"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths." Northwoods is a ministry dedicated to refreshing Christians and challenging them to search for the truth in Christianity, politics, sociology, and science
"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life"
Father God, thank you for the love of the truth you have given me. Please bless me with the wisdom, knowledge and discernment needed to always present the truth in an attitude of grace and love. Use this blog and Northwoods Ministries for your glory. Help us all to read and to study Your Word without preconceived notions, but rather, let scripture interpret scripture in the presence of the Holy Spirit. All praise to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Please note: All my writings and comments appear in bold italics in this colour
The Ukrainian leader “shouldn’t have allowed” a conflict with Moscow to happen, the US president said
Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky bears some responsibility for the armed conflict with Russia, US President Donald Trump has said. He argued that Zelensky, who has been granted a glowing reception in many Western capitals, should have done whatever necessary to avoid hostilities.
During an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity that aired on Wednesday and Thursday, Trump reiterated the need to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict, set to enter its fourth year next month.
“Zelensky – I got to say this – he wants to settle now. He’s had enough. He shouldn’t have allowed this to happen either,”Trump said.“You know, he’s no angel. He shouldn’t have allowed this war to happen,” he added.
“First of all, he’s fighting a much bigger entity,” Trump stressed. He previously questioned the unconditional military and financial aid provided to Kiev by his predecessor, former President Joe Biden. Trump also described Zelensky in the past as “the greatest salesman on Earth.”
In the same interview, Trump criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin and threatened to impose more sanctions on Moscow “if they don’t make a settlement fast.”
“Putin shouldn’t have done it,” Trump, who took office on Monday, told Hannity. “He shouldn’t have done it and it has to stop.”
Zelensky had to know that he could not win a war against Russia. And he had to know the destruction it would bring upon Ukraine, the tens of thousands of deaths and injuries, the millions of people displaced, the tens of millions of children traumatized. Why did he do it? What did he gain? Does he have a few Swiss bank accounts that are filling up with Western dollars and Soros' Euros? He will have to stand before Jesus Christ one day and give an accounting. I don't think it's going to be a good day for him.
The president has repeatedly claimed that he would quickly negotiate a fair deal between Russia and Ukraine, but provided no specifics about possible terms.
Both Moscow and Kiev have previously said that freezing the conflict along the current front line would be unacceptable. Putin has insisted that Kiev must abandon plans to join the US-led NATO military alliance, and renounce claims on Crimea and four other former Ukrainian regions that voted to join Russia in 2022.
Earlier this month, Trump’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, said he hopes to resolve the conflict within 100 days. Trump has criticized Biden for neglecting diplomacy and said on several occasions that he was open to having a conversation with Putin.
Neither Biden nor Blinken had a single conversation with their Russian counterparts in over two years. What madness!
So far no date for negotiations has been announced. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied earlier this week that a phone call between the leaders was being arranged.
Ukrainian man ‘buys kids’ to flee country – border guard
A fake father-of-three claimed his non-existent children were waiting for him in Germany, according to the authorities
A Ukrainian man has been caught trying to flee the country by falsely claiming that he had three young children waiting for him in Germany, according to the Ukrainian Border Guard Service. Potential conscripts in Ukraine are resorting to extreme measures to avoid being drafted into the military.
The service reported details of the case on Thursday, accusing the suspect of “buying kids” for his ploy. The unidentified man presented paperwork stating that he had three children living in Germany: two-year-old twins and a seven-month-old infant.
The documents raised suspicion and border guards questioned the traveler, who confessed that he had purchased the fraudulent papers for €6,000 ($6,250). He was handed over to the national police, the statement added.
Kiev has banned fighting-age men from leaving the country since the escalation of the conflict with Russia in early 2022. Exceptions are granted to specific groups, including fathers of three or more minors.
Last year, the government reformed the military service system to bolster conscription rates, as frontline troops suffered significant casualties. However, draft officials are struggling to meet their targets. Men with financial means can resort to illegal ways of avoiding enrollment, including by buying fake exemptions or being smuggled across the border.
