FIRST-PERSON: Viewing the world through an Acts 1:8 lens
By James B. Law
May 27, 2009
GONZALES, La. (BP)--Imagine a camera with a huge lens and God giving you the privilege of looking through the viewfinder to see the world from His perspective. The image you see moves from where you are, all the way out beyond the horizon and into the unseen places of the world. And He sees people.
This is the kind of experience a committed believer has when their life intersects with the truth of the biblical text. This is particularly true when it comes to the mandate of Acts 1:8.
In this moving passage, the living, resurrected Christ commands His disciples to remain in Jerusalem where He promised they would receive power when the Holy Spirit came upon them. Jesus went on to say that this power would enable them to be His witnesses concentrically, beginning in Jerusalem, and ultimately all the way to the ends of the earth.
These parting words of Jesus are clear. Those who follow Christ are to be global in their thinking. This message goes to the heart of one of life's greatest struggles: Namely, we are wired to forget the world ... not remember it.
Paul Borthwick illustrates this in his book, "Six Dangerous Questions To Transform Your View of the World." In this challenging work, Borthwick referenced a National Geographic advertisement which stated that "24 million Americans can't find our country on a map of the world."
"As a follower of Jesus Christ, I find that geographic knowledge follows my beliefs," Borthwick writes. "My Christian commitment demands that I be concerned about the world for which Jesus died. Yet I find that quite a few Christians are no different from the population surveyed for ... the National Geographic Society."
It's easy to be so fixated on ourselves and the maintaining of our Jerusalem ministries that we forget about the sea of lostness that Jesus Christ has called us to impact with the Gospel.
As a local church pastor for the last 21 years, 16 of those years in the same church, my primary pastoral labor is in my "Jerusalem" -- Gonzales, La. This is where I spend the preponderance of my time and energy. My pastoral journey to embrace global missions has been an incredible story of how God can use a small, ordinary congregation to make a global impact.
FBC Gonzales took its first mission trip as a church in 1999. Since that time the church has sent out over 45 teams on short-term mission projects. We've experienced God's calling on some of the people from our church who now champion the Gospel in faraway places. All the while we've maintained a strong commitment to Cooperative Program percentage giving.
In 2001, the church adopted an unreached people group. Since that time the church has experienced the purifying power of missions and celebrated many times as teams returned with incredible testimonies of divine appointments.
Perhaps you wonder, "How do I get started with Acts 1:8 obedience? How can I lead our congregation to view the world through the lens of Acts 1:8?" Consider the following to focus your vision of the world on God's purposes:
-- The priority of prayer.
Prayer is critical. People tend to be spring-loaded to go and do and plan and print materials and strategize, each having their place, but the top priority is to pray. The noted Methodist preacher Samuel Chadwick once said, "The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray."
The entire book of Acts is a clinic on prayer. The disciples were told to assemble, to wait and to pray for the power of the Holy Spirit. In Acts 13, the church at Antioch engaged in missionary praying and fasting. Through this season of prayer the Lord spoke, and they sent out Saul (Paul) and Barnabas for the work. It is incredible to think of the impact of that prayer meeting upon the missionary labor of Paul and Barnabas.
To possess an Act 1:8 worldview, church leaders must call the people of God to prayer for global missions and allow God to surprise His church with a renewed vision and faithful provision.
-- The export of a healthy local ministry.
The health of the local church is critical to Acts 1:8 obedience. The early church (Acts 2) was functioning as a body of believers in such a way that the Gospel spread rapidly and the needs in the body were met abundantly. Worship, teaching, fellowship, prayer and evangelism were the commitments of their ministry.
Early in its missions worldview development, FBC Gonzales used the term "export" to describe its missions sending. In a real sense, it believed that by sending out teams, it was "exporting" its local ministry. Because of this process, we have a heightened sense of commitment to the spiritual health of "Bodylife" in our Jerusalem.
Our church is by no means perfect and a church does not need to have everything in order before obeying Acts 1:8. Obedience to the biblical mandate is definitely a process and there is the desperate need for God's ongoing sanctifying work in our lives. As a result, our church wants to export a healthy ministry: Christ-exalting, Kingdom-seeking, Bible-centered, church-planting, missions-mobilizing and family-building. This is the missions ministry we long to export to the nations.
-- Learn from others who are doing it.
