Copyright © 2024 Michael A. Brown
The
sections below (presented in note form) together make up a much more complete
picture of the so-called ‘Middle East Conundrum’ concerning Israel (in its various
political, religious and spiritual dimensions) than that presented almost daily
by the Western media. Although the media
tends to present this conundrum in terms of its political and military
dimensions, together with an emphasis on human rights and suffering, yet it
cannot be understood more fully and properly except as we take into account the
religious fundamentalist attitudes on both Israeli and Islamic sides, and also
the end-times prophetic dimension of the word of God and that of Satan’s rage
against God’s purposes in connection with Israel and the Jewish people.
1. God’s Word: The Prophetic Future
· God will bring the Jews back to their ancient
homeland from everywhere they have been exiled.
He will re-establish and prosper them as a nation. The dry bones will become a great army. They will re-occupy the covenanted land that
was once theirs.
· They are loved on account of the patriarchs,
yet enemies of the gospel. The majority
of them are presently still in unbelief, but there is a growing number of
messianic believers and fellowships.
· God will not allow them to be overcome by the
surrounding Arab nations, nor by the northern Gog-Magog alliance. In fact, it is their enemies who will
suffer. Israel will establish a
‘covenant with many’ [a peace treaty?] before Antichrist arises.
· A sizeable Jewish remnant will come to faith
during the ministry of the Two Witnesses in the first half of the seven-year
tribulation period.
·
The land and people will be given over to
Antichrist during the second half of the tribulation period. He will seat himself in the newly rebuilt
third temple and proclaim himself to be God, setting up the abomination of
desolation. The final attempted
holocaust will ensue, but the remnant will flee and be divinely protected.
· Jesus will return at his Second Advent to
deliver the land and the believing remnant from Antichrist. He will rule over his millennial kingdom from
Jerusalem.
2. The Inner World of Jews and Israel
· The majority of Jews are as yet still in
unbelief towards Yeshua HaMashiach.
· The Old Testament (the Tanaach) is only
authoritative when understood and interpreted through the lens of the Talmud.
· Israel is the only functioning democratic state
in the Middle East. The surrounding Arab
countries are all authoritarian regimes of one form or another.
· The word of God says that he will bring the
Jews back to their homeland, and afterwards reveal himself to them in
the new covenant in Christ. The
re-establishment and prospering of Israel since 1948 have been nothing short of
miraculous and they are a clear affirmation of the truth and reliability of prophetic
scripture.
· Jews worldwide are returning to live in Israel
which presently has a population of some 7.4 million Jews in a total population
of around 9.4 million. The rest are the
Arab minority. Christians make up about
1.9%. The Arab minority enjoys far more
freedom living in Israel than they would in any neighbouring Arab country. The call to become a ‘Jewish state’ is not
agreed to by all Israelis. Some of the
rights of other minorities such as Christians and Arab Muslims would then be
curtailed, and it would lead to Jewish exclusivism, insularity and potentially
apartheid. Indeed, extreme Jewish
fundamentalists would gladly ban Christianity altogether and shut down all
churches in Israel. Messianic Jews (and
foreign expatriate Christian workers) have to be careful how they operate and
express themselves.
· There is strong tension between Jewish
secularists and the extreme fundamental Ultra-Orthodox Haredi Jews (on matters of
religion, lifestyle, clothing, politics, Zionism etc.).
· Extreme statements in the Cabbala and Talmud,
reflected in the rhetoric of some fundamentalist rabbis both historically and
presently, hold to Jewish uniqueness and ethnic superiority, and they are
highly racist. They hold that Gentile
souls and blood have little or no value compared to Jewish souls and
blood. This is reflected in the extreme
statements of some Jewish rabbis towards Palestinian civilians, and in the
actions of some IDF soldiers in military conflicts.
· Religious and political Zionism holds that all
Jews ought to return to their ancient homeland, and that all the land promised
to Abraham should be re-taken and possessed by the Jews. This is in direct conflict with the Islamic
view of waqf. Indeed, the West
Bank in particular is being slowly but surely ethnically cleansed. Many Jews want to see a temple re-built in
the Temple Mount area.
