By Bill Salus The Palestinian Confederacy is a chapter in the book called Isralestine, The Ancient Blueprints of the Future Middle East. (2008)
All the men in your confederacy Shall force you to the border; The men at peace with you Shall deceive you and prevail against you. Those who eat your bread shall lay a trap for you. No one is aware of it. (Obad. 1:7, NKJV; emphasis added)
The prophet Obadiah had a prophetic vision regarding the Edomites. He declares that the Edomites enlist in a future confederacy that ultimately forces them to a border. Obadiah 1:10, 18 makes it clear that the confederacy forms to fight Israel. Thus, we can deduce that the border in question must be Israel’s.
Obadiah 1:7 says - “your” confederacy, “you” to the border; peace with “you,” deceive “you,” prevail against “you,” "your" bread, a trap for “you.” The fact that Obadiah uses “you” or “your” seven-times in combination suggests the Palestinians play a key role within the confederacy.
The prerequisite reading to this study is Psalm 83, whereby Asaph foretells the formation of an Arab confederacy seemingly consisting of Palestinians, Syrians, Saudis, Egyptians, Lebanese, Hezbollah, Jordanians, Iraqis, and Hamas. This confederacy, which wishes the final destruction of the modern-day Jewish State of Israel, is the topic of this study. The premise for interpretation is that the Psalm 83 confederacy appears to be the same as the confederacy contained in Obadiah 1:7.
Furthermore, the Palestinians of today have a contingency of Edomites amalgamated within their overall composite population. Thus, when this study refers to Esau, his descendants, or the Edomites, it finds its closest association with their modern-day equivalents, the Palestinians.
All the men in your confederacy - The whole (kol), or entirety of the confederacy is of the same conspired mindset. All the confederates agree with Esau, the lead member of the confederacy, “your confederacy.” They are all of common cause, and this cause drives or forces Esau’s descendant Edomites to a border or boundary.
Shall force you to the border - The confederate consensus is that the Palestinians must man the borders. Since this confederacy has mandated the destruction of the nation Israel as per Psalm 83:4, this suggests the strategic area of their deployment to be the borders surrounding the reforming nation of Israel.
The men at peace with you - The men, “all the men,” each one, are at peace (shalom) with the Palestinians. This is technically Esau’s confederacy, and the men who conspire with him pledge their allegiance to his cause. However, the prerequisite for achieving such peace is that Esau, as lead member, holds down the frontline at the borders of Israel. The Palestinians are to entrench themselves in the Isralestine territories that most closely surround Israel.
Shall deceive you and prevail against you - Inherent in the conditional peace and support that the Palestinians receive from “all” of the Arab men in alliance with them is their obligation to occupy these borderline territories. In essence, they are not encouraged to assimilate themselves as citizens within the outer lying confederate member territories. This would be unsound strategic deployment of the Palestinians. In fact, most of these member nations make it very restrictive for Palestinians to become naturalized citizens within their respective nations.
They are to maintain their own distinct ethnic identity. Though many of them have ancestral roots from among the surrounding confederate Arab nations, they are discouraged from calling themselves Syrians, Egyptians, Saudi’s, etc. We call them the Palestinians, in spite of the fact that up until 1948 no such ethnic label ever existed. Until that time, the world knew them as the Arabs of the grossly undefined territory of Palestine. Though they are currently predominately a population of refugees, mutual confederate consensus leads them to believe that they deserve their own state and citizenry therein. This propaganda promoted by the Arab community has become the successful deception of “all” the men of Esau’s confederacy.
The prevalent belief among all the nations listed in Psalm 83:6–8 is that the Palestinians are a distinct people, deserved of their own state. Their belief is that all of Israel, including the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank, is to become earmarked territory for the drafting of another Arab State in the Middle East called Palestine. This goal discourages the successful establishment of an Isralestine scenario, whereby Israel exists cooperatively in the region, with the Palestinians specifically and the Arabs generally. This is the reason for the confederate call to eradicate the nation of Israel as the Jewish State:
They [all the men in Esau’s confederacy] have said, “Come, and let us cut them [the Jewish State] off from being a nation, That the name of Israel may be remembered no more.” (Psalm 83:4, NKJV; emphasis added)
The Arab nations who participate alongside the Palestinians in this momentous quest leave the Palestinians little choice but to fight for their own Palestinian statehood. The Palestinian inability as a displaced population group to assimilate adequately into the outer-lying Arab nations leaves them no option but to remain in a refugee status indefinitely. Thus, “all the men” of the Palestinians confederacy have “deceived” them, the Palestinians, and “forced them to the border” of Israel, and in so doing have “prevailed against” them.
