It is not enough to put forth a fulfilled view of prophecy, proclaiming, “all is settled.” We live in a post A.D. 70 world where we are called to live out our faith in national and global communities that strive for peace and justice. We cannot retreat behind church dogma or systematic theologies. How does our fulfilled view relate to the “war on terrorism?”

In recent days the U.S. has been conducting a similar dialogue, asking, Are we safer for having invaded Iraq? And, Do our American values relate to Iraq? We told ourselves that we could bring freedom and democracy to the Middle East. Now with the Iraqi Prisoner abuse, we realize that no people will stand to be abused or occupied. Democracy is not something you bring to people, democracy is something people do for themselves. All Americans, whether they “support the war or not,” want the best for Iraq and ourselves. Despite our noble intentions, our presence in the Fertile Crescent may be generating more problems than they are solving. It is axiomatic that the Middle East is a difficult region with a history of wars, and now for better or worse, we are an actor in that history.

Until we understand the key and central components of the Middle East quagmire, it is not likely that we will have healthy responses to the core issues such as the Israeli-Palestinian problem, our stated mission in Afghanistan or our low standing in the Arab world at large.

In addition to Iraq, we hear daily news reports from the Holy Land telling us of yet another suicide bombing or other act of terror, a litany of violence and hatred. One day it is Palestinians killing Israelis, the next day Israel killing Palestinians. The moral ground seems to have slipped from both sides long ago.

The Palestinians want their own state, making us wonder where they came from to begin with, and Syria and Lebanon somehow seem to be in the mix. We hear that Osama Bin Laden is motivated to Jihad because of the occupation of Palestine and Saudi Arabia. Still, we’re not sure who else is involved, exactly what the problems are, or why so many in the area detest the United States and Israel with such passion.

If this sounds familiar, join the masses. It seems there is no less explosive world situation than the Middle East, and no less understood one. In his handbook on Arabs and Israel, Ron Davis writes, “a poll taken during the Persian Gulf Crisis showed (I swear) that the more you watched TV, the less you knew about the Persian Gulf.” Amazing!

Identifying the Region

The phrase, “Middle East,” though terribly familiar, is not well-defined, nor very specific. It refers, not to a specific geographical boundary or political coalition, but to a general area. Precisely what countries or regions are involved varies according to use. Countries that are most likely to be included would be: Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria along with the eight countries considered part of Arabia (the Arabian peninsula) – Bahrain, Kuwait, North Yemen, Oman, Quatar, Saudi Arabia, South Yemen, and the United Arab Emirates. Sometimes, depending on context, countries such as Cyprus, Greece, Libya and Turkey are also included.

The task of seeking peace in a diverse region such as this is a daunting one. It might be helpful, then, to answer some common questions about the Middle East and its inhabitants.

What is an Arab?

One challenge we immediately face when dealing with Middle East issues, countries and peoples, is the term Arab. It used to be that this term meant “a person from Arabia” or “a Bedouin.” Currently, however, the word has expanded to include anyone whose native language is Arabic or even one who chooses to identify with Islam (which is inclusive of the Arab culture and history).

Is Everyone from the Middle East an Arab?

Again, we find ourselves faced with a linguistic challenge that complicates communication and identification. There are literally millions of residents of the Middle East who are not considered Arabs. As well, there are millions who live outside of the Middle East who are.

To further complicate matters, the eight countries of Arabia (listed above) are Arabs, along with Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia – Turkey, however, is sometimes included but is not considered Arab, and Greece is sometimes included but is never considered Arab. It is also worth noting that while the average American may consider Iran to be Arab, experts don’t because most Iranians speak Persian – not Arabic.

Interestingly, it is generally believed that there are some 260 million Arabs, and of that number, 230 million live outside of Arabia. It is also not the case, despite popular assumption, that all Muslims are Arab. There are over 750 million Muslims, compared to 260 million Arabs. So, as we can see, while the majority of Arabs may indeed be Muslim, the majority of Muslims are not Arabs.

Is the Middle East conflict between Jews and Arabs worth fighting?

We can be sure that both sides would answer, “Yes!” What we don’t always know is why both sides would say it matters, how long the feud has lasted, how and when it began. Without this understanding we cannot know whether or not there is a legitimate way to find the truth of it all and if there is a just way to bring about a lasting peace in the region.

