Kameel Majdali's Road Ahead

  If 2020 were not eventful enough - Covid, lockdown, economic downturn, wild-fires, hurricanes, and a rowdy presidential campaign - the temperature is about to burst out of thermometer. Now there is a vacancy in the US Supreme Court. If you thought that the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings were turbulent … put on your seatbelts for a potentially wild ride.   Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court ( SCOTUS ), Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second female justice, died on the 18th of September. Known affectionately as RBG, she had a sharp mind, steel determination, and was universally respected by leftists and conservatives alike. She successfully fought for women’s right in the workplace. Her philosophy was autonomy for women, equality with men. As a left-of-centre judge, she sided with the liberal wing of the court consistently. Since Trump’s presidency ‘RBG’ became a cultural icon to the Left. What happens next is that the current US President Donald Trum...

  It is the biggest news for peace in over 25 years! Especially in a region where peace is in short supply. Two Gulf Arab countries, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain, agree to to sign a peace treaty and normalise relations with Israel. The accords were signed at the White House on 15 September 2020. Of the 21 Arab nation-states, the UAE and Bahrain are the third and fourth countries after Egypt and Jordan to make peace with the Jewish State. The last time this happened was in 1994 when Bill Clinton was US President. There is an expectation that other Arab countries will follow the UAE and Bahrain’s lead. The agreement, brokered by the administration of US President Donald Trump, is called the ‘Abraham Accords’ as a sign of the mutual interest that Israeli Jews and Muslim Arabs have in common with the Biblical patriarch. On 31 August the first-ever direct air flight was conducted from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi, the UAE capital. Status Quo in Danger The Abraham Accord...

  Prosperity During Crisis Cr isis: It is not a happy, ‘feel good’ word, and we would prefer not to even hear it. Yet, as the maxim goes: When you understand the nature of a problem, you are halfway towards a solution. Yet there is more. While for some, crisis can mean the ‘end of the world,’ for others, it can be the womb of opportunity. Biblical greats faced serious crises, in some cases, insolubl e by human means. When God was all they had, they wonderfully discovered that God was all they needed. With bush fires, droughts, pandemic, lockdown, riots and recession, is it even possible to even contemplate surviving, even succeeding, where others struggle or fall? The answer is ‘Yes.’ It is possible to prosper during crisis. Here is a prime example. It comes from the Book of Genesis. Genesis 26: If you think our challenges are great, spare a thought for the Biblical characters. The patriarch Isaac dwelt in the promised land, as God ordained, yet his faith was being put ...

The Sabbath and the Christian   Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: 10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it — Exodus 20:8-11 In our last article we looked at the importance of the Sabbath to Jewish people. According to Exodus 31:16 it says ‘ the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath … for a perpetual covenant .’ The next verse, 17, reiterates that it is a sign between God and the children of Israel for ever. From all appearances, the Sabbath in the Torah was meant to distinguish Israel from all the other nations. It served as a memorial to creation. Today, observa...

                                                                                              On Tuesday, 3 November 2020, the people of the United States will go to the polls to elect the President. The two candidates are current Republican US President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger former Vice-President Joe Biden. The US ballots will have more than just 2 names: All 435 seats in the House of Representatives, one-third of all senators, and several state governorships are up for grabs.   It is a great thing that the American people, like all citizens in the free world, have the right to choose their elected leaders in free and fair elections unlike the sham elections or no elections of autocratic nations. Unlike Australia, voting in t...

  In Part 01 , we had a survey of recent history and the meltdowns it has brought. In 2001, there was a major terrorist attack called ‘9-11.’ In 2005, Hurricane Katrina was a major natural disaster that destroyed the American city of New Orleans. In 2008, the world economy had a heart attack called the Global Financial Crisis (GFC).  Just in 2020 alone, there has been drought, bush fires (wild fires in the USA), Covid-19, lockdowns, Covid-19 fascism, economic downturn, protests and riots How do we respond when ‘the fig tree does not blossom and there is no fruit on the vine?’ How can we survive and thrive in the midst of crisis? How do we go from ‘meltdown to mountaintop?’ We get our cue from Habakkuk. He teaches us to have serious, honest dialogue with the living God. We are enlightened by that transformational verse (2:4), The just shall live by his faith, ’ which spawned the Protestant Reformation. Vision, faithfully waiting for its fulfilment, drawing strength from G...