Will Obama’s Betrayal of Israel Bring America Down?
Editor’s Note: Dr. Jim Garlow recently wrote an article for Charismanews.com titled, “If You’re on the Fence About Your Vote, This Pastor Clarifies How the Very Future of America Is at Stake.” The article quickly went viral and has garnered more than 1 million shares in four weeks.
Why should Donald Trump—or any American presidential candidate—care about one tiny nation halfway around the world? After all, there are approximately 200 nations on the Earth. Why all the attention on just one?
A few weeks ago, my book Well Versed: Biblical Answers to Today’s Tough Issues was released, laying out the biblical underpinnings to 30 political and social issues. Only one nation—of all the nations in the world—got its own chapter.
It is Israel. But why all this fascination with Israel?
Why should we care about a land mass no bigger than New Jersey? After all, it only occupies less than ½ of 1 percent of all the land in the Middle East. Why this tiny state?
My wife, Rosemary Schindler Garlow (yes, she is distantly related, by her first marriage, to Oskar Schindler of Schindler’s List fame)—is about to make her 58th trip to Israel. I am about to make my 11th. Why this one nation?
And why should we care about Donald Trump’s Israel policy? Why Israel?
Part One (points 1-5 below) will help us understand the background to answer that question. Part Two (points 6-14)—which will post on Wednesday—centers upon Trump’s stand on Israel.
Part 1
1. Our survival. Let me cut to the chase: God has not changed His mind. Genesis 12:3 has not been repealed by Him. God’s covenant cannot be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, which is not “supreme” on this! Neither will God’s promise be nullified by the United Nations, the Palestinian Authority or ISIS.
Genesis 12:3, referring to Abraham’s descendants—that is, Israel—says: “I will bless them who bless you, and curse those who curse you.”
Pretty blunt, yes? So the choice is yours: Bless Israel and you get blessed. Curse Israel and you are toast.
America has great strengths, but we also acknowledge America’s many “national sins,” including violations of treaties with and horrific treatment of Native Americans, and the kidnapping and enslavement of Africans. We recall our mistreatment of Jews in the horrific 1939 St. Louis ship incident that gave Hitler the green light for “The Final Solution”—the killing of all Jews.
We are aware of FDR’s full knowledge of the concentration and death camps and the fact that the Allied Forces could have taken out the railroad track to these killing centers, which would have saved countless Jewish lives. We confess the Jim Crow laws against blacks. We mourn the killing of 56 million of our citizens before they even descended the birth canal. We just witnessed the Supreme Court’s June 2015 definitional decimation of marriage, robbing many children of the right to have both a mommy and a daddy.
Given that list, don’t we wonder why God has not already destroyed this nation? Allow me to shake your thinking a bit. Is it possible that the only reason America has escaped full and complete judgment is because our country has—at least until quite recently—been a nation that “blesses” (key word) Israel? The blessing of Israel may be our last remaining key to survival. Ponder that.
2. Our treatment of Israel. Unfortunately, President Obama has sent mixed signals regarding Israel. Yes, he has continued financial aid, but that may be where the good news ends. Obama’s egregious snubbing of Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House in March 2010, leaving the Prime Minister sitting and waiting while the U.S. president went to the private quarters of the White House for dinner, is iconic Obama-to-Netanyahu treatment.
When the pouty president did not get what he demanded out of Bibi, “Mr. Obama rose from his seat declaring: ‘I’m going to the residential wing to have dinner with Michelle and the girls,'” leaving the Prime Minister sitting alone.
Next consider Obama’s objection to Netanyahu addressing Congress in May of 2015.
Why did the GOP Congressmen invite the Israeli Prime Minister to speak? The short answer is: Because Obama didn’t.
3. Our betrayal of Israel. Worst of all is Obama’s “love affair” with Iranian leadership that wants Israel gone, followed by the killing of all Christians. (Doubt this? What do chants of “death to America” mean to you?)
To ensure that the Israelis were protected from Iranian nuclear bombs, Obama’s Secretary of State, John Kerry, arranged for an absurd provision: Iran to report on itself, to make sure that Iran is telling the truth about its own nuclear bomb capability.
The moral equivalency? Imagine Hitler monitoring himself to make sure he is not gassing the Jews. Imagine ISIS “self-reporting” to us that they are not beheading anyone. Imagine Planned Parenthood as its own accountability partner, so they can tell us that they are not dismembering babies in the womb. Or, Satan filing reports that he is not doing harm! For good reasons, Donald Trump called the Obama/Kerry (and Hillary affirmed) arrangement “the worst deal ever made.”
So Obama’s “support of Israel” is obliterated when you consider that he has set up the most terrorist-prone nation in the world to be in a posture to (soon?) attempt to obliterate Israel, and others. And for good measure, Obama threw in $150 billion and then another $400 million ransom cash we only recently discovered.
4. Land for peace. But the most historically uninformed Obama statement was when he called for Israel to give land for peace. Does he not know about such an offer in 1937? And again in 1947? And Israel making the offer in 1967? And again in 2000? And in 2008?
The Palestinian Authority does not merely want some land. They want all the land. What’s more, they want Israel wiped off the map. They actually have maps in which Israel does not exist!
In May of 2011, Obama called for Israel to go back to its “pre-1967 borders.” Have you been to Israel? Do you know what that means? Israel would only be seven miles across at one point and would not be able to defend itself. This absurd policy is a way of saying “we want Israel gone.”
5. The two-state solution. This is once again a strategy to carve off more of Israel’s tiny land mass. There is already a de facto “two-state solution.” It is called Jordan. Seventy-five percent of what could be Israel is now Jordan.
Note: This is part one of a two-part article on “Donald Trump and Israel.” Click here for part 2. {eoa}
Dr. Jim Garlow, is author of Well Versed: Biblical Answers to Today’s Tough Issues; commentator on “The Garlow Perspective,” a one-minute commentary on 850 radio outlets daily; pastor of Skyline Church in the San Diego area; and co-founder of The Jefferson Gathering, a weekly worship service for members of Congress in the U.S. Capitol Building. Garlow has a Ph.D. from Drew University in historical theology, and master’s degrees from Princeton Theological Seminary, Asbury Theological Seminary and Southern Nazarene University.
