Nehemiah was commissioned by the God of Israel to travel across the deserts of Iran and Iraq into the Promised Land, seeking the physical restoration of Jerusalem. He quickly set about rebuilding the defensive walls of the city which had been burned and razed by Babylon and Edom (Psalm 137:7). But events on the ground had shifted over the previous 100-150 years. The tribes of Judah and Shimon had been exiled to the rivers of Babylon (see Psalm 137:1), while the enemies of the Jewish people had swarmed into the city of Jerusalem, exerting pagan control over the Temple Mount.
One of these enemies was Sanballat the Horonite (Nehemiah 2:19) – either a Moabite from Horonaim near Ammon (see Jeremiah 48:1-5), or a Samaritan from Beth Horon (as per Josephus Antiquities XI, Chapter 7). Another foe was Tobiah the Ammonite official (with possible Jewish family roots), and a third adversary was Geshem (or Gashmu) the Arab. Nehemiah was well aware of their enmity and their plotting against him: “Now when it was reported to Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab, and to the rest of our enemies that I had rebuilt the wall . . . [they] sent a message to me, saying, ‘Come, let’s meet together at Kfirim in the plain of Ono.’ But they were plotting to harm me” (Nehemiah 6:1-2). The Philistines of Ashdod (near Gaza) joined in this political-military conspiracy (Nehemiah 4:7). Together, the enemies of Israel were intent on crushing the restoration of the Jewish people to their Holy Land and to their royal city.
Job in his day spoke of Zophar’s evil machinations: “Behold, I know your thoughts, and the plots you devise against me” (Job 21:27). Nehemiah received divine discernment and courage regarding his contemporary Middle Eastern enemies. David and Asaph also prophesied about present and future enemies in the Psalms:
- “Why are the nations restless and the peoples plotting in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers conspire together” (Psalm 2:1-2)
- For behold, Your enemies make an uproar, and those who hate You have exalted themselves. They make shrewd plans against Your people, and conspire together against Your treasured ones. They have said, “Come, and let’s wipe them out as a nation, so that the name of Israel will no longer be remembered.” For they have conspired together with one mind. They make a covenant against You (Psalm 83:2-5)
But what about our day? As plots thicken before our eyes, what can we discover about the schemes which the enemies of Jewish restoration are hatching, and how is the God of Israel exposing those conspiracies in our day?
- “Devise a plan, but it will fail. State a proposal, but it will not stand, for God is with us! [in Hebrew, ‘Immanuel’]” (Isaiah 8:10)
When sweet and bitter waters mix
The words of James drive home a powerful point: Sometimes in diplomacy, sweet and bitter water flow out of the same spring. Such things rarely happen in nature, but they do happen in politics:
- “But no one among mankind can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people, who have been made in the likeness of God; from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, these things should not be this way. Does a spring send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water? Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters, bear olives, or a vine bear figs? Nor can salt water produce fresh” (James 3:8-12)
Though recent political events in the USA have radically and positively changed attitudes and actions toward the Jewish state, there is still a strong residue of anti-Israeli sentiments and strategies hidden deep within the US State Department, intelligence agencies, the oil industry and tycoons. The uncovering of significant State Department support for Hamas and anti-Israel jihadi forces over the years is being spotlighted with greater precision at this moment in time.
Funding Israel’s enemies
Recent investigative reporting has shined the light on some unsavory lizards creeping silently under Washington’s cobbled streets. Many of these exposés are connected to US government funding flowing through USAID (the United States Agency for International Development) to Hamas-related activities and organizations, as well as to jihadi Islamist bodies.
- “Rather than being used to provide humanitarian aid and stabilize conflict-ridden regions – in accordance with USAID’s stated goal – American funds have often been funneled into corrupt, Hamas-tied institutions, with minimal oversight. A new multiyear study of USAID by the Middle East Forum identified $164 million in grants to radical organizations, including $122 million to those ‘aligned with designated terrorists and their supporters.’ The MEF also found that ‘millions of federal dollars have been handed by USAID to organizations directly in Gaza controlled by Hamas, with government officials even visiting Gaza terror proxies’ offices and launching joint programs’ . . . The U.S. has distributed $2.1 billion to Hamas-controlled Gaza since Hamas killed 1,200 people and took 250 hostages on October 7, 2023”
The Washington Free Beacon reported on February 10, 2025:
- “Some of the terror-tied funding initiatives are publicly known. In November 2022, for instance, USAID awarded $100,000 to a Palestinian activist group whose leaders hailed the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a designated terror group. Just six days before Hamas’s Oct. 7 assault on Israel, USAID handed $900,000 ‘to a terror charity in Gaza involved with the son of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh’”
Rivers of sweet and bitter waters are indeed joining together. The American government has for years been surreptitiously supporting Hamas while publicly avowing its undying commitment to the Jewish state.