Another important lesson for FBC Gonzales is that we did not have to "re-invent the wheel" with regard to doing missions. Resources and opportunities abound to help individuals and churches launch a global focus.
The first mission trip was by invitation from another church that had a developed ministry. We "piggy-backed" on their labor and they imparted invaluable "how-to" information to our church. In turn, the next year, we took our own mission trip and have returned on a yearly basis ever since. Part of what cooperative ministry is all about is churches helping other churches mobilize for Gospel ministry.
The strategies and ideas are endless. The more you are engaged with missions, the more you will experience more missions. Missions beget missions. If steps of obedience are taken, the Lord will open door after door of opportunity. Friendships and partnerships are forged in a common labor.
Experiencing Acts 1:8 missions is the most exciting adventure a Christian can know -- to make Christ known from neighbors to the nations. A worldview that begins here and goes there is the experience for those faithful to the Lord.
--30--
James B. Law is senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Gonzales, La., and a member of the Southern Baptist Convention's Executive Committee.
Copyright (c) 2009 Southern Baptist Convention, Baptist Press
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Monday, August 24, 2009
Friday, August 21, 2009
The Gift of A Bible
Very thought provoking view from an atheist. It not important that a
man was called good. It is important to note that we as Christians
don't tell others about Christ.
man was called good. It is important to note that we as Christians
don't tell others about Christ.
Warning. This video is clean but many of his has some bad language.
You should hear him on this though.
The Gift of A Bible <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa9JE_ZVL88>
--
Sincerely,
Lee Daniel
www.hdins.com
770-382-8954 office
770-386-4081 fax
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Donations Needed for Reveal Weekend - Urgent needs
From: Regina Daniel <rldanielusa@yahoo.com>
| Dear Class, We have an opportunity to put feet to the lesson we have been studying in Exodus. Just as Moses asked the Israelites to bring offerings to help build the Tabernacle, we are being allowed to bring food offerings to build up our youth during Reveal Weekend (Aug. 29th-30th). Please bring as many 2 liter drinks and bags of cookies as you possibly can this Sunday morning. If we all chip in, we should be able to provide more than enough drinks and snacks for everyone. We will also have a box and take cash donations for other items needed for the weekend. The Youth leaders will use these funds to purchase pizzas for dinner on Saturday. Any help will be greatly appreciated. There are no funds whatsoever in the budget for this event. Reveal Weekend was originally planned to kick off our Youth ministry for the entire school year. It gives our kids a chance to invite unchurched friends in for a big event where they can hear the Gospel - The pure unadulterated Good News of Jesus Christ. Let's do all we can to minister to these kids. Some of them may hear the Gospel for the very first time next weekend. For some, it may be their last opportunity to respond to the call of the Holy Spirit. Isn't it awesome that the Lord is allowing YOU to take part in this event? Bring all your offerings to class this Sunday. If you read Exodus 36, you will see where Moses had to actually ask the people to STOP bringing offerings. Wouldn't that be incredible to witness such a "problem"? Please prayerfully consider what the Lord wants you to do this week. Pray, pray and pray some more for this incredible outreach opportunity. Let all our thoughts and actions be focused in such a manner .... that ALL may know the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Love, Regina |
Monday, August 17, 2009
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Do You Require Signs? Lesson for 8/23
The text for this week is as follows:
Judges 6:14-16,36-40; Matthew 16:1-4; Romans 12:1-2
What might prompt us to say to God, "Are you sure this is the way you want me to go? Something doesn't seem right."
What are some methods people use to look for God's guidance and direction as they make decisions today?
What advice would you give a friend who wants to follow the Lord but is afraid he or she has taken a wrong turn and gotten off track?
When God's Word says yes and the "signs" around you say no, how will you maintain your faith and conviction to do what you know God wants you to do?
Judges 6:14-16,36-40; Matthew 16:1-4; Romans 12:1-2
What might prompt us to say to God, "Are you sure this is the way you want me to go? Something doesn't seem right."
What are some methods people use to look for God's guidance and direction as they make decisions today?
What advice would you give a friend who wants to follow the Lord but is afraid he or she has taken a wrong turn and gotten off track?
When God's Word says yes and the "signs" around you say no, how will you maintain your faith and conviction to do what you know God wants you to do?
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Friday, August 7, 2009
something fishy, better send it to the whitehouse - flag@whitehouse.gov
Say No to Government Health care !!! Let your congressmen, friends, relatives , the man and women on the street know. We have to protect our freedom. No more government intrusion in our lives.