Earlier this week, the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) reported investigating a senior official who serves as chief military psychiatrist and deputy chair of Kiev’s central draft medical commission. The agency alleged that the suspect had accumulated some $1 million in illicit gains since 2022.
Maybe it really was a heart attack. But Firouzi had previously been imprisoned for “acting against national security” over his conversion to Christianity. Did he die from the stress of seven years of mistreatment in prison and exile?
In the Quran, the penalty for converting from Islam is death!
Christian convert imprisoned and exiled by Islamic Republic
A Christian convert who had been imprisoned and exiled by the regime has been found dead aged 37.
Ebrahim Firouzi’s family told mourners at his burial today (Thursday, 22 February) that “he died of a heart attack” on Tuesday, 20 February.
Paying tribute to Ebrahim, Article18 Director Mansour Borji, said: “Ebrahim’s untimely death is devastating. We have followed his case since he was arrested by the Iranian regime for going to a house-church and for being in possession of Bibles.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran had sentenced Ebrahim for ‘acting against national security’, but nothing could have been further from the truth.
“The freedom for everyone to have access to and possess a Bible was central to Ebrahim’s life and ministry. It was the reason he was initially arrested and served almost seven years in prison for. Even during imprisonment, he found creative ways to make that available to everyone when he became responsible for the prison library. During his two years in exile, and up to the last days of his life on Earth, this passion did not leave him.”
After Ebrahim served his sentence, he was banished in 2019 to a remote region of Iran – near the border with Pakistan, in the remote Sistan and Baluchestan province. It was 1,000 miles from his home near the capital, Tehran.
He had been taken into custody in 2013 as part of a wave of arrests after he was found to be in possession of Bibles, to be part of a house-church, and to have promoted Christianity.
Mr Borji continued: “When Ebrahim was exiled he became a respected member of his new community. He was starting a business and looking forward to having a relationship….
‘Hunger, thirst and disease’ a threat to Christians
Mozambique is facing a worsening humanitarian crisis as jihadist attacks in the north displace thousands of Christians and Muslims.
The conflict has already displaced over 1 million people and claimed close to 5,000 lives, according to the latest figures.
Bishop António Juliasse of Mozambique fears the situation will continue to deteriorate, with “hunger, thirst, and disease” posing imminent threats to the displaced population.
The bishop, speaking to Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), painted a grim picture of the situation. Militant groups affiliated with ISIS have raided over twelve densely populated villages so far, forcing residents to flee to cities in search of safety.
“They are fleeing from villages that have been reduced to ashes,” he said. “They carry only what they can, in a bundle on their heads, or on the family bicycle – that’s all they have left.”
Fear of future attacks drives even those whose villages haven’t been targeted to flee. “Those whose villages might be next in line are also running,” the bishop added.
He urged the world not to “forget the forgotten faces” suffering in Mozambique and called for a peaceful resolution to the conflict. The Catholic Church itself has been actively providing aid to the displaced, offering counselling, shelter, and other forms of support.
Christians are a minority in northern Mozambique, but both Christian and Muslim communities have historically coexisted peacefully. However, the recent insurgency has seen an increase in attacks targeting Christian communities and institutions….
Pakistan is probably the most devoutly Muslim country in the world. Their devotion to the Quran goes beyond all sanity. Mass hysteria is provoked by the simple drop of a word, even if it's a lie, or by the hysterical imagination of the ignorant.
A Muslim woman in the United States was recently horrified to discover that her McDonald’s McChicken sandwich was enveloped in a blue and white wrapper, which she was quite convinced showed secret support for the colonial-settler apartheid genocidal state of Israel, as those are the very colors of the Israeli flag. A world away, a maddened Muslim crowd in Lahore, Pakistan was getting ready to lynch a woman because, they claimed, she was wearing a dress with Arab writing all over it which, the crowd claimed, must surely be quotations from the Qur’an. And that would constitute a form of blasphemy. In Islam the punishment for blasphemy is death. Robert Spencer wrote briefly on the latter incident here, and more on the story can be found here: “‘We use Arabic, it is our language’: Kuwait-based designer company slams Pakistanis for ‘Sar Tan Se Juda’ slogans against a girl wearing Arabic dress,” OpIndia, February 26, 2024:
Following a near-lynching incident of a Pakistani girl wearing an Arabic print dress, and her facing threats of ‘sar tan se juda’, the Kuwait-based company that designed the dress lambasted Pakistanis for sending them “disturbing” messages and dragging them into the episode.
