The Caliphate Is Coming, There Is NO Doubt. What Does That Mean?

IS ISIS' CALIPHATE A HARBINGER OF THE ANTICHRIST?

Exclusive: Joel Richardson lists theologians who agree 'little horn' will arise from same area

Published: 2 days ago

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Seven years ago, Al Gore was warning us that all of the polar ice caps would be completely gone by now. I was warning of a caliphate.

For the past 10 years, I’ve diligently sought to awaken the Church to the fact that the Hebrew prophets point to a Middle Eastern Antichrist who will emerge from the region of Turkey, Syria or Iraq. Some have examined the evidence and recognized the solid scriptural basis for this view. Others have questioned, debated, or even maligned this perspective. The truth, however, is that although some naysayers have tried to cast this view as a “lone ranger” perspective, in broad historical terms, I have been far from alone in espousing it. In fact, many great Christian expositors have recognized the biblical evidence for this view. Many even foresaw that a last-days caliphate would be established in the region of Turkey, Syria and Iraq. In light of the astounding re-establishment of an Islamic caliphate for the first time in over 80 years in Iraq and Syria, let us consider a few of the great Christian expositors and teachers who foresaw precisely what we are witnessing today.

The first was Hippolytus of Rome (170–235). Hippolytus was an important theologian of the early third century. In speaking of the Antichrist, he said this:

“That these things, then, are said of no one else but that tyrant, and shameless one, and adversary of God, we shall show in what follows. But Isaiah also speaks thus: ‘And it shall come to pass, that when the Lord has performed His whole work upon Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, He will punish (visit) the stout mind, the king of Assyria, and the greatness (height) of the glory of his eyes.’” (emphasis added)

The second theologian who foresaw the Antichrist as emerging from the region now controlled by ISIS was Victorinus of Pettau (240–304). Victorinus was an early Christian bishop and the author of the most ancient complete commentary on the book of Revelation in our possession. In this ancient commentary, Victorinus identified the Antichrist as “the Assyrian” mentioned in Micah 5:5 who would invade the land of Israel only to be destroyed by Jesus upon His return.

The next witness is Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius (240 – 320). Lactantius was yet another early Church writer from the third century who wrote much on the end times. Amazingly, Lactantius specifically stated that the Antichrist would come from the Roman Province of Syria:

“A king shall arise out of Syria, born from an evil spirit, the overthrower and destroyer of the human race, who shall destroy that which is left by the former evil, together with himself. … But that king will not only be most disgraceful in himself, but he will also be a prophet of lies … and power will be given to him to do signs and wonders, by the sight of which he may entice men to adore him. … Then he will attempt to destroy the temple of God and persecute the righteous people.” (emphasis added)

Don’t miss Joel Richardson’s compelling books and videos on Bible prophecy, the Antichrist and end times – at WND’s Superstore.

Many are surprised to discover that Clarence Larkin (1850–1924), the great dispensational teacher, also foresaw these things. Larkin was an American Baptist pastor, Bible teacher and author whose works continue to sell to this day. In his book “Dispensational Truth,” Larkin wrote, “It is clear that the Antichrist is to come from Syria. … We are to understand therefore by the ‘King of the North’ the King of Syria, which also included Assyria. This fixes the locality from which the Antichrist shall come. …”

One of my favorite commentators is G.H. Lang (1874–1958). Lang was a magnificent British expositor whose commentary on the book on Daniel received the highest endorsement from the legendary biblical scholar F.F. Bruce. In Lang’s “The Histories and Prophecies of Daniel,” he said the following:

Therefore the Antichrist will be the king of Assyria with Babylon as his capital, which of old was in the dominion of Seleucus, who gained the eastern area of the empire of Alexander. Thus when the Antichrist arises, he will not come at Rome, or any where else in the west. Had this been understood, many vain and misleading speculations would have been avoided, such that of the pope, or the Papacy, or Napoleon, or others being he. And when he comes, his military efforts will be expended mainly upon Egypt and the south, the east, and Palestine.

Arthur W. Pink (1886–1952), an English evangelist and biblical scholar also well-known for his work “The Antichrist,” likewise identified the Antichrist as coming from the Middle Eastern region of the former Assyrian Empire:

“We have seen that the scriptures which help us to determine the direction from which he will arise, speak of him under the title of the ‘Little Horn.’ Now the first thing this title denotes is that he is a king, king of Assyria. … [After he] acquires the crown of Syria he will speedily enlarge his dominions.”

