Smoke and flames are seen following an Israeli airstrike in the Khan Yunis town of the southern Gaza Strip on September 16, 2020. Israel bombed sites in the Gaza Strip early Wednesday, Palestinian security sources said, after rocket fire from the Hamas-controlled territory into Israel the previous evening. The retaliatory attack came the morning after the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed a landmark accord in Washington establishing diplomatic relations with the Jewish state.  Photo by SAID KHATIB/AFP via Getty Images.

Source: https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/09/gaza-hamas-factions-rockets-israel-uae-bahrain-normalization.html

The post Gaza factions respond with rockets to UAE, Bahrain normalization with Israel first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

U.S. President Donald Trump at a White House press briefing, September 18, 2020.Credit: Alex Brandon / AP

The United States on Monday will sanction more than two dozen people and entities involved in Iran’s nuclear, missile and conventional arms programs, a senior U.S. official said, putting teeth behind United Nations sanctions on Tehran that Washington argues have resumed despite the opposition of allies and adversaries.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said Iran could have enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon by the end of the year and that Tehran has resumed long-range missile cooperation with nuclear-armed North Korea. He did not provide detailed evidence regarding either assertion.

The new sanctions fit into U.S. President Donald Trump‘s effort to limit Iran’s regional influence and come a week after U.S.-brokered deals for the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to normalize ties with Israel, pacts that may coalesce a wider coalition against Iran while appealing to pro-Israel U.S. voters ahead of the November 3 election.

The new sanctions also put European allies, China and Russia on notice that while their inclination may be to ignore the U.S. drive to maintain the UN sanctions on Iran, companies based in their nations would feel the bite for violating them.

A major part of the new U.S. push is an executive order targeting those who buy or sell Iran conventional arms that was previously reported by Reuters and will also be unveiled by the Trump administration on Monday, the official said.

The Trump administration suspects Iran of seeking nuclear weapons – something Tehran denies – and Monday’s punitive steps are the latest in a series seeking to stymie Iran’s atomic program, which U.S. ally Israel views as an existential threat.

“Iran is clearly doing everything it can to keep in existence a virtual turnkey capability to get back into the weaponization business at a moment’s notice should it choose to do so,” the U.S. official told Reuters.

• Iran’s Foreign Minister: World Should Oppose U.S. Sanctions or Expect to Face Them
• Trump Plans Executive Order to Punish Arms Trade With Iran, Sources Say
• Rohani Says U.S. Faces Defeat as UN Chief Says He Can’t Act to Reimpose Sanctions
  

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The official argued Iran wants a nuclear weapons capability and the means to deliver it despite the 2015 deal that sought to prevent this by restraining Iran’s atomic program in return for access to the world market.

In May 2018, Trump abandoned that agreement to the dismay of the other parties – Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia – and restored U.S. sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy.

Iran, in turn, has gradually breached the central limits in that deal, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), including on the size of its stockpile of low-enriched uranium as well as the level of purity to which it was allowed to enrich uranium.

A woman, wearing a protective mask amid the COVID-19 pandemic, walks past a mural painted on the outer walls of the former US embassy in the Iranian capital Tehran on September 20, 2020. Credit: ATTA KENARE/AFP

“Because of Iran’s provocative nuclear escalation, it could have sufficient fissile material for a nuclear weapon by the end of this year,” the official said without elaborating except to say this was based on “the totality” of information available to the United States, including from the IAEA.

The Vienna-based agency has said Iran only began significantly breaching the 2015 deal’s limits after the U.S. withdrawal and it is still enriching uranium only up to 4.5 percent, well below the 20 percent it had achieved before that agreement, let alone the roughly 90 percent purity that is considered weapons-grade, suitable for an atomic bomb.

“Iran and North Korea have resumed cooperation on a long-range missile project, including the transfer of critical parts,” he added, declining to say when such joint work first began, stopped, and then started again.

Asked to comment on the impending new U.S. sanctions and the U.S. official’s other statements, a spokesman for Iran’s mission to the United Nations dismissed them as propaganda and said they would further isolate the United States.

“The U.S.’ ‘maximum pressure’ show, which includes new propaganda measures almost every week, has clearly failed miserably, and announcing new measures will not change this fact,” the mission’s spokesman, Alireza Miryousefi, told Reuters in an email.

“The entire world understands that these are a part of (the) next U.S. election campaign, and they are ignoring the U.S.’ preposterous claims at the UN today. It will only make (the) U.S. more isolated in world affairs,” he said.

The White House declined comment in advance of Monday’s announcements.

‘Snapback’ of UN sanctions? 

The U.S. official confirmed Trump will issue an executive order that would allow the United States to punish those who buy or sell conventional arms to Iran with secondary sanctions, depriving them of access to the U.S. market.

