Shaun Groves
“Please, do you want a picture?” Our guide herded us into position in front of the photographer. “This is how we live,” she said.
God put on skin and moved into this neighborhood two thousand years ago. Today Bethlehem is part of the West Bank, cities walled in behind concrete erected by the Israeli government.
Inside the walls unemployment is almost 60% today. Outside, in the rest of Israel, it is less than 6%. Inside the walls Christians make up, at the very least, 15% of the West Bank’s population. Outside the walls Christians are less than 2% of Israel’s population.
Almost all of us bought a copy of our group’s photograph. To support our brothers and sisters living in Bethlehem.
Why American Christians Support Israel
Evangelicals often defend America’s support of modern day Israel by quoting promises God made to Old Testament Israel. For instance, God said that whoever curses Israel will be cursed and whoever blesses Israel will be blessed. So to avoid being cursed and to get God’s blessing, the reasoning goes, we must support Israel.
That support totals $3 billion each year in direct foreign aid and another $12-17 billion annually in indirect foreign aid like weapons, other military equipment, and loan guarantees.
Former CIA Chief Michael Scheuer came under fire in 2010 for publicly stating that Israel is of no strategic or economic importance to the United States. Could the primary reason America supports Israel be that America’s Christian and Jewish citizens demand it?
More Than A Name
American Christians often make an exegetical mistake when equating the Israeli state of today with the Israeli nation of the Old Testament. These are two different entities with little more than a name in common.
“I will make you into a great nation…through you I will bless the nations.” God spoke this promise over Abraham and gave him faith to believe it. And from then on Jewishness (and later, ancient Israeli citizenship) was defined by both lineage and faith together.
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. -Hebrews 11:8
By this definition, Israel’s prime minister today is half Jewish at best. Like the bulk of Jews living in Israel today, Benjamin Netanyahu describes himself as a “secular jew.” How strange that would have sounded to Abraham. No such thing existed when the first promises were spoken to him.
Paul taught that Jewish heritage was not enough to receive the promise God made to Abraham.
For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring… -Romans 9:6-7
Sharing Abraham’s lineage does not earn anyone Abraham’s relationship with God.
God’s Side
The story goes that a soldier asked Abraham Lincoln if God was on the Union’s side. And Lincoln’s humble response was that he hoped the Union was on God’s side.
I’m not writing today to choose sides in the present war between Israel and her enemies. I’m not against modern day Israel. And I’m certainly not writing in support of Hamas and other forces that want to obliterate her either.
Instead, I’m writing in defense of perspective. Namely, God’s. If you and I can even attain such thing.
Hamas is not on God’s side when it kidnaps and kills Israeli teens, when it hides behind human shields and launches missiles into civilian populations. Israel is not on God’s side when it kills over 1,000 innocent men, women and children who – because of walls Israel erected – have nowhere to run, no way to put distance between themselves and the battle. American Christians are not on God’s side when we approve of Israel’s injustice and violence and naively grant her the special relationship God promised to Abraham and his spiritual descendants alone.
Your brothers and sisters in Christ are trapped behind those walls. Pray for them, that peace will invade the enemies that war all around them. May God correct and bless us all.
Amilia says:
Thank you so much for writing this.
Laura Weaver says:
Enlightening perspective. Thank you.
Maria B says:
Hi Sean – I love that your heart is clearly to find God’s perspective. However, I did just want to shed some light on the wall that is “trapping” the Palestinians. Israel began building the wall in the early 2000’s, when the Palestinians were sending suicide bombers at alarming rates into Israel, killing hundreds of people and wounding thousands. From the time Israel started building the wall until now, these suicide bombing attacks have decreased by 90%. That’s a huge, huge number – and a clear victory for peace and life. I don’t want to sound as if the difficult life of the Palestinians inside Bethlehem and other cities of the West Bank is meaningless or acceptable, but I do feel that their suffering is more a casualty of their own brothers and sisters’ violence more so than Israel’s “aggresion.” (I recommend the Jewish Virtual Library for more info: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/fence.html)
Additionally it’s worth noting that Israel has offered in the past to give the Gaza Strip and the West Bank to Jordan, and JORDAN has refused. We can’t look at this as simply a situation of Israel keeping everyone downtrodden.
