New Embassy Signals Pope’s Love for Palestine, says President Abbas

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas thanked Pope Francis for his support of the country’s new embassy to the Holy See.

“This is a sign that the Pope loves the Palestinian people and loves peace,” Abbas told the Pope on Saturday before heading to the inauguration of the Palestinian embassy to the Holy See in Rome.

The Pope welcomed Abbas with open arms, embracing the president and saying, “It is a pleasure to welcome you here.”

The Vatican said the two leaders spoke privately of the contribution of Catholics in Palestine and their “promotion of human dignity and assistance for those most in need, especially in the fields of education, health and aid.”

The Pope and Abbas also discussed the peace process and expressed hope that “direct negotiations between the parties may be resumed to bring an end to the violence” and to find “a just and lasting solution.”

“To this end, it is hoped that- with the support of the international community – measures can be taken that favour mutual trust and contribute to creating a climate that permits courageous decisions to be made in favour of peace,” the Vatican said.

The protection of holy sites “for believers of all three of the Abrahamic religions” was also discussed, the statement said.

After the Pope and president spent more than 20 minutes speaking in private, Abbas introduced Pope Francis to the Palestinian officials traveling with him.

One member of the delegation joked with the Pope about the Pope’s favourite football team, San Lorenzo, before giving Pope Francis a soccer jersey with the colours of the Palestinian flag.

Abbas presented the Pope with five gifts: a Byzantine-style icon of Jesus; a stone from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, the site of Jesus’ crucifixion; documentation from the Presidential Committee for the Restoration of the Church of the Nativity; a book documenting Palestine’s diplomatic relations with the Holy See; and a gold-plated icon of the Holy Family.

The Pope gave the president a gold commemorative medallion of the Holy Year of Mercy and Arabic translations of Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love) and Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home.

Taking his leave, Abbas warmly embraced the Pope and went to meet with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, and Archbishop Paul R Gallagher, Vatican secretary for relations with states.

Issa Kassissieh, Palestinian ambassador to the Holy See, said the new embassy was “a significant achievement for the Palestinian people, considering that the Pope has taken a moral, legal and political stand through recognising the state of Palestine.”

In an interview on Thursday with Palestinian news agency, WAFA, Kassissieh said the new embassy “marks the outcome” of improved relations between Palestine and the Holy See after the signing in June 2015 of an agreement that supports a two-state solution to the ongoing conflict in the Holy Land.

Abbas’ visit came on the eve of an international peace conference in Paris on Januat 15 aimed at restating the international community’s support for the peace process.

However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the gathering as a “rigged conference” that seeks to adopt anti-Israeli policies.

“This pushes peace backward. It’s not going to obligate us. It’s a relic of the past. It’s a last gasp of the past before the future sets in,” Netanyahu said on January 12 following a meeting with Norway’s foreign minister, Borge Bende.

President-elect Donald Trump’s proposal to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is also a cause for concern for the Palestinian government as both states claim the city as their rightful capital.

The two-state solution would split the city and allow for Palestine to claim East Jerusalem as their capital. Israel, however, claims the entire city as its capital.

According to WAFA, Abbas wrote to Trump last week and said the move likely would have a “disastrous impact on the peace process, on the two-state solution and on the stability and security of the entire region.”

Following his meeting with Pope Francis, President Abbas told journalists he hoped President-elect Trump would not move forward with the proposal.

“We are waiting to see if it happens. If it does it will not help peace and we hope it does not happen,” Abbas said.

Despite the looming threats to the peace process, President Abbas said he hoped that the example set by the Palestinians agreement with the Vatican will allow European countries to follow suit in order to achieve peace.

“I met his Holiness and (thanked him that) the Holy See has completely recognised Palestine as an independent state and I hope that other states will follow the Vatican’s example and recognise the state of Palestine,” Abbas said.

Soviet documents ‘show Abbas was KGB agent’; Fatah decries ‘smear campaign’

Israeli researchers: Notes from USSR archivist who defected indicate PA president was working for Soviets in Damascus in 1980s while Putin’s current Mideast envoy was stationed there

By Tamar Pileggi September 7, 2016.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was a Soviet spy in Damascus in the 1980s, Israel’s Channel 1 television reported Wednesday, citing information it said was included in an archive smuggled out of the USSR.

According to Channel 1’s foreign news editor Oren Nahari, the famed Mitrokhin archive, kept by KGB defector Vasily Mitrokhin, revealed that Abbas was a Soviet mole in Damascus in 1983.

The documents — obtained by Israeli researchers Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez — purportedly show that Abbas, code-named Krotov (mole), was involved with the Soviets while Mikhail Bogdanov, today Vladimir Putin’s envoy to the Middle East. was stationed in Damascus.

Bogdanov was caught in a diplomatic tussle earlier this week after trying to broker a summit between Abbas and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Moscow, who both claimed a willingness to meet while decrying the other for allegedly refusing. ..."

http://www.timesofisrael.com/soviet-documents-said-to-reveal-abbas-was-kgb-agent-in-syria/

Re: The Obama-Putin Iran Deal...

Aug 2015

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Russian build-up in Syria part of secret deal with Iran's Quds Force leader

September 11, 2015
Jennifer Griffin, Lucas Tomlinson
FoxNews.com

As the Pentagon warily eyes a Russian military build-up in Syria, Western intelligence sources tell Fox News that the escalated Russian presence began just days after a secret Moscow meeting in late July between Iran's Quds Force commander - their chief exporter of terror - and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Fox News has learned Quds head Qassem Soleimani and Putin discussed such a joint military plan for Syria at that meeting, an encounter first reported by Fox News in early August. ..."

