Weekly Update: The Lord’s portion is His people
Israel turned 72 this week. That is a very Biblical number. Seventy is the number of the 70 nations who descended from the children of Noah, and points prophetically to the time when Messiah reigns and the nations will come up to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles (Zech. 14:16).
Today the nations are faced with the conundrum of the restoration of Israel to the land. It is a miracle that doesn’t quite fit neatly in the thinking and plans of the world.
One of the big issues in Israel at the moment is the proposal to “annex” parts of the West Bank. The idea is not new, but the fact it is likely to happen is. Under the coalition agreement between Likud and Blue and White, it seems likely that steps will be taken early July to apply Israeli law and jurisdiction to the settlement blocs and Jordan Valley.
Is Israel entitled to do so? How will the world react? Is this a wise step, or will it lead to an escalation of violence?
The answer: no one knows for sure. But the nations are quick to judge. EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell has announced “annexation will not pass unnoticed”. EU leaders will meet today (Friday) in Brussels under Borrell’s leadership to consider possible “counter measures”. As if they don’t have more pressing matters to be worried about, such as, for example, the continuing ethnic cleansing in Syria or the massacre of Christians in parts of Africa.
Why do we in the nations always think we have to have the answers? As we don’t live there, we cannot fully understand the problem, let alone know what the answer should be!
The facts are: the Jews are not in the land by permission of the UN, but by right. Israel has a right to exist as a sovereign state, which includes the right to political independence and territorial integrity. And it is not at all clear that Israel is prohibited under international law from applying its law and jurisdiction to parts of the West Bank.
Israel should no doubt act cautiously and wisely, taking into account the strategic interests of the State of Israel, and the well-being of all people – Arabs and Jews. Maybe it’s a good idea, maybe it isn’t. But Israel doesn’t need the permission of the UN, the EU or the USA, whose leaders are here today and gone tomorrow. Israel is a democracy. It will decide and act as it sees fit. Just as its neighbors do. It’s also important to remember that neither the Jewish people nor the Arab Palestinians nor their neighbors are victims – they are all responsible for their own future. One way or another, they are the ones who have to solve their own problems. They don’t need us to tell them what to do.
Ben Gurion once famously said:
“our future depends not on what the Gentiles say but on what the Jews do”.
It is our task to pray for the Peace of Jerusalem. Peace for the land, and peace for all in the land.
Shabbat shalom,
Andrew Tucker
Editor-in-Chief – Israel & Christians Today
Mazel Tov Israel!
Koen Carlier reports from Ukraine: “On the 14th of May, it is exactly 72 years ago that David Ben Gurion became the first Prime Minister of the modern State of Israel after the Jewish people lived in the diaspora for nearly 2000 years
Before David Ben Gurion took on this important role he was the chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel that at that time function as unofficial government of Israel! 72 years later the role of the Jewish Agency hasn’t changed: to help bring back the sons and daughters home to Israel, especially from conflict areas.
A few days ago Israel sent a plane to Kiev, after Ukraine gave ‘green light’, so during quarantine the Christians for Israel Ukraine teambrought 53 olim to Kiev airport! An amazing event to be involved in and to help in a practical way with our busses.
In the near future, Israel will send another plane to bring a group of 112 olim from Ukraine Home to Israel!” Read more..
The spiritual and prophetic significance of San Remo
This series previously mentioned more than once that the San Remo Resolution, and the Mandate for Palestine that resulted from it, enshrined the title deed that Almighty God gave to the Hebrew Patriarchs into international law. Perhaps this was not obvious at the time, but I believe this was what God was doing behind the scenes 100 years ago in April 1920. Read more..
Israel’s plans to “annex” Jordan Valley and settlement blocs
The US administration has said it would recognize Israeli sovereignty over the entire Jordan Valley and all Israeli settlements across the West Bank in exchange for assurances that Jerusalem would be ready to negotiate a peace deal with the Palestinians based on Trump’s plan. Read more..
