In both Britain and America, the security agencies have allowed themselves to become increasingly focused on a reportedly rising threat from white supremacism. But the overwhelming threat to the west comes from Islamic extremism.
The security establishment is reflecting a wider state of denial. In both countries, the political, media and cultural establishment has blocked itself from acknowledging the true nature and extent of Islamic radicalization. (Melanie Phillips)
While terrorist attacks by lone white supremacists provoke instant claims of a dangerous cultural trend, terrorist attacks by lone Islamists tend to provoke instead the claim that the perpetrator was mentally ill and therefore his actions had no wider significance.
Thus, Akram has been widely reported as having had serious mental health problems. Yet the JC talked to his former doctor, who said Akram had been “a confident man who didn’t need any mental help” and had no mental health complaints in his medical notes.
It’s not just that media coverage of the Colleyville attack has been muted, with virtually no acknowledgment of the attacker’s antisemitism. (“A lethal state of denial,” Melanie Phillips, 1/21/2022)
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THE WEST’S POLICY TOWARD RUSSIA NOT WORKING
Prior to Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock’s talks with her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, criticism was raised over Berlin and Washington’s current confrontational approach to Russia. The West’s policy toward Russia, which is “only based on deterrence,” has “been unsuccessful,” according to the political scientist Johannes Varwick in an article published by a leading German journal. Extensive negotiations with Moscow are indispensable. They should include the perspective of Ukraine’s “neutrality” (“Finlandization”). Contrary to claims by politicians and the media, Ukraine’s “free choice of alliance” is not the only applicable principle in international agreements regarding the country’s possible NATO accession. Several OSCE documents oblige European states to choose their security arrangements, such as joining a military alliance, “not at the expense of the security of other states.” German media, on the other hand, are advocating a further escalation of the dangerous conflict. (German Foreign Policy, 1/18/2022)
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Russian Duma Member Yevgeny Fyodorov Suggests Nuclear Strike On Nevada: The U.S. Thinks Russia Is Bluffing; Striking U.S. Defense Dept. Facilities With A Ballistic Missile Will Prove Otherwise; We Should Threaten American Territory, Not Ukraine (MEMRI, 1/26/2022)
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SWIFT OFF THE TABLE
In the discussion on western sanctions against Russia, suspending the country from the international banking payment system SWIFT is off the table, according to a report. Even though recently it had been contemplated to exclude Russia from the international banking payment system in case of a military escalation of the Ukraine conflict, it is no longer considered a realistic option, government sources contend. The expected damage for the West would simply be too high. The EU states, including Germany, would, for example, no longer be able to pay for gas deliveries from Russia, a suspe’nsion of deliveries could be the consequence. In addition, Moscow and Beijing already have their own payment systems, which could quickly become competition for SWIFT, if Russia is suspended and this would jeopardize the West’s dominance over the international banking payment system. If the report is confirmed, it would be a serious setback for the West’s sanctions policy, which would lose its most effective financial weapon. Sanctions against Russian banks are now being considered as an alternative. (German Foreign Policy, 1/19/2022)
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POPE BENEDICT IGNORED ABUSE
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is among three senior German clerics implicated in misconduct by a report into clerical sex abuse in the Archdiocese of Munich between 1949 and 2019 released today, Madoc Cairns writes that the then-archbishop Joseph Ratzinger is accused of failing to take action in four cases of alleged sexual abuse while he was Archbishop of Munich between 1977 and 1982; Cardinal Reinhard Marx, the present Archbishop, is accused of inaction in two such cases and Cardinal Friedrich Wetter, his predecessor, is accused of inaction in 21 cases. Cardinal Marx is due to give a press conference later today. “In a total of four cases, we came to the conclusion that the then-archbishop, Cardinal Ratzinger, can be accused of misconduct,” one of the report’s lawyers, Martin Pusch, said. Two cases involved clerics who abused while he was in office and received criminal convictions by secular authorities, but were allowed to perform pastoral duties within the Archdiocese without corresponding action being taken in canon law. In a third case, a cleric with criminal convictions for abuse outside of Germany was transferred to Munich, and, Pusch said, the evidence suggests Benedict knew of the priest’s previous behaviour. Richard Scorer, an English lawyer who represented a number of abuse victims in the UK’s Independent Inquiry Into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), said: “Pope Benedict was as complicit as other senior Catholics in covering up abuse scandals in his own backyard.” (The Tablet, UK, Catholic, Editor’s newsletter, 20 Dec 2022)
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Teddy Roosevelt statue removed from outside American Museum of Natural History in New York
NEW YORK, 19 Jan 2022 (Reuters) – Workers on Wednesday dismantled a towering statue of President Theodore Roosevelt from outside New York City’s American Museum of Natural History. The “Equestrian Statue of Theodore Roosevelt,” commissioned in 1925 and unveiled to the public in 1940, depicts Roosevelt on a horse, with a Native American man and an African man on foot at his side. It has been criticized by some as a symbol of colonialism and racism.
