Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is on record as recently stating that our present Mideastern involvements are in the interests of a "new Mideast" - to which one pundit responded that as matters now stand, the "new Mideast" will likely consist of an empowered Iran, unstable Iraq, and destroyed Lebanon.
That things are not as originally anticipated is, of course, finally beginning to sink in - at least in some quarters. Apart from its spiritual implications, the source of the problem lies, first of all, in the fact that we are not dealing with a Western oriented system of values and meaning, but rather uncontrolled emotionalism as replacement for logic and violence in transcendence of reason. Such has long characterized much Mideastern culture.
As those following current events are aware, Ayman al-Zawahri, second in command to Osama bin Ladin, has just issued a call to the Muslim world at large to rise up in holy war against Israel. As a policy statement, he further stated that al-Quida now views "all the world as a battlefield open in front of us."
Various words of Scripture come to mind. As with other portions of his writings, Daniel's "Seventy Weeks" vision is understood by many as carrying at least some sense of "dual inference" - i.e., events of a given earlier time denoting yet future (in the case, end time) events and realities. Here Daniel 9:26 stands out: "The end shall come like a torrent; until the end there shall be war, the desolation that is decreed." And, of course, Jesus' prophecy of "wars and rumors of wars" similarly grasps one's attention (Matt. 24:6).
Hostility between Israel and its neighbors is endemic to the region. In reading Ezekiel this morning, one particular phrase caught our attention. The focus of the passage is God's pronouncement of judgment upon the Philistines (from which our modern term Palestine derives) - their offense being that of "hav[ing] taken vengeance with destructive malice in their hearts" upon Israel as the result of "an undying ["never ending," RSV] enmity" (Ezek. 25:15 NAB).
It is nothing new - the roots of the antagonism reaching far into the past. Things began that way among their progenitors (Gen. 21:9-21).
Burl Ratzsch
