If you have been keeping up with news of late, you should be aware of the conflict that wages on between the Palestinian peoples and Israel. You may recall that this all started about a month ago–June 12th to be exact–when 3 Israeli teenagers were abducted by militants as they made their way home by foot in the West Bank. A few days later, after worldwide appeals were made, the bodies of the 3 teenagers were found–July 2nd. They had been brutally executed by their captors. The next day, July 2nd, a Palestinian teen was abducted and his body was found an hour later. Shortly thereafter, suspects were arrested and the abduction and murder of the Palestinian was deemed to be a revenge killing by the Israeli authorities. Meanwhile, rocket attacks from Gaza in to southern Israel began in earnest. In response Israel carried out air-strikes targeting militants in Gaza. (Reference:http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/10/world/meast/israel-gaza-timeline/). Needless to say, since July 2nd, the conflict has broadened and many lives have been lost. Let me provide you with an an update on this week’s events:
- July 23–According to Washington Times Dave Boyer, Hamas had rejected the United States Secretary of State’s call for a cease fire. As news of the conflict reaches many destinations throughout the Middle East, fears grow that other Jihadists will join Hamas to fight the Israelis. According to one Jihadi cleric in Syria, he and his fighters in Syria wished to join the battle in Gaza. At this point in the conflict, estimates placed the death toll at some 680 Palestinians and 34 Israelis. Israeli troops backed by tanks and aerial drones are attacking Hamas fighters that are reported to be armed with RPG’s (rocket propelled grenades) and assault rifles on the outskirts of Kan Younis. In a recent conflict here, 8 militants were killed. The Palestinian Red Crescent has been trying to evacuate a couple hundred people from the area but are hampered by Israeli airstrikes and shelling
- July 24–According to the Associated Press, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned a deadly attack on a U.N. school for Palestinian refugees in Northern Gaza. That attack killed many Palestinians and some U.N. personnel, who’ve sought refuge from Israeli shelling. The secretary demanded that Israel and Hamas abide by International humanitarian law during this conflict and “respect the sanctity of civilian life, the inviolability of U.N. premises, and protect humanitarian workers. As of July 24th, the circumstances surrounding this incident remained unclear. The United Nations has been busy attempting to arrange a “humanitarian pause in hostilities so that civilians could be evacuated.” The secretary went on to say that “Today’s attack underscores the imperative for the killing to stop and to stop now.”
- July 24–You probably also heard about the United States government banning flights in to Tel Aviv as a result of the violence going on in the region. Well, the stoppage in flights went beyond the United States it would appear. According to Michael Wilner of The Jerusalem Post, Turkey would not allow El Al to land at is airports for purposes of airlifting out its citizens who have been stranded in that country during the last week of violence. Turkish airlines have extended its ban on flights in to Tel Aviv to July 31st. This means that some 4000 Israelis remained stranded in Turkey as they await outbound flights. This poor souls are likely to incur some hefty expenses as their stays are extended.
- The most compelling news to make the international press has to do with the Israeli discovery of a large number of sophisticated tunnels throughout Gaza that are believed to be used by Hamas to traverse Gaza undetected, quickly pop up out of no where, erect and launch missiles in to Israel. Not to mention, these tunnels provided Hamas with hidden storage for weapons and other equipment. According to Paul Alster of Fox News, Israeli ground forces were investigating these underground tunnels in what they call Operation Protective Edge. This operation has netted the discovery of 60 access shafts leading to 28 tunnels. Israeli forces have found weapons, maps, and IDF uniforms in some of these tunnels. The IDF says that these tunnels weave their way through much of Gaza. Access points are found in homes, mosques and public buildings. Recently, there were 2 discoveries of missile caches in UNRWA schools. Some of these missiles after being discovered were handed over to Hamas by UNRWA officials
- July 27–USA Today reported that a 24-hour humanitarian cease-fire occurred on Saturday the 26th. Immediately after the 24-hours ended, the rocket launches resumed and Israeli military actions resumed.
The Palestinian–Israeli conflict is not by any stretch of the imagination, an easy conflict to understand. One must dig in to the last 2,000-years and even beyond to get a full sense of who started the mudslinging in the first place. Even when one dissects the known history of the region they still find no real defining point where one could attach responsibility to the years of conflict between these two peoples. Many editorials and books line the shelves of libraries and book stores and most point the finger of responsibility at Israel, citing Israel’s occupation of Gaza, West Bank, East Jerusalem and much of the Golan Heights. Modern history tells us that Israel occupied these territories during the Six-Day War of 1967. In this war, Israel miraculously triumphed over the overwhelming invading forces of Egypt, Syria and Jordan. Israel, however, will tell you that she no longer occupies Gaza after 1982, yet the Palestinians would beg to differ.
