workers in the United States over the next four years.

#3 Foxconn is considering setting up a 7 billion dollar plant in the United States that would create between 30,000 and 50,000 jobs.

#4 Amazon.com has pledged to add 100,000 full-time jobs in the United States by mid-2018.

#5 Wal-Mart has announced that it plans to add approximately 10,000 retail jobs in the United States in 2017.

#6 Sprint has announced that 5,000 jobs will be brought back to the United States instead of going overseas.

#7 After meeting with Trump, the CEO of SoftBank stated his intention to create 50,000 new jobs in the United States.

#8 After a phone call from Trump, industrial manufacturing giant Carrier promised to keep hundreds of jobs in the United States instead of moving them out of the country.

#9 Hyundai has promised to spend 3.1 billion dollars supporting their current factories in Georgia and Alabama, and they have said that they are now considering adding an additional factory in the United States as well.

#10 GM has pledged to invest a billion dollars in U.S. factories and to add or keep 7,000 jobs in the United States.

Unlike most politicians, so far Donald Trump seems determined to actually keep many of the promises that he made during the campaign.  And on Monday he kept a very important promise by pulling the U.S. out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.  If you are not familiar with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the following is a pretty good summary  from USA Today

The TPP is a comprehensive trade agreement among 12 Pacific Rim countries, not including China, that was signed last year by President Obama after seven years of negotiation. But the Senate had not yet ratified it. The 30-chapter pact, which also needed to be ratified by other countries before Trump’s order Monday, primarily aims to boost exports, remove tariffs and non-tariff  barriers, open access to more markets and usher in transparency in trade rules.

The 12 nations that were to be included in the Trans-Pacific Partnership collectively account for approximately 40 percent of global GDP.  So it was going to be a very big deal, and it is something that Barack Obama had been working on for many years.

But with one stroke of a pen it is over, and as I will explain below that is a very good thing.

Trump is also promising to keep his pledge to renegotiate NAFTA

On Nafta, Trump said Sunday that he’ll meet with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto to begin discussing the deal, which he has routinely blamed for the loss of U.S. jobs although there was little change to employment in the U.S. in several years after it went into effect. Trump signaled that he’s willing to work with the U.S.’s closest neighbors.

“We’re going to start renegotiating on Nafta, on immigration, and on security at the border,” Trump said at the start of a swearing-in ceremony for top White House staff. “I think we’re going to have a very good result for Mexico, for the United States, for everybody involved. It’s really very important.”

Nobody is suggesting that we shouldn’t trade with the rest of the world, but what Donald Trump understands that so many other politicians do not is that many of these “free trade deals” have been extremely destructive to the U.S. economy.

For years, we have been buying far, far more from the rest of the world than they have been buying from us.  As a result of our massive trade deficits, there has been a continual flow of cash, jobs and businesses leaving the country.

Over the past several decades, formerly great manufacturing cities such as Detroit have been reduced to urban hellholes.  Meanwhile, China has become exceedingly wealthy and gleaming new factories have sprouted like mushrooms in their major cities.

This didn’t happen by accident.

Bad decisions lead to bad results.  And if we had kept on doing the same things, we would have continued to systematically impoverish our nation.

For more than seven years, I have been hammering home the message that our trade policies have been absolutely killing us.  So I am quite thankful that we finally have a president that understands these things.

Of course there is much more to fixing our economy than just addressing our trade deals.  As I discussed yesterday, our rapidly growing debt is becoming a major crisis, and that is going to present quite a challenge for Trump.

But for the moment, we should definitely celebrate the fact that Trump has gotten us out of the TPP and that he plans to renegotiate NAFTA.

Donald Trump understands business, and it is going to be fascinating to watch how a businessman handles the position of the presidency.  It has only been a few days, but already some of his former critics seem to be coming around a little bit.  For instance, just consider what Mark Cuban is saying

The Dallas Mavericks owner and entrepreneur is “playing it by ear” when it comes to the effect President Donald Trump’s policies will have on the stock market. But he thinks there’s possible upside.

“I think the discussed economic programs are potentially a big plus for public companies and the overall economy,” Mr. Cuban said in an e-mail Monday morning.

The potential policies Mr. Cuban is optimistic about: corporate tax cuts; getting rid of the “friction” for small businesses; and reducing and simplifying administrative activities.

