We have just studied the Bible prophecies predicting that Israel would be regathered back into the Land during the End Times just prior to the Lord's return and the Millennial Kingdom. Now these prophecies prompt a very serious question. 

Is the modern-day "State of Israel" a fulfillment of those Bible prophecies?

This question is one of the most debated of our day even among students of the Bible, and certainly among the peoples of the world. If the Bible is true and the State of Israel is a fulfillment of those Old Testament prophecies, then it follows that it has fundamental legitimacy as a sovereign nation within Palestine, for its existence would have to be the first step toward God's Plan to set up His Millennial Kingdom. Conversely, if those Old Testament prophecies are incorrect, or should not be taken literally, or if the modern-day State of Israel is just an anomalous precursor to the true one, then it has no legitimate  claim to the Land, and should be dealt with as an unlawful intrusion into a region already occupied by others. 

One's position on this question will depend greatly on their religious persuasion, and on their view about the authenticity of Biblical claims that it is the "Word of God". The religious world of Islam completely rejects the idea that the State of Israel has any God-given right to the Land, whereas the non-religious world tends to see the existence of the State of Israel as simply the natural outgrowth of great world upheavals, viewing the Middle East turbulence created by it to be subject to negotiation and compromise. Since our study of War World II has already revealed that Bible prophecy of the End Times can be shrouded in world events that appear to be very secular in nature, it is important for us to spend a brief time here to review some history leading up to the existence of the present-day State of Israel. In this review, we will also be able to surface some of the underlying reasons for the intense conflict that continues to persist between the Arabs and Jews in that region.

Starting with the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 and concluding with the Barkoba revolt in AD 135, Israel, as a national entity, ceased to exist. For the next roughly 1800 years until 1948, the Jews remaining in the Land were always subject to Gentile control, although their vast majority were scattered throughout the world in what has been termed the "Diaspora". Some historic highlights relevant to this long period are (1) the fourth century rise of Christianity as a state religion under the Roman Emperor Constantine; (2) the final disintegration of that Empire into its Eastern form called Byzantium; (3) the seventh century rise of the religion of Islam; (4) the launching of the 12th century "Crusades", conducted as a series of military campaigns against Islam to reclaim Palestine for the cause of Christ and create within that Land a "Christian Kingdom"; and (5) the demise of Christian influence in the Land and resurgence of Arab control following the 13th century, brought about by the military successes of such Arab leaders as Saladin who created an Islamic dominance in Palestine that existed in various forms until 1917.

Three factors relating to this brief summary of early history are particularly significant with respect to the Jews' current situation in the Land.

1. With the dispersion of the Jews from the Land after the first century, their "legal" claims to it began to wane in the eyes of other people, with the passing of time and its settlement by other ethnic groups.
   
   

2. Except for a relatively brief span of a century or so, there was very little Christian influence in the Land over the centuries.
   
   

3. The people who came to settle in the Land and to exert control over it for about 16 centuries were the Arabs, with Islam as their principal religion.

Of these, the last one is particularly important, for Islam contains specific elements of belief that give rise to the present Arab view concerning the Land.

• Islam is considered by its adherents to be the most recent of progressive revelations from God, superseding both Judaism and Christianity. Thus, all prior claims of the Jews to Palestine as their homeland are either nullified or considered to be perversions of God's will by "unbelievers".
  
  

• Islam is a religion that regards man and his total environment. As such, a believer in Islam sees God as providing both material and spiritual rewards. Thus the "Umma", i.e. worldwide body of Islamic believers, are seen to reap benefits from Allah that are not only spiritual, but also earthly in the form of their domination over the unbelieving non-Islamic world. Since the Umma is considered to represent God's "chosen people", and Islam is thought to be superior to all other religions, they logically conclude that both Jews and Gentiles must ultimately become subject to it. That subjection can come either in the form of conversion to Islam, or if refused, in the form of humiliation and subjection through political, economic, social, or even military dominance.

Islam regards the Jews to stand most guilty of all people, because the "revelation" of Islam was offered to them soon after it was received, but they chose to reject it. Consequently, it is unthinkable to a faithful believer of Islam that a national Jewish entity should ever exist "within" the Islamic world, since they hold that such a situation would be contrary to the will of God. Moreover, since this theology teaches that final judgement cannot occur until the Umma has enveloped the world, an anomalous Jewish entity like the State of Israel is non-negotiable; it must be eradicated.

After Muhammad's seventh century entry onto the world scene as a "prophet" of God, Islam enjoyed a stellar rise in influence and military dominance over the entire Middle East. It appeared to the Arab world that Allah was expediting His plan through Islam to bring in a worldwide Umma, preparatory to final judgement. During the first few centuries of its existence, the Arabs could look at the Western world and see decadence, poverty, and clear inferiority relative to themselves, so the tangible superiority of Islam seemed obvious to them.

Consequently, when the Islamic empire began its decline in the 16th century, what was at first only a cause for concern later became a major frustration and theological enigma. The Western world, first with its Renaissance and then with its Industrial Revolution was being propelled into a position of dominance over the Arabs. According to Islamic beliefs, this reversal of roles should not be. Yet, by the end of the 18th century the final ignominy began with military incursions by the West into the Islamic world. The end of the 19th century saw a complete takeover in the Middle East by the European West. In the thinking of the fundamentalist adherent to Islam, such a shift in power brought his very faith and reason for being into question, as it was being attacked in the caldron of raw world power.