· However, not all Jews are Zionist, and many
reflect secular beliefs and lifestyles.
Not all believe in Zionist geographical expansionism and the ‘greater
Israel’ doctrine. Jewish political life
tends to be disunited, although for the most part they stand together in times
of national danger and war. Many
Israelis have understood that the surrounding Islamic nations want to put an
end to both the Jews and the state of Israel, and therefore that they have to
fight for their existence.
· Israel would be indefensible if they returned
to the pre-1967 borders. Many Jews have
realised that ‘swopping land for peace’ does not bring lasting peace, since it
does not address the underlying Islamic concept of waqf, so conflicts
inevitably continue.
3. The Islamic Viewpoint
· Islam was the seventh head of the Beast, and
its Caliphate was brought to an end only fairly recently, in 1924. Since then, the house of Islam has been
fragmented. Islam is the theological
antithesis of Christianity and, as well as therefore being antichrist in
nature, it is also deeply antisemitic.
Even through the Qur’an says that Jews and Christians (as ‘the people of
the Book’) ought to be respected and protected, yet in practice subjugation,
loss of rights and extra taxation, or worse, is often the rule of thumb.
· Once a country is taken for Islam and its
people subjugated, then its land is seen as having become Islamic and it should
always remain so. The area called
Palestine was taken over by Islam in 639 AD.
It is a waqf, an endowment entrusted to the Islamic Umma to be
safeguarded until the day of judgement.
As such it must be protected by any and all means, including violent
jihad. So the declaration of the modern
state of Israel in May 1948 was nakba (‘a catastrophe’), and the present
possession of the land by ‘Jewish infidels’ is a contradiction of Allah’s
will. It must therefore be retaken for
Islam.
· Many secular Westerners do not know or
understand this point, and so their approach is merely humanistic and fails to
address the fundamental theological issues (on both sides) which undergird the
Middle East conundrum.
· In May 1948, the very next day after Israel was
declared a nation state once again, a group of five Arab Muslim nations
together attacked Israel, determined to destroy it and to drive the Jewish
people off the land (if not to annihilate them altogether). It has always been Israel and the Jews’ very
existence that are at stake.
Intermittent conflicts have been going on ever since. To date, the Arab nations have consistently
failed to prevent the continued existence and expansion of the state of Israel.
· The issue is invariably presented in the media
as being about Arabs and Palestinians, but this is used by the Islamic world
simply to cover up their real underlying intention. The Islamic nations have consistently demonstrated
in practice their uncaring attitude towards the so-called Palestinian refugees
by refusing to assimilate them. Although
they may pay lip service to a two-state solution, the Islamic nations in fact
do not want it, or rather it would not bring about a final peace, since their
desire and plans to eradicate Israel and re-possess the land would still
continue. They want all the land,
not simply most of it. Their attitude is
one of unremitting wilful impenitence, and it reflects the ‘ancient hostility’
of Israel’s enemies which was summed up by Ezekiel (Ezek. 35:5,10,15; cf. Ps.
83:4,12). The rhetoric of Shia
fundamentalists towards Jews is particularly inflammatory.
· This issue of Israel unites all Muslims
everywhere, displacing all divisions and disputes in the world of Islam.
·
Eschatological beliefs
o When
he appears, the Mahdi will lead his Muslim army to Israel and re-conquer it for
Islam. The Jews will be slaughtered until very few remain, and Jerusalem
will become the location of the Mahdi’s rule through his Caliphate over the
whole world.
o According
to the Hadith, Muslims are obligated to fight against and overcome the Jews in
order to bring about the Last Day: ‘Allah’s Messenger said, “The Hour will
not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a
Jew will be hiding will say. ‘O Muslim!
There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.’”’ (Al Bukhari: 2926).
o All Muslims, and especially the militant Jihadi
groups, understand the concept of waqf in relation to Israel and hold to
these eschatological beliefs.