Now, to be clear, the various references to the Antichrist as “the Assyrian” are not ethnic denotations. Instead, it points to the region from which the Antichrist will likely emerge. In the same way that, for example, the prophet Joel speaks of the destruction of Philistia in the Day of the Lord (Joel 3:4), he was not speaking of the judgment of ethnic Philistines when Jesus returns, but of those enemies of His people, who occupy the region of ancient Philistia. So also do the biblical references point to Assyria as the region from which the Antichrist will emerge, but do not indicate that he will ethnically be an Assyrian. Today, the majority of the Assyrian people are Chaldean Christians. Most of those who had continued to live in the region of ancient Assyria have now been forced to flee the onslaught of ISIS.

All of these men of God foresaw the Antichrist and his empire as arising from the same region where we have now witnessed the re-establishment of an Islamic caliphate. All of these men looked to the words of the Hebrew prophets and came to similar conclusions. They foresaw in quite a remarkable way what has now unfolded before all of us. As radical Muslims continue to murder, kidnap, rape, behead, crucify and slaughter their way across the Middle East, now it the time for the Church to wake up and diligently study the Scriptures to discern if all of these events indeed provide us with a genuine harbinger of the coming Antichrist and the soon coming return of Jesus.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/09/is-isis-caliphate-a-harbinger-of-the-antichrist/#HFPMQWoiM9Qf6MjQ.99

Baghdadi's Importance To ISIS/ISIL Will Be Determined After His Death.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi: Islamic State's driving force

By Aaron Y ZelinWashington Institute for Near East Policy

Continue reading the main story

Struggle for Iraq

• What is Islamic State?
• Sotloff statement
• Profile: Steven Sotloff
• Who supports IS?

On 5 July, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, known by his supporters as Caliph Ibrahim, left the shadows and showed his face for the first time, in a Friday sermon in Mosul, Iraq.

While previous pictures of him had been leaked, Baghdadi had not shown himself in the four years since he became leader of what was then the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq (forerunner of Isis, then the Islamic State).

Before April 2013, Baghdadi also did not release many audio messages.

His first written statement was a eulogy to Osama Bin Laden in May 2011.

His first audio message was released in July 2012 and predicted future victories for the Islamic State.

Since the group's resurgence, which began 15 months ago, Baghdadi's media output has risen. The amount of specific information about his background has also increased.

'Descendant of the Prophet'

In July 2013, a Bahraini ideologue Turki al-Binali, writing under the pen name Abu Humam Bakr bin Abd al-Aziz al-Athari, wrote a biography of Baghdadi.

Prior to his appearance in Mosul, there were only two known photographs of Baghdadi

It highlighted Baghdadi's family history which claims that Baghdadi was indeed a descendant of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad's Quraysh tribe - one of the key qualifications in Islamic history for becoming the caliph (historically, leader of all Muslims).

It said that Baghdadi came from the al-Bu Badri tribe, which is primarily based in Samarra and Diyala, north and east of Baghdad respectively, and known historically for being descendants of Muhammad.

Turki al-Binali's tract continued by highlighting that prior to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, Baghdadi received his PhD from the Islamic University of Baghdad, with a focus on Islamic culture, history, sharia, and jurisprudence.

Baghdadi preached at the Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal Mosque in Samarra.

Baghdadi does not have credentials from esteemed Sunni religious establishments such as al-Azhar University in Cairo or the Islamic University of Medina in Saudi Arabia.

Nonetheless, he is more steeped in traditional Islamic education than either al-Qaeda's past and current leaders, Osama Bin Laden and Aymen al-Zawahiri, both laymen and an engineer and doctor respectively.

This has conferred on Baghdadi a higher level of praise, worthiness, and legitimacy among his supporters.

Rise to top

Following the US invasion of Iraq, Baghdadi, along with some associates, created Jamaat Jaysh Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamaah (JJASJ) - the Army of the Sunni People Group - which operated in Samarra, Diyala, and Baghdad.

Within the group, Baghdadi was the head of the sharia committee. US-led coalition forces detained him from February to December 2004, but released him since he was not viewed as a high-level threat.

After al-Qaeda in the Land of Two Rivers (al-Qaeda in Iraq) changed its name to Majlis Shura al-Mujahidin (Mujahideen Shura Council) in early 2006, JJASJ's leadership pledged baya (oath of allegiance) to it and joined the umbrella organisation.

