Israel needs to think about innocent people and The Geneva Convention. Sending armed police into a place of worship with weapons is provocative, that was the spark that led to all this death and destruction on *both* sides. It’s sad when the authorities which preside over our societies seem to incite the violence and terror they are supposed to protect us from.
[Rulers,] does your silence really speak justice?
Psalm 58 1&2 (CJB)
Are you judging people fairly?
[No!] In your hearts you devise wrongs,
your hands dispense violence in the land.
Why the international community doesn’t bring Israel and Hamas to justice for war crimes is beyond my understanding. The state of Israel as we know it today was formed in violence and perpetuates its existence through violence. This doesn’t excuse the actions of Hamas either, who bomb Israel knowing that they have no way to protect the poor people within their own borders from Israel’s inevitable retaliation.
There are many in Israel and outside of it who believe in re-establishing Israel under some kind of Old Covenant regime of driving out the nations that existed there before them. If you believe in a twisted non-inclusive version of the Old Covenant alone, when even the Old Testament is inclusive (Isaiah 56:3), and not the grace afforded by the New Covenant, then the establishment of Israel as a “state”, 73 years ago, not by Yah, but by England and France (Sykes–Picot) as they divided up that particular part of the world, among many others, is your proof that Israel “exists”.
However, let’s look at some scriptures to examine what we can find about how Yah’s house is built, and the scriptural attitude to conflict to the time since Messiah began to establish His kingdom:
Then he answered me, “This is the word of Adonai to Z’rubavel: ‘Not by force, and not by power, but by my Spirit,’ says Adonai-Tzva’ot.
Zechariah 4:6 (CJB)
This is the word that Yesha‘yahu the son of Amotz saw concerning Y’hudah and Yerushalayim:
In the acharit-hayamim the mountain of Adonai’s house will be established as the most important mountain. It will be regarded more highly than the other hills, and all the Goyim will stream there.
Many peoples will go and say, “Come, let’s go up to the mountain of Adonai, to the house of the God of Ya‘akov! He will teach us about his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” For out of Tziyon will go forth Torah, the word of Adonai from Yerushalayim.
He will judge between the nations and arbitrate for many peoples. Then they will hammer their swords into plow-blades and their spears into pruning-knives; nations will not raise swords at each other, and they will no longer learn war.
Isaiah 2:1–4 (CJB)
At that, one of the men with Yeshua reached for his sword, drew it out and struck at the servant of the cohen hagadol, cutting off his ear. Yeshua said to him, “Put your sword back where it belongs, for everyone who uses the sword will die by the sword. Don’t you know that I can ask my Father, and he will instantly provide more than a dozen armies of angels to help me? But if I did that, how could the passages in the Tanakh be fulfilled that say it has to happen this way?”
Matthew 26:51–54 (CJB)
Yeshua answered, “My kingship does not derive its authority from this world’s order of things. If it did, my men would have fought to keep me from being arrested by the Judeans. But my kingship does not come from here.”
John 18:36 (CJB)
For we are not struggling against human beings, but against the rulers, authorities and cosmic powers governing this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realm.
Ephesians 6:12 (CJB)
For although we do live in the world, we do not wage war in a worldly way; because the weapons we use to wage war are not worldly. On the contrary, they have God’s power for demolishing strongholds. We demolish arguments and every arrogance that raises itself up against the knowledge of God; we take every thought captive and make it obey the Messiah.
2 Corinthians 10:3–5 (CJB)
Every scripture above teaches us to trust in The Spirit of Yah, not on our man made weapons. Many believers looking on at the conflict in Israel and Palestine are more amazed at the weaponry and iron dome defense system which is evident, rather than the working of the Yah’s power to bring peace, which sadly is not. Isn’t the name of Yah and his ways blasphemed among the nations when the nation that should be the light of the world practices such provocation, injustice and murder?
Put quite simply the “light” of apartheid enforced by violence isn’t the light of God’s law that will be a light to the nations and cause people to flood to Jerusalem and our Saviour, The Messiah. The kingdom of heaven isn’t about Jewish superiority, not about war over the right to the land of Israel, but about those who follow Yah from every nation under on earth (Revelation 7:9), the circumcised of the heart, not of the flesh, those who walk in the way of peace taught by Yehsua the Messiah, not those trying to build a kingdom by force. Notice that Messiah said:
Moreover, I tell you that many will come from the east and from the west to take their places at the feast in the Kingdom of Heaven with Avraham, Yitz’chak and Ya‘akov. But those born for the Kingdom will be thrown outside in the dark, where people will wail and grind their teeth!
Matthew 8:11–12 (CJB)
I believe this points to the fact that a kingdom will be established in Israel prior to the return of The Messiah, the subjects of which will be cast out by The Messiah because their actions and imaginations run contrary to his teaching. Whatever they establish by tyranny will be overthrown with true justice.
Article: Al Jazeera
Picture courtesy www.zoriah.net