In this lesson, we are going to have a brief survey of the modern restoration of Israel as the Jews return to their ancient land in fulfillment of Bible prophecy. This rebirth of the state of Israel is one of the greatest events of our times. After all these centuries, the Jews are back in their own land. There is no other possible explanation for this incredible fact except the biblical one. Many places in the Bible speak of this restoration. A few are as follows—
Isaiah wrote, “Fear not for I am with you; I will bring your descendants from the east, and gather you from the west; I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’ and to the south, ‘Do not keep them back!’ Bring My sons from afar, and My daughters from the ends of the earth” (Isaiah 43:5-6).
Jeremiah said, “Hear the word of the LORD, O nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him as a shepherd does his flock’ ” (Jeremiah 31:10).
“Behold I will gather them out of all countries where I have driven them in My anger, in My fury, and in great wrath; I will bring them back to this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely. They shall be My people and I will be there God; then I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me forever, for the good of them and their children after them.
“And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from doing them good; but I will put My fear in their hearts so that they will not depart from Me. Yes, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will assuredly plant them in this land, with all My heart and with all My soul” (Jeremiah 32347-41).
The prophet Amos wrote these words, “I will bring back the captives of My people Israel; they shall build the waste cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink wine from them; they shall also make gardens and eat fruit from them. I will plant them in their land, and no longer shall they be pulled up from the land I have given them, says the LORD your God” (Amos 9:14-15).
Ezekiel said, “For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
“I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, you shall be My people, and I will be your God” (Ezekiel 36: 24-28).
The man whom God used to promote this modern return was Theodore Herzl. Herzl was born in 1860 in Budapest. He was the son of a wealthy banker. Herzl himself studied law but later became a journalist. He was well assimilated into the Gentile world in which he lived and felt very comfortable in it. He believed that modern man had become so civilized and tolerant of his fellowman that Gentile prejudices against Jews would soon disappear.
In 1894, Herzl had an experience that showed him the foolishness of is thinking and total ignorance of men’s hearts. This experience became known as the “Dreyfus Affair.”
Alfred Dreyfus was a captain in the French army. He was also a Jew. He had been accused of giving French military secrets to the Germans and was humiliated and sentenced to life imprisonment. This guilty verdict was passed even though there was little evidence to support it.
During the trial, the public demanded justice. Their demands were not so much because they thought Dreyfus was a traitor, but because he was a Jew. Herzl was in Paris covering the story. As he heard the angry mobs scream, “Kill the traitor, kill the Jew,” chills ran through his blood. His eyes were opened to the fact that Gentile hate of the Jews would never disappear, and, given the opportunity, they would again try to wipe them off the face of the earth.
B. The Birth of Zion
Herzl’s attitude had now changed. He saw the Jew would never be safe outside of his own land. In 1896, Herzl wrote The Jewish State. In this little book, Herzl stated the problem and challenged the Jews to work toward the establishment of their own nation. In 1897, he called together the first meeting to lay the groundwork for what would later become known as “Zionism.” At this meeting held in Basil, Switzerland, Herzl predicted that within fifty years the Jews would have their own state.
There was only one problem with his prediction. The land of Palestine was under control of the Turks. They had ruled over this land since 1517 and were certainly not interested in giving it to Jews. However, something was to happen that dramatically changed the situation. That “something” was World War I.
In this terrible war, Turkey and England fought each other for control of the Middle East. England won. Ironically enough, a Jewish chemist named Chaim Weizmann made a major contribution to the war effort for England. He developed a means for improving the making of explosives, which England vitally needed in the war effort.
The Prime Minister of England publicly recognized Weizmann’s contribution and desired to reward him. Instead of seeking personal gain, Weizmann asked that England grant the Jews a national homeland.
The Prime Minister agreed and in 1917 the British Foreign Secretary, James Balfour, prepared a declaration that established the mandate for the Jews to once again live in their ancient land. As horrible as the war was, God used it to bring the Jews back home for the final and complete fulfillment of the land promise He made to Abraham 4,000 years earlier.
The newly formed League of Nations gave its stamp of approval to the Balfour Declaration. But except for a few religious zealots and political idealists, the Jews were not too thrilled with the idea of returning to the land. They were comfortably assimilated in the Gentile world. They had not been in Paris with Herzl. They had not seen what he had seen. It had been too long since they had heard, “Kill the Jew, kill the Jew!”
World War II woke them up. Hitler’s death camps opened their eyes to the stark reality of what Herzl saw at the Dreyfus trial. Thus the Jews began a mass exodus back to their land.
