by Marcel Rebiai

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In chapter 19 of the prophet Isaiah, God promised to make the Near East a centre of blessing. We will consider his strategy for attaining this goal.

As a result of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the situation in the Near East and the relationship between Jews and Arabs have become the quintessence of irreconcilability, hatred and violence. In hundreds of conflicts and ferocious struggles worldwide, even more blood has been shed. But the Near East conflict is one which arouses emotions everywhere. Everyone, whether consulted or not, feels obliged to offer his opinion. This conflict has already spawned many Israeli, Arab, and international peace movements. Heads of state, politicians, and other mediatorshave been stretched to the limits of their energy, gifts, and options - unfortunately without a solution. The only person who was able to achieve limited success, through an unbelievably courageous act, paid for it with his life. The former Egyptian President Sadat made a peace treaty with Israel in 1979 and was assassinated by his own people. Since then his success has been slowly eroded away.
According to a French survey, Iraq is now considered the greatest threat to world peace and Israel the second-greatest threat. It is said that the Near East has the potential to detonate the entire world. This is hardly because Israel and Iraq possess atomic and chemical weapons. Other nations such as India and Pakistan, who hate each other no less than Jews and Arabs, possess similarly equipped arsenals. Treatment of the Near East conflict is unique, both on the personal, emotional level as well as in the world’s political arena. Western and eastern Europeans, Asians and Africans dance on various political stages around this conflict and attempt to trump each other with suggested solutions. But so far not one of these proposals has been put into effect.

Stumbling stone Jerusalem
Every attempt at reconciliation and every peace initiative breaks down on the fact that both the Jewish people and Islam link their identity, their home, and their inheritance with Jerusalem; more precisely with the Temple Mount as the place where God revealed himself. Neither Jews nor Moslems can give this place to the other without giving up what they perceive as their people’s essence. Jerusalem is not merely the third-holiest city for Moslems, as many in the West think. I will give a few of the reasons for this.
Approximately 18 years after Islam was established in Medina, Jerusalem was taken by Caliph Omar, Mohammed's successor. The bishop of Jerusalem, Patriarch Sophoronius, gave Omar the Temple Mount in order to build an Islamic place of prayer (mosque) there. Christians had made the Temple Mount a garbage dump in order to verify the widely held dogma of God's rejection of the Jewish people. They had wilfully desecrated their holy places.
Omar cleaned the Temple Mount and built the Al Aksa Mosque there because sura 17 of the Koran says that Mohammed rode to the "distant prayer place" (Al Aksa) one night on his winged horse (Al Burak). It also says he was taken into heaven from there in order to be installed as head of all the prophets. That could not happen in Mecca or Medina because only Jerusalem was the city of the prophets. That is why the first Moslems prayed toward Jerusalem, not Mecca. A special revelation was necessary to permit and justify their later turning toward Mecca. This was really a political manoeuvre whose motivation was to bring Mecca (previously the seat of Arabian power) under Islamic reign.


The meaning of Jerusalem for Islam and for Judaism
But Jerusalem is central to Islamic end-time events. For Islam it is the city of the prophets and of Allah's revelation. It is no coincidence that this is the only city which Islam names "Al Kuds", the holy one. Whoever possesses it belongs to the succession of prophets, to Allah's chosen, to the true believers; to the people whom Allah has given reign over this world.
For Jews, Jerusalem is the centre, the origin, and the fulfilment of their identity and destiny as a people and a nation. For 2,000 years all Jews have expressed their longing by concluding the Seder evening (Pessah Eve) with the wish and the prayer, "next year in Jerusalem".
By Jerusalem, I mean the Temple Mount, where Solomon's Temple stood. At its dedication, the God of Israel came down in his holiness and sanctified the place for all time, declaring, "My eyes and my heart will always be there" (1 Kings 9:3; see also 8:10-11).
Israel is called to live in the presence of its God and to be a people of priests and a light to the nations. It cannot attain rest, peace, and the fulfilment of its destiny except by returning to God's presence, by "aliyah" (=go up; modern Hebrew for the immigration of Jews to Israel). This means going up to the Temple on the Temple Mount, into the presence of God. God has bound Israel's calling and inheritance to this land, specifically to this place.