These questions will determine the shape of the world as we know it in the years to come. We cannot deal with issues on the periphery (Gulf war, Afghanistan, Iraq) if the very cause of these things comes back to the center: the Arab/Israeli conflict. We must take a closer look at this conflict.

Sorting through the Details

While the Israelis would like us to believe that there is no such thing as Palestine, the Palestinians would like us to understand that Palestine covers what is now called Israel plus the Occupied Territories, part of Jordan and part of Egypt.

While we will see in a minute that prior to 1900 there was no conflict between Palestinians and Israelis, we should first acknowledge the difficulty with the city of Jericho and its history. About 10,000 years ago, Arabs built the city of Jericho and set up permanent housing over about a ten-acre parcel of land around which they practiced irrigation and farming. These ancient people were called the Natufians.

As Arabs are fond of pointing out, this was 10,000 years ago—8000 years before Christ and 6000 years before Abraham and the Hebrew peoples. Today, Jericho is now part of what is called the West Bank and is part of the Occupied Territories. Since this occupation is by Israel, and since Israel as a state did not come into existence until 1948 (with the help of the U.K. and U.S.) we can begin to see the source of the friction.

Previous to this the Arabs had fought hard to find independence and self-governance within Palestine. For hundreds of years they were subjects of the Ottoman Empire, or the  Turks. After the onslaught of eight crusades, and the invasion of Genghis Kahn’s Mongol horde, the Arabs were an easy target for the Ottomans Empire. Since the Turks were Muslim and did not seek to displace the Arabs living in the land, it was less likely that an Arab uprising would rise to meet the challenge. It didn’t.

By 1908 the people realized that the empire was being run by an incompetent and paranoid dictator, Abdulhamid II.  With the influence of capitalism and democracy on the rise, the Arab communities wanted their share of independence and to gain the ability to elect their own representatives. They developed a favorable constitution only to have it suspended by Abdulhamid II just two years later. A group of young dissidents, known as the Young Turks, decided to do something about it. Their goals were to return the empire to strength militarily, morally and constitutionally. They knew this could only occur if Abdulhamid II was removed from power.

As Ron David writes, “Their victory was the first real breakthrough for Arab nationalism. It led to the restoration of the long-suspended Ottoman constitution. After 1908, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon and other regions of the Ottoman Empire made the transition from a regime of authoritarian despotism to one of parliamentary democracy. Suddenly, men living in Beirut and Damascus, Baghdad and Aleppo, Jericho and Jerusalem, were choosing their own representatives to an assembly in Istanbul.”[1]

By the time of World War I, the Ottoman Turks had decided to side with the Germans. This did not go unnoticed by England and France who immediately turned to the Arabs with an offer they could not refuse. “In 1915, Sir Henry McMahon [British High Commissioner in Cairo] wrote to Sharif Hussein [Hashemite Arab leader] asking Hussein to start a revolt against Ottoman rule.”[2]

In order to take this risk, Hussein made it clear that he would need assistance from the British and that his interests were not just to overthrow the Ottomans, but also to achieve the independence that the Arabs had long desired. What good is it to overthrow one government only to have it replaced by another not of your choosing? The response of the British was the assurance that by working together, the British would help create the independent governments that the Arabs desired in what were, at the time, Ottoman controlled territories.

With the backing of the British and the help of Lawrence of Arabia, the Arabs declared their independence, revolted, fought and won the right to move back into the land of Palestine and Syria. At the signing of the Mudros Armistice in October, 1918, the Arabs were again promised the right to self-governance by the British and French.

Further confirmation of this was given by the League of Nations in 1919 under article 22 recognizing “provisional independence of the former Ottoman provinces.”

Everything was looking promising to the Arab people living in Palestine. But other factors were already at work that would soon prove to be yet another great setback to Arab self-governing authorities.

The Rise of Zionism

Though not the first Zionist, Theodore Herzl was certainly one of the most influential. In 1896, Herzl argued in his book The Jewish State that assimilation of Jews into the land was not possible. According to Herzl, the real solution was for Jews to have their own independent state, preferably in Palestine.

By the end of the 19^th century, tens of thousands of Jews were moving into Palestine. Many came out of a desire to escape the tyranny of Russia and Romania, yet others came to offer a hand in the larger scheme of the Zionist plan. By Russia’s revolution in 1905, thousands more Jews, rejected from immigrating to the United States, chose Palestine as their next choice of relocation. While one would think that the Arabs would be leery of this, from their perspective they had ample promises of an independent state from the British and French and it did not occur to them that these promises would eventually be replaced by a Zionist agenda.