Within the new structure, Baghdadi joined the sharia committees. But soon after the organisation announced another change to its name in late 2006 to the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), Baghdadi became the general supervisor of the sharia committees for the wilayats (provinces) within the new "state" as well as a member of ISI's senior consultative council.

When ISI's leader Abu Umar al-Baghdadi died in April 2010, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi succeeded him.

Place in history?

Since taking over the leadership of the Islamic State, Baghdadi has rebuilt and reinvigorated a battered organisation after the Sunni tribal sahwa (awakening) against it, which was then consolidated by the US military surge.

Compared with the Islamic State's first attempt at governance last decade, thus far, while still brutal, it is doing a better job, though questions still remain about its longer-term sustainability.

Under Baghdadi, the Islamic State has become one of the most formidable jihadist groups in the world

Part of this is related to augmenting its cruel judicial punishments with a social service regime to create more soft power, but also to have a carrot to its stick.

Likewise, as a lesson from the tribal awakening, the Islamic State over the past couple of years has either assassinated key leaders within the sahwa movement or brokered "repentances" from those that would like to join the organisation.

This, in ways, has helped blunt more of the potential for a large-scale uprising similar to last decade, though there have been calls and rumours that some tribal elements that have not "repented" will take on the Islamic State.

Moreover, if one looks at the locations that the Islamic State has targeted to take over or currently controls, many are along both the Euphrates and Tigris rivers as well as areas that have oil in both Iraq and Syria.

Baghdadi and the rest of the Islamic State leadership realise that if one has a monopoly on the energy (whether for human consumption or electrically powered devices) along with its growing military might, it is a lot easier to consolidate its writ, even if parts of the population disagree with its ideological project.

While we may not know the future of the Islamic State, it is clear that Baghdadi has steered the organisation back to prominence. In many ways, he has eclipsed even the founder of the group Abu Musab al-Zarqawi last decade in prestige, resources, and potential for the future.

His true significance will likely come more to light following his death, since, as we have seen with al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri has had a difficult time replacing Bin Laden.

For now, the Islamic State's "Caliph" is the new star of the ascendant "Caliphate Project".

Aaron Y Zelin is the Richard Borow Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the Rena and Sami David Fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence. He is the founder of Jihadology.net.

Terrorism Pays. Just Ask ISIS! Billions Now Controlled By This Terrorist Group

How Islamic State Became ‘The Best-Funded Terrorist Group in History’

By Staff Writer September 7, 2014 , 10:10 am

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“For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb.” (Psalm 37:2)

ISIS militants in Syria. (Photo: YouTube Screenshot)

By Dmitriy Shapiro/JNS.org/Washington Jewish Week

After months of rampaging through Iraq and stoking international fears that the Islamic State terrorist group could spread, a combination of Iraqi and Kurdish security forces, aided by targeted United States airstrikes, appear to have pushed back the self-proclaimed caliphate’s rampage in the region.

Yet Islamic State’s potential reach and brutal tactics continue to worry lawmakers and analysts. The terrorist group, experts say, has managed to brilliantly leverage its acquisitions—including land grabs, hostages, and oil—in a style that is part mafia tactics, part bureaucratic wile. So far, the group continues to be well-armed, flush with cash, and in possession of American and European captives.

Even with the U.S. Senate in recess, Sens. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) sent a joint letter to Secretary of State John Kerry on Aug. 26, calling for the Obama administration to target all aspects of Islamic State’s operational funding and to have the Treasury Department classify the group as a Transnational Criminal Organization (TCO).

“[Islamic State’s] criminal activities—robbery, extortion, and trafficking—have helped the organization become the best-funded terrorist group in history,” the senators wrote. “This wealth has helped expand their operational capacity and incentivized both local and foreign fighters to join them.”

Islamic State is an offshoot of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Islamic State’s extreme viciousness led al-Qaeda to cut ties with it. According to Thomas Joscelyn, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), most of al-Qaeda’s deep-pocketed, Gulf-based terrorism financiers remained with the parent organization, forcing Islamic State to adopt unorthodox fundraising methods.

At first glance, the senators’ request that the Obama administration cut off Islamic State funding sources looked to some like political posturing. Islamic State, after all, was classified by the State Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 2004 and its assets within America’s control were frozen. That designation further established sanctions for cooperating economically with the terror group. With the U.S. in open conflict with Islamic State, is there really more to be done to choke off Islamic State’s cash flow?

