Here I examine excerpts from the article Does Israel Matter? by Darris McNeely, which I found at the United Church of God (UCG) web site here on Nov 24, 2012.
McNeely: Walter Russell Mead spoke to Israel's role in a recent piece at The American Interest. Israel matters to America like no other nation on earth, he wrote. "The people and the story of Israel stir some of the deepest and most mysterious reaches of the American soul . . . The belief that God favors and protects Israel is connected to the idea that God favors and protects America.
"It means more. The existence of Israel means that the God of the Bible is still watching out for the well-being of the human race . . . The restoration of the Jews to the Holy Land and their creation of a successful, democratic state after two thousand years of oppression and exile is a clear sign that the religion of the Bible can be trusted" (The Dreamer Goes Down for the Count, May 25, 2011).
Comment: Note that McNeely believes that the restoration of Jews to the Holy Land is a clear sign that the Bible can be trusted. In other words, he seems to think that God gave the Holy Land to the Jews in our time. He also seems to think this was prophesied in the Bible. He does not quote a single passage from the Bible to support his views.
McNeely's assumption that God approves of the Jewish takeover of Palestine deviates sharply with British-Israelism (BI), a traditional COG belief, which Herbert Armstrong promoted. According to Herbert Armstrong and BI, Palestine belongs to the tribe of Joseph, not to Judah!
What a muddle! The Arabs believe Palestine should be theirs because they are descended from Ishmael. The Turks want it because they come from Esau. The Jews want it because they come from Jacob, but through Judah. Yet it belongs to none of them by divine right! It belongs to Great Britain and America, into whose hands God placed it, but who have been so valiantly trying to maintain it for Jew and Arab. (Herbert Armstrong, The Plain Truth, Nov-Dec 1955, page 7, here).
The muddle is made worse when the UCG, which is a direct descendent of Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God, can't seem to keep straight who the land belongs to either. How can a church with so many Armstrong followers—including ministers—forget that? Where is the Holy Spirit among them?
Even if God foresaw that Judah would take over Palestine in our time, it would not mean that he gave them that land or approves of them being on it. If God prophesies a future event, it does not necessarily mean that he approves of it.
The Jews have no biblical basis for taking over the land. There is so scripture which gives them any right to it at this time. Therefore all their killing in the name of God is baseless. They are simply wiping the Arabs off the land in an ethnic cleansing program that has no divine approval. By supporting that, the UCG is supporting ethnic cleansing.
The only argument I see consistent with BI that the Jews might have a right to Palestine is that America (part of Joseph) is basically giving it to them. The USA backs Israel politically, militarily, and economically. If the land belongs to America and Britain, then one might argue that those countries have the right to give it to whom they choose. Since the US is backing the Jews, they are basically letting the Jews have it. Very little of Palestine is still under Arab control.
But I see several problems with that argument.
Regarding the last point: if rich and powerful Jews basically dictate what the US should do, then Joseph isn't really giving the land to Judah; Judah is taking it. In that case, they have no right to have it.
Anyone who doubts that the Jews used terrorism to drive out the British should research the 1946 King David Hotel bombing incident at the British Administrative headquarters in Jerusalem (see picture).
McNeely: The existence of Israel does matter in today’s world. It is larger than a Palestinian refugee problem.
Comment: Read that carefully. Sounds like he's saying that having the political entity of Israel, and having it today, is more important than the problem of refugees. Sounds to me like he does not care about Palestinian refugees. His article is very supportive of Israel and offers no support to Palestinians.
McNeely: It is even more than the survival of one ethnic group over another.
Comment: Read that carefully too. Sounds to me like he's saying the political state of Israel is more important than the survival of an ethic group. I don't think he would say that if it were one of the tribes of Israel that was being wiped out. Sounds like he just does not care about ethnic cleansing (as long as it's the Jews who are doing it) or even the survival of the Palestinian people. False religious dogma can make a person heartless.
McNeely: The ancient land occupied today by the remnant of mainly one tribe of the biblical nation of Israel is the site of God’s story of eternal salvation for all the tribes of mankind. It is the culminating spot where the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will show Himself once more for the good of all people and bring all nations before Him in judgment.
Comment: He pays lip service to caring about "all the tribes of mankind" though he just callously consigned the Palestinians to genocide, by saying the "survival" of their "ethnic group" was not a priority. His words sound lofty but while he pens such noble-sounding thoughts people on the ground are dying and having their homes and crops bulldozed to make room for Jewish settlers who settle there in violation of international law and BI.
