This was posted by William Dorich on his facebook page. A map on the Albanian-American Civil League website in 1995 showing their "greater Albanian" aspirations!
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William Dorich
12 hrs · .
This map, according to the Albanian-American Civil League (Albanian lobby in Washington) on their website in 1995 showing their "Greater Albania" aspirations of amputating territory in Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Greece where the site claimed there were "large minorities" of Albanians. The map created such a stir in the U.S., especially in Washington that it was removed...not before I was able to make a copy.

Good Lenin, Bad Stalin.
Really ???
Good Socialism, Bad Communism.
Really ??

The Red Terror in Soviet Russia
( The term "Red Terror" came from the French Revolution and a bloody period, in 1793, known as the "Reign of Terror".

 This period was referred to by none other than Karl Marx himself ,years earlier, in a letter to his buddy Fredrick Engels !
Marx wrote:
"Once we are at the helm, we shall be obliged to reenact the year 1793.”)
(Gotta love that peaceful Marx guy !)
To overcome our enemies we must have our own Socialist militarism. We must carry along with us 90 million out of the 100 million of Soviet Russia's population. As for the rest, we have nothing to say to them. They must be annihilated.
—Grigory Zinoviev, 1918
(Socialist militarism?, how nice!)
(Yep, sure seems different than Communism)
NOT !!!!
(All Communists refer to themselves, first and last, as Socialists)
Here’s the story:
In August 1918, Fanni Kaplin tried to kill Vladimir Lenin.
She failed.
This failed assassination attempt was used as a rationale for the secret police (Cheka) to round up and deal with anyone suspected of counter-revolutionary activities.
From his hospital bed Lenin himself instructed the Cheka to:
“Prepare for Terror”.
(The Cheka was created by Lenin just six weeks after the coup of October 1917 )
Felix Dzerzhinsky was the head of the Cheka. The Cheka had total control.
They answered to no agency and were guilty of nothing.
Dzerzhinsky could simply explain away anything, no matter how ruthless, with no fear of repercussions.
For example:
The arrest and execution of 800 people in St. Petersburg in 1918 was explained away as ‘enemies of the revolution’.
None of the 800 was put on trial.
They were arrested and then shot.
Dzerzhinsky himself said that the Cheka operated on a 24 hour basis.
The Cheka had the total support of Lenin and were given free rein in Russia.
With their Socialist outlook, a persons occupation or even the size of their house could be enough to label them a “suspect” or enemy of the Communist government.
Gregory Zinoviev said that the enemies of the Communist government should be “annihilated”.
Lenin himself wrote to Dzerzhinsky that the opponents of the Communists should be made “to tremble”.
And tremble they would:
“There were numerous reports that Cheka interrogators utilized torture methods which were, according to Orlando Figes, "matched only by the Spanish Inquisition."
At Odessa the Cheka tied White officers to planks and slowly fed them into furnaces or tanks of boiling water;
In Kharkiv, scalpings and hand-flayings were commonplace: the skin was peeled off victims' hands to produce "gloves";
The Voronezh Cheka rolled naked people around in barrels studded internally with nails; victims were crucified or stoned to death at Dnipropetrovsk;
The Cheka at Kremenchuk impaled members of the clergy and buried alive rebelling peasants;
In Orel, water was poured on naked prisoners bound in the winter streets until they became living ice statues;
In Kiev, Cheka detachments placed rats in iron tubes sealed at one end with wire netting and the other placed against the body of a prisoner, with the tubes being heated until the rats gnawed through the victim's body in an effort to escape.