(https://www.reuters.com/world/us/teddy-roosevelt-statue-removed-outside-new-york-museum-2022-01-19/)
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Germany wants to attract 400,000 skilled workers from abroad each year
BERLIN, Jan 21, 2022 (Reuters) – Germany’s new coalition government wants to attract 400,000 qualified workers from abroad each year to tackle both a demographic imbalance and labour shortages in key sectors that risk undermining the recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
“The shortage of skilled workers has become so serious by now that it is dramatically slowing down our economy,” Christian Duerr, parliamentary leader of the co-governing Free Democrats (FDP), told business magazine WirtschaftsWoche. “We can only get the problem of an aging workforce under control with a modern immigration policy… We have to reach the mark of 400,000 skilled workers from abroad as quickly as possible,” Duerr added. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats, Duerr’s libertarian FDP and the environmentalist Greens agreed in their coalition deal on measures like a points system for specialists from countries outside the European Union and lifting the national minimum wage to 12 euros ($13.60) per hour to make working in Germany more attractive.
The employer-friendly German Economic Institute estimates that the labour force will shrink by more than 300,000 people this year as there are more older workers retiring than younger ones entering the labour market. This gap is expected to widen to more than 650,000 in 2029, leaving an accumulated shortage of people of working age in 2030 of roughly 5 million. The number of Germans in employment grew to nearly 45 million last year despite the coronavirus pandemic. After decades of low birth rates and uneven migration, a shrinking labour force also poses a demographic time bomb for Germany’s public pension system, in which fewer employees are burdened with the task of financing the pensions of a growing mass of retirees who are enjoying longer life expectancy.
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Germany has offered financial aid to Ukraine in an apparent bid to calm a diplomatic storm triggered by Berlin’s refusal to provide military assistance to deter Russian aggression.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said that “economic stabilisation” was “one of the decisive measures” of support that Germany could provide to the war-threatened former Soviet state. “It is important that we especially keep the economic situation in Ukraine in mind,” she told reporters ahead of a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday.
Baerbock added that “we are very closely on Ukraine’s side in terms of both financial and economic support”, but refused to specify what such aid would entail. Baerbock’s promise of economic aid came after Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko accused Germany of “betraying its friends” by banning arms exports and supporting the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Europe. (The Week, 1/27/2022)
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Denmark, New Zealand and Finland top list of least corrupt nations while South Sudan is the worst and US drops out of top 25 amid ‘continuous attacks on free and fair elections’
- Transparency International’s 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index ranks countries on a scale of a ‘highly corrupt’ 0 to a ‘very clean’ 100
- Denmark, New Zealand and Finland tied for first place with 88 points each
- South Sudan was at the bottom of the list with 11 points, making it the worst country for corruption.
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Dominic Raab has said that it is “extremely unlikely” that British troops will be sent to the Ukrainian-Russian border as fears mount that a Russian invasion of Ukraine could be imminent.
The deputy prime minister told Sky News’s Trevor Phillips on Sunday that the UK would “support” Ukraine in “defending themselves” and warned of “very serious, severe economic consequences” for the Kremlin in the event of a Russian invasion.
Raab told Phillips that the UK was standing “shoulder to shoulder” with Ukraine, but stopped short of committing to sending more British troops to the border, where more than 125,000 Russian troops are reported to be stationed. (The Week, 1/25/2022)
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Russian, Syrian pilots conduct joint air patrol mission along Golan Heights
The mission involved Russia’s Su-34 and Su-35 aircraft and the A-50 early warning and control aircraft, as well as Syria’s MiG-23 and MiG-29 planes.
MOSCOW, January 24. /TASS/. Russian and Syrian military pilots have conducted a joint air patrol mission along the Golan Heights and the Euphrates River, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement. “The mission’s route ran along the Golan Heights, the southern order, the Euphrates River and over northern Syria,” the statement reads. “Russian pilots took off from the Hmeymim Air Base, while Syrians took off from the Seikal and Dumayr airfields outside Damascus,” the ministry added. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the mission involved Russia’s Su-34 and Su-35 aircraft and the A-50 early warning and control aircraft, as well as Syria’s MiG-23 and MiG-29 planes. “During the patrol mission, Syrian pilots controlled airspace and provided fighter cover, while Russian crews practiced attacks on ground targets,” the statement specified. The ministry said that pilots had practiced strikes on air targets and ground targets at a training range in central Syria. “The two countries’ pilots developed skills for cooperation in various situations. This kind of joint missions will now take place on a regular basis,” the Russian Defense Ministry stressed. (https://tass.com/defense/1392105)
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The UK’s official Covid-19 death toll is being questioned after the release of a Freedom of Information (FOI) request made to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The request asked for data on “deaths purely from Covid with no other underlying causes”. The data provided by the ONS shows that there have been more than 17,300 Covid-19 deaths not related to any pre-existing health conditions such as asthma, diabetes or heart disease. (The Week, 1/26/2022)
Emergency measures to stem the spread of Covid-19 have “allowed corruption to go unchecked” in countries worldwide, according to a newly published report.
