Peace in Israel ?

Today, we see the war between Israel and the Hamas. Why are they fighting? They fought to reclaim their land. The land of Palestine had been the main contention. Before that, the Turks controlled the land during the Ottoman Empire (note: the Turks were not Arabs, but Europeans). When the Ottoman Empire ceased, the British and French ruled over the vast land. Eventually, they carved out the land with the mandate given to the British to rule over Palestina. The Arabs together with the Jews were the Palestinians. However, rivalry developed between them. The Arabs managed to chase off the Jews from the two sections, namely, Gaza and the West Bank. When the British finally gave up the mandate to govern the land, the United Nations split the land into two – the land of Israel to the Jews while Gaza and West Bank to the Arabs. Israel was declared as a sovereign state by the United Nations on 14 May 1948. Israel accepted the partition while the Arabs did not. Instead, the Arabs wanted to chase out all the Jews and wanted the whole land to themselves. Time and time again, they waged wars against Israel but they were unsuccessful. The Egyptians (under the United Arab Republic) were the ones who occupied and governed Gaza since the Israeli independence. They had been using that to stage war with Israel. By the third Arab-Israeli war (1967), Egypt had lost severely. They gave up attacking Israel. Gaza was eventually occupied by Israel to ensure that no attacks could come from Gaza. However, in 2005, the Israeli withdrew from its occupation of Gaza due to the Palestinian uprising. In 2007, there was an internal struggle of power over Gaza, between the Hamas and the Fatah (both are militant Palestinian groups). Eventually, the Hamas took control over Gaza. The Hamas could have a new beginning as the government with humanitarian aids poured into Gaza. Instead, of building up the economy and lives of the population, they built more war machines and rockets. While the Israeli built bunkers for their citizen to hide during war, the Hamas built tunnels for their militants (not citizens) to hide. These tunnels were purposely built under schools, hospitals, and children’s playgrounds. They were not concerned for the well-being of its population. They even argued that the civilians were refugees and hence under the jurisdiction of the UN and not for them to be concerned about. In July 2023, the Palestinians demonstrated against the iron fist rules of the Hamas; but they were quickly suppressed. A different picture is seen in Israel. Not everyone who is an Israeli is a Jew. In fact, there are many Arabs who prefer to be Israeli rather than to be a Gazan. In Israel, there is safety even though they are Arabs. Even for the Gazans, they would prefer to cross over to Israel for work, to earn a living. Hamas was losing the plot. Hence, they staged yet another attack on Israel. And this time, Israel was determined to utterly destroy them. Today, there is great cry of injustice due to the high casualties on the Gaza side rather than the side of Israel. However, is that a means to measure justice? Consider if every rocket which Hamas shot into Israel would kill 10 people, by now the casualties on Israel would have reached 70,000. However, the casualties were low because Iron Dome defence system of Israel managed to thwart 90% of these rockets. Beyond that, their warning system enabled the civilians to hide in the bunkers should the rocket managed to reach its targets. These Hamas rockets are intended to hit civilians in populous cities, and not military installations. On the other hand, when Israel fired rockets, they are intended to take out the Hamas rocket launch pads. If the rockets are intended to take down military installations, Israel would call up the Palestinians to warn them to flee first before the rockets will come down. The purpose is to minimize civilian casualties as the civilians were never the targets. Hence, you can see the difference approaches taken by these two sides. On one hand, you have one which wants war, does not care about its own people, and refuses to accept a two-state solution of peace. On the other, you have one which wants peace, care for the lives of its own people as well as others, and desire to bring an end to the conflict. It has been more than a month since this war began. When will it end? Will Hamas achieve its objectives of creating havoc and drawing other Arab nations to its cause to destroy Israel? Will Israel achieve its objectives of bringing peace to its people by destroying the Hamas? If Hamas is destroyed, will other terror groups come into being and take its place? Biblically, we know that Israel will never be able to achieve the peace it so desired because they have rejected the Prince of peace (Isa. 53:3-7). They had crucified Him on the cross. Hence, political Israel will continue with this struggle – with the absence of peace. The closest they will reach peace would be when a treaty was arranged by the Antichrist, with the peace accord lasting 7 years (Dan. 9:26-27). Even this peace is false peace because it will be broken after 3.5 years. Then, a great tribulation which has never been seen before shall descend upon Israel (Matt. 24:15-22). Israel would have been wiped out if God does not do anything. The Lord will return to deliver His people and destroy the wicked (Matt. 24:29-30). Only then, there will finally be peace in Israel; for peace can only be found with Christ: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27). Pray that Israel will indeed find peace in the Lord Jesus Christ. HCL.