LLX News

By: Jackson Richman – Jewish News Syndicate; jns.org

The official description of Palestinians residing in eastern Jerusalem is now “Arab residents” or “non-Israeli citizens,” instead of “Palestinian residents,” in the department’s annual global human-rights report.

The U.S. State Department has changed its official description of Palestinians living in eastern Jerusalem from “Palestinian residents” to “Arab residents” or “non-Israeli citizens” in the department’s annual global human-rights report released on Wednesday.

The majority of eastern Jerusalem’s 340,000 or so Palestinians identify as such. The Palestinians consider the area the capital of a future state.

https://www.jns.org/us-state-department-changes-name-of-eastern-jerusalem-palestinians-in-annual-report/

By: Samuel Smith – The Christian Post; christianpost.com

65-year-old Iranian Christian convert who was sentenced to three years in prison for “insulting Islamic sacred beliefs” in January has been sentenced to two more years in prison while nine other converts lost appeals of their five-year sentences.

Article 18, a nonprofit Christian persecution watchdog group, reports that convert Ismaeil Maghrebinejad was sentenced to the additional years on Feb. 27 for allegedly being a member of “a group hostile to the regime.”

Maghrebinejad, whose daughter and son-in-law live in the United States, was arrested in his home in January 2019 after he was accused of “apostasy” and “propaganda against the Islamic Republic.”

He was accused of being a part of a group that espoused “evangelical Zionist Christianity.”

https://www.christianpost.com/news/iran-extends-christian-converts-sentence-2-years-for-evangelical-zionist-christianity.html

By: Michael Brown – The Christian Post; christianpost.com

Does the Book of Revelation predict the coronavirus? Is it one of the prophesied, end-time plagues? If so, does that mean that this is just a harbinger of much worse things to come?

There is no denying the seriousness of the virus.

As Bill Gates noted in the New England Journal of Medicine on February 28, “In the past week, Covid-19 has started behaving a lot like the once-in-a-century pathogen we’ve been worried about.” And even at this early stage, “Covid-19 has already caused 10 times as many cases as SARS [severe acute respiratory syndrome] in a quarter of the time.”

And evangelical commentator Michael Snyder included the coronavirus in his “list of 10 plagues that are hitting our planet simultaneously.”

https://www.christianpost.com/voices/is-the-coronavirus-an-end-time-biblical-plague.html

By: Amir A. Afkhami – Politico; politico.com

For years, Tehran was remarkably good at fighting epidemics. This time, a bungling and an isolated regime is worsening global risk. The U.S. could actually help.

Since Iran announced its first cases of the novel coronavirus more than two weeks ago, a growing number of analysts and physicians have questioned Tehran’s death toll tallies. Others, including one of Iran’s own members of parliament, have accused the government of deliberately covering up the extent of the outbreak in the country. Despite a rising domestic and international clamor, Iran has been unwilling to quarantine high-risk areas and has yielded to its clerical establishment by not barring the public from visiting major religious sites at the epicenter of the virus.

The Iranian government’s policy blunders are now responsible for Iran’s status as the main center of contamination and exporter of the coronavirus outside China. But ongoing U.S. sanctions have made matters worse by making the Iranian regime more skittish about taking any public health measures—such as reducing contacts with its main trading partners or declaring a public health emergency—that could further damage its already ailing economy. History shows that continuing Iran’s isolation as it grapples with coronavirus risks backfiring on the United States and the rest of the world.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/03/iran-used-to-be-better-at-handling-epidemics-then-came-coronavirus-119651

By: Ryan Jones – Israel Today; israeltoday.co.il

More and more Palestinians say they simply can’t live without Israel

It is widely assumed that a Palestinian state will not only benefit the Palestinian Arabs, but is crucial to their future as a “people.”

But, as legendary Hollywood producer Jerry Belson wrote for an episode of Odd Couple back in the 1970s, “Never ASSUME, because when you ASSUME, you make an ASS of U and ME.”

