Israel and the Middle East
Nowhere else in the world do competing histories and ideologies collide with such force as in the Middle East. The State of Israel, rising as it did from the ashes of the Holocaust, is a vindication of the Jewish people's suffering. Muslims see it as a stain, a thumb in the eye, a Western imposition that must be temporarily endured until it can be utterly wiped out.
For the Jewish people, a homeland seemed for centuries a dream to sustain us when all seemed lost. In the late 1800s, this dream achieved a concrete political form through the vision of Theodor Herzl, a Jewish Hungarian lawyer and journalist living in Vienna. Outraged and alarmed at the rise of anti-Jewish feeling that was sweeping Europe, Herzl's passionate writings sparked the birth of the Zionist movement.
Although Jewish people have lived continuously in the Land (particularly in the Galilee region), more began to arrive in the early 20th century, settling mainly in the area that would become Tel Aviv. Jews continued to come after World War I, while the Land was under the British mandate. Between 1922 and 1939, the Jewish population in the Land quintupled in size, increasing from about 83,000 to 445,000.
After World War II, the United Nations recommended a partition of Palestine that granted over half the territory to the Jewish State. On May 14, 1948, the State of Israel was proclaimed and was instantly recognized by both the United States and the Soviet Union. Just as quickly, it was invaded by forces from the Transjordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. The State of Israel emerged victorious from the conflict with even more territory than it had been given by the U.N. - territory that it was determined to hold, at least for the moment.
Since then, Israel has managed not only to thrive, but also to take its place among modern nations. Its contributions to the world far exceed what one would expect based only on its size and population! But although there is much to celebrate, the underlying sorrow of unceasing strife and bloody warfare has taken an inevitable toll on Israel and its people. Disillusionment with corruptible politicians and an often weak and ineffectual coalition government has added to the sense that things could be better. But how does one get to the Promised Land when one is already there?
The peace that so many long for is not simply the cessation of hostilities. It is a positive quality, conveyed most eloquently by the Jewish concept of shalom. Shalom is not a superficial feeling of well-being or a temporary truce between nations; it is a deep and lasting condition characterized by right relationships among individuals and communities. True shalom is possible only on the basis of a right relationship with God.
What will bring real peace to the warring cousins who are striving so mightily against one another in the boiling cauldron of the Middle East? Nothing less than the long-awaited return of the Messiah! Who is this Messiah? He is Yeshua (Jesus): the culmination of the promises that brought the Jewish people and the Land of Israel into being in the first place. Under His authority, the righteousness and justice proclaimed by the Hebrew prophets will finally reign. All wrongs will be righted, all grievances redressed, and every tear shall be wiped away for all time.
Only then will the aspiration for real peace among the nations achieve its goal. The Messiah will be our eternal peace - our Shalom.