The point of this Torah Living episode is not to debate or discuss per se whether or not Israel or the Palestinians are responsible for all the violence, death and destruction that is going on in that region of late. For purposes of this episode, I wish to look at what believers are compelled to do about this terrible situation. Initially, the tide of human opinion and compassion swung over on the Israeli side. But once the media began to post images of children and families being innocently decimated by the IDF, the tide has swung fully it would seem over towards the Palestinians. My Google+ pages is festooned with images of innocent (seemingly) Palestinian victims with emotionally charged comments casting horrible judgments upon the Israelis. It breaks my heart to see these images. Despite my pro-Israeli stance on this matter, I still hurt for the thousands of innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle of this conflict. We know that the conflict is not between the Palestinian peoples and Israel per se. It conflict is really between Hamas and its evil militants and Israel.
The world believes that the conflict is about the necessity of a homeland for the Palestinian peoples. Throughout the last century, indeed, the biggest issue stoking the flames of conflict between the Palestinians and Israel has been the Palestinians’ desire and even demand for a portion of Israel property that they can call their home. The most extreme of the Palestinians has even gone so far as to insist that Israel completely leave the land entirely to them and go elsewhere (which we know will never happen). So in response, Israel has embarked on many discussions and deals that would swap land for peace. These endeavors seem to have royally failed. Whenever extremists see an opportunity to take advantage of the Palestinian situation, Israel is forced to be a responsive aggressor in order to secure the safety of the Jewish nation. When Israel reacts to such agitation by groups like Hamas, the Palestinian peoples become the central victims, more so than Israel.
In one form or another, the Palestinian peoples have resided in the land of Israel (aka Canaan) even before Israel came to occupy the land. Israel when she was sent to finally take the land as Yehovah had promised and led them to do so, failed to wipe the land free of her indigenous inhabitants, both physically and spiritually. This failure on the part of the children of Israel has proven over the centuries to be the proverbial “thorn” in their sides and they remain so to this very day. Yehovah was very clear about what was going to happen if the Israelites failed to do as He’d directed them to do. I refer you to Judges 2: 1-5 and 3:1-7: “And the Angel of Yehovah came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you to the land which I swore unto your fathers; and I said, I will never break my covenant with you; you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall throw down their altars: but you have not hearkened unto my voice. Why have you done this? Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you; but they shall be [scourges] in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you. And it came to pass, when the Angel of Yehovah spoke these words to all the children of Israel, that the people lifted up their voice and wept. And they called the name of that place Bochim; and they sacrificed there to Yehovah…And these are the nations that Yehovah left, to prove Israel by them, all that had not known all the wars of Canaan; only that the generations of the children of Israel might know war by learning it, at the least those who before had known nothing thereof: five lord ships of the Philistines, and all the Canaanites, and the Sidonians, and the Hivites that dwell on mount Lebanon; from mount Baal-Hermon unto the entering into Hamath. And they were to prove Israel by them, to know whether they would obey the commandments of Yehovah, which He commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses. And the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites: Hittites and Amorites and Perizzites and Hivites and Jebusites; and they took their daughters as wives, and gave their daughters to their sons, and served their gods. And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of Yehovah, and forgot Yehovah their God, and served the Baals and the Asherahs.”
Indeed, the land of Israel, originally name Canaan, was promised to Abraham and his descendants. Many bumps along the way delayed the progeny of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob from receiving this promised land, but ultimately the land was given to them. In the most inspiring opening to his Truth and Tradition telecast, Michael Rood describes the sum of the territory promised to Israel as “From the Euphrates to the Nile belongs to the sons of Israel”–reference: Numbers 33:50-34:12.
Israel forfeited the land as a result of her continued disobedience, despite Yehovah giving Israel chance after chance, prophet after prophet and warning after warning. The nation of Israel ultimately split into 10 northern tribes that retained the name of Israel and 2-southern tribes that took the name of Judah. Because of her refusal to obey Torah, Israel (the northern tribes) were uprooted from the land by the Assyrians in 722 BC. Judah followed in Israel’s shoes and by 586 B.C. she was riped from the land and taken into captivity but eventually over time she returned under the rule of Cyrus II (538 B.C.) who commissioned the rebuilding of the then destroyed Temple by Nebuchadnezzar a half-century earlier. Judah was given many more chances to retain the promised land but ultimately lost it in 135 A.D. when Simon Bar Kochba led a rebellion against the occupying Romans, resulting in what Ian Carroll in his book “Israel Palestine–A 4000 Year History called “the punishment that wiped the Jewish territory off the map. Jerusalem was renamed Aelia Capitolina and a shrine to Jupiter was built where the Jewish temple had stood. The names of Judea and Samaria, synonymous with the Jewish presence, were abolished and the area renamed Aelia Palestina. Many Jews fled to the hills of Galilee and they were forbidden from entering Jerusalem and were not allowed to recruit to their religion. They had no place to pray, they were banned from the Holy City, and their homeland had been renamed after their greatest enemies, the Philistines.”
