Tuesday, 09 March 2010 01:43
Written by John Hellein
Caroline Glick's recent post about US Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Israel provides four reasons why the Obama administration will fail to win over the Israeli public this go around where the Clinton administration suceeded in 1999. She closes with:
The Israeli public is not interested in a change of tone - from Obama or from the Israeli Left. It is interested in a change of policy. Until it gets it, the public will in all likelihood remain loyal to Netanyahu.
It brings my thoughts to that Israeli public and what they stand for. Of course, it may be a vast oversimplification, but I imagine that much of the Israeli public just want to be left alone to lead the lives that are before them: raising families, earning a living and finding a little leftover time for whatever else is important to each one of them. These people are not the policy makers and do not want to be. They are not the left that seeks to find acceptance in the eyes of the nations, nor are they the Biblical Zionists reclaiming and living on the hills of Judea and Samaria. My hope and prayer is that an increasing number of these everyday people come to see the significance of the people of Israel living throughout the land of Israel.
Yesterday, a long-time friend taught at the congregation of which we have both been a part for the last 20 years. He spoke about 2 Kings 5 and Naaman's journey from the commander of the army of Aram to a Zionist. Naaman, he maintains, not only received healing from leprosy through Elisha the prophet, he also was delivered of his own national pride and came to see the God of Israel as the ONLY God.
Before his conversion, Naaman speaks with contempt about the land of Israel:
"Are not Abanah and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?" So he turned and went away in a rage (2 Kings 5.12).
But after he repents by obeying the word of Elisha to wash seven times in the Jordan, he not is not only healed but his attitude about the land of Israel and of Israel's God change:
"Behold now, I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel; so please take a present from your servant now" (2 Kings 5.15b).
He asks of Elisha the gift of two loads of earth from the land of Israel. Now, when he returns to his own country, he will be able to worship on the holy ground of Israel. In short, my friend points out, Naaman had become a Zionist. So, I belive that as the everyday Israeli encounters the power of the God of Israel in some way or other in the course of his life, he too will not only be healed; he will find deliverence, gain a Zionist perspective and join in the cause of redeeming the land with his faithful brothers and sisters on the hills of Judea and Samaria and everywhere else in the land of Israel.
None of this really does justice to yesterday's teaching, I just wanted to draw the parallel between Naaman and the change in perspective that I hope will eventually come to the people of Israel and, through them, to the rest of the world.
I encourage you to listen to the whole thing.
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