Ethan Bronner, reporting in Jerusalem for the International Herald Tribune, raises an important question in regard to U.S.-Israeli relations: "Iran seems to be hurtling toward nuclear weapons capacity, Hezbollah could win Sunday's election in Lebanon [thankfully, it did not] and Hamas is smuggling long-range rockets into Gaza again. So why is President Barack Obama focusing such attention on the building of homes by Israeli Jews in the West Bank?" ("Obama Puts Israelis to Test," June 6-7, 2009, emphasis added throughout).

This latest move on the diplomatic chessboard has put enormous pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "[It] underscores one of the biggest shifts in American policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in three decades. While every administration has objected to Israeli settlement building in occupied lands, the Obama administration has selected it as the opening issue that could begin to untie the conflict" (ibid.).

The American administration hopes that halting and then removing these Israeli settlements will encourage Saudi Arabia and other Arab states to offer Israel concessions in trade, tourism and direct diplomatic ties. However, this controversy over settlement policy isn't the only Israeli concern with shifts in American policy.

According to Leonard Doyle, writing in Washington, D.C., for The Sunday Telegraph, "Israel is also rattled by Mr. Obama's willingness to attempt dialogue with Iran, seen by Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. [Avigdor] Lieberman [Israel's foreign minister and deputy prime minister] as the biggest threat to the Jewish state" ("Obama Will Lay Down the Law to Israel," May 17, 2009).

The International Herald Tribune article went on to say that "Israelis have turned rightward and most analyses suggest that the reason is a growing fear of regional threats, notably Iranian-backed parties like Hezbollah and Hamas, on Israel's borders." Earlier in April Netanyahu stated: "We will not allow the Holocaust deniers to carry out another Holocaust against the Jewish people. This is the supreme duty of the state of Israel" ("Ahmadinejad Calls Israel 'Racist,'" The Wall Street Journal, April 21, 2009).

Yet as Doyle reports in his Telegraph article, "the Obama administration has also broken a long-standing taboo against discussing Israel's nuclear weapons, by calling for Israel to declare and give up its weapons arsenal, said to number around 50 warheads. A senior State Department official said that the US wanted Israel to sign the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty and commit to disarmament."

But will Iran convincingly commit to not constructing nuclear weapons? On a recent trip to Israel, CIA Director Leon Panetta's "message to the Israeli prime minister was that Iran will not be a serious threat even if it develops a nuclear weapon" (ibid.).

So the noose continues to tighten around the state of Israel. This important question emerges: Will American foreign policy put Israel in an untenable position with its enemies—greatly increasing its security concerns and placing its population potentially in mortal danger?

For help in discerning the direction these disturbing trends are headed, read our free booklets The Middle East in Bible Prophecy and You Can Understand Bible Prophecy. (Sources: The Daily Telegraph [London], International Herald Tribune, The Wall Street Journal.)