Must Christians Condone ALL Israel’s Policies?

Any decent parent will not turn a blind eye to signs his/her child is bullying someone
else’s child. That parent won’t endorse the cruel deeds of a beloved child, not even
out of family loyalty and love. The Love of God condemns wickedness wherever it is
found, even if it is found among those who profess to be His special people. In the
Old Testament God rebuked and dealt with Israel repeatedly for her sin. That,
despite God’s clear statement that Israel is the apple of His eye (Zech.2:8).

God has promised a blessing to those who bless Israel (Gen.12:3). In the same
breath God not only promised curses to those who cursed Israel but declared His
intention that ALL families of the earth would be blessed through Israel (ALL includes
the Arab nations, too). We bless Israel as we pray for God to protect her from foes
near and far, and to reveal the riches of His goodness to her. But does blessing
Israel mean condoning ALL her actions and saying “amen” to cruel acts carried out
by this country? Does disagreeing with Israel’s inhumane treatment of neighboring
populations amount to cursing Israel? Must we rubberstamp everything Israel does
out of fear of invoking this terrible curse? I don’t think so, although countless
Christians would insist that we are NEVER to criticize any atrocity carried out by
Israelis. Some Christians are afraid to peep a protest whenever Israel does
something contrary to God’s Law of Love as revealed in the Bible. Because Jews
suffered unspeakable horrors during the Holocaust, Israel must never be held to the
same standards of conduct as other nations. But one sin doesn’t justify another sin.
If a parent gets chewed out at work, he might take it out on his kid at home. Then
the kid will take it out on the little puppy in the back yard, knowing it’s too small and
powerless to defend itself, and the puppy can’t escape from the chain link fence to
get away from his cruel master.

I fear that in the past few decades Christians have USED Israel and prophecies
surrounding Israel as a pacifier to reassure themselves that the Rapture is near and
they’re about to go home to heaven and escape this mess down here below. What
glee fills some believers’ hearts as they read about the friction breaking out in the
Middle East. They swear up and down they LOVE the Jewish people, but do they
really? Or do they only value the Jews as being God’s “sign people” pointing to the
long-awaited End of the World and Coming of Christ? Would Christians “love” Israel
nearly so much if their ups and downs offered no reassurance of the nearness of
Christ’s return? Some believers ARE selfish enough to think in the back of their
minds: “Thank God I’M over here watching that mess over in the Middle East from a
safe distance, and when the worst of these world conflicts come, I’ll be home in
heaven.”

It helps to try to see things from other people’s perspective. Even though the Jews
MUST be scared and feel like they’re living in a fish bowl surrounded by hostile
enemies, constantly in a state of fear, people who live clear across the world
surrounded by water on three sides just can’t identify with such a precarious
existence as tiny Israel has. We must pray for the precious Jewish people who are
now back in the land promised to their forefathers. Outrages have been perpetrated
on both sides of this Mideast conflict. There have been no winners in this endless
war of nerves. The need for constant vigilance against outbreaks of enemy unrest
must be very trying for the Israelis.

Yet in our eagerness to properly love the Nation of Israel and affirm its Biblical right
to the land promised to Abraham by God, we must not close our eyes to the cruelties
being inflicted upon the Palestinian people. The Gaza strip is a big refugee camp full
of dispossessed, jobless, hungry souls who seem to belong nowhere in the world.
The huge Arab nations bordering tiny Israel are brimming over with oil wealth. But
they haven’t offered to take their poorer Muslim brethren in.

At the time of this writing Israel has closed off tiny, overcrowded Gaza from
receiving foreign aid food supplies to feed its burgeoning population. Israel severely
restricts access of Palestinians to clean water. Israel inflicts collective punishment
(genocide) upon Gaza whenever they elect a leader Israel doesn’t like. How can
Christians turn a blind eye to such cruelty? Tiny Palestinian children, pregnant
women, old men and women who would never even think of committing any act of
war against mighty Israel are being starved to death in their 850-square-mile prison
camp of misery. These people didn’t ask to be born as Palestinians. They shouldn’t
be demonized as being on God’s reject pile just because some of them react violently
after Israel uses a few Palestinians as target practice. How would YOU feel if your
next-door neighbor cut off YOUR food supply and prevented you from leaving the
country to find relief elsewhere? How would YOU feel if YOUR child were randomly
attacked by renegade soldiers as he/she walked home from school? Because there is
no fear of immediate punishment, powerful people get away with the worst
brutalities against weaker souls (Eccl.8:11).

Some Christians have the impression that the Palestinians are accursed of God on
account of their race. NOBODY chooses where they’re born. NO baby decides from
the womb who their historical enemies will be. Each person, whether Jew or Gentile,
is accountable to God only for his or her own actions (Jere.31:29-30). Scripture
plainly states that it’s unfair for the children to be punished for the actions of their
fathers, and this ought to apply to the situation in Gaza. Instead of Israel honoring
their God by sharing its bread with the hungry (Isa.58:7,10), Israel’s blockade of
food aid has created a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. God
promised that if Israel would feed the hungry and show compassion to the poor, He
would make her a shining light among the nations. Because of Israel’s present
rejection of Jesus this particular promise will not be fulfilled until the Millennial Reign
of Christ (Isaiah 60:20; Zech.8:23).

