Moving Forward in the Current Israeli Conflict

And so the impression is made of an invasion and something illegal going on in the fact that Israel is even there at all. This obviously is fueled by the commitment, in some cases religious and in other cases probably ethnic, that Israel shouldn’t be there at all and doesn’t have any right to be there at all at any different level. So let’s walk through how we got to the state of Israel if I can say it that way. And the legal claims that she has to the land. In other words, let’s set aside the Bible for a second, and let’s talk legally from a secular point of view as anyone would look at this as Israel’s right to be in the land.

The reason for these particular purchases was because this was land that was deemed worthless. Malarial swamps, land that was saturated with salt, land that had been so eroded it was covered with sand. These were worthless lands that were purchased cheaply by the Jewish National Fund. And then the swamps were drained, the land was reclaimed, the salt was leached out of the soil to produce agricultural land.

So all of that took place prior to the establishment of the State of Israel, there was the purchase of land. Only when Israel was attacked in 1948 by the surrounding nations and Israel won that war, was additional land taken. Many of the Arabs who lived there were told by the surrounding nations to desert, to leave their homes and their properties because as soon as the Arab forces drove the Jews into the sea, they would be able to claim not only their land and their homes, but the Jews’ property as well.

And so many left. I believe there may be a legitimate right to the spoils of a defensive war. I’m thinking in particular of the Golan Heights, which Israel took in 1967. From the Golan Heights, they were under constant bombardment by the Syrians. In the Sixth Day War they took that land, not through aggression but through fighting a defensive war. And it added to the security of the State of Israel.

And Israel is almost thrown into the mix of a lot of this post-colonial divisiveness and contention. And you see this all over the place. And if you don’t understand this in terms of – the Arab Spring was again a response to a post-colonial movement. That’s why when everybody was saying, “Well the Arab Spring is good because people will become more democratic and everything else.” I remember looking at my wife one day and saying, “Oh boy. This is not going to go well for the Jews.”

And the point was, even briefly as a result of the Arab Spring, you had the Muslim Brotherhood coming to power in Egypt. And so, can you imagine if the brotherhood was in power in Egypt right now what would be going on in Gaza? And so you have to understand that there’s been this turf fighting for land. So without the biblical perspective that the land belonged to the Jewish people, then it’s one big political post-colonial morass where everybody’s trying to grab what they need.

Secondly, on the issue of defense I agree with Jim, that the land that has been called the occupied territories, all of that land came to Israel for the most part as the result of war. At least the Golan did and East Jerusalem did. And then I think it’s very interesting to see that the one little piece of land that was populated by allegedly about 1.7 million Palestinians, that was given over totally to Palestinian rule. Gaza, where the Jewish people actually left. You know nobody’s debating about settlements in Gaza right now, there are none.

You know, who would do that? And so the only place where there are no quote-unquote settlements is Gaza. And look what’s happened there. With total removal and giving it over, it basically made that area of land and the population there vulnerable to Muslim extremists who have taken ripe advantage of this. And that has not only been bad for average Palestinians, it’s been really bad for Christian Palestinians.

And it’s been bad for Israel. I think that a lot of the defensive actions of Israel, whether it be Golan, whether it be East Jerusalem, whether it be building a wall, whether it be checkpoints, I understand that these are all very difficult for some of the more innocent Palestinians to handle. And there was a day when a lot of these weren’t there. But what happened? We had a couple of interfodors, we had Hamas come on the scene. And so right now I don’t see how Israel can relax its defense poster or how many tunnels are going to be built and how many Israelis are going to be killed.

America would never tolerate this. Europeans would never tolerate it. And so we don’t have a prospect for Israel relaxing her defense infrastructure, which is what is rubbing so many more neutral Palestinians the wrong way. And rubbing a lot of Americans who really want the best for everybody – rubbing them the wrong way. They don’t understand the connection between self-defense in Israel and what’s going on. So the only thing that can really happen right now is that Hamas has got to be stopped.