Shaun Groves says:
Maria, I really struggled with this post. Took me two days to whittle it down from over 3000 words to about 700. My biggest struggle was deciding how much history to cover.
You’re response to this post is a very articulate educated version of “But they started it.” And you’re right that the walls were built, in part, for the safety of Israel. But if we asked a Palestinian (I have) why there was violence against Israel before the walls they’d offer us their own articulate educated “But they started it.” And back and forth we could go through the events of history – to at least May of 1948, and probably well beyond.
I’m not arguing in this post that one side is right and the other is wrong. I think I’ve clearly stated that both sides…and out side…are wrong. Regardless of who started it.
John Rorstrom says:
It began with Abraham’s act of disobedience resulting from his lack of faith in God’s promise. The result was Ishmael, of whom God said, “He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.” -Genesis 16:12 NIV- Ishmael was banished from Abraham’s home along with his mother Hagar after Isaac was born. The cultural, religious and spiritual influences resulting in the perpetual struggle in Israel are a tangled web. The only solution is Jesus – for the Jew as well as for the Muslim.
vickismall says:
I support Israel’s right to defend herself against other peoples who are committed to wiping her off the face of the earth. I support her, not because of the ancient promises, but because I place a value on national sovereignty. Sound cold? I actually typed a lengthy response, here, that sounded a lot more spiritual–and sincerely so–and had trouble with signing in with Google. So I’m boiling it down to pragmatics and fairness and hope to be more successful.
I remember when we went to war against Iraq after 9/11, and Israel staunchly supported our right to do so. Within weeks, if not days, Israel was under attack and our then-President (G.W. Bush) spoke against Israel. I was appalled. President after American President has joined the pressure on Israel, time after time, to make great concessions–all of the meaningful concessions–“in exchange for peace” which never comes. The land of Gaza was, in fact, one of those concessions, bringing Hamas much closer. And now there’s the news off at least 40 well-built and connected tunnels that, undiscovered, would have resulted in a massive holocaust inside Israel. Huh. Who could’ve seen that coming?
Okay. There’s a high percentage of Christians inside Bethlehem. And yet, on a trip to the Holy Land, my niece said the only time she was nervous or fearful was in Bethlehem.
There are Christians–and used to be a lot more, before they were massively murdered, before they became refugees–inside Iraq; there are Christians in (probably) every nation, in large or small numbers, and of course we are to pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ.
Shawn, your points are valid and, of course, well written. And I do know that many, many evangelicals believe the ancient promises of God are the reason we should support Israel. There are other reasons. There are peoples around the world who want to destroy America, too–and some are doing a right good job of it–and I support our right to defend ourselves. Would it be right for us to do that, and not to support Israel’s right to do the same?
vickismall says:
I don’t like the way I have written some of this. Please chalk it up to fatigue from having spent a lot more time than I intended–or had–writing TWO comments, the first having been lost. I probably should have just quit.
Shaun Groves says:
I don’t know where I stand on a person’s or nation’s right to self-defense. Just being honest. My mind is very much wet cement on all that. I have a lot to learn.
But I think a reasonable person who believes in such a right would also place limits on that right. That’s where Just War theory came from right? Aquinas felt violence was necessary to fend of his countries enemies but he realized violence needed some parameters.
He set two limits on a nation’s violence: Why and How. He set out why a country could go to war (jus ad bellum) and how that country could fight that war (jus in bello). BOTH had to be complied with for a war to be just.
Hamas and Israel are both killing innocent civilians – knowingly. Hamas has launched missiles into civilian centers like Tel Aviv. The day that you left your comments here, Vicki, Israel bombed a school, killing children and other innocents sheltered there. Of the 1370 Palestinians killed in Gaza in the last week of war, 1 of every 5 was a child. Th deliberate targeting of civilians is prohibited by international law and Just War tradition…and scripture.
