Benny Gantz, leader of Israel’s National Unity party, quit Israel’s war cabinet on Sunday, withdrawing his party from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition. His resignation won’t bring down the government, but if others follow, it could.

Gantz may have principled reasons for opposing Netanyahu, as well as personal ambitions to replace him. But Gantz is not the real power here.

Just over a week ago, United States President Joe Biden told the world that Israel had put forward a new peace plan that seemed acceptable to Hamas. A three-stage Gaza withdrawal would see the hostages freed and the war over.

But Biden was lying. This was the same defunct peace plan his administration had been pushing for weeks, dressed up to appear like a new Israeli initiative. The fact that he spent most of the speech persuading Israelis to accept the peace plan that they had supposedly come up with was a clue that something was off.

But again, Joe Biden is not the main mover behind this peace plan.

Behind both these men is someone who has spent years trying to get rid of Netanyahu: former President Barack Obama.

Mr. Obama took a break from tweeting about “Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month” to endorse Biden’s peace plan

Obama largely stays away from commenting in public on foreign policy, but this peace plan was important to him. Why? Because at its heart, this is a plan aimed at getting rid of Benjamin Netanyahu, not bringing peace to Gaza.

The Israeli prime minister has been a thorn in Obama’s side for years. With a real shot at booting him out of office, Obama couldn’t help but get involved.

Fundamental Transformation

“We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America,” said Barack Obama just before America’s 2008 presidential elections. Once in office, he did just that. But he also quickly got to work fundamentally transforming the Middle East.

In his first summer in office, Obama visited Egypt, where he laid out part of his new vision for the region in his now famous Cairo speech. Crucially, he said, “No single nation should pick and choose which nation holds nuclear weapons”—signaling that he would not stand in the way of Iran getting the nuclear bomb.

The Iranian theocracy is fundamentally opposed to American values and American interests in the Middle East. Yet empowering Iran became a key plank of Mr. Obama’s Middle East policy under the guise of bringing peace to the region.

The U.S. media, foreign-policy establishment and many politicians went along. Benjamin Netanyahu became his main opposition.

Obama pressured Netanyahu to present his opposition behind close doors, but instead Netanyahu publicly exposed what Obama was doing—most notably in his 2015 speech to the U.S. Congress. Ultimately, he failed to stop the Iran deal going through, but he rallied opposition to it and made it a major issue in the United States. Thanks in part to the work of Mr. Netanyahu, Donald Trump rolled back the deal and clipped Iran’s wings once in office.

Regime Change in Israel

In response, Barack Obama worked hard to boot Netanyahu out of office. It started with public snubs and criticism. America is Israel’s most important ally. Israeli voters generally want their leaders to get along with America. By showing his disapproval, Obama hoped to persuade voters to oust Netanyahu.

They did not, so the attacks stepped up.

In 2015, the last Israeli election before he left office, Obama weaponized the State Department against Netanyahu. They spent approximately $350,000 funding a campaign group that promoted anyone but the Netanyahu agenda. It’s a relatively small sum of money but an important signal that the U.S. government stands behind this group. One of Obama’s top election strategists, Jeremy Byrd, went to Israel to advise the group and supply it with election machinery.

But Netanyahu still managed to win the 2015 election. Even after Obama left office, his program of regime change continued. When President Trump took office, he appointed a new ambassador to Israel. Yet Obama’s man, Ambassador Dan Shapiro, didn’t come home. Instead he stayed where he could continue to build bridges between Obama’s people and anti-Netanyahu groups.

Despite political opposition and repeated elections, Netanyahu clung to power.

When Joe Biden moved into the White House in 2021, his term effectively became Obama’s third term. Finally in March 2021, Netanyahu lost the election and was replaced by a new coalition.

The problem was this new coalition only agreed on one thing: Its members wanted Netanyahu out. With that done, they had nothing else in common. A year later, the coalition fell apart and in December 2022, Netanyahu was back.

Obama’s people had to come up with another plan. This time they weaponized the controversy over the Supreme Court of Israel.

This court has awarded itself the power to overrule laws it doesn’t like, not based on any reading of the law but because they are “unreasonable.” Netanyahu and supporters want this changed, while others fear that a crippled court leaves them vulnerable to tyranny.

This division was something Mr. Obama could widen and exploit. He blew the dust off his Arab Spring toolbox and promoted street protests in Israel.

Once again, the U.S. State Department gave small but symbolic funding to protest groups like the Movement of Quality Government. The same “charitable” organizations that encouraged mass mail-in voting in the 2020 U.S. elections also got involved. The New Israel Fund, backed by George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, was a key player.

Then U.S. Ambassador Thomas Nides thew his support behind the anti-Netanyahu protesters, saying, “I really think that most Israelis do not want America to stay out of their business.” He also warned that America’s support for Israel at the United Nations was based on “democracy” and “shared values”—a veiled threat that if Israel did not comply, America would abandon Israel at the UN.

