Thursday 28 November 2013

A GOOD ARTICLE HERE CALLED "WATCH THE TREES" BY DAYMOND DUCK FROM RAPTURE READY.

Watch the Trees

By Daymond Duck

Jesus told us to watch for His coming because we don’t know the day or the hour (Matthew 24:42; 25:13). He told us to watch lest He come and find us sleeping (Mark 13:33-37). He told us to watch and pray that we will be accounted worthy to escape all the things that are coming upon the earth (Luke 21:36). He told us to watch or He would come upon us as a thief (Revelation 3:3). And Paul told us to watch and be sober (1 Thessalonians 5:6). So we should watch, but “What should we be watching for?”
Concerning His return, Jesus said:
“Behold the fig tree, and all the trees; when they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand. So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand. Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away” (Luke 21:29-33). 
So Jesus said watch all the trees, but pay specific attention to one particular tree (the fig tree). But someone could ask, “So we should watch the fig tree and all the trees, but why?”
In the Old Testament, God compared Judah to a cedar tree and its king (Jehoiakim) to the highest branch in that cedar tree (Ezekiel 17:3-4, 12).  God compared Assyria to a cedar tree with fair branches whose height (stature, greatness and power) was exalted above all the trees of the field (nations of the world) (Ezekiel 31:3-6). In the New Testament, John the Baptist appeared to refer to Israel as a worthless tree (Luke 3:8-9).
Jesus definitely referred to the fig tree as a sign of His return (Matthew 24:32-33). And the fig tree is clearly a symbol of Israel (Hosea 9:10; Jeremiah 24:1-10). So the fig tree is Israel and all the other trees are all the other nations. Then, concerning the Second Coming of Jesus, we should watch Israel and all the other nations.
We should watch the fig tree (Israel) because that tiny nation must exist for many prophecies to be fulfilled. Israel must exist for the Antichrist to confirm a treaty for seven years of peace between Israel and the PA that will trigger the Tribulation period (Daniel 9:27; 1 Thessalonians 5:3). Israel must exist before all prophecy can be fulfilled, before the Jews accept Jesus as their Messiah, etc. (Daniel 9:24). Israel must exist to rebuild the Temple before the Antichrist can sit in it and show himself that he is God (2 Thessalonians 2:4).
Israel must exist to rebuild the Temple and resume the animal sacrifices before the Antichrist can stop them at the middle of the Tribulation period (Daniel 9:27). Israel must exist before the Jews in Judea can flee into the wilderness when the Antichrist defiles the Temple (Matthew 24:15-16). Israel must exist before the battle of Gog and Magog can take place in the latter days and latter years (Ezekiel 38-39). Israel must exist before Jesus can rescue her at the battle of Armageddon (Revelation 19:11-21). The existence of the fig tree is a prelude to the fulfillment of major Second Coming prophecies.
We should watch all the other trees (nations) because the Antichrist will try to force all the nations into a world government (Daniel 7:23; Revelation 13:7) and that is the purpose of the New World Order. All the nations of the earth must experience economic problems and high food prices (Revelation 6:5-6) and many are predicting a global economic collapse at some point in 2014. The Antichrist will rise to power in a revived EU (Daniel 9:26) and the EU now exists, and some are calling for a super-president.
The nations must divide Israel (Joel 3:2) and that is what the two-state solution is all about. The nations surrounding Israel must desire Jerusalem enough to attack Israel (Zechariah 12:2) and that is being negotiated under threat of an Intifada, right now. Syria and Israel must go to war with each other (Isaiah 17:1-14) and both are threatening each other right now.
Egypt must get into a civil war, come under the rule of a cruel leader, experience high unemployment, etc. (Isaiah 19:1-22) and that is the situation today. Russia and several Islamic nations, including Iran, must go to war with Israel (Ezekiel 38-39) and that could happen very soon. The Euphrates River must dry up so China and her allies can move into the Middle East (Revelation 16:12) and dams and drought are making that possible. The trees have a message for those who will listen.
I don’t know that it is true, but I have read that the fig tree is one of the last trees to leaf out during the spring in Israel. Leaves on the fig tree are a sure-sign that summer is near. In like manner, the return of Israel along with today’s global and national events—are a sure sign that the world is running out of time.
So to all the born-again tree watchers, Jesus commanded you to know that it is near, even at the doors. And He added that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled (Matthew 24:33-34). But to all who are not born-again Jesus said ye must be born-again (John 3:7). Otherwise, your future is bleak.
FYI: God Has Spoken (And We Know It) by Daymond Duck is available, (linked at raptureready.com to my publisher). Books and a Kindle version are available at amazon.com. A Nook version is available at bn.com. Check out what it says about Syria, Russia, Iran, Egypt, natural disasters, the Two-State Solution, etc. Please post a comment.
Prophecy Plus Ministries
Daymond & Rachel Duck

