THE TAPESTRY OF ISRAEL (“Thread” 15 & 16)

The catch-22:

A cartoon in one of the Israeli newspapers depicted the reality that Israel can never win when it comes to their Middle East neighbours; she always seems to be in a catch-22, lose-lose situation. The cartoon depicts Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, declaring that he wants to blow Israel off the face of the Middle East. He dispatches a crony to scurry off to find a map of the Middle East with Israel on it to plan their attack. The crony returns to declare that none of their maps has the nation of Israel on it. On hearing this news Ahmadinejad thinks for a while and says, “Sneaky Israel.” This cartoon is an illustration of Iran and the majority of the Arab nations’ refusal to recognise the existence of the nation of Israel by not printing maps which depict Israel.

An early example of the catch-22 that Jews have had to learn to live with comes from the pre-World War II years, when Eretz Israel was still under British mandate control. Jews caught with weapons by the British were immediately assumed to be a part of the Irgun (a Jewish paramilitary underground unit) and sentenced to life in prison – some Jews were even hanged. This was a catch-22 situation for the Jews because Arabs were continually attacking Jews at this time and Jews walking along without means to defend themselves were a soft target, an easy kill, but if Jews carried weapons for self-defence they could find themselves imprisoned or at the end of a rope.

The continual appeasement by the West in favour of Arab demands has resulted in the development of what can be likened to a petulant, spoilt child who is forever demanding but never satisfied. The Jews understand that in the Arab culture appeasement is seen as weakness. The Jews have learned that what the Arabs respect is a no-nonsense, suffer-the-consequence-of-your-actions approach. This has resulted in what the world perceives as a heavy-handed approach by Israel and construed as the bully of the poor Arabs. Over time, the Arabs have learnt to use this to their own benefit, becoming adept at inciting conflict and then playing the victim when the Jews retaliate. The Gaza blockade is a prime example of this, where Hamas smuggled caches of weapons, including rockets, into Gaza to use against Israeli settlements. When Israel blockaded the ports and searched the ships, they projected Israel as preventing the poor starving Palestinians from receiving food. Palestinian activists then arranged flotillas to break the blockades and sought confrontation with Israel, and pictures of Israeli soldiers boarding aid ships and clashing with “aid workers” were seen around the world. The catch-22 is that if Israel does not inspect such vessels, Hamas is able to smuggle weapons into Gaza which results in the deaths of Jews. If the boats are checked, then Muslims and Western activists cry out “persecution” and point to Israel as a persecutor of the meek and lowly. The media fail to mention that the Palestinians would not need food aid if they had not destroyed the greenhouses left behind by the Israelis when Israel relinquished land, or that Israel does in fact support the Palestinians with continuous food aid.

An interesting extra to the Gaza flotilla sagas that further show the unfair world opinion of Israel is that in 2011 the Freedom Flotilla II operation did not manage to get off the ground. However, the Palestinians and Gaza activists blamed Israel for sabotaging two of their vessels, which grabbed world attention. Investigators later proved the damage to the vessels was not due to sabotage, but poor maintenance. Israel was vilified even though she was innocent.

The “wall” dividing Palestinian territories is another fine example of the catch-22 situation in which Israel finds itself. Israelis have had to suffer continual suicide bomb attacks and terror attacks from the Palestinians who wreak havoc and devastation in Israel. When the barrier separating Israel from Palestinian territories was put up, not only did the suicide bombings cease, but crimes such as car theft and housebreaking dropped by 80%. The wall on either side of the Hebron Road just before Bethlehem had to be extended over the road because Palestinian snipers were firing on cars from the heights above the road. The world unjustly views Israel as the new apartheid government that is segregating and persecuting the Palestinians. Gaza Hamas terror groups are free to fire Hamas Qassam II and Katyusha rockets into Israel, raining terror down on the Israeli settlements that border Gaza. These 7 and 22-kilometre ranging rockets are often fired from civilian areas to make a counter-strike difficult and to provide Hamas with cover by using the Palestinian civilians as human shields. Should Israeli retaliation air strikes damage civilian property, kill or injure civilians, these facts dominate world reports.