For all intents and purposes, Israel as a nation was estranged from the land until she formally became a nation once again on May 14, 1948, although throughout the preceding decades Jews immigrated to the land in varying numbers and began to establish homes, all the while cohabiting in the land with her Palestinian neighbors. Over time and leading up to Israel being established as a nation, the Palestinians who were mostly poor and without much in the ways of political clout in the post 2nd war world, became displaced as more and more Jews arrived and began to buy up and establish permanent homes on the land once held by the Palestinians. The Palestinians after a while began to fight back–violently–over their seemingly systematic expulsion from the land. And so the battle continues to wage to this very day as the pendulum of the world’s support and compassion alternates between the two.
So then, what is a believer suppose to do about this situation? Who should the believer support in this situation? Should the believer remain neutral and wait for the Lord to sort it all out? What are our responsibilities as the light of the world and the salt of the earth? Is it appropriate for true believers to engage in incendiary discussion about who is right and who is wrong in this conflict?
To begin with, I believe strongly that we must side with our spiritual brothers the Jews in this conflict. Indeed, the Israelis are human and they will not always do the right thing. Certainly, the methods the Israelis are using to address this conflict from time to time may be questionable, although in a broad sense, Israel’s hands are seemingly tied.
One commentator I watched on youtube said something to the effect that we’ve engaged throughout the last several years with the Palestinians this land for peace thing. However, when the Palestinians are awarded land, there remains no peace to be found. More and more land is awarded and still there is no peace. So what’s this land for peace all about then?
To answer that commentator’s question, it would seem perfectly clear to me that the issue is only in a small part about the land. The bigger piece of this pie seems to be more in line with the Palestinians and their Arab supporters desiring to wipe Israel off the map. Thus the land for peace seems only to be a distraction for the real purpose behind all the violence. The hope is to incite Israel to such eggregious retaliation against the Palestinian peoples that the world along with the Arab federation of states will engage Israel politically and ultimately militarily and eliminate once and for all the scourge of the Jew from the world. Indeed, hasn’t this been one of the goals of hasatan from time immemorial?
So siding with Israel would seem to be the appropriate and right thing for the believer to do. Yehovah promised the land to the sons of Israel and that promise has not been lifted, despite Israel’s poor record of obedience to the Almighty–Yehovah was emphatic that He would never break the covenant with Israel as stated in Judges 2. That essentially remains a matter between Yehovah and Israel. Regardless, if Yehovah stands with Israel, no matter what the world’s so-called experts opine on this matter, I say we better side with Israel. Probably the most compelling reason why a believer must stand on the side of Israel is given by the Father Himself as he addresses Abraham–“I will bless those who bless you, but I will curse anyone who curses you, and by you all the families of the earth will be blessed”–reference: Genesis 12:3.
Some believers for whatever reason have shunned the Jew, giving way to some degree of anti-Semite tendencies. The reasons vary, but probably the biggest reason goes back to the hasatan perpetrated complaint that “the Jews killed our Savior Jesus Christ.” Well, any believer with a modicum of Biblical knowledge will know that actually the Romans crucified Yeshua, although the crucifixion was instigated by several individuals who made up the Jewish leadership of the day. Other believers will contend that the Jew has lost his or her chance at salvation because they’ve failed to acknowledge Yeshua as their Messiah while the Gentile, through the evangelistic work of Shaul, usurped the Jew’s place so-to-speak. If these and other reasons are clouding any believer’s opinion about the Jewish people or the nation of Israel, I have to say that this is a very dangerous perspective to maintain. The Bible contains a ton of reasons why any believer and disciple of the Master must hold Israel and the Jew in proper perspective. To begin with, the Apostle Shaul, who of anyone in the history of mankind had so many daily challenges dealing with his Jewish counterparts, made it clear why the Jew is important to the believer. In response to a question that obviously was posed to him, most likely from a member of the Roman congregation of believers, about the significance of the Jew to the believer and to the Faith: “What then [is] the superiority of the Jew? or what is the profit of the circumcision? Much every way: and first, indeed, that to them were entrusted the oracles of God.” (Romans 3:2) Thus the Jew must be respected by believers because Yehovah has entrusted unto them His Word–His Torah!