Eli Podeh of the Hebrew University writes: “Responsible leadership cannot look only at opportunities without taking into account the risks lurking in their implementation. Israel faces at least seven risks in the international and regional arenas should it decide on annexation.” Read more..
According to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, the West Bank and East Jerusalem belong to the Palestinian people. Israel is nothing more than an occupier, and has no valid claim to sovereignty over the West Bank or East Jerusalem: read more..
But according to Prof. Gregory Rose and Maurice Hirsch (Palestinian Media Watch), the ICC has become a politicized institution. “The prosecutor’s current conduct gives rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias in a major case, namely the investigation of Israel for crimes in the “Situation in Palestine.” Journalists report that the prosecutor maintains close liaison with figures in the Palestinian Authority…. The ICC was meant to symbolise the universal rule of law and the end of impunity. However, in practice it has come to symbolise the opposite. It exemplifies UN politicisation of international criminal justice principles and corruption in dispensation of the rule of law, at extravagant public cost.” Read more..
What are the biblical borders of the land?
Johannes Gerloff writes: “On the political stage of the Middle East, I have never seen anyone ask about the biblical borders of the Promised Land. I know of no politician who pursues an agenda of translating prophecies of the Bible concerning the borders into political reality. However, I come across Christians with the question of when the state of Israel will reach its biblical borders. And in past years, secular journalists and political analysts have given publically thought to whether certain Israeli politicians dreamed of a “Greater Israel within biblical borders”. It is therefore appropriate to outline what the Bible actually says about the borders of the Promised Land.” Read more..
Israel’s national unity government
Israel’s new government will be sworn in the coming days. Read the text of the Policy principles of Israel’s 35th government.
“You were supposed to bury me, not the other way around”
An IDF commando from the Golani unit, 21-year-old Amit Ben Ygal, was killed by a Palestinian terrorist Monday night, while in the line of duty. Last year, on Memorial Day, Amit posted the following version of what it means to be a “Golanchik” from his perspective:
“To be a Golanchik means to look at the view out of the window of the bus and to know that you marched there as well….” Read article..
Harry Truman: The man from Missouri who helped change Jewish history
Harry Truman, a man with little experience in foreign affairs, assumed the tall order of uniting the Allies, winning the war, restoring the shattered global economy, and creating a new world order. Read more..
“Abram’s faith” – Video teaching by Johannes Gerloff
Episode 23 in the series of teachings by Israeli-based Bible teacher and journalist Johannes Gerloff:
Faith is not a feeling, but a conscious decision – sometimes against all odds. And faith always has implications for one’s day-to-day life. Abram demonstrates this in a practical way.
“Signs of the Times” – Video teachings by Rev. Willem J.J. Glashouwer
Rev. Willem Glashouwer helps us understand God’s prophetic word, and how prophecy is being fulfilled in our generation.
Episode 3: The Lord Jesus compares the things that will happen to planet earth with birth pains. The process starts slowly, but by the time the birth of the ‘child’ is near, the intervals will get shorter and the intensity and the pain will increase. However, in the end it will finally lead to the birth of the ‘baby’.
Scripture for the week: Deuteronomy 31:1-12
Listen, you heavens, and I will speak; hear, you earth, the words of my mouth.
2 Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew,
like showers on new grass like abundant rain on tender plants.
3 I will proclaim the name of the Lord. Oh, praise the greatness of our God!
4 He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just.
A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.
5 They are corrupt and not his children; to their shame they are a warped and crooked generation.
6 Is this the way you repay the Lord, you foolish and unwise people?
Is he not your Father, your Creator, who made you and formed you?
7 Remember the days of old; consider the generations long past.
Ask your father and he will tell you, your elders, and they will explain to you.
8 When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided all mankind,
he set up boundaries for the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel.
9 For the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance.
10 In a desert land he found him, in a barren and howling waste.
He shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye,
11 like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young,
that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them aloft.
12 The Lord alone led him; no foreign god was with him.
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