daymondduck@bellsouth.net
rachelduck@bellsouth.net

Monday 25 November 2013

NETANYAHU AND ISRAEL ARE FURIOUS WITH THE NEW DEAL WITH IRAN!!

Israeli Officials Furious Over Iran Deal




Her adversaries are become the head, her enemies are at ease; (Lamentations 1:5)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a statement on Iran from Jerusalem. PM Netanyahu denounced the world powers' nuclear agreement with Iran as a historic mistake.  (Photo by Haim Zach/ GPO/FLASH90)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a statement on Iran from Jerusalem. PM Netanyahu denounced the world powers’ nuclear agreement with Iran as a historic mistake. (Photo by Haim Zach/ GPO/FLASH90)
At the start of his weekly cabinet meeting today, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted the US brokered deal with Iran saying, ”What was achieved last night in Geneva is not an historic agreement; it is an historic mistake.
“Today the world has become a much more dangerous place because the most dangerous regime in the world has taken a significant step toward attaining the most dangerous weapon in the world. For the first time, the world’s leading powers have agreed to uranium enrichment in Iran while ignoring the UN Security Council decisions that they themselves led. Sanctions that required many years to put in place contain the best chance for a peaceful solution. These sanctions have been given up in exchange for cosmetic Iranian concessions that can be cancelled in weeks.
‘This agreement and what it means endanger many countries including, of course, Israel. Israel is not bound by this agreement. The Iranian regime is committed to the destruction of Israel and Israel has the right and the obligation to defend itself, by itself, against any threat. As Prime Minister of Israel, I would like to make it clear: Israel will not allow Iran to develop a military nuclear capability.”
A number of other top Israeli officials have come out strongly opposing the deal struck between the P5+1 and Iran late Saturday night, according to The Times of Israel.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that the agreement has shifted the status quo in the Middle East. ‘This brings us to a new reality in the whole Middle East, including the Saudis. This isn’t just our worry’ he told Israel Radio. ‘We’ve found ourselves in a completely new situation.”
When asked if this would lead to an Israeli military strike on Iran, Lieberman said Israel ‘would need to make different decisions.’
Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz, who is responsible for monitoring Iran’s nuclear program, said there is no reason for the world to be celebrating. He said the deal, reached in Geneva early Sunday, is based on “Iranian deception and self-delusion.”
“Just like the failed deal with North Korea, the current deal can actually bring Iran closer to the bomb,” Steinitz said. “Israel cannot take part in the international celebrations based on Iranian deception and self-delusion.”
US President Barack Obama was expected to call Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday to discuss the details of the deal. An unnamed source in the Prime Minister’s Office called the agreement a “bad deal that gives Iran exactly what it wants.”
Lieberman slammed the deal as not going far enough, since it does not dismantle the nuclear facilities.
“They have enough uranium to make a few bombs already,” he said.
Economics Minister Naftali Bennett called the deal “bad, very bad.”
“If a nuclear suitcase blows up five years from now in New York or Madrid, it will be because of the deal that was signed this morning,” he said on Facebook. “There is still a long campaign ahead of us. We will continue to act in every possible way.”
Finance Minister Yair Lapid panned the interim agreement and said Israel would have to work to make sure a final deal had better terms.
“This is a bad deal that does not bring even one centrifuge to a halt. I am worried not only over the deal, but that we have lost the world’s attention.”

Saturday 23 November 2013

ISRAEL DISMAYED AT SUCH A TEPID RESPONSE FROM OBAMA AND THE USA TO IRAN'S KHAMENEI SCREED!!