Is this Fishy and Suspicious enough? You make the call. Don't be afraid to speak up !!!
Please pull up this video from yesterdays Glenn Beck show. Scroll over to about the 6 minute mark and watch it. This is the kinda stuff we will have to deal with if it goes through. Just one aspect.
Monday, August 3, 2009
As Promised yesterday the WSJ.com article - Why Israel Is Nervous
AUGUST 1, 2009
Why Israel Is Nervous
Tension is escalating between the U.S and Israel. The problem: The administration views the Israeli-Palestinian issue as the root of all problems, while Israel is focused on Iran’s nuclear threat, says Elliott Abrams.
By ELLIOTT ABRAMS
The tension in U.S.-Israel relations was manifest this past week as an extraordinary troupe of Obama administration officials visited Jerusalem. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, National Security Advisor James Jones, special Middle East envoy George Mitchell and new White House adviser Dennis Ross all showed up in Israel’s capital in an effort to…well, to do something. It was not quite clear what.
Since President Obama came to office on Jan. 20 and then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on March 31, the main motif in relations between the two governments has been friction. While nearly 80% of American Jews voted for Mr. Obama, that friction has been visible enough to propel him to meet with American Jewish leaders recently to reassure them about his policies. But last month, despite those reassurances, both the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Anti-Defamation League issued statements critical of the president’s handling of Israel. Given the warm relations during the Bush years and candidate Obama’s repeated statements of commitment to the very best relations with Israel, why have we fallen into this rut?
U.S.-Israel relations are often depicted as an extended honeymoon, but that’s a false image. Harry Truman, who was a Bible-believing Christian Zionist, defied the secretary of state he so admired, George C. Marshall, and won a place in Israel’s history by recognizing the new state 11 minutes after it declared its independence in 1948. Relations weren’t particularly warm under Eisenhower—who, after all, demanded that Israel, along with Britain and France, leave Suez in 1956. The real alliance began in 1967, after Israel’s smashing victory in the Six Day War, and it was American arms and Nixon’s warnings to the Soviet Union to stay out that allowed Israel to survive and prevail in the 1973 war. Israelis are no fans of President Carter and, as his more recent writings have revealed, his own view of Israel is very hostile. During the George H.W. Bush and Clinton years, there were moments of close cooperation, but also of great friction—as when Bush suspended loan guarantees to Israel, or when the Clinton administration butted heads with Mr. Netanyahu time after time during peace negotiations. Even during the George W. Bush years, when Israel’s struggle against the terrorist “intifada” and the U.S. “global war on terror” led to unprecedented closeness and cooperation, there was occasional friction over American pressure for what Israelis viewed as endless concessions to the Palestinians to enable the signing of a peace agreement before the president’s term ended. This “special relationship” has been marked by intense and frequent contact and often by extremely close (and often secret) collaboration, but not by the absence of discord.
Yet no other administration, even among those experiencing considerable dissonance with Israel, started off with as many difficulties as Obama’s. There are two explanations for this problem, and the simpler one is personal politics. Mr. Netanyahu no doubt remembers very well the last Democratic administration’s glee at his downfall in 1999, something Dennis Ross admits clearly in his book “The Missing Peace.” The prime minister must wonder if the current bilateral friction is an effort to persuade Israelis that he is not the right man for the job, or at least to persuade them that his policies must be rejected. When Israeli liberals plead for Obama to “talk to Israel,” they are hoping that Obama will help them revive the Israeli Left, recently vanquished in national elections. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Mr. Obama and his team wish former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni had won the top job and view Mr. Netanyahu and his Likud Party with some suspicion. The result, of course, is to make personal relations among policy makers more difficult, and to make trust and confidence between the two governments harder as well.
But the Obama administration has managed to win the mistrust of most Israelis, not just conservative politicians. Despite his great popularity in many parts of the world, in Israel Obama is now seen as no ally. A June poll found that just 6% of Israelis called him “pro-Israel,” when 88% had seen President George W. Bush that way. So the troubles between the U.S. and Israel are not fundamentally found in the personal relations among policy makers.