Lee Smith from Tablet warned at the time that Netanyahu “is in Washington’s crosshairs, for regime change has come to Israel.” He continued:

The anti-Bibi coup looks and feels like the anti-Trump operation because it’s run by the same people—the Obama operatives who hunted Trump and now run the Biden White House. It was Obama’s spy chiefs who fabricated Russiagate, the politically funded smear campaign designed to destabilize the Trump presidency. And it’s Obama’s State Department that created the machinery to take down Netanyahu nearly a decade ago by funding anti-Bibi election campaigns with U.S. taxpayer dollars. Obama’s button men have made the ‘Get Bibi’ machinery a permanent part of the Israeli political landscape.

Fake Division

Then came Oct. 7, 2023. It looked like Obama’s goal to get rid of Netanyahu had been accomplished. Polls showed that an overwhelming number of Israelis wanted Netanyahu out; however, there was still broad support to temporarily keep him in power to solve the crisis.

Many pundits also believed the war would go badly for Netanyahu. The Israel Defense Forces was going up against an entrenched urban enemy. But while it hasn’t gone perfectly, Israel has avoided massive casualties of its own soldiers and civilians.

Now the war poses a dual threat to the Obama agenda: Netanyahu may survive—and Hamas could be crippled.

Hamas is a key tool of Iran. If Hamas were completely wiped out, it would be a blow to Obama’s plan to radically transform the Middle East. That is why America attempted to keep Israel out of Rafah, why Biden withheld promised aid to Israel, and why he held Israel back from responding to Iran’s missile attack in April. The Biden administration also tried (and partly failed) to build a pier so outsiders could send “aid” (or weapons) to Hamas without Israeli oversight.

Obama and company have also tried to undermine U.S. support for Israel. Obama-linked financiers have backed student protests in universities across America. The student campus protests “include some of the biggest names in Democratic circles: Soros, Rockefeller and Pritzker,” reported Politico. “[A] small group of wealthy heavyweights are often playing an outsize role funding” the pro-Hamas movement.

Key supporters of the protests were Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow. These are supported by the Tides Foundation, a group backed by big names like George Soros and, previously, Bill and Melinda Gates. Susan and Nick Pritzker, who gave Biden’s 2020 campaign $300,000, fund pro-Palestinian protests today. Susan Pritzker is an old friend of Barack Obama.

The protests have warped perceptions in America. Barack Obama’s speech writer Ben Rhodes talked about the way they created an “echo chamber” around the Iran deal—a false impression that almost all experts supported the deal. This is the reverse. There is consensus in America over Israel: Eighty percent of Americans say they support Israel over Hamas, according to an April 24-25 poll of nearly 2,000 registered voters. The protests create the impression there’s division and merit on both sides.

Courting Trouble

Netanyahu has also been attacked on the international level. The International Court of Justice (icj) is investigating Israel for genocide and has produced rulings that paint Israel in a bad light. Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court (icc) have accused Netanyahu personally of committing war crimes.

Both of these organizations have ties to Barack Obama.

When the icj began its genocide investigation, Joan Donoghue was head of the court. Donoghue had moved to the court directly from Obama’s State Department, where she served as the senior career lawyer. “She advised on the application of human rights law and drafting United Nations resolutions, as well as oversight of legal work relating to maritime law and treaty approval processes,” states one her biographies. “She also implemented President Obama’s executive orders on Guantanamo, including detention and interrogation.” Donoghue played a role in making Mr. Obama’s foreign-policy vision happen. Is she still doing that at the International Court of Justice?

Amal Clooney was one of the prosecutors at the icc who recommended going after Netanyahu. In 2019, the Obama family spent several days on holiday with the Clooneys, staying at their estate in Italy and going on double dates together. Last year, Michelle Obama, Amal Clooney and Melinda Gates got together to launch a new foundation to stop child marriage. In the publicity around the launch, they all talked about what great friends they were.

The people at the top of these courts are in the Obamas’ social circle. How involved is Barack Obama in pushing these legal attacks?

‘War Provides Opportunities’

All of these attacks put Netanyahu under pressure. But to put him out of office, they need a local politician to wield the knife. Plenty of people want his job, but again, polls show Israelis overwhelmingly want Netanyahu in place, at least until Hamas is dealt with.

So the Biden administration has tried to encourage rivals. Last month, it invited Benny Gantz for a visit. The Financial Times wrote that they treated him “as though he were head of government.”

“Praying that Benny Gantz will replace Benjamin Netanyahu as the country’s next prime minister is now the U.S. president’s unofficial policy,” it continued.

Gantz met the U.S. vice president, secretary of state—everyone except the president. Meanwhile, Netanyahu told the Israeli Embassy to boycott the whole thing. The Biden administration is trying to divide Netanyahu’s coalition.