Israel Dismayed At Tepid US Response To Khamenei Screed




Let the lying lips be dumb, which speak arrogantly against the righteous, with pride and contempt. (Psalms 31:19)
Ayatollah Koheminei
The United States failed to strongly condemn Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for calling Israel the “sinister, unclean rabid dog of the region.” (Photo: Foundation of Holy Defence Values, Archives and Publications/Wikimedia Commons)
Jerusalem is “unpleasantly surprised” that, as of Thursday afternoon, the Obama administration had not unequivocally condemned vicious anti-Israel statements made Wednesday morning by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, senior Israeli officials told The Times of Israel.
In a speech delivered to an assembly of tens of thousands of Basij militiamen Khamenei declared that Israel was doomed to fail and characterized the “Zionist regime” as the “sinister, unclean rabid dog of the region.” He also said Israelis “cannot be called human beings.” Footage of the event showed the crowd shouting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”
At a meeting Thursday morning with Jewish leaders in Moscow, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today’s Iran reminded him “of the dark regimes of the past that plotted against us first and then against all of humanity,” and thus had to prevented from attaining nuclear weapons. “The real Iran is what the leader of Iran, Khamenei, said yesterday,” said Netanyahu. “He called Jews ‘rabid dogs’ and said that they were not human. The public responded to him with calls of ‘Death to America! Death to Israel!’ Doesn’t this sound familiar to you? This is the real Iran! We are not confused,” said Netanyahu.
The Ayatollah’s speech came just hours before negotiations between the P5+1 and Iran were set to resume in Geneva.
According to the Jerusalem Post, US ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, in an interview with CNN, Power said the remarks were “abhorrent.”
Earlier in the day, US Secretary of State John Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that “obviously we disagree with [Khamenei’s statements] profoundly. It’s inflammatory and it’s unnecessary, and I think at this moment, when we are trying to negotiate and figure out what can and can’t be achieved, the last thing we need are names back and forth,” Kerry said.

A GOOD ARTICLE HERE FOR YOU BY TERRY JAMES TITLED "ANY OTHER GOSPEL".

"Any Other Gospel" by Terry James. 

Perhaps no other classification of prophetic indicators exhibits more ubiquitous/prolific such end-time signs in this generation than the category “other gospels.” The Scriptures are found back-to-back, and are repeated by the Apostle Paul for emphasis.
“But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any [man] preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed” (Gal. 1:8-9).
This specific prophetic warning for the last generation just before Christ’s return is again given by the great Apostle and prophet, Paul: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (2 Tim. 4:3-4).
Satan comes at this generation with a full, frontal assault that no Christian should fail to recognize. Tragically, most do miss the attacks, so wrapped in the entertainment hyperbole of the day are they, their eyes on the glitter and glitz of the Hollywood hucksters of lasciviousness. Two examples of the frontal assaults in this regard were the novel, The Da Vinci Code, and the archaeological artifact and subsequent documentary film, The Gospel of Judas.
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Browns sold more than 40-million-plus copies. A major motion picture of the same title drew multiple throngs and rang the cash registers at the box offices. In essence, the work is a clever, but complete fabrication of matters surrounding Roman Emperor Constantine and his treatment of and interaction with Christianity. The story distorts and totally misrepresents the relationship between Mary Magdalene and Jesus. It gives Jesus greatly diminished status and a nature that is willing to enter into collusion with those who would fake His death, burial and resurrection. As if those blasphemies were not enough, Brown takes up the line of fiction that follows the trail of the search for the Holy Grail from the Holy Land into Europe, where the British Israel theory was hatched –the preposterous notion that Jesus and Mary were married and issued forth offspring that still can claim royal lineage to Christ today.
Sadly, much of the replacement theology of our time is based in this satanic tripe because of the ignorance of those who hold to the belief that Israel no longer is heir to God’s promises to them. The blasphemy of claiming God would ever renege on an unconditional promise is held as doctrinal truth by major denominations within Christianity today. I believe it is one of the key elements of doctrinal integrity that will one day separate the Philadelphian Church from the Laodicean (read Rev. 3:7-19).
The second most overt frontal assault is currently being made by Satan and his minions through The Gospel of Judas. This is a complete upside-down lie that makes Judas not Jesus’ worst human enemy, but His best friend! It is incredible that we could come to this point in the perversion of God’s truth. But, here we are, right on schedule in relationship to all other prophetic signs of the times, so far as God’s prophetic Word is concerned.
One writer of a major publication framed The Gospel of Judas like this:
“…What will make this gospel famous—or infamous, perhaps—is that it portrays Judas quite differently from anything we previously knew. Here he is not the evil, corrupt, devil-inspired follower of Jesus who betrayed his master; he is instead Jesus’ closest intimate and friend, the one who understood Jesus better than anyone else, who turned Jesus over to the authorities because Jesus wanted him to do so. This gospel has a completely different understanding of God, the world, Christ, salvation, human existence—not to mention of Judas himself—than came to be embodied in the Christian creeds and canon. It will open up new vistas for understanding Jesus and the religious movement he founded” (Bart Ehrman, et al., “The Gospel of Judas,” National Geographic, 2006).
As disturbing as these blasphemies are, there are others far more troubling, in my view. They are far more troubling because they come, supposedly, from within Christianity. The most egregious examples are the new Bible versions based upon texts other than the authorized.
There isn’t space to go into detail here, but the new “Bibles” that tone down the blood atonement of Christ, His death, burial, and resurrection, or that relegate God to gender-neutral status rather than acknowledging Him in the masculine –that try to present a message that we shouldn’t concern ourselves with things like judgment, punishment, or Hell –that we shouldn’t concern ourselves with Christ’s coming again and the prophetic Word, are not Heaven-sent, but hell-spawned.
Let us not be deceived by those who seek to diminish Jesus Christ in any form. Let’s not fall for any other gospel, but be fortified and edified by that once given –the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy (Rev. 19:10). That is essential to understand in this last time.

