During a meeting in Bonn, Germany, the World Heritage Committee criticized Israel for allegedly engaging in “illegal excavations” in the Old City; causing damage to structures on the Temple Mount; impeding restoration work on the Temple Mount; and damaging the “visual integrity” of the Old City with the construction of Jerusalem light rail.

The committee also cited a number of Israeli projects in and around the Old City and the Western Wall Plaza, which it called the “Buraq Plaza.” Israeli Foreign Ministry director-general Dore Gold said the UNESCO resolution ignores any Jewish connection to Jerusalem, and also fails to acknowledge Christianity’s ties to the city.

“In fact, the Jewish attachment to Jerusalem has survived from ancient to modern times,” Gold said. “The Jewish people restored their majority in Jerusalem in the mid-19th century. Their ancient synagogues were destroyed and desecrated by a coalition of invading armies in 1948, who ethnically cleansed the Old City of any Jewish presence.” Gold said Israel was all but standing alone “against the tide of intolerance” sweeping the Middle East.

“As the historical heritage sites of this area are being systematically destroyed by jihadist forces, such as the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, UNESCO’s adoption of utterly false allegations about Israeli archaeological practices is misplaced and hypocritical, at best,” he said. “The resolution is full of distortions and is totally disconnected from reality on the ground.”

Be Sociable, Share!

In the letter, the Temple organisations and groups said: “Due to the closure of Temple Mount [the Israeli name for Al-Aqsa Mosque], the Muslims’ prevention of Jewish entry, and their inability to protect the holy site, the citizens of Israel propose that Temple Mount be opened only to Jews during the Jewish holiday and closed to the Muslims who riot at the Jewish entrance”.

The letter came as a response to the Israeli police’s closure of al-Mughrabi Gate to settlers for the final ten nights of Ramadan, as a large number of Muslim worshipers flood the mosque compound. The police said that they closed the gate to avoid altercations arising as a result of settler incursions. Temple activists said in their letter to Netanyahu that “Your response to our demand will show that you have fulfilled your pre-election promise in front of everyone to build mechanisms allowing for Jews to pray at the Temple”.

So, instead of piling into sovereign debt of developed nations, traders are pulling their money out of those places as the Greek economy teeters on the brink of collapse, Puerto Rico talks about delaying some debt payments and China’s stock market suffers its biggest selloff since 1992.

Investors yanked $2.9 billion from European government bond funds last week, more than ever before, and pulled $699 million from short-term investment-grade US bond funds, Bank of America Corp and Wells Fargo & Co data show. While these assets have traditionally been havens during rocky periods, they look less appealing now after more than six years of unprecedented monetary stimulus that pushed yields to record lows.

Why is that a problem? Well, the European Central Bank’s bond-purchasing program this year sent yields so low (negative, in fact) that investors revolted, selling German debt in the face of some signs of economic growth and causing unprecedented volatility. In the US, the economy has improved enough that the Federal Reserve is planning to raise interest rates this year from virtually zero, where they’ve been since 2008.

So for now, markets have been relatively sanguine Monday as the ECB expanded the assets it would purchase as part of its stimulus, China’s government pledged further measures to support the region’s stock market and Puerto Rico stayed out of default for another day. After all, where will investors run? The government debt that used to be their safety net looks more and more treacherous.

Governor Alejandro García Padilla of Puerto Rico dropped a bombshell on debt holders a week ago by saying he wanted to restructure debt and postpone bond payments. He urged changes to US bankruptcy laws that currently exclude Puerto Rico.

Like US states, Puerto Rico cannot file for bankruptcy protection [Puerto Rico is a United States territory]. But Puerto Rico’s public entities do not have the ability of US municipalities to enlist Chapter 9 of the US bankruptcy code to restructure their debt. “As a first step, Congress should provide Puerto Rico the same authority that states already have to enable severely distressed government entities, including municipalities and public corporations, to restructure their debts under Chapter 9,” Clinton said in a statement given to Reuters.

Encyclicals are much more formal and significant than remarks made during mass. They are letters written by a pope and sent to bishops all around the world. In turn, the bishops are meant to disseminate the encyclical’s ideas to all the priests and churches in their jurisdiction, so that the pope’s teaching reaches every church-attending Catholic.

All this leads to the following question:

Where is Pope Francis’ encyclical concerning the rampant persecution that Christian — including many Catholics — are experiencing around the world in general, the Islamic world in particular?