“I think there are [additional] things we can do to try and cut off the funding; it’s really hard,” said Austin Long, assistant professor in security policy at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. “Even when there were 100,000 U.S. troops in Iraq at the height of the surge, we couldn’t cut off all the funding to al-Qaeda in Iraq, the predecessor of the Islamic State.”

When a group is designated a TCO, its operations are restricted, as outlined in Executive Order 13581, which prevents members of TCO-designated organizations, and those aiding and abetting them, from transferring, paying, exporting or withdrawing assets in the U.S. “or in an overseas branch of a U.S. entity”—essentially the same barriers currently facing Islamic State.

Some of the groups presently listed as TCOs include: The Brothers’ Circle (Eurasia), Camorra (Italy), Yakuza (Japan), Los Zetas (Mexico), Yamaguchi-Gumi (Japan), and Mara Salvatrucha (El Salvador).

Sens. Casey and Rubio are part of a larger group of lawmakers pushing to include the Lebanon-based terrorist organization Hezbollah under the TCO classification through the Hezbollah International Financing Prevention Act. The bill was passed unanimously by the House in July and is currently awaiting approval from the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.

Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research at FDD and a former terrorism finance analyst at the U.S. Treasury Department, said that the TCO designation would allow for a broader scope to investigate and cut off Islamic State’s funding sources.

“It allows the intelligence community to work with a broader array of actors to counter [Islamic State], and it allows for the FBI to have a greater role as well,” said Schanzer. “It basically widens the ability of the United States government to act on multiple levels with multiple players—inside and outside the United States. If it’s considered a criminal organization, the FBI can look into whatever assets may be here. So, in other words, it becomes a warfare issue as well as a criminal one.”

Operating like an organized-crime family, Islamic State has surprised—and even, in a dark sense, impressed—the international community with its numerous, creative methods to fund itself.

“The common assumption has been for a long time, and I don’t know where it comes from, but there are a lot of people who have surmised that Islamic State’s funding comes from various Gulf individuals or a number of different Gulf governments including Qatar and Kuwait,” said Lee Smith, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. “This is not true. There has been some money in the past but this is not the main source of Islamic State’s funding. The main source of funding comes from the fact that Islamic State sells oil on the black market. That’s the number-one source of income. The number-two source of Islamic State’s income is its extortion rackets in towns it runs —and it runs a few, including Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq, which are both fairly large Arab cities.”

Islamic State’s most profitable venture is the selling of oil that is produced in areas under the group’s control. Two of its biggest oil wells are located in a region it occupies in northern Syria—the cities of Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa. Upon occupying an oil field or oil-producing city, the group makes the local populace an offer it can’t refuse, said Columbia’s Long.

“That’s what they try to do. People don’t always cooperate, but in general, if somebody says, ‘We’re going to keep paying your salary, just keep showing up for work’ and the alternative might be something bad happens to you, then you can either keep showing up for work or you can become a refugee, and I think a decent number of people don’t want to become refugees understandably,” Long said.

“A Strategy for Tragedy,” a cartoon by Nathan Moskowitz.

Much of the oil is then sold internally, to the Syrian and Iraqi residents of Islamic State-occupied territories.

“People have lots of cars,” said Long. “Iraq is just like every modern country, but in some sense is more dependent on it. You need trucks to move food around—without gasoline, the economy grinds to a halt.”

The rest of the oil is smuggled out and sold abroad and, surprisingly, some of the buyers include governments that are fighting Islamic State—such as Syria and Turkey.

“That’s a pretty typical feature of Arab warfare,” said Smith. “People make all sorts of deals with all sorts of different people.”

Determining who exactly is bypassing sanctions and buying oil from Islamic State sources—or even exactly how much of it is being bought—is difficult to determine. The oil is sold on the black market and transported by smugglers to refineries located mostly in Turkey.

“The oil could be going across the border in Turkey, and the Turks maybe aren’t asking too many question about who it comes from, hypothetically, because of course it won’t be necessarily somebody waving the Islamic State flag that drives the tanker truck across the border,” Long said.

Once the crude oil gets to a participating refinery, it is mixed with crude from other sources, making the final product even harder to trace. Just as difficult to track are the proceeds, mostly in cash, which make their way into the hands of middlemen, smugglers, and corrupt politicians as kickbacks.

