Pope Francis; Palestinian President Abbas 'Angel of Peace'

[Garland-Green]

Pope Francis Receives Palestinian President Abbas as 'Angel of Peace'


Comment;

Did the Pope Really Call Abbas an 'Angel of Peace'?  

[Garland-Green]

Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen (born 1935, Zefat, Palestine [now in Israel]), Palestinian politician, who served briefly as prime minister of the Palestinian Authority in 2003 and was elected its president in 2005 following the death of Yāsir ʿArafāt.

Abbas, born in the Arab-Jewish town of Zefat, fled with his family to Syria during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Despite the family’s refugee status, Abbas earned a law degree from the University of Damascus. In the late 1950s Abbas was one of the founders of Fatah, which spearheaded the Palestinian armed struggle and came to dominate the Palestine Liberation Organization ...  

[Garland-Green]

Fatah has maintained a number of militant groups since its founding. Its mainstream military branch is al-'Asifah. Fatah is generally considered to have had a strong involvement in terrorism in the past, though unlike its rival Islamist faction Hamas, Fatah is no longer regarded as a terrorist organization by any government. Fatah used to be designated terrorist under Israeli law and was considered terrorist by the United States Department of State and United States Congress until it renounced terrorism in 1988.

Fatah has, since its inception, created, led or sponsored a number of armed groups and militias, some of which have had an official standing as the movement's armed wing, and some of which have not been publicly or even internally recognized as such. The group has also dominated various PLO and Palestinian Authority forces and security services which were/are not officially tied to Fatah, but in practice have served as wholly pro-Fatah armed units, and been staffed largely by members. The original name for Fatah's armed wing was al-'Asifah ("The Storm"), and this was also the name Fatah first used in its communiques, trying for some time to conceal its identity. This name has since been applied more generally to Fatah armed forces, and does not correspond to a single unit today. Other militant groups associated with Fatah include:

Force 17. Plays a role akin to the Presidential Guard for senior Fatah leaders.[citation needed] Created by Yassir Arafat.

Black September. A group formed by leading Fatah members in 1971, following the events of the "Black September" in Jordan, to organize clandestine attacks with which Fatah did not want to be openly associated. These included strikes against leading Jordanian politicians as a means of exacting vengeance and raising the price for attacking the Palestinian movement; and also, most controversially, for "international operations" (e.g. the Munich Olympics massacre), intended to put pressure on the US, Europe and Israel, to raise the visibility of the Palestinian cause and to upstage radical rivals such as the PFLP. Fatah publicly disassociated itself from the group, but it is widely believed that it enjoyed Arafat's direct or tacit backing. It was discontinued in 1973–1974, as Fatah's political line shifted again, and the Black September operations and the strategy behind them were seen as having become a political liability, rather than an asset.

Fatah Hawks. An armed militia active mainly until the mid-1990s.

Tanzim. A branch of Fatah under the leadership of Marwan Barghouti, with roots in the activism of the First Intifada, which carried out armed attacks in the early days of the Second Intifada. It was later subsumed or sidelined by the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. Created during the Second Intifada to bolster the organization's militant standing vis-à-vis the rival Hamas movement, which had taken the lead in attacks on Israel after 1993, and was gaining rapidly in popularity with the advent of the Intifada. The Brigades are locally organized and have been said to suffer from poor cohesion and internal discipline, at times ignoring ceasefires and other initiatives announced by the central Fatah leadership. They are generally seen as tied to the "young guard" of Fatah politics, organizing young members on the street level, but it is not clear that they form a faction in themselves inside Fatah politics; rather, different Brigades units may be tied to different Fatah factional leaders.

Source: Wikipedia  

[Garland-Green]

Abbas: Hamas Doesn't Need to Recognize Israel  

[Garland-Green]

Abbas Sets New Preconditions for Peace Talks  

[cristobela]

No wonder God deals so severely with messengers. One mistranslated word can change the whole meaning and lead to unmerited hatred against someone. Not to mention distrust in any and all messengers, even those who report the truth. I'm not sure what to believe about Pope Francis because, on more than one occasion, I've heard people saying he said this, but actually no he didn't, it's not like that.

That said, the papacy is the modern day equivalent of King Jeroboam—changing the focus off of Israel, changing dates of holy days, changing laws, and leading people into literal idolatry, making man-made images in representation of God himself. So I don't trust the Pope already. Faulty reporting discourages me from reading anything about him. Reporters could foster unmerited animosity towards anyone with such careless translation. And that's unjust, even if it's the Pope whom I already distrust, I don't want to distrust him over lies/untruths about him. If it's true that they're already referring to it as the Palestinian State though, ugh. rolleyes

Israel's neighbors want to wipe her off the map so badly. They're acting foolishly.

• Psalm 83 (WEB)
  
  A song. A Psalm by Asaph.
  
  83 God, don’t keep silent.
       Don’t keep silent,
       and don’t be still, God.
  2 For, behold, your enemies are stirred up.
       Those who hate you have lifted up their heads.
  3 They conspire with cunning against your people.
       They plot against your cherished ones.
  4 “Come,” they say, “let’s destroy them as a nation,
       that the name of Israel may be remembered no more.”
  5 For they have conspired together with one mind.
       They form an alliance against you.
  6 The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites;
       Moab, and the Hagrites;
  7 Gebal, Ammon, and Amalek;
       Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre;
  8 Assyria also is joined with them.
       They have helped the children of Lot.
  Selah.
  9 Do to them as you did to Midian,
       as to Sisera, as to Jabin, at the river Kishon;
  10 who perished at Endor,
       who became as dung for the earth.
  11 Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb;
       yes, all their princes like Zebah and Zalmunna;
  12      who said, “Let us take possession of God’s pasture lands.”
  13 My God, make them like tumbleweed;
       like chaff before the wind.
  14 As the fire that burns the forest,
       as the flame that sets the mountains on fire,
  15     so pursue them with your tempest,
       and terrify them with your storm.
  16 Fill their faces with confusion,
       that they may seek your name, Yahweh.
  17 Let them be disappointed and dismayed forever.
       Yes, let them be confounded and perish;
  18 that they may know that you alone, whose name is Yahweh,
       are the Most High over all the earth.