What Is To Be Done?By Rev. Wes Taber
Executive Director, AMF International
July 13, 2006
The news from Israel today shows a marked escalation in the level of hostilities on Israel's northern border, with more than 100 Katyushas raining down from Lebanon.
According to the
Jerusalem Post all of Israel's residents in the north have been ordered into shelters following the multiple rocket attacks in the Galilee. The Post lists casualties as one dead (in Nahariya, a port city not 20 miles north of Haifa), 122 wounded, with Katyushas landing in various towns such as Hatzor, Safed (famous as the seat of Hebrew mysticism and Kabbalists such as Yitzhak Lurie and home of Shulchan Aruch author Yosef Karo), and Karmiel.
The growing threat from Lebanon brings with it not only the prospect of Israel fighting on two fronts, but many news stories are making references to the wider region, most specifically Syria and Iran. These nations are the principal backers of Hizbollah ("The Army of God") which remains the actively antagonistic northern neighbor of the Jewish State.
Time was when the Israel-Lebanese border was fondly termed "The Good Fence." Those days are decades gone.
You may recollect the efforts of Israel back in 1982 to eradicate the threat posed by Katyusha rockets from southern Lebanon when then Prime Minister Menachem Begin ordered Israeli Defense Forces across the northern border. (Remember when the PLO was the "bad boy on the block?" No nostalgic feelings rise from recalling the days when Yasser Arafat careered around the Middle East fomenting terror.)
I well remember June 6, 1982. I was in the Galilee on a field trip with my Biblical Archaeology class from Hebrew University. We were heading from Har Megiddo (Armageddon) to the ruins of Tel Hatzor when the roads around us began filling with military personnel and armed vehicles racing northward. Israeli jets and helicopters roared overhead toward targets in the Bekaa Valley. This pulse-racing event was the closest I had ever been to armed conflict - before or since. An electric wave shot through the bus - and through the country - as the radio reported that "Shalom L'Galil" (Operation Peace for Galilee) was underway. For the next hours every ear remained tuned to media reports of Israel's swift thrust and relatively easy conquest over Arafat's (thankfully) relatively untrained and under-funded guerilla gang.
It will not likely be so easy this time. Israel is facing an entrenched foe in radical Islam. Hizbollah is essentially running their own government in southern Lebanon (even while participating as a coalition partner in the official Lebanese government). Though mandated by the U.N. to move troops into the south and disarm Hizbollah, the Lebanese government manifestly has not done so.
In the Gaza, Hamas has ascended to power in the Palestinian Authority, winning the hearts of a majority of a hapless and manifestly hopeless people - in large measure because of the corruption of the predecessor Fatah government, the remnants of Arafat's poisoned legacy. Arms of all descriptions have been pouring in from the essentially unguarded Egyptian border in the Sinai. The wealthy, zealous backers of these armed militias - not just Syrian and Iranian, I suspect - are happy to conduct war by proxy, supplying their surrogates with arms and fueling a burning hatred for Israel that will not be satisfied with less than the annihilation of the Jewish homeland.
And what of Israel? She is already being condemned in many places. Today only the US voted to veto the UN resolution calling on Israel to withdraw from the Gaza. The reality is that she pulled her forces out of Gaza last year, and out of Lebanon six years ago. In return, what has she gained? The rocket barrages on Israel's civilian population have continued, unabated, north and south, with little comment from the world.
Tonight the Lebanese infrastructure is being pounded by Israeli artillery and air strikes, as Beirut's airport, electrical grid, governmental offices, etc., are targeted. Tomorrow's news will be filled with anguished reports of devastation and, all too likely and tragically, the loss of life.
Does this seem like an irrational overreaction on a frustrated Israel's part? What does a nation do when negotiated settlements in which one has upheld one's part of the agreement result only in continuing hostilities on the part of one's negotiating partner?
It's impossible for those of us who have never had to endure persistent missile launches and sporadic suicide bombings to imagine the toll taken on the psyche of individuals or society. When each morning's sun is met with uncertainty of another terror attack, when each week's news brings reports of more rockets? We have become inured to images on our television screens to recurring horrors, whether explosions on trains in Europe or India, or smoldering rubble in Baghdad or Sderot or Gaza. (Yesterday's news included a figure of 700 Kassam rockets launched against southern Israel from Gaza since the Israeli troop withdrawal last year. Seven hundred! Two-a-day explosions, who knows where next?)
As individuals committed to Jewish ministry, we are expected to be experts on everything from eschatology to global politics. Most anticipate we will be uncritical - if not totally biased - supporters of Israel. It is both facile and foolish to "choose sides" in the Middle East conflict, demonizing one and overlooking the offenses of the other. Israel, like the US, is held to a higher moral standard than others, so any misconduct is adjudged more egregious. Perhaps that is as it should be. Who wants the bar to be lowered? Fair treatment may be a heartfelt desire; in the current environment, it should not be expected.
In the noise of the news cycles, it is challenging to know how to weigh the importance of any headline. Just what does "significant escalation" imply (in contrast, say, to "further destabilization")? Though I have marked sympathies for Ehud Olmert's plight, I have no special insight into his strategic plans, much less how what we're seeing fits into the timeline of biblical prophecy. And so far, fortunately, no one in authority is calling to ask my counsel!
But what is to be done? We can spend our time determining fault, discussing military or political scenarios, or wringing our hands in despair over the violent loss of life and destruction of property, none of which avails an iota.
I do believe that this is a "kairos moment" for us act. Our first action is to turn our hearts heavenward. In my personal devotions I've been reading the Exodus account; in this morning's readings Pharaoh and his pursuing armies were drowned. In staff devotions we are reading through Jeremiah. Tomorrow's reading is chapter 39, the destruction of Jerusalem.
The contrast is clear, the message is powerful. God acts to protect and redeem Israel on the one hand, and raises up a powerful foe to defeat her on the other. As lovers of Zion, we are called upon to speak the truth in love. Jeremiah endured grave persecution to bring an undesired message to his people. In Jeremiah 38 we read of his being thrown in the miry dungeon with food - and left there to rot, until rescue came.
Israel's vaunted military prowess has proven no more effective against the current reign of terror than did the might of the United States prevent four jet liners from being turned into massive suicide bombs. God warned ancient Israel against trusting in horses and chariots; He is no more impressed with F-16 fighters and Merkava tanks.
At heart, we understand this is a spiritual battle. It must be fought with spiritual weapons. When did we last fast and pray for God's Spirit to move in power upon the land of Israel and the Jewish people of the diaspora? If not now, when will we?
"The battle belongs to the Lord." That is surely no less true in the spiritual realm than the physical. Will you pray? And will you speak? Speak up for the holiness of God, for His desire for the repentance of His people, for the honor of His name? Speak to the Jewish people words of warning of the certain judgment to come, of the way of escape provided by the blood of the Lamb, of the refuge and security that is to be found only in the Lord? Speak against the haters of God, of His people, of His land? Cry out that God might give them a spirit of repentance that they should also come to the knowledge of the truth before they face a fearsome judgment, as did Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome?
"Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people." Noah was a preacher of righteousness before the world was judged. Do we doubt that our world is ripening for judgment when the violence and corruption that marked Noah's day multiplies in our own? May the Lord help us as members of His body and messengers to His people to be found faithful and obedient in our generation - to the praise of His glory.
