Great post by Matt Smethurst, associate editor for The Gospel Coalition.
The Story: After eight days of bloody conflict, Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas have agreed to a ceasefire, The New York Times reported yesterday. Five Israelis and more than 150 Palestinians have been killed along the Israel-Gaza border during the past week.
Such events raise typical and salient questions. Does Israel possess a “divine right” to the “Promised Land” in the Middle East? What is the “Promised Land,” anyway? The interminable Israeli-Palestinian conflict has always been freighted with biblical significance; Israel, after all, isn’t calling their anti-Hamas campaign “Operation Pillar of Cloud” for nothing.
But are such appropriations legitimate?
Read the whole thing.