Jacob's Ladder

"in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go" (Genesis 28:14-15)

"'they shall call His name Immanuel,' which translated means, 'God with us.'" (Matthew 1:23)

"The promise of an accompanying presence of God that would never fail, first given to Jacob, is now renewed and extended, by implication, to the nations that become Jacob's offspring through faith in the Messiah. This happens through a form of the divine presence that Jacob could never have anticipated: the presence of God in the midst of human life as the human Jesus, Jacob's own descendant, who thus brings blessing to the nations. Jesus himself is God-with-us." (Richard Bauckham, Who Is God? [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2020], 23)

"you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man" (John 1:51)

"He had a dream, and behold, a ladder was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it." (Genesis 28:12)

The Perennial Jewish Corroboration Of Christianity

What's below are some comments from Augustine on Jewish corroboration of Christianity. Notice that he was writing about 1600 years ago and that his comments are applicable to every century of the church's history. We're sometimes told that people didn't have much evidence for Christianity during most of church history, as if people had little evidence for the religion between the earliest years of the history of the church and the modern era. Supposedly, recent developments in fields like archeology and historical scholarship have brought about a major change. Those who lived in the medieval era, for example, allegedly didn't have much evidence to go by. It's true that they had significantly less evidence than we have, but they had more than is often suggested. Augustine is addressing a significant line of evidence for Christianity that's existed throughout church history:

"Indeed, it is a great confirmation of our faith that such important testimony is borne by enemies. The believing Gentiles cannot suppose these testimonies to Christ to be recent forgeries; for they find them in books held sacred for so many ages by those who crucified Christ, and still regarded with the highest veneration by those who every day blaspheme Christ. If the prophecies of Christ were the production of the preachers of Christ, we might suspect their genuineness. But now the preacher expounds the text of the blasphemer. In this way the Most High God orders the blindness of the ungodly for the profit of the saint, in His righteous government bringing good out of evil, that those who by their own choice live wickedly may be, in His just judgment, made the instruments of His will. So, lest those that were to preach Christ to the world should be thought to have forged the prophecies which speak of Christ as to be born, to work miracles, to suffer unjustly, to die, to rise again, to ascend to heaven, to publish the gospel of eternal life among all nations, the unbelief of the Jews has been made of signal benefit to us; so that those who do not receive in their heart for their own good these truths, carry, in their hands for our benefit the writings in which these truths are contained. And the unbelief of the Jews increases rather than lessens the authority of the books, for this blindness is itself foretold. They testify to the truth by their not understanding it. By not understanding the books which predict that they would not understand, they prove these books to be true." (Reply To Faustus The Manichaean, 16:21)

Is Trump our Sharon?

A parallel occurred to me between Israeli and American politics. To my knowledge, the Israeli electorate is generally quite liberal (although the demographics may be changing since pious Jews have bigger families than secular Jews.) In the past, Jewish voters used to alternate between hawkish prime ministers and dovish prime ministers. However, every time a dovish prime minister bent over backwards to make peace with Muslims, his efforts were rewarded by Muslims attacking Israel. As a result, liberal Israelis have been voting for very hawkish prime ministers like Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu. If Israelis felt safe, if it wasn't for the security issues, figures like Netanyahu and Sharon wouldn't be viable candidates. A lot of voters dislike them. But militant Muslims have forced the Israeli electorate to move to the right for national self-preservation. Even otherwise liberal Israelis aren't suicidal.

We have an analogous situation in the US. Progressives made Donald Trump possible. And they may ensure his reelection. There are voters who wouldn't vote for Trump in normal times, but they will vote for him because he's the buffer between them and the progressive lynch mobs. 

Umbilicus terrae

From what I've read, the basic contention of Christian Zionism is that OT promises ostensibly made to and for Israelites are just what they appear to be. They are, in fact, about the stated referent rather than a cipher for the church (i.e. Jewish and gentile Christians). On that view, Israel continues to have a special future, distinct from the gentiles. 

We might compare this to Augustinian amillennialism,  where OT prophecies and promises ostensibly about Israelites and Eretz Israel are stripped away and transferred to the church. 