  Executions took place in prison cellars or courtyards, or occasionally on the outskirts of town…
-Wikipedia,
Lenin knew of these reports but was still not satisfied!
He wanted more arrests, more executions.
He demanded:
"More power to the terror"
In every city they entered, the Lenin’s Communists committed atrocity after atrocity.
In Crimea for example:
"corpses with hands cut off, broken bones, heads ripped off, broken jaws, and genital removed."
- The Black Book of Communism
The Red Terror also resulted in the execution of thousands of men classified as “bandits”. The term never had a legal definition and it became a one-word fits all term to explain the arrest and execution of mere “suspects.”In turn, entire families would suffer from just one family member becoming a “suspect“.
Dzerzhinsky explained in July 1918: "We stand for organized terror”
With the evidence currently available it becomes difficult to deny that Lenin was, not an idealist, but a mass murderer, a man who believed that the best way to solve problems—no matter whether real or imaginary—was to kill off the people who caused them.
-Richard Pipes
Lenin's, so-called, "Hanging Order" came on one telegram (dated 11 August 1918)
It read:
"Comrades!
The insurrection of five Kulak districts should be pitilessly suppressed. The interests of the whole revolution require this because 'the last decisive battle' with the Kulaks (landowners) is now under way everywhere.
An example must be demonstrated.
1. Hang (and make sure that the hanging takes place in full view of the people) no fewer than one hundred known landlords, rich men, bloodsuckers.
2. Publish their names.
3. Seize all their grain from them.
4. Designate hostages in accordance with yesterday's telegram.
This needs to be accomplished in such a way, that people for hundreds of miles around will see, tremble, know and scream out:
let's choke and strangle those blood-sucking Kulaks.
Telegraph us acknowledging receipt and execution of this.
Yours, Lenin
P.S. Use your toughest people for this.”
(Lenin really went after the “Kulaks”
From 1921 to 1922,
an estimated 5 million innocent citizens died of starvation.)
The beast has licked hot human blood. The man-killing machine is brought into motion
-Julius Martov
Socialism and Communism on parade !
Red Terror lasted from September 1918 to October 1918 although I believe that it actually lasted until the end of the October 1922.
Approximately 30 million would die !
Here’s a video about the “Good” Lenin and the Red Terror:
I’m sure this real history is not being taught.
Take a look ! It’s not good.
http://youtu.be/bEzejRkT78A
As I write this , it occurs to me that all these stories have so much in common.
From Pol Pot , Mao, Hitler, Mengistu Haile Mariam, Kim il Sung, Kim Jong il, Stalin or Castro .
So many things are the same.
That’s because the ideology is flawed.
It is dangerous and a threat to human life.
Good Lenin, Bad Stalin?
Good Socialism, Bad Communism?
Just a smoke screen to hide the deaths of over 180,000,000 innocent people.

Know the History
“”

UN, Obama, and Gates Are Globalizing Education Via Common Core

For over a year now, Americans have been up in arms over the Obama administration’s unconstitutional efforts to bribe and bludgeon state governments into surrendering control over K-12 education through the controversial so-called “Common Core” national standards — and the outrage is still growing. A peek beneath the surface, however, reveals that the nationalization of American schools is actually just one component of a much broader global agenda being pushed by the Obama administration, the United Nations, Bill Gates, and others: the globalization of education.
In fact, just this week, an invitation-only conference hosted by former Florida Governor and pro-Common Core ringleader Jeb Bush entitled “Globalization of Higher Education” took place in Texas. Among the attendees: Hillary Clinton, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, former World Bank President Robert Zoellick, UNESCO officials, university presidents, and more. While higher education appears to be the next target of reformers, the globalization of K-12 schooling is on the verge of completion — at least if the American people do not rise up and stop it.

For decades now, the globalists at UNESCO and other UN outfits have been openly plotting to impose what they sometimes refer to as the “World Core Curriculum” on all of humanity. According to the agency, it is all linked to UN Agenda 21. In addition to gathering up unprecedented amounts of data on everyone, the global “education reform” movement is essentially seeking to instill radical new values in children — turning them into “global citizens” with views inherently at odds with Biblical Christianity — to facilitate the total regimentation of human society. Countless programs and initiatives such as “Education for All” are working toward that goal. 

 

Despite the virtual media blackout, none of it is much of a secret — even in the United States. In fact, Obama’s Education Secretary Arne Duncan even boasts openly that the U.S. Department of Education he leads is “cooperating” with groups such as the United Nations, often dubbed a “dictators’ club,” to “improve” education in America. In a 2010 speech to UNESCO, Duncan even referred to the UN “education” agency as one of the administration’s “global partners” in the effort to globalize schooling as part of the “cradle-to-career education agenda.”

“Today, education is a global public good unconstrained by national boundaries.... It is no surprise that economic interdependence brings new global challenges and educational demands,” Duncan told the globalist UN bureaucrats, boasting of the billions of dollars U.S. taxpayers were being forced to send foreign governments and institutions for “educational reform” abroad. “Our goal for the coming year will be to work closely with global partners, including UNESCO, to promote qualitative improvements and system-strengthening.”

