Wednesday, March 21, 2007

The Middle East in Focus

The Middle East in Focus

This week, for all the headlines cited below, please join us in proclaiming THIS DECREE:

Lead me, O Lord, in Your righteousness because of my enemies; Make Your way straight before my face.(Psalm 5:8)

1. Arab League Chief calls on Israel to present its own peace initiative - Ha'aretz
...Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa (AP
Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa urged Israel on Tuesday to be more proactive in restarting the stalled Mideast peace talks following the creation of a new Palestinian unity government.

2. Israeli Party Seeks Harsher Punishment for Missionaries - Ynet News

A war on missionaries was declared Tuesday when Shas faction head MK Yakov Margi proposed a bill stating that Israel 's laws against proselytism should be aggravated.

3. Netanyahu Issues Call to World From Jerusalem Conference - (IsraelNN.com)

Binyamin Netanyahu, speaking at the 4th Annual Jerusalem Conference Monday morning, repeated his call for the world to prove that now is not like the 1930s and that the world knows how to respond this time. “Historic tragedies occur when leaders do not foresee dangers - and the opposite is true: Great things happened when leaders foresaw and took advantage of opportunities,” the former Prime Minister and present head of the Knesset opposition said. “Today we have both. The great threat of the spread of militant Islam around the world, and the opportunity of globalization, which can bring a great blessing to mankind and especially to small countries like us - if we are smart enough to take advantage of this opportunity."

4. Israel and US Conduct Joint Military Exercise - (IsraelNN.com)

Israel and the United States are staging a joint military exercise aimed at perfecting both countries’ abilities to protect their populations from missiles bearing nuclear, biological or chemical (NBC) warheads. The exercise is dubbed Juniper Cobras and will involve the Arrow and Patriot anti-missile systems. The US will test for the first time its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) and Patriot PAC-3 systems. None of the exercises will use live missiles due to economic constraints on both countries due to ongoing wars.