Those who eat your bread - All the men of Esau’s confederacy are eating Esau’s bread in contrast to their own. Again, we see Obadiah use the pronoun “your” in this passage. It is your, Esau’s, confederacy, and your, Esau’s, bread. Esau is the one who invites all the others to his table to deliberate over his Palestinian plight. They break Esau’s bread and agree with him, that Israel must perish as the resolution to the Palestinian problem. Esau does not request these men to open their national borders to his descendant people; rather he beckons their assistance to destroy the descendants of his twin brother Jacob. In essence, the Palestinians request support to destroy the Jewish State, and replace it with a Palestinian State.
The symbolism of these Arab nations eating bread together finds association with a common confederate cause. Deuteronomy 8:3, Matthew 4:4, and Luke 4:4 declare that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. It is possible that the prophet Obadiah alludes to the eating of bread in this passage as a spiritual thread that binds these Arabs together religiously. All of the members of Esau’s confederacy are predominately Islamic.
They digest Esau’s baked bread possibly referring to their ideology that it is the will of their god Allah that they form an allegiance with the Palestinians to destroy the Jews. Islam does not favor the existence of the contrasting religion of Judaism, especially in their Middle East neighborhood. The Jewish State of Israel has its religious roots in Judaism, and this is generally problematic for their Arab Muslim neighbors. The confederacy of Esau is motivated to destroy Judaism, and promote Islam, throughout the entire Middle East.
Shall lay a trap for you - “All the men” who participate in Esau’s confederacy entrap his Palestinian descendants. The Hebrew word utilized by Obadiah for trap is mazor, and can refer to an ambush, or as defined by Strong’s Hebrew and Greek Dictionary, to a turning aside from truth, a treachery, a plot, or a wound.
What Obadiah likely alludes to, is that the Palestinian descendants of Esau have allowed themselves to be deceived by “all the men,” in their confederacy, and as such have turned aside in a treacherous act from some truth. What truth could they have turned aside from, which ultimately proves to trap or ambush them? This truth must have something to do with the Jewish people and their Jewish State, since this is what the confederacy is attempting to destroy according to Psalm 83.
The truth is that nobody can destroy the Jewish people, according to the covenant their God made to their patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The LORD promised these patriarchal fathers of the Jewish people an everlasting family tree. In order for the predominately-Islamic confederacy of Esau to accomplish its mission, which is the effectual destruction of the Jewish State, it must attempt to destroy every last Jew in the world. If there were any Jew left, the potential would exist for that Jew to restore a Jewish State in his or her ancient promised land. Furthermore, other scriptures refer to the eternal existence of a Jewish State in the land between the Nile River of Egypt and the Euphrates River of modern-day Iraq.
Therefore, the minor premise is that the confederacy of Esau must believe that they can destroy the Jewish people and their potential for any current or future Jewish state, and the major premise is that the God of the Jews, who promised the eternal existence of a Jewish people and a Jewish state, is in essence a promise-breaking liar. Esau thoroughly knew that the God of his grandfather Abraham and his father Isaac made these promises to the Jewish people in ages past, but his descendants down through the ages have turned aside (mazor) from this truth. They have allowed themselves to be successfully deceived into thinking that they can prove the Jewish God to be a liar. They contest the Jewish claims of being heirs of the Abrahamic Covenant and often attempt to substitute their patriarch Ishmael as the rightful heir, rather than Isaac; however, this is all part of the deceit of their religion, Islam. The truth they seem to have turned aside from is that the God of the Jews intends to preserve the Jewish people forever. This is a dangerous miscalculation that will ultimately lead to the destruction of Esau’s confederacy.
No one is aware of it - Neither Esau nor all the men in his confederacy realize how severe this miscalculation is. They will leave the God of the Jews no choice but to make an end of their confederate effort aimed at the destruction of the Jewish people and their Jewish State. They will force the enactment of the curse-for-curse-in-kind clause contained in the Abrahamic Covenant (as specified in Genesis 12:3). They will attempt to destroy the Jews, but the Jews will destroy them instead (Ezek. 25:14, Obad. 1:18).
The modern-day Jewish state of Israel will not be eradicated from the formerly recognized territory of Palestine. The Israel of today, which has become superimposed upon the Palestine maps of yesterday, has providential protection. No adequate tool can be found to exist in the confederate arsenal that can blot out the Jewish survival clause contained in the Abrahamic Covenant.