Herzl’s prediction that the Jews would have their own state within fifty years proved to be prophetic. On November 29, 1947, the United Nations voted on what God had already decreed, and officially established the existence of the state of Israel. They decided to partition the land into a Jewish state and an Arab state, while making Jerusalem an international city.
This plan was accepted by the Jews. The land given to them was only nine to ten miles wide at its middle and vulnerable to attack from every side. Much of it was desert, and almost one-half of the inhabitants were Arabs. Yet the plan did establish the Jews with an independent state, and for this, the Jews rejoiced.
The Arabs were not so happy. They resented this Jewish intrusion and rejected the plan. They felt confident they could drive the Jews into the Mediterranean Sea. Because of their superior numbers, the Arabs were more interested in a military solution to the division of the land that they were a political one. They instructed the Arabs who were living in the land to flee to the neighboring Arab countries until the Jews were annihilated. Then they could return and possess the land. The Jews begged these Arabs to stay and work with them for the good of the land and the region.
On May 14, 1948, the Jewish people declared their independence. The following day, this new state of Israel was attacked by the combined armies of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq. Egypt invaded from the south. Syria and Lebanon from the north. Jordan and Iraq came from the east. The Mediterranean was to the west. The Jews had their backs to the sea.
The total Jewish population in the land at this time was about 650,000 men, women, and children. The small Jewish militia had little armament. What they did have was outdated. The land they had to defend was long and skinny. Most of it was borderland, surrounded on three sides by the enemy. From a military standpoint, it was indefensible.
The total Arab population surrounding Israel was from 100 to 150 million, representing a number of different countries. The land area they occupied was two hundred times larger than that of the Jews. Their armies were well-equipped with more modern weapons. Rightly so, the Arabs were confident of a quick military victory and an end to the “Jewish problem.”
But God had not preserved a remnant of Jews and brought them back to the land so they could be driven into the sea. Not only did the Jews survive and hold their ground, but they gained additional land, which had not been included in the earlier proposal by the United Nations.
The Arab state, which had been proposed by the United Nations, never came into existence because Jordan annexed most of the territory west of the Jordan River which had been allocated to the Arabs as their state. Egypt took control of the Gaza Strip in the south, which had also been allocated to the Arabs.
Neither did Jerusalem become an international city. It was divided between Israel and Jordan. Israel captured the western part of Jerusalem, which was the modern part of the city. Jordan took control of the Old City of Jerusalem, which included the ancient Temple site, the holiest place of Judaism. A no man’s land was established between the divided city.
With Israel now established as a nation, Jews from all over the world began to return to their homeland. Within the next three years, the population doubled as over 700,000 Jews poured into Israel. These Jews came mainly from Europe and the Arab countries. Many thousands more came over the next few years. Sometimes entire Jewish communities packed up their bags and headed for Israel. God was bringing them home. But would they be there to stay?
D. The Sinai Campaign
The War of Independence ended in an uneasy truce. The Arab states considered themselves to be in a continual state of war against Israel. There were many border incidents, particularly the Egyptian controlled Sinai Peninsula. Arab raiders were sent on murderous suicide missions deep into Israeli territory. Tensions mounted.
Finally, in 1956, the Egyptian ruler, Abdul Nasser, seized control of the Suez Canal and prepared to attack Israel with a united Arab alliance that included Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. Nasser’s action to take control of the Suez Canal angered the British and French. They sought Israel’s help in reopening the canal.
On October 29, 1956, Israel invaded the Sinai and quickly defeated the Egyptian forces, pushing them back to the Suez Canal. General Moshe Dayan led this 110-mile march destroying commando bases along the way. Israel took 6,000 Egyptian prisoners and huge quantities of armaments and supplies. Meanwhile, the British and French were bombing the Egyptian strongholds and taking control of the Suez Canal.
The United Nations called an emergency session to stop the fighting. With the backing of both the United States and Russia, they forced Israel and her allies to withdraw from the captured territory. United Nation observers were then stationed along the Egyptian border. The significance of the Sinai Campaign was that it bought Israel time to develop more strongly as a nation.
E. The Six Day War
For the next ten years, Israel and her Arab neighbors lived in relative peace with Arab hostilities limited to terrorist actions against Israel. During this period, Russia supplied the Arab armies with a massive amount of weapons and other military aid.
The Arabs, led by Nasser, continued their “state of war” attitude against Israel. Russia desired to gain influence in the Middle East and capitalize on the conflict. In 1967, Russian intelligence sent exaggerated reports to both Syria and Egypt concerning war preparations by Israel.
