This morning I watched a video compilation of protestors. They were screaming, “Death to Israel” and “Heil Hitler!” Young women were shaking their fists and saying Hitler did not go far enough. Small children were saying they want to grow up and kill Jews. An old woman was screaming and spitting, shouting at Jewish passersby, “Go back to the ovens!” Where was this video filmed? Libya? Iran? Saudi Arabia? No. New York City.
Israel has long been a war-torn land of conflict. Following the overthrow of Jerusalem in 79 A.D., Jewish people dispersed throughout Europe and around the world through what has become known as the Diaspora.
And remarkably, though separated by years and often by thousands of miles, the Jewish people managed to maintain a cohesive identity based on shared ethnicity, religion, language, and culture. And they have maintained their identity while confronting more than their share of enemies. Virulent anti-semitism has been a thing since—well, forever. Because the devil cannot hurt God directly, he hurts Him by hurting those He loves, often by attacking innocent and vulnerable children, by attacking Christians, and especially by attacking those God named His “chosen people.” Too often Christians have made it worse, joining in the attacks by labeling Jewish people “Christ killers.”[1]
Between 1917 and 1948, the Zionist movement in England and the League of Nations/United Nations led to the establishment of the new state of Israel. The story is too complicated to detail here, but I can’t write further without noting that many Palestinians lost their homes.
I know a lawyer in Houston whose mother and father were both born in Bethlehem. They were Palestinian Christians, members of a Christian sect that lived peacefully in the region for centuries. But in 1948, Richard’s grandparents were driven from their homes so that Jewish people could move in. The families immigrated to Houston. I note this in an attempt to be honest about difficult facts. Yes, Israel displaced innocent people when the nation was created. And that is one[2] of the sources of this conflict that never seems to end.
On the other hand, the enemies of Israel continue their attacks, year-after-year, decade-after-decade. There are threats from every nation in the Middle East. The enemies of Israel, a nation the size of New Jersey, occupy an unbroken line some 5,000 miles long from North Africa to Pakistan.
And American Christians have proven to be Israel’s greatest supporters. As Michael Horowitz of the Hudson Institute once told me, Jews owe a debt to American Christians who have long been their most vocal advocates. Why? Partly because so many Evangelical Christians have subscribed to a “dispensational” view of history. Such a view sees 1948’s creation of the modern state of Israel as the fulfillment of prophecy. After all, the Bible speaks of God calling His people back to Israel from far-flung locations throughout the world:
“I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph. I will bring them back, because I have mercy on them … I will whistle for them and gather them, for I will redeem them … I will sow them among the peoples, and they shall remember Me in far countries … and they shall return. I will bring them back from the land of Egypt, and gather them from Assyria. I will bring them into the land of Gilead and Lebanon until no more room is found for them” Zechariah 10:6-10.
God gave this prophecy to Zechariah 500 years before Christ. The prophecy applied at that time to indicate God would bring His people home following the Babylonian captivity and other circumstances that had caused them to be dispersed. But does the prophecy have a secondary meaning applicable to the restoration of the nation of Israel in 1948? Many believe it does. The Enduring Word Bible Commentary speaks only of this latter interpretation, omitting entirely any meaning applicable in the time of Zechariah: “In the 20th Century many Jewish people were gathered back to the land of Israel, and in 1948 Israel became a nation again—after more than 2,000 years of not being a nation.”[3]
However, I am no longer persuaded by the dispensational theology on which I was raised. Like many, I simply do not see dispensationalism in the scripture. Maybe the founding of Israel in 1948 fulfills Bible prophecy. Maybe it does not.
Recently the doctrine of “Replacement Theology”** has been gaining followers. This is the idea that the Christian church replaced Israel as God’s Chosen People, and God no longer works in or through the Jewish people or the modern state of Israel. However, Replacement Theology, attractive in part because it provides Christians an excuse to stop supporting the modern nation of Israel, is not a Biblical doctrine. The church did not replace Israel and the Jewish people. No matter how you interpret Bible prophecy, you cannot deny the significant role of the Jewish people throughout the book of Revelation.
Some writers who may not go so far as to adopt Replacement Theology, nevertheless believe that because the Jewish people have rejected Christ, they no longer play any role in the work of God on earth.
I am not prepared to accept that conclusion. But those who make the argument cite a great deal of scripture in support.[4] Consider this paragraph:
“This is what dispensationalism misses. Modern Judaism must be considered an idolatrous faith, and the modern secular nation of Israel is in no sense God’s covenant people. Unbelieving Jews do not worship the same God Christians worship because, as Scripture teaches, if you reject the Son, you also reject the Father (Matthew 10:33; 1 John 2:23; and Galatians 4:8-10, which compares returning to Judaism as equivalent to returning to paganism).”
Unbelieving Jews do not worship Christ, that is true. But in my opinion, they remain God’s Chosen People (more on that below).
But where does this leave us? The world loves to go to war over Israel. What should Americans do? What should Christians do?
We must pray.
God tells us to “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem,” (Psalm 122:6) and He did not say to only pray for Jerusalem after they accept Jesus as the Messiah. The grief Jesus expresses over the state of Jerusalem in Matthew 23:37 convinces me that if He walked among us today, He would be praying for Jerusalem. God loves Jerusalem. And He loves the Jewish people. Even the Apostle Paul expressed grief over the state of Israel and its rejection of Jesus, Romans 9:1-3. I believe we must support Israel and pray for the peace of its capital city.
