Since President Obama took office, there has been a growing divide between the White House and the leadership of Israel. Since January of 2009, the growing divide has become a great divide. This gives all the appearance of a White House war on Israel.
There was no lessening of the divide when U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed her concern for the state of democracy in Israel. Publicly, she compared one facet of Israeli society, in which Orthodox men and women ride separate buses, with the racial treatment of blacks before the Civil Rights Movement and with the treatment of women in Iran!
Israeli leadership reacted in astonishment that the Secretary of State would make those kinds of comparisons and then apply them to Israeli democracy in general. Public comments like these, from a high-ranking representative of the White House, appear to provide the ultimate slap in the face of the only true democracy in the Middle East. Since the Secretary of State is not prone to speaking off the cuff without thinking, these remarks seem to be premeditated, which show how wide the divide between the U.S. and Israel has become.
This great divide between the White House and Israel has been exacerbated by the administration's handling of the Jewish nation in regard to the Middle East "peace" process. This can be illustrated by another public calling out of Israel, this one by U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.
The Secretary of Defense publicly chastised Israel and challenged the Jewish leadership to "take bold action" in order "to move towards a negotiated two-state solution." Then, when he was asked what steps Israel should take, he angrily chided Israeli leadership by shouting, "Just get to the [expletive] table!" ("The table" refers to the negotiating table with the U.S. and Palestinians.)
By Panetta's harangue, it appears that the Obama administration feels that lack of progress in the Middle East peace process is all Israel's fault. Yet, the White House understands the Palestinians have been avoiding talks with Israel.
In fact, nothing could be clearer. While Israel has submitted to a number of concessions foisted on it by the White House, accompanied by promises the Palestinians would come to the negotiating table, Palestinian leadership has not sat down at the table even once since Obama has been in the White House.
One might ask: How many concessions have the Palestinians made in the name of peace? In answer, one would have great difficulty naming even one.
Even Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad does not solely blame Israel for the lack of peace progress. Instead, he believes that the current political conditions within Israel may be one factor, but conditions in the Palestinian territories, as well as across the world, are not favorable to moving forward on a peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians.
One primary factor within the Palestinian territories which obviates the completion of a treaty between the two parties is the fact that Palestinians reject Israel's right to exist. This was brought out recently when Adi Sadeq, the Palestinian Authority Ambassador to India, told the official PA newspaper that neither Hamas (the ruling Palestinian party in Gaza) nor Fatah (the ruling Palestinian party in the West Bank) believe that the "fabricated" Jewish state "never had any shred of a right to exist."
To illustrate that belief, a Palestinian website operating out of the U.K. featured a map of Israel covered by the colors of the Palestinian flag (until it was shut down recently by the U.K.'s Advertising Standards Authority). Of course, the message is that none of the land on which the nation of Israel sits belongs to it; it is occupying territory the Palestinians believe is theirs.
Moreover, the Palestinian leadership continues its war on Israel through incitements and by educating children of the necessity of killing Jews and driving the rest out of the Middle East. In fact, a new book (Deception: Betraying the Peace Process) documents hundreds of incitements against Israel by Palestinian leadership.
Israel's repeated "friend requests" to the Palestinians are answered with suicide bombers and missiles. For example, over the past ten years, hundreds of missiles have continued being fired into Israel from Gaza, an area of land Israel gave to the Palestinians in 2005.
So why is the White House taking this stand? Is it dwelling in Never Never Land-a make-believe place where one never has to grow up?
There is only one way to understand this great divide in a way that makes any sense at all, and that is to view it through the prism of God's kingdom plan. Seen in that way, we can recognize that the great divide needed to occur.
After all, the United States is absent from Bible prophecy; yet, Israel is at the very center of God's prophetic picture. This means that the U.S. needed to move away from the side of Israel prior to end-times fulfillment of Bible prophecy. By all accounts, it appears that has already occurred.
As a result, we can see that God has been preparing the way for an eventual seven-year treaty with Israel, co-signed by ten national leaders. [For more explanation of this, see Apocalypse 2012: The Ticking of the End Time Clock-What Does the Bible Say?] Neither the U.S. nor the Palestinians will be involved in this end-times treaty; thus, both needed to exit the stage in preparation for the final scene. It now appears that those two actors are at the exits. We are now awaiting the curtain to go up for the final scene.
