I can’t let the Israel imbroglio, caused by Obama’s 1967 comments, pass without making just a quick comment. The situation between Israel and the Palestinians is intractable, meaning by this that there is no political solution. Apart from a supernatural intervention that topples all the idols, the inevitable consequence will be war. The more people labor for peace apart from real repentance, the worse things will get.
I say these things as one who thinks back-in-the-day Zionism was one of the worst ideas ever. This intractable situation came from somewhere, and let us not forget that. But Israel is with us now, and so let us also never forget that God takes us from where we are and not from where we should have been.
For Christians, the biggest unnamed idol in this is the West’s idolatry of democracy and self-determination. What would happen if the West Bank is made its own state? With, of course, all sorts of conditions placed on it? I’ll tell you what would happen — two elections later, Hamas would be governing that new state, and the agreed-upon conditions would all be out the window. Well, idealists might say, if that happened, we could just step back in and make them stop it. Right. Like we are doing right now in Gaza?
In short, the West Bank needs to be its own state, and it cannot be a democracy. Solve that one, ye solons of the earth.