The entire land-for-peace process has been based on this assumption. The thing is, it isn’t shared by a great many Palestinian Arabs, the people who the scheme is ostensibly designed to benefit.

“Everyone wants to work [in Israel], everyone wants quiet, and a good life,” a man from Gaza told Ynetnews last week after Israel issued a record number of work permits in response to relative calm in the region.

That many Palestinians now realize this “quiet, good life” cannot be had under either the Palestinian Authority (PA) or Hamas is a recurring theme in recent years.

https://www.israeltoday.co.il/read/a-palestinian-state-benefits-no-one/

By: Anugrah Kumar – The Christian Post; christianpost.com

More than 100 Boko Haram militants opened fire sporadically and indiscriminately and set churches and houses on fire, killing many people, in the town of Garkida in Gombi area of the northeastern state of Adamawa, according to initial reports.

At least five churches were destroyed, including two houses of worship belonging to the Church of the Brethren denomination, an Anglican Communion church, and a church and a separate office of Living Faith Church.

There are unconfirmed reports of possible abductions.

https://www.christianpost.com/news/nigeria-5-churches-burned-many-christians-killed-in-boko-haram-invasion.html

By: Samuel Smith – The Christian Post; christianpost.com

Over 100,000 people have been displaced and at least 700 have died in the majority-Christian country of Mozambique since 2017, as the spread of radical Islamic extremism in Africa is starting to plague the continent’s southeast region. 

This month, the U.N.’s High Commission for Refugees said it is boosting its response in Mozambique’s northeastern Cabo Delgado province, an oil-rich coastal region on the Indian Ocean.

Although southeast Africa was once considered relatively peaceful compared to its counterparts in the north, there’s concern that the region is becoming a foothold for militants that appear to be aligned with the Islamic State.

https://www.christianpost.com/news/islamic-terrorism-spreading-in-majority-christian-mozambique-700-dead-100000-displaced.html

My: Michael Grybosski – The Christian Post; christianpost.com

A 34-foot tall cross can remain at a public park in Florida, according to a ruling from a three-judge panel that reversed an earlier decision from the same appeals court.

The panel with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled Wednesday that the cross at Bayview Park in Pensacola could remain.

Circuit Judge Kevin Newsom, author of the panel opinion, noted that they reversed an earlier ruling against the cross because of a remand from the U.S. Supreme Court.

https://www.christianpost.com/news/cross-can-stay-at-florida-public-park-circuit-court-panel-rules.html

By: Emily Jones – CBN News; cbn.com

JERUSALEM, Israel – An Iranian group is reportedly threatening to destroy what local Jews believe to be the ancient burial site of Queen Esther and Mordechai in Hamedan in retaliation for President Donald Trump’s “Deal of the Century” Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.

The Basij group, a hardline student wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, released a statement earlier this month threatening to tear down the tomb and replace it with a Palestinian consulate.

“We warn the United States and the Zionist regime …that the first act of fulfilling their filthy desires and the slightest attack on Palestine and the holy al-Quds (Jerusalem) means that they will no longer occupy a place as Esther’s tomb…we’ll turn it into a Palestine consulate and you will see the fulfillment of this promise,” their statement said.

Ali Malmir, the director Hamedan’s tourism office, told Iran’s ISNA news site on February 7 that it is not possible to tear down the tomb because there are specific rules for cultural heritage buildings that cannot be violated.

https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/israel/2020/february/iranians-threaten-to-destroy-the-tomb-of-queen-esther-and-mordechai

By: Marcy Oster – Jewish Telegraphic Agency; jta.org

Hundreds of Israelis gathered at the Western Wall on Sunday evening after a prominent rabbi in Israel called for a mass prayer for those infected by the coronavirus.

Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, the chief rabbi of Safed, and the Association of Communitiy Rabbis, organized the service in Jerusalem’s Old City as reports surfaced Sunday that at least three Israelis on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship docked in Tokyo Bay have tested positive for the deadly virus.