President Joe Biden arrived in Israel this morning to show support for Israel. His trip comes less than a day after a horrific blast at Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza, which was sheltering thousands of displaced people when it was bombed. More than five hundred people were killed.

Palestinian officials blamed Israeli airstrikes, but the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) “categorically” denied any involvement in the attack, blaming a “failed rocket launch” by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a rival militant group in Gaza. President Biden likewise assigned blame to “the other team,” not Israel. Independent analysts who reviewed footage of the explosion also supported the IDF’s denial.

Meanwhile, a different kind of conflict is continuing in American society. Many critics of Israel have claimed for many years that they “colonized” their land from its rightful Palestinian owners and that the state continues to “oppress” the Palestinians. This explains the support voiced on many university campuses and in cultural centers for Hamas after their October 7 atrocities.

So let’s ask: Who are the Palestinians? Did Israel steal their land? Is their plight in Gaza Israel’s fault? How should Christians view them today?

Is this colonialism?

“Palestine” derives from “Philistia,” the name given by Greek writers to the land occupied by the biblical Philistines. The Romans called the area “Syria Palestina.” It was ruled successively by Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Crusaders, Mamluks, and the Ottoman Empire.

After World War I, the area came under British control. In 1947, the United Nations approved a “Partition Plan” whereby the West Bank (so-named for its location on the west bank of the Jordan River and the Dead Sea) and the Gaza Strip would become the nation of Palestine. The remainder of the area would become the State of Israel.

Jewish authorities accepted the plan; Arab leaders rejected it, leading to Israel’s War for Independence in 1948 and the creation of their nation.

The people commonly called “Palestinians” today largely descend from Arabs who conquered the area in the seventh century during the first era of Muslim expansionism, as well as those who emigrated from Egypt, Algeria, Bosnia, and other Arab nations in the nineteenth century. The vast majority are Muslim, though there is a significant Christian minority. I have several Palestinian Christian friends in the West Bank.

This history gives the lie to the claim that Israelis are “colonizers.” They were present from the time of Joshua until the Roman Empire dispersed them, though many remained in the land afterward. There were eras when the land was dominated by Christians (AD 324–640; 1095–1291) as well as Muslims (AD 640–1095; 1291–1917).

If we wish to “return” the land to its rightful owners, to whom would we give it—Canaanites, Jews, Christians, or Arabs?

Is Israel an oppressor?

When Israel warned Gaza residents to flee from their homes for their own safety, Hamas told them to stay. Hamas would rather use Gaza residents as human shields and their potential deaths as propaganda fodder. Sen. Mitt Romney was right: “Do not forget the lives that you will see lost on TV. Israeli lives and Palestinian lives [lost] are all the result of Hamas.”

The Wall Street Journal editorial board agreed. After describing Hamas’s strategy of hiding its soldiers and weapons behind civilians, it noted: “Blaming Israel for . . . civilian casualties amounts to denying the Jewish state its right to self-defense. It means that Hamas can launch attacks on Israel with the goal of slaughtering women and children, but Israel can’t attack Hamas in Gaza because civilians might be unintentional casualties. It means Hamas would retain a terrorist sanctuary from which it can attack Israel whenever it has the means and opportunity.”

In a recent New York Times article, David Brooks timelines opportunities for the Palestinians to create a two-state solution with Israel. He lists several major peace efforts: the Oslo process, the Cairo Agreement, Oslo II, the Hebron Protocol, and the Wye River Plantation meeting.

Late in the year 2000, for example, the Israeli cabinet accepted a plan that would have created a Palestinian state. However, Brooks writes, “Yasir Arafat [the Palestinian leader] did what he generally did. He never said no, but he never said yes.”

According to Forbes, Arafat died a billionaire. Mahmoud Abbas, his successor and the current leader of Fatah (which controls the West Bank), is worth an estimated $300 million. The leaders of Hamas, many of whom live in luxury in Qatar, are likewise estimated to be billionaires.

New York Times columnist Bret Stephens cites a 2014 Wall Street Journal report that with the money Hamas could have spent to build a single tunnel to infiltrate into Israel, it could have purchased construction supplies “enough to build eighty-six homes, seven mosques, six schools, or nineteen medical clinics.” At the time, Israel had identified at least thirty-two such tunnels.

Stephens concludes: “The central cause of Gaza’s misery is Hamas. It alone bears the blame for the suffering it has inflicted on Israel and knowingly invited against Palestinians. The best way to end the misery is to remove the cause, not stay the hand of the remover.”

A thought experiment

Let’s close with a thought experiment: Why doesn’t Israel take Palestinian hostages?

Because Hamas would pay nothing to get them back since it has essentially taken the entire populace hostage and views the Palestinian people as a means to its jihadist ends.

Conversely, why does Hamas take Israeli hostages?

Because Israel, grounded in the biblical worldview, values every human life.

As should we.

