Maravot world news

07.10.07 Ghazi killed in operation silence: Reports

ISLAMABAD, July 10 - The deputy chief of Lal mosque Abdul Rasheed Ghazi has been killed in operation silence launched against the militants holed up in the Lal mosque, the Interior ministry sources said on Tuesday. A bullet had hit in a leg of Ghazi during gunfire and he was also asked to surrender after he was injured but he refused and was ultimately killed, some sources said. Mr. Ghazi was killed in firing by some militants who were hiding along with him when he came out of a bunker and was heading to surrender, the other reports said

...Ghazi, the deputy leader of the Red Mosque, was holed up in a basement with several women and children on Tuesday after troops raided the compound, officials said. At least 58 people have died in the assault.

...Ghazi married into a moderate family and lived a relatively westernized life. He got a government job in the education ministry and also worked with UNESCO, the UN's culture organization. "Ghazi used to share jokes, often spoke in English, moved in mixed company and was an active student," said a university friend who asked not to be named. His father, Abdullah Aziz, who founded the Red Mosque, was so angry about his lifestyle that he handed over his property to his brother, current mosque leader Abdul Aziz. Abdul Aziz was caught last Wednesday trying to flee the compound in a burqa.

Ghazi completely changed after his father was shot dead inside the mosque by a lone gunman, thought to be from a rival Islamic group. He joined his brother Abdul, who took over the mosque in 1998 and nominated him as his deputy. Ghazi also established links with Pakistani intelligence services, who earlier had used his father and brother to help foster Islamists who would support the anti-Soviet "jihad" in Afghanistan and the subsequent rise to power of the Taliban.

When the 9/11 attacks took place in the United States, friends said no trace of the "old," westernized Ghazi remained. But he also began to move away from his state sponsors. Security sources said he had close links with pro-Taliban militants and agitated against President Pervez Musharraf's decision to back the US-led invasion of Afghanistan. [Full story>>thenews.com.pk ; See other details, aljazeera.net]

07.10.07 Iranian man stoned to death for adultery

TEHRAN (AFP) July 10 - Iran said Tuesday that a man convicted of adultery had been stoned to death in a village in northwestern Iran, the first time that it has confirmed such an execution in five years. The punishment - which involves the public hurling stones at the convict who is buried up to his waist - was meted out despite a directive from the head of the country's judiciary in 2002 suspending the practice.

"This case has been recently executed in the village that was mentioned," judiciary spokesman Alireza Jamshidi told reporters about the stoning of Jafar Kiani in the village of Aghche Kand near Takestan, in Qazvin province...Under Iran's Islamic law, adultery is still theoretically punishable by stoning although in late 2002 judiciary head Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi had issued a directive suspending such executions. [Full story>>metimes.com]

07.10.07 Suicide attack against NATO forces kills 17

KABUL, July 10 - A suicide bomber with explosives strapped around his body blew himself up at a market near a convoy of NATO troops in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing 17 people, including 12 school children, and wounding 37, including seven NATO soldiers, officials said. The suicide bomber detonated himself near a convoy of NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops in Deh Rawood district of the southern province of Uruzgan, Mohammad Qasim, the provincial police chief of Uruzgan, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

"The bomber exploded himself in a crowded market in the centre of Deh Rawood, killing 17 civilians including 12 school children and wounding another 30 other passers-by," Qasim said, adding that the incident took place when a convoy of Dutch soldiers who serve under ISAF command in the province was passing by the area. [More>>khaleejtimes.com ; See related story, nytimes.com, July 10, "As war enters classrooms, fear grips Afghans." : The staccato of machine-gun fire pelted through the stillness. A 13-year-old named Shukria was hit in the arm and the back, and then teetered into the soft brown of an adjacent wheat field. Zarmina, her 12-year-old sister, ran to her side, listening to the wounded girl's precious breath and trying to help her stand. But Shukria was too heavy to lift, and the two gunmen, sitting astride a single motorbike, sped closer. As Zarmina scurried away, the men took a more studied aim at those they already had shot..

07.10.07 Hamas denies Abbas charges it is letting al-Qaeda enter Gaza

July 10 - Hamas officials Tuesday hotly denied allegations by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas that the militant Islamic group letting al-Qaeda infiltrate the Gaza Strip, under full Hamas control since its defeat of Fatah last month. In an interview Monday with Italy's RAI TV, Abbas charged that al-Qaeda is moving into Gaza thanks to the support of Hamas.[More>>haaretz.com]

07.10.07 Al-Qaeda demanding Tehran stop supporting Iraq

CAIRO, July 9 - The leader of an Al-Qaeda umbrella group in Iraq threatened to wage war against Iran unless it stops supporting the democratically-elected Shiite government of Iraq within two months, according to an audiotape released Sunday. Abu Omar Al-Baghdadi, who leads the group Islamic State in Iraq, said his Sunni insurgents have been preparing for four years to wage a battle against Iran, AP reported.

