The Mystery of President Obama’s Visit to Israel

In March, Barack Obama made his first visit to Israel since being elected president in 2008. The media provided pictures of the president with Israeli leaders talking and joking together. Mr. Obama assured Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel has a friend in the U.S. “We have your back,” the president said.

Later, however, he talked about Israel’s “foreign army” in part of the Palestinian territory. What “foreign army”? Even if you don’t believe that God gave them that land, the fact is that the Arabs attacked the Jews, and in the war that followed, Israel won some of their land. The president could just as easily say that America has a “foreign army” in California, New Mexico and Arizona—after all, that territory did at one time belong to other people.

President Obama made these anti-Israel remarks to Palestinians while a large picture of Yasser Arafat hung over his head in the background. It is well established that Arafat, even while shaking hands and making agreements with Jewish leaders, was inciting his own people to engage in terrorism. The president was addressing Palestinians who are considered moderate and friendly, yet that terrorist spirit is still there.

What was President Obama’s purpose for going to Israel? This is a real mystery to Israel. But it’s not a mystery to me.

A ‘Mystery’ Visit

The president’s negative record on Israel is lengthy and unmistakable. He has done much to isolate the Jewish state and to weaken the long-standing alliance between our two nations.

For example, when Prime Minister Netanyahu came to the White House in 2010, Mr. Obama insulted him terribly. The president wanted to bolster Palestinian confidence in a possible two-state solution, and he did so by giving Prime Minister Netanyahu a list of 13 demands. One of them was that Israel immediately stop building in East Jerusalem. When Netanyahu didn’t immediately agree to his terms, the president got up and left, leaving Netanyahu and his aides sitting in the White House for an hour. The Jews considered it humiliating. I’ve never heard of such behavior on a state visit to the U.S. in my life.

As recently as last September, when Netanyahu visited America and requested a meeting with Obama, the president refused to see him. Reuters called it “a highly unusual rebuff to a close ally.”

Why, then, would President Obama visit Israel now, at the beginning of his second term in office?

Caroline Glick, who I believe is Israel’s best columnist, expressed bewilderment over it: “Given that all of these [policies toward Israel] are positions he has held throughout his presidency, the mystery surrounding his decision to come to Israel only grows,” she wrote in a March 20 column. “He didn’t need to come to Israel to rehash policies we already know” (emphasis mine throughout).

She noted that the president also didn’t come to apologize for the anti-Israel policies of his first term. His administration still speaks about its support for the Arab Spring as if it was excellent policy, even after we can see how it empowered radicals within Libya, Egypt and other countries. This has put Israel’s very survival in jeopardy!

Glick drew attention to one revealing detail of the trip: the president’s choice of speaking venues. On one hand, he turned down an invitation to speak before Israel’s elected representatives at the Knesset, which is highly unusual. On the other hand, he chose “to address a handpicked audience of university students—an audience grossly overpopulated by unelectable, radical leftists.” President Obama really identifies with academics, intellectuals and radicals. He went to Israel to speak to these radical leftist students, and that is where he got a lot of the television coverage. He actually denied a couple of colleges that wanted to send students that were more on the conservative side.

As Glick pointed out, “What we can say with certainty is that the administration that supports the ‘democratically elected’ Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and did so much to clear all obstacles to its election, is snubbing the democratically elected Israeli government, and indeed, Israel’s elected officials in general.” Mr. Obama has invited the Muslim Brotherhood to the White House. He visited Cairo to address all of Egypt and insisted that the Muslim Brotherhood attend, against then President Hosni Mubarak’s wishes. Yet he won’t visit the Knesset in Israel! Isn’t that strange? It certainly proves that we can’t take what this man says at face value.

Glick considers it a mystery. But there is a definite reason behind the president’s choices.

Undermining Netanyahu

When President Obama spoke to those Israeli students, he talked about the need to give the Palestinians a state. “[T]he Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, their right to justice, must also be recognized. And put yourself in their shoes. Look at the world through their eyes. It is not fair that a Palestinian child cannot grow up in a state of their own—living their entire lives with the presence of a foreign army that controls the movements not just of those young people, but their parents, their grandparents, every single day. It’s not just when settler violence against Palestinians goes unpunished. It’s not right to prevent Palestinians from farming their lands or restricting a student’s ability to move around the West Bank, or displace Palestinian families from their homes. Neither occupation nor expulsion is the answer. Just as Israelis built a state in their homeland, Palestinians have a right to be a free people in their own land.”

During this part of the speech, the audience cheered and applauded several times. It was as if, in their minds, the Palestinians are yearning for peace through negotiation—if only Israel would cooperate. That is an egregious delusion.

President Obama then told those students, “[L]et me say this as a politician, I can promise you this: Political leaders will never take risks if the people do not push them to take some risks. You must create the change that you want to see.” That was rather insulting. He was obviously talking about interfering with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s policies. I don’t think that would have made Mr. Netanyahu very happy.

Mr. Netanyahu was recently reelected, but not by near the margin he thought he would be. This meant he had to form a weaker coalition government. The new government includes some liberals who are pretty far left, which is going to cause him problems.

