Reading this from a secular perspective, one might be inclined toward fear and pity for the Israelis. Such emotions (and prayers) should be directed instead, at America.
God will not continue to shed his grace and crown our good(s) from sea to shining sea whilst our government shifts from support (warm or measured) to flat, stark, public opposition to His people and their refuge. (Not that it’s a big surprise.)
This from an Australian newspaper:
Can Israel still call the United States its best international friend? …the increasingly tense dialogue between US President Barack Obama and new Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is taking on all the trappings of a duel.
Almost every day brings news of another sore point between the two countries, a source of yet further inflammation of their once warm relations.
One could be forgiven for thinking that the more immediate threat to Israel’s national security lay across the Atlantic rather than from closer to home.
It is bad enough that President Obama uses almost every opportunity he can to set the parameters of a final peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Now US officials are openly using Israeli anxiety over Iran’s fledging nuclear program as a bargaining chip to force Israel’s hand on giving up control of the West Bank Palestinian territory.
No less a figure than White House chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel — whose father fought with the militant Zionist group the Irgun, and whose appointment had provided such reassurance to Israeli officials — was quoted this week laying down the law to Israel…
Then on Thursday came the news that Mr Netanyahu’s planned first meeting with President Obama in Washington next month had been called off.
Mr Netanyahu had hoped to capitalise on his attendance at the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in Washington to visit the White House.
But Administration officials informed Mr Netanyahu’s office that the President would not be “in town”.
Washington sources added that the Obama Administration would not be continuing the tradition that had developed during the Bush years of hosting Israeli prime ministers whenever they showed up in town, sometimes with just a phone call’s notice…
Mr Obama is also demanding a freeze on Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank, and has dropped the Bush administration’s opposition to Hamas being part of a future Palestinian Authority government.
One has to ask the hypothetical question: If Israel disappeared off map tomorrow, would the White House be perplexed… or relieved?
It’s ironic that the Biblical Barak was the one to deliver the Israelites from the double-crossing Sisera. The modern Barack has in effect, made Sisera his Chief of Staff.
UPDATE I: Speaking of Australia (whose media appear not to have sold out quite as completely as in the U.S.), this article is interesting:
Antarctica has 90 per cent of the Earth’s ice and 80 per cent of its fresh water… East Antarctica [which is cooling] is four times the size of west Antarctica… sea ice losses in west Antarctica over the past 30 years [are] more than offset by increases in… east Antarctica.
Do the math and don’t bother selling that low-lying real-estate just yet. How much simpler can it be? So then why is the Obama administration obsessed with knocking down Israel and pursuing the myth of global warming? And why are these two seemingly diverse issues interrelated? I don’t know… but I have my guesses…
UPDATE II: And speaking of forbearance (who ever said updates had to relate to the main post?), this is positively Kafkaesque, especially in light of its context:
[...] a ‘you won’t feel a thing’ Jack Kevorkian version of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the state of Israel and it’s people would just shut up and quietly slip away — I’d chalk this item up to simple bureaucratic oversight. Yet it seems that when [...]
By: The Bureaucracy of Death « New Wineskins on August 1, 2009
at 7:31 am
[...] As I noted last month: [...]
By: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Enemies? « New Wineskins on May 4, 2009
at 7:53 pm
[...] here. Or, as I quoted from another article [...]
By: Freezing Gomorrah « New Wineskins on April 27, 2009
at 8:08 am
Re forbearance, I forget whether it was you or my friend Ray, but one of you made the point that the only thing keeping this country afloat right now is Jesus’s “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Scary how right that probably is.
[Interesting term, 'afloat'. Was the Titanic 'afloat' after it hit the iceberg? Answer: yes... for awhile. As I recall, that disaster, like the current one, happened because nearly all of the thought-to-be-independent airtight compartments were breached simultaneously. -ed.]
By: Patrick on April 21, 2009
at 8:44 am
I am shocked that people are shocked on Obama’s stance on Israel. What church did he attend for 20 YEARS?
By: Virginia Missouri on April 20, 2009
at 9:16 am