By Ezekiel Kimosop
The Arab Israeli war currently epitomized by the war in Gaza is perhaps one of the leading global conflicts today. This war can be traced to the Hamas invasion of southern Israel on 7 October 2023 during which more than 1,400 Israelis were heinously butchered by Hamas terrorists while hundreds others were taken captive. Hundreds of southern Israel people have been displaced from their Kibbutzim or local community dwellings. It is estimated that more than 23,000 Palestinians have so far been killed and thousands more injured. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced. Sections of Gaza City have been reduced to rubble thanks to the exchange of rockets and missiles by Hamas and Israeli military.
At the time of writing this article, the Hamas Israeli war had raged on for 100 days and there's no sign that the war is about to end soon. Worse even, sections of Arab militia groups backed by Iran such as Hezbollah of southern Lebanon and the Yemeni Houthis have been sucked into the war.
America and other western powers are backing Israel and have stationed war ships on the Mediterranean sea to defend Israel. The Palestinians are supported by leading Arab nations led by Iran. Neighboring Arab nations such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Djibouti have kept a low profile because of their close relationship with America and other western powers on the one hand and their vulnerability to Israeli precision air strikes.
The war in Gaza has meanwhile spilled into the international waters along the Red Sea with the Yemeni Houthis indiscriminately firing missiles at commercial liner ships plying sections of the Red Sea.
America and Great Britain last night led a joint strategic air bombing attack targeting sections of Yemen from where the Shia leaning Houthis are believed to fire rockets into the Red Sea. The regional and global ramifications of this move are yet to be felt. Political and security experts fear that the war might escalate into a regional military conflict and cause global trade disruptions and sharp rise in crude oil prices, hence impacting on global maritime trade and regional security. Pundits fear that this conflict may precipitate into a third world war if it is not contained.
At the global political scene, South Africa, a sworn ally of Hamas and the PLO, has filed a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice at the Hague, alleging that Israel has committed ethnic genocide against the Palestinians. The case is currently being heard. Political observers believe that the case has little political consequences and is likely to be vetoed by Western powers.
Is Israel justified in their massive bombardment of Gaza? Is she guilty of genocide against the Palestinians as alleged by its critics?
The answers to these two critical questions depend on which side of the global political divide that the respondents stand. Hamas is classified in Western quarters as a radical terrorist group that is committed to the destruction of Israel! It rejects any claims to Israel's legitimacy in Palestine, arguing that the reconstitution of the State of Israel in 1948 was part of a Western conspiracy to defraud the Arabs of their land.
Israel on its part claims historical right to its territory including sections currently occupied by Arabs such as the Temple Mount, East Jerusalem and the West Bank. It has refused to cede the Golan Heights to Syria since its capture in 1967.
Israel argues that it is fighting a difficult and unconventional war since Hamas uses civilians as human shields and fires rockets from hospitals, civilian locations and secret tunnels. Israel blames Hamas for the large numbers in Palestinian casualties. It also claims that Hamas has laid booby traps and often misfires rockets resulting in civilian deaths and injuries. Israel is determined to destroy Hamas and considerably weaken its military capacity. Besides, Israel has a strict military policy against terrorist groups. It aggressively avenges any Israeli lives killed by terrorists.
CONCLUSION
So who is fooling who in this conflict? My view is that it is difficult to tell the chaff from the wheat in a delicate war situation of this sort. Each side has their story and sets of arguments and its support base.
Theologically speaking, Israel is sovereignly entitled to retaliate and to defend itself against the scale of the unprovoked heinous attacks of the kind witnessed on October 7. The Bible affirms Israel's historical claim to the promised land which, at the height of Israel's glory, stretched as far as the Euphrates in Persia [present day Iraq] and the Sinai peninsula to the west and the Red Sea to the south. Israel controlled the region currently claimed by the Palestinians until they went into Assyrian and Babylonian captivity in 722BC and 586BC, respectively.
Genesis 15:18-21 says, "On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying: “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates— 19 the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites” (NKJV).
The Centre for Middle East Studies at Harvard University estimates that Israel occupies a mere 8,355 square miles of this vast territory, and another 444 square miles on the Golan heights, thanks to historical Arab occupation stretching more than two millenniums. It is therefore difficult to historically corroborate the Arab claims to the land that they currently occupy. Besides, Palestinians were settled in the present Gaza City location under a UN convention resolution following the declaration of independence by Israel in 1948. The Arabs called this event the Nakhba, an Arab word that translates as calamity or horror.
Four major Arab-Israeli wars were fought in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973 and Israel defeated the combined Arab forces under each battle. America and Western powers have historically backed Israel in each war.
Israel's support by global Christianity is sharply divided. The common view held by Dispensationalism theology groups, especially Evangelical Christian traditions in America, is that Israel has a special place in God's eschatological calendar and that Israel's future is tied to Christ's messianic coming. The non Dispensationalism groups reject this view, insisting that ethnic Israel has no relationship with the church. They argue that God's redemption in Christ Jesus is not informed by racial distinctions. They insist that the church is the Israel of God, a term rejected by Dispensationalists.
Some scholars have argued that the present Hamas-Israeli war is part of the eschatological sets of conflicts that will precipitate the war of Armageddon contemplated in Scripture and would pit the State of Israel against a constellation of Arab nations. This, in their view, will usher in the final global apocalypse ahead of Christ's coming. They consider the escalation of the Middle East conflict as a sign of the end-times.
Notwithstanding which side of the theological divide that one subscribes to, these global conflicts should remind God's people about their pilgrim status on earth. They should cause us to evaluate our relationship with God. We should watch and pray and proclaim Christ to the lost world around us as we look forward to Christ's soon return (1 Thessalonians 4:13-17).
Shalom
© Ezekiel Kimosop 2024