President Obama spoke about “the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran.” He emphasized the need to keep trying to solve the problem through diplomacy. But then he said, “Iran must not get a nuclear weapon. This is not a danger that can be contained—and as president, I’ve said all options are on the table for achieving our objectives. America will do what we must to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran.”

That sounds good, and Israel likes to hear that. But forget the words for a moment and look at the reality: This administration has done nothing to prevent Iran getting a nuclear bomb!

You can be sure that Israel’s liberal leaders, hearing Mr. Obama making these statements, will put more pressure on Mr. Netanyahu. They will argue that he doesn’t need to worry so much about Iran since America has his back. The president of the United States has guaranteed our national security, they’ll probably say. He’s going to ensure Iran doesn’t bomb us. If Netanyahu was considering attacking Iran’s nuclear program, he’s going to have more opposition now.

However, I would be absolutely shocked if President Obama did anything to stop Iran! Here is a man telling Israel, America has your back; we’re right there with you. But he wouldn’t even pay a visit to the Knesset. That’s almost unheard of when a nation has serious problems like Israel has today!

What is behind America’s foreign policy today? If you study the decisions this administration is making on a wide range of international issues, you would be hard pressed to think of any that don’t have the effect of undermining America’s alliances, weakening America’s global power, and strengthening the forces of evil in this world.

There is a specific reason why this is the case.

The Spiritual Dimension

In the March edition of the Trumpet, I explained “The Hidden Cause of Society’s Deadly Decline.” There is an evil spiritual force on Earth that is working to bring down America as well as the Jewish state.

You cannot understand America’s foreign policy today if you don’t see this spiritual dimension.

This subject is so important and urgent, I have produced a new booklet about it: America Under Attack. It reveals the hidden dimension to events in this country and helps you to make sense of what would otherwise be a mystery.

This understanding exposes the reason for the common thread in the current administration’s dealings with Israel and other countries in the Middle East. It also specifically reveals the biblical reasons for the president’s anti-Israel views.

Syria has been embroiled in turmoil for about two years, as people have risen up to try to get rid of the violent dictator Bashar Assad. Yet America has done nothing to help those people. In fact, as Glick explained it, the president’s “feckless handling of Syria’s civil war ensured that the moderate opposition forces would be eclipsed by radical Islamists affiliated with al Qaeda, as has happened.” You could say almost the same thing about the popular uprising in Iran in 2009: The people rose up to dispute a phony election result that favored radical Islamists—and America did nothing. President Obama said it wouldn’t be appropriate to meddle in Iranian affairs.

Contrast that with what happened in Egypt. There, when the public began protesting in Egypt to get rid of Hosni Mubarak, this administration stepped right up to turn its back on Mubarak and to support the protesters! “It is my belief that an orderly transition must be meaningful … and it must begin now,” he said publicly. Egypt was at peace with Israel for 30 years! Yet America had a lot to do with removing Mubarak and bringing the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood to power.

The same is true of Libya. True, Muammar Qadhafi was obviously unstable, but at one time he did get rid of nearly all of his weapons of mass destruction to cooperate with the West. But when protests started there, America decided that, again, it needed to strengthen their cause. Now, al Qaeda groups rule Libya and are talking about allying with Iran. Nothing yet has been done about the terrorist attack on America’s outpost in Benghazi, and it is clear that America isn’t going to do anything. So the terrorists are encouraged and keep getting stronger and stronger.

These geopolitical shifts have created a far more dangerous world, especially for the tiny nation of Israel! The president’s foreign policy is largely responsible for these developments, but he won’t take the blame for any of it. Instead, he travels to Israel and says that America will do whatever it must to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran.

Nonsense! How long will Israel believe such diabolical nonsense? The nation’s survival is at stake!

Biblical prophecy shows that very soon, Israel will know for certain that America is of no help, and it will instead turn to Germany (ancient Assyria) for help (Hosea 5:13). We are already seeing this prophecy racing toward fulfillment.

You absolutely need to understand the truth about what is happening to America today. We have been protected in this country for a couple hundred years. We have not experienced the turmoil that many other nations have. Yes, we were involved in two world wars, but God has given us a lot of peace. As a result, our people have kind of settled into an unreality about what is really happening around us. They don’t understand how deadly dangerous this world is!

This is not God’s world. There’s a lot of evil in this world. It is full of tigers waiting to tear somebody apart. It has always been that way. As Winston Churchill said, the history of man is the history of war. Yet somehow we can’t come to grips with that today.

Are you willing to face reality? Most people are not. A haze of deception enshrouds our world. It is absolutely stunning how easily the people in this land today are duped.

Many people are alert to the problems in America today, but have only become deeply discouraged and anxious as a result. But if you open your eyes to the spiritual dimension, then you will see the tremendous hopebeyond the tragedy that is unfolding. Putting these events in their full prophetic context shows how God is using these events to serve His purposes—and how they are quickly leading to the greatest event ever: when He will intervene to establish His rule on Earth!

Please request my booklet America Under Attack—you will clearly see that President Obama’s trip to Israel was no mystery!