So far most of the discussion here has been about “why” Israel is bombing Gaza. As if having a just reason to go to war gives a country cart blanche on how they wage that war. People on God’s side must think differently.
Shaun Groves says:
John, the conflict between Islam and Judaism certainly does date back to Ishmael. But the conflict between Palestinians and Israel does not. With the exception of one religious Jew in Israel who tried to convince me once that Palestinians are descendants of the Old Testament Philistines, I don’t know of an expert on the Middle East who traces the conflict back 4000 years. But I could certainly be wrong.
There is conflict between Islam and Judaism. Between Palestinians and Israelis. And those two overlap in the conflict between Palestinian members of Hamas and Israel at-large. But, to be sure, there are Christian Palestinians and secular Palestinians who may have beefs with Israel that have nothing to do with ancient Old Testament grudges.
Gerald Franks says:
THANK YOU!
Melissa Turner Jones says:
So…..the land that God promised to Abraham for his descendents was from the “Great Sea” (the Mediterranean) to the “Great River” (the Euphrates). I’m not sure that Israel truly occupied that entire area even under King David. I’m no escatologist, but I believe there’s a prophecy about the end of the world (or the tribulation or the rapture or something) coming “one generation” after “Israel” is reborn. I know many people started that clock in 1948 when Israel was granted its own sovereign territory post-WWII (because I remember my mom putting up her flannel graph showing the rapture on our dining room table in 1988 just in case they were right and her brothers wondered what happened to all of us), but I’ve always wondered if that clock will actually start when the Middle East finally really gets crazy and Israel goes on a rampage. When they invade Jordan and don’t stop till they hit the Euphrates….well….I’ll believe we’re in the end times.
On another note, having lived in the Middle East, NO ONE likes the Palestinians (pronounced “Philistine” in Arabic). They’re the red-headed step-child that no Arab wants in their _own_ territory….but they feel obligated to defend against the Jews. In America we see “Muslim” or “Arab” and see no differentiation. There is a LOT of differentiation in how they view themselves and each other. But it makes me wonder how different life would be today if Saul/David/Solomon, etc. had obeyed and actually wiped out all of the Philistines instead of making treaties with them when they got tired of fighting.
But that’s an awesome perspective from you , as usual, sir. Things get so muddy when you look people in the eye rather than just hearing sound bytes and talking points.
Kahlil Pfaff says:
Currently living in Beirut and working with families of Palestinians, Syrian, Lebanese, and Iraqi lineage I see the prejudice that Palestinians experience, but I’d like to correct your statement about the history of Palestinians in the Middle East…the philistines of biblical times are not the Palestinians of modern times. It is something easy to get confused but incorrect.
Thomas Bingaman says:
I have a feeling this is going to sound cold hearted and might not be well perceived.
I wonder how we as a people, a nation, would feel if the rest of the world kept on telling us how treat those whose stated goal is to wipe our country off of the face of the earth and the genocide of our people. Now let us consider when we as a people had the word turn their back on us, as a nation made it their primary goal of genocide of our people and was almost successful at it when they killed over 6 million of our people.
We as westerners cannot look at the world and the events around us as Israel looks at the world and the events around them.
Shaun Groves says:
Your comment isn’t cold hearted to me, Thomas. But maybe that’s because I know you in the real world and not just online.
You’re right that it’s easier to make judgments about events from a safe distance. So true. Does that mean I should only think critically about things happening in my city?
You probably don’t think slavery on sugar plantations in the Dominican Republic is just. Or that the execution of a woman who refuses to wear a veil in Syria is just. Or the lack of prosecution for rape in India in just. And you’d say so.
So, why can we judge actions in the Dominican Republic, Syria, and India but not Israel? Especially since I have a vested interest in Israel as a U.S. citizen (in a sense) paying for her bombs…and as a Christian whose God is being misrepresented by violence carried out in His name against noncombatants.