Researchers at Transparency International (TI) found that more than 130 nations “have made no significant progress against corruption in the last decade”, and that the ongoing health crisis has been “used in many countries as an excuse to curtail basic freedoms and side-step important checks and balances”. (The Week, 1/26/2022)
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TO THE POINT
New Zealand has cut off the only route into the country after the head of the country’s quarantine system warned of a tenfold increase in Covid-19 cases at the border.
Health officials announced yesterday that “new spaces in the country’s managed isolation and quarantine system (MIQ) would not be released,” The Guardian reported. Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said the effective closure of the border was “temporary,” but gave no indication of when travel to the country would be permitted again. (The Week, 1/19/2022)
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FINAL THOUGHT
A few weeks ago I shared with you that I had read Hayley Mills’ autobiography, Forever Young. I have long since returned the book to the library so I can’t look up what page the following was on, but I do remember that Hayley’s maternal grandmother “shocked” the family by announcing that she had become a British Israelite. Most people are not comfortable with people taking the Bible seriously.
British Israelites come from all walks of life and have differing beliefs on other scriptural issues. But they hold the British Israelite teaching in common. The British Israel World Federation is based in the United Kingdom but operates in other countries of the Anglosphere.
British Israelism (sometimes called Anglo-Israelism) is the belief that the nations of NW Europe are descended from the Lost Ten Tribes of ancient Israel. It then follows that the end-time prophecies in the Bible relating to Israel apply to those nations.
Genesis 48:13-16 is a key passage here. This is where Jacob (Israel) gives his blessing to the two sons of Joseph, his eleventh son. The prophecy is very exact and detailed. “And Joseph took them both, Ephraim with his right hand toward Israel’s left hand, and Manasseh with his left hand toward Israel’s right hand, and brought them near him. 14 Then Israel stretched out his right hand and laid it on Ephraim’s head, who was the younger, and his left hand on Manasseh’s head, guiding his hands knowingly, for Manasseh was the firstborn.” You can’t get more detailed than that.
Ephraim was to be the greater recipient of Israel’s blessings; Manasseh was secondary.
As Ephraim was the younger son, and the tradition was that the eldest should receive the primary blessings, Joseph stepped in to try to put things right. But Jacob would have none of it.
But his father refused and said, “I know, my son, I know. He also shall become a people, and he also shall be great; but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his descendants shall become a multitude of nations.” (verse 19).
There you have it. Two brothers, each receiving their grandfather’s blessing. One brother was to become a multitude of nations, the other a “great” nation. The (British) Commonwealth of Nations and the United States.
Wikipedia has this to say on British Israelism:
“According to Brackney (2012) and Fine (2015), the French Huguenot magistrate M. le Loyer’s The Ten Lost Tribes, published in 1590, provided one of the earliest expressions of the belief that the Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, Scandinavian, Germanic, and associated peoples are the direct descendants of the Old Testament Israelites. Anglo-Israelism has also been attributed to Francis Drake and King James VI and I, who believed he was the King of Israel. Adriaan van Schrieck (1560–1621), who influenced Henry Spelman (1562–1641) and John Sadler (1615–74), wrote in the early 17th century about his ideas on the origins of the Celtic and Saxon peoples. In 1649, Sadler published The Rights of the Kingdom, “which argues for an ‘Israelite genealogy for the British people’.”
Aspects of British Israelism and its influences have also been traced to Richard Brothers, who published A Revealed Knowledge of the Prophecies and Times in 1794, John Wilson’s Our Israelitish Origin (1844), and John Pym Yeatman’s The Shemetic Origin of the Nations of Western Europe (1879).
“The extent to which the British clergy became aware of the existence of the movement may be gauged by the comment which Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801–1890) made when he was asked why he had left the Church of England in 1845 in order to join the Roman Catholic Church. He said that there was a very real danger that the movement “would take over the Church of England.”
“In 1914, the thirty-fourth year of its publication, the Anglo-Israel Almanac listed the details of a large number of Kingdom Identity Groups which were operating independently throughout the British Isles as well as in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, and the United States of America.” (Wikipedia: British Israelism)
It’s not surprising that British Israel enjoyed its greatest following in the decades from 1880 to World War I. This was when the British people ruled over an empire upon which the “sun never set.” A quarter of the world’s people lived within the empire. Before the United States became of any significance, the British dominated over everything. People forget that now.
British domination lasted 250 years. When the British lost the top position, the US took over. But it was never to dominate in the same way and would not last as long. Already, after only 70 years, we see the US in rapid decline.
There are plenty of books on the subject. It’s worth looking into. Because many end-time prophecies relate to “Israel,” which is populated by the Jews, who were just one of the Lost Tribes. So the prophecies must apply somewhere else.
No other nations have fulfilled these promises.
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