"We are giving the Persians, and especially the rulers of Iran, a two-month period to end all kinds of support for the Iraqi Shiite government and to stop direct and indirect intervention...otherwise a severe war is waiting for you," he said in the 50-minute audiotape. The tape, which could not be independently verified, was posted on a website commonly used by insurgent groups. Iraq’s Shiite-led government is backed by the US but closely allied to Iran. In the recording, Al-Baghdadi also gave Sunnis and Arab countries doing business in Iran or with Iranians a two-month deadline to cease their ties. [More>>iran-daily.com]

07.10.07 Iran arrests 20 people accused of being spies

LONDON, July 10 - Iran has arrested 20 people, including some foreigners, near the border with Iraq and accused them of belonging to a spy network, the state-run news agency reported. The IRNA news agency did not provide the nationalities of the foreigners. Iran last month claimed to have uncovered spy rings organized by the United States and its Western allies. IRNA, quoting the head of the intelligence department in the Kerman Shah province, said the 20 were trained by intelligence services "of the enemy" for economic, military, political, cultural and social purposes. It did not elaborate. [More>>iranmania.com]

07.10.07 China executes former head of food and drug watchdog

(AP) July 10 - China today executed the former head of its food and drug watchdog who had become a symbol of the country's wide-ranging problems on product safety. Zheng Xiaoyu's execution was confirmed by state television and the official Xinhua News Agency. "The few corrupt officials of the (State Food and Drug Administration) are the shame of the whole system and their scandals have revealed some very serious problems," SFDA spokeswoman Yan Jiangying said at a news conference held to highlight efforts to improve China's track record on food and drug safety.

"We should seriously reflect and learn lessons from these cases. We should step up our efforts to ensure food and drug safety, which is what we are doing now and what we will do in the future," Yan said about Zheng and a separate case involving Cao Wenzhuang, the administration's former pharmaceutical registration department director. Zheng was sentenced to death in May for taking bribes to approve an antibiotic blamed for at least 10 deaths and other substandard medicines. Cao was given a death sentence last month with a two-year reprieve for accepting bribes and dereliction of duty. [More>>independent.co.uk ; See also xinhuanet.com]

07.10.07 Aral Sea's return revives withered villages

TASTUPEK, Kazakhstan, July 10 - In the cool of one recent evening, after tending to his herd of 19 camels, Puzblay Seytpembetov and four companions pushed his small single-engine boat out onto the placid waters of the Aral Sea to lay fishnets. In the morning, he predicted, he would haul in flapping carp and pikeperch. It is a daily task that until recently had seemed forever lost to the folly of humankind.

The Aral Sea, its sustaining rivers diverted to the irrigation of cotton fields, was for decades on an irrevocable course to death and desert. One of the 20th century's worst ecological disasters consumed more than half the sea's surface area and three-quarters of its volume, creating 13,000 square miles of dried-up wasteland. The shriveling sea bequeathed poisonous sandstorms, chronic health problems, dead fishing grounds and unemployment to this part of southern Kazakhstan. But now the sea, or at least a rump part of it, is coming back, retracing its destructive retreat and offering villagers such as Seytpembetov nothing less than renewed life. [More>>washingtonpost.com ; See background, Aral Sea Disaster]

07.09.07 Bush denies Congress access to aides

WASHINGTON, July 9 - President Bush, invoking executive privilege for the second time in his clash with lawmakers over the firing of federal prosecutors, said today that he is refusing to comply with Congressional subpoenas for testimony from two top former aides. In a letter to the chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, Mr. Bush's counsel, Fred F. Fielding, declared that the legislative and executive branches of government were at an impasse. Mr. Fielding wrote that the president is directing the two aides — Sara M. Taylor, the former White House political director, and Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel — not to testify.

