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Diary of a (Maybe) Retired Pastor

Tag: Middle East

  • Judgement Comes

    mayberetiredpastor

    Judgement Comes

    13 For from the least to the greatest of them, everyone is greedy for unjust gain; and from prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely. 14 They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying, ‘Peace, peace’, when there is no peace. 15 They acted shamefully, they committed abomination; yet they were not ashamed, they did not know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time that I punish them, they shall be overthrown, says the Lord.

    Jeremiah 6:13-15, Old Testament, The Bible

    37 Let your word be “Yes, Yes” or “No, No”; anything more than this comes from the evil one.

    Matthew 5:37, New Testament, The Bible.

    Apart from a few initial expressions of outrage and astonishment there seems to be little continuing outrage expressed at President Trump’s proposals for Gaza. Although many do object and deride the proposals it is in terms of what is practical and possible. The proposal to remove all the Palestinians from Gaza and turn it into a playground for the rich is being given legitimacy. Gone is the language of “ethnic cleansing”. Yet, this would be the clearest example of ethnic cleansing since World War II and it would be perpetrated by an American President with the agreement and delight of a Jewish Prime Minister and his government.  There seems to be an awful irony here.

    It gives us a clear insight into the moral framework of Trump and his administration: the world is seen entirely through the lens of the real estate developer and a rather shady one at that! Everything is up for grabs to the one who has enough market muscle to make it their own. Hence, Putin will have his way and annexe a huge portion of Eastern Ukraine and Ukraine will have no say in the matter, in fact, Ukraine will have to give up its mineral wealth to the US as well or face obliteration!

    Returning to Gaza, it is noticeable that the proposal for removing the Palestinians does not include an offer by the US to give refuge in the US, rather they are to be taken-in by Egypt and Jordan. Thankfully, Egypt and Jordan have refused to take part in this charade.

    With the ascendancy of Trump we have truly entered into a great moral darkness. It is more important than ever that truth be spoken so that the light can shine in the darkness. The proposal to remove all the Palestinians from Gaza must be named and condemned for what it is – ethnic cleansing – and it must not be sanitised and legitimised by describing it as anything else. There is a judgement that is coming and it will not deal lightly with those who oppress the widow and the orphan or who teach that good is bad and bad is good.

  • The Statue of Ozymandias

    mayberetiredpastor

    The Statue of Ozymandias

    4 I have allotted to you as an inheritance for your tribes those nations that remain, along with all the nations that I have already cut off, from the Jordan to the Great Sea in the west. 5 The Lord your God will push them back before you, and drive them out of your sight; and you shall possess their land, as the Lord your God promised you.

    Joshua 23:4-5

    The last year has made it evident that the government of Benjamin Netanyahu is driven by the belief that the rightful borders of modern Israel are the borders of ancient Israel (variously defined in the Old Testament). They consider it not merely a matter of historical inheritance but the promise of God Himself. It is theirs by divine right. Consequently, ceasefire negotiations have merely been a smokescreen behind which the Israeli government can complete its effective annexation of Gaza. It is the reason why the return of the hostages has never been a major priority and why Israeli settlers in the West Bank are brazenly encroaching on Palestinian lands. It is the reason why the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) has been able to operate a ruthless campaign of mass civilian casualties even while claiming it is minimising civilian casualties (an essentially meaningless claim). The ethical framework of divine right provides the moral justification and moral imperative – what they are doing is not only justifiable, it is holy.

    The UK Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, has urged the UN Security Council this week to insist on a ceasefire by Israel, but western leaders, in particular, have not understood that conventional international responses will be ineffective because the Israeli government is no longer operating within the same political framework. Even if not stated in so many words, Netanyahu and his government are engaged in an holy enterprise.

    Israel is no longer talking the same language as the US or the West.  As a result, Israel is deaf to the blandishments of the West, which leaves only coercive actions – refusing to supply military equipment to Israel, economic sanctions – or hand-wringing. Netanyahu’s government has, probably rightly, judged that the latter is what will happen.

    Those who are religiously inclined in the West (and many western leaders, especially in the US, profess to be so inclined) may well struggle with what appears to be clearly stated in the Christian Bible concerning the borders of Israel. But the Christian Bible is not just the Old Testament, it is also, and primarily, the New Testament, and with the New Testament there came a hermeneutical shift of tectonic proportions initiated by Jesus Himself. Jesus read the Old Testament so differently from His contemporaries that it caused huge tension between Himself and the Jewish authorities. For the New Testament, Israel is so much more than borders on a map. Indeed, political borders are irrelevant. The Israel of the New Testament is a people knowing no borders, it is unbounded, encompassing peoples from every nation and language having no geographical limit. The promise of God in the Old Testament is fulfilled in the New Testament in an astonishing way beyond any mortal anticipation, and just as the Old Testament states, God does it Himself. The borders that Netanyahu and his government are pursuing are a mirage in the sands of history, no more holy than the statue of Ozymandias.  

  • The Glory of God

    mayberetiredpastor

    The Glory of God

    Then he brought me to the gate, the gate facing east. 2 And there, the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the east; the sound was like the sound of mighty waters; and the earth shone with his glory.

    Ezekiel 43:1-2

    It’s Holy Week. As I was sitting through service on Palm Sunday I was thinking that we don’t seem to give much time in church life to teaching about how Jesus fulfils prophecy, particularly on the occasion of His entry into Jerusalem. This is a great pity because, as recent events demonstrate, properly understanding these matters profoundly affects our view of the Middle East today.