The double standards:

The world has double standards when it comes to dealing with the Arabs and the Jews. Arab wrongs are often ignored and it seems as if they are able to do as they want without retribution, while Israel continually has to be very careful, treading very lightly because of the world backlash if she is perceived to having done wrong. These double standards are seen in the following examples:

• After the 1948 War, Jordan gained control over the Old City and East Jerusalem. Jordan then closed the Hadassah hospital. Opened to the public in 1939, this was the most modern medical centre in the Middle East. Closing a hospital that served the community of both Arab and Jew was purely based on contempt for the Jews, nothing more, yet no reaction from the world was forthcoming.
• Also in 1948, Jordan sealed a Jewish holy site; no Jews were allowed to worship at the Western Wall. Synagogues in the Old City were desecrated and demolished and Jewish graves were vandalised. Yet no protests were made by the UN for these actions. One needs always ask the question of what would have been the Muslim response if the Jews ever prevented them from gaining access to the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount, when even a cartoon of Mohammed caused worldwide rioting. The Jordanian government sealed the Jewish holy site by building a wall which divided Jerusalem, so as to ensure the Jews of West Jerusalem could not get access to their synagogues and the Western Wall within the Old City. No international pressure was brought against the Jordanian government to tear that wall down, yet when the Israeli government erected the West Bank barrier in 2004 to protect Jewish citizens from suicide bombers and terrorist attacks, Israel was labeled an “Apartheid” nation.
• From the start of the 1948 war until the early 1970s, between 800 000 and a million Jews left, fled, or were expelled from their homes in Arab countries; 260 000 of them reached Israel between 1948 and 1951; and 600 000 by 1972. Israel is a land that is a fraction of the size of its Arab neighbours so absorbed the 800 000-plus Jews with enormous difficulty and at great expense, yet Israel was also expected to bear the burden of the 700 000 Arab refugees – who did not want to be a part of Israel – by having to give up portions of Israel’s own land so they could form their own state.
• At the end of the 1973 war, the Israeli army was well under way to Cairo in Egypt and on making progress to Damascus in Syria. The UN pressured Israel and forced her troops to stop. The question must be asked, if the shoe was on the other foot, would the UN have put pressure on Egypt and Syria to stop if they were on the outskirts of Tel Aviv? And if so, would Egypt and Syria have listened?
• In 2000, the Muslim Waqf-governing Islamic authority closed the Temple Mount to all archaeological oversight by the Israeli Antiquities Authority (“Al-Aqsa” is the name of a mosque, constructed in the 8th century AD at the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, a location considered the holiest site in Judaism and third holiest in Islam). Then the Muslims carried out construction work on a new underground mosque at the site by bringing in heavy earth moving equipment. Over the course of a few weeks, dump trucks moved some thirteen thousand tons of rubble from the Temple Mount. This was seen by Israelis as an attempt to cover up evidence of archaeological findings that would prove the Temple Mount’s Jewish past. This desecration of the Jewish holy site was repeated again in late 2011. With their holy site being desecrated on their doorstep, the Jews could only watch and observe as the world did nothing to try to prevent the flagrant disrespect of its heritage. Jewish archaeological teams and volunteers sifted through the dirt and debris that was tipped onto dumps by the trucks, continually finding valuable artifacts. Just how many priceless artifacts were destroyed by the Arab callousness, no one will know. Would such an act of contempt for Islam holy sites be tolerated by the Muslims?
• Muslim clerics indoctrinate Palestinian families to believe that if their sons die as suicide bombers, they become martyrs for the cause and go straight to heaven. So Palestinian parents rejoiced when receiving the news that their sons have been killed in suicide bombings, as long as they have brought death to Jews. Fox News, in a story published in 2002 entitled Saddam Pays 25K for Palestinian Bombers, explains how Iraq paid families of Palestinian suicide bombers $25 000, and an amount of $10 000 was given to families who had a family member die while fighting the Israelis. When the Israelis start to demolish the homes of families of suicide bombers as a counter to the funds they received for the ‘martyrdom’ of their child, the majority of the world’s press focuses only on the demolition of the homes.

THE BUILDING BLOCKS FOR ZIONISM

Zionism is the movement that sought the reestablishment of the nation of Israel. In modern times Zionists stand for the development and protection of the nation of Israel. Below is a list of how God was able to use persecution and anti-Semitism as a means to aid the restoration of the nation of Israel and enable the Jews to govern their new homeland.

