War in Israel-Not New?

Note: Needless to say, this article does not do justice to the rich history of the Jewish people. Given the space available in this format, I have written an abbreviated history of this population. Please have grace as I attempt to shed some light on current events, through a brief lens of history.

Note: When I refer to the people group “Jews”, I will generally be speaking specifically of the ethnic group rather than a religious group as today not all “Jews” practice the religion of Judaism.

Only a few short weeks ago, Israel was drawn into a war in the Middle East. Over its short history as a formal country (while not recognized by some), Israel has been stuck in a war of attrition with its Middle Eastern enemies; many of whom share a border with this small country. For the short period that Israel has been a functioning country, it has seen a disproportional amount of regional conflict and an outsized position on the world stage. With all the important events surrounding Israel, we must ask, does Isreal’s background as a Jewish nation lend itself to being a target for Hamas? The answer, in the end, is yes, but in order to fully answer why Israel is in this War, one must look at the Jewish people’s history.

Throughout history, in some form or another, Jews have either wandered, suffered, struggled, or been murdered, and their perseverance can be seen today. From ancient times, the Israelites have been a wandering people, and it wasn’t after Moses died, nearly a thousand years into the Jewish experience that they found a homeland in Cannan. Even then, they had to drive out others who had moved onto the land, which took much longer. From then on, the Jewish nation constantly defended against its enemies: Philistines, Assyria, Persia, Midian, Egyptians, Hittites, and eventually, the Romans.

Even after the fall of Rome, the Jews repeatedly suffered persecution at the hands of European countries. The Spanish Inquisition drove them out of Spain. In addition, militant Crusaders repeatedly attacked and even killed Jews in the German States, on their way to free the Holy Land from Muslim oppression (ironically). But throughout the difficulties of the Middle Ages, the Jewish population in Europe proved resilient.

In the last hundred years, arguably the worst period of persecution for the Jewish people came at the hands of Nazi Germany, in the infamously deadly Holocaust. From 1933 to its conclusion in 1945, over six and a half million Jews were systematically murdered by the Nazis. In comparison, the United States has roughly five million practicing Jews, an additional 1.2 million non-practicing Jews, and 1.5 million Jewish children (the numbers in Israel are about the same for each group). Although much of the world did not know the extent the Nazis waged genocide on the Jews until after the war,  by and large, the Holocaust has become a grim reminder of the millennia of Jewish persecution.

After the terror of the Holocaust, Israel struggled to forge a new country in a land dominated by anti-Jewish Muslims. In 1948, the UN, with the UK and America strongly backing the decision, gave Israel its homeland in Palestine. Despite this action, nearly every other country in the Middle East opposed the decision. This has led to many armed conflicts in the Middle East, such as the Arab-Israeli War of 1948, the Palestinian Fedayeen insurgency, the Suez Crisis, the Six-day War, War of Attrition, the Yom Kippur War, the Palestinian insurgency in South Lebanon, the First and Second intifadas, the Israel-Hezbollah war, the 2012 war in Gaza, 2014 Gaza war, not to mention the countless years of “Cold” war in the Middle East. This long list of conflicts shows just how little peace Israel has experienced in its time.

In reality, most conflicts in the Middle East can be summed up in one long war, with periods of temporary peace separating the major confrontations. This approach, compared to showing a large list of wars, makes much more sense in the context of Israel, as there has never been a sustained peace for the last seventy-five years, except for occasional peace treaties such as the Oslo Accords and a couple of summits and peace treaties throughout the years. To put these recent events in perspective, this ‘declaration of war’ by Israel is not starting a new war but rekindling a conflict, seventy-five years in the making.

While the Mainline media may try to “sensationalize” this tragic event, much of what has happened is no more than a continuation of a drawn-out war of attrition. Although Hamas as an organization may be relatively new to the scene, the organization itself stems from earlier terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and Jammoul. The date of invasion is significant, as 2023 is the fiftieth anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, in which a heavily outnumbered Israel fought off a coalition of Middle Eastern countries. For the last twenty years, Israel’s wars have been fought nearly all against terrorist groups with ties to Muslim governments. The Gaza Strip has long been used as a primary warzone in the Middle East, due to its geographical centrality, as well as the shared border with Israel, and Egypt, a Muslim-dominated country. Even the fact that Hamas flew on hang gliders is not original, that distinction belongs to two Palestinian Gurrulas in 1987, during the South Lebanon Conflict.

As Americans (or as concerned students), our supporting Israel through financial aid and weapons does not just come down to the fact that they are the only Jewish country in the Middle East. Rather, Israel shines as a political light as their Jewish background lends them to upholding the only true democracy in a sea of, for worse or for better, a land dominated by Muslim theocracy. The US’s partnership with Israel demonstrates our commitment to democracy worldwide. While many of us have never seen Israel go to war in our lifetimes, we must keep in mind that the entire region has gone down the path of violence many times over the last seventy-five years, at a rate that even our country cannot match. In addition, much of what has happened is not original, but rather a continuation of the volatility the region has seen over the last seven decades. In the end, as Christians, we need to fully understand that whatever happens, God is always in control, and that he has a plan for us all, whether that means peace, or in this case, war in God’s Holy Land.

Works Cited

“Estimated Number of People Killed by Nazis in the Final Solution.” Estimated Number of Jews Killed in the Final Solution, www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/estimated-number-of-jews-killed-in-the-final-solution. Accessed 27 Oct. 2023.

“History of Isreal-Timeline.” Embassies.Gov.Il, embassies.gov.il/UnGeneva/AboutIsrael/history/Pages/History-Israel-Timeline.aspx. Accessed 27 Oct. 2023.

“Israeli-Palestinian Conflict | Global Conflict Tracker.” Council on Foreign Relations, Council on Foreign Relations, www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/israeli-palestinian-conflict. Accessed 27 Oct. 2023.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, www.ushmm.org/research/about-the-mandel-center/initiatives/ethics-religion-holocaust/articles-and-resources/christian-persecution-of-jews-over-the-centuries/christian-persecution-of-jews-over-the-centuries. Accessed 27 Oct. 2023.