In January 2017, clergy from over 100 congregations in North Central Ohio sent an apology letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the position the Obama Administration took in not blocking an United Nations Resolution. 2334. This anti-Semitic resolution called Israel’s sovereignty of the Promised Land “an international crime.”
Ten days after the Ohio clergymen sent their apology letter, a massive natural gas pipeline was approved for construction thru north central Ohio after the project was held up by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
The Rover Pipeline Project is more than twice the size of the controversial Keystone Pipeline. With its approval, the 713-mile pipeline brought hundreds of thousands of dollars to the stagnated local economy at a time when energy projects often go contested.
According to Benjamin Mutti, Coordinator of the Richland Community Prayer Network, he believes in the weeks following the biblical stand, tangible effects from the clergy collaboration could be seen upon the land.
“According to Department of Agriculture numbers, the spring turkey harvest in Richland County saw a dramatic 24 percent increase from last year, whitetail deer harvested was the best in four years and the cow herd in Richland County, which is estimated in late winter, is now at its largest number in over 30 years, which is utterly amazing!”
Mutti points out that there is no such thing in Hebrew as the word “coincidence.” The blessings the area experienced from the apology letter aftermath provoked 42 area clergymen to also request the county treasurer to invest taxpayer dollars in Israeli bonds.
“The day the county treasurer announced that the county government would invest in Israeli bonds, was the same meeting that half a million dollars in unexpected revenue was reportedly discovered to alleviate a budget shortfall! This clergy apology letter had a snowball effect and sends shivers down your spine to think that the Blessing of Abraham still impacts our generation … even today.”
