Rarely has there been a week with so many historic occasions as the last week in January 2020. We have commemorated the 75th anniversary of the Allied forces liberating Auschwitz and the end of the Holocaust in which six million Jews lost their lives.
This was followed by President Trump’s announcement of his ‘Deal of the Century’ for peace in Israel; and today, Friday 31 January – almost as an anti-climax to the week – Britain quietly slips away from the European Union with no fanfares, no fireworks, just another day in a momentous week.
In addition to these historic events, other things are happening on the world stage of great significance, such as the British decision to include Huawei in its 5G network despite fierce opposition from the USA. Neither Britain nor America have advanced technology to match the Chinese and Britain’s decision is only to allow Huawei a limited involvement that does not include their operational participation, which would threaten national security.
Another big issue rapidly becoming global is the Chinese coronavirus that is spreading rapidly within China and has already jumped to at least 22 other countries, including Britain. British nationals have now been evacuated from Wuhan, the locked-down city at the centre of the epidemic. But the rapid spread of the virus to all regions of China is ominous and could lead to a vast disruption of the Chinese economy which would have worldwide consequences.
If we view this plague alongside the massive area of land consumed in the Australian wildfires, the huge swarm of locusts said to be of ‘biblical proportions’ invading the Horn of Africa, plus the earthquake in Turkey last week, the volcanoes that have already erupted since the beginning of this year and the news of the ice melting in the Antarctic – together they surely provide evidence that God is shaking the nations and the natural environment in accordance with biblical prophecy.1
Surely there is ample evidence today that God is shaking the nations and the natural environment, in accordance with biblical prophecy.
Recognising Reality
Of course, it was no coincidence that President Trump announced his deal in the same week as the worldwide Holocaust memorial commemorations. And, as many newspapers have been keen to remind us, both Donald Trump and Bibi Netanyahu are facing corruption charges in their own countries, so coming together in a common cause takes the focus away from domestic issues for each of them.
The memories of Holocaust survivors were particularly poignant this year in the midst of the widespread revival of anti-Semitism. There can be no doubt that this is one of the reasons why the Labour Party suffered such a crushing defeat in the recent General Election. But much of anti-Semitism is covered by a cloak of deception that makes it sound acceptable.
The BBC provides a prime example of this practice. In announcing the Trump deal with its conditions that Palestinians should fulfil before achieving statehood, the BBC immediately followed it with hostile interviews with Palestinians. There was no attempt to analyse the deal. The major thrust of the news item was to condemn it as unjust for the Palestinians.
'Peace to Prosperity': The Trump administration's 'Deal of the Century' (screen capture)Whatever the merits or demerits of Trump’s deal, the significance of his pronouncement was the recognition of Israel’s historic right to the land, which stretches back to the time of Abraham some 4,000 years ago – long before the Romans invented the term ‘Palestine’ (‘Land of the Philistines’) as a deliberate insult to the Jews. This was after the Roman army led by Titus had slaughtered half a million Jews and banished survivors from their ancient homeland.
A Century Ago
Winston Churchill became Colonial Secretary at the beginning of 1921 with a determination to fulfil the Balfour Declaration and the agreements achieved at the 1919 Paris conference which were given international legal status at San Remo in 1920. Churchill publicly recognised the ancient rights of the Jews to their homeland. When he visited Palestine on 30 March 1921, he told an Arab delegation:
It is manifestly right that the scattered Jews should have a national centre and a national home to be reunited - and where else but in Palestine, with which for 3,000 years they have been intimately and profoundly associated? We think it will be good for the world, good for the Jews, good for the British Empire, but also good for the Arabs who dwell in Palestine and we intend it to be so; they shall share in the benefits and progress of Zionism.2
Churchill publicly recognised the ancient rights of the Jews to their homeland.
Churchill had always been sympathetic to Zionist aspirations and as the total population of Palestine in 1920 was only about 700,000,3 which included Jews and Arabs, he said that the land (which was mainly barren) could stand the immigration of five million Jews, whose skills and diligence would transform it and bring prosperity to all its inhabitants. Most of the land was owned by wealthy absent Arab landlords and was sparsely occupied by peasant farmers.4
Churchill reassured an Arab delegation in London in August 1921:
The Jews cannot dispossess any man of his rights, or his property. If they like to buy people’s land and people like to sell to them, and if they like to develop and cultivate regions now barren and make them fertile, then they have every right to do so.
He argued that:
The Jews have a far more difficult task than you…They have to try to create out of the wilderness, out of the barren places, a livelihood for the people they bring in.5
Spiritual Battle
Sadly, what Churchill recognised as plain common sense and obvious fact, much of the world, including the United Nations, has since rejected as fiction – or at least as deeply controversial. This week, Donald Trump has lit the fuse of the most explosive issue on earth by recognising the historic rights of the Jewish people to the land of their forefathers. Of course, he is being attacked by Democrats in the USA and many others across the world who hate to be reminded of the biblical heritage of the Jewish people.
Maybe this is why God is now shaking the whole of Creation. For Jews and Christians (‘people of the Book’), this should be a wake-up call to the significance of the great spiritual battle that is taking place on earth between the forces of darkness and the forces of light.
It is a battle which is focused most intensely on Jerusalem and the Promised Land, but which rages all over the world in opposition to God’s good purposes – for nations, communities, marriages and families, even the very foundational things that make us human, like gender. These good purposes are summarised in a promise given by God to the people of Israel: “I will make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth” (Isa 49:6).
References
1 Isaiah 2:12-22; Haggai 2:6-7; Hebrews 12:26-29
2 Fromkin, D, 1989. A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East. Phoenix Press, London, p521.
3 According to statistics from the Jewish Virtual Library.
4 These occupants were not known as ‘Palestinians’ then – this is a modern term invented to embarrass Israel and to deceive the world that a coherent, non-Jewish nation had been indigenously in the Land for centuries and therefore now has a legal claim to it. In reality, most modern ‘Palestinians’ are descended from Arabs who migrated into the region particularly since World War 2, but who are united now more by their shared opposition to Israel than by any historic ethnic or cultural ties.
5 Gilbert, M, 1975. Winston S Churchill, Volume 4, '1916-1922: The Stricken World'. Boston, p597.