“Never before has an American administration worked so systematically to undermine Israeli democracy and sovereignty, an effort that is especially shocking in the context of an existential war for survival following a heinous, large-scale terrorist murder spree,” wrote Gaudi Taub in Tablet. “Wars provide opportunities, and it seems clear that the opportunity that the Biden administration saw in the October 7 attacks had less to do with ensuring Israel’s security than it did with stifling any remaining resistance to Washington’s pro-Iran regional integration policy.”

Biden’s Speech

In June, Gantz stepped up his opposition to Netanyahu. As if closely coordinated, Biden gave a speech aimed at widening divisions in Israel’s coalition. He took a peace plan that Gantz and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant would accept and presented it as the official policy of Israel.

Mr. Biden gave the speech shortly after the Sabbath began in Israel.

“The Israeli government keeps Shabbat, which means that to all intents and purposes, the Israeli government was silenced from about, I think, around an hour before Biden began to speak, until, you know, 24 hours after he was done,” explained Caroline Glick. This gave Biden’s lie plenty of time to spread around the world before the Israeli government could expose it.

Biden ended by addressing the people of Israel instead of the leaders: “Everyone who wants peace now must raise their voices,” he said. “Let the leaders know they should take this deal, work to make it real, make it lasting, and forge a better future out of the tragic terror attack and war.” Once again, the Biden administration is trying to persuade Israelis to take to the streets against Netanyahu.

Now Gantz is out and calling for fresh elections while the U.S. president is calling for protests on the streets. And the U.S. is pushing for the UN Security Council to endorse the Biden ceasefire plan, increasing the pressure on Israel.

Mr. Obama called it a “clear, realistic and just plan to establish an immediate ceasefire and end the war in Gaza,” saying it “ensures Israel’s security.”

His tweet is full of statements that try to paint Israel as no different from Hamas terrorists. “A ceasefire alone won’t ease the terrible pain of Israelis whose loved ones were butchered or abducted by Hamas, or the Palestinians whose families have been shattered by the subsequent war,” he posted. “It won’t resolve the long-standing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, or answer contentious issues surrounding a two-state solution or continuing settler activity in the West Bank.” There’s no mention of Palestinian terrorism in the West Bank; he instead continues the false narrative he pushed during his time in office—that “settler activity” is the root cause of all the violence.

Netanyahu is trying to a lead a diverse coalition. If he bows to U.S. pressure and accepts the ceasefire, he risks breaking it and ending up out of office. Resist U.S. pressure, and others may leave the coalition and boot him out of office. He has a tough path to walk.

Israel is fighting to rescue over 100 hostages still in captivity—including several U.S. citizens. Yet its supposed ally is trying to bring down the government. This would be similar to America working to oust Winston Churchill during World War ii. This is very unusual behavior.

Irrational Hate

Why would a U.S. leader empower Iran and Hamas and hold Israel back? Why invest so much over so long into getting rid of one leader? Politicians are always going to disagree, but this is beyond standard political rivalry.

The Bible reveals the spiritual reality behind world events, the only way to understand stories like this. Daniel 8:9-12 and Daniel 11:21-31 are prophecies of a figure who would shut down the temple in Jerusalem and attack the Jews.

In the second century b.c., this happened. Antiochus Epiphanes besieged Jerusalem and killed tens of thousands of Jews. He ransacked the temple, desecrated it, and tried to destroy the Jews’ religion. Daniel 11:31 describes this assault, saying he would “pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate.”

Jesus Christ clearly refers to this verse in Matthew 24:15, making explicit reference to “the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet.” But He talks about it not as something that already happened but as something that will happen in the future.

Clearly, Antiochus Epiphanes is not the main fulfillment of this prophecy; he’s a type of more to follow, with a special hatred for God’s tabernacle and the Jews.

Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry explained this prophecy in 2016, writing:

Daniel 8 … is more than a prediction; it is a prophecy of God about what Antiochus will do in modern times! God says this prophecy is going to prevail three different times here in this last end. This is prophecy for the end time, and it’s in the Bible of the Jewish people.

As I show in … America Under Attack (request a free copy), we have a modern, political Antiochus leading our nation. And now, that Antiochus is interacting with the president of Judah—the Jewish nation!

God made a scepter promise to the Jews. They were also chosen to preserve the Old Testament and the sacred calendar—“the oracles of God” (Romans 3:1-2).

This gets to the heart of why any Antiochus hates the Jews!

This man has a concealed hatred for the Jews and the biblical values present in the U.S. Constitution. That is why he works so hard to radically transform both the United States and the Middle East.

That radical transformation continues today under Joe Biden’s presidency. To understand the biblical truth behind this transformation, read America Under Attack.