A basic problem with the Augustinian interpretation is that we have many OT passages which distinguish Israel from the gentiles ("nations", "peoples", "coastlands", "ends of the earth"), predicting/promising that the gentiles will some day share Israel's faith in Yahweh and the Davidic Messiah, the gentiles will bring tribute to Israel, viz. Gen 12:3; 18:18; 22:18; 26:4,24; 27:29; 28:14; 1 Kgs 8:43,60; 1 Chron 16:8,24,26,28,31; Pss 2:8; 22:27; 45:17; 47:1,9; 67:2-5; 72:11,17; 86:9; 102:15; 117:1; Isa 2:2-4; 5:26; 9:1; 11:10-12; 19:18-25; 24:15; 25:6-7; 42:1-12; 45:22-25; 49:1,6,22; 51:4-5; 52:10,15; 56:1-8; 60:1-16; 66:18-20; Jer 1:5; 3:17; 4:2; Ezk 37:28; 38:23; 39:7; Hos 2:23; Amos 9:12; Micah 4:2-3; Zeph 3:8-9; Haggai 2:7; Zech 2:11; 8:20-23; 9:10; 14:16; Mal 1:11.

But on that view, Israel and the Church, or Jews and gentiles, can't be blended into a single entity. A point of contrast remains. 

Assuming that's correct, does it prove Christian Zionism? That's consistent with Christian Zionism, but is it consistent with other schemes as well?

For instance, when OT prophecies address the future of Israel, that's future at the time of writing, when the oracle was delivered. Future in relation to OT prophecy. But in what future will they be fulfilled? The Intertestamental period? The church age? During a temporary millennium at the tail-end of the church age? During the final state (new Eden/new Jerusalem) after Christ returns? 

In addition to when they will be fulfilled, there's the question of how and where. Does this mean Messiah will literally reign in and from Jerusalem? Does this mean gentile Christians will literally bring tribute (or the equivalent) to Jerusalem? That gentile Christians will make pilgrimages to Jerusalem, under Jewish control?

That's one interpretive option. Here's another possibility. There's a substantive sense in which a Bible-centered faith is centered on Israel. Not in terms of physical geography, but in terms of gentiles who frame their life and thought according to a Jewish Messiah, revealed in a Jewish revelation. When, throughout the globe, gentiles make Bible history the focal point of their lives, they are tributary to Israel. Indebted to God's redemptive and revelatory activities in Palestine. 

It's striking to see gentile churches all around the world whose guiding orientation is a Jewish book about Jewish history and a Jewish Messiah. It's striking to see gentile OT and NT scholars master Greek and Hebrew to study a Jewish revelation in the original languages. It's striking to see gentile OT and NT textual critics labor to establish the most authentic text of a Jewish revelation. It's striking to see gentile archeologists labor in the Middle East to recover background information about a Jewish revelation. It's striking to see gentile philosophers and theologians expound the theology and ethics of a Jewish revelation. It's striking to see gentile hymnodists compose music and lyrics about a Jewish Messiah. 

In that sense, gentile Christians pay tribute to Israel. In that sense, gentile Christians make a daily pilgrimage to Israel. We are intellectual pilgrims and tributaries to Israel because the Bible is our frame of reference for what we think and do. For how we live and what we hope for. We worship a Jewish Messiah. He rules in the Jerusalem of our hearts and minds (as it were). 

On the face of it, this is more realistic in the sense that it's hard to isolate "ethnic Israel", when so many professing Jews are not lineal decedents of Abraham. Do OT promises to Israel only apply to a core group who can trace their lineage back to Abraham? Even on Jewish terms, is Abrahamic pedigree essential to Jewish identity? What about gentile converts to Judaism? On a Zionist scheme, will they live in Israel? 

Moreover, it would be a core of a core. Within the core group of "ethnic Jews" is a subset of messianic Jews. And not messianic Jews in general, but only those with a genealogical connection to Abraham. 

In sum:

i) One possibility is that the modern state of Israel represents a stage in OT prophetic fulfillment. While that can't be ruled out, it's too early to make that identification. Clearly the modern state of Israel, c. 2018, doesn't correspond to those golden age oracles.

ii) Another possibility is a millennial fulfillment. A problem with that identification is that the only explicit text on the millennium (Rev 20) doesn't quote or allude to Zionist oracles.

iii) Yet another possibility is that in the world to come, ethnic Jews will have an everlasting homeland in territorial Israel. If so, that prospect doesn't bother me. I don't have a personal stake in that. I'm not Jewish. None of my relatives are Jewish. I have no emotional attachment to the Middle East. There are more scenic parts of the world. I wouldn't feel cheated if that's the case. 

