Israel needs to cleanse the land completely of Hamas, or it will always be terrorized by Hamas. We have many decades of modern history to know that this is never going away by negotiations. Yielding back land to Palestinians in Gaza resulted in Hamas taking control. A poll carried in the The Daily Doom yesterday noted that, even after Israel’s intense reprisal against Hamas for Oct. 7, the majority of Palestinians still want Hamas, which initiated the present battle with Israel, to be the government of Gaza, rather than the more rational Palestinian Authority. They don’t want calmer government.
Even though total destruction of Hamas is the only way Israel has any hope of freedom from terror, the rest of the world doesn’t see it that way and never will. As I wrote in an earlier editorial, we have entered a time where Israel will lose support all over the world. Netanyahu is beset on one side by conservatives of various stripes who want him to be as tough as possible against Hamas. On the other side, he has liberal Jews and a liberal world that want him to make peace, which has always meant living with the status quo, occasionally interrupted by rockets. To the moderate he seems ham-fisted and untrustworthy.
Even though Israel has a job it needs to do in ending Hamas, there is no chance the present world will accept how tough Israel has to be to get that job done. It’s a true hopeless situation politically; yet, there appears to be little chance Netanyahu will back down from the battle at this point. Instead, what we see is that Israel is now losing the nations that were most strongly allied with it for decades, most particularly the United States and the UK.
Please understand that, by losing the nation, I don’t mean losing the hearts and souls of everyone who lives in those nations, but losing the friendship of those who are currently in charge of those nations. Biden has had his off moments in years past with Netanyahu, but for the most part the two leaders, at least, tried to make it look like they were chummy and were comrades against terror, but the fabric of that relationship is falling apart as Netanyahu now stiffs all of Biden’s demands.
Similarly, as America has let millions of immigrants in from Muslim nations, there is a growing percentage of people in the US who hate Israel and press the president to stand against the violent war it is waging. Under that pressure, we see in today’s news a US president becoming increasingly angry with the Israeli leader and with Israel’s policy against terror:
After decades of building a “close, personal” friendship with Benjamin Netanyahu, Joe Biden has had it with the Israeli prime minister. Now he’s hitting him hard — and it may be working.
The last time Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu got into a public spat as ugly as this one was 14 years ago. In March 2010, Biden traveled to Jerusalem to push President Barack Obama’s ambitious peace plans on Netanyahu — the prime minister whom the then-vice president, upon landing, called his “close, personal friend of over 33 years.” Obama wanted a freeze on construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank to avoid depriving the Palestinians of land for a future state as U.S. special envoy George Mitchell restarted Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. But upon Biden’s arrival, Netanyahu’s government suddenly announced the construction of 1,600 new Israeli apartments in the disputed territory. This humiliated and enraged Biden, who retaliated by keeping his close personal friend “Bibi” waiting for an hour and a half at dinner that night.
Biden publicly criticized Netanyahu for the move, but he also insisted that things be smoothed over, pressing Obama not to turn the contretemps into a major incident. The current dispute between the two men is very different.
In recent weeks, after months of Netanyahu openly defying Biden’s calls for restraint in Gaza, the president launched an unprecedented and very public pressure campaign…. He issued a National Security Council memo suggesting that military aid to Israel should be conditioned on the delivery of humanitarian aid. And he told MSNBC that Netanyahu was “hurting Israel more than helping Israel,” all the while reportedly fuming in private about what an “asshole” Netanyahu had become….
The article goes on to tell how badly the US relationship with Israel is deteriorating as Netanyahu continues to push back Hamas, taking out many civilians due to the intentsity of the slaughter brought upon Hamas. After many years, the US feels played by Netanyahu who has said for just as many years he will pursue peace with the Palestinians but seems to do all he can to make sure it never happens. Even Senator Chuck Schumer said within the past week the Netanyahu’s government has to go. The article is worth reading in full just to get a sense of the relationship breakdown that could become quite serious.
My point here is not to talk about which side is right. Most conservatives would not be surprised at all to find that Biden and Schumer want to make peace once again without resolving the problem though conflict, even though beating one’s enemy might be the only way to solve this one, as happened in World War II. We have, after all, had about a century of modern peacemaking between hot battles that have gotten neither side anywhere in the Palestinian conflict. With Egypt, Jordan and some other nations, progress was made, but with the Palestinians the quagmire is every bit as bad as it was 80 years ago when Jews started pouring in great numbers into the land as described here:
3 The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will bring my people Israel and Judah back from captivity and restore them to the land I gave their ancestors to possess,’ says the Lord.
