On 7 October 2023, the Palestinian Arab terror group Hamas suddenly attacked Israel, killing over 1400. In the succeeding two months, more than 10,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been killed. This article, part of a lecture series called the Bible and the News, answers the questions: What is the situation? How did we get here? What does the Bible say? What do we do about it?

By Mark D. Harris

What is the situation?

Jews and Palestinian Arabs claim the same land as their homeland, the area known as Palestine. 25 April 2023 was the 75^th anniversary of the founding of Israel. 7 Oct 2023 was the fiftieth anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, the Arab states’ most successful war against Israel.

The Israeli claim to the land. God gave Abraham and his descendants the Promised Land. The granted land includes Canaan, part of Transjordan and much of modern Syria. The promise is far larger than modern Israel.

• Bible testimony
  • Genesis 12:1-3, 7 – God promises to make Abram into a great nation.
  • Genesis 15:18-21 – God promises give Abram a son, make him a great people, and give him the land of Canaan.
  • Genesis 26:3 – God repeats His promises to Isaac, Abraham’s son.
  • Genesis 28:13-15 – God repeats His promises to Jacob, Abraham’s grandson.
  • Exodus 23:30-33 – God repeats His promises to the Hebrew nation.
  • Numbers 34:1-12 – God promises specific areas in Canaan to the twelve Hebrew tribes who came out of Egypt.
• Historically, the Hebrews only comprised a majority in Canaan from roughly 1400 BC to 586 BC, 800 years. Jews did not live in the land in large numbers from AD 135 to about 1940, over 1800 years.
• The Hebrew Temple Mount and much of Hebrew religious history is in Palestine.

The Palestinian claim to the land.

• Yasser Arafat and Mamoud Abbas have claimed that Palestinian Arabs are directly descended from Jebusites. If this were true, Arabs would have an older historical claim to Palestine than Jews do. Jebusites are first listed in Genesis 10:16. However, there is no historical evidence to support this claim.
• The Palestinian claim to the land is based on their more recent and overall longer possession.
• Many also claim that Canaan is theirs because they trace the promise to Abraham through Ishmael, not through Isaac. This interpretation is contradicted by the promises in Exodus and Numbers.
• Mohammad had a night journey to Jerusalem by Allah. The Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosques are in Jerusalem.
• The term Palestinian didn’t even exist prior to the 20^th The idea that there is a Palestinian identity separate from other Arabs is a recent political construct.

Is this conflict a holy war?

To many Christians, the western conquest of Jerusalem in 1917 was a holy war, the final and successful conclusion of the medieval Crusades.[1]

• On 11 December 1917, a mere two days after the above letter was written, British General Edmund Allenby entered Jerusalem triumphantly through the Jaffa gate, and the city became an occupied territory. On this historic occasion, Allenby reportedly declared that “the wars of the crusades are now complete”.
• Prime Minister David Lloyd George described the capture of Jerusalem as “a Christmas present for the British people”; he had advised Allenby to take the city before the Holidays.
• Punch ran a headline on 19 December 1917 declaring “the Last Crusade” with an illustration of “Richard Coeur de Lion looking down towards Jerusalem and nodding contentedly, ‘My dream comes true!’”
• The British Department of Information began to use the word “Crusade” to convey a very distinctive religious and historical connection to earlier periods. The department celebrated in a telegram from Palestine that “two of the commanders who have played a great part in the South Palestine campaign are descended from knights who fought in the wars of the Crusades”.
• A few months after the conquest of Jerusalem, the Department of Information produced a 40-minute documentary entitled “The New Crusades: With the British Forces on the Palestine Front”
• Furthermore, many books from the period had “Crusade” incorporated into their titles: Khaki Crusaders (1919), Temporary Crusaders (1919), The Modern Crusaders (1920), The Last Crusade (1920), With Allenby’s Crusaders (1923), and The Romance of the Last Crusade (1923).
• In The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity, Tariq Ali describes how the French commander Henri Gouraud upon entering Damascus with his troops, went to Saladin’s tomb, kicked it and proclaimed; “The Crusades have ended now! Awake Saladin, we have returned! My presence here consecrates the victory of the Cross over the Crescent.”