However, that identification raises some puzzling questions. If ethnic purity is a necessary criterion to live there, that disqualifies many messianic Jews, who lack Abrahamic ancestry. 

Also, wouldn't living in one part of the world for all eternity get to be tedious? Don't we need some variety?

iv) Finally, it could mean Israel is instrumental to the salvation of the gentiles. That's our lodestar. Figuratively speaking, we worship facing Jerusalem because, in God's providence, Palestine is the historical source of our theology. In that sense, Christians are spiritual Zionists whether or not Zionism is literally true. Jerusalem remains the "navel of the earth" (umbilicus terrae). 

In the OT, there are salvific prophecies and promises about the gentiles, distinct from prophecies and promises about the house of Israel and Judah. These extend salvation to every ethnic group without merging them into a single unified referent. 

By the same token, gentiles don't need to appropriate promises to Israel given many OT prophecies specific to gentiles that extend salvation to gentiles. I'd add that just because so many OT passages have Israel as the immediate referent doesn't make them irrelevant to gentile Christians. The challenges facing gentile Christians are often analogous to the challenges facing OT Jews. 

Supersessionism

I think there's some confusion on what is meant by "supersessionism", so I'm going to quote an exposition. Although the scholar in question clearly has a theological bias, my point in quoting him is not to take a position but to define the concept(s). Like other theological paradigms (e.g. Calvinism, Lutheranism, amillennialism), supersessionism is a wholesale reading strategy. Its appeal lies in the integrative power. But a corollary danger is to marginalize or delegitimate whatever can't be assimilated into the interpretive paradigm. 

The standard model is supersessionist simply by virtue of the story that it tells. According to the standard model, Israel and the church both depend exclusively upon Christ for their theological significance. But Israel corresponds to Christ in a merely prefigurative and carnal way, whereas the church corresponds to Jesus Christ in a definitive and spiritual way. Hence Christ's advent brings about the obsolescence of carnal Israel and inaugurates the age of the spiritual church. Everything that characterized the economy of salvation in its Israelite form becomes obsolete and is replaced by its ecclesial equivalent. The written law of Moses is replaced by the spiritual law of Christ, circumcision by baptism, natural descent by faith as criterion of membership in the people of God, and so forth. As a result, carnal Israel becomes obsolete. This understanding of supersessionism can be called economic because the ultimate obsolescence of carnal Israel is an essential feature of God's one overarching economy of redemption for the world. 

Economic supersessionism is often accompanied by a complementary narrative viewpoint that can be called punitive supersessionism. According to punitive supersessionism, God abrogates God's covenant with Israel (which is already in principle outmoded) on account of Israel's rejection of Christ and the gospel. Because the Jews obstinately reject God's action in Christ, God in turn angrily rejects and punishes the Jews. 

While economic supersessionism need not be overtly hostile toward the Jewish people, it logically entails the ontological, historical, and moral obsolescence of Israel's existence after Christ…Furthermore, economic supersessionism shapes the way Christians read great expanses of the biblical story (from Abraham to Christ and Pentecost), and is therefore deeply interwoven with the narrative and conceptual fabric of the standard model as a whole. 

In addition to these two explicit doctrinal perspectives, the standard model is also supersessionist in a structural sense, that is, by virtue of the manner in which it construes the narrative unity of the Christian Bible as a whole. The standard model is structurally supersessionist because it unifies the Christian canon in a manner that renders the Hebrew Scriptures largely indecisive for shaping conclusions about how God's purposes engage creation in universal and enduring ways. 

The standard canonical narrative turns on four key episodes: God's intention to consummate the fist parents whom God has created, the fall, Christ's incarnation and the inauguration of the church, and final consummation. These four episodes play a uniquely important role in the standard model because together they constitute the model's basic plot or storyline. They relate how God's works as Consummator and as Redeemer engage human creation in ways that have universal and lasting significance. In this way, the four episodes determine the basic narrative and conceptual structure of the standard model as a whole. 