The “education” agenda, of course, has less to do with actually educating children and more to do with promoting globalist political goals and values through indoctrination at school. “Education is still the key to eliminating gender inequities, to reducing poverty, to creating a sustainable planet, and to fostering peace,” Duncan continued, with “sustainability” being UN-speak for central planning and global government. Quoting former South African President Nelson Mandela, Duncan noted that education “is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
Unsurprisingly, billionaire UN devotee and population-control zealot Bill Gates —  the primary financier of all things Common Core, other than U.S. taxpayers via the federal government — is deeply intertwined with the planetary effort. According to the latest estimates, while his own children attend an elite non-Common Core private school, the Microsoft founder has poured more than $2 billion into creating and promoting the dubious national standards for everyone else. Together with UNESCO, though, Gates is determined to impose the globalist vision of education on children worldwide.

In 2004, for example, on behalf of Microsoft, Gates personally signed a “Cooperation Agreement” with UNESCO to accelerate the globalization of education through information technology and communication. “Together, UNESCO and Microsoft aspire for there to be a quantum leap in the quality of courses and in accelerating their uptake by educationalists ... through the availability of standards, guidelines or benchmarks,” the agreement explains, calling for the creation of a “master curriculum (Syllabus).” “UNESCO will explore how to facilitate content development,” the document states.

After signing the agreement, as reported by Eagle Forum chief Phyllis Schlafly in 2005, UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura gave a speech offering more insight into the plot. Among the goals of the partnership, the UN agency boss explained: “fostering web-based communities of practice including content development and worldwide curricula reflecting UNESCO values.” As the document itself explains, “Microsoft supports the objectives of UNESCO as stipulated in UNESCO's Constitution.” (More on UNESCO values in an upcoming article.)

It may or may not be a surprise to many Americans to learn that in a 2011 document about an advanced training program produced by UNESCO’s International Institute for Educational Planning, the would-be global Department of Education, even uses the term “Common Core.” The course outline, which boasts that the UN institute has trained more than 1,500 “education planners and managers” from around the world, adds under the Common Core header: “Educational planners and managers need insight into the effects of demographic shifts, globalization, and social and political change on education.”

“The fourth part of the course presents the main development frameworks, including the ‘new’ international commitments as part of Education for All/ Fast Track Initiative, Poverty Reduction, Millennium Development Goals, and discusses their impact on the role and methods/instruments of educational planning,” continues the document, which essentially outlines the training program being used to put legions of globalized education bureaucrats devoted to UNESCO’s vision in key positions worldwide.  

UNESCO’s vision for a truly global education regime under the “World Core Curriculum” goes back decades, too, as its officials openly admit. “In the middle of my life I discovered that the only true, objective education I had received was from the United Nations where the earth, humanity, our place in time and the worth of the human being were the overriding concerns,” wrote the late Robert Muller, former UN assistant secretary general and the architect of the “World Core Curriculum” plot. “So at the request of educators I wrote the World Core Curriculum, the product of the United Nations, the meta-organism of human and planetary evolution.”

He described his planetary Common Core-like scheme as “a curriculum of our universal knowledge which should be taught in all schools of Earth.” One of his chief inspirations, he said, was former UN Secretary-General U Thant, a Marxist radical, whom Muller quotes as saying: “The world will not change and find peace, if there is not a new education.” Another one of Muller’s major inspirations was UN apparatchik and occultist Alice Bailey, who founded the Lucis Trust (formerly Lucifer Publishing Company) and claimed to channel spirits. 
        
UNESCO’s use of the term “Common Core,” too, goes back decades. In 1984, for example — the same year President Ronald Reagan withdrew U.S. participation from the UN agency — the outfit released a 51-page document entitled “A Methodological Guide to the Application of the Notion of Common Core in the Training of Various Categories of Educational Personnel.” That scheme was aimed at training teachers worldwide using the same standards, so that they, in turn, could fan out across the globe to “educate” students all over the world.

Even as far back as the late 1940s, UNESCO was actively promoting the use of education as a means to achieve what its first Secretary General, Julian Huxley, described as “political unification in some sort of world government,” which he claimed was “necessary.” In a 1949 pamphlet on using the classroom to promote “world understanding,” UNESCO said: “As long as the child breathes the poisoned air of nationalism, education in world-mindedness can only produce precarious results.” So, to deal with that, schools should use various means to “combat family attitudes.”
Critics and analysts have slowly started taking notice. “Some have decried Common Core as the nationalization of American education. Far more dangerous, however, is the globalism of Common Core that demotes American values, undermines American constitutional principles and detaches students from their families and faith,” observed Catholic journalist and public speaker Mary Jo Anderson in a piece for Crisis magazine. “Common Core is simply the newest attempt in the decades-old battle (Outcome Based Education, Goals 2000) to impose a U.N. globalist worldview aimed at ‘peace,’ sustainability and economic stability at the expense of freedom.”

