“Set an Ambush”

An important preamble:

It is inexcusable that – after living for 75 years with the consequences and memories of the genocide of one-third of the world’s Jews, and while Holocaust survivors are still among us with their indelible nightmares – western nations, led by the United States, are prepared to sit in meetings, negotiate and do business with the Nazis of our time.

I refer to Mahmoud Abbas and his murderous thugs who form the Palestinian nationalist movement, a movement which reprehensibly enjoys almost global support despite readily and arrogantly admitting that it pays its people to kill Jews and lionizes those who do.

Nothing can diminish this disgrace.  Nothing excuses it, neither realpolitik nor the “greater good”.  This betrayal by our nations of the Jewish people is indefensible and I cannot believe that the Lord will let it go unpunished.

Were I an American, I would demand – from Donald Trump, Mike Pence and every conservative lawmaker – that the United States unreservedly designate the PLO in all its forms a terrorist organisation which – as it has done with ISIS – the US will work to destroy.

That I see God using the Trump administration as described below to advance His restoration of Israel does nothing to lessen my abhorrence of the conduct of the Judeo-Christian world, or my strength of conviction on this.

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There is no reason, in my view, to be overcome with fear concerning the “Deal of the Century”.

Sent to our knees – definitely. Tuned in – absolutely.  On guard – most certainly.  But this is not a two-state solution as Israel has known them; it is not Oslo, the Road Map or Annapolis.

Those of us who unbendingly oppose any pathway to the creation of a Palestinian state on Jewish soil should note – and remember going forward – that Donald Trump’s “Peace to Prosperity” proposal was stillborn by dint of the predictable, total “Palestinian” rejection of the plan – just as the Arabs negated for all time the 1947 UN General Assembly Partition Resolution by their outright and irrevocable repudiation of it.

Thus, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh’s statement last week, that “the Trump initiative has been born dead and will be buried very soon” – must be held on record to rebuff any future attempt by those Arabs to claim some form of statehood rights based on “the Deal”.

As with their dismissal of every offer and proposal made to date, they have rendered this plan null and void.

It is important, therefore, that we keep in clear focus the irredentism of the Palestinian Arab movement with its unchanged and uninhibited goal: the genocide of the Jews.

It is also imperative that we stay attuned to the insidious nature of the Israeli Left as Israel approaches elections on March 2.  Not without reason are certain MKs on the right exhorting the current – interim – government to extend Israeli law over those areas it is able to before the  elections; that if the Left wins, or if a unity government is formed between the Likud and Benny Gantz’s Blue & White party, the opportunity to advance sovereignty in the way opened by the Trump Plan will have been lost.

To clarify a few things for those who are fearful.

What did NOT happen was this:

The United States has not divided up the land of Israel.

Israel has not embraced the American proposal.

No steps have been taken towards establishing a Palestinian state. That abomination is no nearer to being spawned today than it was before January 29.

That’s point #1.

Now let me get to what did happen (point #2) and how we might see it (point #3):

To put it simply:  One man suggested to two men a solution to help end a century-long conflict between them.  One of the two, smiling, said “We appreciate the proposal”; the other angrily said, as always, “Forget it! Not interested. A thousand nos!”

Trump’s “peace plan” proposed as an idea a solution that – were it accepted, which it was not – would see the division of the Land of Israel into two states for two people: one of them a verifiably legitimate, historical nation with roots millennia-deep in this country; the other, verifiably, a new invention with no national roots anywhere at all.

Whatever the national claims and counterclaims, about this the Bible is unequivocal, and so must Bible-believers be:

God will judge every nation that divides up His Land.

There is therefore no way that we want to see, or can support, Israel embracing a plan promoting such a division.

Nor do we want the United States to even think about trying to impose one.

Let’s express this, aloud and unequivocally: “Israel – we don’t want to see you accept this plan.  We will not support it. Not now; not ever!”

What, I believe, we can prayerfully support – based on biblical precedent – is a strategy devised to advance Israel’s sovereignty over its land by drawing its foes into a trap.

