The main lesson for the Christian is to understand where we are chronologically. Matthew tells us what to the expect during the parousia of our Lord. We see the fig tree (Israel) blossom, that is show signs of life, and are told that this generation who witnesses that event will not perish before all is accomplished. We are hoping the blossoming is 1948, but it could be 1967, in any event we are at “the end”. Time is short. We need to wake up, trim our lamps, and go out to meet our Lord!

Two Palestinian protesters were reportedly injured in clashes in Hebron Thursday, a day after the Obama administration sharply criticized Israel for designating the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb to the list of Jewish heritage sites marked for renovation and preservation.

According to Palestinian reports, four demonstrators were also arrested in the violence just meters from the cave, where dozens of youths threw rocks at Border Police and IDF soldiers.

The end of nationhood in Europe offers a stern warning for the United States, because many of the same individuals involved in the creation of “Europe” are active in the U.S. And here, they won’t need fifty years.

We can’t comfort ourselves with the common American self-delusion of “that could never happen here,” because it is happening here, and on a crash timetable. NAFTA, which was sold as a trade arrangement, has grown into something else, wielding actual power over the United States.

“We are living basically in a state of war in Ciudad Juarez,” said Oscar Maynez, a criminologist in the border city. If the army can’t handle things, he asks, what are we left with?
The United States might be forced to intervene because the violence will “sooner or later” spill over into El Paso. It is just a matter of time.

Mexico’s problems are intensifying. The global economic crisis, Mexico’s plummeting oil production and the war against the drug cartels threaten its very viability. America could soon be living next to a failed state.

The OIC argues that religion needs to be protected from “defamation” – acts such as the publication of newspaper cartoons satirizing Mohammed, or the suggestion that the Koran promotes violence against non-Muslims.

Although its resolutions purport to cover all religions, Islam is the only one cited by name. The text passed by the Third Committee voices concern that “Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism.”

In a position paper earlier this year, the U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom said expanding provisions like the ICERD to cover religion “would undermine international human rights guarantees, including the freedom of religion” and “undermine the institutions that protect universal human rights worldwide.”

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said yesterday the Palestinians had decided to turn to the U.N. Security Council to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and eastern Jerusalem.

Separately, the negotiator, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the Obama administration is “totally on board” with a plan by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to create a state on the pre-1967 borders within two years.

Last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the “sole objective” of the seized Iranian weapons shipment “was to attack and kill as many civilians – women, children and the elderly – as possible. This is a war crime.”

Netanyahu added: “This is what the international community should concentrate on at all times – but especially today. But instead, they have chosen to assemble and condemn the IDF and the State of Israel, and to try and undermine our legitimate right to defend ourselves.”

“The United Nations is once again on the verge of introducing a resolution that goes against everything the world body supposedly stands for.–to actually undermine the religious liberty and personal safety of Christians and members of other faiths,”

In fact, the resolution would “silence words or actions that are deemed to be against a particular religion, and that religion is Islam. While the stated goal seems relatively innocuous – in practice the statement is used to silence those whose only crime is to believe in another faith, or no faith at all.”

Scheinin also expressed concern for those he defined as “transgendered” — men who identify as women, or vice versa. Security personnel who are on the lookout for male terrorists dressed as women may inadvertantly target all men dressed as women, he worried.

The fact that women suffer when their husbands are arrested for terrorist activity means that states fighting terrorism risk violating “the right to adequate housing and the right to family life,” he cautioned.

Hussein’s case was seen as a test of Sudan’s Islamic decency regulations, which many women activists say are vague and give individual police officers undue latitude to determine what is acceptable clothing for women.

The women’s arrests and convictions violate key principles enshrined in the landmark International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ratified by Sudan, according to the U.N. human rights office. They include guarantees freedom from arbitrary arrest (article 9),