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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.

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Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts

Thursday, June 19, 2025

Middle East Madness > The History of Iran and Israel since 1979 - Ben Shapiro; Turkey moves toward theocracy; What led to Israel's attack on Iran?

 

Ben Shapiro Nailed it: This is Exactly What the World Must Know About Israel and Iran


June 17, 2025 3.9K views

The modern Arab-Israeli conflict has been going on in the Land of Israel for around 150 years. But the Israel-Iran conflict is just 45 years old. Iran had nothing to do with Israel’s first few wars in 1948, 1956, 1967 or 1973. Egypt was Israel’s main nemesis. Syria and Jordan also fought to destroy Israel. 

Meanwhile, there were still tens of thousands of Jews who lived in Iran in relative calm and peace, as opposed to nearly every other country in the Middle East where Jews fled or were basically kicked out of. 


Before 1979, before the big revolution of the Ayatollahs in Iran, Iran was actually one of the most modernized countries in the Middle East. Large American companies had invested tens of millions of dollars in Iran in order to take part in the modernization of the country. But the opposition to the westernization and modernizing trends was also growing. 

In 1979, the revolution toppled the pro-Western Shah, the reigning monarch who was loved or hated by nearly everyone in Iran. The radical Islamic haters took over and since then, they have steadily used the enormous resources that Iran has in order to build a massive terror infrastructure inside of Iran and across the Middle East.

The Ayatollahs were always crystal clear about their intention. The Zionist enterprise was their main target. Yes, they fought a bloody war with Iraq in the 80’s. But Iran was not yet ready to take on Israel. That required more time, until they could build up their reactors, and steadily grow their proxies to become the behemoths of terror that the Hizbullah and Hamas became. 

Tens of miles of terror tunnels took years and billions of dollars to build up in Gaza. 140,000 missiles in Lebanon cannot be delivered in a few months. They required smuggling via Syria over a matter of years. Most of all, building up an atomic bomb and enriching uranium required the collusion of foreign countries and feckless leadership around the world to be asleep at the wheel. Iran used the Biden/Blinken Chamberlain-like foreign policy of appeasement to advance their devilish schemes. 

Thank G-d, Israel has a leader in Benjamin Netanyahu who has never stopped focusing on the #1 threat facing Israel and the Jewish people. And thank G-d that Israel has the talented pilots and soldiers of the secret service to take down the Iranian threat.

Iran will soon be in a place where they can choose if they are prepared to turn the clock backwards to a time when there was peace and tranquility between Jews and Iranians. The rule of the Ayatollahs is about to end – if the Iranian people overthrow their leadership once and for all. This will probably be their best chance. 





Turkey to censor Qur’an translations; critics call it ‘state-enforced Islam that endangers religious freedom’


Nothing else could be expected but the further Islamization of Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s rule. Critics call the new censoring of Qur’an translations “state-enforced Islam that endangers religious freedom.” The more Islamized a country becomes, that is exactly what happens.

Erdogan has made no secret of his aim to revive the Ottoman Empire, with himself as caliph. He openly supports the Taliban; Hamas; and Syrian jihad leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani (aka Ahmed Al Sharaa). The Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs, the Diyanet, reports directly to Erdogan. It wouldn’t be long before Turkey becomes a direct menace to Israel and other Western countries.

Turkey has no place in NATO.

Turkish authority granted power to censor Quran translations

by Elmas Topcu, DW, June 15, 2025:

Turkey’s Presidency of Religious Affairs, known as the Diyanet, is one of the country’s most influential authorities. According to its own figures, it employs over 140,000 people and offers religious services in more than 100 countries. Founded in 1924, the Diyanet has reported directly to Islamic-conservative president Recep Tayyip Erdogan since 2018. Its annual budget of around €3 billion ($3.47 billion) also exceeds those of several ministries, including the Ministry of Interior.

The Diyanet manages 90,000 mosques across the country, organizes Quran courses, cultural events and annual pilgrimages, and coordinates slaughters for the Feast of Sacrifice. It also trains imams and deploys them both at home and abroad. Its foundation is active in 150 countries and reaches millions of people through educational programs and scholarships worldwide.

