Obama’s New “Trial by Error” Mideast Foreign Policy

on Wednesday, May 20, 2009 by Bill Salus

The nation of Israel celebrated its sixty-first birthday by sending their new Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on May 18, 2009 to Washington. Conspicuously absent upon his arrival were the welcoming parades, “Star of David” banners, and blue and white birthday balloons, evidencing that this was no festive occasion.

With his marching orders in hand he came on a mission to deliver his people’s urgent message to the international community through a meeting with its most powerful modern day king, president Barrack Obama. Positioning himself upon the world’s highest platform, he gave the world official notice that ISRAEL WILL SURVIVE!

Sitting side by side the two powerful kings, Netanyahu and Obama, posed for the press, shared some political niceties, and answered a few seemingly scripted questions. However, when one filters through the nominal pomp and circumstance, what can the “Joe the plumbers” of the world walk away with from the experience?

According to all the verbal and meta-communication, it became quite obvious that Israel not only wants to exist, but insists upon possessing the right to as well! Understandably, the Jews are concerned that within seven decades of the holocaust another genocidal campaign may be disastrously headed their way.

While most world leaders are clamoring for a one-world banking system to bail themselves out of their sinking economies, Israel has far greater problems. Netanyahu wants the world to wake up and take notice that Israel’s enemies not only continue to maintain and ancient hatred toward them, but are about to possess the wherewithal to destroy them!

Iran, whose president Ahmadinejad has declared his intent to “wipe Israel off of the map”, might produce its first nuclear weapon by years end, and on or about the same timetable the Taliban and / or their dangerous Al-Qaeda friends could have some of the sixty to one-hundred Pakistani Nukes lining their terrorist quiver as well. These predominately Islamic populations along with the Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinians, and several of the Arab nations sharing common borders with Israel don’t believe Israel has the right to exist and continue collectively to plot against the restoration of the Jewish State.

In his attempt to be presidential, Barrack Obama unveiled his new trial by error Mideast foreign policy called “Engagement”. He informed Prime Minister Netanyahu that he hopes to convince Israel’s neighbors to accept Israel’s right to exist as the Jewish State, and sideline Iran’s nuclear aspirations through what he believes will be a “persuasive argument”.

America’s charismatic president suggested that isolating Israel’s enemies and refusing to talk to them has been problematic. He cited Israel’s ongoing problems with the Hezbollah and the Hamas as defining examples. Instead, through a process of elimination he proposes a policy of “Engagement”.

It is a diplomatic approach involving important high-ranking discussions between America and Israel’s adversaries that are intended to bring about a peaceful resolution to the burgeoning Middle East problem. To the layman it appears to resemble a sort of Rodney King, “can’t we all just get along,” approach.

“Engagement” is the result of a process of hypothetical political deduction. Obama reasons that if one method hasn’t worked, in fairness the reverse method should be tried. In essence Israel has become the political test tube for Obama’s new experimental Mideast foreign policy.

Remember that Obama’s aspiration to talk Israel’s enemies down through persuasive arguments is not a new concept. His predecessors before him have attempted this method unsuccessfully. Israel’s enemies, with the exception of Iran, have been persuasively talked to in the past. Peace plan after peace plan has been presented to the Palestinians and their Arab cohorts. In fact, only through defeat in several wars did Egypt and Jordan resort to trying a diplomatic peace plan approach with Israel. However, the Palestinians, Syrians, and several other predominately Arab populations have refused to do the same.

The most embarrassing example occurred in July of 2000 at Camp David under the Clinton Administration whereby the then Prime Minister Ehud Barack of Israel offered PLO chairman Yasser Arafat unprecedented concessions for peace. Israeli’s were astonished to see Arafat refuse the broad sweeping proposal and do everything but spit in Ehud Barack’s face.

Today many Israeli’s look to that momentous event as a hard lesson learned. The al-Aqsa intifada that immediately followed in September 2000, coupled with the Hezbollah war in the summer of 2006 and the daily barrage of Hamas rockets into Israel proper, are a sobering daily reminder that not all Arabs want peace with Israel.

Iran’s present leadership has stated on numerous occasions that it wants to destroy Israel. This evidences that Iran embraces the similar Anti-Semitic sentiment as those Arab populations listed above who have not been previously persuasively argued into a peace-pact with Israel. Therefore, unless Obama’s forthcoming persuasive argument will contain some new content, then further talks hold no future promise of peace.

Talking takes time and in light of the existential threats to their national existence, time is no longer a commodity Israel possesses. Many analysts believe that Israel will strike Iran sometime this year in fulfillment of a Netanyahu campaign promise that Iran will not become a nuclear nation. Obama’s engagement timetable will likely begin after the June 7 elections in Lebanon, and the June 12 elections in Iran. Hezbollah, Israel’s vowed enemy, currently possesses veto power and eleven parliamentary seats. They are expected to hold onto those and pick up more of the nineteen remaining seats as a result of the Lebanese election.

Additionally, most experts think that Ahmadinejad, also a vowed enemy of Israel, will win the upcoming Iranian elections as well. Thus another month will go by before Obama can twist some Middle East arms with his persuasive argument. More importantly such a delay puts Iran one month closer to producing its first nuclear weapon.

President Obama said that he expected to know by the end of the year whether Iran was making “a good-faith effort to resolve differences” in talks aimed at ending its nuclear program. Furthermore he attempted to comfort Netanyahu by declaring that all options still remain on the table.

Will engagement work? As pointed out in my book Isralestine, The Ancient Blueprints of the Future Middle East, the Bible foretells that at least a temporary peace in the Middle East will be achieved militarily rather than politically. Psalm 83 forewarns that the ten ancient predominately Arab populations listed below alongside their modern day equivalents will come to wipe Israel off of the map. Surprisingly Iran is not among them. Why not? Does Israel strike Iran and render them temporarily of little utility to the Arab attackers?

Fortunately these generally Islamic populations inclusive of their terrorist sympathizers fail. Israel survives, but the looming question is does Israel go it alone? If they do, it evidences the disconnect of world leaders from God’s longstanding divine foreign policy contained in Genesis 12:3. This passage informs us that those who bless Abraham and his Jewish descendants will be blessed, but those who curse the Jews will be cursed.

It is entirely possible that Obama’s process of elimination policy of engagement could be the epitome of stupidity. It should be obvious to most onlookers that the only thing facing elimination is the existence of the nation Israel. Daniel 2:21 informs us that God puts kings in their places and it could be that Netanyahu, who has prioritized the national security of Israel above all else, is the man God wants to lead Israel in the midst of the coming Psalm 83 war.

If this war is coming soon, it hints of several things: an Israeli strike upon Iran could be the catalyst of the Psalm 83 war, that Obama has been put into office at such a time as this to evidence the dangerous depravity of a world unmindful of God’s Genesis 12:3 foreign policy, and that God is about to do a mighty work through the Israeli Defense Forces in order to remind the world that He is not now, nor will he ever be, done with the Jews!