What is Obama's Agenda for Israel?

by Mike Evans

Shalom from your Jerusalem World Center in the Holy City! I am here as your Ambassador this week during the Obama visit, so please pray for me.

Here's an inside view of why and what the President Obama is up to this week in Jerusalem:

1. President Obama's primary purpose in coming to Israel is to push PM Netanyahu for more time to allow diplomacy and economic penalties to run their course with Iran.

Netanyahu, in a speech to the United Nations in September, said Iran was about six months away from being able to build a bomb.

Obama told an Israeli television station this past week that the U.S. thinks it would take "over a year or so for Iran to actually develop a nuclear weapon." You can watch that Israeli TV interview here:

Obama will view an Iron Dome battery at the airport, part of the missile defense system the U.S. has helped pay for. This will be subtle signal to Israel that if you attack Iran you will lose America's support for the Iron Dome.

2. We are also expecting Obama to push the PM hard on the two-state solution to give up land for the Palestinian state, including the division of Jerusalem into two capitals. For more on this story, go here:
http://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-and-his-partner-rivals/

3. The centerpiece of Obama's visit will be a speech in Jerusalem to an audience mainly of Israeli students. It's part of the President's effort to appeal to the Israeli public, particularly young people. Bypassing the Knesset, Obama will attempt to go directly to Israel's citizens. We'll see what the speech contains soon enough.

4. He will make several cultural stops, all steeped in symbolism, in the region. They include visits to the Holocaust memorial at Yad Vashem; Mount Herzl, where he'll lay wreaths at the graves of Theodor Herzl, and also the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

5. Traveling to the West Bank, Obama will meet with Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, and his Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, in Ramallah.

6. Finally, President Obama will make a 24-hour stop in Jordan too.

Please be in SERIOUS PRAYER over the next few days, as the events that unfold here shortly, will lay the framework for the U.S. relationship with Israel for many years to come.