The Jewish people’s stubborn refusal (as Bob Dylan says in ‘Neighborhood Bully’) “to lay down and die when his door is kicked in” is offensive to the nations. Consider how the world has responded to the Hamas massacres of October 7, 2025 – shockingly, it has been with a tsunami of violent and jihadi-inspired anti-Semitism, blowing across the face of this planet like dust in the wind.
Just a few days ago, on Friday September 12, the United Nations General Assembly voted 142-10 in favor of what is being called the ‘New York Declaration’, committing itself to taking “tangible, time-bound and irreversible steps” towards “the implementation of the two-State solution” – in other words, the division of the biblical land of Israel.
An important question needs to be raised: What does it mean to believe in the restoration of the Jewish people to their Promised Land? What does that restoration process look like? How will the nations respond as the God of Israel brings that restoration to fruition?
The reality of restoration
Bible-believers know that YHVH the God of Jacob is righteous and true, and that everything that He does is just and good. Yet at the same time, some of us haven’t thought through the ramifications of God’s mandate to Joshua and King David when He commanded them to conquer the Land of Canaan. What do we think about that mandate? Would we have saluted the Captain of the Lord’s host, and stood proudly shoulder to shoulder alongside the armies of Israel – even if it meant the elimination of the Canaanites and the destruction of Ai and Jericho?:
- “For My Messenger will go before you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; and I will completely destroy them. You shall not worship their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their deeds. But you shall utterly overthrow them and break their memorial stones in pieces” (Exodus 23:23-24)
- “Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan, you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from you, and destroy all their idolatrous sculptures, destroy all their cast metal images, and eliminate all their high places!’” (Numbers 33:51-52)
- Now YHVH said to Joshua, “Do not fear or be dismayed. Take all the people of war with you. Arise, go up to Ai; see, I have handed over to you the king of Ai, his people, his city, and his land. You shall do to Ai and its king just as you did to Jericho and its king; you shall take only its spoils and its cattle as plunder for yourselves. Set an ambush for the city behind it.” So Joshua rose up with all the people of war to go up to Ai; and Joshua chose thirty thousand men, valiant warriors, and sent them out at night (Joshua 8:1-3)
- “They did not destroy the peoples, as YHVH had commanded them. But they got involved with the nations and learned their practices, and served their idols, which became a snare to them” (Psalm 106:34-36)
Tel Aviv, si! Tulkarem, non!
Most of us accept that God gave a biblical mandate to Joshua, but some of us are not sure that God’s promised mandate concerning the rest of the Promised Land is still valid. What are we to think about the areas that the world refuses to recognize as part of Israel’s divine patrimony – like East Jerusalem, biblical Judea and Samaria, Gaza, the Golan up to the Euphrates River, central and northern Jordan, etc.?
Most of the world is comfortable accepting the fact that Tel Aviv is a thriving Jewish metropolis. But is God’s promise limited just to Tel Aviv and not also to Tulkarem (situated in what the world calls ‘the West Bank’), which for all intents and purposes is controlled by the jihadi terror gangs Hamas and Islamic Jihad? Is the world at peace with Israel living in Haifa, but opposed to Jewish sovereignty over Hebron (at present a Hamas stronghold, though biblically the very first capital city of the Jewish people under King David; see 2 Samuel 2:11)? Is the Israeli city of Netanya kosher for Jews to live in, but not Nablus (known in the Bible as Shechem, where Joshua gathered all the leaders of Israel to make a covenant there with YHVH; see Joshua 24:1-15). Is Rishon L’Tziyon somehow more of the ‘Promised Land’ than Ramallah? Should Gedera be considered more part of the Holy Land than Gaza (see Joshua 15:47)?
It seems that for much of the Western world, God’s promise to Israel of Jewish control over the entire Promised Land is a biblical fairy tale – romantic Sunday School fluff. The world recognizes the borders of Israel as being only what Israel’s fledgling army managed to hold onto at the close of the 1948 War of Independence.
But from YVVH’s perspective, restoration is a process: it may have begun with Tel Aviv but it will see its zenith with full Jewish possession of the entire Land promised to Abraham:
- “From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates” (YHVH’s promises to Abraham in Genesis 15:18-21; see also Genesis 17:8):
- “I will set your boundary from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates River. For I will hand over the inhabitants of the land to you, and you will drive them out from you” (Exodus 23:31)
- “May he [the Davidic Messiah] also rule from sea to sea, and from the Euphrates River to the ends of the earth. May the nomads of the desert bow before him, and his enemies lick the dust” (Psalm 72:8-9)
- “And [YHVH’s] dominion will be from sea to sea, and from the Euphrates River to the ends of the earth” (Zechariah 9:10)
The battle-cry of today’s anti-Israel rioters – ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ – is actually a satanic counterfeit of the God of Jacob’s prophetic promise to the sons and daughters of Israel. Caveat spectator – let the watcher be aware!
‘Woke’ but asleep at the wheel
‘Political correctness’ will expand like yeast throughout the world until it will finally be burnt up at the advent of Messiah Yeshua to Jerusalem. Those who pride themselves today in being ‘woke’ (while coming against His restoration of the Jewish people to their Promised Land) are actually simultaneously both ‘woke’ and asleep.
