Execution of Iranian Pastor Temporarily Delayed

Sources say the execution of a Christian pastor in Iran for "thought crimes" has been temporarily delayed.

Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani was convicted of apostasy, which carries the death sentence in Iran. Authorities had scheduled his execution for Oct. 24. Sources say Iranian authorities are delaying the execution in order to put more pressure on the pastor to turn away from Christ.

According to Iranian law, once the written verdict is delivered, there will be 20 days to appeal to the Islamic Republic's Supreme Court.

Iranian security officials have informed the courts to temporarily delay the pastor's execution until further notice, the Assist News Service reported.

Meanwhile, Nadarkhani is being kept in a security prison in Lakan, Iran, which is just south of his hometown of Rasht. His wife was also sentenced to life in prison.

Nadarkhani leads one of the largest Protestant communities in Iran and has been targeted for converting Muslims to Christ.

He was arrested last October after protesting against the decision of local authorities to enforce the reading of the Koran to Christian children.

Jason DeMars of the website presenttruthmn.com quoted an Iranian mullah, or cleric, who said: "The circles for promotion of Christianity, Baha'ism, Wahhabism, Sufism should be eliminated with the efforts of the Law Enforcement Force as per God's wish. The most significant psychological disease is created by these meetings and circles. They are corrupt and the biggest disrupters of the country's security."

DeMars reports that supporters of the pastor are continuing in prayer for Nadarkhani to have strength to endure this pressure and suffering and that he would soon be delivered from the hand of his enemies.

Christians and human rights activists are also petitioning the Iranian government for the couple's release.
source:http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2010/October/Execution-of-Iranian-Pastor-Temporarily-Delayed/?cpid=EU_CBNNEWSPM_2010_298

Historian: German ministry was actively involved in Holocaust

Eckhart Conze says 'Jew Department' head traveled to Hungary during Third Reich to help organize killing of Jews

Associated Press
Published: 10.26.10, 08:06 / Israel Jewish Scene

A historian who helped prepare an official report on the German Foreign Office's involvement in the Holocaust has been quoted as saying the ministry was more deeply involved in the genocide of the Jews than previously known.

Eckhart Conze told Sunday's Frankfurter Allgemeine am Sonntag newspaper that some ministry staff members were actively involved in the mass murder.

For example, Conze is quoted as saying that documents indicate Franz Rademacher, head of the ministry's so-called Jew Department, traveled to Hungary during the Third Reich to help organize the killing of Jews in eastern Europe.

Conze is one of the historians who spent five years preparing the 900-page government report on the ministry's role in the Holocaust. It is to be published this week.
source:http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3974251,00.html

Hamas minister: We'll occupy Haifa, Akko

Fathi Hamas, Gaza's interior minister, visits Khan Younis University and threatens to seize Israeli cities with help of 'armies from all around the world.' Israelis and Americans won't be satisfied with any concessions, he says in message to Palestinian President Abbas

Ali Waked
Published: 10.25.10, 16:54 / Israel News

As Israel and the Palestinians attempt to renew direct peace talks launched last week, Hamas continues its declarations of war: The Hamas government's interior minister in Gaza, Fathi Hamad, said Monday that the Palestinians "will reoccupy Haifa and Akko."

Speaking during a visit to a university in the town of Khan Younis, Hamad addressed the Israeli operation in Gaza, saying that "the Zionist enemy is still hurting the defeat in the war and preparing for another round in an attempt to destroy the Palestinian resistance."

Hamad mentioned the threats to sue Israeli officials worldwide. "The commanders are afraid to travel to many countries," he said.

Turning to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Hamad said, "We are coming to occupy Haifa and Akko. We'll have armies from all around the world, and the convoys arriving in Gaza are carrying a message to our people, saying that we must stick to the path of jihad. The enemy is trying to impose a siege on us, but they are the ones under a siege and behind fences."

The Hamas interior minister turned to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as well, saying, "No matter how many concessions you make, it won't satisfy the Israelis and Americans."

The remarks were made on the backdrop of messages being conveyed by Hamas to many international elements. The organization's politburo chief, Khaled Mashaal, even told Newsweek that his movement would not object to a peace agreement if it wins the support of the Palestinian public.
source:http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3974751,00.html

Eight house churches closed in Syria

by Staff
October 22, 2010

(christiansunite.com) - At least eight evangelical churches in northern Syria have reportedly been closed by the Syrian government. The government ordered the closure of numerous house churches, claiming that they were meeting in places deemed inappropriate for worship.

Many Syrian Christians, however, believe that the government's "legal" excuse for closing churches is merely a cover-up for a wider government crackdown against evangelical Christian activity in Syria.

The closures are a devastating blow to Christian church communities in Syria, as many congregations cannot afford to buy a plot of land and build a church and so instead purchase apartment buildings to use as places of worship. (Source: International Christian Concern)

What do we want?

From blog of Son of Hamas
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In PALESTINE on October 22, 2010 at 21:25

My soul burns for a sovereign Palestinian State. No such thing has ever existed before. We have always been a territory, up for grabs by the strongest fist, whether Turks, British, Jordanians or Israelis.

Our need for independence is so strong, so deeply embedded that we are willing to sacrifice anything. Pay any price. Fight to our last drop of blood.

But do we know what we are fighting for?

We have suffered for more than half a century, only to fill Israeli prisons and Palestinian cemeteries.

What if tomorrow’s headlines announced the establishment of the independent State of Palestine, recognized by the entire global community?

What would it look like? Do we even know? Cuba maybe?