Considering our current trajectory and the immense amount of long-term damage that was done during the Obama years, it is hard to be optimistic about the future of the U.S. economy.

However, I am certainly willing to give Donald Trump a chance to show what he can do.

At least he is doing things differently than his predecessors did, and that is to be greatly applauded because the road that we were on clearly would have ended in economic oblivion.

We may very well end up there anyway, but there is certainly nothing wrong with being hopeful that Trump can somehow turn things around.

Why Are Wal-Mart And Boeing Laying Off Workers If The U.S. Economy Is In Good Shape?

wal-mart-photo-by-mikemozartjeepersmediaThe stock market has been on quite a roll in recent weeks, but signs of trouble continue to plague the real economy.  Earlier this week, I talked about the “retail apocalypse” that is sweeping America.  Major retail chains such as Sears and Macy’s are closing stores and laying off workers, but I didn’t think that Wal-Mart would be feeling the pain as well.  Unfortunately, that is precisely what is happening.  USA Today is reporting that approximately 1,000 jobs will be cut at Wal-Mart’s corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas by the end of this month…

Walmart’s plan to lay off of hundreds of employees is the latest ripple in a wave of job cuts and store closures that are roiling the retail industry.

The world’s largest retailer is cutting roughly 1,000 jobs at its corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., later this month, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to speak about it.

The company is saying that these cuts are necessary because Wal-Mart is always “looking for ways to operate more efficiently and effectively“.  But something doesn’t smell right here.  You don’t get rid of 1,000 employees at your corporate headquarters if everything is just fine.

I have driven past Wal-Mart’s headquarters in Bentonville a number of times, and it is in a beautiful part of the country.  Bentonville and the surrounding areas had been booming, but it looks like times may be changing.

Meanwhile, there are signs of trouble out on the west coast as well.  The Los Angeles Times is reporting that there is going to be a new round of engineering job cuts at Boeing…

Boeing Co. has internally announced a new round of employee buyouts for engineers companywide, including in Southern California, and warned that layoff notices will follow later this month to engineers in Washington state, where the company has a large presence.

Management did not cite a target for the number of projected job cuts.

The news comes after company Vice Chairman Ray Conner and the new chief executive of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, or BCA, Kevin McAllister, warned in December of the need to aim for further cuts in 2017.

And according to Boeing spokesperson Doug Alder, similar job cut announcements are coming for other classes of workers as well.

So why is Boeing getting rid of so many employees?

Well, the truth is that Boeing’s business is way down.  The following comes from Wolf Richter

Business has been tough. In 2016, deliveries fell by 14 jets from a year ago, to 748. Net orders dropped 13% from an already rotten level in 2015, to just 668, down 53% from 2014. And the lowest level since 2010!

When the economy is doing well, air traffic tends to rise, and when the economy is doing poorly it tends to go down.

Needless to say, the fact that Boeing is doing so poorly does not bode well for the future.

In addition to Wal-Mart, another major retailer that is letting people go is Petco

Petco is cutting 180 positions with about 50 at its San Diego headquarters, the pet supply retailer confirmed Wednesday.

The company made the cuts across its workforce and include both existing and open positions.

Petco has about 650 workers at its headquarters in Rancho Bernardo. It employs 27,000 in the U.S.

My wife and I have three cats, and even though Petco tends to be a bit overpriced we have always appreciated the work that they do.

Unfortunately, when the economy gets tough spending on pets tends to be one of the first things to get cut back, and this current trouble at Petco could be a sign that rough sledding is ahead for the entire economy.

Of course your personal perspective on these things is likely to be very heavily influenced by your immediate surroundings.  Those that live in wealthy enclaves of major cities such as San Francisco, New York City or Washington D.C. may be wondering how anyone could possibly be talking about economic trouble right now.

But if you live in economically depressed areas of Appalachia or the upper Midwest, it may seem like the last economic recession never even ended.

There have been pockets of economic prosperity in recent years, and this has resulted in some people becoming exceedingly wealthy.  Meanwhile, things have just continued to become even tougher for millions of other families as the cost of living always seems to grow faster than their paychecks do.

If you are in the top one percent of all income earners, maybe to you it seems like things have never been better.  But most of the country is living paycheck to paycheck and is just struggling to survive from month to month.  The following comes from CNN

The rich are money-making machines. Today, the top mega wealthy — the top 1% — earn an average of $1.3 million a year. It’s more than three times as much as the 1980s, when the rich “only” made $428,000, on average, according to economists Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman.

