Blessings from Zion

“I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and
make your name great…and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”
-- Genesis 12:2-3 (ESV)
“Awake, awake, put on your strength, O Zion,
Put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem.”
-- Isaiah 52:1 (ESV)
​You’ve heard it often: the State of Israel is a miracle. And it’s true.

 After its independence, the tiny nation had to absorb 2 million refugees from Europe, North Africa and the Middle East who were fleeing persecution and losing all or most of their possessions in the process. 

The new nation was struggling economically, and all goods were rationed.

But now that Israel has grown and developed and become like a teen-ager who has become an adult, look what this nation is doing, not just for itself, but for the world.
What a blessing they’ve become!



​An Ideal Mix: Intelligence and Benevolence…..Smarts & Kindness--that is Modern Israel. Here are just a few examples….

• From the “Daily Alert” and Yafit Ovadia: The Israeli biotech company Betalin Therapeutics has fashioned an artificial pancreas designed to help monitor sugar levels and release insulin into the bloodstream. This new product will help eliminate these injections.
• SeeTree is a Tel Aviv-based startup company that has developed a process that is able to detect the health of individual trees. Large tree-growers have to watch the growth of thousands and even millions of trees. SeeTree has created a medical file for trees, digitalizing this process in order to detect how much fruit each tree is producing. The company uses drones, high-resolution sensing technology, ground sensors and samples collected by teams on the ground to provide data on each tree.
• Mobit Telecom is a system that finds those who are lost in areas not covered by cellular networks. Along with the German Aerospace Center, this Israeli tech company is producing a tiny, satellite transmitter the size of a watch, not dependent upon the GPS navigation system which sometimes fails to connect to remote areas of the world.
• MASHAV is Israel’s Agency for International Development Cooperation. In India, this Jewish agency is setting up centers of excellence to share the best in agricultural practices. There they are trying to figure out the farmers’ and markets’ needs and develop solutions. For example, the Israelis have developed a special kind of packaging which extends the shelf life of pomegranates by three months, giving the farmers a larger window of opportunity to market this product.
• Haiti’s 2005 Earthquake. Within 24 hours of the earthquake, a 220-person team of medical and engineering workers left Israel to assist in treating injured and shocked Haitians and work on repairing Haiti’s infrastructure. IsraAID is an agency that is always ready to respond to disasters around the world with their disaster-management experts and medical workers. In the case of Haiti, many workers from Israel’s team remained in the country for many years assisting in the projects for rehabilitation.
• Israel is working to integrate Israeli Arabs into high-tech jobs. Tsofen is an organization working to accomplish this. Ten years ago, there were just 300 Arab engineers or software engineers in Israel’s high-tech workforce. Today there are 6,000. And now there are new start-up businesses that are co-founded and/or co-owned by both Arabs and Jews.  (Ira Stoll of Algemeiner, noted in Daily News Alert from Israel.)
• For the Arab Israelis, life has improved tremendously since Israeli independence. Examples: Medical. Infant death rates plummeted. Education: From 1961 to 1966, the median number of years in school rose from 1.2 to 10.4. For a broader treatment of these improvements, see Quinton’s book: Israel the Chosen.

By Contrast: News comes from the Jerusalem Post through Daily Alert that the Palestinian Authority opposes the building of a new hospital in Gaza. Why? They are “categorically opposed to any project that affects Palestinian sovereignty.” And, the construction of the hospital wasn’t properly coordinated with them—the PA.  Psst: The equipment for building the hospital entered Gaza from Israel.  (The costs for this hospital were underwritten by the U. S. nonprofit Friendship and is partially funded by Qatar.)

Israel Is Advanced in Military Technology
She HAS to be. She is criticized from without and within for having a strong military. (Some Zionist thinkers are highly critical. They contend that if Israel has to defend herself with firepower, she should not be a nation with land.) But my point is this: Israel has been instrumental in the updating of America’s defense technology. Seth Cropsey, senior fellow at Hudson Institute and Harry Halem, research assistant, say that “Israel is a test-bed for front-line military technology and tactics,” and thus has improved U. S. technology in this field.

Israel is Smart…
And….
Israel is Generous.

Am I glorifying Israel too much?  

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Those who have read much of my writings know that my assessment of things Jewish is NOT always good. Their observances are in the forefront of their religion. Not God Himself. A “personal relationship” with the Lord, such as David had, are strange to them.  

And is Israel the “light to the nations” as many Jewish leaders claim? I don’t believe so. Why? Because their unbelief is a barrier to the light. They close their eyes to the Messiah Who is the light of the world. Christ (the Messiah) is the light. (“He who follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.")

Yet, they ARE the Chosen; and some of them do have regard for the ancient covenant with the God of Abraham and Moses. That is worthy of notice, and their obvious concern for their neighbors throughout the world is an indication of better things to come in their connection to the Lord their God. In this, I believe I am right.

What do you think?
 
 

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