Nasser’s popularity at home was low. He needed to reestablish his prestige as the leader of the Arab world. The only way he could do that would be to defeat Israel. With encouragement from the Russians, Nasser again made an alliance with Syria and Jordan to destroy Israel. The stated Arab goal was not only to defeat the Israeli military and reclaim the land, but to kill every Jew in Israel, man, woman, and child. However, God had different plans.
In May 1967, Nasser began to move his troops into the Sinai. He ordered the United Nations peace-keeping force out of the area. Then as a final attempt to provoke Israel, he blocked the Israeli port of Eliat on the Gulf of Aqaba.
Israel was left with no choice but to retaliate. On the fifth of June 1967, Israel made a lightning attack against her enemies. Israeli jets, flying low to avoid radar, swept into Egypt from the Mediterranean and totally destroyed the entire Egyptian air force. The results were the same against Jordan and Syria. Over four hundred Russian supplied Arab planes were destroyed on their airfield before the pilots could get them off the ground.
The Egyptian ground force in the Sinai was also routed. The Israelis destroyed more than 600 Russian supplied tanks and captured more than one hundred undamaged tanks. In addition, they took huge quantities of weapons of various types and much other military equipment.
Weapons were not all they took. They also captured Arab land. The longer the Arabs persisted in fighting, the more land they lost. By the time the war was over, Israel occupied the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip, from which Egypt had made many raids into Israel.
For nineteen years, Syria had fired on Israeli civilians from the strategic area of the Golan Heights. Now it was captured by Israel. In addition, Jordan had used the West Bank (the biblical land area of Judea and Samaria) for similar terrorist activities. It too fell into Israeli hands. Incredibly, the war was over in just six days.
The most important outcome of this war was the Israeli capture of the biblical city of Jerusalem, which they took from Jordan. The Jews had not been masters of Jerusalem since 606 B.C. when Nebuchadnezzar conquered it. They had been banned from living there since 135 A.D. by the Romans.
Now after all these centuries, the Jews were back in their land and in possession of their ancient capital city. Many view this dramatic event as fulfillment of Bible prophecy and preparation for the coming of Messiah. But would the Arabs and the nations allow Israel to keep a united Jerusalem?
F. The Yom Kippur War
The Arab world was humiliated by the stunning defeat. Nasser blamed the loss on British and American support for Israel¾an accusation he dreamed up to save face. Arab pride had been devastated. They felt a desperate need to regain their self-respect as well as recover territory lost to Israel. They again looked to Russia for military assistance. Russia eagerly rearmed them and a massive military build up took place.
The Arabs began the fourth round of war on the Jewish most holy day¾Yom Kippur. The invasion took place on October 6, 1973. Most Jews on that day were in the synagogues observing their religious practices. The nation was not properly prepared. They had purposefully let the Arabs make the first move in order not to be criticized as the aggressor.
Egypt crossed the Suez Canal and attacked the Sinai while Syria simultaneously invaded the Golan Heights. Other Arab countries joined the attack. For the first few days, the Arabs had the advantage. But as the war progressed, the superior Israeli military forces turned the momentum to their favor.
On the northern front, the Israelis pushed back the Syrians and advanced to within twenty miles of Damascus. To the south, they had successfully crossed the Suez Canal and had surrounded the entire Egyptian third army, which was trapped in the Sinai. This was about twenty thousand soldiers. The Israelis could have easily conquered them.
Once again, the United Nations and the superpowers intervened to stop the war. The United States Secretary of State, Henry Kessinger, negotiated a “separation of forces” between Israel and Egypt. This saved the Egyptian Third Army from complete destruction. A similar agreement was made with Syria.
In this dreadful war, the Lord supernaturally protected His covenant people and gave them victory over their enemies. Yet, this war was different from previous ones in that it seemed as if the Arabs would win. This war awakened the Israelis to their vulnerability. The significance of this war was that the Arabs regained some self-respect, and the Jews began to sense the divine protection of God. He was with them even though they did not serve Him.
Next came the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Why did Israel feel it was necessary to invade Lebanon?
As we’ve just discovered, when Israel declared her independence in 1948, the Arabs who were living in the land were told by their leaders to flee until they drove Israel into the Sea. Then they could return and possess the land. These Arabs are called Palestinians because Palestine was the name of the land area in which they were living. Many of these Arabs fled to Jordan and Lebanon.
Since the Arabs expected to return the Palestinians to the land, they did not really assimilate them into the country. Instead, they placed them in refugee camps. With each successive Israeli victory, the number of Arabs leaving Israel grew from 150,000 to 600,000. The Arab countries refused to take them in as citizens and care for them. Instead, they used them as political pawns in their continuing struggle against Israel and their ambition to establish a Palestinian state.