Meanwhile, the bottom 50% of the American population earned an average of $16,000 in pre-tax income in 1980. That hasn’t changed in over three decades.

The workers being laid off at the companies discussed above are real people with real hopes and real dreams.  Perhaps many of them will be able to land other employment fairly soon, but the truth is that the job market is really tough in many areas of the country right now.

Finding a good job that will allow you to pay the bills and support your family is not easy.  You may find that out the hard way if you end up losing your current job during the economic troubles that will come in 2017.

Earlier today, I came across an excellent article by Gail Tverberg that detailed a whole bunch of reasons why a significant economic downturn appears to be imminent in 2017.  If you would like to read it, you can find it here.  She points to many of the same things that I have been pointing to for a very long time.

Even though economic conditions were fairly stable throughout 2016, our long-term problems just continued to get even worse.  So the truth is that we are more primed for a major crisis today than we have been at any point since the last recession.

My hope is that things will not be nearly as bad in 2017 as Gail Tverberg and others are projecting that they could be, but the warning signs are definitely there, and it isn’t going to take much to push the U.S. economy off the rails.

10 Ways That Donald Trump Could Try To Reverse The Curse That Obama Has Put On America

trump-wallWhen Barack Obama betrayed Israel at the United Nations, that put a curse on our nation.  But that doesn’t mean that we have to stay cursed.  In the coming days, the new Trump administration should immediately start taking steps to reverse the curse that we are under as a result of what Obama has done.  Perhaps if Donald Trump takes strong enough steps to try to undo what Obama has done, instead of being cursed we can once again return to being blessed.

One thing that Trump will not be able to undo is UN Security Council Resolution 2334.  It would take another UN Security Council resolution to undo it, and the votes simply wouldn’t be there.  UN Security Council Resolution 2334 passed by a vote of 14 to zero with the U.S. abstaining.  And even if Trump could miraculously pull together enough votes, one of the other permanent members of the Security Council (Russia, China, the UK or France) could just veto it.

So it looks like we are stuck with UN Security Council Resolution 2334, but that doesn’t mean that Trump can’t do anything to try to address this matter.

Recently, a Breitbart article suggested five steps that Trump should take regarding Israel once he becomes president, and I would like to add another five to the list.

The following are 10 things that should immediately be done once Trump becomes president to try to reverse the curse that Obama has put on America…

#1 Donald Trump should clearly disavow UN Security Council Resolution 2334 during his Inaugural address.  This would send a clear signal to the rest of the world that this new administration does not stand behind Obama’s betrayal of Israel.

#2 Sanctions should be imposed on every nation that voted in favor of the resolution.  I know that this would be politically tricky and would greatly upset the other permanent members of the Security Council, but it should still be done.

#3 There should be a congressional declaration clearly disavowing UN Security Council Resolution 2334, and Donald Trump should endorse this declaration.

#4 The Trump administration should immediately introduce another UN Security Council resolution that would include language that completely overturns the previous resolution.  Of course that resolution would almost certainly fail, but the point would be to show that the Trump administration is horrified by what has been done, and it would force the rest of the Security Council into a very uncomfortable position.

#5 Trump should immediately move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.  By law this was already supposed to have happened anyway, but past presidents have always put the move off.  Of course this would cause the Palestinians to riot, but Trump needs to show the world that U.S. policy is not going to be dictated by threats of violence.

#6 Trump should cut off all funding to the Palestinian authority.  Considering how much debt we are in, I don’t know why we are giving them money in the first place.

#7 Trump should publicly announce that his administration will never recognize a Palestinian state.  The rest of the world would get very upset by this, but it is the right thing to do.

#8 Trump should publicly announce that it is the policy of the United States government that every inch of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Gaza strip and the Golan Heights belongs to Israel.  I don’t think that Trump would ever do this, but it would be the single most important step that he could take.

#9 The United Nations could be defunded in whole or in part.  But we don’t want to leave the United Nations entirely as some are suggesting.  Now that Trump is going to be president, we want him to use the power that we have on the Security Council to protect Israel.  Because without the U.S. standing in the way, the rest of the world would gang up on Israel in a major way.

#10 Trump should make an immediate presidential visit to Israel during the very first week of his presidency.  This would largely be symbolic, but it would show the rest of the planet that we stand solidly with the Netanyahu government.