First, the foreground portrays God's engagement with human creation in cosmic and universal terms. Christ figures in the story as the incarnation of the eternal Logos, humankind appears as descendants of the first parents and possessors of a common human nature, and so on. Second, the foreground completely neglects the Hebrew Scriptures, with the exception of Gen 1-3! The story tells how God engaged Adam and Eve as Consummator and how God's initial consummating plan was almost immediately disrupted by the fall. The foreground story then leaps immediately to the Apostolic Witness interpreted as God's deliverance of humankind from the fall through Jesus Christ. So conceived, God's purposes as Consummator and Redeemer engage human creation in a manner that simply outflank the greater part of the Hebrew Scriptures and, above all, their witness to God's history with the people of Israel.

What then becomes of the center of the Hebrew Scriptures, namely, the God of Israel's history with the Israel of God? Not surprisingly, it recedes into what I will call the background of the standard canonical narrative…God's history with Israel does not form an indispensable narrative element of either God's initial work as Consumator or God's work as Redeemer in its definitive form. Bracketed between these two decisive modes of God's engagement with creation, Israel's history is portrayed as nothing more than the economy of redemption in prefigurative form. So construed, Israel's story contributes little or nothing to understanding how God's consummating and redemptive purposes engage human creation in universal and enduring ways. Indeed, the background can be completely omitted from an account of Christian faith without thereby disturbing the overarching logic of elevation history. R. Kendall Soulen, The God of Israel and Christian Theology (Augsburg Fortress), 29-32.

The New Christian Zionism

https://voice.dts.edu/tablepodcast/2018-01-02/

“Axis of Reason” vs Muslim Brotherhood

Photo: NPR

Israel has allied itself with some of the more “moderate” middle eastern states, and indeed, with the Egyptian government that is “cracking down” on the Muslim Brotherhood protests. The members of this alliance are calling themselves the “axis of reason”. Apparently they have come to the conclusion that the best or only way to deal with Islamists is to crush them with military power:

The U.S.'s closest Middle East allies are undercutting American policy in Egypt, encouraging the military to confront the Muslim Brotherhood rather than reconcile, U.S. and Arab officials said.

The parallel efforts by Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have blunted U.S. influence with Egypt's military leadership and underscored how the chaos there has pulled Israel into ever-closer alignment with those Gulf states, officials said.

A senior Israeli official called the anti-Muslim Brotherhood nations "the axis of reason."

The Obama administration first had sought to persuade Egyptian military leader Gen. Abdel Fattah Al Sisi not to overthrow the elected government of President Mohammed Morsi and then to reconcile with his Muslim Brotherhood base.

Gen. Sisi has done the opposite—orchestrating the president's overthrow and a crackdown in which over 900 people have been killed since Wednesday—reflecting his apparent confidence in the Egyptian government's ability to weather an American backlash, U.S. and Arab officials said….

Israel is pushing Washington not to cut off military support to Egypt, arguing that would jeopardize counterterrorism cooperation and the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace accords.

"Only after stability is restored, only after law and order is enforced, only then can you start to talk about launching a process that leads to more democratic processes," said the senior Israeli official….

Saudi King Abdullah has stepped up the Kingdom's support for what he called Egypt's fight against "terrorism and extremism." President Barack Obama has criticized the crackdown, a message repeated by Mr. Hagel on Monday….

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323423804579023213295900596.html (Subscription required)

Israel’s “Iron Dome” changes the course of the conflict

Time Magazine: A Missile Shield that Works;

Military gear-heads like to boast about how this or that latest technology that they’re fond of – or that their company, or country, is pushing – is a “game-changer.”

The major-combat debut of Israel‘s Iron Dome missile-defense shield over the past several days may be one of the few that can legitimately make that claim.

It is destroying about 90% of the rockets and missiles that Hamas, the Palestinian political party governing Gaza, is firing into southern Israel, Israeli officials say.

One battery of Iron Dome anti-missile missiles downed 100% during a salvo, a senior Israeli official tells Battleland.

“We’ve got about a 90% success rate,” he says, ... “This is unprecedented in history.” It’s also impossible to confirm, but the lack of Israeli casualties suggests Iron Dome is the most-effective, most-tested missile shield the world has ever seen.

“We keep tweaking it,” says the senior official, who declined to be identified. “In one of the recent exchanges, one of the batteries was 100% [successful]. That means, to me, that Iron Dome is capable of 100% [across the board] — I don’t think it was entirely a fluke.”