Zionism as originally conceived was primarily a political movement by secular Jews rather than a religious one. This is not to say that religion played no role, but rather that the goal of Zionism was in no sense to fulfill the Abrahamic Covenant regarding the perpetual ownership of the Land by Jacob's descendants. Rather, it was to find a homeland somewhere in the world for the Jewish people. In fact, Theodore Hertzel, its founder, considered several alternative territories including Uganda and Argentina, for the settlement of the Jews of the Diaspora.

Even when Jewish settlements began in Palestine in the late 19th century, it was not with the intent of expelling Arabs. Early settlements were primarily in the unoccupied areas of Galilee and the Coastal plains, rather than among the Arab concentrations in Samaria and the hill country, south to Hebron. Concomitantly, Palestine was given low priority by the Arabs during this time, not considering it to be a desirable place to live. Nonetheless, those most dedicated to their Islamic beliefs saw this intrusion as having sinister overtones. They saw it as a ploy by the West to further dominate Islam through the deployment of Zionism as its "puppet". This feeling, strengthened by the Arabs' simultaneous trend toward nationalism, caused them to side with Germany during World War I. Thus, when Germany and her allies were defeated along with the Ottoman Turks who controlled Palestine, that area fell directly under the military control of the British.

Although the British Commonwealth never desired permanent military control of the Land, their international interests in other areas of the Middle East argued for a presence there as well. The British proved to be somewhat ambivalent in their inclinations to favor either the Jews or the Arabs. They simply hoped to find a magic "formula" that would best safeguard their overall interests. At the time, the British Balfour Declaration of 1917 seemed temporarily to favor the goal of Zionism, since it gave the Zionists the visibility and forum to further their cause of establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

Although Arab leadership was initially preoccupied with the British promise of creating an Arab kingdom in the Western portion of the Middle East, continuing Jewish immigration into the Land soon caused the Arabs to become alarmed by the growing population of imported Jews, who they saw as conflicting with Arab nationalism and hindering God's ultimate will for Islam. They became increasingly militant at the local level and following an Arab rebellion, launched a series of attacks against Jewish settlements during the years of 1936-1939.

The world of Islam never had a nationalistic orientation, that being just another Western transplant. Conversely, its real unifying force had always been through the ideology of Islam with its inherent doctrine of the Umma as the invisible force that bonds Islamic believers together. Therefore, to the extent that Islam has been adopted by the individual Arab with its articles of faith, we could regard the Arab world as monolithic in its perception that the present-day conflict between Jews and Arabs is fundamentally religious, not cultural or political.

Just as the British were concluding that a unified "State of Israel", with Jews and Arabs living together in harmony, would never work, the Nazi Third Reich was becoming a real threat in Europe. When Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939, British interests turned to matters of personal survival, and they essentially turned their backs on Zionism, enacting a plan that initially reduced Jewish immigration into Palestine, then later practically eliminated it altogether.

The coming of the Abomination of Desolation and Great Tribulation of World War II, with its heinous Nazi Holocaust perpetrated against the Jews in Europe, set the stage for the creation of the present State of Israel. This has already been discussed in "The Great Tribulation of the End Times". The Holocaust of World War II produced an intensity of feeling among Jews worldwide that probably has no parallel among any other ethnic people group. In a very real sense, the Jew saw the world as having been tried through the prism of the Holocaust, and found guilty. In Jewish eyes the Holocaust proved what 1900 years of experience had been suggesting all along, i.e. the survivability of the Jewish people could not be entrusted to the Gentile world. They reasoned that even many Christian "believers" within Germany, along with supposed "Christian" nations like the United States and its allied nations, had passively allowed the Holocaust to occur. Therefore it became imperative to them that a territorial home be found where they could control their own destiny and ensure their survival as a people.

Therefore, when the United Nations voted to partition Palestine between Arabs and Jews on November 29, 1947, the Jews accepted the plan, for this would give them a homeland, albeit only a patchwork of their former Land of Israel. When the British chose not to enforce the provisions of the U.N. resolution but instead withdrew their forces, the Jews acted unilaterally by declaring themselves to be the "State of Israel" on May 14, 1948. You may wish to further review this story in audio and slides up to the present time in the "Prophecy Preview".

The secular humanist would undoubtedly review this historic summary of the creation of the State of Israel, then conclude that it confirms that modern Israel simply came about through the ebb and flow of many circumstances in world history, as they were influenced by the decisions of men affecting or reacting to them. Even many serious Bible believers who are aware of this history have also concluded that the modern-day State of Israel could not be the one prophesied in the Bible for the End Times, because there was nothing in its creation to suggest God's direct intervention in bringing it about.

However, we must quickly recall that those Bible prophecies cite only one Jewish return to the Land after being scattered among the nations. Fortunately, we now have available those techniques for the detection of prophetic events, i.e. the Jubilee, Levitical, and 360 day calendars, coupled with Israel's Redemptive Timeline. Therefore, we have the tools necessary to determine whether or not a remnant of the  modern-day State of Israel will ultimately become a part of Millennial Kingdom Israel, so we will be most anxious to apply them to this question in the following section.