Monday 18 November 2013

"A DANGEROUS TIME FOR ISRAEL" BY THE AMERICAN THINKER!

A Dangerous Time For Israel
Forty years ago last month the Israeli government faced a critical decision -- whether or not to launch pre-emptive strikes on Egypt and Syria. Israeli intelligence had belatedly determined that the Arabs were about to begin a coordinated surprise attack on the holy day of Yom Kippur.

The always ready Israeli air force could have launched pre-emptive strikes on the enemy, disrupting their final preparations and robbing them of the initiative. The government of Golda Meir held back, requiring the Israel Defense Force (IDF) to absorb the initial Arab blows at a substantial cost in men, munitions and equipment.

There was really only one reason for this Israeli restraint -- the Israelis knew that the United States opposed such a strike, and that strong American support would be critical in the coming war.

Today the government of Benjamin Netanyahu faces a similar dilemma, though not on the same perilous time frame of mere hours and minutes. But if the time pressures are not as critical as they were on the morning of October 6, 1973, the stakes are just as high.

A nuclear-armed Iran is probably more dangerous to Israel than were the massed Syrian and Egyptian armies on that long-ago October day, and the calculations that the Israeli government must make are similar. What will be Netanyahu's solution?

There are many parallels between Israel's situation on the eve of the 1973 war and now, and also substantial differences. Let's examine the similarities. Israel is and was perceived as a dominant, almost militarily invulnerable power, before the outbreak of hostilities.

The opposing Arab/Islamic governments were and are historically unstable, and have consistently seen conflict with Israel as a convenient way to divert attention away from domestic problems and crises.

Domestically weak, indifferent, even hostile presidents (Nixon and Obama), head American governments, supported by cold and ambitious secretaries of state (Kissinger and Kerry). Finally, in both cases, the Soviet Union/Russia plays a heavy and destabilizing role in support of the Arab/Islamic axis.

Yet in October 1973 the Israelis were fairly confident, despite Nixon's domestic problems and unsympathetic views toward Jews and Israel, that he could be counted on in a crisis, if only because he was a reliable Cold Warrior and knew that Israel stood as a bulwark against Soviet ambitions in the area.

Nixon was the first American president to supply the Israelis with first-line American military equipment, and ties between the IDF and American armed forces were, if not as close as today, growing in mutual admiration and cooperation. Nixon and Kissinger were both capable realists when it came to foreign policy, and the Israelis correctly calculated that they could be counted on in a crisis.

In the event, the Israeli evaluation proved true. Nixon initiated an airlift of emergency supply to Israel in the first week of the war, and promised to make good Israeli losses in equipment and munitions.

