OF BUTTERFLIES AND THINGS

On top of Mt Arbel in the Galilee there once stood a lone carob tree. It could be seen for miles around and became much beloved and famous throughout the land. Then around two years ago, during a winter storm, this brave tree was struck by lightning and felled. Many of us mourned the loss of this tree. But on a recent visit I discovered that the burned stump of this tree had sprouted new life and a strong and healthy sapling had grown up, already big enough to offer shade to passing hikers.

A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,
    and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
    the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
    the spirit of counsel and might,
    the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
 His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.

Isaiah 11: 1-3

These verses speak of the Messiah , Yeshua (Jesus), who came forth from the ‘stump’ of Jesse, who was the father of King David, the direct forefather of Yeshua (Matthew 1). They also speak of the Messianic kingdom, restored from the ‘stump’ of Israel, burned and destroyed but risen again. The new ‘shoot’ is stronger and more vigorous than the old, just as the Messiah is greater than David, and the Messianic kingdom will be more perfect than his (David’s).

The wolf shall live with the lamb,
    the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
    and a little child shall lead them.
⁷ The cow and the bear shall graze,
    their young shall lie down together;
    and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
⁸ The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
    and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
⁹ They will not hurt or destroy
    on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
    as the waters cover the sea.

Isaiah 11: 6-9

Another reason I love to visit Mt Arbel in this season is that the wildflowers there attract many butterflies. The beautiful butterfly also speaks of the new kingdom that is to come. The caterpillar ‘dies’ in its pupa and is reborn with a glorious new body, just as we who are in Yeshua will ‘die’ and emerge with new and better bodies into everlasting life.

I wish I could say that as Israel is emerging from the corona virus pandemic, we have come forth with a glorious new and better society but I am afraid I cannot. Life is returning to normal, we can go out and about more, visit our friends and family, work in our offices, go to school, eat at restaurants and even travel abroad to a few select destinations. But that is not all. The roads are once more congested, traffic accidents on the rise again, and even more worrying we are getting back to ‘normal’ in terms of terrorist attacks, social unrest and political turmoil.

SYRIAN MISSILE

On the first morning of my recent little holiday ‘escape’ in the Galilee, I turned on my phone to get the news. I wished I hadn’t !!!! An advanced SA-5 antiaircraft missile fired from Syria had exploded south of Jerusalem and the shrapnel fallen in the Bedouin town of Ashalim, only about 40km from Israel’s Nuclear facility near Dimona (1). This ‘attack’ raised a number of questions. Had this missile been fired towards the Nuclear facility on purpose or was it an errant missile meant for the Israeli aircraft that were attacking an Iranian military installation near Damascus at the time? What is more why did our multi-layered anti-missile batteries had fail to shoot it down?

ROCKETS FROM GAZA

That same weekend, at least 40 rockets were fired from the Gaza strip into the southern region of Israel (2). Some of these rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome defense system and others fell in open areas. There were no Israeli casualties. This was the most serious escalation in months.

INCENDIARY TERRORISM

This last week an incendiary device was flown into Israel from Gaza – the first for many months. Yesterday, Friday, at least 7 fires were ignited by incendiary balloons causing damage to a greenhouse and in several nature reserves. With the vegetation now drying off and the fire season beginning this is also a worrying development.

TENSION IN JERUSALEM

Meanwhile tensions are flaring in Jerusalem. Yesterday was the last Friday of Ramadan and some 70,000 Muslims gathered for prayers at the Al Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount. Thousands remained after the prayers waving the green Hamas flags and chanting Hamas slogans, before dispersing peacefully. Later in the day however, after the evening prayers, clashes broke out resulting in at least 205 Palestinians and 17 police being injured. (3) Tensions have been simmering in Jerusalem since the beginning of the Muslim fast of Ramadan. First, clashes broke out when police attempted to stop people gathering on the steps leading down to the Damascus Gate in order to enforce the corona-virus prohibitions. After a few days of rising violence, the police were pulled back and tensions cooled. Later however tensions began to rise again as news came in that the Palestinian Elections, the first in 15 years, had been cancelled because Israel had refused to allow Palestinians living in East Jerusalem to vote. This week the situation has been exacerbated even further by the attempts to evict some 6 Arab families from four properties, claimed by Jews, in the Sheik Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem. The Supreme Court is expected to convene on this matter on Monday – which just happens to be Jerusalem Day, which commemorates the conquest and reunification of Jerusalem in 1967. Earlier in the day two Palestinians were shot and killed, and a third seriously wounded, by IDF soldiers when they (the Palestinians) opened fire on an Israeli base in the West Bank (4).

