How I Regard Israel Today

[1watchman]

There are a number of opinions about Israel, so I thought to share my view, and see if there is any agreement to it:

About Christian regard for Israel, I believe we need to defend them as God's covenant people, who will be restored as an earthly people and governing authority under God in the Millennium time. The Bible clearly teaches this; notwithstanding that God has them under discipline today as a scattered people, who have rebelled ---are blinded, and rejected the grace of God in Jesus, the Christ.

Israel will repent in time as prophecy shows. Though until that restoration day nationally, individual Israelites everywhere must come to Christ in this present age to be saved. They are on the same ground as the Gentiles.

Certainly, in a practical and godly way, I believe Israel should recognize that the various Arabs in the nation of Israel ought to be treated properly and adequately, if they are law-abiding and peaceful; and until they become real citizens and supportive and loyal to the government for full benefits. The Arabs dwelling outside of Israel seem to keep trying to infiltrate for harm and continually attack the Israelite citizens, which certainly is wrong on their part.

This present animosity will all likely continue, I believe, until the Lord Jesus returns. He will then purify the earth, judge and restore delinquent Israelites, and establish His reign over God's earthly people of Israel, and God's heavenly people who are of the "Bride of Christ" --the Church.

 

[football5680]

And do not think you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. (Matthew 3:9)

The fact that they claim to be descendant of Abraham makes no difference because in the Christian view they are in rebellion against God and have rejected their savior. They are no different from anybody else in rebellion against God. The state of Israel should be viewed like every other country and the only difference is that within the country there are holy places that are important to people.

From a US point of view they should be protected like all of our other allies. Israel sided with the US over the USSR during the Cold War and that loyalty should be rewarded. They should not receive the preferential treatment which has occurred and we should judge them like we judge every other country.

 

[1watchman]

Thank you for sharing. One is certainly entitled to review and be concluding how it appears to them. The ref. in Mt. 3:9 is speaking to those religious zealots of Israel who thought they were superior because they were of the lineage of Abraham as Hebrews.

My thought is both what I see in a civil and worldly way today, together with all that God says about His covenant people of Israel. As Americans one can have a civil view both for an against them. All that the OT Prophets spoke seems to also show they will be recovered as God's chosen people in the Millennium and for the "new earth". Even Revelation shows this.

Well, we who know the Lord will see the truth of it one way or another when the Lord comes.

 

[smaneck]

About Christian regard for Israel, I believe we need to defend them as God's covenant people, who will be restored as an earthly people and governing authority under God in the Millennium time.

Is it right to take away someone else's land on the basis of your own particular scripture?

 

[Zeek]

Is it right to take away someone else's land on the basis of your own particular scripture?

From what sovereign nation do you suppose Israel has taken land?

 

[Zeek]

There are a number of opinions about Israel, so I thought to share my view, and see if there is any agreement to it:

About Christian regard for Israel, I believe we need to defend them as God's covenant people, who will be restored as an earthly people and governing authority under God in the Millennium time. The Bible clearly teaches this; notwithstanding that God has them under discipline today as a scattered people, who have rebelled ---are blinded, and rejected the grace of God in Jesus, the Christ.

I would say that the Jewish people are being restored to the land as we speak, and have been gravitating back there in significant numbers since the end of the 19th Century. The rebirth of Israel is probably the most significant prophetic marker of all time as Jews from every nation return to their historic homeland and once again the land yields her crops, cities and towns are rebuilt etc. The great Jewish prophet Ezekiel makes it clear that G-d will deal with Israel and national sin...in the land.

Ez 36:24 I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.

The cleansing comes after they are restored to the land and not before as many Believers try to make out.

Israel will repent in time as prophecy shows. Though until that restoration day nationally, individual Israelites everywhere must come to Christ in this present age to be saved. They are on the same ground as the Gentiles.

The understandable fear of many Jewish people is that Christians only truly accept them if they become Christians or believe as they do. To many of them the name Jesus Christ is a foreign gentilized aberration because it conjures up nearly 2,000 years of mistreatment at the hands of Christians trying to make them something that they are not...and the way many groups of Christians still carry on does nothing to allay these fears.

