Posted on 02/18/2008 10:01:10 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Talkbacks for this article: 105
"The cancerous growth Israel will soon disappear," Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps commander Muhammad Ali Jafari wrote to Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the FARS news agency reported Monday.
In a letter of condolence following last week's assassination of Hizbullah terror chief Imad Mughniyeh, Jafari said: "I am convinced that with every passing day Hizbullah's might is increasing and in the near future, we will witness the disappearance of this cancerous growth Israel by means of the Hizbullah fighters' radiation [therapy]."
In the letter, in which Jafari consoled Nasrallah over the death of the "martyr," he continued: "There's no doubt that the death of this loyal fighter will strengthen the resolve of all revolutionary Muslims and fighters in the struggle against the Zionist regime, particularly the resolve of those who fought by this martyr's side."
Mughniyeh was considered to be closely affiliated to the Revolutionary Guards and the al-Quds Brigades. Together, the two organizations trained Hizbullah fighters in Lebanon and Iran and planned terror attacks the world over.
Meanwhile, the Kuwaiti newspaper A-Rai quoted officials close to Hizbullah as saying that the group would not rush to avenge Mughniyeh's death, but that it intended to target Israeli figures of a similar rank to the terrorist, who was the group's chief of staff.
The newspaper noted that after the killing of former Hizbullah head Abbas Musawi, the organization retaliated years later against Israeli and Jewish targets in Buenos Aires.
Slain Hizbullah commander Imad Mughniyeh.
Photo: AP
A-Rai also reported that Mughniyeh had prepared a list of Israeli assassination targets following the Second Lebanon War, when Israel announced its intention to assassinate Nasrallah.
Also predicting a future attack, the editor of the Hizbullah-affiliated Al-Akhbar newspaper, Ibrahim al-Amin, said that it was clear Israel was behind Mughniyeh's assassination and that there was an ongoing investigation to determine who had joined the US and Israel in its war against the resistance in Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq.
Amin, who is considered a close associate of the group, said that anyone who is interested should join the battle for Israel's destruction and that the tools used in the campaign would be different to those used in the past.
He said that Israel should "expect a painful and rational response from an unexpected direction, since the enemy broke all the rules."
Threats from Iran and the Muslim world are nothing new. Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for the destruction of Israel multiple times.
Speaking in late January, he repeated his warning. "The lifetime of criminals and invaders [Israel] is over," Iranian state media reported Ahmadinejad as saying while discussing Israeli-Palestinian conflicts in the Gaza Strip. "Powerful hands of Palestinians and regional nations will hit the last blow of destruction against the criminals."
Contradicting Amin and the others blaming Israel for Mughniyeh's death, US Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said on Sunday that internal Hizbullah groups or Syria may be to blame for the killing of the top Hizbullah commander in Damascus.
McConnell said he considered the threat of retaliation for the assassination to be primarily against Israel. But he said US intelligence officials were keeping a close watch and taking any necessary action to protect the United States, as Mughniyeh was "responsible for more deaths of Americans and Israelis than any other terrorist, with the exception of Osama bin Laden."
"It is a serious threat," McConnell said. "There's some evidence that it may have been internal Hizbullah. It may have been Syria.
"We don't know yet, and we're trying to sort that out."
On Sunday night, a special forum convened in Jerusalem to discuss the threat by Hizbullah to perpetrate attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets around the world.
The forum included Cabinet Secretary Oved Yehezkel and Jewish Agency Chairman Ze'ev Bielski, as well as senior Foreign Ministry and Defense Ministry officials.
Clearly Putin is playing his strength (oil $) and perhaps trying to force a first move so that he or his puppets can retaliate. I'm sure he's sick enough to want a confrontation.
I understand him now. He's a liar. Plain and simple. This man is beyond dangerous. He's certain destruction.
It’s there, Google it. I don’t have a bible in front of me or I would gladly quote verses.
