Ruthie Knows

One of my favorite Middle East analysts is Ruthie Blum, who writes for a variety of publications, including the Jerusalem Post. Her parents are the peerless Norman Podhoretz (founder of Commentary magazine) and Midge Decter. So Ruthie’s great writing skill comes from good stock.

Norman Podoretz was and is an arch anti-communist. His wife is a marvelous writer.

I met Ruthie Blum in Jerusalem in about 2005. Since then, I have enjoyed her writing, especially a very insightful look at Obama: To Hell in a Handbasket. Get that book!

Anyhoo, Ruthie’s piece in the JPost this week highlights just one of the problems with the Biden “presidency.” Just as a child that reaches out to touch a deadly spider is clearly doing the wrong thing, the Biden gang is hell-bent on reviving the disastrous Oslo paradigm for the Israelis. With unprecedented peace deals sprouting around the Middle East (and certain Arab states signaling that, no, they are not wed to the Palestinian’s psychotic agendas), Israel is in a better position than perhaps at any time during statehood.

From the Post:

“The capacity of peace-process addicts to delude themselves about the Palestinian war against Israel is as bottomless as it is peculiar. It is they, after all, whose repeated attempts at solving the conflict have failed”

It defies belief that, just as the Americans did in 1991, the PLO bailout (when the terror organization is on its heels) has occurred again. Thirty years ago, Yasser Arafat was just another central casting terrorist in a cave in Tunisia. Next thing you know, Bush Sr. and his advisors dusted off the old killer and made him a statesman. What followed was thousands of Israelis dead and maimed. No Western diplomat cared.

Ruthie rightly points out that Trump followed a new and successful model. As a businessman, he couldn’t afford to adopt policies of failure. Predictably, his stances toward Middle East peace paid off in a huge way. Now, look at what awaits the Middle East:

“Palestinian Authority leaders heaved a sigh of relief. For them, dealing with Democrats in the White House, State Department and Capitol Hill is as second nature as manipulating the European Union and United Nations.

“Their satisfaction at the outcome of the US presidential election only increased with Biden’s appointment of Hady Amr – a foreign-policy wonk with a history of hostility to Israel and sympathy for Hamas – as deputy assistant secretary of state for Israeli and Palestinian affairs. Due to his role in the new administration in Washington, Amr was handed an official letter sent to the White House last Saturday by the PA.

“The letter, whose contents were revealed by the Palestinian news site Amad, averred that all factions in Ramallah and Gaza, including Hamas, agree to establish a state along the 1967 borders with east Jerusalem as its capital; commit to abiding by international law and recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. The missive also included a vow to continue to exercise ‘peaceful popular resistance’ until statehood is achieved.”

It is painful to watch. Painful to watch the PLO move back into a position of prominence and continuing the mayhem. Does anyone seriously believe Hamas will live in peace with Israel?

In the days ahead, pray hard for Israel. I am praying for the plans of the evil to be thwarted.

Jim1fletcher@yahoo.com

www.thegodthatanswers.com

 

 

 

Come Up Here!

For 20 years, I advocated for Israel, though networking, publishing, research, and writing. I was very committed to what I called helping protect Israelis physically. I considered that trying to keep fiendish forces—including Westerners in suits—helped this endeavor.

For many of those years, I harbored a dream of really having an impact in the church, particularly the American Church. I had studied history and knew how corrupted our seminaries and large churches were by the turn of the 21^st century. The “average” conservative Christian in this country has no idea the evil that infiltrated our institutions by the end of the 19^th century. With the efforts of Soviet agents infiltrating some of those institutions, and other spheres of society, it’s a miracle we lasted this long.

The Church was always a major target.

Waves of important turning points aided their efforts. Gradually making churches dependent on tax-exempt status was a dagger in our hearts. Eventually, celebrity pastors became fearful of speaking out on controversial topics (including Israel!) and they settled into what amount to State-approved “sermon series” and other nonsense masquerading as Bible teaching. Can you imagine Spurgeon coming back today to an Andy Stanley service? Can you imagine other giants of the faith enduring a “message” on repairing relationships or getting your finances in order?

In all this, the wonderful teaching about the Jews’ role in history has been so watered down that it is like a blob of jelly on a table. There’s nothing there.

With the home-going of those pastors that did keep the faith, our public face to the world has become so embarrassingly lacking that I tremble when I think of judgment. It seems we are now in it.

This week, Joe Biden finally called Bibi Netanyahu, after weeks of speculation about the snub. People are trying to figure out what that means for the U.S.-Israel relationship.

Several thoughts.

First, Netanyahu has known Biden for decades. He knows exactly what he’s dealing with. A combat veteran, I doubt Bibi was apoplectic over the snub from the criminal Biden. He knows who Biden is. He knows that the Obama-Biden Administration tried to kill him politically through foreign intervention in Israeli elections. I lose no sleep in Israel’s ability to survive the illegitimate “presidency” of Biden.

Next, for those that are trying to figure out if Gog-Magog is next week, or tonight, please. We don’t affect God’s schedule. Yes, the Gog war is important. It’s a crucial end-times event. But you can’t read geopolitical tea leaves from the Media and try to figure these things out.

Israel is also concerned about the Biden pledge to rejoin the wholly insane Iran “nuclear deal.” According to the Jerusalem Post:

“Washington said on Thursday it was ready to talk to Iran about both nations returning to the nuclear accord that aimed to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

“’We have never sought nuclear weapons and this is not part of our defense doctrine,’ the official said. ‘Our message is very clear. Lift all the sanctions and give diplomacy a chance.’

“Tehran has set a February 23 deadline for Washington to begin reversing sanctions, otherwise, it says, it will take its biggest step yet to breach the deal – banning short-notice inspections by the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).”

Criminals understand criminals and Biden knows Iran means Israel harm. He doesn’t believe their lies, any more than he believes his own.

Also this week, it’s been reported that Iraq is sending drones over Saudi Arabia, reviving fears that Iran and Iraq are becoming unmanageable in the Middle East. This can impact Israel in a big way, too.

But of late, I have slowly changed my views about my own ability to really aid Israel. It feels—feel free to disagree, I know many of you will—that we are entering a new phase. One in which the Lord God of Israel is stepping in front. Our own puny efforts are even less important now.

I do not mean we should stop doing positive things for our friends. In fact, in my own small way, I keep a hand in. But I no longer “live and die” with each news cycle or election. It’s time to turn our gaze to eternal things. I sleep well at night with the belief that God has things well in hand. Bibi knows how to protect Israel.

I came to accept the fact just a few years ago that the spiritual forces arrayed against us in Christian institutions in this country were far more powerful than I had given them credit for. That makes it necessary for me to admit it and stand aside as God advances His plan in these last days. When seminaries were teaching pastors to hide the fact that they’d been taught that the Exodus was myth (this was 70 and more years ago!), it was all over then. There is no real possibility that today’s Millennials trained at Wheaton and Fuller Seminary will ever be anything but advocates for the Palestinians and their totalitarian friends. They believe Israel is the villain.

 

This, incidentally, is what eventually destroyed Germany. Luther’s rants against the Jews poisoned the churches and by the time the Nazis came to power, the whole country had been marinating in Jew hate for 200 years. The so-called German “Higher Criticism” began teaching that the Old Testament is largely myth. I cannot emphasize enough how harmful this has been to Western society.

So I now do “small things” to teach here and there. I can’t help it: I am waiting now for that voice Carl F.H. Henry said he had longed for, especially in his old age. It was a voice from above saying, “Come up here!”

Jim1fletcher@yahoo.com

www.thegodthatanswers.com