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Showing posts with label Matthew Staver. Show all posts

Monday, January 30, 2017

Jerusalem Should Be The Location Of The US Embassy

Pro-Israel Christians Line Up to Support Trump Moving Jerusalem Embassy

By JNS January 30, 2017 , 8:30 am

“Thus saith Hashem: I return unto Tzion and will dwell in the midst of Yerushalayim; and Yerushalayim shall be called the city of truth; and the mountain of Hashem of hosts the holy mountain.” Zechariah 8:3 (The Israel Bible™)

image: https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/jerusalem_parade.jpg

During the Jewish holiday of Sukkot in October 2015, thousands of evangelical Christians wave Israeli, American and other national flags as they march in a Jerusalem parade as part of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem’s (ICEJ) Feast of Tabernacles festivities. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

By: Sean Savage

Aside from its centrality to Jewish peoplehood as the home of the ancient Jewish Temples and now the modern state of Israel’s capital, Jerusalem is also synonymous with Judaism for many Bible-reading Christians. As such, prominent pro-Israel Christian organizations are lining up to express their support for President Donald Trump’s promise to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and to hold the president accountable for his words.

Susan Michael, U.S. director for the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ), said Christians already understand that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and would like to see the American government follow suit. In fact, ICEJ has had its own “unofficial” embassy in Jerusalem since 1980, a point that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu noted in his 2016 Christmas address.

“Hundreds of millions of Christians around the world understand from their Bible the spiritual significance of Jerusalem to the Jewish people, and that it was established as the capital of Israel some 3,000 years ago by King David,” Michael told JNS.org, adding that Christians “believe the spiritual law of blessing established in Genesis 12 that God will bless those who bless the Jewish people….They want to see the U.S. standing in support of Israel and enjoying the blessings of doing so.”

Matthew Staver, founder and chairman of the Liberty Counsel evangelical Christian organization and president of the Christians in Defense of Israel ministry, echoed Michael’s assessment.

“Support for Israel comes from both the Bible, which clearly establishes God gave the land of Israel to the Jews, and from history that confirms the continuity of the connection between Israel and the Jewish people,” Staver told JNS.org. “To deny recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is anti-Semitic.”

David Brog, the founding executive director and currently a board member of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), which calls itself America’s largest pro-Israel organization with more than 3.3 million members, told JNS.org that many Christians who read the Bible “understand that Jerusalem is and has always been Israel’s capital city, and they simply don’t understand why Israel should be the only nation on Earth where we do not place our embassy in the capital.”

“Support of Israel was one of the motivating factors in the historic evangelical voter turnout for President Trump in this past election,” said Pastor Mario Bramnick, president of the Hispanic Israel Leadership Coalition, a leading pro-Israel Latino Christian initiative. “As evangelicals, we support President Trump’s resolve in moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. We believe that the

land of Israel, with an undivided Jerusalem as its capital, was given by God to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob by way of an eternal covenant and that no president, prime minister or monarch has any authority to take it away.”

‘Decades-long injustice’

While the historic Jewish connection to Jerusalem is obvious to many evangelical Christians, ICEJ’s Michael also explained that from a practical standpoint, pro-Israel Christians also feel the “need to right a decades-long injustice in U.S. policy.”

“Israel is the only country where the U.S. embassy is not located in the capital of that country. This is because the U.S. government does not even recognize west Jerusalem as being part of Israel, even though it is territory Israel has controlled since 1949,” she said.

Indeed, President Harry Truman instituted de facto recognition of Israel in May 1948 (de jure recognition of the Jewish state came in January 1949), but the U.S. has never recognized Israel’s claims over Jerusalem. Those claims were limited to western Jerusalem until Israel reunified the city, capturing the eastern portion from Jordan, in the 1967 Six-Day War. In the decades following Israel’s extension of sovereignty over all of Jerusalem, the U.S. has held firm on refusing to recognize the city as the capital of Israel.

image: https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/useful_banner_manager_banners/477-PlantTree-RootSource-600WIDE.jpg

Congress, however, has taken a different position. In 1995, Congress passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act, which calls on the U.S. to move the embassy to Jerusalem and recognize the city as Israel’s capital. But every sitting president since then has opted to sign successive six-month waivers delaying the move. Most recently, former President Barack Obama signed the waiver in December, meaning President Trump will need to decide by June 1 between another waiver or an embassy move.

As such, one proposal suggests that the U.S. relocate its embassy to western Jerusalem, which the international community widely accepts as being part of Israel in the present or under any future Israeli-Palestinian final status agreement.

“Moving the embassy to west Jerusalem has no bearing on east Jerusalem, nor does it prejudice the outcome of eventual negotiations over the city’s final status and borders, and therefore should happen forthwith,” Michael said.

