Will there be a settlement?

A recent Jerusalem Post story revealed more disturbing news from the White House. The geographical area there in Washington isn’t known as “Foggy Bottom” for nothing.

“On Wednesday, CIA director Leon Panetta said Israel knew it needed to coordinate its strategy on Iran with other nations and that attacking Teheran's nuclear facilities would mean ‘big trouble.’

“Acknowledging that he had recently traveled to Israel to meet Netanyahu and warn him against a strike on Iran, the CIA chief told Global Viewpoint that he ‘felt assured’ Israel would not break ranks with Washington's strategy.

“’Yes," he said, ‘the Israelis are obviously concerned about Iran and focused on it. But [Netanyahu] understands that if Israel goes it alone, it will mean big trouble. He knows that for the sake of Israeli security, they have to work together with others.’

That’s comical. That’s funny. In a scary sort of way.

For a guy as smart and pedigreed as Panetta — U.S. congressman, White House chief of staff, and currently director of Central Intelligence — Panetta doesn’t get it. He’s in a really crowded club.

Panetta’s warning to Israel is identical to every other White House warning to Israel for the last half-century. Several times, in order to, you know, keep from being killed, Israel has indeed decided to go it alone.

At the height of the crisis leading up to the Six Day War, President Lyndon Johnson, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and Defense Secretary Robert MacNamara (who should have stuck to making cars) all warned the Israelis that “you won’t be alone unless you go it alone.” Thankfully, the country that produced Joshua, Bar Khoba, and Ariel Sharon told the country that produced Bill Clinton that they’d do what they had to do.

A side note here: it’s instructive for prophecy students who wrestle with our beloved country’s wacky diplomacy to remember that to our urbane diplomats, kooky ideas like demanding that Israel trade “land for peace” seems perfectly reasonable. Many times, Christians ask me why Washington types don’t get it when it comes to Israel and God’s prophetic word. Here’s a clue:

Rusk and MacNamara were Presbyterians!

Now, before Israel-loving Presbyterians deluge me with emails, understand that I’m speaking in generalities. In general, mainline churches dislike Israel. That tendency infects every area of its members’ lives. Including Washington diplomacy.

These guys know little about Bible prophecy and what they do know, they reject.

So we come to the question of “the settlements” in Israel. Just this week, the Economist, the British high-brow political magazine, slammed Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, whose Zionism is as colorful as his upscale wardrobe. The magazine’s editors felt it necessary to say that Lieberman’s “anti-Arab campaign” damages peace-making attempts in the region.

Lieberman lives there. He knows that Arab citizens of Israel are not loyal to the state, and he’s simply bringing this problem before the public. He also knows that the heat is being turned up on Israeli citizens who live in hundreds of communities in the biblical heartland.

But they are being thrown to the wolves, in order to appease the terrorists, some of whom wear suits and sit at the U.N. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and others are starting to show their fangs where the “settlements” are concerned. This community of 300,000 Jews in the biblical heartland is a sweet, joyous reminder that the God of the Bible keeps His word. I love them. There’s nothing like driving through the country and breathing that clean mountain air and seeing thousands of red-tiled, white-stucco homes dotting the Land of Israel.

They are the punch-line to the joke that is American and international diplomacy.

Israel’s “settlers” aren’t going anywhere. Were they to be uprooted, Arab hatred of the Jews would not only not diminish, it would intensify. For the Arabs, everything revolves around the destruction of the Zionist entity. No amount of diplomacy and no passage of time pacifies a hatred that is supernatural.

We are coming down to the conclusion of the matter, my friends. For ages, there has been a war that we cannot see. That war centers on the authority of the word of God. Is it true and sustainable? Or is it myth, no longer relevant.

We are coming down to a stand-off. In this corner, the world’s only superpower and its friend in the international community, with all the power that that awe-inspiring coalition can muster. In that corner, a tiny nation that has in its midst an ember of sacred fire.

Someone recently asked me if I could help him get his pro Israel book into the hands of Barack Obama. The answer is, of course, no.

But more to the point, even if one brought it on a silver platter, with a muffin and pot of coffee, and the opportunity was there to “explain” Israel to the commander-in-chief…he wouldn’t listen.

The time for that kind of appeal is over. From this point on, those of us who are lovers of Zion must content ourselves in sitting back and watching the greatest historical show of all time to unfold.

Israel’s presence in her ancestral homeland is permanent.