And until Hamas is stopped, until that strain of fanatical extremist fundamental militant Islam, until that is rooted out you’re not going to have any prospect for Israel relaxing its defenses. The U.S. never would do that.

But also understanding the context of what’s generating the nature of this conflict and what’s going on. David, your take on the language and kind of where we’re at in terms of these kinds of questions.

And now you’ve got Abu Mazen with the Palestinian authority, who has no real authority. And then you have Hamas whose authority is only at the end of a rocket. And so there’s really nothing that Israel has to do. And when they go to Egypt, you know they’re trying to work out some sort of an agreement, but who’s going to enforce the agreement from Gaza? Or from Ramallah? It’s not a fair negotiation from the start because Israel has the ability to keep its commitments and the Palestinians don’t have any intention to because it’s written into their very charters to see Israel destroyed. And unless that gets changed and unless Gaza is demilitarized, it’s going to be a cycle of violence. And I want to say that in all of this, there is a real positive component that Christians need to realize. That especially among Israelis and younger Israelis, there’s an unquenchable thirst for peace.

And we don’t see the emotional, psychological toll that it takes on this population to have to be running into bomb shelters twice a day at a minimum with the children and the families all having to stop on the side of the road when the sirens go off. It’s just an intolerable situation. And like you said, America would never put up with this and yet Israel is living in – to say it’s a rough neighborhood is the understatement of the century. And we as Americans and Christians needs to recognize that this is an intolerable situation that has no legitimate negotiable outcome other than a truce.

And yet, there’s this desire for peace. And in the midst of all this, we have an obligation to bring the only hope for peace, who is Jesus the prince of peace. And from our perspective right now, the greatest openness of the gospel of any Jewish community of the world is among, especially Israeli young people. And so we want to redouble our efforts, not only to preach the gospel there, but to recognize that when Arabs and Jews can say to one another, “I love you in Jesus’ name.” The world will truly see the reconciling power of the gospel. And that is our hope today.

How should Christians view the plight – if I’m going to say it this way – of the average Palestinian? I’d hate for us to walk away from this podcast and simply say well here’s how you need to understand the situation that Israel is in. fact is, the Middle East is a mess. And being a mess, there’s a lot of people who are caught in the middle of what’s going on here who are being put in very difficult situation and circumstances.

And I know all of you have been to Israel and I think most of you have spent some time on both sides of the wall, if I can say it that way. So how do we think about the Palestinian who’s there. And I have two groups in mind. The Palestinian Christians on the one hand and then the average Palestinian on the other. How should Christians think about their plight in the midst of what we’ve described, which obviously is a complex mess? Jim?

And some are beginning to serve in the Israel defense forces. They are really casting their lot with Israel and turning their backs to other Palestinians who are striving for nationalism or whatever. and for the Muslim, for the Palestinian Muslim, if some way could be found for them to lay down their hatred, their anti-Semitism and find a way to peacefully coexist with Israel, I believe it would be the only way to lift them out of poverty and out of backwardness and into the 21st century.

They could hitch their wagon to Israel’s star. I just recently read a great book by George Gilder called, The Israel Test, in which he makes this point from a secular perspective that if you really love the Palestinians, you need to help them to see that the way to prosperity, the way to liberty and freedom is by getting on board with what’s happening in Israel. And I think biblically that fits as well.

And what would happen to the Christians? The same thing that’s happening to the Christians in Syria and Iraq and so on. So the Palestinian believers need our compassion because they’re between a rock and a hard place. They understand they do have loyalties as Palestinians and they do carry some of the narrative and agenda. It’s even more difficult for those that believe Israel does have a right to the land theologically.

But they’re faced with if they support the Palestinians, if they support Gaza, if they support the Palestinian authority and they throw in – well their future is very dismal. And I think the average more secular Muslim feels the same way. Before the interfodors began, people had thriving construction businesses. They were in college, in university. I mean, things were really pretty normal. But then this whole post-colonial extreme Islamic militaristic agenda has swept through the whole Middle East, including Israel.

