MIDDLE EAST - For decades, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has been touted by American leaders as a moderate man of peace. US leaders from George W Bush to Barack Obama, and from Condoleezza Rice to John Kerry, all insisted that Abbas is the Palestinian leader who will make an historic deal with Israel. President Donald Trump has met three times with Abbas since taking office.
On Sunday night, Abbas showed them what he really thinks. He cursed Trump saying that the US President’s “house should be destroyed.” He attacked US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman in lurid, antisemitic language: “US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman is a settler who is opposed to the term ‘occupation.’ He is an offensive human being, and I will not agree to meet him anywhere. They requested that I meet him and I refused, not in Jerusalem, not in Amman, not in Washington.”
Abbas then threatened US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley. “She [Haley] threatens to hit people who hurt Israel with the heel of her shoe, and we’ll respond the same way.” He called Trump’s anticipated Middle East peace plan “a slap in the face,” and said, “we will slap back.”
Abbas declared “dead” the peace agreements he and his colleagues in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) signed with Israel for the Palestinians since 1993. He pledged to block any future US involvement in peace talks between the Palestinians and Israel: “We will not accept American leadership of a political process involving negotiations.”
By attacking Trump, his advisers, Israel and the Jewish people on Sunday, Abbas was effectively daring Trump to act on his words. Abbas is betting that Trump is bluffing so the White House’s next moves will be determinative.
“Just what is an APOSTLE?”
Today we find the Church of God in a “wilderness of religious confusion!”
The confusion is not merely around the Church – within the religions of the world outside – but WITHIN the very heart of The True Church itself!
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