Obama and Israel From 2008 to 2016: A Story of Betrayal and Reversal - MICHAEL BROWN CHARISMA NEWS

U.S. President Barack Obama listens as he participates in his last news conference of the year at the White House in Washington. (REUTERS/Carlos Barria)

Obama and Israel From 2008 to 2016: A Story of Betrayal and Reversal

12/29/2016 MICHAEL BROWN  CHARISMA NEWS

In June 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama gave a stirring speech to AIPAC, making strong commitments to the Jewish people and Israel. In December, 2016, President Obama's secretary of state, John Kerry, delivered an important policy speech that directly contradicted some of candidate Obama's words. The contrast is striking, unnerving and downright hypocritical.

To be fair, there is some consistency between the speeches, as both advocate a two-state solution among other parallels. And on a certain level, President Obama has kept some of the commitments he made to Israel, including massive defense contracts and military aid. And it is true that, until last week, Obama had not allowed the U.N. Security Council to pass any anti-Israel resolutions.

Still, reading Obama's 2008 speech in light of the last eight years is a real shocker. Consider the following.

In 2008, candidate Obama pledged, "As president, I will work to help Israel achieve the goal of two states, a Jewish state of Israel and a Palestinian state, living side by side in peace and security. And I won't wait until the waning days of my presidency. I will take an active role and make a personal commitment to do all I can to advance the cause of peace from the start of my administration."

Ironically, he has done the opposite, not only failing to move the peace process forward but rather, in "the waning days of [his] presidency," taking aggressive steps to undermine the peace process and to betray Israel. (It's even possible that before the transfer of power, he will lash out at Israel once more.)

In 2008, Obama declared that, "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided."

This week, John Kerry declared a peace agreement would "provide an agreed resolution for Jerusalem as the internationally recognized capital of the two states, and protect and assure freedom of access to the holy sites consistent with the established status quo."

He added, "Most acknowledge that Jerusalem should not be divided again like it was in 1967, and we believe that." But, he continued, "At the same time, there is broad recognition that there will be no peace agreement without reconciling the basic aspirations of both sides to have capitals there."

Well, here's a note from Jerusalem to our secretary of state and president: You cannot have it both ways. Either Jerusalem is the undivided capital of Israel, or it is the divided capital of Israel and Palestine. And if Jerusalem is to be the undivided capital of Israel, Mr. Kerry has no reason to protest strongly the relocation of our embassy to Jerusalem, which he did this week as well.

Joel Pollack also points out that "through the Obama administration's acceptance of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334 last Friday," America now "regards the Israel presence in East Jerusalem as 'settlements' that are in 'flagrant violation of international law.'" This means that, "Effectively, the Obama administration has allowed the Palestinians to claim East Jerusalem as their own, with the option of negotiating that claim away. The starting point of negotiations is now a division of Jerusalem 'like it was in 1967.'"

Getting back to 2008, while pledging to work diplomatically with Iran rather than militarily against Iran, candidate Obama was very clear about the danger Iran presented, stating, "There is no greater threat to Israel—or to the peace and stability of the region—than Iran."

He continued:

The Iranian regime supports violent extremists and challenges us across the region. It pursues a nuclear capability that could spark a dangerous arms race and raise the prospect of a transfer of nuclear know-how to terrorists. Its president denies the Holocaust and threatens to wipe Israel off the map. The danger from Iran is grave, it is real, and my goal will be to eliminate this threat.

I doubt anyone listening to his speech in 2008 would have imagined he would end up striking such a disastrous deal with Iran, one that not only rewarded the Iranians with billions of dollars, some of which would be used to fund terrorism—Kerry himself admitted to this explicitly—but one which also gave them a clear path to nuclear development in the coming years. Is this not the height of betrayal?

But there's more. In 2008, then-Senator Obama said:

I have long understood Israel's quest for peace and need for security. But never more so than during my travels there two years ago. Flying in an [Israeli Defense Forces] helicopter, I saw a narrow and beautiful strip of land nestled against the Mediterranean. On the ground, I met a family who saw their house destroyed by a Katyusha rocket. I spoke to Israeli troops who faced daily threats as they maintained security near the blue line. I talked to people who wanted nothing more simple, or elusive, than a secure future for their children.

Yet in 2011, President Obama briefly suggested Israel return to its totally indefensible pre-1967 borders, which would reduce this "narrow and beautiful strip of land" to as few as nine miles wide, thereby committing national suicide. And in 2015, it was reported that "President Barack Obama is considering agreeing to a United Nations Security Council resolution 'embodying the principles of a two-state solution that would be based on the pre-1967 lines between Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip and mutually agreed swaps,' a senior administration official has told The New York Times."

Will something like this be the last element in the president's parting shots against Israel?

Making things even worse is the very strong evidence that the Obama administration worked directly with Palestinian leadership to craft and advance the recent U.N. Security Council resolution, despite the administration's denials. Evidence includes: 1. Discussion months in advance by political pundits that this was one of the options being discussed by the administration (how did they know this?), 2. Prime Minister Netanyahu stating unequivocally that America was behind the resolution, which he would hardly do without "rather ironclad information" and 3. An Egyptian paper releasing transcripts of a purported meeting between Kerry and Palestinian officials from early December, planning out the strategy.

This is just part of what makes President Obama's final actions so shameful and why Rabbi Shmuley Boteach was right to say Obama has "demonized Israel little by little."

So much for the man who said in 2008 that he spoke "as a true friend of Israel," explaining, "And I know that when I visit with AIPAC, I am among friends. Good friends. Friends who share my strong commitment to make sure that the bond between the United States and Israel is unbreakable today, tomorrow and forever."

