The term, "Jihad," in the Moslem vocabulary means "holy war." To me, it's quite a stretch to think of war as "holy." Wouldn't you consider peace to be a lot more "holy?" Shouldn't the Moslems be promoting "holy peace" instead of "holy war?"

"Jihad" seems to be an important doctrinal concept to Moslems. It comes directly from the Moslems' supposedly holy book, the Koran. It is taught as the main means for the spreading of Islam to non-Moslem peoples and nations. Islam has grown and advanced historically primarily by warfare, by conquering with the sword. It has sometimes been called, "the religion of the sword."

The South Carolina House of Representatives passed a significant resolution recently, commending the nation of Israel for its relations with the United States of America and with the State of South Carolina. The resolution did not generate any special news attention, but I thought it was important enough to report it to you.

Talk has been wildly circulating for several months now about the United Nations declaring an Arab "Palestinian" state in September. Plans are underway for the UN General Assembly to pass a resoluition to declare "Palestine" to be a new, independent state, in lieu of the unwillingness of Israel to simply give away half of their little bit of land for the occupying Arabs to have another Arab state of their own.

It will require a two-thirds vote, or 128 votes in the General Assembly to pass the resolution, and the Palestinians have stated that they already have assurances of 120 of the 128 votes needed. However, the declaration will not be "legal" unless the UN Security Council also agrees. Israel is counting on the United States to veto the proposal in the Security Council, but the Palestinians are hoping that US President Barack Obama will side with the Arabs and Moslems and make the US approve.