1. The Russian pogroms of the1880s resulted in the murder of hundreds of Jews and the destruction of their property. Many Russian Jews fled the pogroms by emigrating. Most went to America but some to Israel. This immigration of Russian Jews to Israel is known as the first Aliyah, which means “to ascend; to go up” in a strong spiritual sense and has become the term used to mean that a Jew is returning home to their land, Israel. The Russian Jews’ Aliyah marks the beginning of increased immigration to Eretz Israel. Evangelicals in the United States were awakened to the plight of the Jews and the need for a Jewish homeland.
2. In 1895 Jews in Europe are shocked by scandal surrounding Captain Alfred Dreyfus. During the 1894 conflict with Germany, the French suspected that information about their artillery placements was being passed on to the Germans by a spy among the French artillery officers. Being a Jew, Dreyfus is arrested and charged with the crime. His trial takes place in secret. He is quickly found guilty and then taken outside the court and publicly stripped of his rank. In his career as a journalist, Theodor Herzl never much considered race or religion, until confronted by the mob that gathers to see the public humiliation of Dreyfus. Herzl is shocked by the anti-Semitic rage from the crowd demanding the death of the Jew. Before this incident Herzl was a non-religious Jew, completely assimilated into French culture. The Dreyfus Affair awakens Herzl to the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe and to the conclusion that the only hope for the Jews in Europe is to leave Europe. After his conviction, Dreyfus is sent to Devil’s Island in French Guinana to serve a life sentence. In 1899 it is uncovered that the true traitor had been discovered by the French military but the proof covered up. The French president pardons Dreyfus and he is exonerated of all charges.
3. At the start of World War I, with the Jews under the Draconian rule of the Turkish Empire, Jews enlisted to be a part of the Allied Forces. This genesis of the Jewish military enabled the Jews to form their own defensive unit, the Haganah, which would defend the Jews of Eretz Israel against the continual aggression of Arabs during 1918 – 1939, the years between the wars.
4. Constant Arab attacks on Jewish settlements forced Jewish landlords to hire Jewish labourers rather than untrustworthy Arabs, providing work for the many new immigrants.
5. Arab attacks on the Jews in Jaffa forced the Jews to establish their own settlement north of Jaffa, which is today’s modern city of Tel Aviv.
6. The rise of the Nazi party in Germany brought with it the fascist hatred of the Jew. The persecution of the Jews in Europe by the Nazi party during the 1930s and into the 1940s led many thousands of Jews to flee to Eretz Israel. The displacement of the Jews by the Germans during the war years left the Jews with nowhere to live after the war, with thousands making their way to the place they hoped would one day become a Jewish homeland. 
7. During World War II, with the threat of annihilation at the hands of the Germans and Arabs, the Jews threw their full support behind the Allied Forces with thousands of Jews – including women – joining the various military units. The military experience gained by the Jews during the war years enabled them to form and lead an army that would defend the newly-formed State of Israel against five Arab nations that attempted to crush the fledgling state. The Israeli military would continue to grow to become one of the finest military powers in the modern world.
8. The Arab refusal to allow the survivors of Hitler’s death camps into Eretz Israel led to the world backing a Jewish homeland.
9. The Arab uprising of 1936 – 1939 saw Arabs violently revolting against British colonial rule and an increase in the number of Jewish immigrants. The Arabs attacked both the British and Jews throughout Eretz Israel. The British were forced (due to their small numbers) to ‘legalise’ the Haganah, which worked with the British up until 1939 to protect the Jews and British interests in Eretz Israel. While aiding the British in its “policing” of the Arabs from 1936 – 1939, the Haganah was able to develop its military capabilities which would be vital for the coming conflict of 1948.
10. The refusal by the Arab nations to recognise the UN decision in 1947 allowed Israel to fight and attain more territory than was originally earmarked for the new state. Any claim to the land of ‘Palestine’ was forsaken the moment the Arabs rejected the UN decision.
11. The cruel street war in Jerusalem during 1948 in which Arabs repeatedly fired artillery shells in the streets of Jerusalem, was intended to terrify the Jews into leaving the city of Jerusalem. But it had the opposite effect. Just as the bombing of London by Hitler had strengthened the Londoners’ resolve, so too in Jerusalem the artillery barrage brought the Jewish community together, strengthening its determination to persevere at all costs and enabling it to come together in co-operation and support of each other. 
12. The planned attack by the Arab nations of Egypt, Syria and Jordan in 1967 resulted in Jerusalem becoming part of the State of Israel.

The definition of an anti-Zionist would be one who is opposed to the presence of the nation of Israel in the Middle East, or one who blames Israel for all the problems in the Middle East. Many churches are siding with the Palestinians and the Arab nations in opposition to Israel and have become strongly anti-Zionist. God’s hand in the establishment and growth of Israel is powerfully evident and should serve as a warning to the Church that God is a Zionist, as He stands for the development and protection of the nation of Israel, therefore to be anti-Zionist is to be in direct conflict with God’s will. If we truly love our Jewish Saviour, we need to stand alongside Him in support of Israel and become Christian Zionists; He has declared in His Word that He will never break His covenant with the Jewish nation e.g. Judges 2:1-2. 

Conclusion:

After diligently reading through the threads that weave together the fabric that is Israel, an understanding of a number of important factors should be abundantly clear.

