In the aftermath of the series of terror attacks committed by Hamas, and the subsequent retaliatory bombings Israeli forces committed, there have been no shortage of saber rattling and warmongering from global media. Many on the radical left have taken to supporting Hamas, despite some of their depraved and grotesque acts, which include using civilians as human shields and abducting and torturing women. On the right, the Zionists and Israeli support has come out in full swing. After months of levying criticisms against US spending and involvement in Ukraine, just like that, conservatives were interventionists once again, advocating that America must spend money to defend a foreign nation in the Middle East after decades of destabilizing policies and needless wars.
Rather than dissect the warmongering of Ben Shapiro or the other Israel-First pundits that claim to be America First, it is befitting to exemplify the pundits who can rationally think about the situation without succumbing to 1800’s theology or those of conflicting loyalties. Enter Mark Dice, a conservative pundit who claims to be a Christian, and has a history of delving into conspiratorial elitist organizations while delivering succinct, witty media commentary, including his recent trolling appearance on Fox News.
Rather than be like the other pundits who tout the need to go scorched earth on Gaza and Hamas, Dice took a different approach, and even inserted some theology for his 1.86 million YouTube subscribers. (Note: spelling errors have been corrected)
It’s okay to not obsess over tragedies half way around the world stemming from a generations-long territorial dispute between two different ethnic groups and instead focus on problems and challenges in your own life and those of your own family, friends, and community.
But in the blink of an eye, virtually ever Republican in Congress and the brand name social media personalities and talk show hosts who oppose U.S. funding or involvement in the Russia/Ukraine war are now gung-ho about joining in on this one.
Israel is the new Ukraine, which was the new Covid, which America must rally behind. Rather than focus on solving the border invasion, reckless federal spending, lawless cities, and cost of living struggles, Congress and most of our politicians are demonstrating they care more about other nations than their own people.
Of course Black Lives Matter (among many other Marxists) are celebrating the Hamas terrorist attack against people in Israel. What many are posting isn’t supporting Palestinian independence, or denouncing the innocent civilians who have been killed in Gaza over the years by Israeli forces, many are straight up supporting terrorism and mass murder.
If those on your “side” commit such atrocities, you denounce them and work to expel them from your movement. You don’t celebrate their evil and further inflame the situation.
And yes, many supporters of Israel (including many popular brand name conservatives on Twitter) are carelessly lumping all Palestinians into one group, and calling for their genocide, as if they’re all part of Hamas. The whole situation is a mess, and has been a mess for generations which is why I focus on America and our own problems. Not some longstanding land dispute between two different ethnic groups half way around the world.
Too many conservative pundits are basically calling for Israel to bomb and besiege Gaza to the suffering of people who are little more than human shields living in what is little more than an Indian reservation. Bombing civilians will only garner more Palestinian support for Hamas. This is exactly what Hamas wants, which will invoke the other Arab states to take up the cause of the Palestinians, which Qatar, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia have denounced Israel for provoking the attacks.
Benjamin Netanyahu has long been a hawk against the Palestinians, which helps secure his political coalitions, who have sought territorial expansion. There is also the notion of “War is Peace” that George Orwell foretold, that a perpetual state of war was the tool of Big Brother to maintain dominion, which cynically, one must wonder if that is why Israel has not destroyed Hamas and wiped out the Palestinians after previous bombings, because their continued existence perpetuates their ability to accumulate foreign aid, build up wartime industries, and acquire more land. In part, Israel was responsible for creating the monster that is Hamas, which was a more Islamic means of undermining Yasser Arafat’s quest for a two-state solution. They did this by helping, and at times funding, Ahmed Yassin’s various charities throughout Gaza, as part of a divide and conquer strategy. Yassin’s Muslim Brotherhood ideology sowed the seeds of Gaza’s Islamists at a time when America was using Islamists to counteract the Soviets. In the 1980’s, Yassin would go on to birth Hamas. The continued presence of terrorists groups like Hamas decrease the probability of ever achieving a two-state solution while Israel incrementally acquire territory where the Palestinians were previously occupants.
So forgive me if I don’t cover this situation in-depth, at least not yet. If it drags on, and if America gets dragged further into it, I may. But we have our own problems in our own back yard to deal with. And many Christians say this is different, because Jews are “God’s chosen people.” No. Christians are God’s chosen people, of any race or ethnicity. Not people who just happen to have a certain line of descents in their family tree.
Romans 9:6-8 says “For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel…it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring.”
Galatians 3:29 also makes it clear that, “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” And your personal salvation and relationship with Christ have nothing to do with two different ethnic groups (Jews and Palestinians) fighting over a plot of land half way around the world in Israel or which one occupies any of the disputed territories.
Mark Dice finishes with some theology, which from his comments was well received, but needs to be repeated as too many have been indoctrinated with dispensationalism. Dice included the two most potent rebuttals to the notion that Jews are still God’s chosen people, but could also have included, James 1:1, Luke 3:8, Galatians 3:7, Zechariah 2:11, Romans 4:16, 1 Peter 2:9, and other verses. The notion that the Church fulfills Israel is persistent throughout the New Testament, though not at the exclusion of an eventual re-grafting of Jews in the end-times that believers should pray for.
