DARK SKIES BLOG

This idea is an embarrassing nonstarter for the Obama camp because it fails to address the use of proxies by Iran. But, reading between the lines, it appears the crux of this story is Obama’s reversal of his stand that Iran’s pursuit of nukes is “unacceptable.” To quote Sarkozy (said to Israel back in October, but still applicable today)…”Obama’s stand on Iran is “utterly immature…”

Here is an excerpt and link to the story at Fox News…

President-elect Barack Obama will offer Israel a strategic pact designed to fend off any nuclear attack on the Jewish state by Iran, an Israeli newspaper reported on Thursday.

Haaretz, quoting an unnamed source, said the Obama administration would pledge under the proposed “nuclear umbrella” to respond to any Iranian strike on Israel with a “devastating U.S. nuclear response.”

Granting Israel a nuclear guarantee would essentially suggest the U.S. is willing to come to terms with a nuclear Iran, the paper reported.

Update 5/19/2011, Obama says that Israel must return to 1967 borders.

It didn’t take Obama long to show where he stands with regard to Israel.

He has a great plan. Israel should just capitulate to Muslim demands…and, for its part, the Muslim world will agree not to destroy Israel. Why didn’t someone think of this before? Now all we need is a seven year treaty which includes the rebuilding of the Temple.

Excerpt from today’s Times UK…

Continue Reading »

UPDATE: Story now picked up by WND’s Aaron Klein, Hamas: We met Obama advisers

Per Israel Today (excerpt)…

In an interview with London-based pan-Arab newspaper Al-Hayat, Hamas spokesman Ahmad Yousef said that Obama’s advisors traveled to the Gaza Strip to meet with the group’s leadership months ago when he was still campaigning for the presidency.

Said Yousef: “We first made contact on the Internet and then met with some of them here in the Gaza Strip. They advised us not to reveal this information lest it influence the elections or become manipulated by [Republican candidate John] McCain’s campaign.”

Well, I guess not all the world is fawning over “The One”.

Per Haaretz (excerpt–emphasis added)…

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is very critical of U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama’s positions on Iran, according to reports that have reached Israel’s government.

Sarkozy has made his criticisms only in closed forums in France. But according to a senior Israeli government source, the reports reaching Israel indicate that Sarkozy views the Democratic candidate’s stance on Iran as “utterly immature” and comprised of “formulations empty of all content.”

[...]

Read it all…

Obama brags about how he’s going to change the world, but Ralph Peters gives us an educated peek into just what that change will look like.

LTC Peters (in today’s NY Post) provides a country-by-country analysis of Obama’s “can’t we all just get along” foreign policy…

Where would the avalanche of confrontations come from?

Continue Reading »

Biden has historically been a strong ally of Israel, so this comment may turn out to be apocryphal. If, however, it turns out to be true, there will be some slippage of support among voters who count themselves strong supporters of Israel.

Here’s an excerpt (read it all at Haaretz)…

Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden was quoted Monday as telling senior Israeli officials behind closed doors that the Jewish state will have to reconcile itself to a nuclear Iran.

In the unsourced report, Army Radio also quoted Biden as saying that he opposed “opening a additional military and diplomatic front.”

I have been scouring the news for any follow-up articles on the “Stone Scroll” or “Gabriel’s Revelation” as it has been called and haven’t found much that advances the arguments that have already been made.

I did, however, stumble across this piece this morning in IsraelToday.com and thought it worth posting.

Messianic leaders say Hebrew tablet validates Jesus’ claims

Continue Reading »

[UPDATE: See comments below for a reposting of a line by line English translation of the script on the stone--Source.]

Before the NY Times article on the Stone Scroll appeared on Sunday, Ada Yardeni herself (the specialist in Hebrew writing who recognized the importance of Jeselsohn ‘s stone tablet) published an article in the Jan/Feb 2008 Biblical Archaeology Review entitled “A New Dead Sea Scroll in Stone?”.

Here’s an excerpt. Read the whole thing, it’s quite interesting!

(…)

And the letters that have survived are often very hard to read. The back of the stone is rough and unfinished, unlike the polished side with script. This suggests that the stone was once mounted in a wall. Whether it was inscribed with the stone already mounted in the wall or lying flat on the floor, it must have been very inconvenient to write on the polished side and this may well account for the rather careless look of the script, which was nevertheless the work of a professional scribe.

The text has not been identified, but it is clearly a literary composition, similar to Biblical prophecies. It is written in the first person, perhaps by someone named Gabriel (“I Gabriel,” line 77), so I have named the text “Gabriel’s Vision.” It is apparently a collection of short prophecies addressed to someone in the second person.

Like the prophets of old, whoever wrote this composition proclaims the “word of Yahweh,” the personal name of the Hebrew God. And, again like the Bible, many of the prophecies open with the words “Thus (or therefore) said the Lord [that is, Yahweh and sometimes the more generic Elohim] of Hosts.” Sometimes the text uses Elohei Yisrael, “God of Israel.” There are also numerous references to Yahweh’s kavod, or glory, familiar to all students of the Hebrew Bible.

(…)

Here’s a photo at Ada Yardeni’s article…

UPDATE 7/7/2008 at 2:28pm EST: Here is a link to an English translation of the “Gabriel’s Revelation” stone at the Biblical Archaeology Review—English translation (in Microsoft Word). I have also posted the English translation (from Biblical Archaeology Review) in comments below.

This stone tablet, which contains writings dated to the decades before the birth of Christ, is thought by serious scholars of the subject to be a significant discovery.

The tablet itself is not a new discovery–it was purchased 10 years ago from a Jordanian dealer in antiquities by an Israeli/Swiss collector who, while himself an expert on Hebrew antiquities, was unaware of its importance until recently when it was shown to Ada Yardeni, a specialist in Hebrew writing.

“She (Ms Yardeni) was overwhelmed. ‘You have got a Dead Sea Scroll on stone,’ she told me.”

Read the article in today’s NY Times or in the Times Argus (Montpelier/Barre, Vermont).

David Jeselsohn and the tablet.