"The assertion of executive privilege here is intended to protect a fundamental interest of the presidency: the necessity that a president receive candid advice from his advisors and that those advisors be able to communicate freely and openly with the president," Mr. Fielding wrote, adding that in the case of the firing of federal prosecutors, "the institutional interest of the executive branch is very strong." The move was not unexpected. Mr. Bush said last month that he had no intention of letting Ms. Miers or Ms. Taylor testify. [More>>nytimes.com]

07.09.07 Four convicted over 21/7 bomb plot

July 9 - Four failed suicide bombers were found guilty today of an extremist Muslim plot to attack the London transport system exactly two weeks after the 7/7 bombings. After a six-month trial, Muktar Said Ibrahim, Yassin Omar, Ramzi Mohammed and Hussain Osman were unanimously convicted of conspiracy to murder at London's Woolwich Crown Court. They had claimed the bombs were fake and just a demonstration against the war in Iraq.

The jury of nine women and three men will resume their deliberations tomorrow on charges against two other defendants in the trial - Kwaku Asiedu and Adel Yahya - after being told by the judge, Mr. Justice Fulford, QC, that he would accept majority 10-2 verdicts. Ibrahim, Omar, Mohammed and Osman attempted to detonate hydrogen peroxide and chapatti flour bombs covered in shrapnel on three Tube trains and a bus on July 21, 2005, two weeks after 52 innocent people were killed in Britain's first suicide terror attacks. [More>>timesonliine.co.uk]

07.09.07 Bombing suspect left suicide note

LONDON, July 9 - One of the suspects convicted of trying to blow up London's transport system on July 21, 2005, left a suicide note, prosecutors said. The letter was written by Ramzi Mohammed, who tried to carry out a suicide bomb attack on an underground train near Oval station in south London. Here is the letter:

"First of all I beg Allah to accept this action from me and he to Allah to whom belongs the power and majesty makes it a sincere one and that he admits me to the highest station in paradise for verily he grants martyrdom to whom ever he wills. Secondly my family don't cry for but instead rejoice in happiness and love what I have done for the sake of Allah for he loves those who fight in his sake..." [More>>theaustralian.news.com.au]

07.09.07 Nine Iraqis killed in roadside bombing

BAGHDAD, July 9 - At least nine Iraqi army soldiers were killed and 21 more wounded when a roadside bomb struck their bus in the northern province of Salaheddin on Monday, security officials said. The attack took place near a village called Saeed Garib, on the southern outskirts of the larger town of Balad in Salaheddin, 75 kilometres (46 miles) north of Baghdad, Iraqi army Captain Mohammed Khalid said. "Nine soldiers were killed and 21 others wounded in the roadside bomb attack," Khalid said. An Iraqi defence ministry official in Baghdad also confirmed the attack, which took place at around 2:30pm (1030 GMT). [>thenews.com.pk]

07.09.07 Iraqi politicians call on civilians to arm themselves

July 9 - Prominent Shiite and Sunni politicians called on Iraqi civilians to take up arms to defend themselves after a weekend of violence that claimed more than 220 lives, including 60 who died yesterday in a surge of bombings and shootings around Baghdad.

The calls reflect growing frustration with the inability of Iraqi security forces to prevent extremist attacks. The weekend deaths included two American soldiers - one killed Sunday in a suicide bombing on the western outskirts and Baghdad and another who died in combat Saturday in Salahuddin province north of the capital, the US command said. Three soldiers were wounded in the Sunday blast.

Sunday's deadliest attack occurred when a bomb struck a truckload of newly recruited Iraqi soldiers on the outskirts of Baghdad, killing 15 soldiers and wounding 20, a police official at the nearest police station said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information. Also Sunday, two car bombs exploded near simultaneously in Baghdad's mostly Shiite Karradah district, killing eight people. The first detonated at 10:30 a.m., near a closed restaurant, destroying stalls and soft drink stands. Two passers-by were killed and eight wounded, a police official said.

About five minutes later, the second car exploded about a mile away near shops selling leather jackets and shoes. Six people were killed and seven wounded, said the official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. [More>>independent.co.uk ; See related story, washingtonpost.com, July 9, "Iraq foreign minister warns of collapse if troops leave."]

07.09.07 Bird flu death toll reaches 81 in Indonesia

JAKARTA (AP) July 9 - An Indonesian boy died of bird flu, bringing the death toll to 81 in the only country regularly logging human fatalities from the virus, a health official said Monday. The 6-year-old boy died Sunday at a hospital in the capital of Jakarta, said Rumizar Rusin of the Health Ministry's bird flu information center. The boy fell sick on July 1 and was admitted to the hospital four days later, he said. [More>>thejakartapost.com]

07.08.07 I tried to warn Bush against Iraq war: Powell

WASHINTON, July 9 - Former Secretary of State Colin Powell has revealed that he spent 2 1/2 hours vainly trying to persuade President George W. Bush not to invade Iraq and believes today's conflict cannot be resolved by US forces. "I tried to avoid this war," Mr. Powell said at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado. "I took him through the consequences of going into an Arab country and becoming the occupiers."