What Jewish people need, and have always needed and looked for is Messiah, their Jewish Messiah. We know Him as our Saviour but we have been guilty of presenting their Messiah back to them in a sanitized, gentile fashion, often with threats, beatings and murders if they don't respond as we hoped...Martin Luther was a case in point.

Certainly, in a practical and godly way, I believe Israel should recognize that the various Arabs in the nation of Israel ought to be treated properly and adequately, if they are law-abiding and peaceful; and until they become real citizens and supportive and loyal to the government for full benefits. The Arabs dwelling outside of Israel seem to keep trying to infiltrate for harm and continually attack the Israelite citizens, which certainly is wrong on their part.

Israeli Arabs have exactly the same rights as all Israeli citizens, and contrary to news headlines and anti-Israel narratives, Israel is not apartheid, it is not racist, and it does not practice systematic ethnic cleansing.

This present animosity will all likely continue, I believe, until the Lord Jesus returns. He will then purify the earth, judge and restore delinquent Israelites, and establish His reign over God's earthly people of Israel, and God's heavenly people who are of the "Bride of Christ" --the Church.

I don't honestly think the expression 'delinquent Israelites' is very helpful...but at the marriage feast of the Lamb all those that have trusted the Jewish Messiah will know joy unspeakable for all eternity....believing Jews, and believing Gentiles...one in Him.

 

[smaneck]

From what sovereign nation do you suppose Israel has taken land?

So it is okay to take someone's land away if they do not constitute a nation-state?

That was, of course, part of the rationale for European conquest and colonization of the Americas, of Australia and much of Africa, but was it right?

 

[smaneck]

I would say that the Jewish people are being restored to the land as we speak, and have been gravitating back there in significant numbers since the end of the 19th Century.

Jews were allowed to move back to the Holy Land as soon as the Muslims conquered it 637 A.D. It was the Roman/Byzantine Empire that wouldn't let them live there. During the Ottoman period most of Jerusalem's inhabitants were Jews. But generally speaking they lived within Jerusalem. What changed with the rise of Zionism is that European Jews began buying up rural lands, evicting the tenants and replacing them with Jews. Traditionally it was the tenant, not the landlord, who had primary rights to land. The landlord's rights were generally restricted to collecting rents. This is what gave rise to the animosity between Palestinians and Jews.

Israeli Arabs have exactly the same rights as all Israeli citizens, and contrary to news headlines and anti-Israel narratives, Israel is not apartheid, it is not racist, and it does not practice systematic ethnic cleansing.

Generally when we are talking about apartheid we are talking about the status of Arabs within the occupied territories, not Israel itself. Also, under international law, those Arabs who left Israel as refugees in 1948 should have been granted the right to return.

 

[LoAmmi]

So it is okay to take someone's land away if they do not constitute a nation-state?

Was it their land? THAT'S the complicated question.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

Was it their land? THAT'S the complicated question.

Not that complicated, at least back then. They had been born there, raised there, could look back upon generation after generation of ancestors who had lived there. To me, that's the only thing needed to qualify a stretch of land as somebody's homeland. Forcing them out at gunpoint was a heinous crime, a terrible deed, and a grave injustice.
However, by the same rule that I've just laid out, I do not blame the descendants of conquerors for the crimes of their forebears. Most Israelis alive today did not participate in the terrible deeds at the foundation of their nation, just as the US-Americans alive today did not participate in the crimes against the American natives.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

The OP pretty much demonstrates (unintentionally) why politics and religion should never, EVER mix - and also how this volatile mixture can fuel the most terrible deeds by making them seem righteous or even holy to the perpetrators.

 

[smaneck]

Was it their land? THAT'S the complicated question.

How is it complicated? DNA evidence indicates that the Palestinians, for the most part, descend from the people who have always been there. They are basically the descendants of the Samaritans, the non-elites of the Ten Northern Tribes. The Jews are descendants of the southern kingdom of Judah, not Israel as a whole. If you want to argue that they have scriptural claim to the land (a dubious claim at best) then the only part they are entitled to would be Gaza and Jerusalem, since that was the territory given to Judah.

