POTUS Needs to Listen to Torah  

This coming shabbat, in synagogues worldwide, the Torah portion of Balak will be read which includes (Numbers 24:8-9) Bilaam’s blessing to the Jewish people as it is written: “God, who has taken you out of Egypt with the strength of His loftiness, will consume the nations that are your adversaries, skin their bones, and dye His arrows in their blood.  You will settle and dwell like a lion, like a fearsome lion that no one would dare rouse. Those who bless you will be blessed, and those who curse you will be cursed.”

Perhaps, the US needs to internalize the last line of the blessing, whose words originally appear in Genesis 12:3 where God says to Abraham: “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

To bring that into current perspective, for months now the weather in the US has been a topic of concern every single day.  To date this year, for example, there have been 723 tornados in America causing catastrophic damage but amazingly just 12 fatalities.  Could there perhaps be a connection between the biblical injunction not to curse Israel lest the person or country doing so be cursed as well and this spate of catastrophic weather?

It is worth looking at the last three tornado spikes since the year 2000 (in 2008, 2011 and 2024) vs. the state of the relationship between Israel and the US at the time to see if there is a correlation.

1011 Tornados in the US from January-May, 2008

It is interesting to note that there was a US-Israel crisis that year primarily centered on Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s requests for an American “green light” and specialized military hardware to launch a preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities (sounds familiar, does it not?). The administration of US President George W. Bush firmly rejected these requests. Key dynamics of the diplomatic friction included:

• The Iran Dilemma: Throughout 2008, Israeli leadership viewed Iran’s nuclear program as an existential threat and conducted large-scale military exercises in the Mediterranean to demonstrate their capability to strike distant sites like Natanz. The Bush administration, however, strongly opposed an Israeli attack, fearing broader regional instability, and actively withheld aerial refueling tankers and bunker-buster bombs.
• The Annapolis Peace Process: While the US and Israel collaborated on the Annapolis peace talks in late 2007, US officials, including President Bush, pressured Israel to halt settlement expansion. The lofty goals for a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace deal yielded no final agreement as Bush’s presidency wound down.
• Gaza Ceasefire Collapse: In November 2008, Israel raided the Gaza Strip to neutralize what it identified as an imminent cross-border tunnel threat, which formally broke the June 2008 Egyptian-brokered ceasefire with Hamas. This laid the groundwork for Operation Cast Lead, launched in December 2008, which sparked US criticism of course.

While personal relations between Bush and Olmert were relatively close, the divide over a potential military strike on Iran underscored a fundamental strategic disagreement between the two allies in the final year of the Bush administration

1238 Tornados in the US from January-May, 2011

 The 2011 crisis in the US-Israel relationship was primarily driven by a deep ideological and personal rift between US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the diverging strategies on handling Iran’s nuclear program, and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The friction escalated around two main flashpoints:

• The Iran Nuclear Stance where throughout 2011, Israel grew increasingly alarmed that international sanctions and diplomacy would fail to halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Netanyahu’s government pushed the United States to adopt “red lines” for military action, while the Obama administration sought to restrain Israel to prevent a unilateral attack. Israel inferred that the US might be too willing to accept a nuclear Iran, leading to heightened tension as Israel used the threat of an imminent strike to leverage US policy.
• The 1967 Border Dispute surfaced again in May 2011, when then President Obama delivered a major Middle East speech stating that future Palestinian borders should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed land swaps. Netanyahu publicly and forcefully rejected this proposal during an Oval Office meeting, lecturing the President on Israel’s defense needs with the press in attendance. The exchange highlighted a fundamental lack of personal chemistry and mutual trust between the two leaders.

1038 Tornados in the US from January-May, 2024

The 2024 crisis in the US-Israel relationship was defined by severe friction over the war in Gaza, specifically regarding humanitarian conditions, the push for a Rafah offensive, and delayed US weapons shipments. This period saw a significant erosion of American public support for Israel as well.

Key Flashpoints in the relationship were:

• Humanitarian Aid and Rafah where the US actively opposed a full-scale Israeli military operation in Rafah without credible civilian evacuation plans, and tensions flared over the flow of humanitarian aid and the US construction of a floating pier off the coast of Gaza.
• Weapon Shipments when the Biden administration paused the delivery of heavy bombs to Israel out of concern they would be used in densely populated civilian areas.

It was, of course, during this period that Pew Research Center polling tracked a distinct drop in overall US favorability toward Israel, particularly among younger demographics and the progressive base of the Democratic Party.  While unconditional support remained strong among many conservatives, the political discourse shifted as some on the right questioned the alliance while many on the left expressed strong opposition to the administration’s handling of the conflict

Which bring us to 2026 where tornado activity, catastrophic flooding across the Midwest and Southeast, unseasonably warm temperatures throughout the US and, as of today, 70 forest fires burning out of control across the western half of the country makes one wonder what this all may mean?

Is there linkage between the biblical caution against abandoning Israel and the extreme weather day-after-day across America?  Did God have a mission for America to protect its Jewish population and provide defensive cover for Israel?  Is it possible that the catastrophic weather is what happens to a nation that does not bless Israel by its actions?

We have no way of knowing.  However, truth be told, neither Canada, America’s northern neighbor nor Mexico to the south are experiencing severe weather anywhere.  We, of course, cannot, dare not, must not, try to get into what God is thinking.  All we can do is look at the facts which show calamitous climatic hyperactivity at times when the US is treating Israel badly.

From that each of us can make our own determination as to whether there is or is not a correlation with clearly stated biblical commandments.  Nevertheless, perhaps out of an abundance of caution someone should open a bible to Genesis 12:3 and place it discreetly on the resolute desk in the Oval Office.  After all, one never knows.