Mr. Powell has become increasingly outspoken about the level of violence in Iraq, which he believes is in a state of civil war. "The civil war will ultimately be resolved by a test of arms. It's not going to be pretty to watch, but I don't know any way to avoid it. It is happening now," he said. He added: "It is not a civil war that can be put down or solved by the armed forces of the United States." The signs are that the views of Mr. Powell and other critics of the war are finally being heard in the Pentagon, if not yet in the White House. [More>>theaustralian.news.com.au]

07.08.07 'Foreign fighters' in Red Mosque

July 8 - Pakistan's religious affairs minister has said foreign Islamic militants are among those inside a besieged mosque in the capital, Islamabad. Ejaz-ul-Haq said "terrorists... wanted within and outside Pakistan" are fighting the army, which has surrounded the Red Mosque since last Tuesday. An army commander was shot dead by students inside the mosque on Sunday. The mosque's leader, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, said he and his followers would commit suicide rather than surrender. At least 20 people have been killed since the stand-off began. Mr. Ghazi told the BBC as many as 1,800 followers remain in the Lal Masjid mosque, although this cannot be verified. [More>>bbc.co.uk]

07.08.07 Al-Qaeda increasingly working in Iran - FT

LONDON, July 7 - Al-Qaeda operatives are increasingly using Iran as a base to carry out “terrorist operations” in Iraq and elsewhere, Britain's Financial Times reported on Saturday. One official described to the FT the al-Qaeda operation in Iran as a "money and communications hub."

The group's operatives, who link the al-Qaeda leadership in Pakistan with their disciples in Iraq, the Levant, and North Africa, move with relative freedom in the country, the report said. The officials told the FT that the creation of some kind of al-Qaeda hub in Iran appeared to be separate from the group of seven senior al-Qaeda figures, including Saad bin Laden, believed to have been in Iran since 2002. [More>>iranfocus.com]

07.08.07 Iran sees "creeping coup" in the press: report

LONDON, July 8 - Iran's Culture Minister Mohammad Hossein Saffar-Harandi said there were signs of a "creeping coup" in the Iranian press that involved individual journalists, a news agency said, four days after a daily critical of the government was banned, according to Reuters. Ham Mihan, a pro-reform newspaper that published in May, was shut by the authorities on Tuesday over a legal technicality. Critics saw the move as part of a broader squeeze on dissenting voices such as students, intellectuals and rights activists.

The government dismisses such charges, saying it allows free speech. Nevertheless, officials have spoken of a so-called "soft revolution," a perceived US effort to use intellectuals and others to undermine the Islamic Republic's system of government. "There are some signs of a creeping coup in the press," said Saffar-Harandi, whose Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry oversees press activities, Iran's student news agency ISNA reported. "When we say a creeping coup in the press, it means a person is moving within a framework of an action to overthrow (the system)," Saffar-Harandi said.

Activists and Western diplomats say the authorities have become increasingly intolerant of dissent, turning the screws on pro-reform students, campaigners on women's issues and labor movement figures. Journalists say they have to tread increasingly carefully between a growing number of "red lines" to avoid closure. Since 2000, Iran's Press Supervisory Board and judiciary have closed more than 100 publications. [More>>iranmania.com]

07.07.07 Shooting at Pakistan mosque foils Islamist mediators

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) July 7 - Explosions and heavy gunfire stopped Islamist politicians from entering a besieged Islamabad mosque on Saturday, on a mission to persuade a radical cleric to send out children among his hundreds of militant followers. The five-member delegation of religious conservatives blamed security forces for opening fire, when the cleric had already given them an all-clear to enter the Red Mosque, or Lal Masjid.

Hundreds of troops have besieged the fortified compound housing the mosque and Jamia Hafsa, a girls' madrasa, or school, since Tuesday when months of tension erupted into clashes. There were unconfirmed accounts of the mosque's defenders burying more bodies on Saturday, but so far the death toll is 20 following the death of a soldier in gunfire in the morning.