We're not losing any sleep, but I think we'll all breathe a little easier here after Mahmoud's visit in early March has concluded.
Until then, we're a little more alert because we've got company comin' to town.
This town.
I prayed for understanding of prophecy too, which I believe is why I have become a partial preterist.
“Isaiah for example seemed to witness an alien craft ascending into the sky with the prophet Elijah as describing it as a chariot of fire, circled with multiple rings.”
I agree with R.C. Sproul — you cannot understand Bible prophecy until you differentiate between the literal and apocalyptic hyperbole.
For example, the following verse is a PAST judgment on Edom:
Isaiah 34:4-5: All the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled up like a scroll; all their host shall fall down as the leaf falls from the vine, and as fruit falling from a fig tree. “For My sword shall be bathed in heaven; Indeed it shall come down on Edom, and on the people of My curse, for judgment.”
Did the above literally happen? Did the universe dissolve? Obviously not.
Ironically, Tim LaHaye said the following:
“When the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense, but take every word at its primary, literal meaning unless the facts of the immediate context clearly indicate otherwise.”
So “horse” should mean horse. “Plundering livestock” should mean plundering livestock. Unfortunately, LaHaye didn’t take his own good advice. People such as LaHaye and Lindsey instead take the apocalyptic hyperbole literally and then spiritualize the literal. It may be a good way to sell their sensationalist books but not a good way to find the true meaning of Scripture.
I started out (back in 1981) as a pre-tribulationist. I looked into preterist, mid-tribulationist and post-tribulationist. I firmly settled in the mid-tribulationist (also called pre-wrath) camp.
I was doing some googling a month or so ago, looking for some good arguments against pre-tribulationism. My sunday school class is covering the book of Revelation and, sure enough, they started giving it a STRONG pre-tribulation slant. Anyway, my search quickly led me to this site: http://watchmanbiblestudy.com/BibleStudies/Definitions/Def_Pretrib.htm
Like me, the guy used to be pre-trib.
BTW, I tend to agree with a lot of what you say, but obviously we disagree on a couple of very basic things.
The pre-trib fiction that has been produced the last decade or so gives me the willies. Almost as bad as what you see on TBN. Almost...
Great insights. I agree. The bible is a guidebook and general roadmap of where our species originated from and where it is going. When you understand this, the apocalyptic becomes secondary teaching. What can and should become primary teaching is that we are not alone in this universe, our Creators have good intentions for our species and that we can participate in this good work for the betterment of all mankind.
Many religions take one prophetic passage and try to explain why such an event will unfold while ignoring the other 3 or 4 other major events as a timeline and reason for the event to come to pass. For example, dozens of prophecies talk about Israel coming into God’s favored nation status and covenent, but without the timetable of Daniel’s calculations how would you ever know such an imporant event/prophecy has been fulfilled?
“Like me, the guy used to be pre-trib.”
From what I’ve heard, including your story, it appears that most people, as they mature more in their faith, go FROM pre-trib rather than TO pre-trib, fortunately.
Imagine going back to your high-school of 15 years ago and seeing your old teacher and sitting in on a class that you took from him 15 years ago. Now imagine that half of that class he is teaching today is the same students you took the class with 15 years ago!
I had that experience when I visited my old (very large) Assembly of God church a few months ago. My old class was, again, going over revelation and the same people were making the same observations they were 15 years ago as everyone nodded in agreement about the same pre-programmed beliefs. Meanwhile, I’ve been studying it off and on since then and was embarrassed as a Christian as I listened to easily dissprovable comments being made and the teacher nodding in agreement. It was, frankly, weird. Kind of like that part of Pleasantville where the teacher points out to class that Main street just comes back around.
I am noticing similar things in my sunday school class at my current church, only I am not shutting up. The evidence is all right there in the bible for anyone who will throw out their preconceived paradigm and read what it actually says - and in context. I will not let them have a pass.
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