Far from exempting the modern secular State of Israel from moral accountability on
account of its supposed alleged descent from Abraham, this particular nation is held
to an even higher standard because of the light it has received. Was Jesus a true-
blue patriot who never criticized the actions of His own nation? He had some sad
things to say about various towns of Israel:

Matt.11:21: Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty
works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have
repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
22 But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of
judgment, than for you.
23 And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to
hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in
Sodom, it would have remained until this day.
24 But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the
day of judgment, than for thee.

Sodom was a Gentile city, and the most wicked place you could imagine. But if God
could have found even ten righteous people there, He wouldn’t have destroyed it
(Gen.18:32). He said that the men of Nineveh and the Queen of Sheba, considered
heathens by the Jews of Jesus’ day, would rise up in the Judgment and condemn
Jesus’ unbelieving contemporaries (Matt.12:41-42). Abraham, patriarch of the
Jewish race, was the one who interceded for wicked Sodom. Abraham might have
simply asked God to take Lot and his family out, but Abraham was concerned for
other souls as well.

The prophet Jonah hated the Ninevites because he knew they weren’t friends of
Israel. Jonah wanted the Ninevites to die, and he got fuming mad after they
repented and God spared them judgment. But God declared his love and concern for
the Ninevites in Jonah 4:11.

Today it is a crime to preach the Gospel in Israel. I fear for Israeli officials who not
only refuse to believe in Christ, but bar the way for others to escape God’s judgment
by preventing them from being saved with the Truth. The apostle Paul encountered
fierce resistance from his own countrymen as he tried to share Christ with non-Jews.

I Thes.2:14: For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in
Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own
countrymen, even as they have of the Jews:
15 Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us;
and they please not God, and are contrary to all men:
16 Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their
sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.

John the Baptist, himself a Jew, discouraged pride in race and feelings of national
superiority. He had this to say:
Matt.3:9 And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for
I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.
Verse 10: And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every
tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

Jesus didn’t believe a person’s nationality gave them automatic favor with God.
Sometimes God granted favors to the most unlikely people.

Matt.8:11: And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and
shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.

Luke 4:25: But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias,
when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was
throughout all the land;
Verse 26: But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon,
unto a woman that was a widow.
Verse 27: And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and
none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian.

Jesus taught the parable of the Good Samaritan, showing His disciples that people of
all ethnic groups are our neighbors and should be treated with kindness as our
neighbors (Luke 10:33-37). We are to love our neighbor as ourselves (Matt.19:19).

Matt.7:12: Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do
ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. ***Jesus was addressing
Jews here, since the Church Age hadn’t begun and Gentile converts hadn’t yet come
into the church. Jesus doesn’t say “Jewish men”. He says simply “whatsoever ye
would that men (people in general) should do to you”. Period. I’m sure no Israeli
parent would want their child to starve because some other nation blockaded its
territory, so where is the moral justification for starving Palestinian infants?

Luke 6:35 But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing
again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest:
for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.***If God is kind to people who
don’t give Him thanks for His provision and are downright hostile toward Him, then
what right has any country to stand in the way of innocent infants, women and old
people being fed? Any people claiming to be God’s chosen nation ought to question
whether they’re walking in His ways or in the ways of Abraham, His servant. There’s
no record of Abraham cutting off food supplies to helpless people starving in a
refugee camp.

One Jewish tradition is of a man who challenged the great rabbi Hillel to state all the
Law in the short length of time the man could stand on one foot. Hillel said that all
the Law could be summarized as “Love the Lord your God with all your mind, heart,
soul and strength and your neighbor as yourself.” The Israelis break this law all the
time through inhumane treatment of their neighbors in Gaza, while still claiming all
the rights and privileges of being God’s Chosen People.

Jesus taught in Luke 6: 36 Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.

The Apostle Paul, one of the strictest Jewish Pharisees ever, held this opinion:

Rom.12:20: Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink:
for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.***Again, Paul doesn’t limit
such acts of mercy to enemies who belong to his own race.

Paul couldn’t have made it clearer that God holds all nations to the same standard:

Rom.1:28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave
them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
Verse 29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness,
maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
Verse 30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil
things, disobedient to parents,
Verse 31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection,
implacable, UNMERCIFUL:
Verse 32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are
worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

Rom.2:9: Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest:
for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest
doest the same things.
Verse 2: But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against
them which commit such things.
Verse 3: And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and
doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?
Verse 4: Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and
longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?
Verse 5: But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself
wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;
Verse 6: Who will render to every man according to his deeds:
Verse 7: To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour
and immortality, eternal life:
Verse 8: But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey
unrighteousness, indignation and wrath,
Verse 9: Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew
first, and also of the Gentile;
Verse 10: But glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew
first, and also to the Gentile:
Verse 11: FOR THERE IS NO RESPECT OF PERSONS WITH GOD.