New Castro, Same Cuba, a new report from Human Rights Watch, notes that under Raul Castro, Fidel’s brother, Cuba continues to harass and imprison dissidents. The criminal code punishes “dangerousness,” which punishes such crimes as handing out the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or any behavior deemed contrary to “socialist morality.” Posted by Lloyd Billingsley on Nov 25th, 2009 and filed under FrontPage.

Like Palestinians, the Cuban people fought for decades to gain independence from Spain. They succeeded in the Treaty of Paris. Since 1902, however, the independent Republic of Cuba has been ripped apart by one revolution after another. In 1959, the people cheered when Fidel Castro seized control. But all he has accomplished is to make Cuba an international pariah and a prison of more than 11 million people. Every year, for the past 20 years, the UN Human Rights Commission has received resolutions condemning Cuba’s egregious human rights record.

I do not think we want to model ourselves on Cuba, ruled like China and Vietnam by doctrines to which everything and everyone must conform.

Nor do I believe that we want a Palestinian version of North Korea or Sudan, ruled by tyrants who govern by force and fear.

What’s left? Absolute monarchy like Saudi Arabia? A theocracy like Iran?

Led by Hamas, Palestine would be an Islamic state, oppressed by religious leaders ruthlessly wielding sharia law. Led by Fatah, Palestine would be a corrupt nation like Romania, structured on bribes.

What about democracy? Democracy has proved throughout the ages to provide a firm and stable foundation. If the building topples, the foundation remains. What and how we build upon that foundation, however, is determined by our choices. While I love the freedoms and opportunities of America, I see that it has made moral, economic and political choices in recent decades that threaten its continuation as a world leader.

Sadly, because of the mistakes and excesses of many Western democracies, we refuse to consider a democratic Palestine. The word itself carries too much negative baggage.

But democracy does not mean America or Israel. It means “government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.” It means you and I decide what we want a national homeland to be and how to build it. It means excising corruption with ballots instead of bullets. It means creating a binding constitution and a just judicial system. It means human rights over personal agendas. It means active, constructive membership in the global community, instead of continuing as an unproductive, non-contributing people group trapped in a hopeless struggle for we don’t know what.

We have become like a hunter in the forest, driven nearly mad by hunger. But he has never seen a deer and does not know what one looks like. So he shoots at rocks and trees, up in the air and into the wind. Finally, he starves to death in a wood filled with game. We have isolated ourselves from all of the opportunities the world offers to us and our children. We don’t know what a Palestinian State would look like. We don’t know how to join the international community. We have let ourselves be defined by what we call our cause.

But if we don’t know our endgame, why are we willing to pay such a heavy price?

What would happen if we stopped fighting?

Yitzhak Rabin, Bill Clinton, and Yasser Arafat at the Oslo Accords signing ceremony on 13 September 1993

Is there not one Palestinian with wisdom, love for our people and courage to sit across the table from the Israelis? Is there no hope of redeeming the Oslo offers? Do we still not see the stupidity of demanding all or nothing?

And once we became autonomous, is there no one among us with wisdom, love for our people and humility to ask thriving, successful democracies to show us how to build our own democracy? To show us how to avoid making the mistakes they’ve made?

If we stop fighting and start building, won’t the world be amazed?

Won’t the World Bank and International Monetary Fund provide us with enough resources to build a modern infrastructure and establish global commerce when they see that we have replaced our corrupt leaders with men and women of integrity, compassion and vision? Men and women who respect justice and human rights?

When they see what we can accomplish peacefully and creatively, won’t the global community demand that Israel withdraw its settlers and restore our land?

When we develop our land, won’t we be able to offer our refugees the right of return, as Israel offered it to Jews in the Diaspora?

And when we are a sovereign nation, won’t Israel be forced to empty its prisons of thousands of Palestinian sons, fathers and daughters and send them home?

Today, a Palestinian mother is honored if her husband or son is arrested and tortured or dies a martyr. Don’t our daughters, wives and mothers deserve better? Don’t our children deserve opportunities to become all they can—not terrorists and martyrs and victims of oppression, but men and women recognized by the world for their accomplishments in science, education, art, philosophy and industry?

Aren’t we tired of being a cause in the Middle East instead of an example?

Palestinian creativity has been channeled into digging tunnels, forming terrorist cells and planning attacks. We don’t have creative ideas because we are prisoners of a single destructive thought. What if we broke out of that suicidal mindset, stopped fighting for we don’t know what and unleashed our creativity?

Generation after generation dreams the same dream: drive out the Israelis, kill the Israelis, destroy Israel. We cannot see beyond our borders because we are blinded by our pain and hatred.

I am not saying that we can or should excuse the bloodshed, atrocities, assassinations, imprisonments and torture, theft and loss. I am saying that we need to move beyond it. We need to rise above it like a plane climbing through a deadly thunderstorm into the clear, open sky.

When will we stop dreaming the impossible dream and start dreaming of limitless possibilities? When will we stop targeting settlers, buses, schools and pizza parlors and target constructive goals as a nation, communities and families?

We can lift our hands in victory over a land charred by fire and soaked in Palestinian blood, or we can have jobs and industry, income and prosperity, health and education, freedom to travel anywhere in the world, whenever we want.

We can have leaders imposed on us or elected—and, if necessary, replaced—by us. We can have a Palestinian State that oppresses its people as the Israelis have during the occupation or a country with no limits on what we can achieve, how much we can accomplish or how big of a footprint we leave behind.

When will we begin fighting with our brains instead of our bombs? With reason instead of retaliation?

Even a two-year-old child can destroy. Only men and women of wisdom, vision and courage can build a nation.
source:http://sonofhamas.wordpress.com/2010/10/22/what-do-we-want/