The proximate cause for this U.S. action is the impending expiration of a UN arms embargo on Iran and to warn foreign actors – U.S. entities are already barred from such trade – that if they buy or sell arms to Iran they will face U.S. sanctions.

Under the 2015 nuclear deal the UN conventional arms embargo is set to expire on October 18.

The United States says it has triggered a “snapback,” or resumption, of virtually all UN sanctions on Iran, including the arms embargo, to come into effect at 8 P.M. on Saturday (0000 GMT) on Sunday.

Other parties to the nuclear deal and most UN Security Council members have said they do not believe the United States has the right to reimpose the UN sanctions and that the U.S. move has no legal effect.

Members of the Security Council vote at United Nations headquarters on the landmark nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers, 2015.Credit: Seth Wenig,AP

On Friday, Britain, France and Germany told the Security Council that UN sanctions relief for Iran – agreed under the 2015 nuclear deal – would continue beyond Sunday, despite Washington’s assertion.

In letters to the Security Council on Saturday, China’s UN Ambassador Zhang Jun and Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia both described the U.S. move as “illegitimate” and said the UN sanctions relief for Iran would continue.

Also on Saturday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council he cannot act on the U.S. declaration that UN sanctions had been reimposed because it was not clear whether they had snapped back.

“It is not for the Secretary-General to proceed as if no such uncertainty exists,” he said.

Targets include Iran’s nuclear, missile, arms groups

The new executive order will define conventional weapons broadly as any item with a potential military use, meaning it could cover such things as speed boats that Iran retrofits to harass vessels in international waters, the U.S. official told Reuters.

It would also apply to conventional circuit boards that can be used in ballistic missile guidance systems, he added.

The more than two dozen targets to be hit with sanctions on Monday include those involved in Iran’s conventional arms, nuclear and missile programs, the official said, saying some of the targets are already sanctioned under other U.S. programs.

That could prompt criticism that the U.S. move is redundant and designed for public relations purposes to look tough on Iran, a charge critics have made about past U.S. sanctions actions.

Among the targets will be Iran’s “most nefarious arms organizations,” about a dozen senior officials, scientists and experts from Iran’s nuclear complex, members of a procurement network that supplies military-grade dual-use goods for Iran’s missile program, and several senior officials involved in Iran’s ballistic missile program, the U.S. official said.

The official declined to name the targets, saying this would be made public on Monday, and stressed that the United States wants to deter foreign companies from dealing with them even if their governments believe this is legally permitted.

“You might have a split in some countries where a foreign government may claim that the UN sanctions don’t snap back but their banks and companies will abide by U.S. sanctions because they want to make sure they are not a future target,” he said.

Source: https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/u-s-official-iran-to-have-enough-fissile-material-for-nuclear-bomb-by-year-s-end-1.9171345

The post Iran Would Have Enough Fissile Material for Nuclear Bomb by Year’s End, U.S. Official Says first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

“No, no, no,” said former Secretary of State (under Obama) John Kerry.  If some one thought it would be possible to make peace between Israel and other Arab nations without first satisfying the demands of the Palestinians, they had another thing coming.  It simply wasn’t possible, so why even try?  But John wasn’t the only one haughtily talking sing-song.  The media said it constantly.  Most believed it and parroted it.  Nothing could move past the stalemate between Israel and the Palestinians, it was impossible.  There was nothing to do but satisfy the demands of the “Palestinians,” and no leader of the Palestinians dared move toward peace with Israel without risking the very real possibility of assassination.  It wouldn’t be the first time.

But as we saw this week at the White House signing ceremony, it wasn’t impossible after all.  The President sat between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Foreign Ministers of both the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain and signed a comprehensive pact of cooperation dubbed the Abraham Accords that includes the exchange of embassies, direct flights between capitals and phone system links.  According to statements by the President and his aides, we’re going to see a whole raft of Arab countries make peace with Israel including eventually even Iran and the Palestinians.  “Iran can’t wait to make a deal,” said the President at last night’s rally (he called it a friendly protest).

Is it OK to mention the strides toward Middle East peace, or is that too “political” for an organization like ours?  On the surface, it sounds like a wonderful development.  Too bad we know some of the warnings contained in the Bible.  When do we get to start worrying about “peace and safety” in the Western world?  How about American cities?  What we’ve seen developing, which is anger and violence on a whole new level, doesn’t inspire much confidence.  We’re being led to believe that ALL the demands of the riotous protesters must be satisfied, or we can just get used to “peaceful protests” burning down businesses, ambushing police officers and trashing city centers.

