Nazareth mayor cancels Christmas celebration over Trump's Jerusalem decision

Having looked at the article and read the comments the following can be stated:

The Middle East, in particular that part of the world has been a hot bed of violence for years. Much of the violence we see today started long before many of us were born, and those who were around are either dead or are very old. It has been from the dawn of time, fought over, conquered and ruled over by one group or another, with little to no thought about the people who live and call that place home.

While it is true that the USA has made that claim that they would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and then paused by signing a waver to hold up the delay, it is usually done very quiet. And with good reason, as the area is still in contention between 2 groups of people, that often will fight at the drop of a hat over minor slights. And unfortunately there is enough reports to give us pause to think that the country of Israel is no angel or as innocent as they would have the rest of the world believe, constantly pushing and forcing the Palestinians back time and time again from lands, through the various agreements and treaties, were promised to them.

Unfortunately, neither side wants peace or to agree to any accords that would end the violence, and it will take a miracle to achieve the peace that is so needed as well. However, this announcement that was done and what all is being seen right now. Trump in short, poured gas on the smoldering embers that are over there, and in doing such, has committed the USA to support one of the 2 sides without thinking of the consequences from that announcement. He gave the other side, the Palestinians a rallying cry to justify their hatred and terror against both the Israelies and the USA, and to use such to gather far more support from others who also do not like both. And unfortunately the USA has made too many enemies in that part of the world who would love to give them that, and start a renewed offensive against that country if nothing more than to use it to fight a proxy war.

The mayor in this case, calling off celebrations, I can understand, and with good reason, he is looking at the potential for violence in the area. Many people from the west, including the USA like to make pilgrimages to Bethlehem, would make a very tempting target for kidnapping and or things like killing those from the USA. Many times in the past, such has occurred and happened. And now it is no longer a matter of if it will, but when.


Now while there may be some celebrations in the area for Christmas, but I think that in this case they are trying to keep it low key and not present such a larger target of opportunity.

a reply to: DBCowboy

Yes, they did.

originally posted by: dawnstar
a reply to: enlightenedservant

I can't help but think that the European/American influence in the founding of Isreal along with all the support it gets has more to do with them trying to fullfill bible prophecy than anything else....
never mind that God really probably never needed their help in fullfilling the prophecy and to be honest, probably won't be fullfilled till it's time under God's timetable and not theirs.
all they are doing is causing needless deaths and turmoil for the people of the region...
and ya, ensuring that they have a powerful ally that is friendly to them in the oil rich area...

You're more correct than you know. People never go into detail on Judaism and Jerusalem for a reason. I'll just say this: Since Christ's death, there have been at least 3 major attempts by the Jewish people to reclaim Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple (not counting modern Zionism).

The first involved a fake Jewish Messiah called Simon bar Kokhba, who led a massive rebellion against the Romans in their province of Judea around 130AD. His followers brutalized the early Christian groups for refusing to fight alongside them (and clearly the fake Messiah failed).

The second happened around 360AD. The Romans allowed the Jews to return and rebuild the Temple, but God had other plans. From their own sources, fireballs kept erupting from the Earth to halt their work and then an earthquake flattened the rest in 363AD. So they gave up on that attempt.

The third and final attempthappened in the early 610s or 620s AD when the Jewish people teamed up with the Zoroastrian Persians from the Sassanid Empire (who were in a war with the Byzantine Christians who controlled Jerusalem). The Jews & Sassanids reconquered Jerusalem, then the Sassanids gave the Jews control of Jerusalem and the surrounding areas. The Jews tried to recreate a Jewish State by destroying the Christian buildings & churches there, by killing and exiling the inhabiting Christians, and by trying to rebuild the Temple. (In context, the Jews had been in several other wars with the Romans between this and the last paragraph, including several wars where they teamed up with their Samaritan rivals to fight to Romans).

Anyway, the Sassanids withdrew their support because these actions went too far, so the Byzantine Christians easily reclaimed Jerusalem and defeated the Jews so badly that they literally gave up on Jerusalem. The Byzantines then destroyed the remains of the Temple and converted it into a trash dump so no one would try to reclaim it, if I'm not mistaken. A few Jewish groups remained there (now known as Maghrebi Jews) but the majority of them and their leaders fled and never even attempted to come back until modern Zionism, which is roughly 1200 years later.

(Muslims would then conquer Jerusalem in the 630s AD, and from then on, different Christian and Muslim groups would fight over it, work together in it, and then fight over it again. Then after 1200 years, modern Zionists tried to come in and stake their claim on the land & neighborhoods that they no longer had any ties to, which is why it's so heated now.

It would be like the Cherokee people getting the backing of the world's superpower 1,000 years from now and then conquering through force the US States of Tennessee and Georgia since they once held a Nation in those States. Any American claims to the land would be refuted by the beliefs of the ancient Cherokee religions, and any Americans would have to settle in neighboring regions because only the Cherokees would have the "right of return" to the lands that only their most ancient of ancestors had any ties to.).