(Today marks my 14th year writing for RR. It has been and continues to be a privilege afforded me by Todd and Terry, two swell guys. Each week I feel like I’m talking to family with this column. Here’s to more years if the Lord so wills. Thank you for reading!)
Well, Well, Well
It didn’t take long for the underlying issues to surface only a couple days after the “historic” Israel-UAE agreement.
Scores of observers, including evangelicals like Joel Rosenberg, have touted this kind of deal for years. It’s been claimed that not only will it usher in a New Middle East of economic nirvana, but that in fact the Arab states have “gotten sick of” the Palestinians and their shenanigans. The prevailing wisdom has been that the Arab/Gulf states are interested in economic ties with Israel and have put the Palestinian cause behind them.
That was last week.
Now, Saudi Arabia has announced that they aren’t interested in formal ties with Israel until the Palestinian rights are met. And—right on cue—the UAE says that now they expect a Palestinian state to be established!
So much for them abandoning their Palestinian brothers.
I want to make two points here:
•Peace will not come to the Middle East by human means. The ancient, satanic hatred that manifests itself in Jew hatred is too deep to be cut-out by secular diplomacy (although international diplomacy is a sort of religion). Jesus Christ will bring peace, hopefully sooner rather than later.
•The lurid tales of Arab-launched pogroms against Jews in the Holy Land cannot be overlooked. Some of the most famous accounts come from the years between the world wars, when Jews were slaughtered in Palestine by…their neighbors! That’s why I don’t put much stock in modern peace agreements between Israel and her neighbors. I’ve read many accounts of Jewish residents being attacked and murdered by people they’d lived next to for decades. Former dinner companions, business colleagues. The Arab hatred for Jews in that region is satanic in origin.
According to a report in Al Jazeera:
“Saudi Arabia’s price for normalising relations with Israel is the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, a senior member of the Saudi royal family reaffirmed on Friday.
“Prince Turki al-Faisal was apparently responding to US President Donald Trump who said on Wednesday he expected Saudi Arabia to join a deal announced last week by Israel and the United Arab Emirates to normalise diplomatic relations.
“The UAE is only the third Arab state in more than 70 years to forge full relations with Israel. Under the US-brokered deal, Israel temporarily shelved plans to annex settlements in the occupied West Bank, which Palestinians seek as part of a future state.”
Did anybody really believe “normalization” was not going to include the very thing we think we’ve moved past—a fulfillment of the disastrous Oslo Accords?
And in the Times of Israel, there is this:
“In his second op-ed for an Israeli newspaper, the United Arab Emirates’s ambassador to the US said the new normalization agreement with Israel would allow for ‘direct’ advocacy for the Palestinian cause, including the establishment of a sovereign state, now with ‘stronger’ tools.
“’As we have for fifty years, we will forcefully advocate for these ends,’ Yousef Al-Otaiba wrote in the piece for Yedioth Ahronoth. ‘Now, we will do it directly, face to face and empowered with stronger incentives, policy options and diplomatic tools.’”
Yes, indeed. People can bare their fangs in a variety of ways, whether overtly menacing or by smiling. But their goals don’t change; they want to eat you.
Let’s continue to pray for Israel, with the knowledge that their God watches over them always. I will continue to pray for the physical safety of the Israelis.