God loves Palestinians just as much as he loves Jews (cf. Galatians 3:28). We are each made in his image (Genesis 1:27), someone for whom Jesus died (Romans 5:8).

Consequently, please join me in praying daily for protection for civilians on both sides of this conflict, Israeli and Palestinian. Pray for the “shalom” of Jerusalem (Psalm 122:6), which is peace in the region based on justice and righteousness (cf. Isaiah 1:17). And pray that God would redeem this unfolding tragedy by leading many Jews and Muslims to Christ as their Messiah.

To that end, let’s make these words from the Book of Common Prayer our intercession today:

O God, you made us in your image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Denison Forum

Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a twenty-three-year-old American-Israeli born in Berkeley, California, was at the Nova music festival last weekend when more than 260 attendees were massacred by Hamas terrorists. Hersh took cover in a bomb shelter, but a grenade blew off his arm from the elbow down. Since he could still walk, he was ordered by Hamas to leave the shelter. His phone soon pinged across the border in Gaza, where authorities say he is being held hostage.

His parents, who were born and raised in Chicago and moved to Israel fifteen years ago, have not heard from him since. His mother, Rachel Goldberg, said of him, “Hersh is my only son and he’s my first child. He’s what made me a mother. I feel like God could have given him to anyone and he gave me the perfect son for me.”

Now she is spending her days praying for his return, telling his story to media outlets, and appealing to US senators and Israeli politicians. “We need to know that we are doing every single thing that we can do,” she said.

She added: “I think when you’re in hell, if you stop, then you’re really stuck. So when you’re going through hell, keep walking—and that’s what I’m doing.”

“Not knowing where he was going”

From the beginning of their story, the Jews have needed such courage simply to exist as a people.

In Genesis 12, God called Abraham, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (v. 1). Hebrews 11 tells us that he then “went out, not knowing where he was going” (v. 8).

This is the epitome of courageous faith.

Moses did the same when he faced down Pharaoh, the most powerful man on earth, and led his people through the Red Sea and the desert wilderness. So did Joshua when he led them across the flooded Jordan River. So did the judges when they led their people into battle time and time again against their enemies. So did David against Goliath and the Philistines. So did Daniel when he trusted his God in the lions’ den. So did Jesus’ apostles when they left their homes and vocations to become his disciples, then preached the gospel in defiance of the religious authorities who arranged his murder (Acts 5:27–32).

In a brilliant 1973 article for Foreign Affairs, then-Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir wrote that her people “brought to fruition the labor of Jewish pioneers who, since the turn of the century, gave their lives to transform a barren and denuded land into fertile fields, flourishing settlements, and new patterns of society.” The land they rebuilt “had neither oil nor abundant natural resources. Its wastes offered no temptation except to Zionist pioneers animated by the twin ideals of a new Jewish society and a reconstructed land.”

Now that land is home to one of the most advanced economies and militaries in history. Their courageous faith is an invitation and example our nation urgently needs today.

“The most dangerous time the world has seen in decades”

Jamie Dimon is the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest bank; the New York Times calls him “as close as Wall Street has to a statesman.” He is in the news because of a statement he made accompanying his bank’s quarterly earnings last Friday: “This may be the most dangerous time the world has seen in decades.”

High inflation and rising interest rates are risks, to be sure. But Dimon told reporters that the conflict in Israel and Gaza is “the highest and most important thing for the Western world.” In his view, it could have “far-reaching impacts on energy and food markets, global trade, and geopolitical relationships.”

The Wall Street Journal offers evidence, reporting that the war is “affecting the global balance of power, stretching American and European resources while relieving pressure on Russia and providing new opportunities to China.” The article notes that both are positioning themselves to lead the global movement against the West’s “neocolonialism.” An escalation of the war could force many European nations into greater dependence on Russian oil and gas and carries the risk of renewed violence by Islamist militant groups across the Continent.

Walter Russell Mead is one of the most perceptive cultural commentators of our day. His Wall Street Journal response to Hamas’s atrocities, titled “A Middle East Wake-Up Call,” concludes with this paragraph:

Finally, there is the question of whether American and Western opinion will awaken to the new state of the world. In a horrible way, the descent of death-dealing paragliders into a peaceful music festival in Israel is an apt symbol of our times. The post-Cold War trance of the West, reaping peace dividends, celebrating flower power, and generally living as if utopia had already arrived, has left us mentally and morally disarmed. The revisionist powers that recognize no moral limits on their power as they seek to overturn the existing world system in an ocean of blood are descending onto our festival of folly like the hell-bound paragliders of Hamas. We cannot and should not respond with irrational panic and random outbursts of violence. We must soberly and deliberately address a mortal danger to everything we hold dear—and we must at long last wake up (my emphasis).

Forging a new future

If Dimon and Mead are right—and I believe they are—we are witnessing a hinge point in history. Our secularist path has indeed “left us mentally and morally disarmed” as the moral therapeutic deism that dominates our culture separates God from life, rejects moral absolutes, and celebrates self-centric self-reliance.