Kahlil Pfaff says:
and that is the problem, Israel has become untouchable and cannot be judged or criticized. That always bothered me as a child and even more-so as an adult living and serving in the region.
Melinda says:
I have lots of thoughts swirling about this. I blogged a bit about it. Helps straighten out the thoughts. Here’s one (or maybe several) I have after reading this post.
We call much of Israel secular and truly many Jews who live there would do the same. But I don’t think we can use that as reasoning to say these people aren’t the Israel who God promised in Isaiah and Ezekiel would be brought back to their land. The country and the language being reborn, the way they have prospered and flourished, even coaxing the dessert land to do the same… All miraculous. Certainly it will be more than it is, but God is moving here. The stage is being set. One thing we Christians should be very aware of is our part in Israel not recognizing their Messiah . If we read Deuteronomy 13, and then we look at our very Roman/Greek Jesus, Jews wouldn’t dare follow Him. We have a brown haired blue eyed bringer of Christmas presents and Easter eggs. We stopped honoring His holy days which are really appointments with our Creator. We hang out with him on the first day of the week instead of the seventh (and since the seventh day was to be a perpetual sign between God and His people, and then reading Deuteronomy 13… I really can’t blame Jews for wanting nothing to do with who we’ve made Jesus into). Are we guilty of just what Jesus rebuked the Pharisee for: replacing the commands of God for the traditions of men?? (Before anyone reflexively says no, study it out, maybe read Psalm 119). Israel needs to return to YHVH. But us Christ followers need to take heed of Jesus’s own words “Not all those who call to me Lord Lord, will enter the Kingdom of Heaven…. I will say to them depart from me you workers of lawlessness. I never knew you”. This is a time of returning. Not just for Israel but for us all. If God is to have One People, the face of Christiany is going to have to go through major changes….. One People . One tree. One Bride.
Kelli says:
I read this last night and have been chewing on it. I get the premise of what you’re saying and agree wholeheartedly. Our first and most pressing priority as Christians should be to pray for Israel, and for her leaders. We should pray that they return to God, and turn to Him the way that so many of the wisest kings in her past have encouraged her to do. And we should pray for Gaza and for the people caught in the middle, in between the terrorists of Hamas, and Israel’s defensive measures. I want to see this war come to an end.
That said, from a strictly geo-political point of view, I don’t see how we could do anything but support Israel. While I don’t like, nor do I want, war to continue to break out, I do support the need to react in self-defense, and Israel needs to protect herself from Hamas. I feel the same way about the situation in Ukraine. I think there are many who are trying to handle that situation as diplomatically as possible, without the necessity of a full blown war. But at what point does Ukraine have the right to rally in defense? There are people I love dearly living in Ukraine – I don’t want to see them go to war. But if Russia continues to provoke and attack, my verbal support will lie with the country left with the need to protect itself.
We teach our children this same lesson, incidentally. Don’t ever start a fight, but if someone comes after you, don’t be afraid to defend yourself.
I just wonder if maybe we aren’t seeing more and more of these things as part of a fulfillment of prophecy. Christ said in Matthew 24: “6 You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end.7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes. 8 But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs.
9 “Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name. 10 At that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another. 11 Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many. 12 Because lawlessness is increased,most people’s love will grow cold. 13 But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved. 14 This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.”
So it seems to me that these events are inevitable. They are going to happen. War is going to break out, and it will grow increasingly more violent, brutal, and common. That’s not to say I support just going out hell-bent to fight anyone who comes our way, but perhaps it is enough perspective to see it as a sign of things to come.
In the end, though, I will do my part to pray, because that’s the only role I have to play. And when push comes to shove, I will stand on the side of God’s chosen people, not all of whom likely live inside the walls of modern day Israel.
Anyway, I don’t know if I’m staying on topic, or if I’m running down an unnecessary rabbit trail. My point is, I think I agree with you, mostly. And I admire you for tackling the topic…and for keeping the post to 700 words. My hat goes off to you. 😉
Kelli says:
By the way – do you ever read Joel Rosenberg’s blog, or keep up with his website and point of view on the Middle East?