    Many people will know that Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem riding on a donkey on Palm Sunday was a direct reference and fulfilment of Zechariah 9:9 hailing the new king of peace. This was what prompted the cheers and acclamation of the crowds, but fewer of us, perhaps, appreciate the far greater prophecy that was also being fulfilled by Jesus on that day.

    The gospel writers are united in carefully specifying that Jesus started His procession on that day from Bethany. The first readers would have had the advantage of knowing the layout of Jerusalem in Jesus’ time, so, they would have been aware that, starting from Bethany, Jesus’ route would have led Him to enter through the eastern gate of the city.  This was not accidental. A greater prophecy than Zechariah’s is in play here.

    The prophet Ezekiel documents the fall of the first Temple and in chapters 10 and 11 recounts the departure of the Glory of God from the Temple and the city via the eastern gate. But, in chapters 43 and 44 he prophesies the return of the Glory of God to the new, restored Temple, again through the eastern gate.  This is a prophecy not only of restoration but the inauguration of the greater, perfect Temple and city of God. It is this prophecy that Jesus fulfils with His entrance to Jerusalem, riding on a donkey, through the eastern gate. Not only is He the king who brings peace, His entrance is the very Glory of God returning to His city. This is what the Pharisees and Temple authorities perceived which the ordinary people, and probably many of us today, did not. It is the reason why the Pharisees and Temple authorities determined to execute Him as a blasphemer because He made Himself God.

    Ezekiel’s prophecy of the new Temple continues with careful instructions to purify and cleanse the Temple and the people’s sins. Jesus, after His dramatic entrance into Jerusalem famously cleanses the Temple and then, a few days later, is crucified thus cleansing all the people’s sins.

    Ezekiel could only frame his prophecy in Old Testament terms, the reality of its fulfilment demonstrates the limitations of his conception. Jesus offered no sacrifice in the Temple for the atonement of the people’s sin and the cleansing of the Temple itself was a mere symbol of a much greater cleansing to come. The sacrifice Jesus offered for the people’s sin was His very own life, and the true cleansing of the Temple meant its utter destruction and the razing to the ground of Jerusalem itself decades later, just as Jesus Himself had prophesied during Holy Week.

    Understanding how Jesus fulfils Ezekiel’s prophecy gives a very different perspective to our attitudes and judgments concerning the Middle East today. The perfect new Temple and Jerusalem of Ezekiel’s prophecy is not to be found in bricks and mortar this side of the new creation. It comes only with the full return of the Glory of God in Jesus Christ.

  • What on Earth is Israel Up to?

    mayberetiredpastor

    What on Earth is Israel Up to?

    I don’t understand what the Israeli government is up to. Last week, IDF Special Forces triumphantly trumpeted the rescue of two Israeli hostages. That is, indeed, good news for the hostages and their families.  But, in the process, an entire hospital was put out of action for the foreseeable future and hundreds of patients had to be evacuated. The total number of hostages rescued by the IDF is 3. If I remember correctly, in the whole of this period since the Hamas atrocity, the IDF has managed to kill 3 Israeli hostages by accident, and 2 others (if we believe Hamas sources) died as collateral damage from one of their own bombing attacks (apparently, a total of 11 bodies have been returned1) . Rather crudely put, that seems like a score line of 3 rescues and 16 killed (at worst) or 3 rescues and 5 killed (at best) by IDF action. Regardless, it seems that we are dealing with bottom line negative numbers in terms of freeing hostages! And that’s after reducing most of Gaza to rubble and killing tens of thousands of Palestinians. In contrast, negotiation has managed to repatriate a total of 78 Israelis, 23 Thais and 1 Filipino2 – 102 people. It seems that further negotiations in Paris are close to seeing a further 30 – 40 hostages being released3. The IDF appears to be hopelessly inefficient at repatriating hostages, so why bother?

    Of course, the Israeli government has never stated (I think) that the deployment of the IDF was to rescue the hostages – a fact that the hostage families seemed to have quickly realised when they marched on the Knesset to demand the rescue of their loved ones. The deployment was to ensure the eradication of Hamas. Even so, comprehension struggles. How, exactly, does reducing most of Gaza to rubble, killing tens of thousands of Palestinians and generating worldwide opprobrium against Israel eradicate something as nebulous as Hamas? As I understand it, its main organs lie outside of Gaza in any case! And even if the IDF were able to kill every single Hamas “operative” currently in Gaza, the actions of the IDF has already sown the seeds of the next generation of Hamas fighters. In the next generation, there will still be no peace for Israel.

    But there is one explanation that makes a kind of sense. In an early BBC interview4, a member of the Israeli Knesset candidly affirmed that the aim was to “encourage” the Palestinians to leave Gaza. This makes sense of the mass destruction, the mass killing, the throttling of energy and supplies, and the forced migration within Gaza. If the aim is that the Palestinians leave Gaza en masse so that it can be occupied by Israel then the IDF appear to be doing an effective job. Of course, they would be committing  a few war crimes and, perhaps, genocide along the way, but no one really cares about that, do they?

    1 https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog-february-24-2024/#liveblog-entry-3231521 acc. 15.40 24/2/24

    2 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67477240 acc. 15:49 24/2/24

    3 https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/hamas-source-deal-sees-6-week-truce-200-300-prisoners-in-exchange-for-35-40-hostages/ acc. 15:55 24/2/24

    4 https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001t18r/hardtalk-simcha-rothman-member-of-the-israeli-knesset-religious-zionism-party +13:23 mins ;  acc. 17:41 24/2/24