An example of this strategising: In the eighth chapter of Joshua, Israel’s Commander in Chief directs His people to employ subterfuge to gain victory in their war of conquest of the Land.

“Set an ambush behind the city,” God says, after assuring the Israelites: “I have delivered into your hands the king of Ai, his people, his city and his land. You shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king, except that you may carry off their plunder and livestock for yourselves.” (Joshua 8:1-2)

Joshua divides his forces; half of them will lure the enemy outside the city walls to destroy them, enabling the Israelites to incrementally advance their conquest of Canaan.

Laying that ambush for Israel’s enemies constituted shrewd, God-sanctioned, battle tactics.

Christians tend to recoil at this kind of conduct, doubtful that the Almighty would really use such ‘worldly’ behaviour for His purposes.

Let’s look at this for a minute:

Through a secular movement called Hovevei Tsion (Lovers of Zion) established in the early 1880s, Jews in the Russian Empire and Eastern Europe were organised, given agricultural training and sent on aliya to establish settlements in their ancestral homeland  – a fulfilment of Jeremiah 16:15: ‘The Lord lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north and from all the lands where He had driven them.’ For I will bring them back into their land which I gave to their fathers.

The following decade, an assimilated, secular Jew, Theodore Herzl, launched the political Zionist movement, gathered the world’s dispersed Jews around him and convened the first Zionist Congress in Switzerland, where he proclaimed the founding of the Jewish state.

The socialist (“pure practical communism”) kibbutzim played a vital role in restoring the desolated land to abundant life – a fulfillment of Isaiah 35:1: “The wilderness and the wasteland shall be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.” And of Isaiah 62:4-5: You shall no longer be termed Forsaken, nor shall your land any more be termed Desolate; But you shall be called Hephzibah, and your land Beulah; For the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married.  For as a young man marries a virgin, so shall your sons marry you; and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.

A self-professed “Jewish atheist”, David Ben Gurion (and other mostly non-religious Jews), led the Zionist movement into statehood – a fulfilment of Isaiah 66:8: “Shall the earth be made to give birth in one day?  Or shall a nation be born at once?”

It was with Ben Gurion at its head that the secular Socialist Workers Party of the Land of Israel (Mapai) steered the newly reborn Jewish state through its first turbulent years, and it was under mostly secular political and military leadership that Israel won its miraculous victories in the 1948-49 War of Independence and the 1967 Six Day War.

See? God at work – as He always is, and as He is now through the Trump administration – watching over His Word to perform it.

Point number 3:

Believing, as I do, that God installed Donald Trump in the White House, it is helpful to look at how this president has in fact shaped his primary Middle East policy – including his “Prosperity to Peace” proposal – and put it ‘out there’; how, step by step, he has laid an ambush and simultaneously brought the US to stand shoulder to shoulder alongside Israel.

In fact, as we see how the American has been rolling out his strategy for this region for the past three years – pretty much since becoming president – we can marvel at how God is working through this man – like He did through Hovevei Tsion, Herzl, the kibbutz movement and Ben-Gurion – to realise His restoration promises to Israel.

Trump began on his first official trip abroad, in May, 2017, at the convening of a summit in Saudi Arabia, to which were invited representatives of 55 Arab and Muslim states.  The summit drew new, clear lines between the Sunni Arab world on the one hand and Iran with its satellites, Syria and Hizballah, on the other; all to Israel’s (quietly achieved) advantage.

The American moved further on December 6, 2017, when he announced United States’ recognition of Jerusalem (the single, reunited city) as the capital of Israel.

His next decisive step was taken on May 8, 2018, when he pulled the US out of the Iran nuclear deal, aligning America solidly with Israel, against the rest of the world, on this critical issue – for Israel an existential one.

Still more of the ambush was laid over the ensuing months:

On May 14, 2018 – modern Israel’s 70^th anniversary – Trump opened the United States Embassy in Jerusalem – joining the USA to Israel at the hip.

On March 25, 2019, Washington recognised Israel’s legitimate sovereignty over the Golan Heights, tightening the ties.