And if Barack Obama takes additional action against Israel during the remaining days of his presidency, steps such as I have just outlined above will become even more important.

There are still rumblings that we could see another UN Security Council resolution that would officially establish a Palestinian state before Obama leaves office.  The following comes from an article by Bob Eschliman

The official said the U.N. action could come in the form of declarations by U.N. bodies, including the General Assembly; U.N. sessions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; or even another United Nations Security Council resolution. He said any further UNSC resolution would depend on the support of the U.S. and European countries after the upcoming Paris Mideast summit slated for Jan. 15.

He said the U.N. action would seek to set the parameters of a future Palestinian state with a clear timeline for negotiations. If the action comes in the form of a resolution at a U.N. body, it could call for an infrastructure to establish mechanisms to enforce last week’s UNSC resolution, which demanded a complete halt to Israeli construction in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem and declared those territories occupied Palestinian lands.

If the UN Security Council does vote to formally recognize a Palestinian state, all hell will break loose in America.

Let us hope that does not happen, and let us hope that Donald Trump works very hard to repair the damage that has already been done once he gets into office.

John Kerry Unveils His Plan For A Palestinian State Based Upon 1967 Borders With East Jerusalem As The Capital

john-kerry-photo-by-david-hume-kennerlyBarack Obama stabbed Israel in the back on Friday, and now John Kerry has slapped Israel in the face just five days later.  In a shameful speech that lasted for 71 dreadful minutes, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry laid out his plan for peace in the Middle East on Wednesday.  His six-part plan is being welcomed warmly by the Palestinians, but it has further infuriated the Israelis.  Kerry claims that his plan reflects the emerging global consensus as to what a “final solution” will look like, and now we will wait to see what the 70 nations that will be gathering in France to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on January 15th will do.  There is a great deal of concern that the principles agreed upon at that conference will form the basis for a UN Security Council resolution that will be rushed to a vote before President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated on January 20th.

The core of Kerry’s plan is the division of the land of Israel into two states.  The borders between Israel and “Palestine” would be based upon the 1967 ceasefire lines with mutually agreed upon land swaps.  The following comes from ynetnews.com

Outgoing US Secretary of State John Kerry laid out the Obama administration’s parameters for peace between Israel and the Palestinians during a speech at the State Department on Wednesday that lasted 71 minutes, one of the longest in US State Department history.

Breaking sharply from longstanding US policy that foreign powers shouldn’t impose a solution, Kerry unveiled a six-part outline of what a future peace deal could look like. The outline tracked closely with principles long assumed to be part of an eventual deal, and Kerry insisted he was merely describing what’s emerged as points of general agreement.

Primarily, Kerry called to create a secure and recognized border between Israel and a contiguous Palestine along the 1967 lines, with “mutually agreed, equivalent (land) swaps.”

As part of the land swaps, Kerry insists that the Palestinians must be given land that connects the West Bank and the Gaza strip.  In his speech he stated that “Palestine must be viable and contiguous”, and he made it exceedingly clear that East Jerusalem will be the capital of the new Palestinian state.

Of course UN Security Council Resolution 2334 has already given the entire West Bank and every inch of East Jerusalem to the Palestinians.  So the only thing that another UN Security Council resolution would be needed for would be to formally establish a Palestinian state.

Kerry went on to say that if Israel does not accept a two-state solution “it will not have peace with the rest of the Arab world, I can guarantee that.”

Of course Kerry is half-correct in making that statement, because Israel will not have peace with the rest of the Arab world even if a Palestinian state is established.  In fact, the establishment of a Palestinian state would actually make war much more likely.

Kerry also shockingly claimed that “Israel can either be Jewish or democratic”

Kerry said a two-state solution, which calls for an independent Palestinian state existing peacefully alongside Israel, is the only way to guarantee the Jewish state’s long-term security in the region.

“If the choice is one state, Israel can either be Jewish or democratic, it cannot be both,” Kerry said.

Needless to say, Kerry’s speech sparked a tremendous amount of outrage among pro-Israel leaders here in the United States.

One of the leaders that is condemning Kerry’s remarks is U.S. Senator Ted Cruz.  In a strongly worded statement, he accused Barack Obama and John Kerry of being “relentless enemies of Israel”

Ted Cruz, a Republican senator and 2016 presidential candidate, lit into Kerry and Obama in a statement that accused of them being ‘bitter clingers.’

