Israel and the World

Eddie Cross

It’s a history of continuous conflict with their neighbours. But more than that, it’s a history that is also the history of the world, from Genesis to Revelation. The Alpha and the Omega, from start to the end. I started reading this remarkable book 67 years ago and it never ceases to amaze me. It is not only the most published piece of literature in history but has been studied and analysed like no other writing.

It is the story of the Jews and those of us who have become believers in the past 2000 years and are not Jews, we cannot deny the roots of our faith in this Jewish history. Somehow the Jewish people were set aside as a people whose direct relationship to the God of the Universe, set them apart. Perhaps for this reason, they have been universally persecuted through all of history and have had to fight to survive and to keep their Faith. Can anyone deny this fact of global world history? The Pogroms in Europe, the death camps in the Second World War, Warsaw, irrational antisemitic activity in so many societies and academic enclaves.

When they were offered a place of their own in the Middle East after the Second World War, when the world had to deal with the hundreds of thousands of the Jewish nation who had to find a home and safety, they took it. What was this silly little place they were given to make their own. Just look at it, a tiny sliver of land, arid and barren, no resources, no oil, very little water and surrounded by hostile neo nazi regimes. Worse, their neighbours followed the Prophet Mohommed and could not tolerate the new State and its people, all relatives of theirs in history, but following the religion of Abraham, Moses and David.

What on earth did Britain have in mind? Whatever they planned, it was not in the interests of the Jewish nation. But up to that time the Jews had been a people of the Diaspora – spread throughout the world, living in enclaves and worshipping God in their Temples. A people set aside from when time began. As today, the special character of the Jews was known throughout the world. Scientists, bankers, industrialists, academics, wherever they lived they made their mark. Now they had a home. Even when they deny their origins or their faith, they stand apart – just look at Elon Musk.

So, they took up occupation of this tiny enclave in the Middle East. They arrived, skinny, half starved, numbers on their arms from the concentration camps of the most sophisticated State in Europe. Jewish refugees from the smoking ruins of Europe. The British tried to halt or slow down the tide but to no avail. The people of Israel came home.

First they had to fight the British army, they were labelled terrorists. Then when the British left, deciding it was not their struggle, the entire region turned on them. Led by a man who had supported Hitler in the war and who shared many of his beliefs, but especially in the “God given” task of eliminating the Jewish race. The West stood aside, no aid to this tiny nation made out of global refugees, no weapons, the new League of Nations silent. Supported only by their own in the Diaspora, they achieved the first of many military miracles. They defeated the Arab armies and their Palestinian cohorts. They consolidated the boundaries of their tiny home.

When peace followed, they started to turn their bit of the desert into a garden, they built cities, Universities, factories and schools. They welcomed back to Israel the Jewish flotsam of the world, even from Africa. In the West, where the Jewish Diaspora lived, they used their wealth and influence to generate support for the new State. They helped them create a modern Army and Airforce. They created one of the most sophisticate intelligence organisations in the world in the form of Mossad – surrounded by enemies they had to know what was going on and where threats of every kind were coming from.

But they were never allowed to do this in peace. The commitment to wipe out the Jewish State never wavered. They shared what had been the Biblical State of Isael and Judea with the Palestinians. Even though the Arab States grew wealthy on the back of the oil industry, they did not help the Palestinians to develop what had been allocated to them. The Palestinians remained a largely, poor marginalised people living in what was semi desert. Bitter, resolute and envious of what was happening over the boundaries of the land they occupied.

Always plotting, they attacked Israel whenever it seemed opportune. Against impossible odds, Israel always prevailed, skill and science proving to be superior to muscle and hate. Slowly Israel came to appreciate; consolidate our boundaries or face extinction. The Golan Heights, the West Bank, Gaza were occupied. The Sinia Desert was taken from Egypt and then handed back to Egypt when Sadat negotiated peace. They allowed the Palestinians to form a Government under Arafat, even though they fully understood where he was in respect to the State of Israel. They withdrew from Gaza, allowing the Palestinians complete self-Government. An uneasy peace prevailed.

The Israeli Government, encouraged by the deal negotiated with Egypt, began to nurture relations with the rest of the region. Iran, with its radical religious leadership was having none of this – they embarked on a campaign to destabilize relations and to foster rebel movements. Hezbollah in Lebanon, the “Paris” of the Middle East, peaceful and prosperous, soon became a hotbed of radical Muslim terrorism. It tore that country apart, the ancient Christian communities there, constantly attacked and even killed. The northern border of Israel became a simmering war Zone.

In the Palestinian controlled parts of Israel and Judea, Hamas put down its roots, eventually taking full control of Gaza and infiltrating the West Bank under nominal PLO control. In the next decade, they raised and spent hundreds of millions of dollars from Iran and other radical elements in the Middle East on an underground City in Gaza. They armed and trained a massive army – perhaps 60 000 men. They developed sophisticated means, not of giving the Palestinians a better quality of life, but of misleading the Israel Government and hiding what were their real intentions. In this program they did what the enemies of the Jewish race have always done, they fostered hostility among the people, teaching the children to hate Jews.

The Israeli Government was duped, it was a monumental failure by Mossad, the prospect of peace in the Middle East was just too good, they were even talking to the Saudi Government. A deal with the Saudis and the UAE was just too much to tolerate and the Iranians ordered Hamas to trigger another round of conflict and hoped that the region would support them. October 7, 2023; was a well planned and executed attack and it took Israel totally by surprise. Even more of a surprise was the discovery, once the IDF went in, to find how entrenched Hamas was, how well armed and trained and how difficult this job was going to be. The Arab world sat on their hands and the planned regional war never emerged.

Where to now for Israel? You cannot make peace with a neighbour totally committed to your annihilation. That is clear. The size of the problem can be gauged from the fact that the IDF has probably killed over 30 000 Hamas soldiers and yet they are still fighting. Israel is losing the propaganda war but the facts still speak for themselves. The civilian casualties are tiny for a conflict of this nature, the talk of genocide is complete nonsense. None of the Arab States want the Palestinians, in fact they look at the Lebanon and fear this for themselves. When Iran attacked Israel with 350 missiles in one night, 6 nations, including an Arab nation joined forces to thwart the attack. The Israeli response so terrified the Iranians that they have not continued.

The Jewish people have a historical, legal right under international law to a Nation of their own. I do not think they have any alternative but to take full control of all of Israel and Judea. Clearly there are more Palestinians living abroad than now live in what they call Palestine. Israel has to learn to live with them as they have done for centuries but in integrated communities. The Palestinians that choose to live in the Israeli Nation have to learn to live as responsible citizens and historical brothers in a democratic State.

Those of us who follow the dictates of the Christian faith should read 2 Samuel, Chapter 7 to understand where the State of Israel came from.