The Wall Street Journal noted in an editorial this morning:

The engineering achievement has saved countless lives, but the strategic benefits are also significant. By limiting civilian casualties, missile defenses provide more options and more time for military and political leaders to decide how to respond. If missiles were landing willy-nilly in Israeli cities, the pressure would be great either for a ground incursion into Gaza, or a possibly humiliating accommodation with Hamas.

So far, Hamas has launched about 1000 missiles at Israel. In a recent skirmish, such missile launches have killed thousands of Israeli citizens. By giving Israeli leaders more time to respond to the barrage, this missile defense system is indeed changing the course of the conflict.

Cease-Fire?

On Rumors of a Cease-Fire Agreement:

Lack of International Involvement

It is interesting to note the remarkable indifference of most countries that normally rush to mediate such disputes, the United States chief among them. Washington has essentially endorsed the Israeli position so strongly that it has no option to mediate. The Turks, who had been involved with the Gaza issue during the flotilla incident of May 2010, have taken no steps beyond rhetoric in spite of relations with both Hamas and Israel. The Saudis have also avoided getting involved.

The Egyptians have been the most active in trying to secure a cease-fire: Beyond sending their prime minister into Gaza on Nov. 16, as well as their intelligence chief and a group of security officials, Cairo then hosted a delegation of senior Hamas and Islamic Jihad members to further this goal. But while the Egyptians have a great interest in preventing an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza and are crucial to the Israeli imperative to prevent weapons smuggling via Gaza, there is little more they can do at present to mediate between the two sides.

If no one seems to want to serve as mediator, it is because there is such little room for negotiation. It is not ideology but strategy that locks each side into place. Hamas has come this far and does not want to give up what it has maneuvered for. Israel cannot allow Hamas a weapon that threatens the Israeli heartland. This situation is too serious for the parties to reach an agreement that ends the hostilities for now but in reality simply pushes back the issues to be addressed later. No one is eager to mediate a failure. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon has said he will go to Gaza in the coming week, but he will not be in a position to find middle ground.

Israel will not budge on this. Hamas could be compelled to relent under threat from its core financial supporters in the Arabian Peninsula, but these states, such as Qatar, are all far more concerned with the threat posed by Iran. The fact that these rockets likely originated with Iran ought to give them incentive to lean on Hamas.

Dubious Prospects for Negotiations

It is important to bear in mind that the war is already under way. Israeli airstrikes are intense and continuous. Hamas is firing rockets at Israel. What has not yet happened is a direct ground attack on Gaza by the Israelis, although they have been mobilizing forces and should now be in a position to attack if they so choose. But the Israelis would much rather not attack. They fear the consequences -- measured both in human casualties and in political fallout -- that would certainly follow.

Thus, both sides want a negotiated end on terms that would leave the other side in an impossible position. While Hamas might be able to live with the status quo, Israel cannot. A negotiated end is therefore unlikely. Still, both sides are signaling their willingness to talk, and however forlorn the possibilities, there is a chance that something could be arranged.

We remain of the opinion that this current pause will be followed by a ground assault. Only by expanding the discussion beyond the Fajr-5 to a broader settlement of Hamas-Israeli issues could these negotiations succeed, but that would require Hamas recognizing Israel's right to exist and Israel accepting the equivalent of a Palestinian state run by Hamas in Gaza -- one that might spread its power to the West Bank. The more expansive the terms of these negotiations get, the more dubious their prospects for success -- and these negotiations start off fairly dubious as it is.

Iran, Hamas, and Israel

If you’ve been following the news in the past several days, you know that Hamas has been launching missiles into Israel, that Israel has assassinated Hamas’s military commander Ahmad Jabari, has deployed its anti-missile shield (“Iron Dome”), and is preparing a military incursion into Gaza in order to disable the Hamas missile launch sites.

Here is the latest news, plus an analysis from Stratfor on what’s occurring on the ground:

The Middle East's emerging political forces mobilized in Cairo and in Gaza on Saturday to press for an end to the escalating conflict between Hamas and Israel.

In Gaza, hostilities continued, with Israeli airstrikes pounding the coastal strip for a fourth straight day and Palestinian militants firing dozens of rockets at Israel, including another two aimed at Tel Aviv. The toll reached 40 Palestinians dead and 345 wounded, and three Israelis dead.

