Video Transcript
Who do you turn to when you don’t know anything about anything? Google. Right? So we decided we’re going to go to Google and ask some questions and just see what is the average person wondering about as it relates to Israel and the Jewish people. So let’s jump in. Let’s do this.
How did Israel become a country?
All right, that’s a super great question. How did Israel become a country? Well, we know at first that God made it so before Jesus, and then the Romans came and there was this great scattering of the Jewish people. And then on May 14th, 1948, Israel declared its independence and became a nation. But it didn’t just happen overnight. So what ended up happening is in the late 1800’s when antisemitism was beginning to rise and into the 1800’s, there began to be a movement called Zionism and Jewish people began to move back to the land of Israel. So before World War II, there were already over a half a million Jewish people living in the land of Israel. They returned there because they believed what the Bible said, that that’s their indigenous homeland. And then after a while, through lots of various governmental things that took place with wider governments, the British, French, etc… and the nations adopted Israel as a nation. So on May 14th, 1948, they declared their independence and became a nation. It was quite miraculous, and the Bible actually foretold this. Can a nation be born in a day? And it was. Israel was reborn on May 14th, 1948.
Why does Israel want the West Bank?
Great question. The West Bank is the area that is west of the Jordan River. So it’s the West Bank of Jordan. Why does Israel want the West Bank? Because it’s a part of the biblical land that God gave to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So this is where a lot of events took place in Israel’s history, and we’re not going to step into any more landmines on that one because it’s very complex. But we did a video on that, and you can go check it out.
How can Israel and Palestine make peace?
Yeah, I’d actually love to see Google’s answer on that one. Let me give you my answer. This is just me. Okay. How can Israel and Palestine or the Palestinians make peace? This is how – by loving one another – and I think the only way for Jewish people and Palestinians to heal from the pain that they’ve both experienced and all these years of fighting and all of their different indigenous histories, this is just my opinion, is through Jesus. Jesus will be the one who can bring Israel and the nations together. We know this is true because that’s a part of what the Messiah does. He unites Israel and the nations in himself, and we know that’s what he’s already done in uniting Jew and Gentile one in the Messiah. So how can Israel and Palestine make peace? Not only through Jesus, I’m not saying that’s the exhaustive end game, but yes, there’s no question. If they all put their faith in Jesus, then we would have peace in the Middle East. That’s an easy question. But we can do this by working at it slowly and working at it through honor and love and humility with one another. And through prayer, I believe that Gentile Christians can pray for peace and that we can actually be active in making that happen. So that’s a big question, but there are some practical things that we can do to make it happen.