Modern Israel began with a very small area of land allotted by the U.N. in 1947. Then the surrounding nations went after Israel, declaring war—5 nations against 1—with populations and military machines much larger than Israel’s. But Israel’s forces decisively defeated the Arab Muslim armies, and in the process Israel actually gained land.

A similar scenario happened 19 years later. In another attempt to “wipe Israel off the map, the armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq were defeated. Israel again gains land. The land is the familiar biblical areas of Galilee, Judea and eastern Jerusalem.  This time Israel was stunned and didn’t know what to do with it. Israel’s generals and politicians were immediately ready to return much of it. However, the Arab nations refuse to even talk to Israel….at all. They refuse to sit in the same room with Jews. Self-defeating enmity.  

And…. Israel still argues about what to do with it! Most world leaders insist that Israel must return it all—“go back to the boundaries of 1967,” they insist. “It belongs to the Palestinians and must be returned,” is their solution to the tension in Palestine. Some Israelis used to agree, but of late, not so. Why? Because the Palestinians have shown themselves to be fiercely intransigent.

The section of the land which Israel did give back to the Palestinians—Gaza—was turned into an armed camp from which tens of thousands of rockets have been launched against southern Israel.

Now, the land taken in two defensive wars is increasingly being settled by Israeli citizens, although certain well-defined sections include large Palestinian populations. It all is divided between Areas A, B, and C. with some ruled by the Palestinian Authority and some by Israel. Israeli “settlers” began the build-up there, and it has become a beautiful and well-developed area.

All right: so two wars have resulted in two major areas of land added to the portion being a part of modern Israel. The ancient homeland is now becoming the modern homeland, growing in both population and in land ownership.

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Just this week, even as I write, the news agencies are reporting that a major foreign policy move has been made by President Trump. No more is America leaving even a small residue of soldiers in the Middle East. Out come our troops from northern Syria. Rushing In are the troops from Turkey. Other countries will make their moves—Iran to increase its power base.  And Russia the bear is likewise looking on with an appetite for power.

America is losing her power there.

The influence of a Christian Britain didn’t last long after Britain sponsored the Zionist enterprise. But then America took up the cause and became influential in Israel’s statehood. Now, after one hundred years of Anglo-Saxon-American influence in that area, one hundred years of close alignment with the chosen people and their land, the area is losing American military aid, and the ominous picture is one of ambitious tyrants ready to pounce on The Chosen.

The probability is that Israel will have to go to war again. In fact, a recent article in The Wall Street Journal states that Iran and Israel are already in what has to be called a war; and Iran’s continual threats repeat what all the nations around Israel said in 1947-48. They repeat what Egypt’s Nasser and his cohorts threatened in 1967--Israel’s annihilation. The cultures of Israel’s surrounding neighbors, even though they may have some agreements with Israel, remain inflated with anti-Semitic bombast. It is taught to the children and reinforced continually in broadcasts and telecasts and in celebrations of the murders of Israeli citizens. Don’t be fooled: these nations are not friends of Israel.

As I’ve written before, the whole area is being militarized by Iran and its allies and its proxies: Hizbollah, Hamas, the Houthis and others.

Now….here is my point: if Israel is forced to resort to warfare once again, it just may be that they will once again emerge from that future war with more territory. Syria is fragmented and Lebanon is controlled by Hizbollah. A future war could result in extending modern Israel’s borders into these two countries.

If the past gives us any indication of what the future holds, it may just be that God is not through enlarging the tents of Abraham’s descendants. Do you think this is far-fetched?    

When Israel long ago became out of favor with the Lord, He empowered the enemies of Israel to chip off sections of the sacred land. But since, in our time, He has been drawing in His people from the ends of the earth, He has not only given them the victory over their enemies but has given them additional land through their victories.  
If this happens again, would it be unfair? If we are entering God in to this equation, who are we to question His acts? But consider: Israel has done nothing but favors in the past few decades to other nations who have needed their assistance. Israel is a positive influence.

In my next blog, I intend to follow through and give examples of how Israel is being a helper to other nations. And the type of aid they are giving is welcomed by those needy nations. 

CONSIDER: 
1. Axiom: God is lord of the land of Israel.

2. Corollary: God uses the enemies of Israel. He hardens their hearts just as He hardened the heart of ancient Pharoah. Is that unbelievable to you, dear reader?

3. Corollary: God uses the evil purposes of sinful men and women to bring glory to His name and cause and blessings to His people.

Obviously, Israel is not having an easy time of it. She is hurrying to develop new military technology to fend off—protect herself—from the encircling powers.

Watch and pray.