As the old saying goes, with friends like these, who needs enemies? 

Dr. Michael Brown (www.askdrbrown.org) is the host of the nationally syndicated Line of Fire radio program. His latest book is Breaking the Stronghold of Food. Connect with him on Facebook or Twitter.

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NORWAY - 'Judas' Betrayal Led to Massacre - Claim (Norway's Utoeya) - Charles Gardner ISRAEL TODAY

'Judas' Betrayal Led to Massacre – Claim

Wednesday, November 04, 2015 |  Charles Gardner  ISRAEL TODAY

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The tragedy of Norway’s Utoeya massacre was directly linked with the country’s policy toward Israel, a new book claims.

A breach in the wall (available from a-breach-in-the-wall.com) relates how the Norwegian Labour Party, once Israel’s greatest friend, had turned Judas by betraying them into the trap of the Oslo Accords which have given them twenty-plus years of terror instead of the promised ‘land for peace’.

Norway had thus been left particularly vulnerable to attack in view of God’s clear statement that those who curse Israel will come under judgment (Genesis 12.3). And Jeremy Hoff concludes that it was surely no coincidence that the tiny island of Utoeya, where the ruling Norwegian Labour Party’s youth wing (AUF) was enjoying its annual summer camp, was the scene of the deadliest massacre by a single gunman in world history – also referred to as Norway’s 9/11.

On July 22, 2011, right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik murdered 77 people. After detonating a car-bomb in the heart of the Government complex, killing eight, he drove unhindered to Utoeya, where he slaughtered 69 left-wing political activists.

Only the day before, the campers had mounted a re-enactment of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, complete with security wall and checkpoint, to help illustrate what they perceived as the causes of trouble in the region. Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store was photographed in front of a ‘Boycott Israel’ banner, and Palestinian youth had previously been hosted at the site while AUF had encouraged terrorism against Israel. They had reaped a bitter harvest.

The party’s youth had long been aggressively campaigning for a much more pro-Palestinian stance and, by 1993, the mother party became the official peace broker for the Oslo Accords which set up the mechanism for negotiations towards a two-state solution dividing Israel – against the clear commands of God (Joel 3.2) – and breathing new life into the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) in the process.

Norway still presides over the committee responsible for channeling millions of dollars of aid to the Palestinian Authority, much of which is frittered away by corrupt leaders feathering their own nest.

The author sees the tragedy as a warning from God, giving Norway the chance to repent. And on a visit to Britain earlier this month, he suggested that the rest of Europe, including the UK, also needed to heed this warning.

He tells of a profound experience a year before the massacre during which he wept bitterly for the sins Norway had committed against Israel and that subsequently – in an email dated August 28 2010 – he published a ‘prophetic revelation’ pertaining to an attack about to happen in which he noted: “Norway’s critical role [in the Oslo Accords] has placed the nation in a dangerous position of standing against God! Judgments are scheduled against Norway unless she repents of this serious sin.”

UK-based South African, Francois Botes, in a message given at a YWAM (Youth With A Mission) base on another Norwegian island on May 11 2011, described a vision he saw of a flag flying at half-mast across the whole country “because of an event”, and it was soon after the tragedy that political scientist Per Haakonsen caused a media storm by linking Utoeya with the nation’s policy on Israel at a meeting organized by a local leader of the Christian Democratic Party.

Humanly speaking, the whole tragic episode could have been avoided but for a series of monumental communication blunders, starting with the approach road to the government complex, which had been flagged up as a security risk seven years earlier when it was recommended that it should be blocked off. Then there were questions as to why sufficient road blocks weren’t set up and how Breivik managed to board the only island ferry disguised as a policeman. Indeed, communication between police rescue teams broke down to the point of almost total confusion comparable to that which afflicted the ancient enemies of Israel in biblical records.

In fact there are too many ‘coincidences’ recounted in this book to allow any seriously open-minded reader to escape the conclusion that God takes a dim view of those who touch the apple of his eye (Zechariah 2.8).

The book is too important to be written off simply as the figment of overactive imagination, or even to be restricted to the ‘review’ section of theological journals. The message is basically a summing up of the Bible’s doctrine on the seed of Abraham – “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse” (Genesis 12.3) – with the help of meticulous documentation of a major modern catastrophe.

This was underscored by the first scripture publicly quoted by a Norwegian politician (Labour’s Oyvind Groslie-Wennesland) in association with the attacks – “He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep” (Psalm 121).

The author also emphasizes – as Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has done in the past week – the PLO’s direct links with the Nazis. And yes, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, did help to persuade Hitler to annihilate the Jews rather than simply expel them.

Hoff also sees prophetic significance in the number of those killed – 77 – which is closely associated with vengeance in each of its three mentions in the Bible. In addition, the name Lord of Hosts (also translated Lord of Armies), a title denoting military authority, occurs exactly 77 times in the book of Jeremiah, generally seen as a prophet of doom despite many inspiring passages focusing on Israel’s future hope. And the generation experiencing the outpouring of God’s vengeance when Jerusalem was destroyed in AD 70 was the 77th from Adam.

As it happened, the official investigation into the tragedy found that the road to Utoeya remained open for at least 77 minutes [after the bombing] before the national alarm was triggered.

It seems that God’s hand of protection on Norway had been lifted.

Asked if he had a ‘word for Britain’, Hoff’s answer was brief. It was “pride”, he said.

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Charles Gardner is author of Israel the Chosen, available from Amazon, and Peace in Jerusalem, available from olivepresspublisher.com

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