President Pervez Musharraf struck an uncompromising tone. "Those who are inside Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa should surrender, otherwise they will be responsible for the consequences of their attitude," he was quoted as saying by state-run Pakistan Television. Mosque cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the leader of a Taliban-style movement, has said he would rather choose "martyrdom," and has rejected government accusations that he is holding women and children as human shields.[More>>thestar.com.my ; See also thenews.com.pk, July 7, "Gunfire and blasts around Lal Masjid, Jamia Hafsa" : ...A boy of 13 years fled from the mosque complex through a damaged portion of the wall. "The people entrenched in the mosque have erected hurdles and stopped the male and female students of the seminary to leave," the boy told media after successfully fleeing from the mosque.

07.07.07 Pakistan Christians told to convert or face death

ISLAMABAD, July 7 - Islamist militants in Pakistan have threatened to kill 10 Christian clerics in Southern Punjab's Khanewal district if they did not "embrace Islam and stop preaching Christianity."

"We are feeling insecure and unsafe today because of these threatening letters from Muslim fanatics," said Provincial lawmaker Naveed Amer Jeeva, coordinator of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA). Ten Christian clerics have received threatening letters from unidentified people warning them to "embrace Islam, stop preaching Christianity and quit your faith otherwise the countdown of your life has begun." A state of fear prevails in Khanewal district's Shanti Nagar because the authorities have failed to address their security needs, said Pastor Mehtab Masih at a press conference on Friday to highlight the issue.

...Minority and human rights groups have demanded that the government provide protection and security to Christian families living in NWFP. Though the authorities have assured security to the minority community and arrested few people in the earlier incidents, they have failed to boost the confidence of the Christians in the ability of the police to safeguard their lives and properties in the face of continuing threats. [Full story>>expressindia.com]

07.07.07 Jewish groups slam Vatican Latin prayer for conversion of Jews

(AP) July 7 - Some Jewish groups have complained about the prayer for the Jews contained in the old form of the Latin Mass, which is recited during the Good Friday service of Easter Week. The old prayer, contained in the 1962 missal of the Tridentine rite, read: "Let us pray also for the Jews that the Lord our God may take the veil from their hearts and that they also may acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us pray: Almighty and everlasting God, you do not refuse your mercy even to the Jews; hear the prayers which we offer for the blindness of that people so that they may acknowledge the light of your truth, which is Christ, and be delivered from their darkness."

The prayer used in the New Mass according to the Pope Paul VI missal reads: "Let us pray for the Jewish people, the first to hear the word of God, that they may continue to grow in the love of his name and in faithfulness to his covenant. Almighty and eternal God, long ago you gave your promise to Abraham and his posterity. Listen to your church as we pray that the people you first made your own may arrive at the fullness of redemption." [>haaretz.com]

Editoial note (Mel Copeland) : The prayer in the Latin mass is not an isolated prayer in the Christian Churches that begins with the conclusion that the Jews are condemned of God, until they convert to Christ. We say "Christian Churches" since a foundation in the early Christian church preached by the Apostle Paul concluded that only those who believe in Christ will be saved, that you are saved by faith in Jesus Christ and not by works. By "works" Paul was mainly referring to the Law of Moses, i.e., the Old Testament. To illustrate the difference we must examine the conclusion that Christ's Gospels represent a New Testament making the books of the earlier teachings, beginning with the Five Books of Moses (Law of Moses), old (Old Testament) and obsolete, replaced by the New Testament. Paul taught this and his fellow disciple Barnabas expanded upon it. An expression they often used to refer to the obsolete Old Testament is that it - including the prophets - was a "type and shadow" of Christ. The Book of Hebrews (believed to be by Paul) says:

Hebrews 8.13 In that he saith, A New Covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away. [Christ actually used the words, "New Testament," not "New Covenant," at the Last Supper. A testament (testimony) is not necessarily a covenant (contract), but a covenant can be based upon testimony; editor's note]
8.14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
8.15 And for this cause he is the mediator of the New Testament, that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.
10.9 Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.
10.10 By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

The early church in Jerusalem, of the Apostolic Council led by Saints Peter and James, taught the opposite, that the Law of Moses was still valid and thus one's works were important to salvation. Jews are cursed if they depart from the Law of Moses, i.e., that they will be scattered and their land turned into thistles (See Deuteronomy 30; Zechariah 65.12; Isaiah 7.14-24). Thus, the early church could not separate their faith in Christ from the Law of Moses. Christ (the Messiah) did not replace the Law of Moses; Christ, in fact, said on many occasions that he had not come to destroy the law but to fulfill it, that not one tittle of the law would go unfulfilled. Christ is founded by that word (See John 7.16.."My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me" and his argument, "My father is greater than I.")