Global warming is on the march too!  For nearly four decades those who want to see Western civilization under the thumb of a dictatorial system ranted and raved that “global warming” was an “existential threat,” and that we needed to start driving battery cars and using windmills and solar panels for electricity before it’s too late!  We wanted to print an article that appeared in Forbes’ publication in the upcoming 21^st Century WATCH.  Since it’s not going to appear, we’ll tell you what it says.  An electric car has already used half the “carbon footprint” of the life of an internal combustion vehicle before it ever leaves the showroom floor.  If the battery has to be replaced before the vehicle is worn out, then the pollution involved surpasses anything produced by your standard piston engine, to say nothing of the constant charging of the electric vehicle.  That’s not to say that electric vehicles don’t have their place (quiet golf carts are nice), but they’re definitely not going to “save the planet.”

They’re blaming the West coast fires on “global warming.”  If somebody says otherwise, the media labels them a right-wing kook.  But arsonists keep getting caught setting fires, particularly in and around places like Portland where the rioting has been the worst.  Despite mainstream denials, you can watch videos of firebugs being caught in the act.

The F.I.B. investigated and zuckerbook has been removing posts that claim activists are responsible for some of the western wildfires.  The information was on the (9-14-20) Yahoo page.  To the right of that page it said, “What to Read Next” above a photo of a fire fighter and his dog rummaging through  the rubble of a building or house surrounded by charred forest.  The headline read, “Oregon Man Arrested Twice in 12 Hours for starting Fires Near Portland Freeway.”  Maybe no one noticed that the second story on tap disputed what was just said in the first.  Maybe you saw the Oregon video of a man being made to lie face down on the pavement as a female landowner holds him for the police.  He’s in all black, of course, and the landowner asks, “What are those matches doing in your hand?” He replies, “I’m a smoker.”  “Then where are your (expletive deleted) cigarettes?!?”  The whole scene is choked with smoke.

To get a feel for the extent of the smoke, take a look at the satellite images.  You can see the whole thing from space, and it shows that the smoke gets blown out to sea and then comes back with the weather.  Having talked to John Mitchell in Sacramento (9-15-20), he said that the smoke in that area has been “hazardous” for the past 10 days straight, and there is no letup in sight.  There have been stories, most times accompanied by video, of firebugs running around lighting fires in Washington state and Oregon.  But that disputes the media narrative that seeks to convince us that the fires are nothing more than PROOF of global warming.  It’s more like PROOF that black lives matter and antifa thugs are willing to burn the country down to get their way.  Getting their way demands the destruction of freedom.  Or is that too political to talk about?

California is ordering Jewish congregations NOT to gather in observance of Rosh Hashanah, or the Feast of Trumpets, in Los Angeles.  We’ll see what legal ramifications are involved, but it kind of looks like both the governor and the mayor of Los Angeles are pitting their “authority” against God’s instructions for the good of the collective. But we don’t believe in “the collective” or any of their other communist ideals.  Good luck to the preening politicians.  They’ve picked the wrong fight.  We’ll be here for the Feast of Trumpets as commanded by God.  The Texas governor has screwed up big time, perhaps having destroyed Texas’ reputation permanently.  But at least we haven’t been “ordered” not to assemble for the annual Holy Day.  We’d have defied him anyway.

Mark

PS:  We hope that all of you will be able to observe the Feast of Trumpets without incident. It begins at sundown this evening.  We’ll be live streaming our service on the Intercontinental Church of God youtube channel at 1:00 pm Central time.

Source:  http://www.intercontinentalcog.org/fridayupdates.php

The post Weekly Update by Mark Armstrong – 18 September 2020 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

It’s a day we’ll never forget.  But at least we had an identifiable enemy to track down.  Nineteen years ago we got a mighty serious wake-up call.  We had no choice but to come to grips with the reality that some idiot zealots were prepared to kill innocent people by the thousands in order to show us that Islam is the true religion.  For a minute or two, it seemed that the United States was unified against a common enemy.

On September 11, 2001 we didn’t know what was going on.  Some worst-case scenarios passed our minds.  How many hijacked airliners?  We didn’t know.  What will they destroy?  Three thousand innocents didn’t survive the onslaught.  Most of them died in the collapsed twin towers, but innocent Americans were also killed in the Pentagon and some were passengers on the ill-fated planes.  Once we knew the extent of it and that the nation would survive, fear turned to anger.  The president (G. W. Bush) at the time led the angry reaction, and within weeks American bombers were blasting a labyrinth of caves in Afghanistan, to be followed by battalions of troops.

The bad news is that nineteen years later, we still maintain a presence in Afghanistan.  We’ve been losing soldiers right along, dozens to so-called “friendly fire” incidents where trusted locals turned on our men and murdered them inside our own bases.  The cat and mouse games have gone on for nearly twenty years now, and hundreds more of our American soldiers have been killed or maimed in the impossible mission of establishing some reason and logic. It couldn’t be done, and there our people are still, suffering the blight of the Muslim Middle East, and occasionally we lose some to hideous injury or death.