Indeed, Common Core represents merely the culmination of decades of quiet efforts by the globalist education establishment to foist its new values for its envisioned new society on the American people. In 1994, for example, Democrat President Bill Clinton signed “The Goals 2000: Educate America Act” foisting “National Standards” on schools across America. Then, Republican President George W. Bush signed the “No Child Left Behind Act” developing national “accountability” schemes to ensure that government schools were teaching what the federal government demanded.
Before the 1960s, of course, the federal government had virtually no role whatsoever in American education. The Constitution specifically prohibits it by not granting any power over education to the national government, and thus, reserving that sphere for the states or the people. Today, however, schools are largely operating under federal control, despite the rhetoric, as they comply with federal mandates to keep the federal funds flowing. Common Core is merely the next step — but almost certainly close to the end game.  

Even before UNESCO came on the scene, tyrants and would-be tyrants always understood that controlling education — and the minds of the youth, by extension — was the key to power. From Marx and Stalin to Hitler, all of them knew corrupting children was their path to total domination. Today, Americans are faced with powerful globalist forces determined to shape the views and minds of their children through globalized “education.” And the outcome of this battle will almost certainly determine the future course of humanity.  

Seems the meme below about LBJ and the ‘Great Society’ has stirred quite a bit of heated discussion. So this is for those in that thread who are screaming (as well as the more reasoned) at me and/or others – Brenda, David, Edward, of course our friend Cleveland, et. al.

That the ‘Great Society’, LBJ’s ‘Model Cities’ program and the birth of the inner-city, welfare state damaged and continues to do harm to black-Americans is indisputable. There’s literally no point in attempt...ing to argue. But you are missing my point with the whole Republican/Democrat bickering.

Neither party has a lock on virtue or vice. The point I make & have been making is that we blacks do ourselves, our communities and our nation a disservice by flatly refusing to so much as consider voting any other way than one. Buying into the “all Republicans are racists, how dare you event talk to one” line of thinking damages US more than anyone.

Cleveland A. consistently asks, “What have Republicans done for the black community?” The answer is – precious little (on a local level), b/c there are no republican-voting black districts. Such does not exist, so how can they? We’re talking about blacks here but any group of people who say --in advance-, “We’re voting for you. No matter what. It’s a done deal. There is no way we’ll so much as consider anyone else” – that’s a voter bloc that’s diluting its own potency.

ALL majority black precincts in this nation have had nothing but liberal democrat representation for the past four decades +. Are ANY of them improving? Charles Wrangle – Watts; Maxine Waters – South Central L.A.; John Conyers – Detroit. These representatives have been representing these communities for 20, 30, 40+ years, they have become multi, multi-millionaires; and are their districts experiencing higher than nat’l average economic growth; high school graduation rates; property value increases? Or lower than nat’l average crime rates; unwed mother rates; unemployment rates? No. These liberal democrats know that they cannot lose their jobs, and their performance reflects their comfort in that knowledge.

So yes, some more of us do need to begin reaching out to, interacting with and voting for republicans – if for no other reason than to cease being so predictable. Right now one party can ignore us the other can take us for granted. That’s a terrible place to be. Our staunch refusal to support anyone other than democrats has made the democrats complacent and comfortable, the republicans distant and aloof. Imagine what these representatives would have to do if they knew there was a chance that 30, 40, 50% of us may vote the other way. When it comes to majority-black precincts we have only lower class neighborhoods. Where are the majority black upper-middle class streets and communities? There are plenty of white ones. Find me a black one.

But still, Cleveland does ask a valid question; there are policy-based reasons as well. From a policy position, what does the republican platform have to offer? Well, here's 3 easy ones:

1.
How about voting in some Republicans who support lowering taxes & easing restrictions on business operating in the neighborhoods and offer tax incentives & sunset periods to entrepreneurs, business owners & others considering bringing their businesses. Such legislative moves encourage economic development, provide jobs, get vacant commercially-zoned buildings occupied again. Democrats typically disdain the very idea of lowering ANYONE'S taxes, let alone those evil, rich, business owners & entrepreneurs who need to 'pay their fair share.' Illinois and Chicago legislators voted to DOUBLE business income taxes in 2012. Guess what? Businesses left and continue to leave the hood in droves. The same legislators are now proposing an 80% income tax increase on the state’s millionaires. Well, some of those millionaires own restaurants and oil-change shops and fast food joints in the hoods that employ people…what do you think is going to happen to those jobs when the millionaires decide “this place is too expensive and hostile”, and move on?

