Since the end of World War II no other topic has taken up more printed pages or has been more intensely debated than Israel, its land, its wars, and its rights. For most people Camp David no longer means the presidential retreat for the American presidents, but the place where Israel and Egypt agreed to peace.  The Wye River accord, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights have become familiar terms to any newspaper reader around the world. When you opened ENCARTA 95, the popular electronic encyclopedia by Microsoft, you were introduced by a short music followed by “Enough is enough… No more war…” words pronounced by the late Ytzak Rabin, then the Israeli Prime Minister on occasion of his now famous handshake with Yaser Arafat, Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Why so much interest, what’s the debate, how did all the discord started and will it ever end?  As we discuss the Land of Israel, there seem to be more questions than answers.  Is there an answer to the problem of the territory of Israel? If this writer had the answer I can assure you that the Nobel Peace Prize will certainly be awarded to me!
    The problem can be summarized by saying that there is a nation, Israel, to whom God promised that land but the land is not vacant; there are other people who have occupied the same land for centuries.  The debate over whose land is it and who has control over what cannot be seen just as a political or religious exercise. It must be seen within its context, to do it otherwise will be to simplify a very complex subject with the unlikely possibility of reaching any intelligent conclusion. For example, if we just look at the biblical promises then we ignore the rights of thousands of Palestinians who have lived for centuries in what is today the State of Israel. On the other hand, if we just look at the dilemma from a socio-political perspective we then fail to see that God has a plan for Israel and that this divine plan is being unfolded before our own eyes.

Conditional and unconditional promises
 The history of Israel as a people and their relationship to the land goes back to the book of Genesis chapter 12, where we read of the of the covenant and the promise that God made to Abraham:
“The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.  I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." Then in verse 6 and 7 we further read “Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. The LORD appeared to Abram and said, "To your offspring I will give this land."
This is considered an unconditional promise, which means that Abraham’s offspring had nothing to do to inherit the land.  This is clearly seen in Genesis 17:7-8 when God repeats his promise to Abraham after Abraham had obeyed God’s command: “I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.” The word “everlasting” means that it has no end, no conditions attached. This is an  unconditional promise.
     The other element included in God’s unconditional promise to Abraham is the extension of the territory offered as an eternal possession. Again, Genesis 17 gives the specific detail, for we read in verse 8 that the Lord adds “The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God."  What God promised is the land that today encompasses the State of Israel, including the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and regions that today are part of Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Syria.
 But God made also conditional promises to the people of Israel. A conditional promise is based on the “if-then” principle. This means that God will do or give something if the people meet certain requirements. In his farewell speech to the Israelites, Moses repeats the pact that God made with them. This speech takes up a major part of the book of Deuteronomy. There is a whole section where God promises all types of promises if they keep His commandments and obey His Law. Deuteronomy  28:1-2 says that “If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God…” This is followed by a long list of blessings. The principle of the “if-then” is clear here.  But starting in verse 15 of the same chapter the Lord warns Israel of the consequences of disobedience.

“However, if you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:
You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.
Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed.
The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.
You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out…”

“Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess. Then the LORD will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods--gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart. You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life.”
 

Israel’s dispersion and regathering
      In 930 BC the kingdom of David and Solomon was divided into two kingdoms: Israel in the north, comprising ten tribes, and Judah, made up of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin in the south. The kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Assyrians in 722 BC, and the southern kingdom of Judah was conquered by the Babylonians in 586. The ten tribes of Israel were dispersed among the kingdom of Assyria and now we refer to them as the ten lost tribes of Israel. The southern kingdom returned to the land after the Babylonian captivity and remained in the land until the great dispersion that followed the last uprising against Rome at around 130 AD. This is the beginning of the diaspora that lasted until our modern times. For many centuries the Jewish people, now dispersed throughout the world and suffering countless persecutions, longed for the return to their promised land. Romans, Christians Arabs, and the Ottoman Empire now occupied the territory that was once Israel.
      As result of the growing persecutions suffered in Europe by the middle of the 19th century, there began to flourish the idea that the only safe place for the Jewish people would be the return to the land of their ancestors, Palestine. It took the leadership of a brilliant man to coalesce these unfulfilled dreams into a pragmatic structure. The man was Theodore Herzl, an Austrian journalist who in 1897 convened the first Zionist Congress (name derived from Mount Zion in Jerusalem) in Switzerland. It is noteworthy that Herzl was not a religious man, and in the many speeches recorded not once is the name of God or the divine plan mentioned.  Herzl’s thesis “The Jewish State” was electrifying and pragmatic. The ideas proposed by Herzl spread throughout the world and these were summarized into four proposals:

“Zionism will strive to create a homeland in Palestine for the Jewish people, warranted by public law.  This Congress considers the following means to achieve that goal.
1. Promote, through valid arguments, the colonization of Palestine by agricultural and industrial Jewish workers.
2. Organize and unite all the Jewish people into formal institutions, both regional as well as national, according to the laws of every country.
3. Consolidate and promote a Jewish conscience and Jewish national sentiment.
4. Start taking preliminary steps with the purpose of obtaining approval from governments of countries where such approval is needed in order to obtain the goals of Zionism.”

  Slowly but without interruption small numbers of Jews from Europe began to settle in Palestine. In 1862 there were only 3,000 Jews in the whole of Palestine. In 1914, following Herzl’s call for a homeland, there where 90,000 Jewish settlers, most of which lived in communal farms called Kibbutz. After Theodore Herzl the Zionist movement was again blessed by another charismatic leader, Haim Weizmann. He visited every Head of State, wrote extensively and promoted Zionism with ardent intensity.
     In 1917 two important events took place: the conquest of Jerusalem by the British forces under General Allenby and the Balfour Declaration.  The British occupation of Palestine is important since British Jewry was perhaps the most powerful in Europe. The Balfour Declaration made such an impact for the future of Israel that for many is considered the single most important official document that paved the way for Israel’s statehood.
The Balfour Declaration, letter prepared in March 1916 and issued in November 1917, during World War I, by the British statesman Arthur James Balfour, then foreign secretary in the cabinet of Prime Minister David Lloyd George. Specifically, the letter expressed the British government's approval of Zionism with “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” The letter committed the British government to making the “best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”  It has been commonly accepted that the Balfour Declaration was a unilateral undertaking by the British government. The immediate purpose was to win for the Allied cause in World War I the support of Jews and others in the warring nations and in neutral countries such as the United States. In long-range terms, the motive behind British policy rested on the importance of Palestine as a strategic point on the land and sea routes to India and, above all, as the terminus at the Mediterranean Sea of pipelines from the rich oil-bearing regions of the Middle East. The establishment of a Zionist state under British protection would have given Great Britain possession of that coveted prize, while at the same time apparently implementing the Allied slogan of “self-determination of small nations.” On July 24, 1922, the declaration was embodied in the League of Nations mandate for Palestine, which set forth terms under which Great Britain was entrusted with the temporary administration of the country in behalf of its Jewish and Arab inhabitants. As an indirect result of the Balfour Declaration, Israel was established as an independent state in 1948 in the mandated area.
      On the 14th of May, 1948, Great Britain terminated its mandate over Palestine, and on the same day, the Jewish National Council and the Zionist Congress, convened in Tel Aviv, declared the birth of a Jewish State called Israel. David Ben-Gurion was elected Prime Minister and Dr. Haim Weizmann President of the Provisional Council. On May 11, 1949, Israel was admitted as member of the United Nations, being the United States the first to vote for Israel’s acceptance. Although Israel came out from the ashes of the Holocaust to become a nation again, two major problems remain: the status of Jerusalem and the Palestinian people.