 

[danny ski]

How is it complicated? DNA evidence indicates that the Palestinians, for the most part, descend from the people who have always been there. They are basically the descendants of the Samaritans, the non-elites of the Ten Northern Tribes. The Jews are descendants of the southern kingdom of Judah, not Israel as a whole. If you want to argue that they have scriptural claim to the land (a dubious claim at best) then the only part they are entitled to would be Gaza and Jerusalem, since that was the territory given to Judah.

The Book of Joshua does not agree with your claim 're. lands allotted to the tribe of Judah.

 

[Zeek]

Jews were allowed to move back to the Holy Land as soon as the Muslims conquered it 637 A.D. It was the Roman/Byzantine Empire that wouldn't let them live there.

The Romans never drove the Jewish people out of Israel...they were barred for Jerusalem for a time after the Bar Kokhba revolt, but eventually by the 4th century Jews were again in Jerusalem...

During the Ottoman period most of Jerusalem's inhabitants were Jews. But generally speaking they lived within Jerusalem. What changed with the rise of Zionism is that European Jews began buying up rural lands, evicting the tenants and replacing them with Jews. Traditionally it was the tenant, not the landlord, who had primary rights to land. The landlord's rights were generally restricted to collecting rents. This is what gave rise to the animosity between Palestinians and Jews.

The fact is that it was mostly the absentee landlords who evicted their tenants (the majority of whom were actually Lebanese) and not the Jews who paid vast sums for poor land.

Generally when we are talking about apartheid we are talking about the status of Arabs within the occupied territories, not Israel itself. Also, under international law, those Arabs who left Israel as refugees in 1948 should have been granted the right to return.

The Arabs in Judea and Samaria are not undergoing apartheid in any sense of the word...sure there are some unpleasant settler communities that harass them, numerous road blocks, segregated buses and separate road systems, but the latter two are for safety reasons for both Jews and Arabs and most of the area comes under the civil jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority.
Apartheid is what the Palestinians have in mind if they get a State.

The refugee problem is fairly complex, but UNRWA has been guilty of perpetuating their refugee status, along with the Arab countries to which they fled (apart from Jordan who gave them citizenship...their hospitality was later repaid by Yassir Arafat who tried to take control of Jordan in 1969.)
Furthermore, a significant portion of the refugees had not been in the land for longer than 30 years.

People love to quote 'International Law' as if that gives their statements and claims a degree of validity, but recommendations by the International Court of Justice are not legally binding upon Israel, and they don't commend the 'right of return' but rather a 'just solution'.

 

[Zeek]

Not that complicated, at least back then. They had been born there, raised there, could look back upon generation after generation of ancestors who had lived there. To me, that's the only thing needed to qualify a stretch of land as somebody's homeland. Forcing them out at gunpoint was a heinous crime, a terrible deed, and a grave injustice.

That sound very dramatic, but is a complete fairy-tale.

Many of the Arabs living in Palestine at that time were new to the area, and only a core of around 250,000 could trace their roots back more than a couple of hundred years...in fact many had been in the land for less than 30 years and came there from the surrounding Arab lands.

You make it sound as if the nasty Jews just decided to evict Arabs at gun-point when the fact is they were willing to accept 12.5% of the land originally promised to them, but the Arabs weren't happy and thought they could annihilate them and take everything for themselves...they were instrumental in getting Arabs to leave Palestine while their armies mopped up the pesky Jews...they lost, and the Arabs that left paid a hefty price. It is said that 68% of fleeing refugees never even saw an Israeli soldier.

 

[smaneck]

The Book of Joshua does not agree with your claim 're. lands allotted to the tribe of Judah.

Okay. Show me a map which compares to the two.

 

[smaneck]

The Romans never drove the Jewish people out of Israel...they were barred for Jerusalem for a time after the Bar Kokhba revolt, but eventually by the 4th century Jews were again in Jerusalem...

Only during the rule of Julian the Apostate. After that, they were expelled once again. In the fifth century the ban was lifted for a time, however, in the early part of the seventh century the Jews sided with the Sassanians, helping them to gain control of Palestine. About 20,000 Jews were killed when the Byzantines regained control and once again Jews were expelled.