McNeely: Over the years I have made several visits to Jerusalem. In spite of its current troubles I have always felt safe. I’ve been able to place my hand on the Western Wall and walk around the Dome of the Rock. I’ve been able to see all its fabled streets and buildings, taking in all its history. I’ve been able to do this because it has been a free and united city. That is the way it should always be.
Comment: Yeah, it's a nice place for tourists, which is what he cares about. Tourists don't have to live in Gaza.
Anyway, I find it hard to believe there was no tourism there before the Jews took over, which is the impression one might get reading McNeely's article. There is tourism in Arab lands. For example, tourism has long been one of the mainstays of Egypt's economy. Does the UCG think Arabs don't want tourist money and that only Jews do?
And while Jerusalem might be free, Gaza and the West Bank are not. Apparently McNeely has not been to Gaza which has been described as a concentration camp. And if people are so free in Palestine, why are their homes and farm buildings bulldozed? Well, the Jews are free, and those are the only people McNeely really seems to care about (and American tourists).
Church of God ministers and members are supposed to be neutral ambassadors for Christ. Ambassadors are supposed to represent their country (the Kingdom of God in this case) not take sides in the politics and wars of this age. That's what we were taught in the old WCG.
By saying Jerusalem should always remain united he implies that the Jews should keep control of the whole city, and not let the Arabs have any of it back. He offers no scripture to support that view. He is taking sides in a war. Is he whitewashing murder? Does he have blood on his hands?
McNeely: I earlier mentioned that the dig I worked on at the Temple Mount would not have been possible were the area still controlled by Arabs.
Comment: That does not give the Jews the right to take over the land and kill Arabs. God can unearth artefacts when his time is right without needing to kill anybody. Further, the Dead Sea Scrolls were found by Bedouin shepherds, so who says we need Jews to find artefacts?
McNeely: Likewise, to the south of this area, in what is called the City of David, various digs have unearthed the history of the city, confirmed the ancient Jewish presence and affirmed the accuracy of the Bible. We would know little of this rich history were it not for the openness fostered by the State of Israel.
Comment: Rubbish. If Joseph (Britain and America) had the land, people could do all the digging they wanted. The Jews don't have to be there.
Further, I don't see how Israel can be called "open" when they bomb news media outlets in Gaza, such as when they bombed the building housing Russia Today several other news organizations. They also intentionally attacked the U.S. ship Liberty, killing 34 crew. The US government meekly did nothing in response.
McNeely: What have the Israelis done with the land they gained in the 1967 war? They opened the land and made it productive.
Comment: Israel gets massive US "foreign aid" (as if they need it). Maybe that's the key to their economic success.
McNeely: It has been cultivated to grow crops that not only feed the nation but provides exports to the world.
Comment: They use Palestinian land to grow food for Jews and the world, while Palestinians are driven off their farms and reduced to mass poverty.
McNeely: You can drive though these areas and see the progress that stable democratic government has brought to the land and its inhabitants, Israeli and Arab alike.
Comment: Tourists can drive around easily in Jewish areas, but it takes hours for Palestinians to go a short distance because of all the checkpoints deliberately set up by Israel to impede Palestinian freedom, subjugate them, and choke their economy.
Further, Israel is not even close to a true democracy, and it is naive to think that it is.
McNeely: More than 1.5 million Arabs actually live in peace and freedom within Israel—a fact seldom reported.
Comment: More than a million Jews have illegally settled on Arab lands—a fact that is seldom reported.
Peace? There have been several wars over there since the Jews took over, and peace is nowhere is sight.
Freedom? What freedom is there when you are poor, your travel is severely restricted, and you have lost your house, your farm, your herds and most of your country?
Is McNeely out to lunch or is he lying through his teeth? I would say that his problem is that he has likely forgotten that the Jews have no right to the land and has gotten caught up in pro-Zionist U.S. media news coverage and Christian-Zionism. I also think that he has lost sound Christian judgment. There seems to be no Spirit flowing; and no human compassion either.
A Christian-Zionist is a Christian who supports the state of Israel for religious reasons. Television evangelists like Jerry Falwell (pictured) and John Hagee have been some of the leading proponents of this movement. Maybe that's where McNeely got his position on Israel. But wherever he got it, he did not get it from God.
The WCG once taught that the Jews had no right to Palestine. Why the change? Maybe the UCG is afraid the Jews will kick them off of television if they don't support Israel.