THE RIGHT TO EXIST

There are a number of rogue nations that plague today’s world peace. Two in particular, Iran and North Korea, openly threaten other nations, yet we never hear an argument for their total destruction, and rightly so. A sovereign nation has the right to exist, its people the right to live. That is, every nation and every people except Israel and the Jews.

Any casual observer of the Middle East knows that both terrorists and sovereign nations have repeatedly attacked Israel. Many Arab terrorist groups have avowed destruction of the Jewish state. Just a few decades ago the Holocaust had as its goal the complete elimination of all Jews everywhere. The Iranian presidential website stated: "the Zionist Regime of Israel faces a dead-end and will under God's grace be wiped off the map," and "the Zionist Regime that is a usurper and illegitimate regime and a cancerous tumor should be wiped off the map.” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad leads a growing sentiment among radical Islamists that not only affects the Middle East, it is fueling anti-Semitism in Europe, Asia and even in North and South America. A worldwide nexus of hatred for the Jews and Israel is growing.

The nation of Israel is treated with such insolence and hatred around the world that it defies reason. This past week I was in Italy. Just inside the entrance to the underground Metro near the Spanish Steps in Rome I saw only one singular graffiti message scrawled on the wall: “F*** Israel!” Please forgive even the suggestion of something so ugly and degrading being included in my article, but this illustrates the constant attack the Jewish state must endure. I could not help but think of visiting Jewish residents or tourists trying to explain the vitriol to their children. This is real.

So why the hatred? Perhaps it is very simple after all. As long as the Jews exist, as long as they govern a sovereign nation in the land promised to them in the Bible, their very existence threatens every political or religious viewpoint that does not consider the Bible to be true. The nation of Israel’s existence after two thousand years of Diaspora of the Jewish people is proof positive that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is truly God. Right to exist? Yes, a right promised, performed and protected by the mighty Hand of God.

I therefore pray for the peace of Jerusalem.