A word of exhortation to Bible-believers: it is not enough to acknowledge that there once was a demonic Prince of Persia (see Daniel 10:10, 13) but at the same time to avert our eyes from the Prince of Iran’s Shiite plans to carry out a Second Holocaust against the people of Jacob. It is not adequate to simply cluck our tongues disparagingly about Saudi terrorist Usama bin Laden’s 9/11 while warmly shaking hands with Syrian jihadi al-Julani and the Qatari princes who bankroll the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, HTS and the Taliban. It is not sufficient to condemn the anti-Semitic Hitler of Nazi times, while justifying his spiritual fellow-travelers and camaradas in America like ‘the Squad’, Mamdani, Ivy League campus rioters, Students for Justice in Palestine, and talking heads like Candace and Tucker. It really is time to wake up.
The divine punishment of Gaza
The God of Israel’s restoration of the Jewish people to the Promised Land is an ongoing process, one that has not yet crested. Time for another question: What should Israel do in the meantime regarding jihadi forces who will stop at nothing to destroy the Jewish people and their restoration (both physically to the Land and spiritually to Messiah Yeshua)? Is Israel allowed to pro-actively defend itself from these modern incarnations of the Hitler-spirit? Do the Scriptures offer any guidance here? Let’s first consider God’s historical perspectives on the region of Gaza.
The prophet Amos states that the God of Israel will bring divine punishment against Gaza for its murderous and destructive acts against the Jewish people. Those acts have been demonstrated throughout biblical history, and once again were brutally carried out on October 7, 2023: “This is what YHVH says: ‘For three offenses of Gaza, and for four, I will not revoke its punishment, because they led into exile an entire population to turn them over to Edom. So I will send fire on the wall of Gaza and it will consume her citadels.’” (Amos 1:6-8)
The Hebrew prophet Zephaniah seconds that prophetic sentiment: “For Gaza will be abandoned, and Ashkelon will become a desolation … Woe to the inhabitants of the seacoast, the nation of the Cherethites! The word of YHVH is against you, Canaan, land of the Philistines! And I will eliminate you so that there will be no inhabitant. So the seacoast will become grazing places, with pastures for shepherds and folds for flocks. And the coast will be for the remnant of the House of Judah. They will drive sheep to pasture on it. In the houses of Ashkelon they will lie down at evening. For YHVH their God will care for them and restore their fortunes” (Zephaniah 2:4-7)
Zechariah adds his Last Days words of judgment to the mix: “Behold, …Gaza too will writhe in great pain …Moreover, the king will perish from Gaza, … O daughter of Jerusalem!” (Zechariah 9:5,9)
The words of these prophets reveal God’s continuing perspective regarding those enemies who still seek Israel’s destruction through rape, pillage, murder and kidnapping – from their terror bases on Gaza’s shoreline. The God of Jacob has no moral qualms about calling for Gaza’s punishment and even its elimination, as seen above. These dynamics are part of the prophetic record of what is coming down the pike.
Isaiah’s Last Days vision for some of the countries neighboring Israel includes Gaza and the breadth of the country of Jordan:
- The armies of Israel “will swoop down on the slopes of the Philistines on the west [i.e. Gaza]. Together they will plunder the people of the east [i.e. Jordan]. They will possess Edom and Moab [i.e., central and southern Jordan], and the sons of Ammon [i.e. north-central Jordan] will be subject to them” (Isaiah 11:14).
These Hebrew prophecies are not religious gobbledygook. They are up-to-the-minute highly relevant forecasts, more accurate than any modern media outlet.
The forces of Amalek
“And Moses built an altar and named it ‘YHVH is My Banner.’ And he said, ‘Because YHVH has sworn, YHVH will have war against Amalek from generation to generation’” (Exodus 17:15-16).
In Jewish religious literature, Amalek is a symbol of the Jewish people’s mortal enemies. The murderous forces now confronting Israel – Iran, Yemenite Houthis, Iraqi Shi’ite Hezbollah, Syrian ISIS and HTS, Lebanese Hezbollah, Gazan and West Bank Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Egyptian jihadi movements, Muslim Brotherhood offshoots and even plants within the Egyptian government – all of these could be classified as ‘Amalek’-like in their goals and spiritual origins.
Recent ‘Amalek’ attacks (including drones, hypersonic missiles, rockets, IEDs, snipers, etc.) have led to strong Israeli counter-responses. Some media commentators in the Arab world are using a Hebrew phrase to describe Israel’s reactions – ‘baal habayit hishtage’ah’ – ‘the owner of the house has gone crazy.’ In simpler terms, Israel is ‘mad as hell [about Amalek] and is not going to take this anymore,’ to quote Paddy Chayefsky’s Howard Beale in the movie ‘Network’.
The ‘strong horse’
Another helpful Middle Eastern term (in Arabic, this time) which can unpack more understanding here is ‘the strong horse.’
Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Mordechai Kedar, senior research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, served for 25 years in IDF military intelligence specializing in Syria, Arab political discourse and mass media, Islamic groups and Israeli Arabs. An expert on the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups, his take is worth reading: “Given Islam’s pervasive entrenchment in Palestinian society (and for that matter in all Middle Eastern societies) – the acceptance of Israel’s existence by Muslims communities, both within Israel and abroad, will only be feasible upon their realization of the Jewish state’s overwhelming strength and invincibility. Only a powerful, well organized, highly determined and militarily invincible Israel can stand a chance of surviving in its violent and merciless neighborhood.”
This is ‘the strong horse’ principle. In mid-November 2001, Osama Bin Laden spoke to a room of supporters, discussing the September 11th terrorist attacks: “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse. This is [the] only goal . . . following the doctrine of Muhammad.” Bin Laden saw Islam as the strong horse, and Christian America as the weak one.
Journalist Lee Smith based the name of his book ‘The Strong Horse: Power, Politics, and the Clash of Arab Civilizations’ on Osama bin Laden’s above-mentioned quote. Smith states that strength or “violence is central to the politics, society, and culture of the Arabic-speaking Middle East, and that Arab politics is driven by the ‘strong horse’ principle.” He adds that “Bin Ladenism is not drawn from the extremist fringe but represents the political and social norm [of the Arabic-speaking Middle East].” According to T. Edward Donselm (writing in the Arab Studies Quarterly), Smith sees a revived modern Islamism as an effort to employ the fourteen-hundred-year old political institution of jihad as a tool to restore Sunni Islam to the supremacism it enjoyed in Islam’s first century.
Daniel Pipes (director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University) also applies Bin Laden’s ‘strong horse’ principle to Israel’s role in the Middle East. Israel serves as ‘a proxy strong horse’ for both the United States and the Saudi-Egyptian bloc in the latter’s Cold War rivalry with Iran’s bloc. Pipes outlines the policies of non-Arab actors in the Arab world: unless they are forceful and show true staying power, they lose. “Being nice – say, withdrawing unilaterally from southern Lebanon and Gaza – leads to inevitable failure. More broadly, when the U.S. government flinches, others (e.g., the Iranian leadership) have an opportunity to ‘force their own order on the region.’”
Walid Jumblatt, revered Lebanese Druze leader, once spoke to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in 2007, warning U.S. policymakers as to the nature of the Assad regime. “Let nobody be fooled that the [Syrian] killing machine will stop,” he said. Given the absence of effective sanctions against the regime, Jumblatt offered his own recommendation as to a practicable course of action, opining, “If you could send some car bombs to Damascus, why not?” Jumblatt was suggesting that Washington sending car bombs to Damascus was the best way to get its message across and to signal its understanding of Arab ways.
Lee Smith’s ‘strong horse’ paradigm helps us to comprehend the Arab cult of death, honor killings, terrorist attacks, despotism and warfare. The strong-horse principle may strike Westerners as ineffably crude, but it is a cold reality that outsiders must recognize, take into account, and respond to if they are to influence events in the Middle East.
In the Hebrew Scriptures, the God of Jacob uses the poetic figure of a strong war horse when describing His gifts to and calling on the Jewish nation: “For YHVH of armies has visited His flock, the House of Judah, and will make them like His majestic horse in battle” (Zechariah 10:3).
But the Jewish people are not only YHVH’s strong horse; they are also His lion cub (Genesis 49:8-9): “As for you, Judah, your brothers shall praise you. Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies. Your father’s sons shall bow down to you. Judah is a lion’s cub. From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He crouches, he lies down as a lion, and as a lion, who dares to stir him up?” It is instructive to consider how the IDF’s latest war against Hamas in Gaza has taken its name from Balaam’s pro-Zion prophetic word: “Behold, a people rises like a lion, and like a lion it raises itself. It will not lie down until it devours the prey, and drinks the blood of those slain” (Numbers 23:24).
For the present time, the best and most realistic posture for the Jewish people to take in the Middle East is to be both the strong horse and the roaring lion – until the time when the Arab world bows the knee before YHVH, the God of the armies of Israel.
- But David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a saber, but I come to you in the name of YHVH of armies, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied” (1 Samuel 17:45)
- On that day the Egyptians will become like women, and they will tremble and be in great fear because of the waving of the hand of YHVH of armies, which He is going to wave over them. The land of Judah will become a cause of shame to Egypt. Everyone to whom it is mentioned will be in great fear because of the plan of YHVH of armies which He is making against them. On that day five cities in the land of Egypt will be speaking the language of Canaan and swearing allegiance to YHVH of armies. One will be called the City of Destruction (Isaiah 19:16-18).
How shall we then pray?
- Pray for revelation to be granted to Bible-believers about what Jewish restoration entails
- Pray for the full restoration and salvation of the Jewish people to their homeland
- Pray for the raising up of Ezekiel’s prophetic Jewish army throughout the earth
Your prayers and support hold up our arms and are the very practical enablement of God to us in the work He has called us to do.
In Messiah Yeshua,
Avner Boskey
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