Israel's calling
It is Israel's calling to live according to God's revelation, in order to make him known to the world. It‘s a calling to reflect God‘s light to the nations: "arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light and kings to the brightness of your dawn" (Is. 60:1-3).
The majority of the Jewish people - and the state of Israel itself - have not yet come into this light or the promised presence of God. But God is nevertheless at work restoring Israel as a people and a nation, in order to bring it into its inheritance. Then his glory will be revealed and his name made holy among the nations.
This is not a matter concerning only Israel. It concerns also the honour of God and the salvation for the nations (Ezekiel. 36:31-38). And yet Israel can enter its calling only in the place determined by God. According to his word, land and people belong together in such a way that the Diaspora, life outside the land of Israel, is a demonstration of God's judgment on Israel and his distance from them. If the Jews do not want to lose their identity and calling as a people - and they are a people only insofar as they are God's people - they must return to Israel, to Zion, to Jerusalem. For only there will God come to his people as a people. "They will look on me, the one they have pierced" (Zecariah 12:10).

The roots of the Near East conflict
These are the tangled roots of the Near East conflict. The nations - and often Israeli leaders themselves - see the conflict as a political, ethnic, human and cultural problem which could be solved with sensible suggestions and compromises. Although they themselves see the Sisyphean nature of their efforts, they don't realise that this is more than a struggle of two peoples for the same land; or for historic rights and independence. It is a battle for identity and destiny, a battle for the election and the inheritance. As central as Jerusalem is for the Jewish people and the fulfilment of the Biblical promise, so central is it for Islam as well. Islam clearly confesses and clings to the belief that Allah honoured the Islamic community with the final revelation of truth, calling them to bring the world under Islam's rule. Jerusalem, the city of the prophets, is a symbol of Islamic rule which must not be forfeited.
Nothing threatens Islam's identity and supremacy more than seeing Jerusalem in the hands of Jews who, according to the Koran and Islamic tradition, are rejected and cursed by Allah. Ruling over the Temple Mount symbolises and legitimises Allah's election and the call to be his witness. The Koran does not doubt that this election through Abraham and Ishmael applies solely to the Moslems, primarily the Arab people. There is no such thing as reconciliation with non-Moslems.

The Biblical view
The Bible's view is different. God promises the prophet Isaiah (19:24-25) that the day will come when he will cleanse Egypt, Assyria (which then comprised what is now the Arab part of the Near East) and Israel through his judgment. He will break their pride, reconcile them to each other, and bind them together in order to make them a blessing together on earth. God has given us a glimpse of a currently unimaginable future; namely that nations such as Syria, Iraq, Saudi-Arabia and Egypt will one day make a covenant with Israel. This covenant will be a blessing not only for them, but for the whole world. And God never speaks empty words! In Numbers. 23;19 we read, "God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act?"
God's promise to make the Near East a centre of blessing has to do with his faithfulness toward Abraham. The Arab peoples - as descendants of Ishmael, Abraham's son according to the flesh - were promised a blessing for Abraham's sake (Genesis 17:20). Blessing always means the fullness of life; fruitfulness in all areas; peace, freedom, salvation.
Egypt was not only Israel's house of slavery, for which it was judged; but it was also a place of refuge for Abraham, Joseph, Jacob, and not least for the Messiah himself. We should also remember that during Joseph's day, Pharaoh had Jacob bless him. For the sake of this expression of humility, God includes Egypt in the special calling of Abraham's descendants; in spite of all the judgments on that nation. This is likewise one of the reasons that Egypt, along with Israel, is one of the few peoples from ancient times which still exists as a people and a nation - because God still intends to use Egypt in his plan of salvation. Is it not astonishing and noteworthy, that exactly these peoples who are destined to be a corporate centre of blessing are today not only known to everyone, but are also talked about by everyone - even if negatively at present?!