To be sure, the pope has acknowledged it. On April 21, during mass held at Casa Santa Marta, Francis said that today’s church is a “church of martyrs.” He even referenced several of the recent attacks on Christians by Muslims (without of course mentioning the latter’s religious identity). The pope is acquainted with the reality of Christian persecution around the world. So why isn’t he issuing an encyclical about it? Such an encyclical would be very useful.

The pope could instruct bishops to acknowledge the truth about Christian persecution and to have this news spread to every Catholic Church. Perhaps a weekly prayer for the persecuted church could be institutionalized — keeping the plight of those hapless Christians in the spotlight, so Western Catholics and others always remember them, talk about them, and, perhaps most importantly, understand why they are being persecuted.

Once enough people are familiar with the reality of Christian persecution, they could influence US policymakers — for starters, to drop those policies that directly exacerbate the sufferings of Christian minorities in the Middle East. Whatever the effects of such an encyclical — and one can only surmise positive ones — at the very least, the pope would be addressing a topic entrusted to his care and requiring his attention.

Today, indigenous Christians who’ve been in the Middle East before Islam was conceived are being slaughtered, their churches burned to the ground, their women and children, enslaved, raped, and forced to convert. “ISIS” is the tip of the iceberg. Even in the West, statistics indicate that Islam is set to supersede Christianity, at least in numbers.

Yet no encyclical from Pope Francis on any of this. Instead, Francis deems it more fit to issue a proclamation addressing the environment and climate change. Whatever position one holds concerning these topics, it is telling that the pope — the one man in the world best placed and most expected to speak up for millions of persecuted Christians around the world — is more interested in speaking up for “the world” itself.

Yet here we are: if even the Catholic Pope does not deem the ongoing, systematic assault on Christianity and Christians a priority issue in need of its own encyclical, what can be expected from the average secular/atheistic politician in the West? The answer is before us: brutal persecution and slaughter of Christians on the one hand, and absolute indifference from the West on the other.

This treaty is the first legal document negotiated between the Holy See and the Palestinian state and as such, constitutes an official recognition. The trial and judgment will be on September 20th, 2015. If Pope Francis chooses to ignore the summons, he will be judged in absentia. The Sanhedrin sent a letter to Pope Francis in reaction to the Vatican’s recent support of the Palestinian Authority’s unilateral moves to declare themselves a nation, reported the Hebrew magazine Matzav Haruach on June 24.

The letter was signed, “The Secretariat of the Court of Mount Zion”. The authorized representatives of the High Court are Rabbi Yoel Schwartz, Rabbi Dov Levanoni, Rabbi Israel Ariel, Rabbi Daniel Stavsky, Rabbi Yehuda Edri, and Rabbi Dov Meir Shtein. The Sanhedrin has no political or legal status, and clearly has no authority over the Vatican. However, it is comprised of some of the greatest rabbis of the modern Jewish nation, men who have dedicated themselves to Torah, serving God and Israel. One of the main leaders behind the revival of the Sanhedrin is Rabbi Yoel Schwartz, well known for his advocacy in strengthening non-Jewish support for Israel.

The court’s rulings have the highest spiritual significance. The commandment to appoint judges is learned directly from the Bible (Exodus 18:13) and the present Sanhedrin is an effort to reestablish a tradition dating back to Moses.

Most significant, perhaps was a story of the Pope’s visit Caroline Glick told The Jerusalem Post. In a conversation with the Pope, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu mentioned that Jesus spoke Hebrew. Pope Francis corrected him, saying that Jesus spoke Aramaic. A flustered Netanyahu agreed that educated Jews at the time spoke Aramaic, but the language of the common people and the language Jesus preached in was Hebrew.

Reuters wrote of the exchange, noting that, “Modern-day discourse about Jesus is complicated and often political.” The report went on to explain, “Palestinians sometimes describe Jesus as a Palestinian. Israelis object to that.” Pope Francis embraced Arab leaders, but more significantly, he accepted Palestinian national status, precluding any negotiated peace process, and voiding the validity of Israel’s claim to their God-given homeland.

He Criticized the 'Cult of Money' Driving the World Financial System.