Jerusalem's Unresolved Problems
The status of Jerusalem has been a problem since the founding of the State of Israel. Jerusalem and Israel are one and inseparable for any Jew. However, Jerusalem was settled by Arabs, Jews, and Christians, all of whom have claims to holy sites with-in the walled city. The few acres that make up the Old City are a mix of costumes, faiths and ethnicity. The Christian Armenian Quarter; the Jewish Quarter; the Muslim Quarter; Iand the Christian Quarter are within an area the size of New York's Central Parkl
On November 7, 1949, the United Nations tried to solve the problem by declaring Jerusalem an international city that would be under the UN administration. On that day the UN Special Commission on Jerusalem voted to approve this mandate; 55 in favor; 15 against, and 11 abstentions. Both the USA and Great Britain strongly opposed this measure, so it was doomed to Fail from birth, and it did. The status of Jerusalem remained as it had been since the founding of Israel, the Old City was under control of Jordan, while the new city, built out side the walls and to the East was under Israeli control. Then in 1967 during the Six Days War; Israeli com-mandos entered the Old City Jerusalem was again, after 2000 years, in Jewish hands. But Jerusalem remains a problem.
    Within the old city of Jerusalem are the holiest sites for Christians, Muslims, and Jews. On any given day there are thousands of pilgrims visiting the Via Dolorosa, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Al Aqsa Mosque, The Dome of the Rock, and the Western Wall. On the Temple Mount, where once the Jewish Temples of Solomon and Herod stood, now stand two of Islam's holiest sites. Just beneath, are the remains of one of the retaining walls of the Jewish Temple, which has become Judaism's holiest place: the Western Wall. Only barbed wire, police, and Israeli army snipers with scope mounted rifles keep them apart. Who can remove the other? Will Israel rebuild its Temple where the two Mosques are now? Can Jerusalem ever find peace when the three monotheistic religions share the few square acres that make up Old Jerusalem with their holiest sites?
It is my conviction that Jerusalem is now in Jewish control because the prophecies are being fulfilled. Jesus predicted that "Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled" (Luke 2~ :24.) God's rime clock is ticking! We cannot guess what God will do, but we cannot "give him a hand" to precipitate history The prophet Haggal declared long ago:

This is what the LORD Almighty says: "In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations, and the desired of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory," says the LORD Almighty! 'The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house," says the LORD Almighty ' And in this place I will grant peace," declares the LORD Almighty (2:6-9).

Israel and The Palestinians
The beauty and contrasts of the land have inspired anyone who has visited Israel. It is there that the Bible comes alive. The valleys and the hills, the rivers and the lakes, the walls and the rocks speak of God's permanence in time and history But in the midst of the elation that Israel provokes in the visitor; he may lose the percep-tion that there are people who have lived there for centuries that are in need, the Palestinians. Their homes and lives have been destroyed. Although we know that Israel has the right to control its territory there is a human dimension that cannot be spiritualized or overlooked. There are displaced families who have lived in refugee camps inside Israel or in neighboring Arab countries for 50 years. Many Palestinian believe, with good reason, that both Israel and the Arab nations have failed them. Frustration breeds anger; and anger leads to tragedy Whatever solution to the Palestinian problem we imagine, two facts must be taken into account. First, we cannot just say the Bible says so and ignore the social and economic needs of those who are displaced. Yeshua looked at the multitudes and had compassion on them. The second fact is that God is in control; in His time and in His way His will shall be done. I don’t have an answer  to Israel’s problems, but God does. Whether having a Palestinian state will solve their plight remains to be seen.  There is no quick remedy for problems that are centuries old.

Is There Hope?
If anyone asks for evidence of the existence of God, the clearest proof is the existence of Israel. The State of Israel is not just refuge for perse-cuted Jews; it is where God wants them. It is the land given to Abraham and his descendants to enjoy in perpetuity. But for the Jewish people, the land is tied to the conditions that Moses explained in Deuteronomy. The prophet Isaiah, as spokesman for the God of Israel, makes the point clear when he says,
"The fruit of righteousness will he peace; the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever.
My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest "(Isaiah 32:18).

The words are so clear that they do not require further explanation. Peace is possible only if there is right-eousness. The same Lord who gave the land to Israel requires righteous-ness from the children of Israel. The Zionist movement did not include God, but was used by God to fulfill His plan of restoring the people to the land. Now Israel must turn back to God and humbly seek to do His will. I have confidence in the God who preserved Israel for thousands of years. His love for the Jewish
people has not diminished. God miraculously restored Israel as a nation after 2000 years. He can bring peace to land. Righteousness is the result of a right relationship with God, and requires doing what is right in dealing with your neighbor; whether he is Jewish, Arab, or Palestinian. Then the words of the prophet will be true, not just wishful bliss,

__________________________________________________________________________________________
DAVID SEDACA
Is the Editor of
Messianic Jewish
LIFE! and the
Executive
Secretary of the
International
Messianic Jewish
Alliance.
 
 

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