On Monday 22nd November 2004 we had a talk in SPEAK on Israel and Palestine, which looked at ways in which we as Christians could campaign and pray about injustices committed against Palestinians in Israel. I spent part of my gap year in Israel and spent a lot of time looking into the history of the Middle East conflict and theological debates surrounding whether or not God has given Israel to the Jews etc. After the talk on Israel/Palestine last week I thought it would be good to write something about why many Christians believe God has given the land of Israel to the Jewish people and is restoring them to it in the end times, so people can consider a few of the wider issues that affect this subject.
A few passages worth looking at are firstly in the Old Testament:- Zechariah 12-14 [1], Isaiah 62-66 [2], Jeremiah 30-33 [3] which seem to talk about a future regathering of the Jews to the land of Israel, accompanied by repentance and recognition of Jesus as the Messiah. Romans 9-11 [4] is also important, and talks about God’s plan to regather the Jews to Himself, through Jesus - implying that He has not totally forgotten Israel as a people.
A common objection to this point of view is that surely it’s all about Jesus now and the way to know him is the same for a Jew as for a Gentile. I think Paul definitely agrees with that. There is no Biblical case for the Jews having any superior position to any other human being in God’s eyes “There is neither Jew nor Greek...” says Galatians 3:28, in regard to salvation. However, that does not mean that God isn’t planning on revealing Himself to them as a people in large numbers during the end times (see especially Romans 11:25-32). Many argue that this is what we see happening today with the Messianic Jewish movement in Israel.
But what about the Palestinians? Well, obviously a God of justice makes no exceptions to His principles. We see many verses in the Old Testament instructing the Jews to show mercy to the 'alien in their midst' [5], as well as countless ones about justice to the poor and oppressed in general [6]. I don’t believe that any dispossession of homes and land, or human rights abuses can in any way be excused by saying it is a fulfilment of Biblical prophecy. Clearly Israel at the moment is not a God-honouring state in every way and we must campaign and pray for the rights of Palestinians to be upheld at all times. However, that does not mean that prophecy has not been fulfilled, even if the means by which it was fulfilled were not all God-honouring. We can see examples of this in the Old Testament e.g. Joseph and his brothers-their wickedness in selling him into slavery was used by God to fulfil the prophecy earlier given to Joseph in dreams, see Genesis 50:15-21. Therefore I don’t believe that holding a view that the return of the Jews to Israel is a God-inspired end-time event conflicts with concerns about justice.
There are extremes on both sides that we should be wary of. We have on the one hand, unquestioning Zionist ideology e.g. shown by the Zionist Organisation of America, who commenting on the proposed withdawal of settlers from Gaza , protest that “Instead of giving them land, Israel should be taking more land. Anything less guarantees more bloodshed...” [11]. (see about the proposed withdrawal from Gaza on BBC News [10]) On the other hand there is Islamic fundamentalism, driving the ideology of many suicide bombers, otherwise known as martyrs, to believe that by blowing up themselves and some Jews they will be guaranteed a place in paradise. For example, Hamas (which is an Arabic Acronym for Islamic Resistance Organisation) was set up with the objective of “destroying the Zionist entity that occupies Palestine, and establishing Palestine from the sea to the river.”[7] (For geography of the sea and river, see map [9]). The Hamas Charter states that “renouncing any part of Palestine means renouncing part of the religion; the nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its faith” [8]. Strict Arab opposition to the concept of a Jewish state in the Middle East resulted in the rejection of the UN partition plan before 1948 to split the land into a Jewish state and a Palestinian state, and the invasion of Israel by six Arab nations on the day a Jewish state was declared. (See history link at the end of article-sections on the British Mandate and Modern History particularly the war of Independence).
We can’t change history, but what we can do is continue to pray for justice and reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians. I don’t believe true peace will come without the Prince of Peace reigning in people’s hearts. Many Jewish and Arab congregations in Israel are working hard at reconciliation [12], and I believe that an end time revival of the Jews will certainly lead to greater attempts at reconciliation with Arabs and hopefully the conversion of many Muslims.
I’ve said a lot of things very briefly but I understand that these issues are incredibly complex and detailed but I thought it was worth briefly trying to put another perspective on the situation. A good website that explains more on this point of view is http://www.gospelcom.net/rbc/questions/answer/issues/ipconflict/.
A couple of books I have read on the subject are ‘Blessed are the Peacemakers’ by Audeh Rantisi, a Christian elected to a position of authority in his town in Palestine, trying to be true to Jesus in that difficult situation, and a book called ‘Land of Many Names’ by Steve Maltz, a book which runs through the history of Israel right from the Old Testament to the present. Very readable and a thorough discussion of the history!
Also a synopsis of the history of the conflict can be found at http://www.mideastweb.org/briefhistory.htm.
Hope some of you may get time to look into these things! Please let me know if you have any comments or questions.
God bless,
Christelle
1. Zechariah 12-14.
2. Isaiah 62-66.
3. Jeremiah 30-33.
4. Romans 9-11.
5. On caring for the 'alien' see. Exodus 22:21, Exodus 23:9, Leviticus 19:10, Leviticus 19:33-34, Deuteronomy 10:19, etc.
6. For example Exodus 23:6, Leviticus 19:15, Leviticus 23:22, Deuteronomy 24:14, etc.
7. Hamas Profile.
8. Hamas Covenant.
9. Map in an article in the Stanford Journal of International Relations.
10. BBC News; Q&A: Sharon's Gaza plan; Wednesday, 27 October, 2004.
11. Zionist Organisation of America; Gaza Retreat Plan is a Mistake; March 29, 2004.
12. An example of an organisation working for reconciliation between Israeli and Palestinian Christians is Musalaha.
http://www.musalaha.org/.
