DIGGING THEIR OWN GRAVE (Editor's note: the following is the reaction of a true Christian friend of Israel to the Israeli government's policies.) The persecution of Jews! Has there been anything to rival 4,000 years of history filled with so many rivers of blood and tears? The Bible is clear--no easy road for the Jews in their role as a light to the nations. And the rages of the world's powerful have confirmed the link between God and Jew. Take Houston Stewart Chamberlain, the intellectual so admired by Hitler: "I cannot help shuddering...at the portentous, irremediable mistake the world made in accepting the traditions of this wretched little nation (Israel)...as the basis of its beliefs. The Jew came into our gay world and spoiled everything with his ominous concept of sin, his law and his cross." Very revealing. An unforgiving attitude toward the Jews--for spiritual reasons--"anti-Jewish" being merely the visible expression of an invisible anti-God, anti-Scripture and anti-Christian bent. But while the Gentile world has often wanted to bury the Jews, it is the Jews themselves who have too many times provided the shovels and helped in digging their own graves. 1. Moses tried to get them out of Egypt's burial grounds. When Pharoah retaliated, the Israelites blamed Moses with their "Don't rock the boat." Jewish self-dug graves. 2. When the going got tough between Egypt and Canaan, the whole congregation opted to return to While the Gentile world has often wanted to bury the Jews, it is the Jews themselves who have too many times provided the shovels... the three square meals--and persecutions--of Egypt. Jewish self-dug graves. 3. Of the 12 heroes sent to spy out the land, ten chickened out with the obvious message, "We can't go forward through Canaan's giants--let's go backward to Egypt's graves." Jewish self-dug graves. 4. Though it was the evil nature of kings and nations to persecute the Jews, they whined to Samuel to give them such a king and make them like those nations. Later, Jewish groups were fighting each other inside Jerusalem even as Roman legions prepared to destroy them all. Jewish self-dug graves. 5. This could go on and on, but let's take it to modern times. Prior to the Holocaust, some Diaspora Jews resisted calls for a Jewish State. Christian Zionists pushed hard for the rebirth of Israel--but it was too

late to provide a haven for six million Jews whose massive unmarked grave would cover Europe. 6. God sent a prophet to Poland in 1939, shortly before the start of World War II. Ze'ev Jabotinsky cried to the Jews: "Liquidate the Exile before the Exile liquidates you." He was laughed to scorn. Speaking in Warsaw, Jabotinsky declared: "I state with shame that the people behave now as if they were already doomed. I have not found anything like it, neither in history nor in novels. Never did I read of such acquiescence with fate." 7. When Great Britain used all her power to prevent the rebirth of Israel (and turned away Jews fleeing Hitler), Menachem Begin, later to become Israel's prime minister, determined to fight. Begin's greatest foes were fellow-Jews who turned his soldiers over to the British. Begin was not timid in denouncing what he called "a shameful betrayal of the Jewish war of liberation." In the end, Ben-Gurion was forced to do what Begin had been right to do--face and fight the British. Jewish self-dug graves. 8. As Jews were being murdered in Europe, "[B]en Hecht prepared a dramatic pageant, named 'We Will Never Die,' to be held first in Madison Square Garden...Rabbi Stephen Wise phoned Hecht to inform him that he...disapproved of it as counter-productive, and urged that the show be aborted. Wise stormed up to the capital in Albany, a retinue of Jewish officials with him, and demanded that [Governor Thomas E.] Dewey renege on his commitment." Thankfully, Governor Dewey did not bow to Jewish leaders abandoning their own people (some two million Jews had already perished). The pageant was a success. 9. Peter Bergson [real name: Hillel Kook, of the famed rabbinic family] gathered both Jewish and Gentile Americans to speak out on behalf of Europe's Jews locked in a Nazi slaughterhouse. Their greatest opposition came from fellow-Jews led by Dr. Stephen Wise. Jewish self-dug graves. 10. All of Israel knows Major Orde Wingate, British soldier and Bible-living Christian. A strong supporter of Jews, Wingate pushed the British government to form a Jewish army during World War II. Wise enough to know that such an army would help guarantee a post-war independent Israel, Wingate took on all opponents, even telling Ben-Gurion "You are a traitor to your people" when his plea that Zionist leaders press for an army was brushed aside by Ben-Gurion. 11. Now come the Oslo peace talks. While believing that only God will provide long-term peace for Israel and her neighbors, I also believe that there can be short-term peace if such is based on a solid foundation, and not sand. Thus far, Jews are giving everything tangible, strategic lands that many experts believe vital to Israel's survival. Will Israelis keep giving away their lands while receiving only promises that can become their future shrouds in Jewish self-dug graves? 12. And finally, to the present day. While the religious in Israel can often be a pompous pain, the (Continued on p.11)

March 1996               - 7 -               Outpost