New authority over Quran translations
In recent years, the Diyanet’s powers have expanded. Most recently, a new law that went into effect on June 4 granted the authority to interpret translations of the Quran. If these “do not correspond to the basic characteristics of Islam,” they may be banned. “Problematic copies” that have already been published can be confiscated and destroyed. This also applies to digital texts, audio, and video recordings online.

Previously, President Erdogan had granted this authority by decree, which allowed the Diyanet to classify some translations as “untruthful.” But the decree was struck down by the Constitutional Court. But the new law has ensured that the Diyanet’s power would indeed be constitutional.

Critics allege censorship
In Muslim-majority countries, heads of state regularly invoke Islam to justify their actions. For example, in Iraq, the once secular Saddam Hussein used religious tenets to justify his autocratic measures and war with Iran. In Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been accused of using the push for more religious openness as an excuse to crack down on his political opponents. And as the Middle East Institute has noted, Erdogan’s political party, the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, “maintains the loyalty of its base through a historical narrative of religion and nationalism.”

Now theologians critical of the government allege that Turkey’s new law amounts to censorship, calling it state-enforced Islam that endangers religious freedom……

Does this mean Turkey is now a theocracy? I believe that is Erdogan's goal; first Turkey, then the Ottoman Empire.




Key Advance in Iran’s Nuclear Program

Led Israel to Attack


Israel recently learned from its agents inside Iran — presumably native informants working with Mossad — that Iran’s nuclear scientists had successfully completed tests of their design of a nuclear weapon. This meant that Iran was potentially only weeks away from being able to produce such a weapon, and that intolerable threat had to be dealt with without delay. More on Israel’s discovery that prompted the attack, can be found here: 


Israel found Iran carried out key tests for nuke design ahead of strikes — report

Times of Israel, June 15, 2025:

Ahead of its strikes on Iran, Israel discovered that the Islamic Republic’s scientists had conducted successful experiments in the design process of a nuclear weapon, bringing it weeks away from being able to produce a bomb if it chose to do so, according to a Hebrew media report Sunday.

This “golden information” was presented by intelligence officials to the political leadership before the decision was made to carry out preemptive strikes Friday, along with the concern that Israel didn’t know everything and that Tehran could be at an even more advanced stage in building a nuclear bomb than the available information showed, Army Radio reported, citing unnamed security officials.

According to the report, Iran gathered scientists and split them into several working groups to labor in secret on components of the process of weaponizing nuclear material into an actual explosive device, beginning around the end of 2023 or the start of 2024 — shortly after Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, which sparked the ongoing war in Gaza.

This aspect of designing a nuclear device ran in parallel to Iran’s enrichment of uranium to levels that have no use for civilian purposes, but are required to build a nuclear bomb. According to an International Atomic Energy Agency report at the end of May, Iran’s stockpile of uranium, if enriched further, was enough to build nine nuclear weapons.

The Israel Defense Forces managed to monitor the secret weapons process, which left Jerusalem with no doubt that Iran had decided to build a nuclear weapon after the massacre in southern Israel, Army Radio said.

A senior Israeli military official said Saturday that “all the scientists eliminated in the opening strikes had, over the years, been involved in developing the nuclear detonation device.”

The IDF named nine Iranian nuclear scientists it assassinated in the opening strikes, and detailed its efforts to kill them.

They were named as: Fereydoon Abbasi, expert in nuclear engineering; Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, expert in physics; Akbar Motalebi Zadeh, expert in chemical engineering; Saeed Barji, expert in materials engineering; Amir Hassan Fakhahi, expert in physics; Abd al-Hamid Minoushehr, expert in reactor physics; Mansour Asgari, expert in physics; Ahmad Reza Zolfaghari Daryani, expert in nuclear engineering; and Ali Bakhouei Katirimi, expert in mechanics.

“All the scientists and experts who were eliminated were significant sources of knowledge in the Iranian nuclear project, and had decades of cumulative experience in the development of nuclear weapons,” the IDF said….

Think of the extraordinary level of planning by the IDF to know exactly where each of those nine scientists lived in Tehran, a city of 9.5 million people, and exactly, too, where each of them would be on a particular day at a particular time.