Shaun Groves says:
I was taught by my military father not to fight bullies. If a kid hit me? I was supposed to run away, tell an adult and let them take care of it. I’m not the first pacifist to admit that I struggle with how “turn the other cheek” and “love your enemy” applies beyond the playground…to nations and not individuals…especially when a nation is attacked.
Thomas D. Dalke says:
A lot of Interesting and intelligent comments covering a broad
perspective, and in part or principal I see their points and can endorse just about
all.
Now do I think Israel has the right to defend itself,
absolutely. But in saying that, I do not believe that they have the right to
inflict wholesale carnage on a civilian population; even if said population is
tacitly or otherwise supporting aggressive and unprovoked attacks against them.
In a very sad way Israel has crossed a barrier of civility and restraint that
once distinguished them from the terrorists. Has Israel forgotten the
oppression and unmitigated violence that has throughout their history so often
haunted them? Or is that the fuel by which they now fan the flames of
“self-defense” at all costs?
Where both sides will go from here I do not know. There is
so much spiritual, historical, cultural, geo-political “stuff” that
underlies each sides entrenched position, and with both sides justifying their
own unjustifiable acts, it seems highly unlikely that lasting peace will be
found by them on their own.
Israel wants security, Palestinians want liberation from
oppression, and what they see as tyranny. The civilized world wants them both
to step back from their hostilities. I love the Jews in Israel, and I love the
Christians and Muslims in Palestine, but I do not love, nor will I endorse what
they are both currently doing to each other, and justifying against each other.
I have also enclosed something I once wrote to address a
blockade issue and was going to submit in the comment box of a Canadian
newspaper article I read online sometime ago. For whatever reasons I never did and
have now decided to include it here, hopefully it doesn’t seem too out of place and
context given that it was written to address that issue, and its effects on a
people’s moral, and not an ongoing “war”.
“When people cannot get building supplies to build or
rebuild their homes, when industrial capacity is all but eliminated, when
employment and the opportunities to build a future do not exist, how in world
can anyone say Israel is acting justly? I thought the modern Jewish state was
to be built on a principal of human rights? Yet Israel has literally ghettoized
Gaza and its citizens under the guise of “security”. And in so doing
they are not distinguishing between Hamas and its supporters who participate in
terror activities, but have literally grouped all of Gaza’s citizens into the
same camp. Are all supporters of terror? Are the children, the elderly, the
sick and the impoverished all threats to Israel’s national security? Why are
they being punished and restricted access to such essential things like food
stables and medicines? Is this how Israel fights terror by waging war against all
the citizens were terrorists dwell? Starving them of any real opportunities to
better their and their children’s lives?
For Israel to employ such oppressive measures and for the
Canadian government not to even question these things stifles the mind. Are we
a nation of peacemakers? Are we a people who believe in fundamental human
rights? Yet Israel by their blockades go well beyond targeting weapons (a good
thing) but have given themselves such a broad mandate that they themselves can
in practice restrict anything. Protecting their citizens is one thing, a good
thing, but oppressing another people under the guise of doing so seems not the
way to peace, but tyranny.”
Holly says:
Israel has no strategic importance to the United States? Do you agree with him? Israel has strategic importance to the US in that it is the only democracy in the entire region. It also stands alone while surrounded by people groups who target it and the US for harm and destruction, and strategically, we are interested in stability in volatile geopolitical locations. Israel has superior intelligence services which we are able to learn from in order to protect our own nation. It seems a bit partisan to turn, then, and say that perhaps the reason we support Israel is because American Christians and Jews demand it. Who else in the world or the UN is supporting Israel? God bless you, Shaun – you are an amazing brother in Christ – but this is not an unbiased post!
Kahlil Pfaff says:
People constantly seem to overlook that Israel isn’t the only democracy in the area, the neighbor to the north, Lebanon, is also a democracy – time and time again in articles and posts like this people seem to not know this.