They’re ‘spending every last minute of this administration wreaking havoc domestically and abroad,’ he said.

‘These acts are shameful. They are designed to secure a legacy, and indeed they have: history will record and the world will fully understand Obama and Kerry as relentless enemies of Israel.’

And Donald Trump is speaking out as well.  On Twitter, he let the world know what he thinks about how the Obama administration has been treating Israel…

“We cannot continue to let Israel be treated with such total disdain and disrespect,” Trump tweeted. “The beginning of the end was the horrible Iran deal, and now this (U.N.!) Stay strong, Israel, January 20th is fast approaching!”

In response, Barack Obama actually got on the phone and called Donald Trump in an attempt to smooth things over.

After eight years of failure, Barack Obama has saved the very worst for last.  With less than 30 days to go in his presidency, he has chosen this moment to betray Israel, and by doing so he has greatly cursed America.

I don’t get upset about a lot these days, but this is something that is worth getting upset about.  If Obama would have just left things alone, everything would have been fine.  But instead of deferring to the next president on important matters, Obama has chosen to implement a “scorched earth policy” during his final month in the White House.

As we move into 2017, our relationship with Israel is going to be one of the biggest political issues that we are facing.

If you are anti-Israel, you are with Barack Obama, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, the United Nations and all the rest of the globalists that are obsessed with dividing the land of Israel.

If you are pro-Israel, you are with Donald Trump, Mike Pence, Ted Cruz and all of the other brave leaders that are fighting the forces of globalism.

All over the world, the forces of anti-Semitism are rising.  Even here in the United States, there are large numbers of people that are virulently anti-Israel.

Ultimately, it is a spiritual thing.  Those that hate Israel and that hate the Jewish people are being inspired by the powers of darkness, and this cancer is spreading even among those that call themselves Bible-believing Christians.

God loves all people – and this includes the Israelis and the Palestinians.  And the ultimate solution to the problems in the Middle East would be to follow God’s blueprint, but unfortunately global leaders have their own ideas, and their anti-Semitic agenda is going to end up getting an enormous amount of people killed.

Circle January 15th: 70 Nations Will Gather In Paris To Discuss The Creation Of A Palestinian State

15-ball-public-domainOn January 15th, representatives from 70 different countries will gather in Paris, France for an unprecedented global conference.  The stated goal of this conference is to promote a “two-state solution” as the way that lasting peace will be brought to the Middle East.  In Israel, there is a tremendous amount of concern that whatever is agreed upon at this conference will immediately be used as the basis for a UN Security Council resolution that would permanently divide the land of Israel and create a Palestinian state.  But things would have to move very rapidly in order for that to happen, because Barack Obama’s time in the White House comes to an end on January 20th, and Donald Trump has already made it exceedingly clear that he would never support such a resolution.

The UN Security Council resolution that was passed on Friday was one of the most significant events that we have witnessed in decades.  Resolution 2334 made all Israeli settlements in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem illegal, it set the 1967 ceasefire lines as the border between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and it granted every single inch of East Jerusalem to the Palestinians.  But it stopped short of giving official UN Security Council recognition to a Palestinian state, and that is why this conference on January 15th is so important.

On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will lay out a plan which many believe will serve as the blueprint for the upcoming conference in Paris.  This is something that I discussed yesterday.  Apparently Kerry has been working on this for quite some time, and according to the Times of Israel, Jewish officials are fearful that he may propose something drastic…

At a press briefing Tuesday, State Department spokesman Mark Toner confirmed Kerry’s plans for the speech, though he refused to detail whether the top US diplomat would use the opportunity to announce a new American initiative, which officials in Jerusalem fear he may.

Toner said the secretary holds the conviction that “it is his duty in his remaining weeks and days as secretary of state to lay out what he believes is a way towards a two-state solution” and that “it’s always important to keep the process moving forward.”

If Kerry’s plan is embraced by the conference in Paris, it is anticipated by many that it would serve as the basis for a UN Security Council resolution that would formally create a Palestinian state before Donald Trump is inaugurated on January 20th.  The following comes from the Guardian

The Israeli government is reportedly fearful that any guidelines agreed in Paris would be turned into another UN resolution before Trump’s inauguration, and it has ratcheted up its rhetoric, presenting itself as the victim of an international conspiracy.