It likely will take not days, but weeks, to completely end Iran’s nuclear threat, and to destroy as well its vast arsenal of ballistic missiles and its ballistic missile factories. In order to sufficiently damage or destroy the uranium enrichment facilities built underground at Natanz, and those built inside a mountain at Fordow. These sites will have to be repeatedly hit so as to smash through their thick cement walls; should the Americans decide to provide Israel with their largest — 30,000 pound — bunker-buster bombs, and the bombers able to deliver them, this could hasten that destruction.

Meanwhile, Iranian physicists and engineers trained in nuclear physics are likely to be rethinking their career choices. Perhaps teaching high school science classes would be, in every respect, a better choice.

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Thursday, June 5, 2025

Middle East Madness > Arafat Associate admits Palestinians are modern invention

 

Yasser Arafat’s associate accidentally admits

‘Palestinians’ are a modern invention


It is satisfying to see Salim Al-Zre’i, a Fatah Revolutionary Council member and associate of former PLO and PA Chairman Yasser Arafat, inadvertently admit that Palestinians are a modern invention. But did we really need to hear the obvious truth from yet another Islamic supremacist? Perhaps so.  The West has become so beaten down, bewildered and subjugated that truth is deemed to be “Islamophobic” and actually widely accepted as such, amid great fear.

The admission of Salim Al-Zre’i has been making the rounds:

Arafat’s associate admits ‘Palestinians’ are a modern invention

by Aharon David, Palestinian Media Watch

May 28, 2025:

“The [Ottoman] Turks [were here] for 400 years, and they all left, and then the Palestinian people arrived”veteran Fatah official and terrorist on PA TV

Statement exposes the lies of Abbas and his top officials claiming 5,000, 6,000, 9,000, and 10,000 years of “Palestinian history”.

There is an old Jewish expression based on the Talmud (Shabbat 104A) that says: “A lie has no legs.” True to the expression, a senior Fatah official – in a surprising moment of clarity on official Palestinian Authority TV – unwittingly exposed the fundamental lie of “Palestinian history” in all its legless glory.

Salim Al-Zre’i, a Fatah Revolutionary Council member and associate of former PLO and PA Chairman Yasser Arafat, made the bombshell statement right after saying “history is a pure driving force.” The veteran Fatah terrorist, who took part in the 1968 Karameh battle against Israel in Jordan, admitted that “the Palestinian people arrived” only after the 400 years of Ottoman occupation of the Land of Israel:

Fatah Revolutionary Council member and veteran terrorist Salim Al-Zre’i: “The wars will only end when [the Palestinians] will restore [their] rights. The Israelis will not achieve security or peace as long as Palestine is occupied. This is according to the logic of history, and history is a pure driving force…

Believe me, [the Israelis] will necessarily disappear from Palestine and not one of them will remain on this land. The Crusaders were here for 200 years, the [Ottoman] Turks for 400 years, and they all left, and then the Palestinian people arrived.”

[Official PA TV, At War, May 19, 2025]

The Ottoman Empire’s rule over Israel ended in 1917 during World War I. If the Palestinians only arrived after that time according to Al-Zre’i, it follows that he unwittingly acknowledged the historical fact that “Palestinian peoplehood” is a modern invention….

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Friday, April 25, 2025

Easter Miracle for elderly Chilliwack couple

 

Chilliwack couple looks back at 'miracle' survival of Easter Sunday car crash


Diane and Norm Melanson were saved in multiple ways after their accident


Norm and Diane Melanson know they've lived to see a miracle — or perhaps a series of miracles — and it happened last Easter Sunday. 

The Chilliwack couple was coming back from church. It had been a beautiful service, and they were on their way to meet family for dinner. Norm was at the wheel as they drove over the Yale Road overpass, when he suffered a major medical emergency. 

His heart rate sped up incredibly high, so his pacemaker stopped and he seemed to pass out.  

Diane was texting their daughter about Easter dinner and realized that Norm, a very cautious driver, was accelerating over the overpass. 

