Countdown to Armageddon

Israel has seized large tracts of Jerusalem owned by West Bank Palestinian residents, lawyers say.

The land was taken after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government decided several months ago to enforce a long-dormant law that allows Israel to seize property belonging to Palestinians who fled or were driven out during the 1948-49 war that followed the state's creation. All falling into place now.

[...]

Bethlehem resident Johnny Atik said on Sunday that he lost eight acres of olive groves within Jerusalem's municipal boundaries as a result of the new policy.

The land is just 100 metres away from his home, on the other side of an electronic fence and patrol road that are part of the separation barrier.

"The olives fall on the ground," he said. "We see them, but we can't get to them."

Atik said 40 families in his neighbourhood alone have had land taken. Hundreds of other Palestinians are now at risk of having land seized, said lawyers Daniel Seidemann and Muhammad Dahla, who represent several of the landowners.
  Aljazeera article

Some more reading on the subject:

Culture, Religion, Apocalypse, and Middle East Foreign Policy

Mainline Protestants Challenge Israel Lobby

This post recently offered at Daily Kos reveals the sheer insanity of the entire insane Armaggedon plot: it's not even a consistent reading of the Bible.

George Monbiot - in the UK Guardian - sums things up neatly : "In the United States, several million people have succumbed to an extraordinary delusion. In the 19th century, two immigrant preachers cobbled together a series of unrelated passages from the Bible to create what appears to be a consistent narrative: Jesus will return to Earth when certain preconditions have been met. The first of these was the establishment of a state of Israel. The next involves Israel's occupation of the rest of its "biblical lands" (most of the Middle East), and the rebuilding of the Third Temple on the site now occupied by the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosques. The legions of the antichrist will then be deployed against Israel, and their war will lead to a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. The Jews will either burn or convert to Christianity, and the Messiah will return to Earth."

Finally, an excerpt from an article on the Neocons:

Bush denounces the fanaticism of al-Qa’ida and other right-wing Islamic groups. Yet his ‘good versus evil’ rhetoric – ‘those who are not with us are with the terrorists’ – echoes the fundamentalism of the Christian and Jewish right. The influence of this kind of religious fantasy and its echoes in the military-strategic policies of Bush, Wolfowitz and other hawks is frightening. It reflects the dangerous irrationality of the right-wing faction of the Republican party, which is linked to the greediest and most aggressive sections of the US ruling class. But how has the ideology of the religious right gained such an influence?

The right-wing Christian movement is organised and manipulated by big business interests. They draw a mass following from sections of the middle and the working class who feel perplexed and threatened by rapid economic and social changes. Because these strata cannot understand the real social forces at work, they grasp at mystical narratives and seek the consolation of religion, the ‘heart of a heartless world’, as Marx said. Religious-populist traditions play a big part in this trend. It is no accident, moreover, that the Christian right is strongest where the labour movement is weakest, in the South and parts of the mid-West. The weakening of the organised working class in the US and its lack of independent political representation has allowed the growth of the Christian right and the Bush wing of the Republican party. Events in the next period, however, will bring a revival of working-class struggle and leaps in consciousness that will cut across the growth of the right-wing religious movement.” (Fundamentalists in the White House Lynn Walsh)

Perhaps. But only if we make it to the next period.