Some political commentators are predicting war in the Middle East before the end of the summer.I think what has held war back, said one, is that Israel is unwilling to provoke an enemy that is armed to the teeth, and the Arabs are so busy building up their armoury of missiles they don't have time to attack Israel. That might sound flippant, but it might contain more than a little truth. The general concensus of opinion is that never in its history has Israel faced a threat of such magnitude.
Israel needs the United States. It is evident that President Barack Obama blames Israel for the Middle East problem. Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been appallingly treated on his visits to Washington. Leading figures in the Obama administration have gone so far as to say that Israel's insistence on new building in Jerusalem is endangering US lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The US is reported to be insisting that Israel bans all construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem for the forseeable future, that Israel must make more concessions to the Palestinians (without the Palestinians being required to make any concessions, including recognition of the Jewish state), and that Israel must not attack Iran's nuclear facilities without US permission. Meanwhile President Obama is doing nothing about preventing the nuclear threat from Iran, widely considered to be the greatest single threat to world peace.
President Obama is said to have thought better of his idea of imposing a solution on the Middle East problem and to be leaving Israel and the Palestinians to sort it out between them. He said in a speech, possibly with the intention of placating Jewish Democrat voters in the US, that the friendship between the US and Israel was safe. Israelis were unimpressed.
The situation is certainly a dangerous one. Hamas is reported to have rockets that can reach Israel's nuclear facility in Dimona. Hezbollah has tens of thousands of rockets in Lebanon. Syria is thought to have the most powerful scud missiles in the world and to have passed scud missiles to Hezbollah. (One writer said Israel's Prime Minister faces danger on so many fronts, he must have the hardest job on the planet. I would be hard pressed to disagree with that.)
God has made some remarkable promises to preserve Israel, and those promises have not been annulled. Look at 2 Ki 21:7; Isa 43:1, 2; Amos 9:14, 15; and particularly Ezek 28:25, 26.
What would you do if someone tried to touch your eyeball? Zech 2:8 says that he who touches you touches the apple of God's eye. It wasn't speaking to the church. It was speaking to Israel.
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
