Middle East Politics

I took four guys out to the "Man Cave" cabin last Sunday afternoon, since Monday was a public holiday and we could take our time leaving after breakfast.  Of course, we took our arsenal with us and stayed out almost till dark shooting at bad guy targets and clay pigeons stuck in the snow.  On the way back to the cabin from our designated firing range I was talking with one of the men about why we enjoy shooting guns so much, and we both decided that it's the feeling of Freedom (advertisement paid for by the NRA).

After eating way too many tacos, we went out to the bonfire and talked for a couple of hours - then retired to a night of jungle noises.  After breakfast the next morning we somehow got into a conversation about Middle East politics - which in my experience almost never ends well.  I talked about having spent a great deal of time in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and how my perspective on the whole Israeli-Palestinian conflict changed as I got to know many Palestinian Christians and heard their side of the story.  They would ask me why the church in America only cares about Israel, and why we turn out back on the thousands of born-again believers in the West Bank and Gaza strip who suffer so greatly under the sanctions imposed by Israel and the West?  My feeble attempts to explain why American churches support Israel as God's "chosen people" somehow came across sounding hollow even to me, knowing first-hand how both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian struggle are guilty of committing atrocities against one another.  There is truly no "good guy" in this never-ending conflict of religion, land and power.  "Don't they care that we're their brothers and sisters in Christ?" was the question I was most often asked, and for which I truly had no answer. 

     At this point one of the guys spoke up, and with great emotion explained to me in no uncertain terms how we are commanded by God to support Israel, how they are the innocent victims in this war against terror, and how the Arabs are under God's curse - which explains why they stay poor, uneducated and ignorant.  Wow, did we get into it then!   I won't bore you with the sordid details of our heated discussion, but what was very clear to everyone in the room was that neither of us was going to budge from our position.  What I find so ironic (not necessarily for my friend) is that often our "position" is based on whatever our favorite televangelist teaches, irregardless of the fact that we have never actually visited the Middle East, that we do not personally know any Arabs (Muslim or Christian), and that we don't even study the Scriptures for ourselves to determine what God's heart is in all of this. 

We kissed and made up by the end of the conversation, but there was one point from our debate that summed it all up for me.  As believers in Jesus Christ, we don't have the luxury of being pro-Isreali or anti-Arab.  We all have our own political bents, but I don't see Jesus rejecting any people group for any reason.  He loved the Jews, the Romans, the Samaritans, the poor, the blind and the wretched.  Yes,  He often unashamedly chastised the religious "elect" for their arrogance and their partiality - all the while ready to respond to any of them who demonstrated an open heart (Zaccheus and Nicodemus being two great examples).  What I was reacting to in the conversation at the cabin is our propensity as comfortable, wealthy, sometimes myopic, American Christians to cast our lot with Israel because of our particular view of end-times prophecy... all the while ignoring the context of thousands of Palestinians who daily suffer incredible hardships from Israeli sanctions.  Don't get me wrong:  I am adamantly against the use of terrorism as a tool for any people group to gain a voice.  But I've sat in the homes of dear brothers and sisters in Christ in Bethlehem as they explained to me how they are forced to live separately from their wife and children because one happened to be born in Israel (and thus is privileged to have Israeli citizenship) and the other in the West Bank.  Life for them is a constant gamble as the husband drives through Israeli checkpoints each day - knowing that the discovery of his "illicit" marriage could mean him being banned from ever seeing his wife and family again except when they can meet outside the country.  I could not remain emotionally unmoved  in the face of real-life stories that could be reproduced a thousand times over by other Christian Palestinians.

During the years I spent in North Africa and the Middle East I was fortunate enough to get to know Joel Rosenberg - best selling author of many books including "The Last Jihad", "The Copper Scroll" and "The Tehran Initiative".  Joel is a born-again Jew who not only believes in all the prophecies related to end times and the nation of Israel, but who also has a deep, genuine love for the Arab people.  As a Jew, Joel has often taken part in evangelistic outreaches to share the Gospel with Muslim North Africans, and he spends a great deal of time visiting and encouraging Arab believers in the Holy Land.  I love Joel because he demonstrates the heart of Christ towards all men -  while holding firmly to his own beliefs about God's plan for the Jewish people and the nation of Israel.  This is a mark of true spiritual maturity. 

Life is interesting, to say the least.