I have wanted to read a book about the history of the modern Israeli state for some time, and probably a year ago I received My Promised Land by Ari Shavit as part of an early review program (I was a little late with my review due to a master’s degree and marriage 🙂 ). I’ve reviewed it here, but here I want to talk about how it made me perceive Israel, its claim to the land and hope for the future. I’d just add to my review comments that this book was episodic, it didn’t touch everything and it was written to be very intimate with its actors – so I certainly don’t fully understand, but it was really helpful.
At the start, it intrigued me that Jewish Zionism (as opposed to American Christian Zionism) started because as ethnic Jews gave up Judaism in favor of enlightenment secularism, they were losing their identity (a trend that apparently continues). Jewishness was collapsing because they were abandoning God, sort of (more on how they did that 2000 years ago later). While this idea was gaining steam among Jewish populations, many began to realize that the oppression they faced in the diaspora could one day end in their annihilation. Groups came, settled, formed socialist communities, worked hard and prospered. Over time some of their neighbors became afraid and upset by this and attacked them. Having seen this coming and prepared, the Jews fought back and won. Massive over-simplification, but if you want more you’ll have to read it (it’s fascinating).
I get it. The Jews have suffered a lot, discrimination and racism are ugly and any people would want their own safe place to rest and feel secure. But it became increasingly clear that in order to have that, Israel had to become increasingly unjust, both to the native Arab population and even to their ‘own’ immigrant population. The secular, mostly socialist state was god and would prove to be as weak as all false gods.
This is the core of the issue that became crystal clear to me as I read. The heart of the Israeli enterprise was secular socialism. Other gods have come, like ultra-Orthodox Judaism, peace or settlement movements, and sexual liberation of the most vile kind (read chapter 12 with caution and discretion). Now all of these are fighting one another, but none of them hold anything but the vapid promises of sin or ineffective fleshly righteousness. There is no strength, all the foundations are rotten to the core.
Two thousand years ago the Jews rejected their own God, the one-true God-man Jesus Christ. Without Christ the scars of the land – both the bitterness of the Arabs and the Jews for things they’ve done to each other since 1948 and the hurts of the marginalized Jews who immigrated from the wrong place or at the wrong time – will never heal. Without Christ neither ‘liberation’ or a retreat to ultra-Orthodoxy in a form of religion God closed the door on in 70AD will give them a sure and stable foundation to hold their society and nation together. Without Christ, they inherit no promise and can lay claim to no land (Rom 2:28-29, 9:6-9; Gal 3:7, 29).
So, what’s our response to be as Christians? I know there are Christians in Israel, both of Arab and Jewish descent, but they received no mention in this book. The author is liberal, but not blind, so we should pray that many Jews would turn to Christ, until they can be ignored and oppressed by the Israeli government no more. We should pray that God would turn the hearts of the surrounding Muslim, Arab nations to him so that they offer Israel forgiveness and peace despite how they’ve been wronged. So that Israel would be provoked to jealousy (Rom 11:11-15). Let us pray that the nations would be discipled and since so many Jews are concentrated in one place they might collectively repent of their hardness of heart and embrace their own Messiah (Rom 11:25).