4.
The
Two-State Solution
· Proposed in the UN 1947 Partition Plan (cf.
Joel 3:2). The Jews accepted this plan
since it gave them a right to re-establish their homeland on some of the land,
but the Arab nations rejected it, and they have never accepted the right of
Israel to exist as a sovereign nation.
War, conflict, suffering and the expansion of Israel continue to this
day.
·
Final status issues to be resolved include:
o recognition
of the state of Israel
o Israel’s
borders – pre-1967 or not?
o security
concerns
o status
of the ‘occupied’ territories
o return
of the Palestinian refugees
o status
of the city of Jerusalem, and esp. Temple Mount
o access
to resources
· However, the fact that the West Bank is now
largely occupied by Jewish settlers, and that Gaza’s infrastructure and housing
has largely been destroyed in the process of the destruction of Hamas’
underground tunnels and hardware, would make a two-state solution seem as far
off as ever.
·
The Abraham Accords
The
present USA-led attempt to bring about peace agreements between Israel and
surrounding Arab nations. So far,
agreements have been established with four nations (Bahrain, Sudan, the UAE, and
Morocco). Is this the ‘covenant with
many’ that Antichrist will affirm?
5.
Christian
Viewpoints
1. Amillennialism and Replacement Theology
· Those who hold to this wrongly believe that the
Church has replaced Israel in God’s purposes.
·
They spiritualise God’s promises to Israel and
apply them to the Church.
· Israel and the Jews have no further purpose in
God’s plans, except insofar as Jews may become believers in Jesus as Messiah.
· They reject the claims of the Jews regarding
the land, and view Zionist expansionism as being inherently evil. Zionist Jews are the bogeyman of the Middle
East.
·
They pragmatically embrace the two-state
solution.
· They display an empathetic humanistic view
towards the suffering of Arab Palestinians, but often downplay the suffering of
Jews. They often have little or no real
knowledge of the nature and intentions of Islam, and so they unwittingly and
uncritically side with Islam in the ongoing conflict.
2. Dispensational Premillennialism
· Those who hold this position take God’s
promises to Israel literally, and so the Church and national Israel are seen as
distinct entities. The Historic form of
premillennialism correctly emphasises the spiritual unity between Jews and
Gentiles in the body of Christ, but it does not see a distinction between the
Church and Israel. It is comfortable
with not understanding in detail how end-times events will play out.
· By contrast, dispensational premillennialists
understand and teach the end-times prophetic purposes of the word of God
regarding Israel and the Jews.
· They are broadly supportive in terms of the
return of Jews to Israel, expansionism and the intermittent conflicts, and this
has led to the phenomenon of ‘evangelical Christian Zionism.’
· However, many do not take a critical approach
to the extremes of Jewish fundamentalism, and so fail to objectively critique
excesses displayed in expansionism, in the treatment of Palestinians, in ethnic
cleansing, etc.
· Again, many have little or no real knowledge of
the nature and intentions of Islam.
6. Satan’s Rage Against Israel and the Jews
· Satan the dragon is envious of humankind made
in God’s image. He rages at Jesus, the
Son of Man and Jewish Messiah, because he has been exalted far above all
things.
·
He has always opposed Israel’s existence,
intermittently trying the re-take the land and subjugate, displace or destroy
the people. He wants to possess the land
for himself and to destroy the people through whom God covenanted to bring
redemption.
· He wants to do away with the Jews to prevent
them coming to faith in the last days, and to prevent Jesus from having a land
and people to return to at his Second Advent, and therefore prevent his
millennial reign from happening.
·
The dragon’s rage will be directed against the
Jews through Antichrist the Beast, during the Great Tribulation when the final
attempted holocaust takes place (Rev. ch.12, Zech. 13:8-9).
Bibliography
Shahak, I. and Mezvinsky, N. Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel,
New Edition, London: Pluto Press, 2004, e-version.
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