2.
True conservatives are in favor of providing parents in depressed districts with publicly-funded school choice programs. Our black, inner-city neighborhoods all across this land are peppered with lousy, failing, crumbling, under-performing schools with much higher than nat'l average drop-out rates. These schools are dominated by teacher's unions. Democrats are, in turn, in the pockets of the unions & therefore resist any and all efforts to break the (failing) school's monopoly on neighborhood education. They have NO interest in providing parents with options to get their kids out of under-performing often times dangerous schools. Republicans have no such alligiance to teacher's unions. In fact, those unions hate republicans. So we get a few elected & we can start breaking down the cycle of poorly-educated youths in our districts and start providing our children superior education which, of course, also has positive local economic consequences. Read my piece on this one day, its very insightful:http://www.americanthinker.com/article/2013/08/obamas_war_on_black_education.html

3.
Conservative republicans tend to be pro-life. The current iteration of the democrat party has a devotion to abortion that's downright cult like. They want as many performed as possible. Early-term, late-term, partial-birth, publicly funded, no parental notification,...you name it. We blacks in America once (at our historical high) made up about 18% of the total U.S. population. We now make up about 13%. Black women comprise about 8% of the total population of the nation, yet account for 39% of all abortions. Thru our blind devotion to the democrat party we are exterminating ourselves! Planned Parenthood, thoroughly in bed with Obama & the rest of the dems, is making BILLIONS off the blood of our own unborn. Planned Parenthood and other private abortion providers, like that demonic Kermit Gossnel, set up shot and operate in black & brown neighborhoods almost exclusively. Go to the upper-middle class parts of your city and check how many PP’s you see. Elect some republicans and begin turning that disgusting tide.

There, that's just 3 off the top. I could do this all night. We need to stop being so politically one-sided and realize that competition ALWAYS benefits the consumer. And right now, there is NO competition for our votes. None.

Dan Gray, former Progressive speak out

 

He saw the light, turned from the dark side over decades to become a Constitutionalist?

Year by year, issue after issue tore at his soul; tormenting him with the evil he had done, willingly and unwittingly. The lessons in our Constitution and Bill of Rights were brought home to him. Unable to ignore injustices, he could no longer abide "Progress".

 

Finally giving up privacy, his recent actions on behalf of Liberty have taken him from Shop Steward to successfully suing SEIU in Federal Court, to becoming a published writer in national venues including a former column in The Washington Times, to speaking on behalf of Patriot groups of every sort.

 

All but two of his family that remained in Europe were wiped out by the Holocaust. They refused to believe that it could happen there. But it did, and many times since. Now, America marches blindly "Forward" on the path to the dark night of Statist tyranny. Wake to the dangers, before it is too late!

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/sisterthundershow/2014/03/26/dan-gray-former-progressive-speak-out

March 24th – The White House is refusing to disclose how much it’s costing taxpayers for Michelle Obama & her daughters to visit China. But Michelle’s room in Beijing is $8,350/night. And Breitbart cites an upcoming National Taxpayers Union... Foundation study verifying that O has been on more trips, and blown far more taxpayer money while traveling, than any other president. Talk about “income inequality.” The following exposes just how hypocritical Democrats are on this issue. The Brookings Institution last month listed the large U.S. cities with the highest and lowest ratios of income inequality. The 10 highest in order: Atlanta, San Francisco, Miami, Boston, Washington, New York, Oakland, Chicago, Los Angeles & Baltimore. 9 Democrat mayors and just 1 Republican. The 10 lowest in order: Oklahoma City, Raleigh, Omaha, Fort Worth, Colorado Springs, Wichita, Las Vegas, Mesa, Arlington & Virginia Beach. 7 Republican mayors, 2 Independents & 1 lone Dem. Want to narrow income inequality libs? Then stop electing Democrats! P

 

New Anti-Semitism Tailored for Evangelicals

 

"For any self-respecting person, the endorsement of terror... at a Christian conference is obscene." — Kay Wilson, tour guide attacked by Palestinian terrorists.