Francis’ emphasis on the poor, and a style that is more akin to that of a parish priest, albeit one with a billion parishioners, was transforming perceptions within weeks of his selection. In a speech to diplomats accredited to the Holy See in May 2013, Francis spoke of the need for more ethics in finance. “We have created new idols," he said. "The worship of the golden calf of old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly humane goal.”

He's Not Afraid to Criticize the Church ...

Six months into his papacy, Pope Francis sent shock waves through the Roman Catholic Church with the publication of his remarks that the church had grown “obsessed” with abortion, same-sex marriage and contraception, and that he had chosen not to talk about those issues despite criticism.

... Or to Change Its Structure and Leadership.

Francis took on a Vatican bureaucracy so plagued by intrigue and inertia that it contributed, numerous church officials now believe, to Benedict's resignation.

Francis replaced traditionalists with moderates as the church prepared for important debates about the Vatican's decision-making process and the nature of the family.

He Endorsed the 'State of Palestine'.

Pope Francis put himself directly into the collapsed Middle East peace process in May 2014, issuing an invitation to host the Israeli and Palestinian presidents for a prayer summit meeting at his apartment in the Vatican.

Francis took the unexpected step in Bethlehem, where he became the first pontiff ever to fly directly into the West Bank and to refer to the Israeli-occupied territory as the “State of Palestine.”

He Could Change the Church's Stance on Divorce.

Francis set in motion a high-level debate about whether the church could change its posture toward divorced people without altering a doctrine that declares marriage to be permanent and indissoluble.

It is a hot issue within the church. The battle lines are clear: Some high-level church officials, most notably the conference of German bishops, want the church to relax its rules.

He Is Holding Bishops More Accountable for Sex Abuse.

Francis approved the creation of a Vatican tribunal for judging bishops accused of covering up or failing to act in cases of child sexual abuse by priests, a step long demanded by victims in the more than three decades that the Roman Catholic Church has publicly dealt with the abuse scandal.

He Is Reviving Liberation Theology.

Francis cleared the path for the slain Archbishop Óscar Romero of El Salvador to become a saint. Thousands attended his beatification, the last step before sainthood, in May.

For years, Vatican critics of liberation theology and conservative Latin American bishops helped stall the canonization process for Archbishop Romero, even though many Catholics in the region regard him as a towering moral figure: an outspoken critic of social injustice and political repression who was assassinated during a Mass in 1980.

He Is Pushing for Action on Climate Change.

On June 18, Francis released his second teaching letter, known as an encyclical. Entitled "Laudato Si'," it called for a radical transformation of politics, economics and individual lifestyles to confront climate change. It attributed environmental destruction to apathy, the reckless pursuit of profits, excessive faith in technology and political shortsightedness.

The central bank continued its freeze on emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) after Germany issued a humiliating ultimatum to Greece, warning that the country would be cast adrift and left to go bankrupt unless it agreed to much deeper concessions than anything offered so far. Sigmar Gabriel, the German vice-chancellor, said the landslide rejection of EU austerity demands in the Greek referendum changed nothing, demanding that the Left-wing Syriza government must accept further belt-tightening without any prospect of debt relief if it wishes to remain in the eurozone.

“The final bankruptcy now appears imminent,” he said. The Greek leaders have been told that they have a deadline of Tuesday afternoon to come up with far-reaching proposals. The draconian terms followed Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras' move to rally five political parties behind a national unity declaration.

It called for “substantive talks” on debt relief, an investment blitz to fight mass unemployment and an immediate shot of liquidity for the country’s banking system. The show of unity marked the start of what increasingly looks like a national emergency government, though it may have come too late to prevent an implosion of the banking system and a rapid slide towards "Grexit" over coming days.

The only surprise was that anybody was surprised: a day later, Greece remains a sclerotic, over-regulated economy; it still requires tens of billions of euros in debt write-offs; its banks remain illiquid and shut (now at least until Thursday); the country will run out of essential supplies by the weekend at the very latest; and the eurozone remains torn about whether it should surrender to the Greeks or inflict an exemplary punishment upon them.

The Greek opposition has backed the government on its negotiation, demanding write-offs and debt restructuring as part of any new deal, while the French have been making dovish noises, but other than that we are where we were last week. Even the news that the US wants Greece to stay in the euro, presumably to prevent the country from falling under Russian influence, is merely a restatement of its existing position.