What makes this oil attractive to even those at war with Islamic State are the vastly discounted prices offered. According to a recent estimate by BBC News, Islamic State exports about 9,000 barrels of oil per day at prices ranging from about $25-$45 a barrel—a significant discount from the current international price of around $100 per barrel. With prices so low, both Islamic State and its enemies win from the transaction.

Islamic State’s second major source of funding comes directly from the population it controls, coming in forms such as religiously mandated tithing called “zakat,” tributes from religious minorities who remain in Islamic state-controlled territory, bank robbery, and mob-style protection rackets.

“So you go to a business and you’re like, ’Oh, it would be a shame if something terrible happened to this nice business,’” Long said.

Yet another, more sinister Islamic State fundraising strategy—kidnapping Westerners—has been at the forefront of the public consciousness since the beheadings of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff. Opponents of paying the ransoms demanded by groups like Islamic State say that doing so incentivizes those groups to continue kidnapping. Official U.S. policy is not to pay ransoms to terrorist organizations in return for hostages.

Before video of his beheading was released Tuesday, Sotloff was one of four Americans currently being held by Islamic State. Experts believe ransoms make up the smallest part of the terror group’s budget.

“There are lots of uses for [captives] and in the worst-case scenario, you can use them for propaganda,” Long said. “That’s why I think it’s not something they (Islamic State) necessarily count on, but it’s a nice bonus.”

Read more at http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/21176/islamic-state-became-best-funded-terrorist-group-history/#KuuCPvkgER0pYbtm.99

Will The "Normal" Of America Become What Has Always Been "Normal" For Europe?

The New “Normal”

By Naomi Ragen September 1, 2014 , 11:13 am

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Back in the 1970’s, I remember watching a television report about the civil war in Lebanon. Etched in my memory was an interview with a nameless woman who described how she lived when her street was targeted by snipers picking off ordinary civilians at whim. Her words went something like this: We go out in the early morning, because at that time the snipers are still sleeping. And then in the heat of the day, because they are tired, she said matter-of-factly. Her words struck me with horror not so much for their content, because after all what was the poor woman to do; she had to go out sometime to buy food for her family. No, what chilled my bones was that this had all become the new normal for her. She had accepted the situation, and it had become a way of life with no recollection of any other way to live.

This, most of all, is the true danger of the current conflict between Israel and the brutal terrorists on her borders. As my son told me the other day about occupying my grandchildren during the summer while rocket attacks and sirens were going off non-stop all over the country: “We’ve sort of gotten used to it.”

Let me preface what I am about to say next by framing it in the following context: I think Israelis, including my son, are the bravest, most resourceful and intelligent people on earth. I think that they are a generous, inventive, creative, kind, humane, life-loving people who are the least deserving of hatred of any nation on earth.

But I can actually can think of many others on our small planet who deserve to be defamed, libeled, marched against, boycotted, hated and shunned.

People who play soccer with human heads (couldn’t believe my eyes). People who behead others and show it on YouTube. People who teach children to play at cutting off the heads of dolls and then proudly upload videos of the little darlings in the act with their sawing knives and headless dolls. People who rent out their twelve-year old daughters to jihadi rapists. People who throw acid in the faces of women who reject their advances. People who pull others off the street and execute them.

You get the picture. For the life of me, I don’t understand why they are not being targeted by the do-gooders and the outraged liberals. I don’t understand why for journalists it is only news if they are Jews.

In the middle of personally going a bit nuts after a slew of funerals of the handsomest, kindest, most wonderful young men on earth, our IDF soldiers, I went on a long-planned holiday, a Baltic cruise which started out in Copenhagen and anchored in Helsinki, Stockholm, St. Petersburg, and a few other stops I’ve already forgotten.

Walking through the streets of a peaceful European city was a bit of a shock at first. It was like getting reacquainted with sanity. All those blondes on bicycles in Denmark, the wind in their hair, adorable little babies in bicycle sidecars. People in outdoor cafés, on boat rides, strolling through green, blooming gardens on a summer day. In my mind’s eye, I tried, for just a moment, to envision a siren going off, and everyone scurrying for cover.

But it was impossible.

Ahh, so this is what it was like, once, not so long ago, that thing called normalcy.

