Too Late: Holey Rhetoric From The Holy See

 
Holy See urges UN to ban nuclear weapons, work towards peace
 
October 22, 2015 – Catholic News Agency

Citing Pope Francis’ recent words on avoiding war and promoting peaceful coexistence between nations, the Holy See addressed the United Nations general assembly last Friday, urging them to ban nuclear weapons around the world and take more serious steps to promote peace programs.

“As the twenty-first century unfolds, it is becoming ever clearer that war does not and cannot resolve conflict,” stated Archbishop Bernardito Auza, the Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, Oct. 16.

“Preventive means, mediation, peacekeeping, and peace building are the most useful tools in our hands. We must employ them much more fully than we presently do,” he continued.

Pope Francis made a similar appeal to the UN Sept. 25 during his trip to the United States, saying it was crucial for the UN to “work tirelessly to avoid war between nations and between peoples.”
Archbishop Auza echoed the Pope’s comments, noting that civilian deaths are growing in numbers due to weapons of war. Cluster munitions and chemical weapons – although forbidden – have increased, giving cause for concern in modern-day combat around the globe.

“The conflicts scarring landscapes and moving peoples from homes to perilous deserts and seas – indeed, to cemeteries – testify to the lack of political will to stamp out the gun culture that still stands as an obstacle to the peaceful development of peoples,” Archbishop Auza stated, saying that governments should take more serious steps to reduce the production of and dependence on arms.
The archbishop also challenged the UN to do more to promote preventive measures, saying the investment in weaponry and military far outweigh the United Nations’ efforts towards peace and stability.
“The resources spent on militarization and weapons development continue to rise, while the funding for all the United Nations programs for peace and development pales in comparison,” he asserted.
In addition to encouraging the growth of peace programs, the archbishop sadly noted the “parlous state of nuclear weapons negotiations,” saying that “nuclear deterrence is an obstacle to real and lasting peace.”

When the UN met to discuss the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons at the NPT Ninth Review Conference last spring, a final document on the matter was never produced, delaying any action against the use of nuclear weaponry, according to Archbishop Auza.

The archbishop went on to quote Pope Francis, who also expressed concern over the use of nuclear weapons during his address to the General Assembly, when he underscored the “urgent need to work for a world free of nuclear weapons” with “the goal of a complete prohibition of these weapons.”
Instead of giving way to destructive weapons, Archbishop Auza encouraged trust between nations, saying that confidence in peaceful negotiations – rather than combat – should take precedence.
“True and lasting peace among nations cannot consist in possession of a matching supply of equally destructive armaments but only in mutual trust,” he stated.

“If we give negotiations, political goodwill and full verification a chance to work, the world will not be doomed to the proliferation of nuclear weapons,” the archbishop stated.

Archbishop Auza also echoed the words of Pope Francis who recently encouraged dialogue across the nations to ensure the total and complete prohibition of nuclear weapons.

“The recent agreement reached on the nuclear question in a sensitive region of Asia and the Middle East is proof of the potential of political good will and of law, exercised with sincerity, patience and constancy,” the archbishop reiterated, quoting the Holy Father.

Archbishop Auza then voiced support of any efforts and resources used to expose the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons and war, believing that the general public should be made aware of nuclear aftermath.

“Let us listen to the overwhelming call of the international community for urgent progress towards the elimination of nuclear weapons,” Archbishop Auza stated, “because the only guarantee that nuclear weapons are never used is their complete elimination.”

“They Will Trample On The Holy City 42 months” (Revelation 11:2)

Israel carries out airstrike on Hamas site in Gaza

AP 7:16 p.m. EST December 19, 2014

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s military struck a Hamas site in the Gaza Strip early Saturday in its first airstrike on the Palestinian territory since this summer’s war.

The Israeli military said the airstrike on what it called a “Hamas terror infrastructure site” in the southern Gaza Strip was in response to a rocket fired from Gaza into southern Israel on Friday. The rocket fire caused no injuries.

Palestinian residents reported hearing two explosions in the Khan Yunis region of Gaza, in an area that contains training sites for Palestinian militants. No injuries were immediately reported.
Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, an Israeli army spokesman, said Israel’s military “will not permit any attempt to undermine the security and jeopardize the well being of the civilians of Israel. The Hamas terrorist organization is responsible and accountable for today’s attack against Israel.”

The Gaza rocket attack and Israeli retaliation came days after a European Union court ordered Hamas removed from the EU terrorist list for procedural reasons, but said the bloc can maintain asset freezes against Hamas members for now. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas is “a murderous terror organization” and called for Hamas to be immediately returned to the list.

Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls Gaza, fought a 50-day war this summer. In that war, Hamas launched thousands of rockets and mortars toward Israel, which carried out an aerial campaign and a ground invasion.

The war left more than 2,100 Palestinians dead, according to Palestinian and U.N. officials. On the Israeli side, 66 soldiers and six civilians were killed.

In the West Bank on Friday, fierce clashes erupted between Palestinian protesters and Israeli forces at a West Bank military checkpoint and near the village of Turmus Aya, though no injuries were reported.

The village was the site of a Palestinian-Israeli scuffle earlier this month during which Palestinian Cabinet minister Ziad Abu Ain collapsed. He later died en route to hospital.

Palestinian and Israeli pathologists subsequently disagreed over the cause of Abu Ain’s death. The Palestinian expert said the cause of death was a “blow,” while his Israeli colleague said Abu Ain died of a heart attack.

In other developments, the Israeli military on Friday began relaxing travel restrictions for Palestinian Christians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip for the Christmas holiday season, saying it granted 700 permits for Gazans to travel to Israel, the West Bank and Jordan.

Israel said it was also allowing West Bank Christians to travel to Israel, permitting 500 of them to visit their families in the Gaza Strip, subject to security checks.

Israel restricts Palestinians in the two territories from entering the country without special permits, citing security concerns. Travel between the territories is also restricted but those bans are usually relaxed for Christians during the holiday season.

The army also said it would also expand the working hours at military checkpoints to allow pilgrims from around the world faster access to the West Bank city of Bethlehem during Christmas.

Preparing For The Holy War (Revelation 16:16)

For first time, Iran media admit point of missile program was ‘to hit Israel’

Special to WorldTribune.com

NICOSIA — After officially insisting that its nearly 30-year-old ballistic missile program was not targeting any one country, Iran has acknowledged that it was aimed against Israel.

The state-owned Iranian media have given unprecedented details of the origin of Teheran’s ballistic missile program under the Islamic regime. The media quoted senior officials as saying that the impetus for the program was to strike Israel.

“We need a missile that we can use to hit Israel,” Hassan Moghadam, the father of Iran’s missile program killed in an explosion in 2011, was quoted as saying.

The Fars News Agency published a long account by Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Air Force, on the aims of the missile program. Hajizadeh said Teheran, as early as 1986, wanted to rapidly produce a missile with a range of more than 1,000 kilometers to attack Israel.

“We worked simultaneously on liquid- and solid-fuel missiles,” Hajizadeh recalled. “We copied the Shihab-1 missile from the Scud-B, which was productive, and in less two years, we created the 500-kilometer range Shihab-2.”

The account departed from Iran’s long-held claim that the missile program was not meant against any country. Over the last year, Teheran has refused demands by P5+1 to limit its missile program along with nuclear capabilities.

Hajizadeh said Iran, through such agencies as the Defense Ministry and so-called Jihad Ministry, produced a prototype missile with a range of 1,100 kilometers. He said the missiles were deployed in Gilan e-Gharb near the Iraqi border to ensure that they could reach Israel.

“Hassan [Moghadam] believed that we had to attain a range for our missiles that would allow us to threaten the Zionist regime,” Hajizadeh recalled in an interview with Fars on Nov. 12. “If it was not sufficient to reach the occupied territories [Israel], then we’d have a problem.”

Hajizadeh said the first missiles produced by Iran were liquid-fuel, which contained severe limitations. He said Iran proceeded with several stages of development until solid-fuel missiles were produced with ranges of up to 2,000 kilometers.

“At first we would reverse-engineer them, the way we produced the Shihab-1 from the Scud-B or the Shihab-3 from the Scud-C,” Hajizadeh said. “However, thanks to round-the-clock work by our dear scientists, we developed missile-design capabilities — that is, from idea to [final] product, everything is completely Iranian.”

Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei was said to have been the leading lobbyist to improve the accuracy of Teheran’s missile arsenal. Khamenei was quoted as saying that Iran needed to reach a circle error of probability of less than 10 meters. At one point, Iran improved accuracy from a CEP of 2,000 meters to 35 meters.

“‘Your work is excellent and top-notch, but if you can attain a 35-meter [CEP], then you can also attain 10-15 meter,” Hajizadeh quoted Khamenei as saying. “We were in shock. The guys once again went to work, and within five or six months, we had reached accuracy of better than 10 meters.”