“What in the world were they thinking?”
Often that question has been asked after observing actions that range from the silly to the tragic. The implication is that a thoughtful person would have avoided doing something so stupid or evil.
Thoughtlessness and absentmindedness are common human frailties. Sometimes we lack sufficient knowledge to make a good decision. “If only I had known…” is a common lament. Hopefully, with experience and education comes wisdom. We learn from mistakes, our own and others’.
But this alone doesn’t explain the mindset or behavior clearly in evidence in so many arenas. For example, why are so many highly educated and otherwise intelligent people prone to believe untruths about Israel?
As a current case study, consider the “Colonialist Israel is committing genocide in occupied Gaza” canard being widely espoused on college campuses, in legislative bodies globally, and at the United Nations. This is patently untrue at every level.
Israel didn’t “colonize” Palestine; following World War I, the European Allies divided the spoils of the fallen Ottoman Empire, with Britain overseeing the former provinces of Iraq and Palestine.[1] United Nations Resolution 181 (November 29, 1947) called for the establishment of both a Jewish state and Arab state (which included Gaza) in a divided Palestine. The Arabs rejected that proposal.
Israel declared its statehood on May 14, 1948, then defended itself against five neighboring Arab armies which sought to stamp out the fledgling Jewish state. When Israel signed an armistice with Egypt in February 1949, Gaza ended up under Egyptian control.
Egypt was defeated in the Six-Day War of 1967, so the Sinai and Gaza came under Israeli control.[2] Israel agreed to return the Sinai to Egypt as part of the 1979 Camp David Accords.[3] Of note, Egypt did NOT want “the Gaza Strip” back.
Israel wasn’t “occupying Gaza” on October 7, 2023, when Hamas and Islamic Jihad marauders broke through the security fence that separated Gaza from Israel. In 2005, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel “Arik” Sharon[4] withdrew all Israelis living in Gaza without seeking concessions from the Palestinians as an overture for peace. What followed was two decades of nearly 20,000 rockets and mortars being fired from Gaza into southern Israel – not to mention the hundreds of individual armed infiltrations, anti-tank missiles and other explosives.
Far from perpetrating genocide, Israel is fighting a hot war against an intransigent foe seeking to remove the Jewish people “from the (Jordan) river to the (Mediterranean) sea.” The October 7, 2023 massacre inflicted on Israelis intentionally targeted civilians during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. Grandparents and babies in their homes, young adults at a desert dance party, people driving down highways – more than 1,200 wantonly slaughtered, most offering no armed resistance. The savage brutality of the treatment of the 251 hostages taken into Gaza is well documented. This kind of action rightly fits the “genocide” categorization.
The number of Gazans killed in the IDF’s response to the carnage perhaps never will be known. Hamas strictly controls the reporting of journalists, some of whom have proven to be militants themselves.[5] Gaza’s Ministry of Health, also an arm of Hamas, reports more than 74,000 have died since October 7, 2023. This number does not distinguish between those who died of natural causes, old age, disease, or accidents (including misfires of rockets from Gaza) and those who died in war.
Additionally, the reporting by Hamas of “civilian” casualties cannot be trusted. Independent studies are hard to assess for accuracy given the difficulty of access to documentable data. Some of the marked discrepancies are highlighted in reports such as produced by The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.[6] Two conclusions drawn from this study bear noting:
“Yet available evidence, along with careful hypotheses about the uncounted death toll, suggests this [civilian-combatant] ratio is neither extremely low nor extremely high. Such a finding is compatible with an urban war characterized by Israel’s heavy use of airstrikes paired with measures to protect civilians, Hamas’s extensive tunnel network and use of civilian infrastructure, and Gaza’s high population density.”
“Adult men are disproportionately represented in the death toll (49.3%) relative to their population share (26%), with those in the 18–45 age range 2.85 times more likely to have died than women. While men generally die at higher rates than women in wartime, this level of imbalance undoubtedly reflects the significant presence of combatants in the count.”
Contrast the actions of Hamas (wanton massacre of Israeli civilians, using their own populace as human shields, and utilizing schools and hospitals for military purposes) to Israel’s efforts to notify Gazans of impending airstrikes, carefully calculating the risk of civilian casualties, and overseeing the delivery of truckloads of food and medicines to Gaza during wartime. Which side’s actions look more like genocide?
Israel’s efforts to identify and eradicate individual terrorists are ongoing in Gaza, Lebanon, and elsewhere. The existential threat posed by Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile program has been set back but anyone doubting the Islamic Republic’s continued commitment to Israel’s destruction isn’t taking the ayatollahs’ repeated threats and military actions seriously.
Given these realities, why have so many American campuses seen sizable, repeated rallies in support of Hamas? Why have fearful Jewish students felt the need to hide their ethnicity?
Of course, we have to account for the fact that many students are being indoctrinated, not educated. But what accounts for the fact that their highly-degreed professors are not, at minimum, giving their proteges access to multiple sides of complex issues? Why have many actively joined protests against Israel and promoted BDS (boycott, divest, sanction) efforts?