At the same time, the U.S. already maintains a consulate in Jerusalem that serves the city as well as the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. It is one of two American consulates, the other being in Hong Kong, that report directly to the State Department rather than to a U.S. ambassador.

Will Trump make the move?

In the early days of Trump’s presidency, his administration has made conflicting statements as to when or if the U.S. embassy will be relocated.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Jan. 23 that “no decision” has been made on the move.

“We’re at the very early stages of that decision-making process,” Spicer told reporters after being asked how the move would serve U.S. strategic issues. “It’s very early in this process. [Trump’s] team is going to continue to consult with [the] State [Department].”

Spicer’s comments came after he had said a day earlier that the U.S. was in the “very beginning stages” of discussing the embassy move. At the same time, in an interview with Israel Hayom shortly before taking office, Trump said he “did not forget” about his promise to move the embassy to Jerusalem, adding that “you know that I am not a person who breaks promises.”

Additionally, U.S. Ambassador to Israel-designate David Friedman, who has yet to be confirmed by the Senate, announced that he intends to live in Jerusalem rather than the American ambassador’s traditional residence in Herzliya.

In February, Netanyahu is scheduled to meet with Trump in Washington, D.C., where the leaders may discuss the issue of the embassy move, officials have said.

“The decision to move the U.S. embassy should be the product of a net assessment of potential benefits versus potential risks,” Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told JNS.org.

“It is easy to focus on the hyperbolic threats of certain Middle East actors [who oppose the embassy move] without also factoring into the equation what moving the embassy might achieve—repairing an historic injustice, fixing the fact that America currently has representation in Jerusalem for the Palestinian Authority but none for Israel, and sending the message throughout the region that America fulfills its promises to allies,” he said.

Mobilizing Christian support

CUFI sent out a Jan. 22 action alert that called upon its members to email Trump, asking him to keep his promise and move the embassy.

“Thus far, more than 20,000 of our members have emailed the White House. They reminded the president that America, the Congress and 3.3 million members of CUFI are with him and that he should ignore the voices calling on him to break his promise,” Brog said.

During the 2016 election campaign, the ICEJ mobilized several hundred Christian leaders to speak out in favor of the embassy move.

“The U.S. branch of the ICEJ wrote a letter to both presidential candidates before the election, signed by some 650 Christian leaders, encouraging this move,” Michael said. “We will do whatever is necessary in the coming months to encourage the administration and demonstrate the continued support of the American Christian community for this move.”

Michael believes that Trump should work closely with Israel and other regional U.S. allies to make sure the embassy move is carried out appropriately, to avoid violence or diplomatic strains.

“While we do encourage the U.S. administration to make this move as soon as possible, we caution that it must be done right,” Michael said. “We understand that they (administration officials) need time to consult with Israel on various aspects of such a move. They should also use this opportunity to bolster regional relationships and influence by working out a plan ahead of time with key Arab leaders, as well as build a coalition of other countries that will follow the U.S. in moving their own embassy to Jerusalem.”

Read more at https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/82800/pro-israel-christians-rally-support-us-embassy-jerusalem/#vO5x7efrvGWCsqzM.99

Friday, January 24, 2014

When The Law Enforcers Refuse To Enforce Legally Passed Laws, The Basis Of Our Law System Is Undermined.

ALARMING TREND: ATTORNEYS GENERAL REFUSE TO DEFEND LAWS

'You really trace that back to President Obama and Eric Holder'

Published: 12 hours ago

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In what appears to be the latest example in a trend of attorneys general refusing to defend laws passed by legislatures and voters, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring announced Thursday that he will no longer defend his state’s constitutional amendment defining marriage solely as the union of one man and one woman.

But a leading traditional marriage advocate is blasting Herring for casting aside the duties of his office to pursue a partisan agenda.

As a member of the state senate, Herring voted for the 2006 state constitutional amendment that defines marriage in the commonwealth as solely between a man and a woman. Now, less than two weeks after taking office as attorney general, he says the government is not only abandoning the defense of the law but actively joining a lawsuit filed against it by two same-sex couples.

“After thorough legal review, I have now concluded that Virginia’s ban on marriage between same-sex couples violates the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution on two grounds: Marriage is a fundamental right being denied to some Virginians, and the ban unlawfully discriminates on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender,” Herring said.

Herring won the Virginia attorney general’s race by less than 1,000 votes and actually trailed heading into the recount against Republican Mark Obenshain. It was by far the closest statewide race in Virginia, which also included Democrat Terry McAuliffe’s win over the GOP’s Ken Cuccinelli in the contest for governor.

Liberty Counsel Chairman Mathew Staver is outraged at Herring’s decision and told WND Virginia’s attorney general doesn’t seem to approach law enforcement much differently than President Obama and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

“This is unfortunately the consequence of elections and you’ve got someone who is lawless. You really trace that back to President Obama and Eric Holder, when they decided to pick and choose, through the Department of Justice, which laws they wanted to defend and which ones they wanted to not just step aside but actually intentionally undermine.