The deeper problem—and the more complex explanation of bilateral tensions—is that the Obama administration, while claiming to separate itself from the “ideologues” of the Bush administration in favor of a more balanced and realistic Middle East policy, is in fact following a highly ideological policy path. Its ability to cope with, indeed even to see clearly, the realities of life in Israel and the West Bank and the challenge of Iran to the region is compromised by the prism through which it analyzes events.
The administration view begins with a critique of Bush foreign policy—as much too reliant on military pressure and isolated in the world. The antidote is a policy of outreach and engagement, especially with places like Syria, Venezuela, North Korea and Iran. Engagement with the Muslim world is a special goal, which leads not only to the president’s speech in Cairo on June 4 but also to a distancing from Israel so as to appear more “even-handed” to Arab states. Seen from Jerusalem, all this looks like a flashing red light: trouble ahead.
Iran is the major security issue facing Israel, which sees itself confronting an extremist regime seeking nuclear weapons and stating openly that Israel should be wiped off the map. Israel believes the military option has to be on the table and credible if diplomacy and sanctions are to have any chance, and many Israelis believe a military strike on Iran may in the end be unavoidable. The Obama administration, on the other hand, talks of outstretched hands; on July 15, even after Iran’s election, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said “we understand the importance of offering to engage Iran….direct talks provide the best vehicle….We remain ready to engage with Iran.”
To the Israelis this seems unrealistic, even naïve, while to U.S. officials an Israeli attack on Iran is a nightmare that would upset Obama’s outreach to the Muslim world. The remarkable events in Iran have slowed down U.S. engagement, but not the Iranian nuclear program. If the current dissent in Iran leads to regime change, or if new United Nations sanctions force Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons program, this source of U.S.-Israel tension will disappear. But it is more likely that Iran will forge ahead toward building a weapon, and U.S.-Israel tension will grow as Israel watches the clock tick and sees its options narrowed to two: live with an Iranian bomb, or strike Iran soon to delay its program long enough for real political change to come to that country.
Israel believes the only thing worse than bombing Iran is Iran’s having the Bomb, but the evidence suggests this is not the Obama view.
If Iran is the most dangerous source of U.S.-Israel tension, the one most often discussed is settlements: The Obama administration has sought a total “freeze” on “Israeli settlement growth.” The Israelis years ago agreed there would be no new settlements and no physical expansion of settlements, just building “up and in” inside already existing communities. Additional construction in settlements does not harm Palestinians, who in fact get most of the construction jobs. The West Bank economy is growing fast and the Israelis are removing security roadblocks so Palestinians can get around the West Bank better.
A recent International Monetary Fund report stated that “macroeconomic conditions in the West Bank have improved” largely because “Israeli restrictions on internal trade and the passage of people have been relaxed significantly.” What’s more, says the IMF, “continuation of the relaxation of restrictions could result in real GDP growth of 7% for 2009 as a whole.” That’s a gross domestic product growth rate Americans would leap at, so what’s this dispute about?
It is, once again, about the subordination of reality to pre-existing theories. In this case, the theory is that every problem in the Middle East is related to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. The administration takes the view that “merely” improving life for Palestinians and doing the hard work needed to prepare them for eventual independence isn’t enough. Nor is it daunted by the minor detail that half of the eventual Palestine is controlled by the terrorist group Hamas.
Instead, in keeping with its “yes we can” approach and its boundless ambitions, it has decided to go not only for a final peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, but also for comprehensive peace in the region. Mr. Mitchell explained that this “includes Israel and Palestine, Israel and Syria, Israel and Lebanon and normal relations with all countries in the region. That is President Obama’s personal objective vision and that is what he is asking to achieve. In order to achieve that we have asked all involved to take steps.” The administration (pocketing the economic progress Israel is fostering in the West Bank) decided that Israel’s “step” would be to impose a complete settlement freeze, which would be proffered to the Arabs to elicit “steps” from them.
But Israelis notice that already the Saudis have refused to take any “steps” toward Israel, and other Arab states are apparently offering weak tea: a quiet meeting here, overflight rights there, but nothing approaching normal relations. They also notice that Mr. Mitchell was in Syria last week, smiling warmly at its repressive ruler Bashar Assad and explaining that the administration would start waiving the sanctions on Syria to allow export of “products related to information technology and telecommunication equipment and parts and components related to the safety of civil aviation” and will “process all eligible applications for export licenses as quickly as possible.” While sanctions on certain Syrian individuals were renewed last week, the message to the regime is that better days lie ahead. Of this approach the Syrian dissident Ammar Abdulhamid told the Wall Street Journal, “The regime feels very confident politically now. Damascus feels like it’s getting a lot without giving up anything.” Indeed, no “steps” from Syria appear to be on the horizon, except Mr. Assad’s willingness to come to the negotiating table where he will demand the Golan Heights back but refuse to make the break with Iran and Hezbollah that must be the basis for any serious peace negotiation.
