Let’s face it: we Americans have no excuses for not seeing President Obama’s anti-Israel bias before voting for him in 2008. Isn’t it too much to believe Obama sat for twenty years in Trinity United Church of Christ without ever listening to Pastor Jeremiah Wright’s anti-Semitic rants? Or that he studied under Professor Edward Said without hearing about Said’s hatred for Israel? Or what about his close relationship with anti-Semitic Rashid Khalidi? Or Obama’s Muslim stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, and Obama’s childhood upbringing in Indonesia as a Muslim student? Are these just freak aberrations in President Obama’s life?
President Obama explained all of these hiccups in his life by confirming his Christian beliefs, mouthing his support for Israel, denouncing Reverend Wright’s anti-Semitic remarks, and glossing over his other anti-Semitic relationships and Muslim past. The media gave him a pass on the issue while America listened to his “hope and change” prosperity message.
The 2008 election resulted in Presidential Obama winning 26% of white evangelical’s votes, 94% of black Christian votes, and 78% of the Jewish vote.
As most of us know, politicians are notorious for bobbing and weaving their way through campaigns while trying to leave escape hatches for them to jump through when voters remind them of their promises afterward. How did President Obama back up his promised support for Israel?
On January 21, 2009, his first day in office, President Obama summoned his national-security team to the Oval Office and laid out a tough new policy toward Israel. The policy demanded Israel make whatever accommodations were needed to settle Palestinian grievances, even if it meant returning to pre-1967 borders.
The President then traveled to the Middle East in April and June 2009, meeting with Arab leaders. In his speeches he challenged the legitimacy of Jewish settlements on Palestinian-claimed land and cited the Holocaust as the justification for Israel’s existence, overlooking any historical Jewish ties to the land. (This happens to be the Arab narrative for Israel’s existence.)
A month later, President Obama invited the heads of fourteen Jewish organizations to meet with him at the White House. During the meeting one Jewish leader said, “If you want Israel to take risks for peace, the best way is to make Israel feel that its staunch friend America is behind it.”
“You are absolutely wrong,” President Obama reportedly replied. “For the past eight years [under the Bush administration], Israel had a friend in the United States and it didn’t make peace.”
This dismal beginning only foretold the icy relationships between President Obama and Israel over the last seven years. Open snubs of Prime Minister Netanyahu. The Pentagon’s declassifying documents revealing Israel’s nuclear program. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or the Iran Nuclear Deal, which turns out to only be a commitment between President Obama’s administration and Iran, not a nuclear treaty after all. President Obama used taxpayer money, his own political operatives, and a nonprofit front group to interfere in the 2015 Israeli election, specifically with the intent of toppling Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister. And so forth.
President Barack Obama and America have poked God in His eye by the way we have treated Israel over the last seven years. Shouldn’t we expect God to raise His fist to crush us?
(Excerpt from Common Sense 2016 by Larry Nevenhoven, ©2016, Amazon eBook…which will be offered free of charge April 22 – April 25)
This message came about because of a twenty-minute video which can be seen here.
My prayer today:
Lord, have mercy on America for we have rebelled and turned aside from Your commandments about blessing and honoring Israel. So now, the solemn curses written in the Law of Moses have partially fallen upon our nation and we fear the rest will soon fall. You are right in doing these things for we did not obey You. In view of all Your faithful mercies, please turn Your furious anger away from us or all the nations of the world will mock us because of our sins. We make this plea, not because we deserve Your help, but because of Your great mercy. (Based on prayer in Common Sense 2016, with is based on Daniel 9:4-19)
What do you think and has the Lord spoken to you today?
Join with me on Thursdays to fast and pray for America.
Larry Who 