In what is being dubbed an "unprecedented advisory," Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a warning to Christians to steer clear of the "Christ at the Checkpoint" [CATC] conference that took place from March 8^th-15^th in Bethlehem, and coincided with Israel Apartheid week there. Israel Today , a publication that investigated the conference, concluded that it could pose "a long term threat to Israel's security." According to the official statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

"The attempt to use religious motifs in order to mobilize political propaganda and agitate the feelings of the faithful through the manipulation of religion and politics is an unacceptable and shameful act. Using religion for the purpose of incitement in the service of political interests stains the person who does it with a stain of indelible infamy."

A ministry official stated that, "the conference is designed for the evangelical Christian leadership leadership -- an extremely important audience to us." Christians around the world should pay close attention to the Israeli government's concern about the dangerous propaganda being fanned and fueled at "Christ at the Checkpoint." According to the conference website: "the checkpoint and the wall become a focal point and symbol of the conflict." Yet the reason for the wall and the checkpoint is never mentioned -- not the daily incitement to destroy Israel, the countless terrorist attacks against it which necessitated the barrier, nor the seemingly corrupt leadership of the Palestinian people.

Looking further into the agenda of this event, the Jewish National News Service pointed out that "Christ at the Checkpoint" emphasizes replacement theology, which teaches that the Christian Church has replaced Israel and the Jewish people in God's purpose and plan so that the Jews are no longer God's "chosen people," and that Christians have replaced them. This is a source of division in the Churches and a stance many Christians resolutely oppose.
Bethlehem Anglican Canon Rev. Naim Ateek , president of the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, spoke at the inaugural CATC in 2010; he is one of the first church leaders to connect Liberation Theology with the Palestinian cause. Liberation Theology is a political movement in the Catholic church that stresses liberation from unjust economic or political circumstances; in the Palestinian cause, it replaces the Jewish Messiah in scripture with that of a Palestinian Jesus or martyr. As an aggressive anti-Israel campaigner, Ateek stated in an Easter message he once delivered: "In this season of Lent, it seems to many of us that Jesus is on the cross again with thousands of crucified Palestinians around him. It only takes people of insight to see the hundreds of thousands of crosses throughout the land, Palestinian men, women, and children being crucified. Palestine has become one huge golgotha. The Israeli government crucifixion system is operating daily. Palestine has become the place of the skull."
Executive Director David Brog of Christians United for Israel described the speakers of CATC as the "who's who of the new anti-Israel narrative...in a guise of love.... who claim to be "pro-Israel, pro-Palestinian, pro-peace." Just before the conference convened, Brog warned that "almost every speaker will blame Palestinian suffering on Israel and Israel alone." He calls CATC a "dangerously one-sided propaganda campaign against Israel."

According to a World Net Daily report, Brog later lamented about the conference that: "They are so careful about excluding possible justification for Israel's actions that not a word was uttered about the 60 missiles fired from Gaza into southern Israel. ... they are so disconnected from real Christian suffering that there's been no mention of the besieged Christian communities of Egypt, Iraq or Syria."

The report also quotes Dexter van Zile, a researcher and writer for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America [CAMERA] as saying: "The story told in this movement is of Israeli guilt and Palestinian suffering and innocence."
Bishraw Awad, former president of Bethlehem Bible College opened the CATC with a pledge of Allegiance to Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas: "As evangelicals we pledge our allegiance to Palestinian President Abbas and the Prime Minister."

Not only did Abbas complete his PhD with a dissertation that was replete with holocaust denial, he recently reaffirmed that the Palestinians will not recognize Israel as a Jewish state and also declared that any Palestinian state must be completely free of Jews. Yet, possibly to be on both sides of the issue, Alex Awad, a professor at Bethlehem Bible College stated he is "not against Jews living in this country," emphasizing that the "gospel is and should be good news for both Palestinians and Israelis."

Just before the turn of the new year, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned Abbas for referring to Palestinian terrorists in Israeli jails as "heroes." The prime minister rightly stated that "murderers are not heroes" and added that, "Peace can be achieved only when the education toward incitement and toward the destruction of Israel is stopped."
In response to the groundbreaking warning about the CATC by the Israeli government, CATC speaker Gary M. Burge, professor of New Testament at Wheaton College in Illinois, told Christianity Today by email that the statement was "tragic on so many levels" and "ill-informed." He also accused the Israeli government of political propaganda, of being absurd and called the statement "an incitement." Ironically, he substantiated the Israeli Foreign Ministry's warning by accusing the Israeli government of being "worried about this gathering because every year evangelicals are growing in their understanding of this conflict and questioning the standard Israeli narrative of things" -- even as during the conference, rockets were being launched from inside Gaza across the border into southern Israel.