There were hints that the pace of combat operations could be slowing, perhaps as a result of the Cairo-led efforts to mediate a cease-fire. In Gaza, the ferocity and number of airstrikes seemed to dip. Hamas said government institutions in Gaza would resume regular work hours on Sunday, a surprising decision given that Israel has targeted some government offices in the past 24 hours.

It was unclear whether the lull was a sign that hostilities could be winding down, or merely a periodic operational pause. Israeli ground forces, including 16,000 reservists called up in the past 48 hours, remained massed on Gaza's borders awaiting orders from Israel's political leadership.

Stratfor: “intensifying psychological pressure on Iran more likely than war”

Analysis from a few days ago:

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/war-and-bluff-iran-israel-and-united-states:

For the past several months, the Israelis have been threatening to attack Iranian nuclear sites as the United States has pursued a complex policy of avoiding complete opposition to such strikes while making clear it doesn't feel such strikes are necessary. At the same time, the United States has carried out maneuvers meant to demonstrate its ability to prevent the Iranian counter to an attack -- namely blocking the Strait of Hormuz. While these maneuvers were under way, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said no "redline" exists that once crossed by Iran would compel an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. The Israeli government has long contended that Tehran eventually will reach the point where it will be too costly for outsiders to stop the Iranian nuclear program.

The Israeli and American positions are intimately connected, but the precise nature of the connection is less clear. Israel publicly casts itself as eager to strike Iran but restrained by the United States, though unable to guarantee it will respect American wishes if Israel sees an existential threat emanating from Iran. The United States publicly decries Iran as a threat to Israel and to other countries in the region, particularly Saudi Arabia, but expresses reservations about military action out of fears that Iran would respond to a strike by destabilizing the region and because it does not believe the Iranian nuclear program is as advanced as the Israelis say it is….

Assuming the Iranians are rational actors, their optimal strategy lies not in acquiring nuclear weapons and certainly not in using them, but instead in having a credible weapons development program that permits them to be seen as significant international actors. Developing weapons without ever producing them gives Iran international political significance, albeit at the cost of sanctions of debatable impact. At the same time, it does not force anyone to act against them, thereby permitting outsiders to avoid incurring the uncertainties and risks of such action.

Up to this point, the Iranians have not even fielded a device for testing, let alone a deliverable weapon. For all their activity, either their technical limitations or a political decision has kept them from actually crossing the obvious redlines and left Israel trying to define some developmental redline.

Iran's approach has created a slowly unfolding crisis, reinforced by Israel's slowly rolling response. For its part, all of Israel's rhetoric -- and periodic threats of imminent attack -- has been going on for several years, but the Israelis have done little beyond some covert and cyberattacks to block the Iranian nuclear program. Just as the gap between Iranian rhetoric and action has been telling, so, too, has the gap between Israeli rhetoric and reality. Both want to appear more fearsome than either is actually willing to act.

The Iranian strategy has been to maintain ambiguity on the status of its program, while making it appear that the program is capable of sudden success -- without ever achieving that success. The Israeli strategy has been to appear constantly on the verge of attack without ever attacking and to use the United States as its reason for withholding attacks, along with the studied ambiguity of the Iranian program. The United States, for its part, has been content playing the role of holding Israel back from an attack that Israel doesn't seem to want to launch. The United States sees the crumbling of Iran's position in Syria as a major Iranian reversal and is content to see this play out alongside sanctions….

When we step back and view the picture as a whole, we see Iran using its nuclear program for political reasons but being meticulous not to make itself appear unambiguously close to success. We see the Israelis talking as if they were threatened but acting as if they were in no rush to address the supposed threat. And we see the Americans acting as if they are restraining Israel, paradoxically appearing to be Iran's protector even though they are using the Israeli threat to increase Iranian insecurity. For their part, the Russians initially supported Iran in a bid to bog down the United States in another Middle East crisis. But given Iran's reversal in Syria, the Russians are clearly reconsidering their Middle East strategy and even whether they actually have a strategy in the first place. Meanwhile, the Chinese want to continue buying Iranian oil unnoticed.