These arguments from Christ bring up the old argument between Saints Peter and James' early church and that founded by the Apostle Paul that Jesus Christ is not God but should be honored "as of God." The epistles of St. Clement (~80-140 A.D.), the bishop of Rome following St. Peter, emphasizes this point, that Christ should be viewed as "of God."

II Clement 10.1 Brethren, we ought so to think of Jesus Christ as of God: as of the judge of the living, and the dead; nor should we think any less of our salvation.
10.2 For if we think meanly of him, we shall hope only to receive some small things from him.

This point of view of Saints Peter and James can be best appreciated through their letters, such as:

I Peter 3.21: The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ:
3.22 Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject to Him.

So how is it that the message of redemption through the resurrection of Jesus Christ extended to Paul and Barnabas's conclusion that the Jews came to be cursed of God? We have seen the precept that Christ's New Testament replaced the Old Testament, how it equates to replacing the Old Covenant of the Law of Moses with the New Covenant of Christ. Paul and Barnabas pointed out that when Moses threw down the two tablets containing the Ten Commandments, breaking them, it broke God's covenant with the Jews. Here is how Barnabas saw it:

(Barnabas 3.9 But having turned themselves to idols they lost it; as the Lord also said to Moses; Moses, go down quickly, for thy people which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt, have corrupted themselves, and turned aside from the way which I commanded them. And Moses cast the two tables out of his hands: and their covenant was broken; that the love of Jesus might be sealed in your hearts, unto the hope of his faith.
3.16 Consider this also: although you have seen so great signs and wonders done among the people of the Jews, yet this notwithstanding the Lord hath forsaken them.
12.1 But let us go yet farther, and inquire whether this people be the heir, or the former; and whether the covenant be with us or with them.
12.15 And Moses understood that they had again set up a molten image: and he cast the two tables out of his hands; and the tables of the covenant of the Lord were broken. Moses therefore received them, but they were not worthy.
12.16 Now then learn how we have received them; but the Lord himself has given them unto us, that we might be the people of his inheritance, having suffered for us.
12.17 He was therefore made manifest; that they should fill up the measure of their sins; and that we being made heirs by him, should receive the covenant of the Lord Jesus.
12.20 For it is so written that the father commanded him by delivering us from darkness, [for as Isaiah says he is given a light unto the Gentile and for a Covenant of the people; author's note] to prepare unto himself a holy people.

Through belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ one is engrafted to the holy people, and since the old holy people are in sin and cursed of God, the new holy people (Christians) are without sin and saved. Paul explains this:

Romans 6.3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
6.4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
6.5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.
6.6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
6.7 For he that is dead is freed from sin.
6.8 Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:
6.11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
6.14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

Through grace you live in the Spirit of Christ. Thus:

Romans 8.16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.
8.17. And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him that we may be also glorified together.
8,28 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
8.31 What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?
Galatians 3.29 And if ye be Christ's then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Here we see the logic that God broke his covenant with the Jews. A new covenant is formed with the children in Christ who are the new heirs of God. We may compare this conversion with Jesus' beatitudes, specifically where he blessed the poor (Luke 6.20 ff.). Romans chapter 11 compares the new inheritance through Paul's Gospel to grafting a branch from a wild olive tree to a good olive tree and then points out how the new heirs have obtained mercy through their unbelief (Romans 11.30). To protect his gospel Paul concluded Romans with this passage:

Romans 16.17 Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned, and avoid them.

Paul condemns the Jews, including the Apostolic Council led by Saints Peter and James in Jerusalem. Throughout his tracts Paul refers to them as the "circumcised" and "followers of the law" :

Titus 1.10 For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers specially they of the circumcision:
1.11 Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake.
1.14 Not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth.
3.9 But avoid foolish questions and genealogies, and contentions, and striving about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain.

Saint Peter replied to this tract with the following:

II Peter 1.15 Moreover, I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance.
1.16 For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

Saints Peter and James wrote that faith without works is death and argued that the Law of Moses must be obeyed by the Jews and, until they granted special dispensation to Paul and his Gentile Church, the Gentile converts were to obey the law (practice circumcision of the males and respect the laws of cleanliness, to not eat pork, etc.). The church told Paul that they (the apostles in Jerusalem led by Saints Peter and James) would minister in the synagogues (to the Jews) and Paul could preach only to the gentile. Paul continued ministering in the synagogues and in Galatians Paul complains:

Galatians 6.12 As many as desire to make a fair shew in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised; only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ.