The fact is that it was mostly the absentee landlords who evicted their tenants (the majority of whom were actually Lebanese) and not the Jews who paid vast sums for poor land.

If the landlords were absentee, how would they be in a position to evict the tenants? No, the tenants were evicted after Jews bought the land.

The Arabs in Judea and Samaria are not undergoing apartheid in any sense of the word...sure there are some unpleasant settler communities that harass them, numerous road blocks, segregated buses and separate road systems, but the latter two are for safety reasons for both Jews and Arabs and most of the area comes under the civil jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority.

What exactly do you think apartheid means if not these things?

Apartheid is what the Palestinians have in mind if they get a State.

How would having their own state constitute apartheid.

The refugee problem is fairly complex, but UNRWA has been guilty of perpetuating their refugee status, along with the Arab countries to which they fled (apart from Jordan who gave them citizenship...their hospitality was later repaid by Yassir Arafat who tried to take control of Jordan in 1969.)

That's because Jordan has historically been part of Palestine.

Furthermore, a significant portion of the refugees had not been in the land for longer than 30 years.

Their ancestors certainly were. DNA evidence (conducted by Israelis, I might add) proves it. But I suppose a significant portion of the population was under 30 when they became refugees.

People love to quote 'International Law' as if that gives their statements and claims a degree of validity, but recommendations by the International Court of Justice are not legally binding upon Israel, and they don't commend the 'right of return' but rather a 'just solution'.

The right of refugees to return home at the end of military conflict is a basic inalienable human right, one was reaffirmed as applying to the Palestinians in 1948 at the end of the Arab-Israeli War by the UN General Assembly as Article 11 of Resolution 194.

 

[smaneck]

That sound very dramatic, but is a complete fairy-tale.

Many of the Arabs living in Palestine at that time were new to the area, and only a core of around 250,000 could trace their roots back more than a couple of hundred years...in fact many had been in the land for less than 30 years and came there from the surrounding Arab lands.

Only if by the surrounding area you mean Jordan and Syria. Jordan part of Palestine and the entire area was considered a portion of Greater Syria. DNA evidence establishes that the Palestinian's DNA is nearly identical to Jewish DNA and quite distinct from the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula.

You make it sound as if the nasty Jews just decided to evict Arabs at gun-point when the fact is they were willing to accept 12.5% of the land originally promised to them,

And who had the authority to 'originally' promise them that land?

.they were instrumental in getting Arabs to leave Palestine while their armies mopped up the pesky Jews.

A good portion of them were chased out.

It is said that 68% of fleeing refugees never even saw an Israeli soldier.

No, but they sure saw the Jewish terrorist militias like the Haganah.

 

[LoAmmi]

Not that complicated, at least back then. They had been born there, raised there, could look back upon generation after generation of ancestors who had lived there. To me, that's the only thing needed to qualify a stretch of land as somebody's homeland. Forcing them out at gunpoint was a heinous crime, a terrible deed, and a grave injustice.
However, by the same rule that I've just laid out, I do not blame the descendants of conquerors for the crimes of their forebears. Most Israelis alive today did not participate in the terrible deeds at the foundation of their nation, just as the US-Americans alive today did not participate in the crimes against the American natives.

Back then? The 1940s weren't some bygone era where modern concepts were unheard of. The question is did they own the land or were they living on land they didn't actually own that could be given to others.

I live in an apartment. I don't own it. If the person who owned the land decided not to renew my lease or was able to go to the proper authorities, I could be removed from this place. Even at gunpoint.

It's never been clear to me that they owned the land, just that they lived on it.

 

[theophilus777]

Is it right to take away someone else's land on the basis of your own particular scripture?

Apparently the UN thought so. (Sorry, League of Nations, or whatever the forerunner was) We really can't say anything was done on the basis of Scripture. It was done on the basis of military might. We stuck 'em there, and left them to fend for themselves. So rather than Scripture, you can say they are there due to the power of God. Unless you believe they won fair and square?