Then Trump baited the trap:

On June 25-26, 2019, Washington held open the door to economic improvement and prosperity for the Palestinian and other regional Arabs at the “Peace to Prosperity” summit in Bahrain – where the US detailed a $50 billion, 10-year investment plan for the Palestinian Authority, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon.

Moving boldly now, in preparation of the publicising of his peace proposal a little over two months later – President Trump last November 18 reversed decades-long US policy regarding Israeli activity in Judea and Samaria by ruling that the Jewish communities there – the massively-maligned ‘settlements’- are not “inconsistent with international law.”

With hindsight, then, we can see that Donald Trump has been readying the way for his “Deal of the Century” for nearly three years – whether by his own design, or unknowingly under Divine direction.

The January 29, 2020 public ceremony in the White House was only the latest phase in this ‘rolling out’- the ambush laid; the trap primed; solidarity with Israel advanced.

Shocker!

This universally-despised and pilloried American President has done nothing less than ratchet open a window – extending an astounding invitation – that enables Israel to make its sovereignty move.

SO – what everyone has been wondering since the roll out is, what will Prime Minister Netanyahu do now?

Will he seize history and move through this window?  When would it be best to do so?  Right now, or after the March 2 election?

The Israeli right was concerned, even before the first failed election, in April 2019, that complacency among the conservative electorate would stop right-wing voters actually leaving their houses to vote.

This third time round, the same fear exists.

Had I Netanyahu’s ear, my exhortation would be this: give the Right something spectacular to vote for that will propel them out of their houses and into the voting booths.

Do not delay for even one more day taking the steps you are legally entitled to take to extend Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and over all the 131 Jewish cities and towns in Samaria and Judea.

Stressing this: By doing so, Israel is not in any way binding itself to abiding by the “Trump Peace Plan”- it’s been rejected and no longer exists.

The iron of opportunity is red hot – hotter than it has ever been.  The ability to strike is with the Prime Minister right now!

It is clear that Netanyahu is being pressed to delay sovereignty extension, ostensibly so that the map illustrating the plan, outlining the borders, can be drawn in detail.  I understand the Israeli doesn’t want to upset the White House.

But we are talking about a massively momentous step for Israel.  A step as irrevocably historic as was the reunification of Jerusalem and the extension of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.  Vexing the administration – even such a friendly one – is surely not the most important consideration at such a time as this?

Actually, while Donald Trump may not approve of such a decision by Bibi, I do believe that he would understand it.

After all, the word ‘Trumpism’ has been coined to describe his trademark, out-of-the-box presidential behaviour: his dismissal of the establishment, his prioritising of US national interests, his willingness to be considered controversial, to be seen as bucking the status quo if it is for America’s good.

He understands that Netanyahu is the leader of his nation before he is The Donald’s friend.  Fake news notwithstanding, Trump will certainly respect his statesmanship as prime minister of the Jewish state.

Which is what Israel needs right now, if ever it has needed one: a statesman.  A strong, courageous and decisive leader willing to do something extraordinary for the good of his nation.

To conclude, then:

President Donald Trump – Israel’s strongest ally ever – spent three years setting in place a strategic battleplan to expose Israel’s genocidal enemies (who also hate the United States) and simultaneously offer Israel a way to consolidate her footing in the Middle East.  On January 29 this year, two things happened: the trapdoor was opened for PLO arch-terrorist Mahmoud Abbas and his gang, who stepped right in; and Israel was offered an unprecedented opportunity to extend her natural rights over the land.

In the first instance, the more the Palestinian Arabs flail around in disarray, trying to consolidate international opposition to the “Deal of the Century”, the further into this trap of exposure they go.

That they will eventually wiggle out of it is likely – the world is antisemitic, and a majority of nations support (in multiple nefarious ways – think UN, BDS, EU-funded rampant and illegal building in Area C) the PA’s spurious claim to statehood here.  The nations will oppose the plan and throw their weight behind the PA and Oslo, against both the US and Israel.

They are already lining up to do so.

So, it is Israel’s time to move.  As this nation has incrementally been restored to its ancestral land over the past 138 years, it is poised to be restored, irreversibly, to even more.

With everything you’ve got, Bibi, go for it!