1. God is not a deistic distant God; He has His hands on the events in history and is guiding the world to a predestined goal. There will be a time when Jesus returns to Jerusalem to establish His kingdom. God requires the Church to be partners with Him in attaining the goal of a millennial kingdom; “prophecy is not an excuse for passivism. It is a call to participation” (1).
2. God is not finished with the Jews; they are a covenant people and God has not forgotten His promises to them. His restoration of the Jews to the Promised Land is an important part of the End Times narrative, which will include the restoration of the Jews in relationship with Him.
3. End Times prophecy is centred on the nation of Israel and the Jews, so God has His hand on the nation, protecting Israel in miraculous ways.
4. God has been using the Protestant Church to fulfil His plan and purpose for Israel and requires that His Church continues to support Israel.
5. Prophecy is to be interpreted literally using the Premillennial interpretation of the End Times. Amillennial and Postmillennial views of the End Times discount the importance of the nation of Israel. By doing so, these beliefs allow for the cancer of Replacement Theology to take root. 
6. Satan is a determined enemy and will do all in his power to derail God’s unfolding plan for mankind. This includes the formation of an apostate church with a theology that masks Israel’s key role in the End Times and allows for anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.
7. The Jews have been Satan’s key enemy from the time God called Abraham. Satan knows that his own ultimate end, which results in his judgement and eternal condemnation, is connected with the nation of Israel. Because of this, he will do all in his power to ensure the destruction of Israel.
8. The frontline support of Israel is the Church. Support for Israel involves:
9. Continued and ardent prayer for the Jews and the nation of Israel. The body of Christ must have intercessors praying for Israel. All the miracles that have happened in the history of the formation of the nation of Israel, as well as deliverance from wars have been done through the prayers of believers, who have an understanding of God’s plan and purpose for the Jews (Psalm 122:6 and Isaiah 62:1-7). If the Church does not intercede for the nation of Israel, there will be nothing for this nation but the judgements recorded in Deuteronomy 28:15-68.  Pray also that God will open the eyes of the Jews so that they recognise Jesus as their Messiah.
10. Bold and public support of Israel. Satan is the enemy of Israel and directs world opinion against her through lies and deception. The Church needs to expose the dishonesty and speak up in support of the truth.
11. Developing Jewish-oriented programmes.  The close bond between the Church and the nation of Israel can be nurtured through Jewish-oriented programmes developed by the Church. In obedience to Paul’s much-repeated requirement, the Church must take the Gospel to the Jews, which means that skills for Jewish evangelism need to be developed. Financial aid should be provided by the Church for those willing to travel to Israel and minister to the Jews.
12. Supporting existing institutions which faithfully minister and bear a Christian witness to the Jews. This has the dual effect of helping Israel financially, as well as being a part of the organisations whose ministries provide support where needed. Israel is a nation under great financial stress, and with a military budget that dominates her economy. A burgeoning population due to Jews immigrating to Israel through the Aliyah Programme requires financial aid; “For if the gentiles have shared in the Jew’s spiritual blessings, they owe it to the Jews to share with them their material blessings” (Romans 15:27).
13. Becoming involved in the Aliyah Programme and supporting the Jews’ return to Israel. God has restored the nation of Israel for the Jews; it is where God’s revival for the Jews will take place.

The above list of the various ways that the Church is able to support Israel is quite daunting and may have some Christian leaders balking at the commitment it requires. Those Christians need to remember that these are God’s requirements. God is an enabler. It is God’s will for the Church to support Israel. He will not only enable churches to do so, but also bless the churches for their obedience as He promised to do in Genesis 12:3. God is behind the ministry of the Church to the Jews so He will bless it. God is faithful to His promises; those who are obedient to His calling and step out in faith to bless the Jews will receive a closer walk with God, with the power of the Holy Spirit to guide them and provide all their needs for the service that He requires.

_{(1) Lewis, David Allen. Prophecy 2000. New Leaf Press, 1990.}

This post is my 115^th and concludes my blog, I believe over the last two years I have covered all the Lord has required of me:

• Our connection to Israel through the seven feasts.
• The Jewishness of our Saviour Yeshua.
• Covering the five most important prophetic passages in Scripture.
• Important prophetic events, such as the Pre-Tribulation rapture, the Antichrist and the False Prophet.
• The enmity between the “seed of the serpent” and the “seed of the woman,” which is focused on the contamination and corruption of God’s word.  
• The paganism within the Roman Catholic Church, including sun worship and the worship of the queen of heaven.
• The requirement of the Bride of Christ to prepare for her Bridegroom, which includes cleansing herself of all “man’s wisdom.”
• The 2 Timothy instruction for the Last Days Church.
• That the evidence of God’s hand on the nation of Israel is clear evidence of pre-Millennialism.

I thank all those who have followed my blog for their support, and I pray the information they have gained enables them to grow and mature in their relationship with the Lord Jesus. I end with a prayer that the Holy Spirit will continue to bless the material by reaching to all people groups and preparing the Bride of the Lord Jesus for his return.

God bless to all

Neil Taylor

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