We might say it is because, on balance, the sources informing the educators are highly skewed against Israel. When the majority of “respected” news outlets parrot the same talking points, their views become the accepted norm – regardless of how far from reality they may be.
But then we might ask why the preponderance of news sources are skewed in a particular direction. And here we enter the realm of conspiracy theories about who controls the media….
I personally have a built-in resistance to conspiracy theories. Though I do enjoy a good spy saga filled with subterfuge and false leads, I prefer those where the truth triumphs at the end – especially when it’s a “true life” story.
Here’s the truth we face in the real world: there is a Conspirator. He is the ultimate deceiver, the Father of Lies . He’s wholeheartedly engaged in a very real war, not a theoretical one – and it is cosmic in its proportions.
A supernatural being endowed with tremendous powers, Satan’s ultimate goal of overthrowing the Sovereign of the Universe will never succeed. But since he cannot directly attack the Creator, the Evil One sets out to destroy Almighty’s creation.
Through deception[7] he tempted those uniquely made in God’s image. Sowing seeds of doubt, he seduced our first parents to disbelieve the truth and disobey God’s command. “Through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all mankind, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).
And just as the curse of death entered the world through Adam’s sin, the cure was provided through one Man. “For if by the offense of the one, death reigned through the one, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:17).
That One is “the seed of the woman” (Genesis 3:15), the offspring of Abraham through whom “all the families of the earth will be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). And because the Jewish people are chosen of God (Deuteronomy 7:6–8), bear His name, recorded and preserved His Word, and are through whom Messiah came,[8] they are in the devil’s crosshairs. Whatever God especially loves, Satan especially hates.
This is the underlying cause of “the longest hatred”: antisemitism throughout the centuries and its virulent variants, including “Zionophobia,”[9] in our day. The instigator is the Deceiver. His favorite tool is deception. Sowing seeds of doubt, disbelief, and disobedience is his forte.
The challenge for us is to be discerning. Avoiding being deceived requires being grounded in God’s truth and attuned to His Spirit. Living this way ensures that what we’re thinking is properly aligned: “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Philippians 4:8).
What are YOU thinking?
Written by Wes Taber, Life in Messiah Global Ambassador
Where do you see deception in evidence in your sphere of influence today?
What tools and practices are you implementing as you seek to discern truth from error?
If you are talking with people who are condemning Israel without having their facts straight, consider viewing “Shadows of October: Israel Under Siege” with them and have an informed discussion. The trailer and information about the movie can be found here: https://www.lifeinmessiah.org/shadows-of-october.
Endnotes:
[1] The 1917 Balfour Declaration stated that Britain’s government viewed “with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people….” In 1921, Britain sliced off the larger chunk of Palestine (all territory east of the Jordan River), creating the Emirate of Transjordan. The League of Nations mandate given in 1922 tasked Britain with implementing the establishment of the Jewish homeland – a goal it never achieved and indeed sought to thwart in the decades that followed. Today, the great grandson of Emir Abdullah I, King Abdullah II (ibn Al Hussein), rules the Kingdom of Jordan.
[2] Israel also captured the strategic Golan from Syria. And Jordan lost control over Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) when King Hussein bin Talal, despite Israel’s plea, decided to join the hostilities against it.
[3] The transfer of the Sinai was not completed until April 1982. My family was living in Israel at the time and witnessed the strong opposition of some Israelis to giving up the significant strategic buffer the Sinai provided; its landmass is more than twice the size of Israel itself.
[4] Sharon fought in the Sinai as an IDF officer in the 1956 Suez War, the 1967 Six-Day War, and again in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. From the right wing of Israeli politics, his unilateral withdrawal from Gaza was as surprising to many as was the peace agreement struck by Menachem Begin, also from Israel’s right, with Anwar Sadat in 1978. Republican president Richard Nixon’s rapprochement with China and Ronald Reagan’s nuclear negotiations with Russia are somewhat parallel examples in modern USA history.
[6] https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/sites/default/files/pdf/PolicyNote158Epsteinv3.pdf.
[7] The Hebrew and Greek languages each have multiple verbs for deceiving/lying. The most common Hebrew word for deceive, nashah (נָשָׁא), first appears in Eve’s response to God in Genesis 3:13. “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” Jeremiah 17:9 states “The heart is more deceitful than all else….” The Hebrew here is akov (עָקֹב), which is the root of the name Jacob (יַעֲקֹ֛ב). Thankfully, God changes both Jacob’s heart and his name (to Israel; see Genesis 22:38).
[8] Paul lists the spiritual heritage of his kinsmen “who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the Law, the temple service, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen” (Romans 9:4-5).
[9] A “subset” of antisemitism, “Zionophobia” specifically refers to fears/concerns about the formation/continuation of a Jewish state. Found in print as early as 1919 in Zionist Organization of America publications, some credit philosopher Judea Pearl with reintroducing and popularizing the term in 2018.