But is this the same Israel? Are these the same people? Are the Jewish people now living in the Holy Land actually descendants of Abraham? Yes.
But what about their rejection of Christ, and Paul’s statement that if they reject Christ, they are no longer Abraham’s seed, Romans 9:6? I think this is a valid point about salvation, but has no bearing on our command to pray. Paul himself says Israel may one day be grafted back in to Christ, Romans 11:23-24. So keep praying for Israel.
We must support Israel.
Second, for purely pragmatic, political reasons, I believe we should continue to support Israel. Not because Hal Lindsay and Tim LaHaye believe the 1948 founding fulfilled prophecy.
We should support Israel because we need a thriving democracy in the middle of that sea of cancer and death we call the Middle East.
Whether Israel is the subject of the Reverse-Diaspora in Zechariah 10:6-10 or not, Israel remains the lone outpost of Western democracy in one of the darkest regions of the world. The world needs this oasis in a harsh desert. The world needs Israel, America needs this ally–and Israel needs our support. As for the Zionist failures of 1948, I cannot defend the way people were driven from their homes. This was not an eminent domain action proceeding under due process of law. Property owners were not paid market value for the loss of homes and real estate. This was ‘Get out, or else.’
Nevertheless, generations have passed. Battles have been fought. Warriors and diplomats have come and gone; soldiers have been born and died. In a relatively short time, the nation of Israel will celebrate 100 years. I believe it is time to consider the actions of 1948 “water under the bridge.” I don’t mean to say those actions were not wrong. But I believe the wrongs of 1948 have been buried so deeply under the decades of non-stop violence that have followed as to be rendered irrelevant today. It’s time to stop fighting over 1948.
Dispensationalist History or Not, I Believe Israel Remains God’s Chosen People.
You know why I think Israel remains “God’s chosen people”? Because Israel remains the devil’s chosen enemy. What other people are persecuted the way Jews are? Hitler was not the first and certainly won’t be the last. Hitler fans today are screaming ‘Heil Hitler” and speaking murderous threats to Jews everywhere. And American and Western Europeans are making it that much easier by screaming “Free Palestine” (though Hamas launched the current conflict on October 7, 2023). Add to that the fact that terrorists and terrorist-wannabees are shouting “death to Israel” and I am that much more inclined to support Israel.
Finally, a succession of miracles indicate that God is on Israel’s side.
I am persuaded to support Israel because when Israel is in trouble, miraculous things seem to happen. First, the fact that the Jewish people have survived across the centuries, their scripture, traditions, and religion intact, is nothing short of a miracle. These talented, entrepreneurial, inventive people have been the subject of violent envy and hatred from day one. They have been driven from homes, attacked with genocide, pursued across Europe by the most organized military machine the world has ever seen, billions of dollars wasted on their extermination, yet they remain. Their survival is nothing short of a miracle. The Re-Birth of the Nation of Israel is likewise seen by many as another miracle.
And there are more recent miracles. The Six-Day War[5] is one well-known, well-documented example. More recent allegations of miracles include the “Bus Bomb Miracle,” the “First and Second Iranian Attack Waves—No Casualties,” “Houthi Harassment,” and more.[6]
Frankly, stories similar to these seem nearly constant. Every year Israel is attacked, and every year we hear stories of how ineffective those attacks have been. In the face of sometimes overwhelming odds, Israel survives, often unscathed. I cannot verify whether all of these alleged miracles happened or happened in the miraculous way they are reported to have happened. But the survival of this tiny nation that is almost constantly under attack—that I can argue is a miracle. And if God is working miracles to support Israel, I believe we should too.
“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem” Psalm 122:6.
AΩ.
[1] The Bible calls the name “Christ killers” into question—the Jews had no power to use the death penalty. It was Pontius Pilate and the Romans that actually put Jesus to death. Sadly, these oversimplifications persist. No less significant a person than Martin Luther, something of a hero to me, became in his later years a raging anti-semite, spewing filthy ideas in a pair of books said to have influenced even Adolf Hitler himself.
[2] The displacement of Palestinian people in 1948 is certainly not the only source of conflict. Many anti-semitic people claim to have committed themselves to the destruction of the Jews, and will not be satisfied until every Jewish person is removed from the face of the earth. For many, claims about the loss of a historic homeland are merely an excuse for genocidal hatred. Consider, for example, the commitment of Hamas to the total destruction of Israel. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/doctrine-hamas
[3] https://enduringword.com/bible-commentary/zechariah-10/
[4] Consider this article about the modern state of Israel. https://thefederalist.com/2025/07/01/what-does-the-bible-really-say-about-who-the-true-israel-is/?fbclid=IwY2xjawLeUDZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHiMiPEQso-F-LsgjeVQFzhEWjQfaiGsIn4R83gPHhML1N0_JtmOt4zs3fOyj_aem_SshUQT_aGGS8jS82_ZGA-w
[5] https://www.chabad.org/multimedia/timeline_cdo/aid/525341/jewish/Introduction.htm
[6] https://ffoz.org/messiah/articles/israels-miracles-at-war
Household Words: 