A Moment of Truth About the Middle-East [Part II: Why Israel?]

On October 25, 2023, I published an article wherein I’ve made the fallacious assumption that Britain had fulfilled the Balfour Declaration, 30 years overdue, and facilitated the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 “as a plausible solution for a European humanitarian difficulty.” Though this assumption is not originally mine; and has been theorized and advocated by many before me; it was, nonetheless, a gross error of judgment on my part to advance it myself; which I intend to rectify herein. It took two long years of Israel’s heroic war on terror in Gaza for me to have this sense of clarity in a moment of epiphany, revealing a time-transcendent overarching truth as to why it had to be the State of Israel!

Why Israel? Couldn’t it have been a twentieth-century bastion of Christendom in the holy land? The land was Britain’s after all, and she could have had the highest seat of spiritual authority for herself and unite the Christian multitudes worldwide under her banner. Was it [the facilitation of the creation of the State of Israel] an act of mere benevolence, a fulfillment of an overdue obligation, or a truly genius and optimal solution for a centuries old threat to European and Western strategic security? [Note: the reader ought to bear in mind that the establishment of the State of Israel took place one year prior to the formation of NATO]

My wager is that it is the third, concealed under a finely knitted veil of the preceding two.

How so? A quick historical examination of the Christian reign over Jerusalem is requisite to answer this question.

The Christian Byzantine Empire had lost Jerusalem to the First Islamic Conquest of Jerusalem in 638 AD, and withdrew from the holy land. This was more profound than an imperial military and political loss; it constituted a moral defeat that shook the entire Christendom—an inflection point in global power and dominion [emphasis added]. The Islamic conquest did not stop there, however. And by early eighth century, the Muslims had captured the Iberian Peninsula. Christendom shrank drastically within the span of a century, as the Muslim Caliphate vastly expanded across multiple continents.

It wasn’t until late-eleventh century that the First Crusade would have reclaimed Jerusalem from the Muslims. Alas, that was not a definitive conclusion! How could it be? The Islamic Caliphate is a perpetual global project, and inasmuch as it is true today so it was then. Muslims would return and reconquer Jerusalem in 1187. The city was surrendered to Sultan Saladin after 12 days of siege to avert then an inevitable bloodshed—and the Crusaders withdrew. European powers launched a Third Crusade (The Kings’ Crusade) two years later, which was doomed to fail; and the Crusaders retreated to Europe.

Thereafter and until the 20th century, Imperial Christian powers had only vied for the patronage of the Christian community in the holy land within the Islamic realm.

As such, one would infer from the historical evidence that the Christian tie to the holy land was never an existential bond that Christianity could not do without. And by the terms of this assumption, it was never a zero-sum calculation (all or nothing) for Christian powers [emphasis added]. It was, nonetheless, a pillar in the faith; yet fell short of a conditio sine qua non—given that there was always an open pathway for retreat, a return-to home –in addition to the existence of alternative seats of spiritual authority, such as the Vatican and the Orthodox Antiochian See.

The case varies fundamentally vis-à-vis the Jewish people (the Israelites), however. And the British were privy to this fact.

For the truth of the matter is this:

Insofar the Israelites are concerned, the establishment of the State of Israel was not a mid-19th century political project coming to fruition, as many have been misled to believe, but the realization of a centuries old lost teleological dream for the Jewish people [emphasis added]. The fullness of the Judaic tenets of faith cannot simply manifest anywhere else: “And I will establish my covenant with thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God,” (Genesis 17:7,8). It has to be Jerusalem; wherein the Holy One of Israel would make His dwelling in the midst of His people.

Some may argue that the contemporary State of Israel is a secular country distinct from the biblical Israel. Be it as it may, I would refute that by underscoring the fact that the Lord God is transcendent above human political philosophy, and His Law and Covenant are eternal as well as immutable. That is to say, the Lord’s Covenant is for Himself [emphasis added], and stands perfectly independent of the human factor: before Isaac and Jacob were formed in the womb, the Covenant of the Lord was established in perpetuity. “But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year,” (Genesis 17:21). The posterity of Jacob, nevertheless, is obliged to observe the Law and keep that Covenant.

So, why has it got to be the State of Israel? And how does that relate to Western strategic security?

In fine, Only the Israelites will fight to the very last man fending invaders off Jerusalem. Successive Christian Authorities over the city had time and again submitted to Islamic conquest and fell back to their respective nation states. Whereas the situation is different for the Jewish people: they cannot have a nation state except on that patch of land—it’s an all or nothing calculation for them. Should one offer them the whole world and carve out that little piece of land, they wouldn’t have it; they wouldn’t trade that land, wherein the Lord promises to make His dwelling in their midst, for the whole world.

Accordingly, having Israel on Europe’s ( the West’s) Mediterranean periphery constitutes per se a robust and impenetrable line of defense against any potential Islamic invasion. And that threat, in spite of now appearing to be a figment of distance history, is born anew with Erdogan’s Neo-Ottoman ambitions and aspirations [emphasis added], coupled with Islamic invasive migration into the free-world, which attest to the utility of the State of Israel in repelling actual and perpetually-impending Islamic conquest.