END TIMES PROPHECIES BEING FULFILLED – FAMINES, PESTILENCES, EARTHQUAKES, WARS AND RUMOURS OF WARS

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“And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.” Matthew 24:6-8

South Sudan is facing a confluence of humanitarian crises that are pushing the country to the brink of starvation. Conflict in neighbouring Sudan has caused over 692,000 people to flee into the country, hyperinflation is crippling the economy, climate change impacts continue to wreak havoc and all the while, the Humanitarian Aid Fund is only at 16%. At the same time, forecasts indicate that there will be above-normal rainfall in July following heavy rains that affected several areas in East Africa earlier this year. Already, 46% of South Sudan’s, 5.83 million people, were facing a worsening hunger situation with reports indicating that 1.7 million children could face malnutrition in 2024. Combined these factors are placing millions of lives and livelihoods at immediate risk. “The humanitarian situation in South Sudan is getting worse every day,” said Abel Whande, CARE in South Sudan Country Director. “We are particularly concerned at the condition of women, girls, and children arriving at transit centres in Rienk and Bahr el Ghazal, as part of the dramatic increase in refugees escaping violence in Sudan.

Hyperinflation and currency depreciation have made access to basic necessities nearly impossible, with families spending most of their income on food. This economic crisis, combined with the aftermath of years of conflict, severely undermines the communities’ ability to rebuild and recover. Adding to the difficulties, South Sudan is also bearing the brunt of the extreme impacts of climate change. Extreme weather events, including floods and prolonged droughts, are destroying crops, displacing communities, and exacerbating food insecurity. These climate shocks are pushing already vulnerable people into deeper poverty and despair. CARE alongside South Sudan local organizations are working hard to support communities and the refugees and returnees however they can but the situation is overwhelming. “The influx of refugees and returnees while communities already are facing severe conditions worsen an already bad humanitarian situation, ” said Angelina Nyajima, CEO of Hope Restoration, one of CARE’s partners.

To avert a catastrophe, the international community must act swiftly. Increased funding for the humanitarian response is paramount. More specifically, support must extend to the host communities, those who generously share their limited resources with displaced families. And long-term solutions, like investments in infrastructure, agriculture, and education, are the only way to break the cycle of poverty and vulnerability that fuels conflict.

Source: Care International

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE HAMAS INVASION

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This invasion of Israel was not a protest march that got out of hand. It was not a complaint about living conditions. It was the latest war launched by Palestinians to demonstrate their unwillingness to share the land. And it cannot win. If the world wants peace in the Middle East, it must ensure that what Hamas has done is not rewarded in any way. Only once the failure of such violence is obvious to them and to the Palestinian people will it ever stop.

The murderous rampage of Hamas, the killing, the raping, the kidnapping, is so shocking, so sickening it seems almost frivolous to say that it was also ironic. The apologists for this action suggest that Israel’s security measures – its fence, its border posts, its searches – are so oppressive that they are part of what is to blame for what has happened. Yet these terrible acts show that the security measures were necessary. In fact, they were inadequate to prevent this slaughter.

WHERE SHOULD THE JEWS GO?

Thomas Keneally tells this story in his book Schindler’s Ark, a volume that recounts one of the Holocaust’s most extraordinary stories. But sadly there was nothing exceptional about this exchange. At the end of the war, of those Jews who survived, very few could ever go home. Certainly nobody in my family did. And it was that – the many hundreds of thousands of displaced Jews with nowhere to go – that played a big role in changing my grandfather’s mind about Zionism. That, and the reflection that the experience of Jews over the previous decade had vindicated much of the Zionist argument.

The death and displacement of millions, including so many who were close to him, made him a pragmatic supporter of a state of Israel. It seemed to him obvious that there had to be an answer to the question asked by the Brinnlitz prisoners. Where do we go now? My paternal grandfather, also not a Zionist before the war, felt the same.

So we became a Zionist family, having never been one. We did not move to Israel because (unlike many others) we had alternatives. But we supported its creation, regarding it as an obvious necessity. A century of slaughter and oppression of Jews, culminating in the Holocaust, had made the case for a safe space for Jews unanswerable. And the repeated failings of other states to open themselves to Jews, even when they knew of mass murder, meant that this safe space would have to be a Jewish state.

And the United Nations reached the same conclusion. In 1947, having toured Palestine and visited Jewish refugee camps in Europe, it proposed to divide the land between Jews and Palestinian Arabs with a state for each. The Jews accepted, the Arab states launched a war. And the Palestinians are still fighting this partition plan.

Like my grandfather in 1927, I understand why the Palestinians did not want to share the land. But like my grandfather in 1947, I cannot see any choice but sharing. And while sharing is rejected by the Palestinians I cannot see any choice but to resist – stubbornly and absolutely and, when necessary, with force, even great force. For Israel must be defended. The question of Brinnlitz remains – where else are we to go?

This then is the question to put to anyone who says they are “pro Palestine” or wish a “Free Palestine” or waves the Palestinian flag. Do you mean in a state alongside Israel, within safe borders? In which case, yes, there is much to talk about. Even though it’s difficult and both sides have debating points that are hard to get past, yes, let’s talk. Or do you mean a state instead of Israel? In which case, no, definitely and firmly not.

Forty five per cent of the world’s Jews now live in Israel. Where else are they to go?

Keneally’s argument does not address the real story of who owns the land. God owns the land and He gave it to Israel. Also, God has told us how the story ends: Jesus will rule all the nations of the Earth from Jerusalem. Israel will be the ruling nation on Earth for 1000 years (Jesus Millennial Kingdom).