President Trump announced his intention to bring our soldiers home from these “endless” and unproductive wars.  But the Pentagon disagreed, and Trump deferred to their experience and knowledge.  Three and a half years into Trump’s first term and our troops are still there.  The generals with rank don’t want to see America pull out of any of several locations in the Middle East.  But Trump’s not waiting for them to come around.  Who are they working for anyway?  Turns out many of them go on to make big bucks lobbying for the manufacturers of equipment and munitions, after they retire from the American military.  Something’s not entirely right.

So the breaking news this week is that Trump is drawing down our forces in the Middle East dramatically.  The mainstream hated to interrupt their wall to wall coverage of the latest lie published in the Atlantic.  They called in everybody and their dog to find out why Trump hates the military so much that he’d call dead WW1 and WW2 veterans suckers and losers.  Not only did he purportedly say it, but said it with all kinds of people present!  The only problem for the media is that several of those who were claimed to have been present denied he said any such thing.  Even John Bolton denied he said it, and you surely know where he’s coming from.

So the past week has been more unfounded hear-say against Trump, and the media has been working overtime to say he has no respect for the military.  Except he’s shown otherwise.  He’s provided our guys with all new and improved equipment, vehicles, tanks, airplanes and enough ordnance so they won’t run out.  But the bent genders at the anchor desks are determined that Trump hates the military, and that we all hate Trump.  Have you ever, in your life, seen such a crusade?  Maybe they’ll be able to find a soldier that is really incensed that he got to come home.  Stand by.  The search has begun.

The other news is that Bahrain has decided to make peace with Israel.  First the UAE, now Bahrain, and we’re led to believe that there will be more.  There’s no describing how irrelevant those angry “Palestinians” must be feeling.  They thought they held the key to the entire Middle East, including the wealthy nations that don’t exactly need everything blown to rubble.  It seems that their importance may have been somewhat inflated.  Our media has been pushing that narrative for about forty some years, and it’s blown up in their faces too.  What will that crazy Donald Trump do next?

In the United States, it’s open season on police officers and…they’re quitting.  Can you even imagine the anarchy that will prevail if the “abolish the police” movement succeeds?  We’ve seen examples in several cities, and it’s not pretty.  Police are in a no-win situation.  In many cases, they’ve been ordered NOT to do their jobs.  We’ve seen the results.  In Minneapolis and in Seattle, the police (or their bosses) decided it would be a good idea to abandon their buildings.  The one in Seattle is still standing.  The one in Minneapolis was torched.  Police cannot maintain law and order lest the media foment additional anarchy.  Not only that, the rioters might be offended, the “news” desks will be offended and claim that the police are causing the riots, and the rioters are just a bunch of pitiful victims.

This week we learned that the entire upper echelon of Rochester, NY police decided it is time to go.  Some have served their community for decades.  Police put a spit mask (isn’t everybody wearing one?) on a black man exhibiting signs of insanity and forced him to the ground, where he expired.  It doesn’t seem that they did anything that would have caused his death, but he died anyway.   You don’t suppose it had anything to do with the fact that he was OD-ing on PCP?   The Medical Examiner thought it might. Rochester is the latest battleground for masked thugs and arsonists, most of whom are probably from somewhere else.

Apparently the police don’t want to play the stupid games that have taken place in other cities.  They can’t win, and chances are their jobs were going to be eliminated.  But they didn’t give that or any other explanation.  They just quit.  We don’t know exactly why.  They’ve probably decided life is too short to be squandered in the streets doing battle with a horde of professional thugs transported in to wreck the place.  It is now being reported that more than two dozen Chiefs of Police have resigned in just the past two months.  This week we learned that the Dallas Police Chief, the first black woman to hold the post, is leaving too.  You have to wonder if whatever other profession they’ve all chosen will be workable when there’s no one to call.  This thing could spiral completely out of control.  Then even the snowflakes will be praying for Jesus’ return.

Mark

PS: Anyone who needs DVDs for use during the Feast of Tabernacles should let us know right away. We will be live-streaming our services on the Intercontinental Church of God YouTube channel.  For speakers to travel under the uncertain (might we say, ridiculous) circumstances seemed inadvisable.  Who knows what kind of nonsense the newly minted tyrants will dream up next?

Source: http://www.intercontinentalcog.org/fridayupdates.php

The post Weekly Update by Mark Armstrong – 11 September 2020 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

President Trump on Friday announced that Bahrain has agreed to normalize relations with Israel, another diplomatic win for the president coming after a similar agreement with the United Arab Emirates just last month.

“Another HISTORIC breakthrough today! Our two GREAT friends Israel and the Kingdom of Bahrain agree to a Peace Deal – the second Arab country to make peace with Israel in 30 days!” he tweeted.

ISRAEL, UAE TO SIGN HISTORIC PEACE DEAL IN WHITE HOUSE CEREMONY NEXT WEEK

The post Trump announces deal between Bahrain, Israel to normalize relations in push for Mideast peace first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.