As of this writing, Secretary of State Warren Christopher has just announced a cease fire between Israel and Lebanon. Whether it will hold or not remains to be seen. By the time you read this it may already be history.
         The politics of Israel and its relationships with its neighbors are very, very complex issues. Knee-jerk responses, based on personal prejudices, should be avoided at all costs if one wishes to understand what is going on in the Middle East.
         The first principle to remember, when studying Middle East politics, is that ultimately, God is in charge. “...For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.” (Rom. 13:1). In the end, God’s will is going to prevail. In the meantime, many run to and fro trying to accomplish their own will. If this matches God’s ultimate plan they succeed. If it does not, they may seem to succeed for a while, but later things go against them.
         Many Westerners seem to think that if someone is Jewish, that person must be living a ‘Jewish’ lifestyle and must somehow be in agreement with all other Jews. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Jewish people are no different from Americans in the diversity of their viewpoints. This is true whether one speaks of religion, politics, social issues or individual life choices. This is also as true in the nation of Israel as it is here in the West.
         It may come as a surprise to many of our readers to learn that the government of the modern nation of Israel, like that of the U.S. and Canada, is totally areligious (i.e. they operate outside of religion though not necessarily against religion). This does not mean that all members of government are non-religious. Rather, it means that the government is secular in nature and does not base its decisions on the Scriptures. Religion does play a big part in the political decisions of Israel, but only because there is a faction of Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jews who make up a large political minority. Since Israel is a quasi parliamentary form of government, no administration can effectively govern without making concessions to the Orthodox community. (I know this is confusing, but politics in Israel is very confusing, even more so than in the U.S. and Canada.)
         The following brief piece from the April 4, 1996 issue of the Jerusalem Report news magazine may help in our understanding of the general population of Israel.
         “ABRAHAM WHO?: 88 percent of the adult Israeli population don’t know all of the 10 commandments and 40 percent don’t know the names of the Five Books of the Torah, according to a March survey. It also found that 17 percent couldn’t name the three patriarchs; 23 percent were unable to identify the four matriarchs.”
         Thus we see an Israeli society that is as ignorant of the Scriptures (Old Testament) as many Americans probably are of the New Testament. It is my guess that a similar poll in the U.S. or Canada, that substitutes the names of the four gospels for the books of the Torah, and asks about the names of the disciples of Jesus, would turn up similar statistics.
         We live in a secular world, controlled by secular people. This is true whether we live in a ‘Christian’, ‘Jewish’ or ‘Muslim’ country, unless that country is controlled by the fundamentalists of the dominant religion. (Iran is an example of a country controlled by religious, [in this case, Islamic] fundamentalists.) Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and even Iraq do not now have the Islamic fundamentalist element in control, although they are continuing to gain in power. Neither is the Palestinian Authority controlled by fundamentalists. All Arab leaders are Muslims and follow the Islamic traditions, and make a certain display of their religion, but most are considered religious moderates. President Clinton is a Southern Baptist who (like all U.S. presidents before him) makes an occasional display of going to church, but he cannot be considered a ‘Christian fundamentalist’, and neither were George Bush or Ronald Reagan.
         In the U.S. we have the Christian Coalition, which can be considered the fundamentalist believers that tend toward the political right. The same is true in Israel and in the Arab countries. In Israel they are the Orthodox community. In Muslim countries it is the Shiite Muslims who make up the religious right, as opposed to the more moderate Sunni Muslims who wish to build bridges to the Western world for the purpose of improving the economic status of their people.
         The vast majority of Arab Sunni Muslims would prefer to have an honorable peace with Israel. It is a little known fact that many of the Bedouin and Druze Muslims voluntarily serve in the Israeli army. It must also be remembered that not all of the Arab people are Muslim, a sizable minority of them are Christian. These Christian Arabs would much prefer peace over conflict.
         Likewise, the vast, vast majority of Israeli Jews also want a real and lasting peace. This is true whether they are left leaning liberals or right leaning conservatives. The problem is one of trust. Many Jews do not feel they can trust Yassar Arafat. They believe that he will say anything that the government of Israel wants to hear in order to gain a Palestinian state. Once he has achieved this goal, they believe he will turn against the Jews and renew his efforts to rid the land of all Jews.
         Many Arabs also feel a lack of trust towards the Israelis. They see harsh retaliation against their people whenever the extremists in their midst launch attacks against Israel.
         In a word, it is a mess, and there are no easy solutions. In fact, there will be no solution through the efforts of men. A small measure of painstaking progress can be completely blown away by one well placed suicide bomber or a misdirected Israeli air strike. Meanwhile, the ordinary citizens on both sides continue to suffer.
         Before the next issue of Hebrew Roots reaches you, Israel will have held their May elections. At present the two candidates for Prime Minister, incumbent Shimon Peres of the Labor party, and the Likud candidate Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu are running neck and neck in the polls. For the first time in Israeli history, the Prime Minister is being chosen by the direct ballot of the voters rather than by a parliamentary majority. Thus, it is now possible to have a Prime Minister of one party with a majority coalition of Knesset (Israel’s parliament or congress) members in opposition. This could bring the government to a standstill much like we see happening presently in the U.S.
         The difference in Israel is that many small political parties each gain a few seats in the Knesset, thereby denying either of the two major parties a clear majority. Thus, the major parties make fantastic deals and give little tiny religious parties great power in the government in exchange for their support. This sometimes makes for very strange bedfellows. The swing votes usually go to the Orthodox parties, each of which is controlled by their head Rabbi. In this way the Orthodox Jews hold a great deal of clout in relationship to their actual size.
         We plan to continue to explore the situation in the Middle East, and especially in Israel, in future issues of Hebrew Roots.

            DEW

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