“Ephraim feeds on the wind; he pursues the east wind all day and multiplies lies and violence. He makes a treaty with Assyria and sends olive oil to Egypt.”

Hosea 12:1 

I remember the sinking sensation in my heart upon reading the news that the Israeli government had officially handed the village of Bethlehem over to Yassar Arafat’s bloody political front, the so-called “Palestinian Authority.”  It was in December, 1995.  My thoughts turned immediately to Herod’s massacre of the children there nearly two thousand years ago.  My stomach turned at the thought of Bethlehem once more in the hands of a mass murderer.

Immediately after that, it occurred to me that Herod failed in his attempt to assassinate the newborn King, and the sense of drowning disappeared.  Nevertheless, twelve years later, it feels like the birthplace of David and Jesus is still being held hostage, subject to abuse every day by its new terrorist landlords.

In a graphic demonstration of utmost insult and arrogance to everyone involved, the first thing that Arafat,“the father of modern terrorism,” did as the new “owner” of Bethlehem, was to turn the Greek Orthodox monastery into his personal domicile during periodic visits to the city, without prior consent of the church. The Latin patriarch, Greek Archbishop, Anglican bishop and Lutheran bishop were all Palestinian Arabs at the time and became effective propaganda mouthpieces throughout the Christian world.  As a result of unceasing persecution, according to a 1997 Israeli government report, Christians were immediately forced to behave like any oppressed minority which aims to survive within a hostile environment. They were forced to pray in secret.  Christian cemeteries were destroyed, monasteries had their telephone lines cut, and there were break-ins to convents. But, this should not have been an unexpected development.  According to the Quranic/sharia concept of “dhimmi-tude,” Jews and Christians living within Muslim occupied territories are “protected” if agreeably subject to increased taxes and a diminished status of citizenship.  During the British mandate period, Bethlehem had a Christian majority of 80%. Today, under Palestinian rule, it has a Muslim majority of 80%.

That sinking sensation returned on Friday, August 31st, when Arutz Sheva/Israel National News published the story that the Olmert Administration has agreed in writing “to hand over 6,250 square kilometers of land – the equivalent of its entire biblical and strategic heartland - to an Arab terror state."  The land involved is the equivalent of all of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.

So reported Dr. Guy Bechor, a leading expert on Arab affairs, apparently based on "leaks from the Palestinian side." According to Bechor, the agreement calls for a state named “Palestine” to be established alongside Israel. Says Bechor, “Most of the Jewish communities built in Judea and Samaria over the past 40 years are to be demolished and their inhabitants expelled, according to the plan.”

Such undermining decisions by Israeli leadership may seem treasonous in light of the unsuccessful assaults on its existence since 1948, but such damaging decisions are not unprecedented in its history.
Referring directly to Israel's futile foreign relations policy, the aforementioned verse from the prophet Hosea was a prophecy delivered as Israel was seeking the aid of the Egyptian king in violation of their covenant with Assyria.  Hosea likens Israel’s dependence on treaties to pursuing “the east wind all day.”  The “east wind” refers to a pernicious thing, as it blows from the desert and is destitute of moisture necessary for vegetation. It is primarily associated with evil and wrath in the Bible. 

According to Hosea, by pursuing such treaties, ancient Israel was “multiplying lies and violence.” Already in violation of its covenantal obligations regarding idolatry, King Ahaz, by acquiescing to the malevolently inspired demands of Israel’s enemies, was behaving in an inauthentic way that was deceitful and damaging to the people in his charge.  The policy of appeasement served to incubate violence as well.  By not standing upon what they believe in, by not acting in character with who they were in the eyes of the God of Israel, Ahaz was sending conflicting political signals to Israel’s enemies, inferring weakness and passivity, which always invites eventual attack from aggressive totalitarian powers. 

Apply this prophetic estimation of Israel’s ancient foreign policy with the nation’s current diplomatic approach of “land-for-peace,” designed to permanently pacify its current totalitarian “neighbors.”  Surely, Israel has been “feeding on the wind, pursuing the east wind all day” since the signing of the infamous “Oslo Accords” in 1993.  And no doubt “lies and violence” have indeed multiplied, especially on the part of the Arafat/Abbas-led Palestinian Authority, who place high value on duplicity and treachery as this, the third, "political" stage of the PLO-planned jihad, runs its course.

In all of the years and through all of the subsequent negotiations since then, the terrorist assault on the innocent Israeli population has intensified, not declined.  It has escalated from rock throwing to homicide bombing to bombardment by Qassam rockets delivered from Gaza, of all places, land that was “given for peace” by the Sharon Administration.  Unless you define “peace” as the jihadist Palestinian Authority does—the ultimate destruction of the state of Israel—this “pursuit of the east wind” by dovish Israeli administrations has indeed been a pernicious thing, bringing no life, only more hatred from the arid hearts of both Fatah and Hamas.

Successive U.S. administrations have chosen, in tandem with dovish Leftist governments of Israel, the same path as Ahaz, systematically handing land promised to Abraham over to the pan-Arab coalition, who, bound by the religious ties of Islam, agree that the Israeli’s have no right to exist in their own ancient homeland and that all of its land belongs to the coming Islamic world caliphate.  Just this week The Washington Post and The Washington Times both published articles citing research by Palestinian Media Watch documenting the increased influence of Islam in Palestinian society.  The Times article opened with:

Here is an internationally sanctioned political entity, the Palestinian Authority, that thrives on religious hatred and actively practices the application of that hatred by targeting innocent men, women, and children to achieve its spiritual/political objectives, that hates others even within its own genocidal cause, and commits perhaps the most heinous sin of all against its own most vulnerable population: teaching its youngest school-age children the religion of hate before sending them off to commit homicide-by-suicide in the name of Allah.  All this, while regularly using its own women and children as human shields, then blaming the defenders of Israeli society for the harm that awaits them.

The only thing more contemptible than Israel’s dovish leadership participating in its own planned extinction is the fact that a geographically distant United States whispers such morally and spiritually repugnant counsel into the ear of its supposed friend and ally from such a perceived “safe” distance.

How has the United States, the nation that landed on the distant beaches of Normandy to crush the evil Nazi entity, descended to such an abysmal level of appeasement regarding the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Authority? 
I have my own theory, but that’s another story having to do with "feeding"on a destructive wind, best saved for another day.