After the IDF turned the tide against the Arabs, Nixon put American forces on nuclear alert to deter Soviet intervention in the conflict. Though Nixon and Kissinger forced hard bargains on the victorious Israelis after the war, the Meir government's decision to forgo a pre-emptive strike seems on balance to have been correct.

In calculating whether to launch a pre-emptive attack on Iran, the Netanyahu government has to size up President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry, in the same way the Meir government did Nixon and Kissinger. When it does, it is likely to come to different conclusions.

Obama has long opposed an Israeli pre-emptive strike on Iran. Israel has deferred to Obama's preference in the hope that international sanctions might eventually force Iran to abandon its nuclear program.

Those hopes now appear to have been dashed, with the Obama administration's weak, even delusional leadership of negotiations in Geneva. Indeed, were it not for surprising French toughness, it is likely that Iran would have already been freed from serious sanctions, without any meaningful curtailment of its nuclear program.

And in the end, it appears likely that French resistance or no, Obama and his other P5+1 partners (Russia, China, Great Britain, and Germany) are determined to let the Iranians off the hook.

In the current situation, Israel can no longer be sure that the Obama administration would have its back even if it declined to strike. Nothing in the administration's current actions, statements, or past history suggest that this is the case. Obama dislikes Netanyahu.

Obama's best friend in the region is the vociferously anti-Israel prime minister of Turkey Recep Erdogan. He is a natural ally of the Palestinians, and at gut level, sympathetic to the Arab and Iranian points of view.

Obama subordinates have repeatedly and recklessly leaked word of Israeli strikes on Syria, the only consequence of which has been to weaken Israeli deterrence and provoke conflict with Syria and by extension Iran.

The administration's Chamberlain-like cave on Iranian sanctions, taken in concert with Secretary of State Kerry's pointless and self-aggrandizing "peace effort" with the Palestinians, will erode Israeli confidence of American support even in the event they show restraint.

If his waffling on Syria justifiably pushed Israel in the direction of pre-emption, American actions in Geneva may well be the final straw. Viewed from a more Machiavellian perspective, perhaps this is just what Obama wants, as an excuse to break America's tight relationship with Israel.

October 1973 was a perilous time for Israel. Forty years on, in November 2013, it still is.
ead more at http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/2013/November13/134.html#Wal8tjoes3Oh045U.99

Friday 15 November 2013

"WHY SUCH TERRIBLE JUDGEMENTS" IN THE GREAT TRIBULATION BY NORMAN MANZIN FROM "RAPTURE READY"?

The Great Tribulation: Why Such a Terrible Judgment?
By Norman Manzon

Much effort has gone into understanding the sequence of events of the Great Tribulation, but very little has gone into examining the reasons for it. This study is an attempt to examine the reasons for such a terrible judgment.
 A Summary of Man’s Rebellion
As a whole, Man has rejected every opportunity that God has given him to demonstrate his trust in Him by obedience to Him. The rejection of God and His guidance is the “mother” of every other form of evil, key aspects of which are dealt with in this study.
Rejection of God and His Guidance
Man’s rejection of God and His guidance began when our first parents rejected the one command that God had given them. It continued with Cain’s rejection of God’s admonition to offer up the proper sacrifice for sin, and on through Cain’s murder of Abel until the wickedness on earth was so great that God destroyed mankind with a flood except for Noah, his wife, their three sons and their three wives.
Continuous Mass Murder of Millions Created in God’s Image and Likeness
Having begun afresh with a new and righteous patriarch, God commanded, “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man”(Genesis 9:6), thereby putting the fear of capital punishment into mankind for murderYet, man has never ceased to murder and kill by means of abortions, because of personal vendettas, and on mass scales with the most modern weaponry. 
Rejection of Capital Punishment for Murder
Despite God’s command to execute murderers, by the end of 2012, eighty-six of the world’s two hundred countries had departed from the Noahic mandate and abandoned the death penalty for all crimes. [1]

The Beginning of Institutional Occultism and False Religions                                                          The Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:9) was built to seek guidance from the stars instead of the Creator; and Romans 1:21-23 in conjunction with 1 Corinthians 10:19-20 tells us that it is only a step from the turning to creation for guidance to idolatry and the worship of Satan and demons. The Tower of Babel was the institutional fountainhead of all the false and demonic religions and philosophies in the world.
The Call and the Failure of Israel
With the Tower of Babel, God divided mankind into nations by means of multiplying their languages, and out of those nations He called out the nation of Israel to be His fountainhead of holiness and salvation to the rest of the world. Though Israel brought forth the Scriptures and the Messiah, they fell into idolatry for protracted periods of time and rejected their Messiah.