Rebellion against God
God is preparing to fulfil his promises and plans. One result of rebellion against the biblical God is the hatred, violence and darkness which characterise present relations among these rebellious peoples. This has made Jerusalem, the city of peace and salvation (the city of the great king, i.e. the Messiah, as Jesus calls it), into a city of horror, of terror, of irreconcilable contradictions and of hatred.
This rebellion is rooted in a deep mistrust of God. It does not understood or believe that his goal is the salvation of all peoples. Isaiah. 2:3-4, "'Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.' The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares...Nation will not take up sword against nation..."

God's strategy
God has chosen the only strategy which can bring salvation. All pride must break under this strategy, which is based on God‘s own character of incredible meekness and humbleness. He chose a stiff-necked, proud, ungrateful people and bound his name to them for all time as "the God of Israel". He placed himself and his name in their hands, revealed himself to them, showed them his glory, and set up his tabernacle among them. He endured their misuse of his name; its endless desecrations. Although he disciplined them with hard judgments and scattered them among all the peoples, he never forsook them, never rejected them, never cancelled his plans to make them his witnesses and a light to the nations (Isaiah. 43:10 and 44:8).
In the incarnation of the Messiah, the only Son of the Father, he even became part of this people. Isaiah. 9:6, "For to us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." John 1:18, "No one has ever seen God, but God the only Son, who is at the Father's side, has made him known."
He became a curse in order to take on himself all the darkness in creation and destroy it on the Cross. Through the conquest of death and the Resurrection, light, grace, and truth could break forth and be borne by this chosen people to all the nations, fulfilling the promise given through the prophet Jeremiah, "To you the nations will come...and say, 'Our fathers possessed nothing but false gods..." (16:19).
Then Isaiah. 25:6-9 will also be fulfilled, "On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples...On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove the disgrace of his people (Israel) from all the earth."
Zechariah. 8:23 will be fulfilled, "In those days ten men from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew by the edge of his robe and say, 'Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.'"

The shattering of Islam
God's strategy will break the pride of Islam, and of the Arab peoples who rely on power and the sword to attain rulership, renown and the top positions. They call God's word, both Old and New Testament, a forgery and a lie; they replace it with their own creed which serves their pride and their honour. The pride and power of Islam and the Arab nations must be broken for them to understand Jeremiah16:19, "Our fathers possessed nothing but false gods."
Once they are liberated from the lie of Islam, they will be free to enter the promised blessing along with Israel and become a blessing for the world. The Arab peoples and Egypt can receive the promised blessing only alongside Israel. They must bow under the mighty hand of the God of Israel and humbly acknowledge that God has never rejected the Jewish people. On the contrary: hundreds of times he promised through his prophets that after a period of judgment and scattering, he would gather them again from all nations. He will bring them to the land promised them since Abraham. In order for the Arab and Egyptian people to enter their calling, they must accept the fact that after 2,000 years God has restored the Jews as a nation in the land of Israel. There he will use them as a vessel of his end-time salvation and as his messengers.
Isaiah 60:1-7 lists Ishmael's descendants as the first who will go up to Jerusalem to pay homage to the Messiah: Kedar, Nebaioth, Midian...The Messiah to whom they will pay homage is a Jewish Messiah and king. He was born a Jewish Messiah and king, died a Jewish Messiah and king, and will return a Jewish Messiah and king in order to reign over a Jerusalem which is the capital of the Jewish people. For he is the light which will illumine the Jewish people and carry them out "to the ends of the earth".

