Walled Villages
(Signs of the Time - April 2004)
Scripture reveals that in the latter days, the people of the Promised Land will be at rest, dwelling safely and living in unwalled villages (Ezk. 38:11). The past several years have found the Middle East to be anything but a safe, peaceful and restful environment. One suicide bomber follows another and in an attempt to stop the bloodshed, Israel has been building a wall around the occupied territories.
The
wall
When completed, the wall will stretch 400 miles in length and be, on
average, 25 feet high. The most obvious historical parallel to the wall is
the Berlin wall which was 96 miles long and 12 feet high. The Israeli wall
is set to be four times as long and twice as high. From the start, the wall
or barrier was surrounded in controversy as to its overall purpose. The
Israeli government indicates that the barrier will be used to help curb the
growing number of suicide bombings; on the other hand, the Palestinians
claim that the wall is nothing more than a land grab by the Israelis used to
circumvent the Palestinians from formulating an undivided nation.
For their part, the Israelis indicate that more than 800 civilians have been murdered in the past three years by terrorists, and thousands more have been injured. In turn, the Palestinians point out that the barrier will divide their nations into separate entities while at the same time allowing Israel to claim extra land that rightly belongs to Palestine.
The
courts
In order to stop the construction of the barrier the Palestinian
government decided to seek a legal remedy. They took the matter to both the
world court (International Court of Justice in The Hague) and the Israeli
court. In 2003 the United Nations General Assembly asked the International
Court of Justice to consider the barrier issue. When hearings began in
February, 2004, the battle lines were quickly drawn as Arab nations lined up
in support of the Palestinian position and Israel’s usual allies backed the
barrier. It is the position of the Israeli government that the
International court has no jurisdiction to rule on what it considers a
political -- not legal -- dispute with the Palestinians.
As a result, the Palestinians took the dispute to the Israeli courts and on March 1, 2004, the court ordered a temporary halt to construction on the wall. Stratfor-on-line reported on March 5, 2004 that: “The court ruling is not a condemnation of Sharon’s (Israel’s Prime Minister) plan, but a quibble over details. This is not to say that construction will forge ahead at full speed; the plan has no shortage of opponents…Sharon’s core goal is to gain the upper hand in determining Israeli borders in order to make it a geostrategically viable state and prevent any future Palestine from being sufficiently cohesive to pose a security threat to Israel.”
Unwalled villages
Since the latter day prophecies include the Middle East living at peace
and in unwalled villages, it could be concluded that the Master’s return
will not be for some time yet. As the collapse of the Berlin wall will
testify, however, walls can come down very quickly. And we have no idea how
much time will take place between the Lord’s return to gather the
responsible for judgment and when he will make his first public appearance
to Israel. Rather than become lax, we need to remember the warning, “In
such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh.”
George Rayner