Once again, Israel and Palestine are in the midst of violence that threatens to expand into a larger war. This is a place we have been with regularity for around 75 years. It is not getting any better, nor is going to get any better, unless the world is ready to step back and deal with the root problems.
This is a extremely complicated issue, one I am going to oversimplify to make a point.
For centuries—no exaggeration there—the Western world has widely held a belief that the restoration of Israel would herald the return of Christ, that is was a necessary and proper cause that should be supported by Christians. This belief, in some form, shaped policy regarding the Jews for everyone from John Adams to Oliver Cromwell to Ted Cruz. It has been supported by a who’s who of theological figures like Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, and John McArthur, and more fringe figures like Hal Lindsey.
This drive, coupled with the outrage of the Holocaust, led the victorious European powers to create a Jewish nation-state. But they used land that England had no right to in the first place, and propped up a mass colonization effort on land that was already inhabited. They gave the settlers the military and political weapons to force this issue. While pragmatically this gave the West a foothold in an increasingly hostile region, the real motivation was and continues to be a misguided eschatology: one that supports the actions of the nation-state of Israel, without question, as fulfilment of prophecy. In doing so, it supports mass murder, racism, sectarianism, grand theft, fraud, and human rights abuses on a massive scale.
The modern state of Israel is not equal to the Kingdom of David.
It is an artificial creation whose presence has led to untold terrors, and now that this knot has been tied, it is almost impossible to unravel.
Do Jews deserve a homeland of their own? Sure. So do the Kurds, Basque, and the Cherokee, among others.
Should we support the rights of Jews and defend them from persecution? Yes, without question.
Denouncing the atrocities of Israel is not anti-Semitism, no matter what people want you to think. It has nothing to do with with race or religion; this is about the actions of a political entity. If we were to take the labels off and judge solely on actions, Americans would condemn these policies for what they are.
Do I have a solution? No. But I do know that it begins with removing the unquestioning support of Christians for everything Israel does just because it is Israel.
In the words of the prophet: “Jesus don’t like killin’ no matter what your reasons for.”