Mysterious ways of Israel’s God

(Alternative heading: “Sometimes the Enemy overreaches himself”)

 

The photograph went viral Tuesday: Taken from an angle, it caused a shadow made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pointed finger to effect a short, Hitler-like moustache beneath the nose of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Merkel and almost all her ministers had been in Israel for a two-day annual joint cabinet meeting with their counterparts in the government of the Jewish state.

From a local (Israeli) news point of view, two items topped the agenda: The ongoing international effort known as the peace process between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs, and the intensified focus on the Iranian push towards military nuclearisation.

Merkel maintained she was visiting Israel to show Germany’s friendship with the Jewish state and her country’s efforts to secure Israel’s future.

And while here, she would indeed have Israel’s highest civilian award bestowed upon her by President Shimon Peres for her “unwavering commitment to Israel’s security and the fight against anti-Semitism and racism.”

But the stance taken on the two critical issues by Germany, as represented by her government, contributed anything but security and peace of mind to the Israelis – excepting those on the very left of the spectrum here. (Their mouthpiece, the Ha’aretz news organ, loudly proclaimed ‘Merkel arrives in Israel to talk peace.’ That’s what the left does, of course, it equates discussing the carving up of the Land of Israel and the turning of the cradle of Jewish civilization into a state called Palestine ‘talking peace.’ By the same token, it has labeled those opposed to this suicidal process the ‘enemies of peace.’)

Even before her arrival, Merkel made it clear that she intended to use the visit to put Germany firmly behind the US effort spearheaded by Secretary of State John Kerry to broker an agreement between Israel and the ‘Palestinians.’ Kerry has made achieving this the aimed for crowning goal of his political career.

Merkel stayed true to her word, insistently haranguing her Israeli hosts with her conviction that “part and parcel of the security of Israel is the two state solution…a Jewish state of Israel and alongside it a Palestinian state.”

When it comes to Israel, there is always something less than charming going on behind the smiles on a diplomat’s face. Immediately preceding her arrival to a warm greeting in Israel, Merkel had unleashed her foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who specifically preparatory to the Germans visit blasted Israel for its so-called settlement policy (i.e. the construction of towns and cities for Jews in Judea and Samaria – the birthplace of the nation,) which, he said, was disruptive to the peace process.

In a Der Spiegel article last week, it was reported that German-Israel ties are at an all-time low, with Netanyahu and Merkel apparently resorting to shouting at each other on the phone on a number of occasions while discussing Israeli policies toward the Palestinian Arabs.

In simple, straightforward language, Germany is so stuck to its perception of how peace can come to Israel that the nation which once killed six million Jews is now willing to push ahead with a process that endangers the existence of another six million.

On the second issue, Iran’s determined and wily efforts to get its hand on a bomb for Allah, Merkel was no more helpful this week.

Where Israel has called on the world to do everything possible to ensure that the Iranian pursuit of nuclear weapons is stopped and rolled back, Germany supports the line the world powers have taken, that Iran be appeased instead and be left virtually on the verge of nuclear militarization.

Said Merkel: “Clearly, there is a different way of looking at this, whether these negotiations should be conducted. We have decided to take this path, that enrichment is only taking place at a low level, but enrichment is taking place.”

Which brings us to this photograph and another one that went all over the world, reproduced in virtually every news outlet. The one of Netanyahu standing in front of the United Nations General Assembly with a ‘silly’ cartoon picture of a bomb, warning that Israel will not allow Iran to cross a red line.

Who can say he has known the mind of the Lord? Certainly I cannot and will not make such a claim.

What no-one can deny, however, is that with the ‘accidental’ images of mustachioed Merkel and ‘Bibi the buffoon’ the combination of modern technology and the virtually all-pervasive anti-Israel tilt of the world’s press has ensured, once again, that the dangers Israel perceives facing her are not lost to the gentile nations, none of whom can claim ignorance when what is coming finally arrives.

For spiritually aware Jews and Christians, this is something well worth noting.