“They did that with the federal Defense of Marriage Act, and now we see on the state level with this new attorney general, he does the same thing,” said Staver.

“He is not upholding the law. He is actually undermining the very law that was passed by the people. This was a constitutional marriage amendment that was passed by 57 percent of the Virginian voters. As attorney general, his obligation is to defend the laws, whether passed by the legislature or passed by the people. His obligation is not to simply act as a king or a potentate, where he just wants to pick and choose which laws he’s going to defend and which laws he’s going to intentionally undermine,” said Staver, who says this sort of action sets a precedent that could greatly damage the separation of powers.

“What would happen is if you had, for example, a Republican-led legislature and they passed laws that the Democratic governor or attorney general don’t like, they would just simply refuse to defend them, or even worse, work to actively undermine them. That just makes no sense. That creates a system of lawlessness. It does not respect the rule of law, and it certainly does not respect the process of the people in protecting their right for representation and the right to vote,” Staver said.

Herring is hardly the first official to declare he would not defend traditional marriage laws. In addition to Obama and Holder at the federal level, attorneys general in Pennsylvania and Illinois and the governor of Hawaii all unilaterally declared they would not defend state laws defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

The Washington Post reports Republican attorneys general have refused to defend other laws recently. Indiana’s Greg Zoeller refused to enforce part of his state’s immigration laws after the Supreme Court struck down similar provisions in Arizona’s SB 1070. In Virginia, Herrings’s predecessor, Ken Cuccinelli, declared one of former Gov. Bob McDonnell’s education reforms to be unconstitutional and announced he would not defend it.

Staver said there are different levels of refusing to defend existing laws but believes the practice is never a good idea.

“There is precedent through history where attorneys general won’t vigorously enforce a law, but that’s a whole different ballgame, where you decide not to give as vigorous a defense or not to offer a defense than when you go into court and actually file a brief that undermines a case,” Staver said.

“What you ultimately have happen here, whether it’s done by a Republican or a Democrat, when a law is challenged and it’s not vigorously defended, you ultimately have a system of lawlessness.” he said.

Staver is also quick to assert that refusing to defend the institution of marriage is far more significant than it is with respect to other laws.

“We’re talking about marriage. We’re talking about a fundamental, observable relationship that has transcended governments. It wasn’t created by a governor or a legislature. It predates the Commonwealth of Virginia. It predates the United States of America. It is an institution and a relationship that is from the very beginning of time to the present. It transcends cultures. It predates governments,” Staver said.

“It is something that is part of the created, observable universe in which we live and it has been transmitted through history and times and cultures. To undermine that is not to be put into the same category … as Ken Cuccinelli deciding not to defend a portion of an education law,” he said.

Apart from the legal arguments surrounding the issue, Staver said there are obvious reasons why marriage should be set aside for the union of one man and one woman, from procreation to child rearing, and he contends even the most vigorous activism of same-sex marriage supporters cannot change those facts.

“Marriage as the union of a man and a woman is part of God’s natural created order. You may not like it. You may disagree with it. You may not like gravity. You may disagree with it, but it doesn’t matter what your opinion is on it. The fact of the matter is, it is what it is. It exists and it exists for a reason,” he said.

“Marriage is between a man and a woman. Ontologically, man and women are made for one another in a way that two men and two women simply are not. It is through the union of a man and a woman that we procreate the next generation. That’s why we have placed laws and policies around marriage to protect that very survival of our society,” he said.

“Also, it’s through the union of a man and a woman, husband and wife, male and female, that children have the best optimal environment in which to be raised. Moms and dads, male and female, bring different characteristics and components to the family relation and dynamic that two men and two women simply does not do.

“In fact, it is contrary to what two men and two women would do. When you eliminate one gender from the family, which is what same-sex marriage would do … and skew the view of the missing gender, have some antipathy or opposition toward the missing gender, you ultimately harm children. When you harm children, you ultimately effect society,” he said.

Liberty Counsel will likely get involved in the case, but Staver said it’s not clear how or when the new defense team for the state law will be chosen. He suspects the case will end up in front of the Supreme Court within the next year or two but is not optimistic the justices will rule in the way he believes they should.

“On this issue and other moral issues like abortion, I have absolutely no trust in the United States Supreme Court. These issues of life and marriage should not be up for a popular vote by justices of the United States Supreme Court,” he said.

“We’ve lived under the tragedy of abortion for 41 years. Fifty-six million people have died because seven people on the United States Supreme Court in 1973 and five people on the same court in 1992, ultimately voted, even though it has nothing to do with the Constitution,” he said. “Frankly, I have no confidence in this court or any set of justices on the Supreme Court unless they’re going to follow and adhere to the Constitutional principles and the rule of law.”