The United Methodist Church (UMC) is at it again, although other denominations have engaged in this abysmal behavior as well. Their 225-page report, "Israel-Palestine: A 2007-2008 Mission Study," likens Jews to "monsters" and compares the actions of Israelis to Nazis. Strange, indeed, when Hamas TV is currently running a kids' special suggesting that they "eat Danes, not Danish pastries." The UMC uses "terrorism" to describe Israeli actions while the actions of Palestinian Arabs are described as "activism." The desire to strap explosives onto oneself has dropped to that level, I guess, in the eyes of the UMC.
The 11 million-member church is expected to take up the issue of divesting stock from companies that do business with Israel at its quadrennial national conference in April. And those behind the effort are asking for the following:
1) That Israel end its "occupation" and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantle her security wall which has reduced homicide bombing by 95%. Here's a note to the UMC: Israel didn't "occupy" or "colonize" anything. She has seized land since 1948 only to take territory that would defend her from further attack. She got her God-given land back very officially in 1948. But at ...   more »

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared on Thursday that Iran was the world's "number one" power, as he launched a bitter new assault on domestic critics he accused of siding with the enemy.
"Everybody has understood that Iran is the number one power in the world," Ahmadinejad said in a speech to families who lost loved ones in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.
"Today the name of Iran means a firm punch in the teeth of the powerful and it puts them in their place," he added in the address broadcast live on state television.
Ahmadinejad's comments come amid renewed Western efforts on the UN Security Council to agree a third package of sanctions against Tehran over its refusal to suspend sensitive nuclear activities.
They also came a day after former top nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani launched an unprecedented attack on Ahmadinejad's foreign policy, accusing him of using "coarse slogans and grandstanding".
"You can see how some people here... try to materialise the plans of the enemies and by showing that Iran is small and the enemy is big," added Ahmadinejad.
"These are the people who put the enemies of humanity in the place of God," said the deeply religious president.
He also ...   more »