Category Archives: Israel/Middle East

BOOK REVIEW

The Mystery of the Middle East

The U.S. government and all people of goodwill have struggled to understand the culture of the Middle East, the people of the Middle East and especially the violence erupting in and from the Middle East.

A new book may assist in developing an understanding of the Middle East. Michael B. Oren is the author of Power, Faith & Fantasy, America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present. Rather than attempting to explain every event and every group’s motives, Oren simply places a certain subset of events in chronological order. The events are the interactions between the United States and the Middle East.

Context is incredibly conducive to understanding. In order to understand the Indian Wars of the United States, the history does not start in 1776. The Indian Wars on the North American continent had been a fact of life for over two hundred years prior to 1776. The Indian Wars had been a fact of life for another century by the time the U.S. government prosecuted the Indian Wars to finality during the last thirty years of the 19th century. Whether more than three hundred years of warfare justified how it ended is a moral question, but knowing how it started and progressed at least explains how it ended. The best history of the Indian Wars I’ve seen was co-authored by Robert M. Utley in 1977, Indian Wars.

Likewise, Oren’s theory was that understanding could be achieved, or at least made more likely, by reviewing the chronology of interactions between the U.S. and the people of the Middle East. Oren is an excellent writer and, if his facts are correct, is excellent at providing context for the selection of events and persons he discusses.

Oren admits that the events during the last thirty years cannot be explicated with declassified documents, because secret government documents have not been declassified. Older events can be explicated with secret government documents because many have been declassified.

Oren, just as he did in his book about the Six Day War, seemed to put the events he chose for his chronology together in a way that perspective becomes an obtainable position. There are some hard truths that Oren points to that make the perspective to be gained quite frightening.

– During the wars with the Barbary Pirates, at the time of war of independence, the Barbary Pirates described themselves as “mujahideen” and in 1785 declared:

It was …written in the Koran, that all Nations who should not have acknowledged their [the Muslims’] authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon whoever they could find and to make Slaves of all they could take as prisoners…

– The first sovereign to recognize the new United States was Morocco — or at least Morocco, a Middle Eastern country, so claimed.

– The first country ever to declare war on the U.S. was Tripoli, in 1801, a Middle Eastern country.

– The first military engagement in the Middle East involving the U.S. was in the war against Tripoli, when the USS Enterprise captured a 14-gun ship of the same name, the Tripoli, which constituted the offensive naval capability of the nation of Tripoli. (The Enterprise pretended to be the ship of an ally to Tripoli until the Tripoli drew close and then the Enterprise raked her decks with canister blasts.)

– The second war declared on the U.S., in 1803, was declared by Morocco.

In other words, America’s engagement with the Middle East has been going on for as long as the country has existed. Those who claim “those people,” usually meaning the Arabs and the Jews, or the Palestinians and Jews, or the PLO and Israel, have been fighting for thousands of years, forget that the United States has been engaged since its own inception.

BOOK REVIEW

Because They Hate: Lebanese Christian Makes Strong Indictment of Islam

I wanted to read Brigitte Gabriel’s book, Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America, because of a listing I saw in World Magazine that led me to believe it might be similar to the Diary of Anne Frank. Ms. Gabriel, a journalist turned activist, was a teenager who grew up in a bomb shelter in Lebanon. She is from a Christian family in a Christian village. But her home, and the bomb shelter near it, were in the line of fire of Palestine Liberation Organization artillery positions and a Lebanese Army base.

During the many years spent in a bomb shelter, living through day after day of shelling, deprivation, watching the toll on friends, family and neighbors, living in constant fear, Ms. Gabriel developed beliefs that are understandable, but in themselves a bit frightening. Nevertheless, her book is worth reading. While some of her conclusions, as noted below, are not acceptable, her experience should teach us caution. Her rendition may also teach us a bit more about Israel and its circumstances.

The first several chapters of Ms. Gabriel’s book are a fascinating description of her life in southern Lebanon, Israel, and in Lebanon’s Christian society. The rest of her book is her indictment of Islam. Her argument is that Islam, if read in its original and literal form, commands the murder of all non-Muslims, as well as the murder of all Muslims who do not support the Muslim agenda.

Ms. Gabriel argues that the Muslim agenda is to abolish all governments that do not adopt Sharia law, establish caliphates in place of those governments, and destroy all competing religious systems. Her argument is that “moderate” Muslims do not exist, or if they do, cannot influence their religion to a more modern interpretation. Therefore, she argues, there is no option but to rename the “War on Terror” to the “War of Islam.”

