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November 20, 2023

Author and communications strategist Joel Rosenberg issued an urgent plea to the Israeli government Friday, imploring leaders to quickly and systematically evacuate Christian Palestinians trapped in Gaza amid Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas.

Rosenberg penned an open letter to “Israeli leaders at the highest levels of our government and the military,” detailing why he believes this evacuation must unfold. He spoke with CBN Digital on Friday to further frame the pressing matter.

“It’s a terrible situation, as you can imagine,” he said. “Everybody in Gaza wants to be out of Gaza right now.”

But Rosenberg stressed an important difference between the millions of Muslims living there and the 1,000 or so remaining Christian minority members still trapped in the area: Hamas will target Christians just as they did Jews during the Oct. 7 terror attack.

Watch him explain:

While the Israeli government has spent the past five weeks since Hamas’ brutal terror attack urging Palestinians in the northern part of Gaza to move south, Christians had been hesitant.

“The Israeli Defense Forces have been opening up secure lanes for people to evacuate, to get to the south, and have been helping the international community bring in food, clean water, medical supplies, and so forth,” Rosenberg said. “So, that’s all good.”

But Palestinian Christians, he said, have mostly sheltered inside three churches, where they are safe but have very little food, water, or medical supplies. They’re mostly trapped in these buildings because of the fighting going on outside.

Listen to them on the latest episode of Quick Start ?

But Israeli forces have reportedly asked them to also move south.

“Starting in the last 24 hours, the IDF has been ordering the Palestinian Christians, ‘OK, now you really do have to move south, because there’s so many more operations we have to do,’” Rosenberg said. “Well, the problem is … they’re terrified to go south, because they’re not Muslims, they’re Christians, and the Hamas, and Islamic Jihad, and other violent, genocidal, Islamist extremists are going to slaughter these Christians.”

He continued, “They’re gonna rape the wives and the daughters, just like they’ve done in Syria, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, anywhere else where these guys operate.”

Rosenberg said it’s not a good idea to move these Christians south and has been calling on Israeli forces to come up with another plan, imploring officials both behind the scenes and through his letter to take action and come up with an alternative option.

One idea, he said, is to get the Palestinian Christians into the West Bank where they can at least have a semblance of security and safety. Rosenberg called on Christians to pray for doors to open and for officials to realize the dangers of moving these Christians.

He said it’s believed the Christians only have a few days before they’ll need to move as per the IDF’s orders.

UPDATE: Gazas 1,000 Christians need urgent prayers, aid, and a safe haven, lest they face genocide from Hamas. Israeli officials have a special responsibility to make sure these Christians are safe and cared for. Heres the latest. https://t.co/kxZwAvBTSj via @all_israel_news— Joel C. Rosenberg (@JoelCRosenberg) November 19, 2023

“We need to keep praying in a very specific and targeted way that everybody, every decision maker that needs to be aware, becomes aware in the next 24 hours,” Rosenberg said of the troubling situation. “The prayer is in the next 24 hours that a decision gets made on what is the best way to do it.”

His letter further implored Israeli leaders to realize the fears these Christians currently experience.

“If they are forced out of the historic church buildings the safe havens, in which they are currently sheltering in and around Gaza City and are sent to the south, they believe they face genocide, too,” Rosenberg wrote.

After penning the original letter, the author reported over the weekend that high-ranking Israeli officials are now discussing the matter, though Rosenberg is unsure whether a decision has been made.

“But the matter is squarely on their radar screen,” he added. “And this is a good thing.”

Rosenberg also addressed critics who called his letter alarmist and who reported differing views among Palestinian Christians. See him address those critiques here.

***As the number of voices facing big-tech censorship continues to grow, please sign up for Faithwires daily newsletter and download the CBN News app, developed by our parent company, to stay up-to-date with the latest news from a distinctly Christian perspective.***

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Is there £15bn of wiggle room in Rachel Reeves’s fiscal rules?

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Is there £15bn of wiggle room in Rachel Reeves's fiscal rules?

Are Rachel Reeves’s fiscal rules quite as iron clad as she insists?

How tough is her armour really? And is there actually scope for some change, some loosening to avoid big tax hikes in the autumn?

We’ve had a bit of clarity early this morning – and that’s a question we discuss on the Politics at Sam and Anne’s podcast today.

Politics Live: Reeves to reform financial regulations

And tens of billions of pounds of borrowing depends on the answer – which still feels intriguingly opaque.

You might think you know what the fiscal rules are. And you might think you know they’re not negotiable.

For instance, the main fiscal rule says that from 2029-30, the government’s day-to-day spending needs to be in surplus – i.e. rely on taxation alone, not borrowing.

And Rachel Reeves has been clear – that’s not going to change, and there’s no disputing this.

But when the government announced its fiscal rules in October, it actually published a 19-page document – a “charter” – alongside this.

And this contains all sorts of notes and caveats. And it’s slightly unclear which are subject to the “iron clad” promise – and which aren’t.

There’s one part of that document coming into focus – with sources telling me that it could get changed.

And it’s this – a little-known buffer built into the rules.

It’s outlined in paragraph 3.6 on page four of the Charter for Budget Responsibility.

This says that from spring 2027, if the OBR forecasts that she still actually has a deficit of up to 0.5% of GDP in three years, she will still be judged to be within the rules.

In other words, if in spring 2027 she’s judged to have missed her fiscal rules by perhaps as much as £15bn, that’s fine.

Rachel Reeves during a visit to Cosy Ltd.
Pic: PA
Image:
A change could save the chancellor some headaches. Pic: PA

Now there’s a caveat – this exemption only applies, providing at the following budget the chancellor reduces that deficit back to zero.

But still, it’s potentially helpful wiggle room.

This help – this buffer – for Reeves doesn’t apply today, or for the next couple of years – it only kicks in from the spring of 2027.

But I’m being told by a source that some of this might change and the ability to use this wiggle room could be brought forward to this year. Could she give herself a get out of jail card?

The chancellor could gamble that few people would notice this technical change, and it might avoid politically catastrophic tax hikes – but only if the markets accept it will mean higher borrowing than planned.

But the question is – has Rachel Reeves ruled this out by saying her fiscal rules are iron clad or not?

Or to put it another way… is the whole of the 19-page Charter for Budget Responsibility “iron clad” and untouchable, or just the rules themselves?

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Is Labour plotting a ‘wealth tax’?

And what counts as “rules” and are therefore untouchable, and what could fall outside and could still be changed?

I’ve been pressing the Treasury for a statement.

And this morning, they issued one.

A spokesman said: “The fiscal rules as set out in the Charter for Budget Responsibility are iron clad, and non-negotiable, as are the definition of the rules set out in the document itself.”

So that sounds clear – but what is a definition of the rule? Does it include this 0.5% of GDP buffer zone?

Read more:
Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn
Tough decisions ahead for chancellor

The Treasury does concede that not everything in the charter is untouchable – including the role and remit of the OBR, and the requirements for it to publish a specific list of fiscal metrics.

But does that include that key bit? Which bits can Reeves still tinker with?

I’m still unsure that change has been ruled out.

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