20 Jan 2025
Deal With the Devil
The last American President that truly had the back of the Jews was probably John Adams.
I’m not being facetious.
In a delicious historical moment, Adams was the first to broach the subject of the destiny of the Jews.
According to the Jewish Virtual Library:
“Adams wrote of Voltaire, ‘How is it possible [that he] should represent the Hebrews in such a contemptible light? They are the most glorious nation that ever inhabited this Earth. The Romans and their Empire were but a Bauble in comparison of the Jews. They have given religion to three quarters of the Globe and have influenced the affairs of Mankind more, and more happily, than any other Nation ancient or modern.’
“In 1819, [playwright Mordecai Manuel Noah] Noah sent Adams a copy of his recently published travel book, Travels in England, France Spain and the Barbary States. In his letter acknowledging the gift, Adams praised Noah’s tome as ‘a magazine of ancient and modern learning of judicious observations & ingenious reflections.’ Adams expressed regret that Noah had not extended his travels to ‘Syria, Judea and Jerusalem’ as Adams would have attended ‘more to [his] remarks than to those of any traveller I have yet read.’ Adams continued, ‘Farther I could find it in my heart to wish that you had been at the head of a hundred thousand Israelites . . . & marching with them into Judea & making a conquest of that country & restoring your nation to the dominion of it. For I really wish the Jews again in Judea an independent nation.’”
To be clear, Adams viewed all this through the lens of the Jews converting to Christianity, but his remarkably amiable views of a restored Israel are among the boldest of any American president.
Adams’ son, John Quincy Adams, served as the sixth chief executive of the United States. He went farther than his father, in outright support of the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.
The next 41 presidents were a mixed bag, at best, of supporting Israel. Even Harry Truman, who gave crucial early support to the modern state of Israel, would not allow a Jew into his home, per his anti-Semitic wife, Bess. And Truman himself would not lift an arms embargo on Israel for the duration of the War of Independence.
Dwight Eisenhower forced Israel to withdraw from the Sinai in 1956. It is likely John F. Kennedy was going to be a good friend of the Jewish state, but we know his end. He didn’t have time. Lyndon Johnson, a reprobate if there ever was one, leaned on Levi Eshkol not to preempt against the Arabs in 1967, particularly Egypt, by telling Eshkol that the U.S. would have its back in the event the Arabs attacked. I would trust a wolverine before I’d have trusted LBJ. Fortunately, providentially, the IDF took the fight to her enemies and won a victory of biblical proportions.
Richard Nixon did send arms at a crucial moment in the ’73 war, but it later was revealed that he made many anti-Semitic statements in private. His support during the Yom Kippur War seems to have been more a case of God Himself intervening.
Gerald Ford? Please.
Jimmy Carter turned out to be every bit the anti-Semite Barack Obama and Joe Biden are. Israel was forced to turn over the Sinai Peninsula due to Carter’s menacing Camp David agreements.
I think most of us recall the more recent presidents and their pressure on Israel to accept a Two-State Solution.
Now we have Trump again.
Truthfully, I was caught off-guard by Trump and his new Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, apparently leaning on Netanyahu to accept—on paper—a less-than-ideal deal with the Hamas demons. That’s why I am reserving judgment on Trump’s agenda in this matter until after he’s in office. It’s just as likely that he and Netanyahu have cooked up some brilliant strategy to recover the hostages, and then blast Hamas into oblivion.
(My personal litmus test, for any relationship, is one’s views of Israel. A friend of the Jews and I am your best and most loyal friend. Hostile to Israel, and I am your worst and permanent enemy.)
But I am not optimistic about a possible private deal between Bibi and Trump. At all. The Israeli cabinet has just met and approved a deal to release more than 1,000 terrorists from prison, in order to get back perhaps 23 live hostages. According to a report from Israel Today:
“Prime Minister Netanyahu told the ministers at the Security Cabinet: ‘We received unequivocal guarantees – from both Biden and Trump – that if the negotiations on Phase II fail and Hamas does not accept our security demands, we will return to intense fighting with the backing of the United States.’”
As usual, it is individuals and pro-Israel groups that have more discernment than politicians and diplomats. Dumisani Washington posted this on X:
“Other than the Islamic Republic of Iran, no other nations are more responsible for and actively establishing a global Islamic caliphate than Qatar and Turkey (which is a member of NATO). The fact that both of these genocidal regimes enjoy elite status among the West including the US underscores how psychologically captured the West is.”
He gets it. Yet U.S. diplomats are shuttling back and forth to Qatar for a “Hamas deal.”
The Zionist Organization of America, headed by Morton Klein (I like him very much) issued its own statement:
“’The Zionist organization of America ZOA strongly opposes this hostage deal even though we are thrilled that a few live Jews are being released,’ Klein said in the statement, which was provided to Newsmax. ‘This deal is a terrible case of appeasement. And appeasement always fails.’
“’This isn’t ‘peace through strength,’ as envoy Steve Witkoff claims. It is heartbreaking and infuriating and frightening that Israel’s government is agreeing to this deal — and that the U.S. pressured them to do so — in which initially an estimated 1,000 Palestinian Arab terrorists and later 2,000 more Arab terrorists-many who have murdered Jews — will be released, for only a tiny fraction of the hostages or dead hostage bodies — leaving the rest of the hostages behind, without even a Red Cross visit.’”
ZOA isn’t wrong.
We are getting ready to see whether Donald John Trump is a true presidential friend of Israel. His predecessors promised much to Israel, delivered little. American diplomats always pledge their support for “Israel’s security,” along with smarmy politicians’ promises to support Israel—pledging they would be with Israel no matter what.
They never have.
www.patreon.com/TheGodThatAnswers
The post 20 Jan 2025 appeared first on Rapture Ready.