The real day of reckoning has merely been delayed. One of the European Central Bank’s jobs is to provide liquidity to the banking system when it needs it by handing over euros, while requiring this funding be guaranteed against the Bank of Greece’s assets. Given that commercial banks have almost run out of cash, and the run from panicked depositors, Greek banks are desperately reliant on this liquidity support.

"The result is a tired, stumbling European Union that is dying on its feet before our very eyes. Credibility for the project is fading fast as citizens right across Europe awaken to the reality of its authoritarian instincts that seek to run roughshod over public opinion. With younger generations now turning against the EU project, we can see support for the EU's dream of a United States of Europe fading fast. An outdated European Union has been found out and rejected emphatically by young Greeks in the 21st century.

"It is all too clear to see why: both the euro single currency and the European Union itself have done great harm to the prospects of young people who are now realising that we do not need a single currency or a political union to be friends, neighbours and trading partners. Far more important than this European Union is the concept of national democracy, of which this Greek referendum and its result are a beaming example."

Because while the ECB could at least in theory contain the Grexit fallout with a few hundred billion in bond (and stock, since Europe is pretty much fresh out of bonds it can monetize) purchases, it will not be able to halt the contagion once it spreads to Italy, Spain and Portugal. But once it reaches France, and Marine Le Pen engages in the same type of negotiations with the Troika as Greece just did, it's all over.

Unfortunately for the ECB, that's precisely where it is headed because as Reuters just reported, "French far-right leader Marine Le Pen welcomed the early results of the Greek referendum on terms for a bailout from Europe as initial tallies showed the 'No' camp leading with results still being counted." Le Pen, the leader of the anti-immigration, anti-euro National Front party, said in a statement that the anticipated result was a victory against "the oligarchy of the European Union".

"This 'No' from the Greek people must pave the way for a healthy new approach," said Le Pen. "European countries should take advantage of this event to gather around the negotiating table, take stock of the failure of the euro and austerity, and organize the dissolution of the single currency system, which is needed to get back to real growth, employment and debt reduction."

Here is why we suggest the ECB panic: Le Pen's star has been on the rise in France and in Europe in the past year since her National Front party performed well in European parliamentary and French regional elections. Surveys suggest she could make the second-round run-off in the 2017 presidential election, if not win outright.

The CSI300 index of the largest listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen close down 6.8 percent, while the Shanghai Composite Index dropped 5.9 percent. With nearly half the market on a trading halt and another round of margin calls forcing leveraged investors to dump whatever shares could find a buyer, blue chips that had been supported by stabilization funds earlier in the week bore the brunt.

"I've never seen this kind of slump before. I don't think anyone has. Liquidity is totally depleted," said Du Changchun, an analyst at Northeast Securities. "Originally, many wanted to hold blue chips. But since so many small caps are suspended from trading, the only way to reduce risk exposure is to sell blue chips."

More than 30 percent has been knocked off the value of Chinese shares since mid-June, and for some global investors the fear that China's market turmoil will destabilize the real economy is now a bigger risk than the crisis in Greece.

In any normal summer, a 30 percent fall in the Chinese stock market – a loss of value roughly equivalent to the UK’s entire economic output last year – after an ascent which had seen share prices more than double within the space of a year would have been front page news across the globe. The dramatic series of government interventions to stem the panic – hitherto unsuccessful, it should be added – would similarly have been up there at the top of the news agenda. Yet the pantomime of the Greek debt talks, together with the tragi-comedy of will they, won’t they leave the euro, has relegated the story to little more than a footnote - even though 940 companies, more than a third, have now suspended trading on China’s two main indices.

The parallels with 1929 are, on the face of it, uncanny. After more than a decade of frantic growth, extraordinary wealth creation and excess, both economies – America in 1929 and China today – are at roughly similar stages of economic development. Both these booms, moreover, are in part explained by extremely rapid credit growth. Indeed, China’s credit boom dwarfs that of even the “roaring Twenties”. Borrowed money, or margin investing, played a major role in both these outbreaks of speculative excess.

True, the Chinese stock market bubble is only a one-year wonder, whereas the build-up to the Wall Street Crash of 1929 was more sustained. Even so, the comparison still holds. As noted by JK Galbraith in his classic account, The Great Crash 1929, even as late as 1927 it was possible to argue that American stocks represented fair value. It was only in the final year that the “escape into make-believe” happened in earnest, when the stock market rose by nearly 50 percent. This applies to the Shanghai Composite, too. Stripping out the lowly-rated banking sector, valuations for just about everything else have rocketed, making those that ruled on Wall Street in the run-up to October 24, 1929, look relatively modest. Nor do the similarities end there. As in 1920s America, China’s stock market boom has ridden in tandem with an equally speculative real estate bubble.