A spokesman for Netanyahu claimed to have “ironclad evidence” that the Obama administration had plotted behind the scenes to promote the UN resolution. Israel has said it will present evidence against the Obama administration to the incoming Trump team.

If what an Egyptian newspaper is claiming is true, then there may very well be an international conspiracy at work against Israel.  According to a transcript published by the Al-Youm Al-Sabea newspaper, John Kerry and U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice met with Palestinian officials in early December and presented Kerry’s plan to them at that time…

In a meeting in early December with top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, US Secretary of State John Kerry told the Palestinians that the US was prepared to cooperate with the Palestinians at the Security council, Israel’s Channel 1 TV said, quoting the Egyptian Al-Youm Al-Sabea newspaper.

Also present at the meeting were US National Security Adviser Susan Rice, and Majed Faraj, director of the Palestinian Authority’s General Intelligence Service.

Kerry is quoted as saying that he could present his ideas for a final status solution if the Palestinians pledge they will support the proposed framework. The US officials advised the Palestinians to travel to Riyadh to present the plan to Saudi leaders.

The Obama administration is denying all of this of course.  But if it is true, then the betrayal of Israel by Obama is much deeper than any of us realized.

With less than a month to go in his presidency, Barack Obama has decided to launch an all-out attack on Israel.  Once Resolution 2334 passed and the uproar against it was limited, that emboldened the Obama administration to go for broke.

Now it looks like they actually could try to get a Palestinian state created before he leaves office on January 20th, and if that happens it will be absolutely catastrophic for America.  You see, the truth is that we have been warned for many years that our land will be divided after the land of Israel is officially divided into two states.  Many of us have been watching for the creation of a Palestinian state for a very long time, and now we may be right on the verge of it happening.

When Donald Trump takes office he would not be able to reverse the creation of a Palestinian state, but one thing that he could do would be to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.

If that happens, the Palestinians are promising to throw a massive temper tantrum

When asked how the Palestinians would react if Trump carried out his promise to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, Erekat reportedly said the Palestine Liberation Organization would rescind its recognition of Israel and ask Arab states to expel their US envoys.

Erekat made precisely that threat in a December 19 conference call organized by the Wilson Center policy forum. He said he would immediately resign as the chief Palestinian negotiator, and that “the PLO will revoke its recognition of Israel” as well as all previously signed agreements with Israel. Furthermore, said Erekat, all American embassies in the Arab world would be forced to close — not necessarily because Arab leaderships would want to close them, but because the infuriated public in the Arab world would not “allow” for the embassies to continue to operate.

Ultimately, everything that is happening now is setting the stage for the biggest war in the Middle East that we have ever seen.

So instead of this “peace process” being the solution, it is actually going to cause the Middle East to explode in violence.

For a very long time I have been warning that the worst days of the Obama era were still in front of us, and we are currently watching that play out right in front of our eyes.  This betrayal of Israel is the worst thing that he has done during his entire time in the White House, and now America is greatly cursed as a result.

Breaking Report: John Kerry Is Working On Another UN Resolution That Would Officially Recognize A Palestinian State

israel-and-the-palestinians-united-nations-mapMultiple media outlets are reporting that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is finalizing a document that the Obama administration hopes will form the basis for a UN Security Council resolution that officially recognizes a Palestinian state before the end of Barack Obama’s term on January 20th.  This comes on the heels of the UN Security Council’s adoption of resolution 2334 on December 23rd.  That resolution declared that all Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal, it stated that the Security Council recognizes the 1967 ceasefire lines as the border between Israel and “Palestine”, and it officially gave East Jerusalem to the Palestinians.  But it stopped short of formally recognizing a Palestinian state.  Resolution 2334 speaks of a Palestinian state in the future tense, but this new resolution that John Kerry is reportedly working on would give immediate and permanent UN Security Council recognition to a Palestinian state.

If there is a UN Security Council resolution that officially establishes a Palestinian state prior to January 20th, there will be no question that it will represent “the dividing of the land of Israel” at the United Nations that so many of us have been watching for.

According to the Times of Israel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is anticipating precisely this kind of move at the UN, and he is reaching out to Donald Trump for assistance…

Amid escalating fallout from the UN Security Council vote Friday that condemned Israel’s settlement activities, a furious Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was reported on Sunday night to be attempting to “recruit” the incoming Trump administration and the US Congress to block a feared bid by the outgoing Obama administration to have the Security Council approve principles for a Palestinian state.