Instagram handle semplicitakw shared a story in which it reminded Pakistanis that the brand uses Arabic texts in different fonts ‘everywhere’, hinting about the dress that triggered an Islamist mob. Notably, the mob had assaulted the woman while chanting slogans of ‘sar tan se juda’ because they believed she committed ‘Gusthaki’ [blasphemy] by wearing a dress with Arabic calligraphy.
In their post, the Kuwaitian company wrote, “Dear pakistani people, We have nothing to do with the recent incident that happened to the innocent girl. We are based in Kuwait company (sic) And we do NOT ship worldwide. Please stop following and messaging since its (sic) really disturbing.”
The Kuwaiti company simply asked the Pakistani mob to stop blaming it for the girl in Pakistan who had chosen to wear one of its dresses — one with Arabic lettering all over it. By insisting that “we do NOT ship worldwide,” it is attempting to suggest that it would never have expected that dress to be worn by someone in Pakistan, so please don’t get your knickers in a twist and threaten a perfectly innocent woman with death. Her dress was made in Kuwait, and was not intended for the export market. What the company ought to have said is quite different: “Listen, you Pakistanis. Calm down. The Arabic writing, which you cannot understand, has nothing to do with the Qur’an. Whoever suggested that it did is either an ignoramus who is pretending to recognize the Arabic writing as from the Qur’an — it isn’t — or more likely, is a malicious rival in the clothing business who wants to inflame the Pakistanis, and other Muslims as well, against our products. Let us repeat it; the Arabic on the dress is NOT from the Qur’an.”
Pointing toward the use of Arabic on the dress based on which Islamist mob considered it an act of Gusthaki [blasphemy], the company added, “We use arabic words and letters in different fonts everywhere since its our language!”
Meanwhile, according to the Instagram handle, the dress had been in the public [sic] for almost over 48 weeks, that is nearly a year. Notably, Kuwait is also an Islamic country where the company had unveiled and sold its dresses but the outrage erupted in Pakistan. Pakistanis got outraged over the presumption of Arabic texts being some ‘Quranic verses’ which according to Islamists would be wrong to print on dress casually and attracts ‘Gusthaki’ or blasphemy which is punishable by death in Pakistan.
These Pakistanis have only encountered the Arabic language in the Qur’an; they assume that any Arabic that crosses their path must, therefore, come from the Qur’an. So even if they haven’t the faintest idea what is printed on that woman’s dress, it must surely be the Qur’an, and she — even though she too can’t read Arabic —should nonetheless be held liable for blasphemy, and executed.
Several netizens also slammed Pakistanis over the incident and putting a woman’s life in danger for the random use of Arabic and considering anything written in Arabic as Quranic verses or its adulteration.
Along with the lunatics screaming about blasphemy, there have been Muslims on social media pointing out, again and again, how idiotic is the charge against the dress and all those who wear it.
Pakistani journalist in exile Taha Siddiqui wrote, “Even the designer is fed up!,” along with a poster on which the text read, “The designer of Arabic print dress that became controversial doesn’t want Pakistani followers.”…
The Kuwaiti company clearly is fed up with these semi-demented Pakistanis screaming “blasphemy” over the perfectly inoffensive dress. The diesnger of the dress doesn’t want his creations sold in Pakistan, doesn’t want Pakistanis following him — and no doubt excoriating him — on social media.
