Barack Obama was being awarded an honorary degree from Queen's University in Northern Ireland when he said, "If the attitude of Israel is, now that we are the strongest…[and our] security will depend on us…taking whatever we want…you have ceded the moral high ground."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called that a regrettable statement and reiterated his country's foundational premise:
"The Jewish people are not foreign occupiers in the land of our forefathers. Our history is not a colonial enterprise. Our land is not stolen land. This is our homeland."
In the Bible, God promised Abraham and his descendants the land of Canaan as an everlasting covenant, declaring, "Unto thy seed have I given this land" (Genesis 15:18; 17:7-8). God reaffirmed this promise to Isaac and Jacob, whose descendants became the nation of Israel (Genesis 26:3-4; 28:13-15).
Secular archaeological evidence confirms the ancient presence of Israel and its historical kingdom in the region.
Gary Bauer of American Values says Obama's proposed solution appears to involve land concessions from Israel — that Israel must give up some of its land as part of a peace deal.
"There's only one place in the world for Jews, and there are 50 countries in the world for Muslims; we don't need 51," he tells AFN.
He thinks "normal people" recognize that the problem in the Middle East is not 8 million Jews surrounded by 300 million Muslim Arabs, but rather that Obama and others are obsessed with antisemitism, or what some might call "Israeli derangement syndrome," which is an illness as old as the Jewish people themselves.
"They get up every morning wondering, 'What did Israel do to the world today?' Well, probably discovered a new vaccine or a new medical breakthrough or new technology or whatever," Bauer says, suggesting that some people on the political left are so focused on criticizing Israel that they overlook or dismiss its positive contributions to the world.
"To me, what we're seeing here is evidence of spiritual warfare," Bauer concludes. "Sadly, people like Barack Obama and most of the Democrat Party at this point have cast their lot with the forces of darkness."