And I think it scares the daylights out of the average Palestinian. I think they’re terrified. They’re more terrified of what’s going to happen if Israel doesn’t have anything to do with them than if they did. There’s a lot of talk about Hamas leaders being corrupt. And you know there’s always political corruption on all sides. But I think that certainly we know that with Arafat’s bank accounts were huge. And so I think that that’s a problem.

I would make one suggestion to the brothers and sister listening. And that is without buying into all of these agendas and with proper concern for your own safety, I think that a time for humanitarian relief on the part of Christians in Gaza is really acute. And I believe that it would be a great thing for Christians to mobilize and to be a presence within Gaza for relief work because it’s going to take billions of dollars and it’s going to take so much work to put Gaza back together again.

And as much as I do not want to see – or let’s put it the other way – as much as I want to see Hamas and Gaza demilitarized, I also think that Gaza needs to be rebuilt so that it’s citizens can have a good life. And so I would think Christians should consider what they can do to help Gaza.

And so to find a way to provide the humanitarian aide that is so desperately needed without knowing that it’s not going to be used for other means. That’s the challenge we have yet to uncover. I would also say that there are genuine efforts to bring about some platform for reconciliation between younger Arabs and Jews. A ministry that I would commend named Mussalaha, that tries to bring Arabs and Jews together. They go out into the desert. They break bread together. They sleep under the stars together. And they discuss their lives. In a biblical framework, sometimes the participants are believers, sometimes they’re not.

But there are efforts like that underway to establish a peace and a sense of a basis for reconciliation and wherever we as believers in Jesus can affirm that, can encourage that, can use if you will this current conflict as a theological laboratory for demonstrating that the gospel is a gospel of peace.

That has implications beyond just the proclamation of the good news, but actually works towards bringing people together. Reconciled first to God and then to one another. These are efforts that are really worth Christians investing their resources in.

And David, I’m going to start with you and then go to Mitch. And then Jim, I’m going to let you wrap up. David, how would you respond to what we can expect and then where’s the hope?

The other day they were down handing out copies of psalms and bags of candy to soldiers going to the front lines of the conflict. And as I said before, a greater openness to the gospel among Israeli young people than any other group of Jewish people that we’re ministering to in the world. And so as believers in Jesus, we need to recognize that this conflict, I believe will continue in one form or another until Christ returns.

But the obligation of the church is to preach the gospel to Jews and to Arabs in the Middle East. And that’s where we need to focus our efforts. And that is a very hopeful prospect. We had a group of American Jewish believers out on the streets on Rothschild the other day. And they had big posters up that had a map of the world. And it said, “Peace”— P-E-A-C-E — “by piece” – P-I-E-C-E. And they were inviting Israelis to come up and put their hopes for peace.

And it provided a tremendous opportunity for conversation with these Israeli young people that were out there hanging out, trying t live a normal life in the midst of the sirens going off. And like I said, the evidence is that there’s a tremendous hunger for peace. And there’s a sense of despair of the inability of the leadership on either side to find a path toward peace. And we know that real peace, lasting peace begins in the heart through the transformation of the work of the holy spirit in the gospel.

And that really is, as simple as it may sound, the only hope for peace. And that’s what as Christians, looking for realistic ways to provide relief, need to make the major focus. And that is the proclamation of the gospel of peace in that land. And God will answer our prayers. And we will see Jews and Arabs come together in the name of Jesus.

We don’t’ know about the stability of Jordan at this point. There’s a lot of pressure on them. So I think just being honest for years to come, I think there’s going to continue to be difficulty whether or not – I’m not an expert so I don’t want to get into whether a two state solution or some other form of a one state solution or all these other possibilities. But I don’t think anything is a possibility as long as radical militants with a disregard for human life are in charge of the political process.