None of this appears to have diminished the administration’s zeal, for bilateral relations with everyone take a back seat once the goal of comprehensive peace is put on the table. The only important thing about a nation’s policies becomes whether it appears to play ball with the big peace effort. The Syrian dictatorship is viciously repressive, houses terrorist groups and happily assists jihadis through Damascus International Airport on their way to Iraq to fight U.S. and Coalition forces, but any concerns we might have are counterbalanced by the desire to get Mr. Assad to buy in to new negotiations with Israel. (Is the new “information technology” we’ll be offering Mr. Assad likely to help dissidents there, or to help him suppress them?)
Future stability in Egypt is uncertain because President Hosni Mubarak is nearing 80, reportedly not in good health, and continues to crush all moderate opposition forces, but this is all ignored as we enlist Mr. Mubarak’s cooperation in the comprehensive peace scheme. As we saw in the latter part of the Clinton and Bush administrations, once you commit to a major effort at an international peace conference or a comprehensive Middle East peace, those goals overwhelm all others.
Israelis have learned the hard way that reality cannot be ignored and that ideology offers no protection from danger. Four wars and a constant battle against terrorism sobered them up, and made them far less susceptible than most audiences to the Obama speeches that charmed Americans, Europeans, and many Muslim nations. A policy based in realism would help the Palestinians prepare for an eventual state while we turn our energies toward the real challenge confronting the entire region: what is to be done about Iran as it faces its first internal crisis since the regime came to power in 1979.
Mrs. Clinton recently decried “rigid ideologies and old formulas,” but the tension with Israel shows the administration is—up to now—following the old script that attributes every problem in the region to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while all who live there can see that developments in Iran are in fact the linchpin of the region’s future. The Obama administration’s “old formulas” have produced the current tensions with Israel. They will diminish only if the administration adopts a more realistic view of what progress is possible, and what dangers lurk, in the Middle East.
Elliott Abrams is a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was the deputy national security adviser overseeing Near East and North African affairs under President George W. Bush from 2005 to January 2009.
Why Israel Is Nervous
Tension is escalating between the U.S and Israel. The problem: The administration views the Israeli-Palestinian issue as the root of all problems, while Israel is focused on Iran’s nuclear threat, says Elliott Abrams.
By ELLIOTT ABRAMS
The tension in U.S.-Israel relations was manifest this past week as an extraordinary troupe of Obama administration officials visited Jerusalem. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, National Security Advisor James Jones, special Middle East envoy George Mitchell and new White House adviser Dennis Ross all showed up in Israel’s capital in an effort to…well, to do something. It was not quite clear what.
Since President Obama came to office on Jan. 20 and then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on March 31, the main motif in relations between the two governments has been friction. While nearly 80% of American Jews voted for Mr. Obama, that friction has been visible enough to propel him to meet with American Jewish leaders recently to reassure them about his policies. But last month, despite those reassurances, both the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Anti-Defamation League issued statements critical of the president’s handling of Israel. Given the warm relations during the Bush years and candidate Obama’s repeated statements of commitment to the very best relations with Israel, why have we fallen into this rut?
U.S.-Israel relations are often depicted as an extended honeymoon, but that’s a false image. Harry Truman, who was a Bible-believing Christian Zionist, defied the secretary of state he so admired, George C. Marshall, and won a place in Israel’s history by recognizing the new state 11 minutes after it declared its independence in 1948. Relations weren’t particularly warm under Eisenhower—who, after all, demanded that Israel, along with Britain and France, leave Suez in 1956. The real alliance began in 1967, after Israel’s smashing victory in the Six Day War, and it was American arms and Nixon’s warnings to the Soviet Union to stay out that allowed Israel to survive and prevail in the 1973 war. Israelis are no fans of President Carter and, as his more recent writings have revealed, his own view of Israel is very hostile. During the George H.W. Bush and Clinton years, there were moments of close cooperation, but also of great friction—as when Bush suspended loan guarantees to Israel, or when the Clinton administration butted heads with Mr. Netanyahu time after time during peace negotiations. Even during the George W. Bush years, when Israel’s struggle against the terrorist “intifada” and the U.S. “global war on terror” led to unprecedented closeness and cooperation, there was occasional friction over American pressure for what Israelis viewed as endless concessions to the Palestinians to enable the signing of a peace agreement before the president’s term ended. This “special relationship” has been marked by intense and frequent contact and often by extremely close (and often secret) collaboration, but not by the absence of discord.