People alive today saw that happen after WWII, leaving the region in the muddled mess it is today of poorly decided and continually fought-over boundaries that no one likes.
However, trying to point out a better road map to peace in the region is certainly not my aim, as others with far more knowledge on the history have thought about it far longer than I and still have not found one that got anywhere with anyone. I’m just laying out how the situation seems exactly to match the times Israel’s own prophets predicted for its latter days as the passage above from Jeremiah 30 continues. It starts out with all the good things that would suddenly happen to the Jewish people as they were brought out of the nations Jews had fled to, such as Germany, and as those captor nations, themselves were destroyed by allied fire (later to be rebuilt). Consider the horrors of the holocaust and then the Jewish exodus out of Germany and other nations of the diaspora:
4 These are the words the Lord spoke concerning Israel and Judah: 5 “This is what the Lord says:
“‘Cries of fear are heard—
terror, not peace.
6 Ask and see:
Can a man bear children?
Then why do I see every strong man
with his hands on his stomach like a woman in labor,
every face turned deathly pale?
7 How awful that day will be!
No other will be like it.
It will be a time of trouble for Jacob,
but he will be saved out of it.8 “‘In that day,’ declares the LordAlmighty,
‘I will break the yoke off their necks
and will tear off their bonds;
no longer will foreigners enslave them.
9 Instead, they will serve the Lord their God
and David their king,
whom I will raise up for them.10 “‘So do not be afraid, Jacob my servant;
do not be dismayed, Israel,’
declares the Lord.
‘I will surely save you out of a distant place,
your descendants from the land of their exile.
Jacob will again have peace and security,
and no one will make him afraid.
11 I am with you and will save you,’
declares the Lord.
‘Though I completely destroy all the nations
among which I scatter you,
I will not completely destroy you.
I will discipline you but only in due measure;
I will not let you go entirely unpunished.’
So, they exited the lands of their exile and returned to the land of Israel; and, at least some of the nations they had been dispersed in, such as Germany, were badly destroyed as Hitler’s Reich was taken out. However, they have never been able to live in the land in peace, as the passage had promised, but that is because there is more to the prophecy that says, first, they must enter a situation so dire in the land they will find no solution. I think we all feel no one has any answer that will work in Israel with the Palestinians. Many have been put on the table. It’s not so say there are not answers people would push, but that there are not any answers that have been come close to working. All have failed.
2 “This is what the Lord says:
“‘Your wound is incurable,
your injury beyond healing.
13 There is no one to plead your cause,
no remedy for your sore,
no healing for you.
14 All your allies have forgotten you;
they care nothing for you.
I have struck you as an enemy would
and punished you as would the cruel,
because your guilt is so great
and your sins so many.
15 Why do you cry out over your wound,
your pain that has no cure?
Because of your great guilt and many sins
I have done these things to you.
I write these things out because that is what we see in the news today. As the last highlighted verses describe, Israel’s allies are abandoning it. As Netanyahu, who is seen as a snake in the grass by many, even in Israel and among Jews in the US, continues his relentless pursuit of Hamas (IF he doesn’t cave in to US and UK pressure), the world will certainly turn more against him and against Israel, the more hardline he becomes.
Israel’s own prophet wrote that this situation comes about because of Israel own great guilt. One might naturally wonder what did they do that they are so greatly guilty of? And then the prophet flips to write about how the times will turn again and how they will flip after the situation is clearly seen by all as impossible: (The way this turn to good times will come is given in the bold lines.)
6 “‘But all who devour you will be devoured;
all your enemies will go into exile.
Those who plunder you will be plundered;
all who make spoil of you I will despoil.
17 But I will restore you to health
and heal your wounds,’
declares the Lord,
‘because you are called an outcast,
Zion for whom no one cares.’18 “This is what the Lord says:
“‘I will restore the fortunes of Jacob’s tents
and have compassion on his dwellings;
the city will be rebuilt on her ruins,
and the palace will stand in its proper place.
19 From them will come songs of thanksgiving
and the sound of rejoicing.