Given the craziness of this Muslim mob, no appeal to common sense had any effect. Could it possibly have been that a Pakistani woman, a Muslim, would be out in public in the middle of Lahore, wearing a dress with Qur’anic verses printed on it, which would be a suicidal undertaking? Would a Kuwaiti company, its market consisting overwhelmingly, and possibly exclusively, of Muslims, have printed Qur’anic verses on one of its productions? It’s all absurd. But once a Muslim mob, having been whipped up into a frenzy, decides that something must mean such-and-so, it will no longer listen to reason. The madness of crowds takes over; the truth no longer matters; the woman must be punished for her nonexistent blasphemy. It was only a policewoman who protected her from the mob and no doubt saved her life.
Despite what the Kuwaiti dress designer said, despite what other native speakers of Arabic have maintained, about the Arabic words on the by-now infamous dress having nothing to do with the Qur’an, the Pakistani woman remains, possibly permanently, in danger. There is bound to be some Muslim fanatic in Pakistan who will take it into his head — next week, next month, next year — to punish her for what he remains convinced was an act of blasphemy.
Yes, this is one more for the books. And the book in question is “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Muslim Crowds.” It’s being compiled right now by that famous authorial team of siblings — Hazmat, Zamzam, Hadith, Jihad, and Osama Barghouti. And “The Tale of the Blaspheming Dress” will certainly be included.
UNRWA employees, paid by US taxpayer’s money, kidnapped Israelis on October 7th. They took part in all aspects of the massacre against Israelis. Indeed, there is no fundamental difference between UNRWA and Hamas in Gaza. The two were fully intertwined together in all of what they did.
UNRWA is an organization that sounds like a harmless group. After all, it is a UN based group and it offers assistance. Well, the assistance that it offers is tunneling, schools that teach terror, and literally transporting terrorists to and from operations.
The uniqueness of this testimony is that it presents clear and incontrovertible evidence of UNRWA employees kidnapping a dead Israeli in order to use him as a bargaining chip to free terrorists from Israeli prisons. Due to years of UNRWA cooperation with Hamas, they didn’t even bother to hide their actions on October 7th.
The transparency of UNRWA as a total partner of Hamas is seen in broad daylight. UNRWA must be shut down – immediately.
Israel’s UN ambassador: Mideast Jews were victims of the ‘real Nakba’
November 30, 2022
Israel’s UN ambassador: Mideast Jews were victims of the ‘real Nakba’Israeli Ambassador Gilad Erdan
addresses the UN Security Council, April 25, 2022. (UN Photo/Evan Schneider)
Gilad Erdan inaugurated an exhibition highlighting the expulsion of Jews from Arab countries in the wake of the UN decision to partition British-controlled Mandatory Palestine.
By JNS
Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan inaugurated an exhibit on Tuesday highlighting the expulsion of Jews from Middle East countries, calling the story of these Jewish refugees the “real Nakba.”
The Palestinians have long used the Arabic term “Nakba,” or catastrophe, to describe Israel’s creation and the resulting displacement of some 700,000 of Palestinian Arabs during the 1948 war initiated by Arab nations to destroy the nascent Jewish state.
Marking the 75th anniversary of the UN’s adoption of a resolution to create Israel, Erdan said that “those who really suffered from ‘Nakba’ following the decision were Jews—almost a million were expelled from Arab countries and Iran.
Since the vote [on Nov. 29, 1947,] which the Arabs rejected, the United Nations has been telling a completely false story about the ‘disaster’ the Palestinians brought upon themselves,” he added.
While the vast majority of Jewish refugees from Arab countries were absorbed into Israel, the United Nations, by contrast, created the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to tend uniquely to Palestinian refugees. Today, the organization recognizes some five million Palestinians as “refugees,” having effectively transformed the status into a hereditary trait applicable only to Palestinians.
“A day after the [partition] decision, Jews were violently and cruelly expelled from Arab countries and Iran. This year, after a long struggle,we managed to place an exhibition with photos that document the story of the real Nakba. I will continue to fight for the truth and against the false narrative that the Palestinians and their supporters spread,” said Erdan.
The exhibit, whose launch also coincides with Wednesday’s Day to Mark the Departure and Expulsion of Jews from Arab Countries, which has been marked annually in Israel since 2014, will run at the UN headquarters in New York City for one week.
See the link just above for the story of the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