Yet no other administration, even among those experiencing considerable dissonance with Israel, started off with as many difficulties as Obama’s. There are two explanations for this problem, and the simpler one is personal politics. Mr. Netanyahu no doubt remembers very well the last Democratic administration’s glee at his downfall in 1999, something Dennis Ross admits clearly in his book “The Missing Peace.” The prime minister must wonder if the current bilateral friction is an effort to persuade Israelis that he is not the right man for the job, or at least to persuade them that his policies must be rejected. When Israeli liberals plead for Obama to “talk to Israel,” they are hoping that Obama will help them revive the Israeli Left, recently vanquished in national elections. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Mr. Obama and his team wish former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni had won the top job and view Mr. Netanyahu and his Likud Party with some suspicion. The result, of course, is to make personal relations among policy makers more difficult, and to make trust and confidence between the two governments harder as well.
But the Obama administration has managed to win the mistrust of most Israelis, not just conservative politicians. Despite his great popularity in many parts of the world, in Israel Obama is now seen as no ally. A June poll found that just 6% of Israelis called him “pro-Israel,” when 88% had seen President George W. Bush that way. So the troubles between the U.S. and Israel are not fundamentally found in the personal relations among policy makers.
The deeper problem—and the more complex explanation of bilateral tensions—is that the Obama administration, while claiming to separate itself from the “ideologues” of the Bush administration in favor of a more balanced and realistic Middle East policy, is in fact following a highly ideological policy path. Its ability to cope with, indeed even to see clearly, the realities of life in Israel and the West Bank and the challenge of Iran to the region is compromised by the prism through which it analyzes events.
The administration view begins with a critique of Bush foreign policy—as much too reliant on military pressure and isolated in the world. The antidote is a policy of outreach and engagement, especially with places like Syria, Venezuela, North Korea and Iran. Engagement with the Muslim world is a special goal, which leads not only to the president’s speech in Cairo on June 4 but also to a distancing from Israel so as to appear more “even-handed” to Arab states. Seen from Jerusalem, all this looks like a flashing red light: trouble ahead.
Iran is the major security issue facing Israel, which sees itself confronting an extremist regime seeking nuclear weapons and stating openly that Israel should be wiped off the map. Israel believes the military option has to be on the table and credible if diplomacy and sanctions are to have any chance, and many Israelis believe a military strike on Iran may in the end be unavoidable. The Obama administration, on the other hand, talks of outstretched hands; on July 15, even after Iran’s election, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said “we understand the importance of offering to engage Iran….direct talks provide the best vehicle….We remain ready to engage with Iran.”
To the Israelis this seems unrealistic, even naïve, while to U.S. officials an Israeli attack on Iran is a nightmare that would upset Obama’s outreach to the Muslim world. The remarkable events in Iran have slowed down U.S. engagement, but not the Iranian nuclear program. If the current dissent in Iran leads to regime change, or if new United Nations sanctions force Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons program, this source of U.S.-Israel tension will disappear. But it is more likely that Iran will forge ahead toward building a weapon, and U.S.-Israel tension will grow as Israel watches the clock tick and sees its options narrowed to two: live with an Iranian bomb, or strike Iran soon to delay its program long enough for real political change to come to that country.
Israel believes the only thing worse than bombing Iran is Iran’s having the Bomb, but the evidence suggests this is not the Obama view.
If Iran is the most dangerous source of U.S.-Israel tension, the one most often discussed is settlements: The Obama administration has sought a total “freeze” on “Israeli settlement growth.” The Israelis years ago agreed there would be no new settlements and no physical expansion of settlements, just building “up and in” inside already existing communities. Additional construction in settlements does not harm Palestinians, who in fact get most of the construction jobs. The West Bank economy is growing fast and the Israelis are removing security roadblocks so Palestinians can get around the West Bank better.