For those who need a reminder about the contents of the Charter of Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip and has a joint agreement with Abbas and Fatah, it states that Israel "will rise and will remain erect until Islam eliminates it as it had eliminated its predecessors." It also echoes the motto of its parent organization, the Muslim Brotherhood: "Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Koran is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope."

Despite the anti-Israel propaganda, Luke Moon, of the Institute on Religion & Democracy in Washington, D.C, issued a critical warning about the conference's agenda, referring to the organizers of the CATC as "saavy" and having "found a way to reach Middle America....they took the liberals out of the program and kept the conservatives. The liberals were prominent at CATC 2010 and 2012, but they are gone."

Back in 2012, David Parsons, media director of the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem [ICEJ], warned that "what makes this 'Christ at the Checkpoint' conference unusual is that it is largely an initiative of Christians from the Evangelical movement, whose ranks traditionally have held favorable views on Israel." ICEJ Executive Director Reverend Malcolm Hedding -- a South African-born anti-apartheid activist, theologian and evangelical minister -- also pointed out in 2012 that "certain segments of evangelical Christianity are being drawn away from the movement's traditional support for Israel by those claiming the moral high ground in advocating for social justice." He stated that many of these "liberal, anti-Israel Evangelicals" are showing up at the CATC conference and they view Israel as an "occupying power oppressing the Palestinians." Hedding also pointed out a disturbing fact that they use Israel's security "wall as a prominent symbol of injustice" and that "such imagery is powerful and takes well informed minds to counter them." He further warned that "the lack of information has started to dupe many Evangelicals, who are being shamed into abandoning Israel because they are supposedly uncompassionate and blocking peace;" and that finally, "this new initiative aims to totally discredit pro-Israel Evangelicals with clever lies and distortions."

Yet as Luke Moon warned, this year was different as CATC for the most part, "took the liberals out of the program." It also included some opposing views. For example, Oral Roberts University President William "Billy" Wilson, unequivocally distanced himself from the doctrine of "replacement theology" which asserts that Christians are the "new Jews." A couple of other speakers pointed out that Israel's security wall is in place to save Israeli lives from terrorism.

Despite the attempt to shroud the real agenda of the "Christ at the Checkpoint" conference, its manifesto is revealing . It "condemns all forms of violence unequivocally," yet states that "Christians must understand the global context for the rise of extremist Islam" and furthermore "blames the 'occupation' as the core issue of the conflict;" and although CATC boasts a mandate of dialogue and reconciliation between Israeli and Palestinian believers, there are still those voices that are seemingly rejected from the conference. In a report released by Israel Today, entitled, "The Message 'Christ at the Checkpoint' Didn't Want to Hear," it is argued that CATC organizers do not want to hear from those Israeli voices that have been victimized by Palestinian terrorism or able to expose the Palestinian nationalist agenda.
One case has been highlighted: in late 2010, Israeli tour guide Kay Wilson and her visiting Christian friend, Kristine Luken, were attacked by Palestinian terrorists outside Jerusalem. Luken was killed and Wilson suffered severe injuries. Wilson approached one of the CATC speakers about speaking at the 2012 convocation, but was told that her story was "not what the Lord wants," a phrase that is sadly abused by some Christian leaders to exercise control -- akin to a kind of spiritual or psychological extortion -- over the follower. Wilson then expressed dismay about "how any Israeli.... Messianic believer, could justify participating in a conference that has chosen to associate itself with theologians advocating Replacement Theology and Palestinian officials with clear ties to recognized terrorist organizations." She further stated, "For any self-respecting person, and especially for Israelis such as myself, the endorsement of terror by association, at a Christian conference, is obscene."

Wilson is not off base; Israeli government officials have expressed the concern that the "blame Israel" propaganda coming out of the conference "ultimately serves, even if unintentionally, to encourage violence and stir up even more radical Islamic terror." They say it is "just the type of religion-fueled imagery that has in years past resulted in the worst kind of Christian anti-Semitism" -- disturbing words, given recent anti-Semitic Church history and the state of inertia that gripped the Church during the Nazi attempt to wipe out the Jewish people.

