The wars of Israel

Israel has a rich biblical history where God promised Abraham that He would make a great nation out of him and to give unto him a land for his posterity. From Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob, this promise was reiterated. The Jews obtained the promises of God when they were led into the land of Canaan and claimed the land. However, they also lost their land, when General Titus (who eventually became the Roman Emperor) ransacked and destroyed Jerusalem in A.D. 70. The Jews were dispersed all over the world. This spelt the end of the kingdom of Israel. What happened to the land? The land was ruled by various powers from the Romans to the Byzantine, and to the Ottoman. Around 1880, there rose a Zionist movement which saw European Jews immigrating to their homeland. They bought the land from Arab dwellers at a hefty price. The Arabs gladly sold it as it was sparsely occupied and a wilderness. The Jews and the Arabs dwelt together, and collectively they were called Palestinians. After World War I, the British was given the mandate (“British Mandate”) by the League of Nations in 1922 to administer the land. During the Mandate, both the Jewish and Arab communities were vying for the land. The Arabs drove out the Jewish Palestinians from the land, namely from the Gaza, West Bank (part of Samaria and Judea) and the southern wilderness (Negev). Because of the great animosity between these two communities, the United Nations partitioned the land between the Jews and the Arabs (1947). While the Jews accepted the UN land partitioning then, the Arabs rejected it as they wanted all the land. This triggered a civil war between these two communities. The British terminated the Mandate on 14 May 1948, and Israel was declared as an independent and sovereign nation by the United Nations on that day. Israel was attacked on the day after (War of Independence: 1948). Egypt, Transjordan, Syria and Iraq attacked Israeli forces and Jewish settlements. The war lasted 10 months and ended with Israel having control over its own area as well as almost 60% of the other areas. Instead of being wiped out, the Jews extended their territories. The second Arab-Israeli War (Suez Crisis: 1956) occurred where Egypt took control of the Suez Canal and threatened to close it. Israel fought to reopen the Straits of Tiran to lift up the blockage. Together, with the support of Britain and France, they wanted to invade Egypt. This was eventually thwarted by the efforts of the United States. When the Egyptians attempted to close the Straits of Tiran and to war against Israel again. Israel went on a pre-emptive strike and destroyed the Egyptian military in the Sinai Peninsula (Six-Day War: 1967). Jordan and Syria joined in the fight but were defeated. Israel ended up occupying Gaza, West Bank, Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights. Its control of the land expanded. Again, the Arab coalition led by Egypt attacked Israel on the holiest day of the Jews (Yom Kippur War: 1973). Israel was caught by surprise with the attack of Egypt from the south and Syria from the north, and Jordan from the west. However, they managed to turn the war around and won. This war had a great repercussion. This war resulted in great humiliation to the Arabs. At the same time, Israel recognized that it could not win every war. This paved the way for efforts to try to find a solution for peace. In 1981, Egypt normalized its ties with Israel and signed a peace treaty. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was set up by the Arabs to represent the Arab Palestinians. It was founded in 1964 to establish an Arab state over the entire territory of the former Mandatory Palestine, advocating for the elimination of Israel. It did not succeed in its guerrilla warfare against Israel. In 1993, the PLO signed the Oslo I Accord, recognizing the sovereignty of Israel, and sought Arab statehood only in Palestinian territories (Gaza Strip and West Bank). In 1994, Jordan also signed a peace treaty with Israel. In 2006, the Palestinians in Gaza voted in the Hamas, a terrorist organization funded by Iran. This group pursued what the PLO could not, to destroy Israel. Instead of governing the people by building infrastructure for its populace and to build up the society with the humanitarian aids provided, the Hamas indoctrinated the Palestinians with hatred for the Jews. They attacked the Jews frequently with rockets fired into the civilian populace but many of these were intercepted by the Israeli Iron Dome defence system. When the Israel retaliated, these terrorists would hide upon its own populace, putting them in risk of Israeli fire. They do not care of the Israeli civilians, nor do they for their own people. On 7 October, they attempted to overwhelm the Iron Dome with thousands of rockets fired rapidly into Israel. Most of the rockets were intercepted but some went through and hit Israeli cities. On top of that, the Hamas breached the defence separating Gaza and Israel and went on a massacre, killing civilians (easy targets) rather than the Israeli military, preying on the most vulnerable ones (babies/children, women and old folks). Their atrocities were so disgusting that the Israel intended to wipe out the Hamas (not the Palestinians) and their infrastructures so that such an event would not happen again. Would the Israel succeed in their endeavours in order to bring peace to their nation? Let this be clear. Israel as a nation will have no peace until they find peace in the Messiah. The nation would be deceived by a false Messiah (the Antichrist) who would be able to bring about a short period of peace. Thereafter, this same person will go about destroying the nation. The nation could only be saved when the Messiah return to destroy the Antichrist. Only then shall Israel be saved and peace will be upon Jerusalem. HCL.