With each Israeli victory, it became more and more clear that the Arab nations were not going to defeat Israel. In view of this, a small group of terrorists organized and called themselves the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The PLO is a terrorist organization formed for the sole purpose of destroying the nation of Israel. They appointed themselves as leaders of the displaced Palestinian refugees. The Arab nations use the PLO as their means for unofficially carrying out their continued war against Israel.
The PLO initially made their headquarters in Jordan. Yasser Arafat became their leader. By using force and the rule of the gun, the PLO took over the refugee camps in Jordan. Through fear and intimidation, they turned these refugee camps into military strongholds from which they conducted raids in Israel.
In September 1970, the PLO tried to overthrow Jordan’s King Hussein. King Hussein defeated them, killing 10,000 Palestinians, and the PLO fled to Lebanon, where they infiltrated and took control of the refugee camps there. By then the number of refugees had grown to several hundred thousand. The PLO organized and indoctrinated the young Arab males into their growing militia. With money from Saudi Arabia, they were able to purchase arms from Russia and other countries who wanted to see Israel destroyed. Their terrorist organization was growing into a small, well-equipped army.
Unlike Jordan, Lebanon did not have a strong central government. They couldn’t stop the PLO from taking over the southern part of the country. The PLO was rapidly becoming a state within a state. In 1975, they began a civil war against the Lebanese Christians. In the next seven years, over 100,000 Lebanese were brutally massacred by the PLO, not Israel.
In an effort to end the bloodshed, the United Nations allowed Syria to send “peace-keeping” forces into Lebanon. Syria had wanted to take over Lebanon for years. They saw this as their opportunity. The Syrian President, Hafez Assad, moved 30,000 troops into Lebanon. He also put missiles in the Bekaa Valley. But instead of being a peacemaker, the Syrians gave the PLO a free hand in butchering the Christians and shelling Israel’s northern cities.
As the attacks on Israel increased, it became clear that they could no longer tolerate the situation. Finally on June 5, 1982, Israel invaded southern Lebanon for the purpose of eliminating the PLO strongholds and liberating Lebanon from their oppressors. Syria responded to this invasion with an air attack. Incredibly, Israel destroyed eight-two Russian supplied Syrian planes without losing a single one themselves.
Syria still controls Lebanon and continues to fight Israel through Hamas and other terrorists groups. They have driven Israel and her Southern Lebanese allies from the southern buffer zone Israel established, and they want the Golan Heights, which they lost in 1967.
Now that Israel has signed a “peace accord” with the PLO, Israel is in grave danger from within as the PLO has an armed militia of 40,000 to 50,000 terrorist and the nations of the world, including the United States, are pressuring Israel to surrender more land to the PLO. Only God can save Israel from herself and her enemies in the battle for Jerusalem, which lies ahead. He surely will do so at the coming of the Lord.
When Jesus returns, He will rule the nations from Jerusalem. Israel will be the head of the nations with Jerusalem as the capital of the world (Isaiah 2:2-3; Micah 4:1-2). All nations will submit to the rule of Jesus who will fully establish the Kingdom of God on the earth and the Kingdom of David over Israel (Psalm 2; 110; Jeremiah 3:17; 30:18-22; Zechariah 6:13; 14:9; Revelation 11:15) Jesus will rule with righteousness and justice so that peace will finally come to the world (Jeremiah 23:5-6; Isaiah 2:4; Micah 4:3).
The blessings of the Kingdom of God will come to all the nations through Israel as they live under the righteous rule of Messiah Jesus who will sit on the throne of David (Psalm 2). Believers will assist the Lord in administering the Kingdom of God. His glory will fill the earth, and the people of God will rule and reign over the nations from Jerusalem.(Daniel 2:44; 7:13-14).
3. Summary
God made an unconditional promise to Abraham to give his natural descendants through Isaac and Jacob the land of Israel. God is a faithful, covenant-keeping God. He promised to preserve a remnant of the seed of Abraham and bring them back to their promised land at the end of the age in preparation for the coming of Messiah.
We are seeing the fulfillment of this promise in our generation. God has miraculously brought the Jews back to their ancient land and birthed them as a nation. Against overwhelming obstacles, and greatly outnumbered by her enemies, Israel has won all her wars and, in just over fifty years, has the fourth most powerful military in the world. While Israel will have more wars in the future, she will win them all because He who keeps Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps (Psalm 121:3-4).
4. Questions
A. Explain the circumstances that led to the rebirth of the State of Israel.
B. What should be the attitude of the church towards the State of Israel?
C. How can you apply this lesson to your life?