But because many Americans, including American Christians have bought into dispensationalism, they become invested in warmongering for Israel, which has yet to bless America. Influenced by Zionism, America’s foreign policy has inflicted horrors across the Middle East: invading Iraq for nonexistent WMD’s which threaten Israel at the cost of around 300K civilian casualties; destabilizing Syria through civil war to the cost of 300K civilians over ten years, which was to promote “democracy” and undermine Israel’s rival; destabilizing Libya through the deposing of Muammar Gaddafi, which became the gateway for Europe’s immigration crisis. Rather than focus on the speck that is Hamas, America should inspect the plank that being the World’s Police has had for global instability, which has fueled the invasions of Europe and America by immigrants from these parts of the world. Bombing Palestine into oblivion will only worsen the migrant invasions into Europe, which brings with it murder and rape, all at the destruction of the West.
Needless interventionism often comes at the expense of God’s chosen people, that is His Church. In Iraq alone, which had 1.5 million Christians in 2003, now has around a quarter million. The same can be said of subverting Assad, who defended Christians from US-Backed ISIS in Syria. And there are far worse atrocities being committed in Nigeria against Christians by Muslims that goes underreported in American media.
Let us not repeat past mistakes by being goaded into yet another conflict that has no relevance for our lives here. Jesus said, “blessed are the peacemakers,” not blessed are the warmongers. Furthermore, let us not read eschatology into every global happenstance, attempting to decipher where this event fits on the rapture charts. Nothing is new under the sun; there was an eruption of tensions between Israel and Hamas in 2008 and again in 2014.
Credit to Mark Dice for being perhaps the largest conservative pundit to speak truth amidst hysteria, and adding much needed theology into the discussion.
6 Responses
Baloney
is a very disgusting processed meat. Black Forest Ham and Salami- now that’s where it’s at.
The New Testament is also clear that those who are Jacob’s seed, and others they’ve welcomed into their faith, who reject Jesus as the Messiah, do not lose the right to call themselves Jews, but rather are still under the Law. Romans 2 and 3, for example.
Nowhere does scripture indicate that we have any right to point to them and proclaim “you’re not a Jew”. That isn’t found in scripture.
I don’t understand why so many professing Christians seem to cling to the idea that Israel and Jews are the problem with the world. God’s word tells us what the problem is – it is sin. He tells us who we fight against – it is not flesh and blood. How could one be a Christian in the first place, if he doesn’t recognize these facts, which are foundational to the Gospel?
Muslims have been barbaric and murderous since the cult was founded in 610 AD. Their stated goal ever since has been to conquer the world by force. And I’m here to tell you they would pursue that goal regardless of whether or not there were any Jews on this planet, or whether or not the state of Israel existed, Yet Israel draws most of their attention, focus, and efforts. We shouldn’t be bellyaching because the people of Israel are drawing the focus of jihadists that would otherwise be directed toward us, even more than it already has been. If we did not stand up, Jews worldwide would be slaughtered. Not just in Israel, but across the entire globe. And we would be next. It is ultimately not a regional ethnic dispute. It’s neither regional, nor ethnic.
I don’t agree with everything the government of Israel does, such as the imposition and endorsement of abominable sin, promotion of abortion, and so on. I’m not defending everything they do, but they are not the cause of the world’s problems.
And I find it hypocritical, and a bit puzzling, that Christian Nationalists would condemn Jewish Nationalism (aka Zionism). I don’t know why anyone would respect the idea that Christian nations should exist, if the idea that a Jewish nation has the right to exist is not respected.
There is a difference between Jew and Israel. Israel is a Nation, in which the Church is the New Testament Israel. Heretical sects debate who are the “True Jews,” which would include Mormons and BHI types. Jews, in a biblical sense, were grafted out of the nation if they rejected Christ. I am not contending that modern Israel can’t exist or defend itself from Islamic barbary, just that America should not get involved, and that the consequences for involvement will have repercussions down the road, as previous interventions have had, which has fueled Islamic migration and empowered terrorists globally. The primary problem with Zionism is that Christians embrace it at the expense of their own nation, which is further fueled and caused by dispensational theology. If Jews want to be nationalist towards their own end, fine, but the problem is that they demand, through lobbyist and politicians, that we support their endeavors at the expense of our own nation. It is not “everyone can be nationalist for their own nation,” which is consistent with Christian Nationalism, but specifically we must support them as a moral imperative.
“1800’s Theology”. Seriously? Do keep in mind that after 2006, when the people in the Gaza Strip were given independent rule, 95 percent of the Gaza residents that voted chose Hamas terrorists and only Hamas terrorists as their leaders. All non-Hamas candidates combined received less than 5 percent of the vote. None won any office. Only Hamas. Polling indicates 95 percent of the population supports them as well. Over half the population supports killing and raping Jewish women and children, because they feel it is a more effective form of terrorism. All of this has been known for decades. The stats barely change decade to decade. The type of people being dealt with needs to be factored into any path forward. This article definitely is lacking in this area, which makes assessments and conclusions without that reality basically worthless from a practical standpoint. Eliminating the pre-300s theological understanding also hinders a biblical assessment.
Augustinian allegory as a Theological basis for eschatology is a tradition that is extremely questionable when considering the whole of Scripture. Instead of 1800s Theology, why don’t we say pre-300s Theology? Then everything going on is easily assessed according to Scripture.
Palestine Liberation Organization and Islamic Jihad are the other terrorist organizations with political power within Gaza. However, Hamas controls the PLO front.