​An admonition to Israel:
                                                            “Look to the rock from which you are hewn,
                                                             And to the quarry from which you were dug.
                                                                        Look to Abraham your father
                                                                        And to Sarah who bore you….
                                                              Listen to me, you who know righteousness,
                                                                     The people whose heart is my law:
                                                                         Fear not the reproach of man,
                                                                    Nor be dismayed at their revilings….
                                                                              I am the Lord your God
                                                             Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar--
                                                                           The Lord of hosts is his name.”
                                                                              -- Isaiah 51:1-2, 7, 15 (ESV)

DEFINITION OF DEMOGRAPHY: Population numbers and the vital statistics within that population (like within certain age ranges).  

CAUTION: Don’t confuse “Demography” with “Democracy”

1948: THE BEGINNING OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL: Israel’s founders wanted a Jewish state. O. K.  And….they also wanted a democracy.

That was a problem. Guess why? They knew they would be inclusive…they would include the Palestinians who were also living there. But what if the Palestinians had more people than the Israelis did? Then, it wouldn’t be a Jewish state, because the Jews could easily be outvoted by the Palestinians.

Therefore, they needed to have more voters than the Palestinians—more people eligible to vote in order to have Jewish laws, Jewish holidays and unlimited Jewish immigration.  

Solution #1: Give up the sections of the land that had a lot more Palestinians than Jews. Give up part of the land that the United Nations Plan was allotting them. The response to that solution: “NO! Not on your life.”

Solution #2: Expel some of the Palestinians presently living there. The response to that solution: “Very definitely NO!  Prime Minister Ben-Gurion, in writing to his son, dated October, 1937, said: “We do not wish and do not need to expel Arabs and take their place….there is enough room for ourselves and the Arabs in Palestine.”

Solution #3: THE BEST solution: get more Jews into that new Israeli State so that it would have a Jewish majority. If it were going to be a Zionist, Jewish state, there would have to be more Jews than all other nationalities combined. Right? Right.

So…get more Jews in there! Promote immigration to Israel!   

O. K….there was the challenge! The first challenge had been to acquire the land. Both the League of Nations in 1922 and later, the United Nations in 1947 voted to allot part of Palestine to the Jews. So, the Jews had their place; but they needed more people.

Many had warned that a Jewish nation was nothing more than a fanciful dream, because when the Zionist Congress convened at the turn of the 20th century, there were only one hundred thousand Jews in the land.

Plus, about fifty years later, at the beginning of the new state, the warnings by demographers continued predicting doom.  Why? Because Arab birthrates were far higher among the Arabs than the Israelis. Arab families were much larger.

But two waves of Jewish immigration occurred in the years after Israel became a state in 1948.

1. First, as soon as the Israelis declared their independence in 1948, the North African nations (Egypt, Libya, Moracco, etc.) expelled all their Jews, confiscating all their possessions. That increased Israel’s population by around 500,000--with a branch of Jews and Judaism (the Mizrahi) that boasted a high birthrate. What a blessing!
But decade after decade the skeptics proclaimed a demographic disaster on the horizon: not enough Israelis to hold onto the land! We’d better….the Israelis had better… give up a large section of their land, because the number of Arab/Palestinians are overtaking us!

“Demographic disaster is at hand!”

A pessimistic study by an Israeli Haifa University professor was cited by journalists and liberal politicians as they urged Israel to give up land. “Give it up!” they cried. “The Arabs will soon be in the majority!”

Many  Israeli Jews as well as Jews abroad were adamant--Israel—so small—would have to give back all of Judea and Samaria which was dumped in their laps at the end of the Six-Day War of 1967.

2. But, the second major immigration of Jewish people came from Russia following the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the early 1990’s. That added more than a million Jews to the Israeli fold. Wow!

Still, the skeptics were not through. Neither was Yassir Arafat, the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization who declared: We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion.

Arafat considered the wombs of Arab women as his secret “demographic bomb.”

But, a dramatic sea change has startled those who are informed:

The Turn of the Millenium

Something has happened to the Israeli populace as well as to the Palestinians—in their birth rates--an utterly dramatic change in a relatively short period of time!

In 2,000, for each Arab child born in Israel there were two Jewish children: a ratio of 2/1.

In 2010, for each Arab child born in Israel there were three Jewish children: a ratio of 3/1.

In 2020, two years from now, if current trends hold, for every Arab child born in Israel there will be four Jewish children: a ratio of 4/1.
 
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“The word of the Lord of hosts came to me saying: Thus says the Lord of hosts: I am jealous for Zion with great jealousy, and I am jealous for her with great wrath. Thus says the Lord: I will return to Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem….Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of their great age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets. Thus says the Lord of hosts: even though it seems impossible to the remnant of this people in these days, should it also seem impossible to me, says the Lord of hosts?....I will save my people from the east country and from the west country, and I will bring them to live in Jerusalem.  They shall be my people, and I shall be their God, in faithfulness and in righteousness.”  Zechariah 8:1-3a,4b-8 (NRSV)