WILL OBAMA PLAY A PART IN PROPHETIC FULLFILLMENT?

In the Holy Bible, Book of Genesis, it recounts how Abraham's son, Jacob, wrestled with an angel, attempting to gain God's blessing. Seeing Jacob's sincerity and determination, God allowed him to win that wrestling match and indeed did bless him. God changed Jacob's name to Israel and told him that he would go on to found a great nation, of God's chosen people. He also told Israel that "Whomever would bless your name shall be blessed and whomever would curse your name shall be cursed."

Israel did indeed become a great nation, the ancestral home of the Hebrew people; the Promised Land, given to them by God after Moses freed them from the Egyptians. It was conquered by outsiders several times over the years, always because the Hebrew nation had displeased and angered God in some way. Approximately forty years after the crucifixion of Jesus, in A.D. 70, the Romans devastated it, reducing the Temple of Solomon to rubble and running the Jews away from their promised land, scattering them all over the world. That dispersion lasted until 1948, when the modern nation of Israel was reborn, exactly as Old Testament prophecy had predicted it would be, right down to the very day. Biblical prophecy has always been fulfilled. It always will be, because that prophecy has been given by God Himself.

Over the years of the dispersion, that little strip of land remained barren and empty, except for Arab nomad tribes who traveled through it. After the Islamic faith was born, around 650 A.D., the Muslims conquered all the Middle East, including the Hebrew's ancestral homeland. Nations like Syria and Jordan were founded, bordering on that desolate strip of desert. Yet no nation ever claimed it at all. It sat there all those years, unclaimed and largely uninhabited, as if waiting. It became known as Palestine in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, but it was never a nation unto itself; only an unoccupied and unclaimed territory.

Some Jews began moving back there in the late 1800's and many more settled there from Europe, both before and after World War Two. They brought with them agricultural know-how and after they built irrigation canals, the land began to bloom again and flourish. The Islamic Arabs grew jealous and since their ancestors had conquered it in the name of their god, Allah, they began trying to run the Jews away again, now wanting those crops for themselves. The Jews, of course, resisted and fought to retain their ancestral homeland which they had regained at last. This was the beginning of the Middle Eastern strife which is still going on today.

Palestine was then a British Protectorate and the Brits struggled to keep the two factions apart, away from each other's throats. Finally, fed up with the entire affair, Britain put Palestine in the hands of the newly-formed United Nations and withdrew. In 1948, the U.N. partitioned Palestine, giving the smallest portion to the Jews and the rest to the Arabs living there, who now called themselves "Palestinians." When the U.N. officially recognized the Nation of Israel, that was the last straw for the Arabs and Palestinians. War after war followed, right up to today.

Today there is a persistent belief that Israel is the cause of all the stife in the Middle East. That notion, of course, has been planted in people's minds by the Palestinians and other Muslims who dominate that region. Personally, I hardly think that is the case, considering that the Jewish claim to the land that Israel occupies is much, much older than the faith of Islam itself. The problem lies in the Islamic belief that once a land is conquered in the name of Allah, it can never be returned to those who claimed it before it was conquered. Put in the simplest terms, the Muslims stubbornly refuse to recognize any Jewish claim to the land on which Israel sits; it was conquered for Allah and it is Allah's land now. They believe that steadfastly and will not budge an inch. Every Muslim nation surrounding Israel shares a common desire to wipe Israel from the face of the earth.

The United States is, at this writing, still allied with Israel, although that partnership has suffered much and gotten weaker in the past few years. The question is: How much longer will that alliance last? Our politicians, even George W. Bush and our Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, have seemingly bought into the notion that Israel is the cause of the problems in the Middle East. It' s like they prefer to honor the Islamic claim, rather than the much older biblical Jewish claim. Political Correctness has taken its evil toll on our diplomacy nowadays and Israel has been scolded, time and again, for daring to even defend its right to exist. We let despot leaders like Iran's president (whose name I won't attempt to spell) speak at our universities, cheering on a man who denies that the Holocaust ever took place, is dedicated to the destruction of Israel, and whose country has now, according to a
recent N.Y. Times article, enriched enough uranium to build a nuclear weapon. Anyone care to guess who that weapon will be used against, once it's built??

In January, Barack Obama will be sworn in as our 44th President and I fear greatly for the future of our continued relationship with Israel. Obama is almost hopelessly naive on foreign policy, vowing to talk to despotic rulers all over the world, with no pre-conditions at all. From what he's said in past speeches and interviews, he appears to be more pro-Palestinian than any of his predecessors were. And to top it off, Vice-President-Elect Joseph Biden has plainly said that Obama will be tested soon after he takes office. There will be some kind of world crisis that will call for action on Obama's part. And we will find out how weak or strong he truly is.

I can pretty much guess what that crisis might well turn out to be, and it's probably going to come within the next six months. Israel is going to strike Iran's nuclear facilities. They will have to; their very existence depends on it. Israel, a tiny nation surrounded by other nations who despise them, can ill-afford to let Iran build a nuclear bomb, or other device. They know full well that it would be used on them almost immediately, so it's a simple matter of survival on their part. It's coming -- mark my words.

I hope Obama is ready for something like this, but I have my doubts that he will be. In his politically correct mind, any pre-emptive strike by Israel would be seen as a dire transgression against one of the nations that the PC crowd loves to coddle so much -- never mind the fact that Iran is a first-class terrorist nation and one of the world's biggest troublemakers. A nation that has labeled America as the "Great Satan." Yet the PC'ers seek only to kiss their rears, naively believing that they'll somehow magically start liking us, if we're nice to them. Yeah. Right. Tell me another fairy tale.

Obama would likely severely denounce Israel for such an attack, completely ignoring the survival aspect of the matter. Israel's response won't be apologetic, especially if they elect a new, hard-liner Prime Minister. Our already strained relationship could worsen and even end altogether. That is my fear and it plays right into the End Time prophecy of Revelation. A reading of Revelation will show you that Israel is all alone in the End Times; it makes mention of no allies of Israel and no mention of any nation that could be interpreted as America at all. Israel will be attacked and God will protect her, perhaps with a devastating earthquake, as many theologians believe.

That attack will come suddenly, with no warning at all, and the prophecy mentions Gog and Magog as the attackers. Gog is believed by most to be modern-day Russia, while Magog may be Iran, or some other Middle Eastern power. That makes perfect sense, because Iran and Russia are bosom buddies, to say the least. Would Russia and Iran combine their forces and attack Israel in retaliation for an Israeli strike on Iran?? I can very well see that happening, in the next few years. Will Obama break our alliance with Israel? That could very well take place, too. Such a thing would not only leave Israel all alone with her enemies, it would make this country subject to God's curse, as he told Jacob/Israel in the Bible.

I don't know that all this will happen. I don't claim to be a prophet myself. I only know that it is very possible and I believe that the Obama presidency is going to change things in the world in ways that we can't imagine. Problem is, I don't think they will be good changes at all.