Israel must humble itself
God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Every form of pride will break apart on the humility of Israel's God. But the pride of the Jewish people must also be broken through God's strategy. Israel must learn that it cannot acquire the promised land, the land of the fathers, by its own strength or religious achievements. Israel has neither the right to grasp the land for itself nor the right to give it away, because it is God's land, on which the eyes of God rest (Deuteronomy. 11:10-14). God gives it to Israel as a gift, as a dowry, as a place to meet him. Not by might nor by power, but by the Spirit of God will land and people be restored (Zechariah. 4:6). Jewish humanism, Jewish religiosity, Jewish intellect, the Israeli army must bow and confess, "Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labour in vain" (Psalm. 127:1).
Israel will learn that neither she nor her mighty allies are able to create and guarantee peace and security in this land. They can only turn and cry out to the One who is able to bring peace to this land because it is HIS land. When he intervenes he will neither take sides nor be concerned about historic rights and national pride. He will create life, peace, and freedom for all - but only on his conditions.

The pride of the nations
But the pride of the nations will also be broken through God's strategy. In Psalm. 2  we read about the world's forceful revolt against the God of Israel and his Messiah. God stretches out his hand against the powerful, through the very people they have hated, despised, rejected, persecuted and killed throughout time. Israel, which had become the embodiment of rejection, conceived as the lepers and refuse of the world, becomes the messenger of the good news and of life, as the servant of the Almighty. Receiving and honouring Israel as the one who shows the way to him who is the light of the world will deflate the pride of the nations. The nations will have to cry out, "Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you" (Zechariah. 8:23). The nations will learn to love and honour Israel, just as Israel learns to love and honour Jesus - whom it had hated, despised, and persecuted - when it recognises him as the one „who was pierced“.

The church
The pride of the church must also break apart through God's strategy. How often has the church misunderstood God's character, thinking that he had given up on or disinherited the Jewish people, that he took away their purpose or even destined them to judgment! As if God were fickle and unreliable in his promises and callings! "For God's gifts and his call are irrevocable!" (Romans 11:29)
If Israel had not been called, there would not be a church. If Israel had not been restored and set free for its calling, the great harvest of God's kingdom would not be brought in (Zechariah 8:23, Isaiah 14). The church is called to partake in the calling of the Jewish people, but it cannot replace them. According to Ephesians 2:19 the church is a fellow citizen and participant, and not the sole possessor of God‘s salvation and calling. The church's fruitfulness depends on its unity and bond with the older, first-called and first-born brother. The church must confess before the world, "My Lord and Messiah Jesus is the King of the Jews and the Jews are my people. We belong to them as a church. Their life and their history affect us directly."
Like Ruth in the Bible, the church will have to confess, "Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay" (Ruth 1:16). If the church is unwilling to stand by the Jewish people and share their slander, their persecutions and their hatred, then it will likewise not be able to share the fruitfulness, power and authority which God promised Israel. Paul believed that all the authority which the church has so far experienced is nothing compared to what will be when God has brought Israel into its calling. (cp. Romans 11:15) The church must bow itself down under God's mighty hand so that he can raise it up again at his time and on his conditions. When the church confesses that her Messiah Jesus is the king of the Jews and that the Jewish people is its people, it will become an outsider, despised, persecuted, and hated. But that is the path to the fullness of the inheritance.

The whole world is affected
The Near East conflict affects not only Arabs and Jews, but the whole world. For the restoration of Israel is not a human, but a divine work - even if God uses men and institutions, e.g. the U.N. in 1948. The fact that his work, whose goal is the salvation of the world, is so strongly opposed by the Jewish people, by the non-Jewish world, and by the church, causes much suffering. God's work with and in Israel reveals the heart attitude of both the Jewish people and the rest of the world toward himself and his Word. Everyone will be compelled sooner or later to take a stand in relation to his authority: is it the word of the Bible or his own human, religious view?
The God of the old and the new covenant offers the Jewish people and the whole world life, peace and salvation in Jesus. Refusing or opposing this offer has its consequences. If the biblical God alone is life and love - and he is! - then a life without him can end only in suffering, misery and death.

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