Israel

Israel. By all measures it’s a tiny country. With a population of less than 8 million and a land mass that is comparable to the state of New Jersey—the fifth smallest state in the U.S.—Israel’s role on the world stage should be relatively minor. Yet, hardly a day goes by when Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process do not dominate the international headlines.

Israel has always been surrounded by enemies. On the day after Israel was reborn as an independent nation on May 14, 1948, she was attacked by her much larger Arab neighbors, who supported the Palestinians. Only through the grace and protection of God was Israel able to survive. Again and again over the years this tiny island of freedom has suffered assaults and attacks from evil men dedicated to her destruction.

Today Israel is more isolated than ever before. Security is a constant struggle as all of Israel’s neighbors either actively oppose her or at least harbor those who do. Since the reuniting of the city of Jerusalem, there have been nearly 10,000 terrorist attacks in the Bible land. There have been more suicide bombings in the city of Jerusalem than in any city in the world.

As my good friend of more than 30 years, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly pointed out, the issue of contention is not about a Palestinian state, the division of Jerusalem, settlements, checkpoints, security fences, or borders. The issue is Israel’s very right to exist as a nation. Most of the Arab world still refuses to accept this simple proposition.

Not only do they think Israel has no right to exist as a state, but they think the Jewish people have no right to survive. The resistance of the Arab countries to Israel’s national aspirations has always been tied to the Muslim world’s ultimate resistance to the right of the Jewish people to exist at all. Peaceful co-existence has never been the goal of the Arabs, nor even having Jews living dispersed in other lands without a country. The real goal has been the abnegation, and in its worst and most absolute form, the very extermination, of the Jewish race itself.

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Join me and Carolyn for a wonderful time in the Land of Promise in 2012. We are eagerly looking forward to this trip and pray that God will do a great work in the hearts of all of those who are able to go. Click here for details