Even if Ms. Gabriel’s life experiences justify her conclusion that Islam is oriented toward aggression, murder and despotism, and that there is no working movement of moderation in Islam, her proposals are, though understandable given her life experiences, not quite American. For example, she proposes a return to McCarthyism in the U.S., by rounding up Islamic fundamentalists, rounding up their books and literature, and suppressing their mosques. She proposes closing not only the border with Mexico, but the border with Canada. Ms. Gabriel is confident that Christian Arabs and non-Muslim Arabs would not object to such investigations if it resulted in the end of the threat she perceives from Muslims.

However, Ms. Gabriel’s proposed McCarthyism is unnecessary. Put simply, Ms. Gabriel does not understand Americans. Americans cannot be compared to the Lebanese from which she came, or much of anyone else. Americans may let the bad guys draw first, but we do not lose gunfights. Ms. Gabriel assumes that Americans do not understand the threat, or simply dismiss it, but that is not true. Americans are simply willing to tolerate the Islamic worldview that she describes — as long as it is not carried out. Once that worldview, a world view that accepts the murder of innocents, suppression of other religious systems and the subjugation of women, manifests in action, American law, American firepower and American troops will obliterate them.

Ms. Gabriel also underestimates the Canadians, who would react likewise. Ms. Gabriel may even be underestimating the Mexicans, many of whom are devout Catholics and are likely to react as violently as U.S. citizens to an incursion by radical fundamentalist Muslims.

Does Israel Have a Right to Exist?

Does Israel have a right to exist? Did Jews returning to their homeland displace millions of Palestinians who were already living there? Was the creation of modern Israel a compensation for the Nazi holocaust, at the expense of Palestinian citizens already living there?

Short answers:

• Yes, Israel has as much of a right to exist on the land it occupies as does any other nation with longstanding ties to its homeland. How many other modern nations can trace their connection to their geographic home as far back as Israel can?

• No, Jews did not displace millions of Palestinians. Jews began returning to their homeland centuries ago. Their return increased during the 19th century and early 20th century, at a time when the area was sparsely populated. (Read Mark Twain’s description when he visited there in 1867: “a desolate country…a silent, mournful expanse.”)

• No, the restoration of Israel is not a response to Hitler’s terror. The formation of modern Israel was well under way several years before Hitler’s rise to power. The international community had already formally recognized Israel’s right to exist several years before anybody had heard of Hitler.

Read Michael Medved’s excellent essay on this topic here: “Does Israel have a right to exist?”

The Borders of Israel

Many Christians spend a lot of time concerned about the borders of Israel when evaluating the status of prophetic fulfillments. There are several Scriptures that address the issue. See, Numbers 34: 2-12. The boundaries meted out in Numbers measured about 160 miles by 50 miles, or less than 8,000 square miles. To put this in perspective, Oklahoma City contains over 604 square miles and Oklahoma about 69,000 square miles. Thus, even without Gaza and the West Bank, Israel’s size is once again roughly that set forth in Numbers.

The election in Israel held in March was in some respects about borders. Israel is building an electronic fence between itself and the West Bank, which Israel may turn over to the Palestinian Authority, the Parliament of which is currently dominated by Hamas. The current laws and records of land ownership may or may not be preserved when the state of Israel relinquishes the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority. This dispossession may work a tragedy on the Palestinians, including disenfranchising 150,000 Arab Israeli citizens, but may be one of the many necessary steps to independent statehood for the Palestinians. Israel’s post-election government, which seems to be teetering on a knife-edge, has publicly stated its intention to relinquish the West Bank and Gaza.

As noted above, evangelicals have been critical of abandonment of Israel’s borders and those that would propose it. During the Israeli election, the ultra-orthodox, represented by the Shas party, were critical of those that would recede from the borders resulting from the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Indeed, the leader of the Shas party in Israel claimed Hurricane Katrina was a “retribution” from God levied against the United States because of US support for an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Olasky, World Magazine, April 8, 2006 at 20. Apparently, Pat Robertson was not alone in his bad taste. (Robertson has apologized but the Rabbi leading Shas does not appear to be accountable, post-election to the Knesset, for being ill mannered or presumptuous.)

It should be noted that the March election in Israel was burdened by low voter turnout of 63%. Olasky, World Magazine, April 8, 2006 at 21. In a country where military service is virtually universal, terrorism is a constant threat, and the dispossession of settlements and citizenship represents deeply troubling issues, it would seem that voter apathy would be impossible. Olasky blames weariness due to unrelenting terrorism and a resulting obsession with escapism as an explanation for voter apathy. This sounds too much like a ‘60s blame game label (“sex, drugs and rock and roll”) instead of an indictment of war without victory. More likely, like in the United States, the differences between politicians, and their lobbyists, are difficult to discern, and many voters have given up trying to do so.