"I said 'Norm, slow down,' and I looked at him and he wasn't with me," Diane says, sitting with Norm one year later at the kitchen table in their Sardis condo. "He went to 55 to 125 in seconds. We hit the curb and then I saw where we were going." 

She "turtled" to protect herself, and the vehicle hit the curb, then a pole. That sent their car about 25 feet into the air, and when they landed, they rolled three times before stopping upside down.

READ MORE: Driver still in hospital days after rollover crash in Chilliwack

It was a terrible, violent crash, but didn't involve any other vehicles. And that was perhaps the first miracle of this story. 

The second miracle was that one of the men travelling behind them happened to be an off-duty firefighter. 

"He said to dispatch: 'Send everybody. Now.'" 

This meant the Melansons were afforded as quick a medical response as one could hope for, with five ambulances, three fire trucks and 22 paramedics.

It had been a shift change at the nearby firehall, and everyone showed up. Another miracle.

Norm's life was truly on the line, and they later learned he had died at the wheel. The firefighter could not find a pulse through the window of the crashed car, and declared him dead on the scene. But there was a valiant life-saving effort by everyone involved, with paramedics taking turns at chest compressions, several Epi-pens and three uses of an AED machine. Twenty minutes later, Norm was finally showing signs of life. 

"The doctor told our daughter that if I survived, I would never walk again and to be prepared for the worst," he says. "Well, the worst didn't happen. God made sure that everyone knew He was in charge." 

The Melansons were already a devout couple, and one year later it's still not lost on them that the crash happened right in front of the Chilliwack Salvation Army. Upon hearing the crash, the people inside ran out, and many of them prayed for the couple while they watched the first responders work. One of them called the couple's daughter, Robyn Marshall, who by chance had just finished training to be an EMT. 

That was March 31, 2024. 

This Easter, they wanted to tell their story and use it as a way to thank everyone who was there for them on the scene, and in the days and months that would follow. It's a long list, and they know they can't thank everyone. There are anonymous donors from the GoFundMe, and those would never want to be publicly acknowledged. There were former customers from when they owned Jim's Pizza, who reached out and donated to them, and their adult children's friends, and so many more. 

The Melansons want to say thank you to them all. From the passerby who pulled Diane from the car and the firefighter who reacted so quickly, to those who fed and comforted them even in the last while as they continue to recover. There are the first responders out there that came to the call, and the staff and doctors at Royal Columbian, and physical therapists and counsellors who have turned the entire ordeal from a potential tragedy into a blessing of sorts. Even the ICBC adjuster they were assigned was a kindred spirit, and they're thankful for her. 

They also want everyone to know what life is like today for them.

Norm came home in June 2024. He now walks so much, every day, that Diane can't even keep up. He uses a cane, and has a care aide who walks two to three kilometres a day with him, close to the Melanson's home. He is regaining skills as time goes by, including playing pool in their building's recreation area. But he cannot be left alone, even for five minutes, due to the effects of having a traumatic brain injury. 

In bad weather, he walks the hallways. He will never get back the time from the crash until he woke up again at the end of May. Everything he knows about that time is what's been told to him by others. 

"I having trouble right now with the idea that I'll never be able to drive a car again," he says, along with coping with the vulnerability that comes along with needing people to look after him, all the time. 

He has also come to terms with the fact that he died that day, and was saved. He has one single memory from the event, and that is meeting his mother-in-law again. 

"Clear as a bell," he says to Diane. "Just as clear as you sitting there." 

Diane was more injured than first believed, and still is in regular physiotherapy care. With the medical shock she suffered in the crash, that day was long and arduous. So stressful, she says, that nobody realized as they watched and waited for Norm's prognosis, that she had multiple injuries. They didn't even think to go across Royal Columbian to the ER for her care, until prompted by someone else. 

The day he woke up, the two prayed together. Someone snapped a photo of them, cheek to forehead, and it's a treasured moment in a sea of traumatic ones. The fact he woke up, and was still himself, was the biggest miracle of them all. 

They have told their story to the congregation at their church, highlighting even more of the ways they feel God has stepped in along the way. 

But more than anything, together, they care for each other as much as possible.