Misconception #2

The 1948 re-establishment of the modern-day nation of Israel was the greatest prophetic sign ever fulfilled and a miraculous ‘act of God.’

Farthest thing from it. One only has to read the history of Zionism (the Jewish nationalistic movement, 1800’s thru 1948) and you’ll discover how truly ungodly it was. It’s a sad history of political maneuvering and racial hatred. As a result, the costs have been huge and the conflicts unending. What passed as a national rebirth for Jews uprooted in the process hundreds of thousands of Arab residents from their homes.

Tragically, support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine was fueled by massive anti-Semitic prejudices, hatreds, and persecutions in Europe, Russia and northern Africa. This produced a century-long series of secular, political, and financial manipulations designed to get the Jews “back in their land”—and “out of ours.” Of course, these blatant acts of men were allowed by God. But the fact was that Jews were not wanted in those nations at that time. Meanwhile, many Christian associations in the West welcomed the movement as a step toward fulfillment of a newly-popularized, “literal view” of end-times prophecy (dispensational premillennialism) and as hastening the return of Christ.

Paradoxically, most Jews had no desire to leave their countries and return to a desolate Palestine. But Jewish reluctance gradually broke down in the face of accelerating hatred and persecutions. Returning Jews were even forced to buy land at highly inflated prices. Gradually, world opinion became outraged over British mishandling of the emerging Palestinian displacement problem. Devout Muslims in the area vowed to destroy the proposed Jewish state. But after much Holocaust guilt and political maneuvering and a final and close vote in the United Nations, the modern nation of Israel was formally created.

Many sincere Christians in America pointed to Israel’s 1948 statehood as proof the Jews were still “God’s Chosen People,” and as a literal validation of their brand of biblical faith. Sadly, while hoping for peace, most Zionists ignored or were blind to the fact that others, including Palestinian Christians, already occupied the land. These inhabitants were viewed as obstacles to be forcibly removed from their homes and villages that they had occupied for hundreds of years. What a mistake this has been. Still 20th- and 21st-century prophecy writers, after 1948, have provided plenty of end-times’ rationale for this anti-Arab or anti-Palestinian bias.

Thus, the century-long, hatred-serving, and humanly fabricated re-establishment of Israel in 1948 bears no resemblance to any biblical “act of God” and had nothing whatsoever to do with divine fulfillment of prophecy. Compare, for example, this history of human manipulation with the sudden, unexpected, and absolutely unplanned fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of Soviet communism in 1989. Not a shot was fired. Surely, this was an incredible and obviously miraculous “act of God” in our lifetime. But the modern-day state of Israel, as it exists today, is a secular nation, basically anti-God, and certainly anti-Christ. It is of no biblical, prophetic, end-time significance —farthest thing from it.

Source:

1 The Israel Illusion (future book – est. 2016) by John Noe