Dividing up the Promised Land
Many are not aware that the U.S. intelligence community has had backdoor connections and a significant working relationship with the PLO since 1969, at the height of its involvement in Middle East and world terrorism (see our November 9, 2023 newsletter – https://davidstent.org/caiaphas-kissinger-and-the-cia/).
A recently declassified U.S. State Department document sheds light on long-standing and secret U.S. policy and strategies regarding Israel’s borders. At a Paris meeting between Henry Kissinger (U.S. Secretary of State) and Sadun Hammadi (Iraqi Minister of Foreign Affairs) (www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB193/HAK-12-17-75.pdf) on December 17, 1975. Kissinger communicated a ‘no-nonsense’ US foreign policy regarding Israel in the following selected quotes:
- “Israel does us more harm than good in the Arab world”
- “We can’t negotiate about the existence of Israel but we can reduce its size to historical proportions”
- “So I think in ten to fifteen years Israel will be like Lebanon – struggling for existence, with no influence in the Arab world”
- “If the issue is the existence of Israel, we can’t cooperate. But if the issue is more normal borders, we can cooperate”
- “I think the Palestinian identity has to be recognized in some form … (It) will be a tremendous fight … (but) no solution is possible without it”
These shocking quotes show where the deeper strategies of the U.S. State Department lie. Israel’s borders must be shrunk in order to weaken its military and political standing in the Middle East. A Palestinian state needs to be established on land which has been pried away from Israeli control. These perspectives continue to guide many in the U.S. State Department and in American intelligence. Knowledge of these perspectives can guide intercessors in their prayers for leaders and diplomats in the US and elsewhere, for these talking points are part and parcel of British, European and Russian strategies as well.
Sponsoring political putschs and street riots against a friendly government
In a March 26, 2025 letter from the U.S. Congress’ Jim Jordan (Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary) and Brian Mast (Chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs) addressed to Dr. Eliad Shraga (Chairman, Movement for Quality Government in Israel), the following was stated:
- Dear Dr. Shraga, According to reports, the Biden-Harris Administration funneled U.S. taxpayer money to certain Israeli entities, including the Movement for Quality Government in Israel (MQG), with the effect of attempting to undermine Israel’s democratically elected government. The use of federal grants in this manner not only jeopardizes America’s relationship with one of its closest allies, but also undermines core civil liberties protected within the United States and Israel. Additionally, the misuse of federal grant funds may, in some cases, amount to a criminal offense . . . This was not the first time U.S. taxpayer-funded grants had been used to support protests against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or the policies he supports . . . From 2007 through 2024, USAID and the State Department sent at least $122 million to NGOs aligned with designated terrorist organizations. Many of those NGOs have openly espoused antisemitic rhetoric and encouraged violence against Jewish individuals.
The U.S. Congressmen further requested:
- “a detailed breakdown of how funds MQG received from USAID, the State Department, [from] Blue and White Future, the Middle East Peace Dialogue Network, PEF Israel Endowment Funds, Jewish Communal Fund, or Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors from January 20, 2021 to the present were spent, including the amount, date, recipient, and purpose of each expenditure, along with any relevant supporting documentation . . . Please produce all documents and information as soon as possible but no later than 5:00 p.m. on April 9, 2025.”
In an investigative report by Adam Kredo in The Free Beacon dated July 12, 2016 (see also his recent article of March 6, 2023), reference was made to a U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee in Investigations disclosure “that the Obama administration provided U.S. taxpayer dollars to the OneVoice Movement, a liberal group that waged a clandestine campaign to smear and oust Netanyahu from office.” Evidently such American State Department political undermining did not begin during POTUS Biden’s tenure, but has older and more weathered roots.
As noted over the past few years, street protests and riots aimed at overthrowing Israel’s elected government have been led by a handful of frustrated and ambitious Israeli ‘ex-leaders’ – ex-Prime Ministers, ex-IDF Generals, and some ex-heads of State Intelligence (SHABAK and Mossad). Funding for demonstrations (in both the US and Israel) and PR costs has been provided by USAID, as well as by other well-known Foundations. Here are four newsletters which give detailed information and sources about these events (which have convulsed Israeli society, and continue to do so, even though POTUS Trump is now attempting to clean these Augean stables:
Exposing the rot
The blowback from the horrific jihadi pogroms carried out by Hamas on October 7, 2023 lanced a pus-filled boil in Israeli society. Toxic discharge has been splattering on the people of the Jewish state ever since.