I think they want what they want. They want the land and they want the Jews out. And they want a Muslim country. And that goes against the ideals of the nation of Israel and same with America. When it comes to hope, my hope is that Israel will be level headed. Israel will be measured. My hope is that Israel will maintain a strong defense. My hope is that Britain and I think Spain and some other countries will not be as influenced by their own local populations of more radical and militant Muslims.

And that they will sell arms to Israel. I hope that I think a strong Israel is good for Jews. It’s good for non-militant Palestinians. And it’s really good for the west. I think that we have a vested interest. I think unfortunately, some of the more – I have to use the word cause I’m a Jewish New Yorker and I live there – but some of the more liberal elements of our own society are even at heart to some degree they’re uncomfortable with democracy. Or sometimes they’re anti-west.

And I think that those values are creeping into their positions and my hope is that they have very limited impact and influence on our own government. What is our hope? Chosen People has been ministering in Israel since before Israel was a country. Remember we’re 120 years old. And so we’ve been everywhere for a very long time and we’re doing a lot of things again. And so our work in Israel has been very active. And we have a lot of missionaries there, mostly Israelis.

And one of the areas that we’ve been very sensitive to because some on our staff are Russian Jews. And a number of them have come from families of holocaust survivors and so on. There’s still a little – around 200 thousand holocaust survivors in Israel. The majority of them actually speak Russian. The majority of them came over after Perestroika. And because they survived by fleeing to Russia from Hungary and Poland and other parts of the former Soviet Union.

And we’ve had a tremendous ministry among them. But I’m thinking most particularly of the people in Sderot, which is a town right adjacent to Gaza. About a mile and a half, two miles away. And you have hundreds, maybe a few thousands, very elderly Russian Jewish holocaust survivors who have been living through basically through a living hell because of Gaza. Not just now, but they’ve been enduring this for almost 14 years or close it.

So they’ve been living under threat of rockets and we’ve had a great ministry to them, but one of our best ministries – right now we have 35 of these people from Sderot and a few other cities, Ashkelon and Ashdod, they’re in Poland believe it or not. It was very difficult to find a safe place in Israel for them. The average age is about 80. And you haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen them try to make it to a bomb shelter within 15 seconds. And so we’ve had to take them out and Polish Christians and of course it’s a twist of faith because so many of the Poles were anti-Semitic and worked in concert with the Nazis.

But we have such a great group of Polish evangelicals who are loving on these holocaust survivors. And so they’re out there for two weeks having Bible studies and just getting a rest from all the tension. And so I think that the hope in Israel is the hope that’s everywhere. I agree with David. The hope is always Jesus. It’s always the gospel. And so I see minimal hope politically. I see a lot of hope when it comes to the gospel because when life is difficult and times are hard people are looking to solutions from outside this world for their problems.

And so Israelis young and old, right now many of them are looking to God. And thank the lord we’re able to bring the message of the prince of peace on the ground to Israelis. And we just really need to prayer that Israelis will come to faith. And that is our best hope.

That’s a spiritual issue that has to be dealt with. So bad news, I don’t see the prospects for peace any time soon until, of course as scripture tells us, anti-Christ comes and offers a false peace for a period of time. And one of the reasons it will be so astounding is because the world will have given up all hope for political peace. And I think that’s the process.

That’s where we’re heading. All hope has not been killed yet, but we’re almost there. But on the other hand, there’s good news. The good news is that peace is breaking out in the Middle East. It’s breaking out in the hearts and lives of individuals, both Arab and Jew, who are turning to Jesus and finding there the peace for which they long.

I want to thank you all for taking the time to talk with us. Being very realistic about what’s going on. Giving some detail and background. It strikes me, we’ve spent just slightly over an hour talking about this and we literally have only scratched the surface. I can think of 20 questions in the back of my head I still want to ask. So I suspect we’ll be doing this again some time. So I thank you for your time. And I thank those of you who’ve joined us on The Table where we discuss issues with God and culture. And we hope that you have found this particular conversation enlightening and informative. And we look forward to having you back with us again.