It is less evident that the current Middle Eastern conflict is a holy war in the eyes of Christians. Senator Lindsay Graham declared this to be a “religious war,” but that does not equal “holy war,” which requires that it meet specific criteria.[2] No major Christian leader has declared this fight to be a holy war.

To Muslims, the conflict in Palestine was and is a holy war, including this latest iteration.[3]

• Hamas and Hezbollah have both officially called the current conflict with Israel a holy war (jihad).[4]
• Islamic Law stipulates that Muslim dead should have their bodies washed and dressed in fine clothes for burial. Islamic martyrs killed in holy war should not, but they should be buried as they are found to honor their sacrifice. Muslims killed fighting Israel are almost universally treated as martyrs.

The secular state of Israel has not referred to this as a holy war. Judaism does not have a clear concept of holy war.

Is this conflict a race war? A colonial war?

• Ashkenazi (European) Jews comprise about 30% of the population of Israel. The rest are predominately Sephardic (Spanish) and Middle Eastern. The US census designates all these as white. Therefore, Israelis are predominately light-olive skinned compared to Africans and Southern Indians. However, Middle many Easterners like Arabs and Arab Palestinians have similar olive skin color.
• Colonial wars involve a people settling in or conquering and occupying another state, typically a less developed one. The British conquest of India is a classic example. Israel is fighting to defend its own territory, and so is not fighting a colonial war.
• Liberal western media portrays this conflict as race wars, colonial wars, and apartheid.

How did we get here?

1800-2000 BC – Promises to Abraham and his descendants in the Biblical narrative

Around 1200 or 1400 BC – The Exodus from Egypt and the conquest of Canaan by the Hebrews

Around 1050 BC – The establishment of the Hebrew state under King Saul

Around 930 BC – Division of Israel into northern and southern kingdoms

721 BC – Exile of the northern kingdom of Israel to Assyria

586 BC – Exile of the southern kingdom of Judah to Babylon

538 BC – Beginning of the return of the Jewish Babylonian exiles. Jewish state under Persian rule.

331 BC – Jewish state under Greek rule (Alexander)

63 BC – Judea under Roman rule

AD 66 – Jews revolt against Rome. Second temple destroyed.

AD 135 – Jewish Bar Kochba revolt against Rome. Jews massacred and exiled from Levant. Romans used the term Palestine.

AD 637 – Muslims conquer Palestine from Byzantine Romans. Many Arabs in Palestine are Christian, and persecution develops.

1099 – European crusaders reconquer Palestine and Jerusalem from Arab, Persian, and Turk Muslims.

1187 – Muslims reconquer Palestine from European crusaders.

1517 – Muslim Ottoman empire conquers Palestine from Muslim Mameluke empire

1881-1905 – Heavy persecution and expulsion of tens of thousands of Jews from Russia after the assassination of Czar Alexander II.

1897 – Theodor Herzl and other European Jews founded the Zionist movement to win a permanent state for Israel.

1917 – British reconquer Palestine from Ottomans.

1917 – British foreign secretary commits the British Empire to founding a Jewish state in Palestine. Jewish immigration into Palestine jumps

1939 – British White Paper limiting Jewish immigration into Palestine.

1933-1945 – Jewish persecution, World War II, and the Holocaust

1948 – Britain leaves Palestine and modern Israel is founded under a UN mandate. The US is the first major power to recognize Israel. Arab armies from Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, and Iraq immediately attack to destroy Israel but are defeated.

1956 – Egyptian and Syrian president Gamal Nasser nationalizes the Suez Canal. Britain, France, and Israel attack but the US forces them to stop.

1964 – The Palestine Liberation Organization is founded, labeling Arabs living in Palestine as a separate group, Palestinians. Its goal was the annihilation of Israel.

1967- Israeli victory in the Six Day War gave Israel possession of the Golan Heights (Syria), the West Bank (Jordan), the Gaza stripe and the Sinai desert (Egypt).

1973 – Egyptian and Syrian counterattack succeeds against Israel, but Arabs eventually lose in a counterattack.

1978 – Camp David accords bring peace between Egypt (Anwar Sadat) and Israel (Menachem Begin). Sadat is assassinated by Muslim fundamentalist in Oct 1981.