Here Paul shifts from a gospel of temperance and humility back into his gospel of intemperance: We suspect that the Apostolic Council would have understood this to mean that those who circumcise are the same as those who crucified Christ!

The Book of Acts describes how Paul is brought before the Apostolic Council to face charges that he had taught the Jews to forsake Moses:

Acts 21.18 And the day following Paul went in with us unto James; and all the elders were present.
21.19 And when he had saluted them, he declared particularly what things God had wrought among the Gentiles by his ministry.
21.20 And when they heard it, they glorified the Lord, and said unto him, Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealous of the law:
21.21 And they are informed of thee, that thou teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs.

The argument against those who circumcise (honor the Law of Moses) was pressed by later church scholars. The first part of the controversy involved the "substance" (Gr. ousia) of God, where the Council of Nicaea concluded that God's substance involves three things: the father, the son and the Holy Spirit. The next great argument was that involving "Judaizing." Continuing Paul's argument against the Jews, Ignatius of Antioch (96 A.D.) wrote of Jesus Christ our God and:

Ignatius, Epistle to the Philadelphians 2.6 But if anyone shall preach the Jewish law unto you, hearken not unto him; for it is better to receive the doctrine of Christ from one that has been circumcised than Judaism from one that is not.
Ignatius, Epistle to the Magnesians 3.11 It is absurd to name Jesus Christ, and to Judaize. For the Christian religion did not embrace the Jewish, but the Jewish the Christian; that so every tongue that believed might be gathered together unto God.

By 200 A.D. Turtullian, considered to be the father of the Catholic Church, repeated Paul's complaint:

Turtullian "Prescriptions against Heretics" 7.0 ...A plague on Aristotle who taught them dialectic, the art which destroys as much as it builds, which changes its opinions like a coat, forces its conjectures, is stubborn in argument, works hard at being contentious and is a burden even to itself. For it reconsiders every point to make sure it never finishes a discussion.

From philosophy come those fables and endless genealogies and fruitless questions, those "words that creep like as doth a canker." To hold us back from such things, the Apostle testifies expressly in his letter to the Colossians that we should beware of philosophy.

Tertullian takes his argument against the use of idols in the Church.

Tertullian, "On Idolatry," 7.0 ...But they hand to others what they have contaminated, for idol-makers are accepted into the ranks of the clergy. For shame! The Jews laid their hand upon Christ once only, these men harass his body every day.

Saint Ambrose (~380 A.D.) expanded the argument to the observation that Christians had an obligation to warn the unrighteous and the importance of guiding kings and emperors and then, in the same epistle, he defends the act of setting fire to a synagogue, condemning the Jews "who denied God because they denied his Son."

Ambrose, Letter # 40, Ambrose to Emperor Theodosiaus Augustus 2.0 ...I spake of thy testimonies before kings, and was not ashamed [Ps. 119.46] and in another place: Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel, to the intent (it says) that if a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, because thou hast not given him warning (that is, not told him what to guard against), his righteousness shall not be remembered, and his blood will I require at thine hands. Nevertheless if thou warn the righteous man, that he sin not, and he doth not sin, the righteous shall surely live because thou hast warned him; and thou shalt deliver thy soul [Ezek. 3.17-21]
8.0 ...You have the offender before you, confessing his guilt. I declare that I set fire to the synagogue, at least that I instructed them to do it, that there might be no place in which Christ is denied.
14.0 The burning of a single building, I submit, does not warrant so great a disturbance as the severe punishment of the whole people, and the less so when it was a synagogue that was burnt, a place of unbelief, a home of impiety, a refuge of insanity, damned by God himself.
17.0 What could a fire take from those scheming Jews? These are tricks of the Jews, trying to bring a false charge.
19.0 One can imagine how far they will go with their false charges, when they accused even Christ on false evidence. If they can lie with regard to God, there will be no limit to their calumnies...What they want is to see row upon row of Christians in chains, the faithful with their necks under the yoke, the servants of God confined in dark prisons, beheaded with the axe, given to the flames, or sent to the mines to prolong their pains.
20.0 Will you give the Jews this triumph over the Church of God, this victory over the people of Christ?
26.0 ..It is a serious thing to hazard your faith for the sake of the Jews...Who is to avenge the synagogue? Christ, whom they slew, whom they denied? Will God the Father avenge those who do not even accept the Father, in that they did not accept the Son?

Continuing the argument against Judaizers is Origen (185-254 A.D.)