Moving forward, the Jew and or the nation of Israel, is currently not in tune with the True Faith once delivered. They continue to reject Yeshua as their Maschiyach. But this was anticipated and foretold by the Spirit through Shaul–“…blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentile has come in; and so all Israel shall be saved”–Romans 11:25, 26. Who are we to turn our backs on the Jew and on Israel? Yehovah has an active covenant with her and beyond that He intends to bring the Nation to Him through Yeshua HaMaschiyach. The time of the Gentile seems to have an expiration date so to speak; then Israel will have her time. Those of us who are chosen of Yehovah will have a job to do in the future and that is to disciple the children of Israel. Interestingly, Zechariah tells of a time in the future when the Jew will fully accept Yeshua as their Maschiyach and nations will flock to them for spiritual guidance–Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: In those days shall ten men take hold, out of all languages of the nations, shall even take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you; for we have heard that God is with you. (Zec 8:23 DBY) Indeed, the day of the Jew is in no way over and we believers in Messiah must stand by the nation of Israel in any way that we possibly can. (Other related passages tell of a time when Israel will awaken from their spiritual slumber–Isaiah 29:20; 62:1-7; Romans 11:7; 12:16; Luke 21:24; 2 Corinthians 3:14.
So what then should a believer do about this terrible situation? Well, indeed, the Scriptures provide us with a very clear instruction– 6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee. 7 Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces. 8 For my brethren and companions’ sakes, I will now say, Peace be within thee. 9 Because of the house of the LORD our God I will seek thy good. (Psa 122:6-9 KJV) Then there’s Jeremiah 29:7– 7 And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the LORD for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace. (Jer 29:7 KJV)
So it would seem that the one thing that all believers can and absolutely should do in support of Israel is pray. Indeed, a psalmist and a major prophet was moved by the Spirit to encourage the true Believer to pray for the security of Israel. The Psalmist goes even to the point of saying that a benefit to be had by any believer who prays for the peace of Jerusalem is prosperity. What that prosperity will be is not entirely clear, but Yehovah is not void in His promises and whatever prosperity is to be had will be indeed worth every moment a believer falls to his or her knees and seeks the face of the Father on behalf of Israel.
Secondly, it would seem a Godly way to support Israel would be in some form of assistance. Although the Scriptures do not come right out and say so, Yehovah made it clear to Abraham that He would bless those who blessed his progeny (reference: Genesis 12:3). I know of a charity that is providing financial and material assistance to Messianics in the state of Israel as resources are made available. I would encourage you to check this organization out and see if it is something that you would be led to covenant with and support our suffering brothers and sisters in Israel. The name of the charity is The Lydia Project. Not only is the Lydia Project helping those Messianics living in Israel who are suffering through some of the conflict with the Palestinians, the project also aids Messianics who are oppressed and rejected by Jews as a result of their profession of Yeshua as Maschiyach. I will vouch for the integrity of the Lydia Project. Additionally, there are several other charitable organizations who are out to assist Israelis such as “Stand by IDF Soldiers,” IFCJ.org,” and “Stand with Israel” which I can not vouch for personally but would only encourage you to research and see which organization you are led to covenant with.
Lastly, and this will seem lame to some, but I wholeheartedly support this because I done this myself: embark upon a self-education and immersion in the land of Israel and its people. Psalms 102:15 states: “For your servants love her very stones; they take pity even on her dust.” Indeed, Jerusalem is the future home of every elect-believer of Yehovah. The Book of Revelation tells of a time in the seeming near future when Yeshua will return to this earth along with His spiritually converted Saints, and establish His kingdom to be headquartered in Jerusalem. John records in the most brilliant prose all that he witnessed on that great day:
“Then I saw thrones and those who sat upon them. Authority to judge was given to them. I also saw the souls of those who were beheaded for the witness of Yeshua, and for the word of Yehovah–those who had not worshiped the beast, nor his image; neither had they received his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands–and they lived and reigned with Messiah a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection! Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them. They shall be priests of Yehovah and of Messiah–and they shall reign with Him a thousand years!” (Revelation 20:4-6).
How can we be certain that Jerusalem/Israel will be Yeshua’s millennial headquarters? Verses 9 and 10 clarify: “They went up from the far reaches of the earth and compassed the camp of the saints, the beloved city (always a reference to Jerusalem), and fire came down from Yehovah out of heaven and consumed them all. Then hasatan who deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet were cast, and hasatan shall be tormented day and night, from age to age.”
Indeed, the believer is connected not only the Jew of Israel; he or she is connected to the land itself. Our destiny lies within the confines of Israel. Thus, we have jobs to do to address the current crisis that has gripped our beloved land. I therefore encourage each and every reader of our blog and listener of our podcasts to pray for Israel and the peace of Jerusalem. I would even encourage those of you who are even more invested in this that you consider as I am planning to do, and that is to fast and pray over this situation. Tremendous movement in the spirit realm happens when we pray and inflict our souls and give in to the leading of the Holy Spirit. Additionally, I would encourage you to consider supporting one of the many organizations that are out there that are in place to provide support for those in need in Israel. Lastly, let us look forward to that day when Yeshua will split the sky and we accompany Him down to this earth and serve Him and the billions remaining on the earth in the Master’s millennial Kingdom.