1981 – Palestinian Islamic Jihad founded.

1982 – War between Israel and Lebanon.

1987 – First Intifada. Palestinian Arabs revolt against Israeli control of the West Bank and Gaza. Jewish settlements continue to grow in these areas. Hamas founded.

1993 – In Oslo accords, the PLO (Yasser Arafat) recognizes Israel’s right to exist. The Israeli Prime Minister who negotiated the Oslo Accords, Yitzak Rabin, was assassinated by a Jewish settler in 1995. In 2018, the PLO reversed itself and no longer recognizes Israel’s right to exist.

1994 – Palestinian Authority founded, which is the official government of the Palestinian state. It controlled parts of the West Bank and all the Gaza strip.

1994 – Israel and Jordan peace treaty.

2000 – Second Intifada.  Palestinian Arabs revolt against Israeli control of the West Bank and Gaza. Jewish settlements continue to grow in these areas.

2006 – Second Lebanon War in which Hezbollah fought Israel to a draw.

2006 – Hamas wins elections in Gaza Strip, leaving the Fatah political party in charge of only the West Bank.

2017 – Sunni Arab states formed a coalition to confront Shia Persian Iran. Tensions with Israel cooled.

2020 – Abraham Accords signed between Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain.

2023 – Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1400 Israelis. In the counter attacks, over 10,000 Palestinians have perished.

What does the Bible say?

In the verses mentioned above, the Bible clearly awards Palestine to the children of Abraham by Isaac, the Jews.

Is the current state of Israel the same as the Israel that God promises to bring about in the last days? No. While the promise to Abraham was ultimately about a spiritual Israel of all those who followed God (faithful Hebrews and Christians), Abraham himself understood God’s promise as the physical promise of a nation.

What do we do about it?

Christians are commanded to promote both peace and justice.

1. The Jewish claim to the Holy Land is biblically and historically stronger than the Palestinian claim. For Jews and Christians, the Jewish claim is undeniable.
2. Christians should support Israel as a group of people defending their homes and families. Israel has never denied the right to exist for an Arab nation, but most Arab nations and organizations in the Middle East have denied Israel’s right to exist. Many still do.
3. The Jews have played an important role in salvation history, as well as human history. They have suffered greatly. For all three of these reasons, they merit respect and support.
4. Israel is a modern, wealthy state with nuclear capabilities. Hamas and Hezbollah combined could not destroy Israel, even if aided by Iran and Syria. It is not likely to need weapons or money from the US.
5. Christian support for Israel is never absolute. Israel caused great suffering among Armenian Christians in September of 2023 by arming Muslim Azerbaijan. The Azeris launched unprovoked attacks in 2023, killing many and driving 120,000 people out of their homes. Israel is partly responsible.
6. Christians must recognize and more strongly support Arab Christians in Palestine. They are the forgotten victims, unknown by Christians and persecuted by Muslims. They comprise about 6% of Palestinians. The Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in the Gaza strip that was hit by Hamas rockets on 14 Oct was founded by Christians and run by the Southern Baptists from 1954 to the 1980s.
7. Christians must pray for and share Christ with Palestinian Arab Muslims.
8. Followers of Christ must pray for peace, a lasting peace, in the Middle East.

References

[1] Revisiting the British conquest of Jerusalem, The day the British entered Jerusalem in 1917, Palestine’s fate was sealed. Hatem Bazian, https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/12/14/revisiting-the-british-conquest-of-jerusalem.

[2] Mira Fox, “What Does It Mean When People Say Israel and Hamas Are Fighting a ‘Holy War?,’” The Forward, October 24, 2023, https://forward.com/culture/566658/israel-hamas-gaza-holy-war-christian-zionism/.

[3] Michele Chabin, “Why Hamas Is Selling Its Assault on Israel as a Holy War,” Religion News Service, October 17, 2023, https://religionnews.com/2023/10/17/was-the-hamas-assault-on-israel-part-of-a-holy-war/.

[4] Gabriel Gavin, “Hamas Is Fighting ‘Sacred’ War with Israel, Says Hezbollah Chief,” POLITICO, November 3, 2023, https://www.politico.eu/article/hamas-holy-sacred-war-israel-underway-says-hezbollah-chief-nasrallah/.