Israelis are going to have a friend in
President-elect Donald Trump the likes of which the Jewish state has “never
seen before,” David Friedman, Trump’s adviser on Jewish and Israeli matters,
told The Jerusalem Post last week.
Speaking shortly after Trump delivered
his victory speech in New York, Friedman – co-chair of the President-elect’s
Israel Advisory Committee – said that the hostility which existed between
Washington D.C. and Jerusalem under President Barack Obama would completely
disappear under Trump’s leadership. “The
level of friendship between the United States and Israel is going to grow like
never before and it will be better than ever, even the way it was under
Republican administrations in the past,” Friedman told The Jerusalem Post.
Friedman is said to be a leading
candidate to become the U.S.’s new ambassador to Israel under Trump. According to Friedman, one of the
administration’s first moves will be to follow through on a campaign promise
Ivanka Trump made last month according to which her father will move the U.S.
embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem if elected.
“It was a campaign promise and there is every intention to keep it,”
Friedman said. “We are going to see a
very different relationship between America and Israel in a positive way.”
One change he hinted at was the
removal of the restriction on Israel not to ask the U.S. for additional money
as stipulated in the new 10-year $38-billion military aid deal signed in
September. “The hostility will be gone
between Israel and the United States,” he added. “We know how Obama treated the prime minister
of Israel and how [Hillary] Clinton berated the prime minister … we will move
forward with mutual respect and mutual love and a much better future for the United
States and Israel.”
Listen:
I believe that we should treat Israel as a very special and close ally; we
should be willing to defend it if attacked; and to defend and support it in
diplomatic circles … especially in the United Nations. We should defend Israel’s right to exist and
its right to defend itself. We should be
seeking to find ways in which we can help Israel grow and prosper as a nation –
through free trade, cultural exchanges, educational and technical exchanges, access
to military technology, the promotion of tourism, and so forth. From a Biblical perspective, Romans 11 still
sees a special purpose and love of God for the Jewish people, whom He will
bring to salvation through Christ in great numbers in the future. Therefore, the U.S. must interpret in
scripture that God’s promise of the land of Israel (to the descendants of
Abraham) was an eternal promise. In
Genesis 17:8 we read, “And I [God] will give to you [Abraham] and to your offspring after you the land of your
sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will
be their God.” This promise found
its initial fulfillment when the Jewish people, under the leadership of Joshua,
entered the promised land and drove out the Canaanite people who had been
living there but who came under God’s judgment. [Joshua 1:2-6]
I
believe the U.S. should treat Israel as a favored ally for several reasons:
1. Israel
is our most reliable ally out of the entire group of nations in the Middle
East.
2.
Israel
is now one of the most advanced nations in the world in terms of scientific and
technological inventions, information processing, and financial management.
3. We
should support Israel because its establishment as a nation (in 1948) was
morally legitimate and was affirmed by a significant majority of countries in
the United Nations at that time.
4.
There
are Biblical reasons why Christians should support the continued existence and
health of the nation of Israel:
a. First, in a world
filled with much moral relativism and confusion and also influenced by the
harsh, totalitarian governments in strict Islamic nations, Israel provides a
refreshing ally in terms of the similarity of its convictions to the moral
standards held by Christian believers and taught in the Bible.
b. Second, because the
Bible clearly teaches God’s sovereignty over the affairs of nations and also
teaches that God has a future plan for the salvation of large numbers of Jewish
people, it seems right to see the establishment of the nation of Israel in 1948
and the present gathering of over 5-million Jews (there) as a significant
preparation that God has made so that the future salvation of many Jewish
people through trust in Jesus (as Messiah) will be evident to the entire world
as a fulfillment of what Paul predicted in Romans 11.
Rev.
Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain
(Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor,
Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel
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