By 1917 the Zionist agenda had taken shape and its campaign for a Jewish state was in full swing. A respected chemist and British Jew, Chaim Weizmann, influenced England’s Lord Balfour to write a letter that would soon become the rally point of the Zionist claim to Palestine. This letter eventually became known as the Balfour Declaration. Part of this declaration read: “His Majesty’s Government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people…it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done that may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.”

While Balfour may not have seen what Weizmann was up to, Lord Curzon, Balfour’s successor did. He issued a warning that Weizmann’s call for a Jewish homeland was in reality to be a Jewish state that would rule over the Arab population and be governed by Jews. Weizmann saw all of this as being approved of by the British.

Three years after, and in flat contradiction to, the Mudros Armistice and Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, the Balfour Declaration was written into the League of Nations mandate. The Arabs saw their promised hopes rapidly slipping away.

The United States and the Power of Democracy

After reading the events above, we might ask, “Where was the U.S. in all of this? Didn’t anybody speak on behalf of the principles of democracy?” In a post-World War I environment, the lines of demarcation regarding the claims of Arabs, Zionists and the role of the British and French had become blurred at best and completely erased at worst.

Enter America, Woodrow Wilson and what was called the “King-Crane Commission,” the goal of which was to discover, as any good democracy should, the will of the people.

It is surprising how many histories leave out the details of this commission. Perhaps that in itself is a testimony to the power of the Zionist movement in America. There is certainly nothing within this commission report that favors what eventually came to be of the Arab hopes of self-governance.

The report found that 90% of Palestinian people were non-Jewish and against any sort of Jewish state in Palestine. Perhaps even more disconcerting was the finding of the report that if the Jews were given Palestinian land, their goal would be to work toward complete dispossession of non-Jewish inhabitants. Finally the King-Crane report noted that the establishment of such a Jewish state would violate the Palestinian Arabs’ right to self-determination.

The final recommendation of this commission was that the Zionists respect the wishes of Palestine’s inhabitants and find another place to build their Jewish state.

In this one report, the United States affirmed the legitimacy of the claim that Palestinians are making today. As if to sound a resonant blow to the Zionist claim, the King-Crane report clearly stated that, “the initial claim, often submitted by Zionist representatives, that they have a ‘right’ to Palestine, based on an occupation of two thousand years ago, can hardly be seriously considered.”

The Zionist Campaign Continues

Though outraged by the King-Crane commission report, the Zionists marched toward Palestine unhindered. The influence of Herzl’s book remained steadfast in the mantra of its marching orders: 1) The existence of a Jewish people, 2) The impossibility of assimilation into societies in which Jews already lived, 3) The Jewish people’s right to the Promised Land, and 4) The non-existence in this land of other peoples who had rights.

The Zionist story was so effective that it convinced thousands of would-be Jewish immigrants that Palestine was an unoccupied wasteland. Chaim Weizman came up with the slogan, “A country without a people for a people without a land.” So successful was this phrase that many Jews were surprised to arrive in Palestine and find masses of Arabs already living there!

In the face of these events, in 1930 the British Colonial Secretary, Lord Passfield, issued a statement to clarify England’s position on the Palestinian land and the Zionist claim to it. This document became known as the Passfield White Paper. His findings stated that the problem in the land was the fault of the Jews as the Jewish land purchases (primarily by the Jewish agency) had left Arabs homeless on the land they had inhabited for centuries. The conclusion of this paper was that the Jewish immigration, as it now stood, promised to bring about nothing less than an overlord situation for the Palestinians should things continue as they are.

By 1931 the Zionist movement had been so relentless toward the British findings that the new policy statement was actually rescinded. More than ever, the Arab peoples realized that all previous agreements with the British were null and void.

Truman, Zionism and the Final Straw

During World War II, 12,000 Palestinians joined the ranks of the British forces to fight against Hitler’s Nazi regime. As well, Palestine – a country of just two million people – accepted more Jewish refugees than any other nation in the world. Even still, after the war President Truman joined with the Zionists in demanding the admission of 100,000 more Jews into Palestine. This time the Arabs said “No!”

