eNews

US troops pulled out of major Iraqi cities on Monday, handing over responsibility for security to the US-trained Iraqi forces. The withdrawal was celebrated by parades and fireworks, but many in the US and Iraq wonder with the Iraqi forces are ready to fight the insurgency on their own. In the meanwhile, Afghanistan faces another deeply rooted problem; the opium trade.

IRAQ:
Thousands of US soldiers left Baghdad and other Iraqi cities by Tuesday morning at midnight, officially pulling out by June 30th as outlined by the Status of Forces agreement signed last November. Tuesday was celebrated with a full military parade and declared "National Sovereignty Day," by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Maliki stood up for Iraq and encouraged his people saying, "Those who think that Iraqis are unable to defend their country are committing a fatal mistake."

U.S. Commanding General Ray Odierno told Fox News, "The Iraqi people should be very proud of the dedication, progress, and sacrifice of the Iraqi security forces and the government of Iraq."

The insurgents also celebrated the pullout with a car bombing in the northern city of Kirkuk. At least 20 people died and more were injured, in one of several acts of severe violence committed as the June 30th withdrawal date approached. The Iraqi people may celebrate the triumph of taking charge of their own country's security, but there is still fear that on al-Qaida and remnants of Saddam Hussein's Baath party will take advantage of the US absence to overwhelm the Iraqi forces.

The US has handed the cities into the hands of the Iraqis, but US troops have not abandoned Iraq entirely. Some US soldiers will remain in order to advise and train Iraqi security forces. The Iraqi government still wants US forces to operate in rural areas and near the border for now. The June 30th pullout is the first of several steps to have US forces completely out of Iraq by the end of December 2011.

AFGHANISTAN:
In the meanwhile, the US is still battling the Taliban on several fronts in Afghanistan. There are more ways to fight the Taliban, though, than just bombs and guns. Afghanistan produces 93 percent of the world's opium supply, and the Taliban feeds off of money from the opium trade. The US and Britain have both supported the policy of eradication – going in and destroying the poppy crops that fuel the industry. However, the US has decided to change tactics, and is giving up on eradication. Instead, the US wants to encourage farmers to plant alternative crops.

Afghanistan's farmers grow the poppy out of necessity rather than desire. There is a lot of danger on the roads, and transporting crops to market can be a life-and-death situation. The men who purchase poppy crops, however, will come to a farmer's land and collect the crop there, keeping the farmer at home where he can keep his family protected. Most Afghanis are Muslims, and drugs like heroin are against their religion, but when it comes down to feeding their families, many see opium as their only real option.

The US has decided to change tactics and work on helping farmers choose to raise crops other than the poppy. The US formerly pumped money into eradication - destroying opium crops to prevent them from going into the market. It has become clear that this policy isn't working. There is massive corruption in the Afghani law enforcement, and too often those farmers who can pay to have their opium crops protected are passed over for eradication. The smaller, poorer farmers are getting their crops destroyed. The injustice and failure of democracy is pushing many people towards support of the Taliban. In the meanwhile, the Taliban isn't losing any money; they were still getting hundreds of millions of dollars from the opium trade.

Richard C. Holbrooke, the US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, spoke at a Group of Eight summit dedicated to Afghanistan, saying he sees eradication as "a waste of money." He said it "might destroy some acreage, but it didn't reduce the amount of money the Taliban got by one dollar".

He added: "The farmers are not our enemy, they're just growing a crop to make a living. It's the drug system. So the US policy was driving people into the hands of the Taliban."

The new policy will also include putting money into improving the rule of law in Afghanistan and interrupting the drug markets and drug convoys. The heroin that gets shipped into Russia, Europe and Asia from Afghanistan will kill about 100,000 people this year.

We Americans have been taught from childhood about our rights, and we enjoy a glorious freedom and self-rule that we can easily take for granted. We don't have to hold our Bible studies in secret for fear of the government. We don't have to worry about being imprisoned for months or years without facing charges. We accept our freedoms as a normal way of life, easily forgetting that millions of people in other parts of the world do not enjoy the independence that we do.

As we approach and celebrate Independence Day in America, it is appropriate that we spend some time reflecting on our freedoms.

Throughout world history, the power-hungry have constantly fought to overpower and dominate others, whether overtly or through sneaky politicking. Freedom - whether political, religious, or spiritual - is wonderful to enjoy, but at the cost of great sacrifice and vigilant protection.   In America, we are the heirs of great sacrifices made to give us a heritage of freedom. Let us guard and protect this inheritance, and not squander it like ungrateful children. To keep our freedoms, we need to appreciate the cost. We need to be willing to understand the sacrifice ourselves, so that we have the same legacy to hand our children:

On Freedom:

"Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will." – Frederick Douglass

"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it." - Thomas Paine

"A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you." – Ramsey Clark

"You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free." - Clarence Darrow  [That is, even if you don't like what your neighbor believes in, it's still vital to protect his freedom.]

