Daily Verse | Nehemiah 2:17
Then I said to them, “You see the trouble we are in: Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire. Come let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace.”

Welcome to this edition of the Monday Daily Broadside. I sometimes get a headache trying to open a bottle of aspirin.

When Resident Biden was “running” for president by holing up in his basement and telling African-Americans they weren’t black if they didn’t vote for him (a totally not racist thing for a white man to say), he also promised to return us to “normal.” In this completely honest and unbiased objective report in the completely honest and unbiased San Francisco Chronicle, senior political writer Joe Garofoli wrote (back in January),

Many Americans will exhale at 9 a.m Wednesday, relieved to have survived the Donald Trump presidency. Four years of chaos and lies and the presidential encouragement of America’s most malevolent elements will end when Joe Biden takes the oath of office.

But is America ready for what Biden promised: a return to normalcy?

Ignoring the fact that the other half of the country can say that about the Obama years and will be relieved when this current illegitimate farce of an administration is gone, I’ve got good news for you, Joe: your man in the White House has returned us to normal, and nowhere is that more evident than in the Middle East.

The current conflict started when Hamas launched rocket attacks in retaliation for restrictions imposed by Israeli police near al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest site, in East Jerusalem. There was also action against Palestinians protesting home evictions due to a court case in Israel.

The Israelis and the Palestinians have been going at it since 1948 when the British Mandate officially terminated and the Jewish Agency, led by David Ben-Gurion, proclaimed the creation of the State of Israel. The next day, U.S. president Harry S. Truman recognized the fledgling nation, which was immediately attacked by Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq as the British withdrew.

Miraculously, Israel defeated an overwhelming force against all odds and captured even more land.

Over the last 50 years their Arab neighbors have tried to defeat them militarily in conflicts like the Six-Day War (1967) and the Yom Kippur War (1973). We’ve also watched as the Palestinians have launched intifadas, suicide bombers and missiles at Israel, supported by the terrorist state of Iran.

The Arab states and the Palestinian’s goal is to push the Jews into the sea. I know this for a fact not only because it’s been said so often, but because I’ve been to Israel a few times and I’ve spoken with men in the Arab quarter of Jerusalem. One older Palestinian man once told me they didn’t want “part of the land”; they wanted the whole thing, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. (He also told me that CNN sucked. We agreed on that.)

There have been promises of peace over the last many decades, too. The peace treaty between Israel and Egypt in 1979; the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (1993, 1995); the peace treaty between Israel and Jordan (1994). The peace treaties have held with Egypt and Jordan. Agreements with the Palestinians have not.

When President Trump brokered the Abraham Accords, he was beginning to isolate the Palestinians. The Arab states in the region had bigger fish to fry with a belligerent Iran pursuing nuclear weapons. The Palestinians had become an irritant, as a friend said, “never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity” when it came to peace. On the other hand, Trump was squeezing Iran with a suffocating regime of sanctions and being a strong and unshakeable ally to Israel. The Arabs saw the wisdom in being allies with Israel with the threat of Iran being so close.

But because of Trump’s Mean Tweets and a stolen election, we’ve now got an escalating conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians — just like normal! — because the players in the Middle East know weakness when they see it. Slow Joe Biden is no match for the diplomatic strength that Trump had and the Biden administration is riddled with anti-Semitic sentiment, just like our Congress is.

Thanks Joe!

Any loss of life, on either side, is tragic, as is the economic devastation that war brings. But for the record, Hamas started the conflict and has fired more than 2,200 missiles indiscriminately into Israel (about 350 landed in Gaza, killing their own people; about 1,000 were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system). Israel has fired about 930 rockets back with pinpoint strikes at terrorist infrastructure.

It’s not that this couldn’t have happened if Trump were still in the White House, but what we learn from this is that we need a firm hand guiding the United States and its relationship with Israel, and we don’t have one. This isn’t the “normal” anyone wanted.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.