I will add to their numbers,
and they will not be decreased;
I will bring them honor,
and they will not be disdained.
20 Their children will be as in days of old,
and their community will be established before me;
I will punish all who oppress them.
21 Their leader will be one of their own;
their ruler will arise from among them.
I will bring him near and he will come close to me—
for who is he who will devote himself
to be close to me?’
declares the Lord.
22 “‘So you will be my people,
and I will be your God.’”23 See, the storm of the Lord
will burst out in wrath,
a driving wind swirling down
on the heads of the wicked.
24 The fierce anger of the Lord will not turn back
until he fully accomplishes
the purposes of his heart.
In days to come
you will understand this.
I think we are going into those days. The decline in the relationship between Israel and its longest and strongest allies is in the news regularly now like we have never seen before with those national partners. The exasperation of the current US president with Netanyahu is palpable. Jews were gathered from around the world and brought into Israel, but it may be, as their prophet said, only to find themselves in a situation they are helpless to solve, themselves.
Their situation is not “incurable” or “beyond healing” yet , but I think you are seeing them take the only steps they feel they can or must to irradicate terror around them, and you can see at the same time that their standing all around the World deteriorates as quickly as they take more military action. The further they beat down Hamas, the more their alliances become angry at the slaughter and the more those alliances weaken until they will eventually lose all alliances; and that day may not be far off. I hope that isn’t so, but it is not hard to see how that day might not be that far away.
What the prophet revealed was that it would not just be a joyous return to the land of the Israel for those Jews who made aliya. It would eventually come to the loss of every ally on earth as they struggled to hold their place in that land, never so much alone.
Then it is said they will be restore to a beautiful existence in that land, but not by their own military might. Only by God delivering the promised land as the passage said:
21 Their leader will be one of their own;
their ruler will arise from among them.
I will bring him near and he will come close to me—
for who is he who will devote himself
to be close to me?’
I personally believe that leader will be the one called Prince of Peace for a big reason. I believe that is why Jesus has that title among all of his followers because the only way the land will ever be held in peace by anyone is when it is delivered by faith in the Prince of Peace, not seized by human force. He is certainly a leader who came from among them, as the passage describes, and who still leads in the hearts of hundreds of millions of people alive today. He is currently observed by the greatest number of people as the greatest leader in their actual lives. He is, as described in the passage, as close to God (as his own son). He said he will return in order to come near all of mankind again. It is only “in days to come,” their prophet says that “you will understand this.” They should not expect, then, it is something they would understand now.
All human struggling to acquire the land and hold it ends in so much bloodshed with no resolution, ad nauseum; the Prince of Peace is the only one who will deliver that land of the promise in peace and only when all of Israel believes in him in hour they find completely hopeless—”incurable, beyond healing,” with “no remedy.” He will deliver the land to the meek who shall inherit the land. He actually meant that statement that “the MEEK shall inherit the land.” (Same word that is used for “earth.”) It will not be won by those who try to seize the brass ring with their bare-knuckled grasp. He will deliver it to those who believe in him because it is God who raises up and installs leaders, and is his land to lead and to give. Jesus is the seed of Abraham and heir to the promise made to Abraham’s seed; and he is just and kind and loving and merciful to all of humanity if they seek it.
That’s is the only way this ends well. The land can never be seized. Jews were brought into the land by many miracles and seized lands in wars that also seemed miracles, but they never got all they wanted and they have given a great amount of it back up already. Since those first miraculous wars, all they ave done is lost land. They have not been able to hold onto what they grasped with their human strength because it cannot be taken or held that way.
Rather, they have been given enough of the land by miracles to draw them there and to make them believe they can have it all and even to try to take it on their own, apart from faithfulness. Many in the land do not even believe in Judaism, much less promised the Prince of Peace, so there is a hard part yet to come that their prophets talk about where they do not escape harsh discipline, so harsh it will feel struck by God “as an enemy would” strike and “punished” as would the cruel,” just like the prophet said, because they tried to seize something that cannot ever be held without faith—the right faith—to find themselves in a hopeless situation and without a friend in the world to help.. Human force will never hold it in peace. The peace cannot be forced. It must be accepted with open and humbled hands. Until then, I think the prophet leads us to believe the situation will become more dire and hopeless by humanity’s own doing.
That's what I believe.
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