I thought of the beginnings of World War II, when Haile Selassie raised his voice in 1935 when Italy barbarously invaded his little country. “…there is no precedent for a people being victim of such injustice and being at present threatened by abandonment to its aggressor.” To the eternal shame of the world, his stirring plea fell on deaf ears as the world went on with the business of trying to get along with Hitler in order to maintain their own quiet lives.

History bears out how well that strategy worked.

What I find most frightening and incomprehensible is how few people remember this. Is it real ignorance or willed ignorance? I have not yet decided. Young people seem so oblivious to human history. They can tell you how many times Selena Gomez has broken up with Justin Bieber, but I seriously doubt they could tell you anything about even the history of the last ten years, let alone the last hundred years of the planet earth.

And it’s not just the young. Stupid young people grow into stupid old people. Those who lived through history can also choose not to remember, if the vitriol against Israel coming out of Great Britain is any indication. Blitz? What Blitz? The Allied bombing of Dresden in retaliation? Say what?

It’s a convenient amnesia no doubt brought on by the march of the new forces of barbarism that have invaded the free world under the guise of immigration. The violent demonstrations all over Europe in support of the slaughtering hordes of rapists-kidnappers, and genocidal, racist maniacs united under their newly minted version of Islam have taken over the lovely streets of Paris, the sidewalks of London’s High Street and other European main streets too numerous to count. Their ugly, anti-Semitic slogans pollute the walls of the once civilized world. If you haven’t seen it with your own eyes, you will. Wherever you live, they are soon coming to a street near you.

Jews, for obvious reasons, don’t have the luxury of forgetting our history. Of all the peoples on earth, we are the least willing to repeat it, for obvious reasons.

I was fascinated by the history of the Jews in all the places I visited. Without exception, Jewish presence all over Europe followed the same pattern. Jews were expelled. Then certain Jews, for certain reasons, were temporarily “permitted” to settle in certain towns for a certain amount of time, in order to serve the particular needs of the current ruling classes. Then they were kicked out again. And then they trickled back again, until they were kicked out once more.

It seems to me that Europe’s current attitude towards the Jewish State is tainted with a delusional desire to recapture this historical ability to tell Jews where they can and can’t live; what they can and can’t do. Perhaps this is why through the European Union they continue to issue edicts and warnings and demands and come up with ugly blood libels, refusing to accept that history has moved on and that the Jews no longer need the permission of Europe to settle and grow and prosper and create and address their own needs, irrespective of how Europe would like to be served.

Back in the 1770’s Jews were only allowed in Sweden if they converted to Christianity until one Aron Isak, a seal engraver from Germany, rejected this demand: “I would not change my religion for all the gold in the world.” This so impressed the Lord Mayor of Stockholm, that he advised Mr. Isak to talk to King Gustav III, who granted Mr. Isak not only the right to become Sweden’s first Jewish citizen, but to bring with him ten more families so that he could have a minyan.

From a quiet life among a tolerant and liberal population, Jewish life in Sweden and most of Europe has become a nightmare as Muslim immigrants from all over the Islamic world flooded the country, rising to over four percent of the population.

Since the recent war in Gaza, life for Swedish Jews has become even more intolerable. “We have always known that there are those who hate us in Sweden, but this time it was expressed more powerfully, because there were so many anti-Semitic remarks and attacks by anti-Semites that it was impossible to follow. Even among celebrities, politicians and journalists – it was not a criticism of the operation in Gaza, but really hate against Jews,” twenty-two year-old Swedish-Jewish student Victor Borslöv-Reichmann told NRG.

The irony of Europe having historically closed its doors to Jews only to now open them wide to Muslims is hard to ignore. In Sweden, at least, this has not brought blessing. In the first seven months of 2013, over 1,000 Swedish women reported being raped by Muslim immigrants in the capital city of Stockholm, a large percentage pre-teens.

Our boat docked in Stockholm. Lots of lovely buildings. Lots of dark-haired men eyeing Swedish blondes. And many signs decrying the “slaughter” of Palestinians in Gaza.

I flew home to Israel. That first night back, there was a Red Alert in Jerusalem.

Unfortunately, it felt like the new normal.

Even so, it was better than being in Sweden, or any other foreign place where local tranquility is bought by immoral ignorance. But if George Santayana was right when he wrote: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” then it won’t be tranquil in any of those places much longer.

Reprinted with author’s permission

Read more at http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/20866/new-normal/#zzMoiAasBZAY7WMo.99