|
About Jesus - Steve
Sweetman
Home Page
Indefensible
Borders
As I type these words in
March, 2015, the president of the United States, Barack Obama, has emphatically reiterated his position.
"Israel
must return to its pre 1967 borders."
With matching conviction, the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin
Netanyahu, confirmed his position to the United States Congress. "Israel
will not return to its pre 1967 indefensible borders."
I doubt if any of us
living within secure borders, including President Obama, can comprehend
how it feels to live in a small nation surrounded by those who have
historically aspired to annihilate you.
I'm sure every president has taken this issue seriously, but it
has to be easier to formulate foreign policy from the secure comfort of
the White House than from the Prime Minister's office located close
enough to rocket launchers that can kill him in a matter of minutes.
Israeli border issues are
rooted in God's
promises to Abraham, which includes an inheritance of a
specific portion of land for Abraham's descendents.
Genesis 15 records the ceremony that confirmed these promises in
traditional blood covenant fashion.
It should be noted, however, that only one of these promises, the
promise of land, was stated in the ceremony.
"To your descendents I give this land, from the Wadi (river)
of
Egypt
to the great river - the
Euphrates
(verse 18 NIV). This
promised land encompasses present day Lebanon,
Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and part of Egypt. Despite how some view 1
Kings 4:24 and 2 Chronicles 9:26, this promise has yet to be realized.
King Solomon's rule over the tribal peoples from the
Mediterranean Sea to the Euphrates
River
doesn't fulfill the eternal nature of this land promise as seen in
Genesis 13:15.
Israel
has had border problems since its civil war in 922 B C.
Its present struggle stems from the 1920's when
England
was authorized by the League of Nations to establish a Jewish state in Palestine. For the record, the
designation of this part of the world as Palestine
goes back to the Roman Emperor Hadrian (76-138 A D).
He renamed the Jewish province
of
Judea,
Palestine
(from the word Philistine) the perennial enemy of the Jews.
Naming the Jewish province Palestine
(Philistine) and the Jews Palestinians (Philistines) was an intentional
act of anti-Semitism. It
would be like President Obama renaming Washington D C, Moscow. Thus, throughout the
centuries Jews living in
Palestine
have always been considered Palestinians.
PLO chairman, Yasser Arafat, popularized the notion that only
Arabs living in
Palestine
were Palestinians. The west
picked up on Arafat's assertion and sided with a terrorist instead of
history by disregarding Jews as being Palestinians.
In 1939 the Peel
Commission in England issued
the McDonald White Paper. It limited immigration to
Palestine and redefined the borders of the soon to be Jewish state that
was stipulated in the Balfour Declaration and by the League of Nations
in 1924. In 1947 the United
Nations adopted these redefined borders, something the surrounding Arab
nations totally rejected. From
day one Israel's borders have been in doubt and in constant flux due to wars and peace
deals. Most of us living
within secure borders would find this to be unacceptable.
President Obama now leads
much of the western world in promoting a two state solution with a
return to pre 1967 borders in the hope of lasting peace.
Exchanging land for peace hasn't worked, and it's unlikely to
work now. If you look at a
map, reverting to pre 1967 borders would make movement within Israel
difficult, leave Israel vulnerable to attack, and, make part of northern
Israel only 9 miles wide, which in 1980, I could have run across in less
than 45 minutes.
Imagine if Barack Obama
was president of the United States
in 1860. With the tension
between north and south, and civil war looming, his two state solution
would have divided
America
into two distinct nations. There'd
be no United States of America
as we know it today. So, in
light of Genesis 15:18, allow me to suggest that President Obama isn't
only on the wrong side of this issue; he's on the wrong side of God.
Not everyone holds to
this view of
Israel's eternal place in prophetic history.
In his book entitled "Our Endangered Values", we learn
that former U. S. President Jimmy Carter believes Israel
has no future prophetic significance.
This was evident in the Camp David Accords he successfully
negotiated between
Israel
and Egypt
in 1978. I certainly don't
know him personally, but I do like Carter as a person.
Unlike some presidents who have claimed to be Christians, I
believe he is a real Christian. I
just can't support his political and theological views.
I not only disagree with his eschatology, I believe he
misunderstands and thus misrepresents the Futurist view of prophetic
history.
Genesis 13:15 states that
God's promise of land to
Israel
is eternal. If
"eternal" means "eternal", this promise will be
realized. Isaiah 11:11
predicts that the Lord will reach out His hand to reclaim the surviving
remnant of Israel
a second time. The first
reclamation of the Jews was during Jesus' 3
year earthly ministry.
The second reclamation
will take place when Jesus returns to Jerusalem. Amos 9:15 states that once
Israelis are back in their land, as they are now, they will never leave
or lose their land again.
Israel
is here to stay. The day
will come when there will be no talk of land for peace, no talk of a two
state solution, and no talk of pre 1967 borders.
Israel's borders will be secure and defensible.
They will stretch from the
River
of
Egypt
to the Euphrates
River
as promised by God in the Abrahamic Covenant and as confirmed throughout
the Old Testament prophets.
Home Page
|