The Quds Force is the international arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, involved in exporting terrorism to Iran’s proxies throughout the Middle East including Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. ..."

Officials who have monitored the build-up say they've seen more than 1,000 Russian combatants - some of them from the same plainclothes Special Forces units who were sent to Crimea and Ukraine. Some of these Russian troops are logistical specialists and needed for security at the expanding Russian bases.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/09/11/russian-build-up-in-syria-part-secret-deal-with-irans-quds-force-leader/
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Pro-Hezbollah Paper: Russia, Iran, Syria, Hezbollah Form Alliance

Sept 23, 2015

A prominent pro-Hezbollah newspaper in Lebanon reported Tuesday that Russia and the terrorist organization have formed an alliance and will fight together in Syria. "The parties to the alliance are the states of Russia, Iran, Syria, and Iraq, with Lebanon's Hezbollah as the fifth party,"

Al-Akhbar Editor in Chief Ibrahim al-Amin wrote. The pact would be called the "4+1 alliance", a pun based on the P5+1 that negotiated the nuclear deal with Iran. Hezbollah is a proxy of Iran based in Lebanon and Moscow has been working with Tehran to save Bashar al-Assad's regime, even sending men and weapons to Syria.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2015/09/22/report-russia-partners-with-hezbollah.html
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Christians in Russia Refuse to Stop Sharing the Gospel Despite Putin’s Ban on Evangelism

By Stoyan Zaimov , Christian Post Reporter
Aug 3, 2016 | 1:32 PM

Christians in Russia have said they are determined to preach the Gospel and fulfill the Great Commission despite tough new laws signed by President Vladimir Putin that ban evangelism outside of churches. ...”

http://www.christianpost.com/news/christians-russia-refuse-stop-sharing-the-gospel-despite-putins-ban-evangelism-167442/
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July 2016...

FAITH UNDER FIRE

Russia puts lid on Christians sharing faith

‘Will require any sharing … even a casual conversation, to have prior authorization from state’

http://www.wnd.com/2016/07/russia-puts-lid-on-christians-sharing-faith/#34c1Fo2QT9xudcrR.99

Putin: Defender of Christian Faith and Morality?

September 2014

(excerpt from a long, detailed article)

First and foremost, in any review of the basics regarding Putin, the most outstanding fact is that he is a creature of the Soviet KGB, a truly diabolical organization nonpareil, which stood for murder, terror, and grand deception.

It was the Soviet Communist Party's tool for the brutal suppression of religion, including the persecution of Christians: denying them jobs and education; spying on and entrapping them; arresting and imprisoning them; torturing them in unspeakable ways; desecrating and demolishing their church buildings; infiltrating their agents into churches to subvert them. The KGB destroyed thousands of Christian churches, monasteries, convents, and schools, and slaughtered millions of Christians.

But it did not destroy the churches utterly. There remained an underground church, whose members were always at risk of discovery, arrest, torture, and martyrdom. Above ground, the KGB took control of the Russian Orthodox Church, which became a very useful organ of the Soviet atheist state.

In January 2009, Vladimir Mikhailovich Gundyaev, better known as Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, was elected, from a short list of three candidates, to be the 16th Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, the highest position of authority in the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). The election was called to fill the post that had been left vacant by the death of Patriarch Alexy II, who had headed the ROC since 1990.

Documents from the KGB archives have confirmed what sensible observers had long ago deduced from his actions: that Patriarch Alexy II (also spelled Alexi or Alexei) was a long-serving KGB agent (code-named Drozdov, "Blackbird"), in other words, a traitor to his Christian brethren and the God he claimed to serve. Putin's KGB/FSB was taking no chances with his replacement. All three candidates - Metropolitan Kliment of Kaluga and Borovsk (code-named Topaz), Metropolitan Filaret of Minsk and Slutsk (code-named Ostrovskii), and Metropolitan Kirill (code-named Mikhailov) - also have been reliably identified as agents of the KGB/FSB.

Russia expert David Satter, a former Moscow correspondent for the Financial Times (of London) and the Wall Street Journal, wrote of the election in 2009 for Forbes:

According to material from the Soviet archives, Kirill was a KGB agent (as was Alexei). This means he was more than just an informer, of whom there were millions in the Soviet Union. He was an active officer of the organization. Neither Kirill nor Alexei ever acknowledged or apologized for their ties with the security agencies.

Because Patriarch Kirill is of central importance to the myth of Putin as the Saul-to-Paul, Christian persecutor-to-Christian champion, it behooves us to more closely examine the man. He has publicly presided over, and provided official benedictions and exhortations for, Putin's cynical and Stalinesque exploitation of Russian nationalism and Russian Orthodoxy. Josef Stalin, who had very nearly consummated the annihilation of the Russian Orthodox Church begun by Vladimir Lenin, reversed course in 1941. The reason? His erstwhile partner in crime, Adolf Hitler, had turned on him and had invaded Russia.

Stalin, needing all the help he could get, cut a deal with ROC Metropolitans Sergius, Nikolay, and Alexy. In exchange for their support in rallying the Russian people, he would cease (temporarily) the persecution and allow the reopening of churches and theological schools. In fact, Stalin's Soviet government paid for the rebuilding of many of the churches. The ROC was thus placed even more firmly under the control of the NKVD, which was later to be reorganized and renamed as the KGB. ..."

much more at link

http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/19162-putin-defender-of-christian-faith-and-morality

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