It is being widely reported that John Kerry will deliver a speech within the next few days that will set out a specific plan for a “two-state solution”.  That same article from the Times of Israel says that Netanyahu is deeply concerned that Obama “will seek to have a resolution enshrining those parameters adopted by the UN Security Council” before the end of his term on January 20th…

Netanyahu’s fear is that Secretary of State John Kerry will set out principles or parameters for a Palestinian state in a speech that he has said he will deliver in the next few days on his Middle East vision. The prime minister fears that, in its final days, the Obama administration will seek to have a resolution enshrining those parameters adopted by the UN Security Council, the report said.

France is to hold a conference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on January 15, and Netanyahu expects that Kerry will attend, that the Middle East Quartet — the US, UN, Russia and EU — will coordinate their positions at that summit, and that they will then turn to the Security Council in the very last days of the Obama presidency, a Channel 10 report further suggested.

If John Kerry simply were to get up and give a speech about what he thinks the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be, that would be rather meaningless.  In fact, there would be little point in doing that unless action was going to be taken at the UN Security Council before the end of Obama’s term.

Earlier today,

When you hit the translate button, this is how that tweet gets translated: “: Secretary of State John Kerry would work on a text recognizing the State of Palestine”.

When I first saw that, it sent chills through me.

According to i24news, this document that Kerry is working on would use the 1967 ceasefire lines as the basis for the borders between the two states, but it would also incorporate “land-swaps” so that most of the Jewish settlers in the West Bank could stay where they are…

United States Secretary of State John Kerry is preparing a document which will form the basis for final negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians to be presented next month before President Barack Obama leaves office, the Palestinian al-Quds newspaper reported Monday.

The document will outline the establishment of a future Palestinian state according to the internationally recognized 1967 borders, with land-swaps leaving approximately 75 to 80 percent of Israeli settlers living in the West Bank under the sovereignty of Israel, the report states.

The principles will also set out requirements for Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish State, and Israel’s required recognition of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, al-Quds says.

It would be hard to overstate how dangerous this is.  As I explained yesterday, when Barack Obama decided to betray Israel at the United Nations, he cursed America.  And a resolution that would officially recognize a Palestinian state would be an even bigger betrayal than resolution 2334 was.

Back in August, I went on one of the biggest Christian shows in America and specifically warned that Barack Obama would betray Israel at the United Nations.  I have also repeatedly pointed out the pattern of judgment that we have seen over the last several decades whenever the U.S. has made moves toward dividing the land, and I have repeatedly warned about what will happen when our government is involved in officially dividing the land of Israel and establishing a Palestinian state.

I cannot understand why more Christian leaders are not getting extremely upset about this.  They know that the Bible says that God will bless those that bless Israel and that it will curse those that curse Israel.

Many of those leaders also know that there will be extremely severe consequences for the United States once a Palestinian state is declared.

So why aren’t they saying something?

Why aren’t they warning the people?

Why are they just going about business as usual as if nothing is going to happen?

This past weekend preachers all across America should have been preaching fiery sermons about Obama’s betrayal of Israel on Friday.  But that wouldn’t have been politically-correct to preach during the Christmas season, and so in most churches nothing was said.

The passing of UN Security Council resolution 2334 was the most prophetically significant event in at least 40 years, and another resolution that would officially recognize a Palestinian state would be even more important.

America is already under a curse due to the passage of resolution 2334.  If another resolution is passed that formally establishes a Palestinian state, our nation will experience a shaking unlike anything that we have ever known before.

Let us pray that the Obama administration is not successful in getting this resolution passed before January 20th, because if it happens all hell is going to break loose in America.

The UN Security Council Has Just Officially Given Every Inch Of East Jerusalem To The Palestinians

jerusalem-photo-by-berthold-wernerBarack Obama has just made the worst decision of his entire presidency.  On Friday, the UN Security Council adopted resolution 2334, and this never would have happened without the support and approval of Barack Obama.  Since the United States has veto power on the Security Council, no resolution can ever pass unless the United States allows it to pass.  For decades, it has been the policy of the U.S. government to veto all anti-Israel resolutions at the Security Council, and the Israeli government had been expecting that Barack Obama would not suddenly change that policy at the very end of his second term.  Most of the news headlines about resolution 2334 refer to “Israeli settlements”, but the reality of the matter is that this resolution is about much more than that.  The truth is that this resolution has established legally binding parameters for a “two-state solution” that Israel will never accept, and this includes giving every inch of East Jerusalem to the Palestinians.