The next few days are expected to be very tense. As it was pointed out in the Jerusalem Post, several potential flashpoints coincide, “Jerusalem Day (the Jewish one) and Laylat al-Qadr (Night of Power), a major holy night of Ramadan, fall on Sunday evening. Eid al-Fitr is on Wednesday, marking the end of Ramadan. Quds (Jerusalem) Day, a holiday made up by Iran to express support for Palestinians against Israel, is on Friday (yesterday) and Nakba Day, on which Palestinians mark the “catastrophe” of Israel’s establishment, is on Saturday” (4).

Both Iran and Hamas are calling for a general uprising, and terrorist and rocket attacks on Israel. Mohammed Deif, the head of Hamas’ armed wing the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam brigades, has warned that , “If the aggression against our people in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood does not stop immediately, we will not stand idly by – and the occupation will pay a heavy price” (4).

You might be wondering why these people in Sheik Jarrah are being evicted, especially at a time when tensions are already high. Land ownership in Israel is fraught with conflicting claims. Land ownership was registered during the Ottoman period under Turkish Law, then during the British Mandate under British Law and since 1948 under Israeli Law. Needless to say, records are often somewhat lacking, muddled or contradictory.

According to the Ottoman census in 1805 the Sheik Jarrah sub district was home to some 167 Muslim families (est. 1,250 people), 97 Jewish families, and 6 Christian families. In 1956 the Jordanian government, in agreement with UNWRA moved 28  Palestinian  families into Sheikh Jarrah who were displaced from their homes in Israeli-held Jerusalem during the 1948 War. During the 1967 war the Sheik Jarrah neighborhood was captured by Israel and incorporated into the reunited Jerusalem. The Minister of Justice stated that in 1970 that the agreements with UNWRA would be respected. Nevertheless, just two years later, the Sephardic Community Committee and the Knesset Yisrael Committee went to court to contest the ownership of the property in the neighborhood. In 1982, they demanded rent for this property and the Supreme Court of Israel ruled in their favor. The tenants were allowed to remain as long as they paid rent (5). Since that time there have been several land disputes and several evictions. Jewish lawyers present Ottoman documents indicating that the land was sold to Jewish settlers in the 19th Century while the Palestinian’s lawyers claim the land was only rented or that the documents are forgeries. And so it goes on.

The humanitarian and moral issues are perhaps more important than the legal ones. According to Times of Israel “The evictions are based in part on a 1970 Israeli law that allows Jews to reclaim East Jerusalem land owned by Jews before 1948…But no similar law exists for Palestinians who lost their homes in what is now Israel during the 1948 war and fled to what was then Jordanian-controlled territory“. What is more, ” most Jews moving into Sheikh Jarrah are motivated by ideology, not through a familial connection to the homes” (6). Is it right to evict families who have lived in these homes for over 60 years? If we evict every Palestinian from homes once owned by Jews, then are we not also morally obliged to return to the Arab owners every property once owned by Palestinians who fled in 1948?

I don’t envy the courts who must try and untangle these complex, inflammatory and endless claims. Only God knows where righteousness lies in such disputes.

For more on this I would recommend this article: https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-east-jerusalems-sheikh-jarrah-palestinians-brace-for-battle-over-evictions/

TERRORIST ATTACKS

There were also a number of terrorist attacks this week. On Wednesday night an Israeli yeshiva student, Yehuda Guetta, died after he had been shot in a drive-by terror attack in the West Bank earlier in the week. The same night a 16-year-old Palestinian, Sa’id Odeh, was shot and killed by IDF soldiers near Nablus. He had been throwing Molotov cocktails at troops (7).

TRAGEDY AT MT MERON

No doubt you will have heard about the terrible incident at Mt Meron in which 45 people, many of whom were children or minors, were crushed to death in a crowd numbering some 100,000. Although investigations are ongoing it appears that some of the people slipped on a wet metal ramp and fell. Those behind were unaware that they had fallen and continued to press forward creating a sort of human avalanche, killing 45 and injuring at least 160 others.

This is not the first deadly incident at this celebration. In 1911 eleven people died, and about 40 were injured, when the railing on a balcony collapsed and about 100 people fell seven meters to the ground below. In recent years there have been many who have warned that such a disaster could happen again but nothing has been done to improve the safety of the site, probably because there is no one organization responsible for the organization. The site is much too small for the crowds that gather and access to the site is by means of only a few, very narrow alleyways.