Already, there are warning signs of a slowdown, similar to those that front-ran the 1929 crash – depressed commodity prices and a virtual hiatus in global trade growth. The Chinese economy is like one of those cartoon characters who manages to keep running long after leaving the edge of the cliff, only belatedly to look down and plunge into the abyss.

Greece's default and the risk, dubbed 'Grexit', that it may crash out of the shared euro currency is the most immediate challenge to the long-standing notion of an "ever closer union" of European states and peoples. "The longer-term consequences of Grexit would affect the European project as a whole. It would set a precedent and it would further undermine the raison d'être of the EU," Fabian Zuleeg and Janis Emmanouilidis wrote in an analysis for the European Policy Centre think-tank.

Though Greece accounts for barely 2 percent of the euro zone's economic output and of the EU's population, its state bankruptcy after two bailouts in which euro zone partners lent it nearly 200 billion euros ($220 billion) is a massive blow to EU prestige. An economic collapse of Greece, apart from the suffering it would cause and the lost billions for European taxpayers, could aggravate all three of Europe's other crises and destabilize the fragile southern Balkans.

With tension already high in the eastern Mediterranean due to civil war in Syria, the eternal Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the unresolved division of Cyprus and disputes over offshore gas fields, a shattered Greece might turn to Russia for help. In exchange, it might veto the next extension of EU sanctions against Moscow, or even offer access to naval facilities once used by the United States.

Athens is already struggling with an influx of refugees from the Syrian and Iraqi conflicts who wash up on its Aegean islands, seeking the safest transit route to Europe's prosperous heartland in Germany or Sweden. Britain's demand to renegotiate its membership terms and put the result to an uncertain referendum by 2017 raises the risk of the EU losing its second largest economy, main financial center and joint strongest military power. A long, agonizing Greek economic meltdown, whether inside or outside the euro zone, with social unrest and political havoc, might reinforce those who argue that the UK economy is "shackled to a corpse".

Given Russia's lingering Cold War hostility towards Britain, seen in Moscow as the United States' most loyal ally, Putin would likely be delighted by any prospect of the UK leaving the EU. It would weaken those in the EU seeking a robust response to Russian behavior in Ukraine and Georgia and detach Washington's trusty partner from the continental bloc, although Britain would remain a member of NATO. That could strengthen Putin's hand in dealings with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has led European diplomacy seeking to restore Ukraine's control over all its territory.

Rem Korteweg of the Centre for European Reform compares the interlocking crises to the four horsemen of the apocalypse in the New Testament Book of Revelation: harbingers of a "day of judgment" representing conquest, war, famine and death. "The EU's leaders will find it hard to tame these four horsemen," the Dutch thinker wrote in an essay. "If a European answer cannot be found, the horsemen will continue to promote chaos, instability and mutual recrimination within the EU."

After I gave my speech that night at my alma mater, the European Business School at Fontainebleau, Chirac and many others were appalled. I said that joining the euro would exacerbate recession in some countries, and that some would find themselves ‘trapped in a burning building with no exits’ – a phrase that brought me a fair amount of controversy and abuse.

I was regarded around the EU as a rather eccentric figure, almost pitiable in being unable to see where the great sweep of history and prosperity was heading. One former senior colleague in Britain said I had become ‘more extreme even than Mrs Thatcher’, as if this was an unimaginable horror. Idealistic heads in Brussels were shaken in sorrow that the dreaded eurosceptics were not only growing in the Conservative Party but had now taken it over, with me having become, astonishingly, its Leader.

There is no doubt that I was wrong about quite a few things when I was leading my party. But I hope the Eurozone leaders meeting today will remember that those of us who criticised the euro at its creation were correct in our forecasts. Otherwise they risk adding to the monumental errors of judgement, analysis and leadership made by their predecessors in 1998.

Those who poured scorn on some of us who predicted ‘wage cuts, tax hikes, and the creation of vicious unemployment blackspots’ – all now experienced in abundance by the people of Greece – should at least now make the effort to understand why these predictions were true.