If you have not read it yet, you can find the full text of resolution 2334 right here.  It is one of the most important documents of our time, so you need to take a few minutes to read it.

In the excerpt below, you will see that this resolution clearly states that East Jerusalem is in “Palestinian territory” and that the Security Council says that it will recognize no changes to the pre-1967 borders except “those agreed by the parties through negotiations”…

Reaffirms that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-State solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace;

Reiterates its demand that Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and that it fully respect all of its legal obligations in this regard;

Underlines that it will not recognize any changes to the 4 June 1967 lines, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations;

Of course not one inch of East Jerusalem was controlled by Israel prior to the 1967 war.  So the UN Security Council is saying that unless the Palestinians agree to give it up, every single inch of East Jerusalem (including the Temple Mount) belongs to the Palestinians.

As I have explained before, UN Security Council resolutions are considered to be legally binding on the parties.  Now that the Palestinians have been granted full legal ownership over East Jerusalem, does anyone actually believe that they will ever willingly relinquish that?

Today, more than half a million Israelis live in East Jerusalem and the 137 settlements that are scattered throughout the West Bank.

Where are they all supposed to go?

This UN Security Council resolution never should have happened.  President-elect Donald Trump made it abundantly clear that he would have vetoed this resolution, but instead of deferring to the next administration Barack Obama decided to viciously stab Israel in the back.  This is the greatest betrayal of Israel in American history, and according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the Obama administration has been plotting this for quite a while

“From the information that we have, we have no doubt that the Obama administration initiated it, stood behind it, coordinated on the wording and demanded that it be passed,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “This is, of course, in complete contradiction of the traditional American policy that was committed to not trying to dictate terms for a permanent agreement, like any issue related to them in the Security Council, and, of course, the explicit commitment of President Obama himself, in 2011, to refrain from such steps.”

During an interview with with CNN on Sunday, an official spokesperson for Netanyahu said essentially the same thing…

Netanyahu spokesman David Keyes told CNN on Sunday, “We have iron-clad information, frankly, that the Obama administration really helped push this resolution and helped craft it, from sources internationally and sources in the Arab world.”

Unfortunately, Obama’s actions are going to have very serious implications for all of us.

As I just explained in an article on The Most Important News, those that bless Israel will be blessed, and those that curse Israel will be cursed.

And this is especially true when it comes to Jerusalem.  In Zechariah 2:8 we are told that those that touch Jerusalem touch the apple of God’s eye, and in Zechariah 12 we are told that the city of Jerusalem will play a significant role in the last days.  The following is what Zechariah 12:3 says in the Modern English Version

“And it will be on that day that I will set Jerusalem as a weighty stone to all the peoples. All who carry it will surely gash themselves, and all the nations of the land will be gathered against it.”

By defiantly attempting to divide the land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem during the waning days of his presidency, Barack Obama has cursed America.

You may not believe in blessings and curses, but the Word of God says that those that curse Israel will be cursed, and without a doubt we will most assuredly be cursed as a result of what Barack Obama has done.

And of course the entire Middle East is going to suffer as well.  Instead of bringing peace, this resolution just sets the stage for more conflict.  According to the Times of Israel, the Netanyahu government is already promising not to adhere to the terms of the resolution…

“Israel categorically rejects the despicable anti-Israeli resolution at the UN, and will not adhere to it,” the Prime Minister’s Office said in a seething statement after the council voted in favor of the motion 14-0.

Knowing all of this, put yourself into the shoes of the Palestinians for a moment.

The UN Security Council has given them legal rights to a nation with borders based on the pre-1967 lines.  They have been given every inch of East Jerusalem, and every Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem and the West Bank has officially been declared illegal.

If Israel refuses to budge, the Palestinians could very easily come to the conclusion that they have exhausted all legal channels for resolving the conflict and that the only way they are going to get what legally belongs to them is to take it by force.

A great war is coming to the Middle East, and it will be a life or death struggle between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Nothing else that Barack Obama has done during his entire time in the White House even comes close to this.  He has greatly cursed America, he has set the stage for the bloodiest war the Middle East has ever seen, and he has defiantly shaken his fist at the one true God that created all things.

May God have mercy on us all.