Christ-followers are eager to serve and obey God to the best of our ability and knowledge. When there are gaps in our understanding, it behooves us to “grow in wisdom.” For example, what does the Bible say about the Promised Land and God’s chosen people? An introduction, with a link to a more in depth study.
Many Christians don’t know what the Bible says about Israel and God’s chosen people; many others think they know. Both groups owe themselves an honest look at the themes and patterns of the Bible as a whole, which might reveal a few surprises.
Some IMEMC news reports from April 4, 2019: Israeli attacks, invasions, imprisonment of children, a young Palestinian man dies from wounds inflicted by Israeli forces, etc.
Israeli forces used lethal force against hundreds of thousands of Palestinian protesters marking a year since the beginning of the Gaza Great Return March and commemorating Land Day. Among the wounded are 86 children and 29 women. The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza reports that Israeli soldiers have killed 266 Palestinians and injured 30398 others since the Return March processions started on March 30, 2018.
Netanyahu: “Israel is not a state of all its citizens. According to the nation-state law we passed, Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people — and not anyone else.”
Israel “destroyed 244 villages and built-up areas in the Golan and expelled their population, sparing only five villages (Majdal Shams, Buq’ata, Ain Qunya, Mas’ada and al-Ghajar). Not even places of worship, schools and health centres escaped destruction. The underlying aim of the occupation authorities was to eliminate Arab landmarks and obliterate the Arab identity of the Golan, as a result of which anyone who visits the Golan today is able to identify the locations of the former Arab villages only from their ruins…”
As Palestinians in Hebron navigate life without the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) observers, it is worth looking back on how oppressive and violent life was even with outsiders watching. Eric Garner would find the city eerily familiar.
Israeli private intelligence companies Psy-Group, Black Cube, etc specialize in fake online identities known as “avatars,” some work with the neocon group Foundation for Defense of Democracies – the aim is to “destabilize and disrupt anti-Israel movements from within…”
Israeli politicians all seem to share a platform plank of vitriol and threats toward Palestinians. Their campaign ads are full of mocking, insults, and accusations against Palestinians. It’s been like this for years, and it’s worse now than ever. And it’s not good for Israel.
Katherine Franke writes in the New York Review of Books that while Palestinian rights are getting more attention than ever, advocates of justice still face accusations of “anti-Semitism,” harassment, and most of all, censorship on college campuses….