Current Events & Trends: Israel: A nation in dire peril
The year 1948 saw the birth of the modern state of Israel, transforming a significant portion of the Jewish people from a scattered nation (a diaspora or dispersion) into a nation-state with real sovereignty.
For nearly 2,000 years the Jews had no permanent liberties and no kingdom they could call their own. Again, 1948 changed this, but there were many wars and political trials to come in maintaining this gain. And now in 2014, the Israeli state still faces both external and internal threats to its very existence.
Israel's economic miracle must be balanced against a number of negative factors. Begin with the religious animosity of many of the world's Muslims. Also this tiny country remains surrounded by hostile Arab states with a combined population of some 370 million. And then, too, many Palestinians think of Israel as an alien interloper that has no place in "Palestine."
Israel's relationship with its longtime protector, the United States, has encountered some rocky shoals. The Israeli leadership is far from assured that Washington will stand by Jerusalem should the tiny nation encounter a time of severe crisis. The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains extremely skeptical of the ongoing U.S. nuclear negotiations with Iran.
Some observers even think that the deal with Iran will drive Israel into an informal entente with Saudi Arabia. The latter might agree to this as part of the great divide in Islam between the majority Sunni branch and the minority Shiite branch concentrated in Iran and Iraq. Noted foreign policy professor Walter Russell Mead commented on the matter in The Wall Street Journal:
"Riyadh and Jerusalem have common interests that are not limited to preventing Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. The Saudis believe Iran is leading Shiites in a religious conflict with Sunnis now engulfing the Fertile Crescent. They fear that the [Iranian] Islamic Republic, nuclear or not, poses an existential threat to their security as the Shiite tide rises . . .
"Israel is . . . concerned about . . . the prospect of a Hezbollah-Tehran-Syria axis along its northern frontier . . . Both countries think that a naive Mr. Obama's unicorn hunt for nuclear disarmament is leading him to sacrifice vital geopolitical interests in the hope of what will turn out to be a very bad nuclear deal with Iran" ("A Riyadh-Jerusalem Entente," Dec. 6, 2013).
Our free Bible study aid booklet Are We Living in the Time of the End? shows that the establishment of the state of Israel is one of the key prophetic benchmarks for the fulfillment of end-time prophecy. (Sources: The Wall Street Journal, author Ari Shavit.)
An Article from:
Good News Magazine: March - April 2014
Course Content
Jerold Aust
Jerold Aust has served in the ministry for 52 years, as a public speaker for 58 years, a published writer for 38 years, and is employed by UCG’s Media and Communications Services. He is a Senior Writer, interviewer, and editor for Beyond Today Magazine and has taught Speech Communication for UCG’s ministerial online program and the Book of Revelation for ABC.
Jerold holds a BA in theology from Ambassador College, Pasadena (1968), an MA in Communication from California State University, Fullerton (1995), a distance-learning Ph.D (2006), and a Famous Writers School diploma in non-fiction writing (1973). Additionally, he studied post-grad communication at University of Southern California (1995), radio, TV, voice-overs, and Public Relations at Fullerton College (1995-1996), and graduate communication at Wichita State University (1978). Jerold has taught communication at the University of South Alabama (7 years) and ABC (17 years). His published works include, Ronald Reagan’s Rhetoric: Metaphor as Persuasion and EZSpeakers: Public Speaking Made Easy in 7 Steps. Jerold's overarching goal is to share with humankind its incredible destiny!
John Ross Schroeder
John died on March 8, 2014, in Oxford, England, four days after suffering cardiac arrest while returning home from a press event in London. John was 77 and still going strong.
Some of John's work for The Good News appeared under his byline, but much didn't. He wrote more than a thousand articles over the years, but also wrote the Questions and Answers section of the magazine, compiled our Letters From Our Readers, and wrote many of the items in the Current Events and Trends section. He also contributed greatly to a number of our study guides and Bible Study Course lessons. His writing has touched the lives of literally millions of people over the years.
John traveled widely over the years as an accredited journalist, especially in Europe. His knowledge of European and Middle East history added a great deal to his articles on history and Bible prophecy.
In his later years he also pastored congregations in Northern Ireland and East Sussex, and that experience added another dimension to his writing. He and his wife Jan were an effective team in our British Isles office near their home.
John was a humble servant who dedicated his life to sharing the gospel—the good news—of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God to all the world, and his work was known to readers in nearly every country of the world.
