Beauty for Ashes: Understanding the Israel-Hamas War

What Should We Do? Pray! I believe in the power of prayer. Praying individually and corporately, I’ve written this guide to equip you to understand the conflict and equip you to begin to pray and act, armed with increased knowledge about its full scope of the conflict. Armed with the weapons of the spirit, let us be ambassadors of good will to both Israel and Palestine. In the following chapters, I attempt to reconstruct our understanding of what has happened in the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict by examining its origins in the 1880s through the present. I frame this history in a biblical perspective of the history of the cosmos, in what I believe is a generous theology of history—an inclusive history that shows that the God of Israel and Ishmael has a purpose and a plan for all people that is underway today. My hope is that this book will help you to recenter your thinking about what biblical justice entails and how to discern the means by which we may hope to approach it. Christian Zionists emphasize their unconditional support of the Jewish people and Israel. Their hostility to, and distrust of, Arabs and Muslims stems in part from their opposition to the Jewish state. Yet it can be argued that the Abraham Accords are proof that many Arabs desire the end of the conflict. Claims that Christian Zionists support Israel only in the belief that this will usher in the Second Coming may be true for some, but most Christian Zionists, and many Arabs, support Israel as a bulwark in the civilized world. Most Christian Zionists are aware of the historic churches in Israel and Palestine, with some visiting the Church of the Nativity and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and have, over the past two decades, developed new connections with Palestinian Christians, Arab Israelis, or Jewish believers in Israel. The vibrant evangelical churches of Israel and Palestine afford endless opportunities for American Christians to serve as ambassadors of hope to their Jewish and Muslim neighbors. Evangelical Arab leaders in Israel understand Romans 11 as an invitation to provoke Israeli Jews to jealousy, working with Israeli Jewish believers to share the gospel and communion as a living hope offered to all. The symbol of the olive tree is cherished by Palestinians. Some believers understand its true meaning: that they are grafted in to the Jewish tree. The Church transcends time and space, bringing believers together to serve their communities wherever they are. Increasing numbers of believers in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and the Gulf States under the headship of the Jewish messiah are transforming the Middle East. We are called to support the pastors, seminaries, and churches in Israel and Palestine, to strengthen and encourage them in their witness to the world. The Evangelical and Messianic Jewish communities today are divided between those who support the Palestinian right to self-determination, and those who do not. The Lausanne Initiative for Reconciliation in Israel and Palestine creates a space for them to study and pray together specifically for their mutual future. My hope is that the initiative will establish liturgical practices that will enable believers to pray as an Ephesians 3:6 body, following the example of the ancient Middle Eastern Christians, whose ecclesiology creates a basis for ethnically distinct churches. Eschatology determines the theological imperatives that shaped the historical emergence of political Zionism and the establishment of the State of Israel; good biblical exegesis that challenges supersessionism is helping Christians to move forward ecclesiologically and culturally. Many Muslims have realized that the Allah of the Salafists is not the God of Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac and Jacob. Let us begin there. Let us testify to them: Let us worship the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, and Jacob, praying for forgiveness, and mercy in the time that remains. We should share our faith, with the understanding that it can only lead us to think about what we share. The Lord Himself is the one who reveals the Truth to each believer, meeting each of us where we are; this is a time ripe for the harvest.