"So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men." - Voltaire

"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." - Wendell Phillips

"Freedom is never an achieved state; like electricity, we've got to keep generating it or the lights go out." - Wayne LaPierre

"If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too." - Somerset Maugham

"The land of the free will cease to be when it's no longer the home of the brave."- Rick Gaber

"A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned -- this is the sum of good government." – Thomas Jefferson

"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." – Samuel Adams

"Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value."  - Thomas Paine

"Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." - Galatians 5:1

"If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." – John 8:36

When something is rare, it has more value, which is why gold and diamonds are valued more than sand. Freedom is growing rarer again – but it must be sought after, dug up, and cherished like the treasure it is. We have readers from around the world – many of which value freedom way beyond those of us who have an abundance of it.

Remember – "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required"  - Luke 12:48

After a three-year battle, a Messianic Jew is getting her bakery's kashrut certificate reinstated. Israel's Supreme Court ruled on Monday that Pnina Conforty's religious beliefs did not automatically make her bakery unkosher, to the disgust of the Ashdod chief rabbi.

Messianic Jews are a group prone to be misunderstood by the non-Christian Jewish community as well as by non-Jewish Christians. They are therefore a marginalized group. Yet, "Jews for Jesus" are spiritually the descendants of Jesus' disciples. After all, Jesus was a Jew, who taught and fulfilled prophecies from the Hebrew Scriptures, and his close followers were all Jews who recognized him as their long-awaited Messiah.   Two thousand years later, being a believer in the Messiah is still not easy in many Jewish communities, especially in Israel.  Despite the difficulties it causes, Jews are still finding the love of God through Yeshua.

Pnina Conforty, a Yemenite Jew, ran a thriving bakery in the city of Gan Yavne until her belief in Jesus was made public. Her bakery was picketed, and it was made known around the city that she was a "missionary." The Gan Yavne chief rabbi revoked Conforty's kashrut certificate, which meant that the food sold at her bakery could no longer be considered kosher. Conforty didn't fight it. Instead, she moved to Ashdod where she opened another bakery in 2006.

Soon after Conforty opened her new bakery, though, the anti-missionary groups began showing up to picket her bakery again. Ashdod's chief rabbi Rabbi Yosef Sheinen had Conforty's kashrut certification revoked. Sheinen's logic was that Jews for Jesus could not be trusted to abide strictly by kashrut laws.

Conforty petitioned the High Court of Justice about the situation, and Sheinen and the Chief Rabbinate compromised and decided that Conforty could have her kashrut certificate reinstated if she agreed to abide by extra conditions, including giving the keys to her bakery to a kashrut supervisor and hiring a worker approved by Sheinen. Conforty was also told she could not proselytize on her property.

Conforty rejected these conditions, which went far beyond anything that secular Jews have to abide by, and the case went to court. On Monday, Israel's Supreme Court ruled that Conforty's belief in Jesus as the Messiah had nothing to do with food preparation, and did not make her bakery unkosher. 

Fear of Idol Worship:
The strict law-keeping Jews of Jesus' day were horrified by Jesus' claims to be the Son of God. The Pharisees constantly wanted to stone Jesus over it (John 8:58-59). To an observant religious Jew, worshiping Jesus is the same as idol worship, and that is the reason Jews fear Christian efforts to convert them.  The LORD is very serious about the sin of idolatry.  The Northern Kingdom was destroyed because of idolatry, and the Southern Kingdom was sent into captivity because of it. Religious Jews do not want to make that mistake again.

Yet, the Old Testament is full of Jesus. Jesus himself spent seven miles walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus, a good two hours, demonstrating from the Scriptures that the Messiah had to suffer. "And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." -Luke 24:25-27

Maybe he pointed out Isaiah 53 or Psalm 22. Maybe he showed them how the Messiah's death fulfilled the sacrificial system, and provided the blood as God's ultimate Passover lamb. Perhaps he quoted Micah 5:2 or Zechariah 9:9. Maybe he showed them that the Messiah would be God's Son through Psalm 2:7-12. It would have been wonderful to hear his seven-mile sermon on the suffering Messiah in the Scriptures.

Coming to know Jesus as Messiah is an amazing revelation for Jews who believe. Jesus did not come to the gentiles. He came to the Jews. In Matthew 15, Jesus told the Canaanite woman, a gentile, "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." (Matthew 15:24) Of course, he came to save the whole world (John 3:16), and even in the Old Testament it was prophesied that Israel, that the Messiah, would be a light to the gentiles (Isaiah 49:6).  But it all began with the Jews. It is therefore a most natural thing for a Jew to decide to follow Yeshua Ha Meshiach.

 But just as Jesus said it would, it is a decision that brings with it great controversy, even among family members (Matthew 10:35-38). Conforty is not alone in her experiences, in the harassment she's received for her faith.  Yet, God is still working in the hearts of human beings, both Jews and gentiles, and He is still faithful to His friend Abraham whose children the Jews are.

Serving God From Love:
Conforty came to believe in Jesus as Messiah while working for a Christian family in Ohio.

"God arranged it that I arrived at a place where there were Christians who love Israel more than most Jews do. Their love and faith were so different from the religion I learned at home that was based on fear. I was never taught to serve God out of love until then. They taught me that Yeshua is the messiah."

"I was on the verge of divorce and I prayed to God. I said to him, 'If Yeshua is messiah then you have to bring my husband back to me and make peace between us. No more than 10 minutes passed before my husband came to me and accepted the faith."

Our Bible studies regularly bring out types and prophecies of Jesus in the Old Testament.  To get started in learning about the Old Testament prophecies fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth, please see the Koinonia House materials listed in the links below.