Information about Israeli failures and fiascos surrounding that terror attack have surfaced in the media. Some of it is certainly yellow journalism and anti-government propaganda funded by both USAID and by the blind ambition of failed former leaders in Israel. But pressing questions remain regarding criminal negligence by top leaders in the IDF, AMAN (IDF Military Intelligence), SHABAK (Israel’s General Security Services – similar to FBI), a ‘woke’ (left-leaning and falsely labeled ‘progressive’) activist judiciary, corrupt politicians, and a quasi-treasonous media. All are in some measure allied with ‘deeper state’ forces in other countries, some who are considered Israel’s allies. Nepotistic connections and ‘old boys networks’ are being exposed, shaking Israeli confidence in the formerly unshakeable reliability of many top leaders. In particular, SHABAK’s mollycoddling of leftist rioters while spying on right-wing Knesset members and citizens has raised clanging alarm-bells on both sides of the political aisle. Troubling comparisons are being made between top SHABAK directors exercising draconian powers of arrest and interrogations against the Prime Minister’s aides, and the dark shadow of the former East German Stasi (Ministry for State Security/Ministerium für Staatssicherheit).
As William Shakespeare said it in ‘Hamlet’: “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” (spoken by Marcellus, Act 1, Scene 4).
And as far as regards the nations, about to stumble blindly into the God of Israel’s soon-coming Judgment Day – as Joel 3 and Zechariah 14 chart out for us – it might be helpful remind ourselves that there really is a divine game plan being played out. It is described in our recent newsletter: https://davidstent.org/why-are-the-peoples-plotting-in-vain/. Three major pitfalls facing the international community are:
- foundational ignorance of biblical realities
- lack of awareness of God’s irrevocable calling on and gifts to the Jewish people
- flat-out anti-Semitism.
The secret war against the Jews
In 1948 the US State Department opposed the establishment and recognition of a Jewish state. It had also opposed the rescue and immigration of European Jews from Hitler during WWII. US Secretaries James Forestall (Navy, Defense), General George Marshall (State, Defense), John Dulles (State) and Allen Dulles (CIA Director), as well as business magnate and later Vice President Nelson Rockefeller – they and many more were opposed to recognizing and aiding the fledgling Jewish state.
In their magnum opus The Secret War Against The Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed The Jewish People (by John Loftus & Mark Aarons, St. Martin’s Press, 1994), the authors reveal how many Western countries, especially the United States and Great Britain, profess on the surface to be ardent allies of Israel yet, behind the scenes, have worked for years through their intelligence services to betray Israel and her secrets to her Arab enemies. A more detailed background of these issues is available at our newsletter link: https://davidstent.org/shakings-weighings-and-divisions-syria-annapolis-and-the-return-of-yhvh-part-three-of-three-cutting-israel-down-to-size/.
It is indeed a comfort to remember the promise of the God of Israel amidst the barking and yapping of the “dogs who have surrounded” Israel. Even though “a band of evildoers has encompassed” the Jewish people (see Psalm 22:16), the Psalmist boldly declares that “YHVH nullifies the plan of nations; He frustrates the plans of peoples!” (Psalm 33:10).
How shall we then pray?
- Pray for revelation and courage to be given to Israel’s leaders in political, intelligence and military spheres – to understand and counteract strategies against Israel, the apple of God’s eye (Zechariah 2:8) – as jihadi armies gather at our borders.
- Pray that enemy strategies against the Jewish people and their state, against Middle East Christians and other minorities – will be confounded, and that a great harvest would take place in all of these areas!
- Pray for the protection of Israeli and Jewish people from the assaults of jihadi terror organizations and Western fellow-travelers, and the return of the Jewish people to both the Land and the Messiah of Israel
- There are approximately 24 living Israeli hostages remaining, kidnapped by Hamas, Islamic Jihad, PFLP/PLO and the Mujahideen Brigades. Hamas is also holding on to approximately 70 Israeli corpses as cold storage bargaining chips. Pray for the speedy release of all the hostages, and for YHVH’s justice to be brought on the heads of the Islamist kidnappers
- Pray for the raising up of Ezekiel’s prophetic Jewish army throughout the earth
Your prayers and support hold up our arms and are the very practical enablement of God to us in the work He has called us to do.
In Messiah Yeshua,
Avner Boskey
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