Rejection of the Necessity to Bless IsraelThough Israel rejected their Messiah, God has not rejected them (Romans 11:29) and He will yet use them mightily. Because of His special call on Israel, He announced to Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse” (Genesis 12:3). Scripture records that God did bless and curse individuals and nations according to the manner in which they treated Israel and individual Jews (e.g., Genesis 39:1-5, 41:55-57; Obadiah 1:10; Zechariah 12:9), and Jesus prophesied that He will judge the sheep and goat Gentiles on the basis of how they will treat “these brothers of mine” (Matthew 25:31-46).

Wednesday 13 November 2013

AN ISRAELI IDF SOLDIER IS STABBED TO DEATH BY A 16 YEAR OLD PALESTINIAN BOY!!

16-Year-Old Palestinian Stabs to Death IDF Soldier




The Israeli police and its different units responded when there was a terrorist attack that took place at the Afula central bus station, killing Eden Atias.

An Israeli soldier has been stabbed to death by a Palestinian teenager on a bus in northern Israel, police say.
The 18-year-old soldier was stabbed multiple times in the neck and upper body as the bus from Nazareth stopped in the town of Afula, Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.
He was rushed to hospital in a critical condition, but died of his wounds.
The attacker, a 16-year-old from the West Bank town of Jenin who was working in Israel illegally, is in custody.
Other passengers on the bus subdued him before handing him over to the security forces, according to the Jerusalem Post newspaper.
Israel's northern police commander, Roni Attia, said: "By his account, his uncles are in prison in Israel and this is the reason he decided to carry out the terrorist attack."
The violence comes as the US attempts to revive faltering peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a halt to controversial plans for the construction of 24,000 new homes at Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Mr Netanyahu said the plan, announced by his housing minister, had caused unnecessary conflict with the international community at a time when Israel is pressing for a tougher stance on Iran's nuclear programme.

Funeral Update on Wednesday: 
Thousands of grief-stricken Israelis gathered at the Nazereth Illit military cemetery on Wednesday for the burial of 18 year old Eden Atias, who was stabbed to death while sleeping on a bus by a Palestinian youth earlier that day.
Earlier Wednesday, some 150 people protested outside the Afula Bus Station where Atias had been stabbed in the neck repeatedly. The gathering, according to The Times of Israel, was to protest the government’s handling of the current peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. The objectors noted that this was simply the latest in a long line of attempted and executed terrorist attacks since the talks had begun in July.
Eye witnesses told authorities that Atias had been asleep when he was attacked by the terrorist. The Palestinian youth was captured by other bus passengers and handed over to authorities.
“The bus stopped and people had stepped out,” an eyewitness who gave her name as Yaffa told Channel 2. “A female soldier was left on the bus, along with the soldier [who was stabbed] and the terrorist. Suddenly the female soldier started screaming for help, she ran outside, she was shaking. The terrorist had stabbed the soldier, he was covered in blood.”
Atias had enlisted in the IDF just two weeks ago and was still in the midst of basic training. He was survived by his parents and two brothers, aged 24 and 18. His mother, Ilia, was quoted by Walla as saying that he had insisted on volunteering for a combat unit.
The attacker is a 16-year-old Palestinian resident of Jenin. “We heard shouting in the bus, and screaming,” Tomer, a worker at a nearby kiosk who witnessed the attack, told Yedioth Ahronoth. “Soldiers then jumped [the attacker], I saw them take him off the bus and then security guards waited with him. He looked like a child.”
The assailant, according to Israel Radio, told his interrogators that he sought to avenge two of his family members who are jailed in Israel for terrorist activities. The killer said he was enraged by the fact that his extended family was not allowed to visit his relatives.
In response to the stabbing, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said peace cannot occur if this type of Palestinian incitement continues.
“Surrounding the murderer is an education system, official Palestinian Authority newspapers, mosques and other places in Palestinian society that are full of incitement,” Netanyahu said. “If we want real peace, the incitement has to stop.”