In any event, the borders of Israel, in isolation, represent political realities, but not necessarily Scriptural or Biblical ones. The promises and predictions concerning the state of Israel were not delivered with metes and bounds tested by sextant. Even Genesis 15:18, the so called Palestinian Covenant, the promise to Abraham of the land between “the river of Egypt” and the Euphrates, does not contain metes and bounds. What it contained, and still contains, is an idea of the location of the place described, and an idea of the thing to occupy the place, people adherent to a covenant with God.

Those people are there now, just as the Scriptures foretold, and the stage is set. The curtain could go up any moment, and is rising, even now on the Second Coming.

In Miraculous Fulfillment of Ancient Prophecies: Israel Reborn!

CAN ANYBODY REASONABLY THINK THE RESURRECTION AND SURVIVAL OF ISRAEL WOULD BE POSSIBLE ABSENT THE UNLIMITED POWER OF GOD?

In 1967, I began a life-long fascination with the Second World War and the Nazi plague. I used my allowance to buy a paperback copy of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer. I bought it at the TG&Y store at SW 73rd and May in Oklahoma City. I paid $1.95 plus tax; the hardback version cost $10.00. The book was my first introduction to the true definition of evil and the price that evil exacts from the righteous.

THE NAZI HOLOCAUST
I was particularly moved by the suffering imposed on European Jews. In 1939 there were 9.7 million Jews alive in Europe. In 1947, 3.9 million Jews were left alive in Europe. From 1939 until 1945, the plague of Nazism had killed more than 6 million Jews. Unfortunately, the war against the Jews was the one war Hitler did win. Winston Churchill called it the greatest and most horrible crime ever committed in the history of the world.

When Allied troops reached Auschwitz, they were stunned by piles of hair brushes, bales of human hair, decorations made from human skin, and bins containing thousands of pairs of children’s shoes. The Nazis had invented a device that converted human fat into soap. They carefully calculated the profits to be derived from the use of slave labor and the efficient processing and disposal of human corpses. The Nazis expected each slave laborer to live nine months. Each was to be fed on six-tenths of a Reichsmark. Each was to be rented to businesses for a rental of 6 Reichsmarks per day. The cost to clothe these slaves for nine months was thought to be one-tenth of a Reichsmark. The cost of cremation was figured at 2 Reichsmarks. The average monthly net profit was 200 Reichsmarks, not including profits from the sale of bones and ashes. The profit also was derived by sale of other valuables such as personal possessions, gold teeth, bridge work and so on.

Anyone that believes God did not have every intention of using that tragedy to create a triumph has never read the Scriptures.

Psalm 149 prophetically stated:

Praise the LORD. Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise in the assembly of the saints. Let Israel rejoice in their Maker; let the people of Zion be glad in their King. Let them praise his name with dancing and make music to him with tambourine and harp. For the LORD takes delight in his people; he crowns the humble with salvation. Let the saints rejoice in this honor and sing for joy on their beds. May the praise of God be in their mouths and a double-edged sword in their hands, to inflict vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples, to bind their kings with fetters, their nobles with shackles of iron, to carry out the sentence written against them. This is the glory of all his saints. Praise the LORD. (NIV)

Even after the Allied victory in 1945, the assassination of Jews continued, especially in Poland, resulting in hundreds of additional murders of Jews. It has always been my opinion that the Soviet Union’s decision to build the Berlin Wall and to put both East Germany and Poland behind its iron curtain was no less than a fulfillment of Psalm 149. Very often, innocent people are harmed when the full weight of the consequences of sin come crashing down.

In Luke 13:1-5, Jesus was confronted about the vile actions of murderers of his countrymen:

Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them – do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” (NIV)

GOD PROMISES TO REDEEM ISRAEL
God’s promises to Israel are numerous and specific, and leave no doubt that God would redeem Israel. Psalm 22:23-26 elaborates:

You who fear the LORD, praise him! All you descendants of Jacob, honor him! Revere him, all you descendants of Israel! For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help. From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly; before those who fear you will I fulfill my vows. (NIV)

Paul reminded us that Israel is still the recipient of its covenant with God.

I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.” As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable. Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you. For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.

Romans 11:25-32 (NIV).

Some people do not understand the scope of God’s mercy and do not realize that the word “all” is ad infinitum, bearing of no exception and all inclusive. That same misunderstanding leads to the inability to see that “the rest” of Biblical prophecy, directed at the Second Coming of the Messiah, began to be fulfilled on May 14, 1948, when Ezekiel’s prophecy was finally fulfilled. Continue reading In Miraculous Fulfillment of Ancient Prophecies: Israel Reborn!