As a result, America can forge a new future only by turning to the source of Israel’s courage in the past.

Abraham and his heirs who built the biblical nation of Israel risked everything to follow God’s call. Now Jesus is calling you and me to do the same for the sake of our nation and her future.

Will we?

Denison Forum

Israel Ziv is a sixty-six-year-old decorated former paratrooper. On the morning of October 7, the retired Army general was taking a bike ride when news broke that a rocket barrage had been fired from Gaza and gunmen were pouring across the border. He raced to his home overlooking olive groves near Tel Aviv, put on his uniform, and grabbed his weapon, a nine-millimeter pistol.

He then drove to the battle zone around 10 a.m. with his close friend, Noam Tibon, a retired general whose son was trapped in the Nahal Oz kibbutz. He found disorganized groups of young Israeli soldiers, piled several of them into his Audi, and began attacking Hamas gunmen on the road. After a soldier in his car was wounded, he snatched his M16 and started firing out the window.

Gen. Tibon was eventually able to rescue his son while Gen. Israel Ziv raced to other hot spots. He spent nearly twenty-four hours around the kibbutzim and villages under attack, firing his own weapon, organizing evacuations of civilians, and coordinating with the military to dispatch backup units.

Why is Israel important to America?

At this juncture in the war, it’s worth asking why Israel is so important to America.

As Israel prepares for the next stage in this conflict, Americans remain solidly supportive of the Jewish state: 49 percent say the US is doing “about the right amount” to support Israel in the war, while 29 percent say the US is actually doing too little. Only 18 percent say the US is doing “too much” in the aftermath of the attacks.

However, the nation is tiny, ranking 149^th in the world in land size at approximately the size of New Jersey. It is not unusually significant to us economically, ranking only twenty-fifth among US trading partners. Of the sixteen million Jews in the world, less than half live in Israel.

But Israel Ziv, with his sacrificial and unselfish bravery on behalf of his people, answers our question in a way that is far more significant than it might first appear.

“Butchering people was the aim”

After a week, let’s ask ourselves what we have learned about Hamas and Israel in the context of their worldviews.

Regarding civilians:

• Hamas attacks noncombatants, intentionally targeting young children, elementary schools, and a youth center. Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan wrote: “Butchering people was the aim. It was what they set out to do.” US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Hamas “vividly reminds me of ISIS: bloodthirsty, fanatical, and hateful.”
• Israel has sought to protect civilians in past conflicts with Hamas and is doing the same now, warning Palestinians in Gaza ahead of military advances there. Israel Defense Forces seek to follow the law of armed conflict against targeting noncombatants, while Hamas uses civilians (and often disguises its soldiers like them) to shield its forces and weapons.

Regarding the future of the other state:

• Hamas is pledged to the annihilation of the Jewish people, which is why they staged the largest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. Andrew Sullivan compared them to the Nazis’ quest to exterminate the Jewish race: “The same ethno-fascism; the same blood-and-soil ideology . . . the same internalization of an entire group of humans as subhuman, to be treated like dangerous vermin; the same hideous sadism; the same eliminationist ideology; the same glee.”
• Jewish leaders accepted the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan that would have created an independent state of Palestine (with more land than the West Bank and Gaza Strip today), but the Arab nations rejected it. Every Jew I know in Israel (I have been traveling there for nearly thirty years) believes the Palestinians deserve to have their own homeland.

Regarding their leaders:

• After Hamas came to power in Gaza in 2007, there have been no more elections. More than 65 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, but the party’s leaders are wealthy, some estimated to be billionaires. They are currently living in Qatar in what the Telegraph calls “five-star luxury.”
• Israel’s democracy is often divisive and chaotic, as recent months have shown, but its leaders are ultimately responsible to those who elect them.

“The rock-solid foundation of Western culture”

Two caveats: Hamas is not the Palestinian people (a subject I intend to address later this week), and Israelis are fallen like the rest of us (also a subject I intend to address soon).

But the way Israel lives out its worldview raises a crucial question for us in our secularized culture: Is it a coincidence that the only true democracy in the Middle East, the nation in this conflict most committed to just war and to the law of armed conflict, was birthed from a biblical worldview that values all humans as made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27)?

In “The Nihilism of Antisemitism,” Thomas Balazs and Yonatan Hambourger write: “It is precisely because the Jews advanced a moral system that doesn’t tolerate murder, theft, rape, or mistreatment of the weak, and demands we care for other human beings, that other peoples have tried to wipe them out. The spree of killing and rape committed by Hamas is, among other things, a cry for freedom from a Jewish moral system that forbids such things.” They call Judaism “the rock-solid moral foundation of Western culture” and note that Hitler was reported to have said, “Conscience is a Jewish invention.”

As post-Christian America continues its unconscionable march away from biblical truth and morality into self-centric immoral relativism, what is our future?

Shakespeare’s observation comes to mind: “We know what we are, but know not what we may be.”

Denison Forum