Joel Klein Has It Right About Israel

Last updated on: November 23, 2018 at 12:22 pm by Kermit Zarley

Joel Klein Has It Right About Israel 2018-11-23T12:22:01-07:00 Kermit Zarley

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Joe Klein is a Jewish, American, political journalist who has his own column in Time magazine. I like to read him. His column in Time magazine, March 30, 2015, is entitled “Disgrace in Victory.” It is about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu winning the Israel election last week in a disgraceful manner. I blogged about it last week.

I didn’t mention in the blog post that Netanyahu used a scare tactic by saying Israeli Arabs were voting in droves like never before. Well, they had always dismissed Israel’s elections as a support for the status quo of no Palestinian state. Then in the closing weeks of the election, Palestinian Knesset lawmakers united their small political parties to form Joint List that place third in the election.

So, Klein and I agree that Netanyahu stooped to dirty politics in the closing moments of his political campaign by saying there would be no Palestinian state on his watch, thus overthrowing his speech in 2009 when he first embraced the two-state solution concept. Before that, he had always been opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state. He played the trump card at the last moment–hate Palestinians and deny them their own state.

Why did Netanyahu do that? A reliable poll published only four days before the election had Netanyahu and his conservative Likud Party losing the election to Isaac Herzog and his Zionist Union Party (formerly Labor Party). Klein says of Netanyahu that even before he made those remarks in the closing moments of the campaign, “about 200 former Israeli military and intelligence leaders publicly opposed his dangeroulsy bellicose foreign policy. He won because he ran as a bigot. This is a sad reality: a great many Jews have come to regard Arabs as the rest of the world traditionally regarded Jews.” Klein adds that despite atrocities directed against Israeli Jews by Palestinian groups like Hamas, “plus loathsome genocidal statements from the Iranians and others…. there has been a tragic sense of superiority and destiny on the Israeli side as well.” It is that far-right element in the Israeli electorate that Netanyahu appealed to with his alaraming remarks in order to pull out a surpise victory.

This feeling of Jewish superiority has been encouraged to a large extent by much of my Evangelical community. This is an embarrassment to me. Christians should love Jews and support the existence of the State of Israel. But Christians should also love all people and therefore love Palestinians and support the concept of a Palestinian state. If Jews are entitled to their own state, then Palestinians are entitled to their own state as well. There are just as many Israeli Jews in the world as there are Palestinians.

Some say, “but give Palestinians their own state and they will still call for the extinction of the State of Israel.” I don’t believe that. You can’t blame Palestinians for being angry that Jews took their land away from them–primarily the West Bank–and that they want their own state. Create a Palestinian state that is acceptable to most Palestinians and most of the hatred will become a thing of the past. However, I’m not predicting that there will thereafter always be peace between Israel and Palestine. Jesus said, “you will hear of wars and rumors of wars;… nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom” until his kingdom comes (Matt 24.6-7). He meant war is just a reality of life in this fallen world. But until the end, humans should work for peace between nations as much as possible, just as we try to live in peace with our next-door neightbors. For Jesus also said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God” in kingdom come (Matt 5.9).

Klein says, “Read Ari Shavit’s brillian conundrum of a book, My Promised Land, and you will get chapter and verse about the massacres perpetrated by Jews in 1948 to secure their homeland. It may be argued that the massacres were necessary, that Israel could not have been created without them, but they were massacres nonetheless. Women and children were murdered.”

I tell about this in my book, Palestine Is Coming: The Revival of Ancient Philistia (1990). Menachem Begin was Israel’s Prime Minister from 1977 to 1983. I quote him from his autobiography. He had been the head of the Jewish terrorist organization Irgun before and during Israel’s war of independence. He says the terrorism that Irgun foisted upon Arabs, later called Palestinians, was absolutely necessary for the creation of the State of Israel. Compare that with what Hamas says in its Charter–same thing.

God says repeatedly in the Bible that even though he has a unique covenant with Jews in general, he himself is not a respecter of persons and that we humans should be the same way. People should be assessed by how they live their lives, not whether they are black or white, Russian or American, Jew or Gentile, Arab or Israeli Jew, or whatever. That’s how God is. Guess what–we’ll see it in action right after the end of days at the Judgment.

Right after the election, Netanyahu started backpeddling. He said he wasn’t entirely against the creation of a Palestinian state but that circumstances need to change for the two-state solution to remain alive. Yeah, but he is contributing immensely to its demise. And U.S. President Barak Obama’s stance on this subject merely reflects how most people in the world feel about this Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Klein says peace between Jews and Arabs “seems impossible now. For the sake of his own future, Benjamin Netanyahu has made dreadful Jewish history: he is the man who made anti-Arab bigotry an overt factor in Israeli political life. This is beyond tragic. It is shameful and embarrassing.”

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Previous Post

March 22, 2015

2014 SBL Panel Discussion of Bart Ehrman's book, "How Jesus Became God"

Next Post

March 24, 2015 Did Jesus Have to Be God to Save Us?

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Angels Billy Graham Blog Description Book Reviews Christian Living Christianity Christology Church History Current Events Deity of Christ? Disarmament Eschatology Evangelicalism Ezekiel 38-39 Film Reviews God Golf Gospel Harmonization Health History Holy Spirit Incarnation? Interview Islam Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Jesus Last Empire Literary Announcements Major Championship Winners Masters Monotheism My Books New Testament Old Testament Politics Primitive Weapons Ryder Cup Science Society of Biblical Literature The Bible The Restitution of Jesus Christ Trinitarianism Trinity? Uncategorized Unconditional Love? War on Terrorism

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

How many plagues did God send upon Egypt?

Select your answer to see how you score.

12 7 5 10

Books by This Author Books by Kermit Zarley Blog

See All Titles »