In the article "The Role of the Churches: Compliance and Confrontation" published by the ADL's Dimensions, A Journal of Holocaust Studies, Victoria J. Barnett wrote, "Churches throughout Europe were mostly silent while Jews were persecuted, deported and murdered." Barnett goes on to point out the "few Christians in the Protestant Confessing Church who demanded that their Church take a public stand in defense of the Jews" and how their efforts "were overruled by Church leaders who wanted to avoid any conflict with the Nazi regime." Although some Church leaders across Europe and North America condemned the Nazis, there was a priority of how to maintain "good relations with colleagues in the German Churches."
While many Churches have acknowledged their failures and complacency during Hitler's reign of terror -- with confessions of guilt by Catholic Churches in France and Germany, as well as by many major Protestant denominations -- there is a pattern of repeating the anti-Semitic transgressions of history that is evident today. The United Church of Canada , for instance, has instituted boycott and divestment drives against Israel that are causing dissension in the church; as well as in the Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal Churches and the World Council of Church's Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel [EAPPI], which supports the boycott, divestment and sanctions [BDS] movement and a Palestinian "right of return".
The BDS movement has been heavily engaged in targeting the Churches because (as stated on its website):

"Religious institutions are seen in many communities as embodying important moral and ethical principles. As such, their support of the Israeli state imparts a sense of legitimacy onto its actions. Religious institutions must understand that the Israeli state operates on exclusionary basis and actively discriminates against non-Jewish religious faiths. This applies especially to Palestinian Christians and Muslims."

Robert O. Smith, Program Director for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America/Middle East and North Africa, and co-moderator of the Palestine-Israel Ecumenical Forum of the World Council of Churches, authored a book, More Desired Than our Owne Salvation, in which he argues that "fundamental presumptions about Israel's innocence and collective immorality of Palestinians have been conflated with general suspicions of Islam, suspicions developed through Western Christian history." Smith portrays American Christian Zionist leaders as "lunatics, heralding God's judgments with an apocalyptic literalism," yet he fails to make any case against the validity of Christian Zionism. He opportunely ignores the historic Jewish struggle against Arab nationalism and voices such as that of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and the Muslim Brotherhood's Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, both of whom have called for the death of all Jews.
Returning to the "Christ at the Checkpoint" manifesto: it states that "Christians must understand the global context for the rise of extremist Islam." One wonders what these organizers think that context is, given the bloodshed in Syria, the widespread slaughter and persecution of Christians in Islamic states, the violence between Shia and Sunni traditions and the genocide against non-Arabs in Sudan's Darfur region, as just a few examples.
As for the manifesto stating that it "condemns all forms of violence unequivocally," the CATC conference gave a warm welcome to a protagonist of violence on its Facebook page: "We are glad to confirm that his Excellency the Palestinian Prime Minister Dr. Rami Hamdallah will attend and speak in the opening session of the conference." Hamdallah -- who reportedly ended up backing out the last minute -- once oversaw a Hamas-sponsored "Splendors of Terror" exhibition put on at An-Najah University in September 2001, where students reenacted the gruesome suicide bombing of the Sbarro pizzeria in downtown Jerusalem that had taken place only six weeks before the exhibition, in which 15 civilians, including seven children and a pregnant woman, were murdered, and another 130 wounded. Under "Hamdallah's tutelage, [the attack] was commemorated as a heroic act of Palestinian resistance."

In terms of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, long before Israel even became a state, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was working with Hitler to wipe out the Jews. Another point missing from CATC is understanding the sacredness of Muslim lands to the faith of the Islamist as well as the duty of conquest. In 641, two decades after Muhammad's flight to Medina, Caliph Umar issued a decree that Jews and Christians be expelled from Arabia in accordance with Muhammad's eventual decree upon his deathbed: "Let there not be two religions in Arabia." To this day, Islamists seek to wipe Israel's existence off the face of the map, as is routinely done -- literally, symbolically and wishfully -- in Palestinian textbooks and maps, in which Israel has been totally displaced. Israel was attacked by Arab states in 1948; forced to engage in a pre-emptive strike in 1967, and is currently under constant threat of obliteration from surrounding Arab States. It is worrisome, as recognized by Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that any Christian conference such as "Christ at the Checkpoint" can profess an agenda of peace, while attempting "to use religious motifs in order to mobilize political propaganda," presumably for Israel's destruction.