A recent International Monetary Fund report stated that “macroeconomic conditions in the West Bank have improved” largely because “Israeli restrictions on internal trade and the passage of people have been relaxed significantly.” What’s more, says the IMF, “continuation of the relaxation of restrictions could result in real GDP growth of 7% for 2009 as a whole.” That’s a gross domestic product growth rate Americans would leap at, so what’s this dispute about?
It is, once again, about the subordination of reality to pre-existing theories. In this case, the theory is that every problem in the Middle East is related to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. The administration takes the view that “merely” improving life for Palestinians and doing the hard work needed to prepare them for eventual independence isn’t enough. Nor is it daunted by the minor detail that half of the eventual Palestine is controlled by the terrorist group Hamas.
Instead, in keeping with its “yes we can” approach and its boundless ambitions, it has decided to go not only for a final peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, but also for comprehensive peace in the region. Mr. Mitchell explained that this “includes Israel and Palestine, Israel and Syria, Israel and Lebanon and normal relations with all countries in the region. That is President Obama’s personal objective vision and that is what he is asking to achieve. In order to achieve that we have asked all involved to take steps.” The administration (pocketing the economic progress Israel is fostering in the West Bank) decided that Israel’s “step” would be to impose a complete settlement freeze, which would be proffered to the Arabs to elicit “steps” from them.
But Israelis notice that already the Saudis have refused to take any “steps” toward Israel, and other Arab states are apparently offering weak tea: a quiet meeting here, overflight rights there, but nothing approaching normal relations. They also notice that Mr. Mitchell was in Syria last week, smiling warmly at its repressive ruler Bashar Assad and explaining that the administration would start waiving the sanctions on Syria to allow export of “products related to information technology and telecommunication equipment and parts and components related to the safety of civil aviation” and will “process all eligible applications for export licenses as quickly as possible.” While sanctions on certain Syrian individuals were renewed last week, the message to the regime is that better days lie ahead. Of this approach the Syrian dissident Ammar Abdulhamid told the Wall Street Journal, “The regime feels very confident politically now. Damascus feels like it’s getting a lot without giving up anything.” Indeed, no “steps” from Syria appear to be on the horizon, except Mr. Assad’s willingness to come to the negotiating table where he will demand the Golan Heights back but refuse to make the break with Iran and Hezbollah that must be the basis for any serious peace negotiation.
None of this appears to have diminished the administration’s zeal, for bilateral relations with everyone take a back seat once the goal of comprehensive peace is put on the table. The only important thing about a nation’s policies becomes whether it appears to play ball with the big peace effort. The Syrian dictatorship is viciously repressive, houses terrorist groups and happily assists jihadis through Damascus International Airport on their way to Iraq to fight U.S. and Coalition forces, but any concerns we might have are counterbalanced by the desire to get Mr. Assad to buy in to new negotiations with Israel. (Is the new “information technology” we’ll be offering Mr. Assad likely to help dissidents there, or to help him suppress them?)
Future stability in Egypt is uncertain because President Hosni Mubarak is nearing 80, reportedly not in good health, and continues to crush all moderate opposition forces, but this is all ignored as we enlist Mr. Mubarak’s cooperation in the comprehensive peace scheme. As we saw in the latter part of the Clinton and Bush administrations, once you commit to a major effort at an international peace conference or a comprehensive Middle East peace, those goals overwhelm all others.
Israelis have learned the hard way that reality cannot be ignored and that ideology offers no protection from danger. Four wars and a constant battle against terrorism sobered them up, and made them far less susceptible than most audiences to the Obama speeches that charmed Americans, Europeans, and many Muslim nations. A policy based in realism would help the Palestinians prepare for an eventual state while we turn our energies toward the real challenge confronting the entire region: what is to be done about Iran as it faces its first internal crisis since the regime came to power in 1979.
Mrs. Clinton recently decried “rigid ideologies and old formulas,” but the tension with Israel shows the administration is—up to now—following the old script that attributes every problem in the region to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while all who live there can see that developments in Iran are in fact the linchpin of the region’s future. The Obama administration’s “old formulas” have produced the current tensions with Israel. They will diminish only if the administration adopts a more realistic view of what progress is possible, and what dangers lurk, in the Middle East.
Elliott Abrams is a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was the deputy national security adviser overseeing Near East and North African affairs under President George W. Bush from 2005 to January 2009.
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