It is the U.S.-Israeli byplay that is most fascinating. On the surface, Israel is driving U.S. policy. On closer examination, the reverse is true. Israel has bluffed an attack for years and never acted. Perhaps now it will act, but the risks of failure are substantial. If Israel really wants to act, this is not obvious. Speeches by politicians do not constitute clear guidelines. If the Israelis want to get the United States to participate in the attack, rhetoric won't work. Washington wants to proceed by increasing pressure to isolate Iran. Simply getting rid of a nuclear program not clearly intended to produce a device is not U.S. policy. Containing Iran without being drawn into a war is. To this end, Israeli rhetoric is useful.

Rather than seeing Netanyahu as trying to force the United States into an attack, it is more useful to see Netanyahu's rhetoric as valuable to U.S. strategy. Israel and the United States remain geopolitically aligned. Israel's bellicosity is not meant to signal an imminent attack, but to support the U.S. agenda of isolating and maintaining pressure on Iran. That would indicate more speeches from Netanyahu and greater fear of war. But speeches and emotions aside, intensifying psychological pressure on Iran is more likely than war.

Now, from today’s news:

Israel Blasts U.S. Over Iran (subscription required):

Netanyahu Says Obama Administration Has No 'Moral Right' to Restrain Jewish State
TEL AVIV—The rift between top U.S. and Israeli leaders appeared to deepen Tuesday as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leveled the sharpest attacks in years by an Israeli leader against Washington, over differences on how to address Iran's nuclear program.

Tensions had so escalated that President Barack Obama spent an hour on the phone with the Israeli leader in a hastily arranged call hours after both governments said the White House wouldn't agree to an Israeli request for a meeting between the two leaders …

The rupture was the result of months of growing Israeli frustration with Mr. Obama's approach to Iran, in which he has stressed diplomacy and punitive sanctions. Mr. Netanyahu has exhorted the Obama administration in vain to set "red lines" that, if crossed, would trigger a U.S. military response.

The falling-out comes at a fragile moment for Mr. Obama, both in his re-election bid and in the international furor over Iran's nuclear program….

Mr. Netanyahu's comments came in the third straight day of unusual and harsh public exchanges between the two governments. At a news conference in Jerusalem, Mr. Netanyahu said Tuesday the Obama administration and other Western allies, by failing to set strict limits on Tehran, lack the moral authority to press Israel not to attack Iran.

"If Iran knows that there's no deadline, what will it do? Exactly what it's doing: It's continuing without any interference toward obtaining nuclear weapons capability and from there nuclear bombs,'' he said.

"The world tells Israel: Wait. There's still time. And I say: Wait for what? Wait until when? Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don't have a moral right to place a red light before Israel."…

Israel, a New Economic Superpower

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/07/israels_oil_weapon.html

To The Jew First: A Reformed Perspective

http://thirdmill.org/articles/ric_pratt/PT.Pratt.Jew.First.pdf

In Israeli military, a growing orthodoxy

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/05/us-israel-religion-idf-idUSTRE8240G720120305

An invented Palestinian people

"Newt Challenges the Myth of Palestinian Nationalism"

Jamin Hubner posts

I believe these are most of our posts which interact with Jamin Hubner either directly or indirectly. The vast majority tussle over the interrelated topics of Israel, the Palestinians, Islam, jihad, and the like. But I think a couple involve other debates (e.g. presuppositionalism, creation/evolution). The posts should be in chronological order from earliest to most recent.

If I've left out a post, please feel free to leave a comment in the combox, and I'll update this post. In fact, I'll try to keep this post up-to-date in case there are future interactions.

I should likewise note other fine and reasonable Christians have responded to Hubner on their own weblogs (e.g. Fred Butler, TurretinFan). Please make sure to check out their posts as well.

BBR articles

• "The Use of Tradition-Material in the Epistle of Jude" by J. Daryl Charles
  
• "Who Needs 'The Historical Jesus'? An Essay-Review" by Jacob Neusner
  
• "West Semitic Texts and the Book of Joshua" by Richard Hess
  
• "The Evangelical Contribution to Understanding the (Early) History of Ancient Israel in Recent Scholarship" by James Hoffmeier
  
• "The Syntax of 1 Peter: Just How Good Is the Greek?" by Karen Jobes
  
• "The Codex and the Early Collection of Paul's Letters" by E. Randolph Richards