Origen, "First Principles" II.11.2 ...All this they try to prove on prophetic authority from those passages of scripture which describe the promises made to Jerusalem; where it is also said that they who serve God shall eat and drink, but sinners shall hunger and thirst. [Isa. 65.13, 14]...And to speak briefly, they desire that all things which they look for in the promises should correspond in every detail with the course of this life, that is, that what exists now should exist again. Such are the thoughts of men who believe indeed in Christ, but because they understand the divine scriptures in a Judaistic sense, extract from them nothing that is worthy of the divine promises.

Ambrose, Letter #63, to the Church at Vercellae 47.0 ...though he was the Son of God, [he] might be seen to learn obedience from the things which he suffered, which he might teach us, that he might become unto us the author of salvation. Then, having accomplished his sufferings, as being himself made perfect, he gave health to all and bore the sin of all.
58.0 [Aaron's rod seems to indicate that] the ancient people, decaying through the age-long infidelity of its priests, will in the last days be transformed to zealous faith and devotion by the example of the Church, and will again put forth, with renewed grace, its long-dead blossom.

The foundations of the early Church fathers became firmly entrenched by the time of Martin Luther, of the Protestant Reformation, who repeated the anti-Semitism of Saint Ambrose:

(Luther tract 1543 A.D.) What shall we Christians do with this damned, rejected race of Jews? Since they live among us and we know about their lying and blasphemy and cursing, we cannot tolerate them, if we do not wish to share in their lies, curses and blasphemy...Let me give you my honest advice:

1. To set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord..
2. I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed...
3. I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them.
4. I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb...
5. I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. For they have no business in the country-side, since they are not lords, officials, tradesmen or the like...
6. I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them, and put aside for safe keeping...
7. I recommend putting a flail, an axe, an hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hand of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow.

One cannot isolate a couple of documents used in the liturgy of a church or any other place of worship, thinking that they alone are anti-Semitic or anti-Buddhist, etc. In the case of anti-Semitism the foundations are deeply rooted and can be traced all the way back to the Apostle Paul. All Christian Churches - who preach the Gospel of Paul more than any other gospel - need to recognize and confess the implications of their teachings. Isolating one document in a liturgy only condemns the document; it is the teaching behind the document that needs to be addressed.

In like manner we are today faced with the teachings of Islamists and the terror they represent. The traditions and teachings - even the history - behind their actions need to be addressed.

We address some of these concerns in our works in "Son of Man," chapter 10, "On the Breakage of the Holy Catholic Church," and "Philistia Triumph thou.."

07.07.07 At least105 killed in Iraq village blast

TUZ KHURMATU, Iraq (AFP) July 7 - A suicide truck bomber ripped the heart out of a northern Iraqi village on Saturday, killing at least 105 people and demolishing dozens of homes and shops, police and medics said. Ambulances and private cars ferried dozens of bloodied corpses and wounded civilians to clinics in the nearby town of Tuz Khurmatu and the provincial capital Kirkuk, where desperate relatives waited for news of the missing. Officials were stunned by the scale of the blast, which devastated the main market in Emerli, a small rural community of people from Iraq's Shia Turkmen minority living in an area notorious for Al Qaeda militants...

A so-called 'surge' in American troop numbers, bringing the total in Iraq to 155,000, has allowed commanders to take back control of parts of Baghdad and reduce violence in a belt of towns around the capital. But there are signs that insurgent groups are shifting their focus further north to avoid these operations, and US generals say that the increased troop levels will need to remain in place for many months. [Full story>>khaleejtimes.com ; See also thenews.com.pk for the same report."]

07.07.07 Germany reports new case of bird flu

NUREMBERG (RIA Novosti) July 6 - Germany's leading institute for animal health Friday raised the bird flu alert level in the country to "high" after the H5N1 strain, potentially lethal to humans, was found in a domestic bird. The head of the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institute, Thomas Mettenleiter, issued a fresh report with recommendations for Germany's veterinary workers, citing the presence of the H5N1 in a dead domestic goose examined at Vickersdorf, Thuringen. Earlier, scores of wild birds killed by the virus had been found in the area.

France's Agriculture Ministry said Thursday that three wild swans found in the Moselle department had also died of H5N1. The reports come in the wake of a season of bird flu scares in Europe, with poultry farms in Hungary, Britain and the Czech Republic, and most recently of Germany's Bavaria and Saxonia last month, affected this year. In France, bird flu was registered last February in the Ain department in the east of the country. The authorities reacted promptly and contained the virus by culling or vaccinating all poultry on 11,000 farms. [>rian.ru]

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