PERFECT STORM FOR ISRAEL — OR TIME TO STAND WITH HER?

            Media reports Hamas and the Palestinian Authority merging interests and assets into a unity government.  It is good for no one when a terrorist organization merges with a so-called former terror group.  It is especially ominous for modern Israel – a nation that has spent its sixty-seven years of life under constant threat of annihilation and at least five credible attempts to destroy it by enemies more than twenty times more numerous.

            BTW – the United States gives hundreds of millions of dollars to the Palestinian Authority each year – tax dollars.  In light of this merger we are now funneling that money to Hamas, the most notorious terrorist group in the world after Al Qaida. 

            The Palestinian Authority theoretically recognizes Israel’s right to exist, but only if she gives up so much of her land over nearly four thousand years to a group of refugees who claim it without ever having owned it.  Hamas won’t even go as far as recognition.  And now the United States – under Barack Obama and John Kerry – have telegraphed our intention to bring Israel to heel by any means necessary.  Kerry recently claimed an Israel that does not return to her pre 1967 borders is ripe to be labeled an apartheid society.  (He hinted at sanctions should Palestinians resume attacks on Israel.  My question would be when did those attacks ever cease?)  There is no more serious anathema to be hurled by one nation at another in our politically correct-on-steroids world.  We have thrown our closest ally under the bus – or at least promised to do so if they continue to displease us.  This is a perfect storm for an isolated Israel.  But what is it for the American People – the vast majority of whom believe Israel is God’s chosen nation, an underdog worthy of support, defense, or both?

            Some will point out Kerry has already pulled back from the apartheid label, that he didn’t really mean that.  Experience shows people speak the truth they truly believe when agitated.  In any case, Kerry and Obama have demonstrated their hatred of Israel since the beginning of their respective tenures in office, as did Hilary Clinton when she helmed the State Department.  My question for the American people remains.

            Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East – as Democrat Barbara Boxer points out in her denunciation of Kerry’s apartheid statement.  She is our closest and most consistent ally, and a light to her region – the most volatile on earth – if they will have her.  After the US she is the first nation to aid others in time of disaster.  We owe many of our medical and computer advances to her tradition of innovation, not to mention her agricultural advances making deserts bloom.  We owe her better treatment than this.

            The people of Israel have suffered more tyranny, butchery, and persecution than any on earth.  In each of the five full scale wars in which she has fought in less than a century the other side has been the aggressor – including the 1967 war in which she won back so much of her ancient territory and made of Jerusalem a holy city in which all faiths are welcomed and honored.  (Palestinian Arabs had turned Temple Square into a slum; Israeli forces restored it.)  The so-called Intifada came about because an Israeli leader had the temerity to seek to worship God on the Temple Mount, which was then and is Israel’s property and holiest site.  Justice demands better treatment than this.

            Finally, the Word of God calls the Jews God’s chosen ones, His firstborn whom He will never abandon.  Christians and Jews, comprising more than a third of the world’s population, believe the prophecies about Israel rising from the ashes – a unique achievement in world history – because they have all come true. Jesus was born and remains a Jew of Israel.  He says if we expect to be acknowledged by His Father we had best acknowledge Him.  Where I come from if you want to acknowledge me you acknowledge those I love.  The Holy Scriptures – and I refer to materials that have proven accurate in the crush of world events – demand better treatment than this for Israel.

            I asked what this means for the American people.  The great majority of us know the truth – and the justice – of what is written here. It means we must rise up as a people and demand our government act with justice, mercy, and a newfound humility toward people who deserve our support.  It means we must stay in the game until truth prevails.  The Israelis have suffered enough and we have waffled enough.