In order to get them to change their minds, President Truman turned to the British and requested they figure out a way to coerce the Palestinians into acquiescing. The British response was interesting: if the Zionists would disband their 65,000-person underground movement, Britain would bring the subject up to the Palestinians. The Zionist response was to blow up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing 91 Britons and a number of Jews.

By 1947 Truman was running behind in his bid to regain the White House. Courting the Jewish vote, America put great influence behind a plan to be put forth by the United Nations that would recommend that Palestine be “provisionally partitioned” into a part Arab, part Jewish state. In the face of this proposal, every single one of the Islamic countries protested; there was nothing about it that was consistent with the ideals of the modern democratic people the United States was claiming to be.

The UN carried out this plan, and while the Jews owned just 7% of Palestine, they were awarded 55% of the land; it is little wonder the infuriated Palestinians began to fight. The response of the Zionists was a calculated process they called “land clearing operations.” In layman’s terms, it was a massacre.

On May 14, 1948, in Tel Aviv, Jewish leaders declared themselves to be the State of Israel. This claim was put forth by David Ben Gurion, chairman of the Jewish Agency and head of the Zionist workers movement.

The Power of an Anti-Semitic Label

Since the self-proclaimed establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement has only gained momentum in its agenda to rid the Palestinians of their homeland. Opposition to this agenda is immediately labeled “anti-Semitic,” and means political suicide, regardless of one’s party.

Even so, there are good, strong Jewish voices recognizing the injustice of the situation and calling for more moderate and amicable ways to bring peace to the fractured Middle East region and its people. Jewish scholars such as Rabbi Dr. Marc H. Ellis, professor of American and Jewish Studies at Baylor University, are going to great lengths to bring to mind both the injustice and the plight of the disenfranchised of Palestine.

Ellis’s works include, Unholy Alliance: Religion and Atrocity in Our Time (1997); O, Jerusalem! The Contested Future of the Covenant (1999), and Practicing Exile: The Religious Odyssey of an American Jew (2002). 

Ellis is a seminal thinker and does a scholarly job in bringing clarity to this very broad and very explosive issue. Writing as a Jew, Ellis is keen to the insensitivities of all parties involved, yet he does not mix words or gloss over important issues. He is not anti-Semitic, but rather holds Zionism up to the very heart of the Covenant God made with Abraham. In this sense, Ellis shows that one can be pro-Israeli, without being exclusively pro-Zionist. Ellis shares how a second generation or post-Zionist vision that is pro-Israeli can live in peace with its neighbors, in the biblical vision of people and justice.

New DVD Series on Zionism

Presence Ministries has just produced a new DVD series by Dr. Stephen Sizer critiquing End-Time Christian Zionism called, “Christian Zionists: On the Road to Armageddon.” I encourage you to pick up a set and watch them with your family or friends. There you will get a complete overview of what the issues are and what events have transpired throughout the twentieth century that have further drawn the great divide and pulled Israel, Britain and America into a firestorm of Arab relations that now see us as colonizers, not liberators.

Two thousand years ago, what we call the Middle East was torn between Roman and Parthian empires. The people of Israel found themselves in bondage for over 600 years, to Persians, to Babylonians, to Syrians, to Greeks and then to Romans. The issues were complex for Jesus and his generation. The way forward for Jesus was to find a more creative future, one that didn’t involve violence or oppression. The future of Jesus was one of peace and justice that cleared the way for an inclusive embrace of the poor, hungry and oppressed.

The irony of Jesus attempting to set the Jewish people free from Roman occupation could not be stronger than when we see the Jewish occupation of Palestine today. When we realize that much of that has come about and continues to be purported by those proclaiming to be of the Christian faith, we begin to realize just how important and timely the Transmillennial path is for our present world.

There is much work to do and as with the time of Jesus, the laborers are few. I hope that this brief article has stirred your heart to be more involved in investing the needed time to better understand the problems of the Middle East region. And then I pray you would keep walking with us as we walk with so many ministries of that land – both Jewish and Arab.

For more on the Middle East, see Arab & Israel for Beginners (Writers & Readers, 1993, 1996) by author and illustrator Ron David.

TIM KING is president of Presence Ministries and editor of Living Presence Journal. He and his family live in Colorado Springs, Colorado. This article first appeared in the Spring 2004 issue of Living Presence Journal.

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