If you take a look at this video of the celebrations you will see why this disaster was one just waiting to happen. https://twitter.com/i/status/1387837918132195330

Every year on Lag B’Omer (the 33rd day of the counting of the Omer between Pesach (Passover) and Shavuot (Pentecost), hundreds of thousands of observant Jews congregate at the grave of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai on the anniversary of his death. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, also known as the Rashbi, was a second century C.E. sage who is credited with writing the Jewish mystical book the Zohar, the foundational text of the Kabbala. Since the Middle Ages religious Jews have made the pilgrimage to his grave on Mt Meron on Lag B’Omer where joyous celebrations involving prayers, singing and dancing, culminate in the lighting of a bonfire on his grave.

The Kabbala is a set of teachings intended to explain the relationship between the unchanging, eternal God, known as the Ein Sof (The Infinite) and the mortal, finite universe of God’s creation. It is the mystical branch of Judaism and has more in common with occult, pagan and New Age teachings than the Bible. At various times and in certain branches of Jewish religious practice the Kabbala has been banned, but today it is gaining a huge following in both religious and secular circles, not only in the Jewish but also in the non-Jewish world.

Perhaps one pilgrim who was at the celebration on Mt Meron had a point when he said to Channel 12 TV News, “Rabbi Shimon used to say that he could absolve the world … If he didn’t manage to cancel this edict on the very day of his exaltation, then we need to do real soul-searching” (8).

ISRAELI ELECTIONS

At midnight on Tuesday the deadline passed for Bibi Netanyahu to form a coalition government. The President, Reuven Rivlin, then passed the baton to Yair Lapid, the leader of the Yesh Atid (There is a Future) party, who now has 28 days to cobble together a coalition. Lapid’s party gained only 11 seats in the election so he will need to find 50 more seats in order to reach the 61 he needs to form a government. To do this he will have to form a coalition with some parties who are very anti-Arab, and with the Arab block. This sounds like a recipe for disaster. Even if by some miracle a coalition is formed, how long will it last when their only common ground is a desire to unseat Netanyahu? No wonder, according to polls (9), most Israelis believe that Lapid will fail, and if he does, we will have to have yet another round of elections, the fifth since 2019. Even if we do, will another election solve the deadlock? I really feel that it is time for Netanyahu to step down and open the way for a government to be able to form. At this point I think any government might be preferable to none at all – a dangerous sentiment perhaps. But how long can we survive as a nation without a government?

IN CONCLUSION

In view of all these events, it is no wonder that many of us here are wondering if we really want a ‘return to normal’. Life in lockdown was simpler – we only had one ‘enemy’, the disease. But of course we cannot all retreat to our ‘safe places’ and become hermits. Life has to go on and we are thankful that here in Israel, at least, we seem to have overcome the virus, thanks to the vaccination program, which has created a kind of ‘herd immunity’.

Of course we do not know what the immediate future will bring. Will the vaccine continue its work in the months ahead? Will a variant arise that will not be controlled by the vaccine? Will war with Gaza break out again? Will there be a Third Intifada? Will Iran finally attack? Life seems so fraught with uncertainties these days. It is no wonder that many are depressed and confused. I thank God that in Yeshua, at least, we have a sure hope, and with God there is no confusion or uncertainty. His Holy Scriptures are my anchor in these stormy seas. We have the sure hope that one day the butterfly will emerge from the cocoon.

REFERENCES

1. https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/alarms-sound-in-south-of-israel-665953
2. https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/diplomacy-defense/1619329385-idf-at-least-40-rockets-fired-from-gaza-strip-in-israel-over-the-weekend
3. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/police-protesters-clash-as-tensions-simmer-over-palestinian-evictions-in-jerusalem-1.9783615
4. https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/shots-fired-at-salem-border-crossing-in-west-bank-two-terrorist-killed-667513
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheikh_Jarrah
6. https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-east-jerusalems-sheikh-jarrah-palestinians-brace-for-battle-over-evictions/
7. https://www.timesofisrael.com/terror-groups-threaten-israel-over-temple-mount-clashes-dont-play-with-fire/
8. https://www.ynetnews.com/article/r1vJYRuwO
9. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/07/whats-next-for-israel-70percent-of-israelis-see-a-fifth-election.html