Public theology and prophecy data: Factual evidence that counts for the biblical world view

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Mar 2003 by Newman, Robert C, Bloom, John A, Gauch, Hugh G Jr

During World War I, the Turks dealt severely with Jews in Palestine, and their number dwindled to 56,000. Yet in return for Jewish help in World War I, the British government (in the Balfour Declaration) had pledged its support to establish a national home in Palestine for the Jewish people. When Britain assumed control of the area in 1920 as a mandate from the League of Nations, the Arab majority there had no desire for a Jewish state and British military administrators tended to favor Arab interests. As a result, the Balfour Declaration was almost ignored, though it spurred renewed Jewish immigration to Palestine, and many new communities were established.

During the thirties and early forties, Nazi Anti-Semitism spread across Europe, leading still more Jews to come to Palestine. This immigration was matched by growing opposition from the Arabs. As the hostilities became increasingly violent, the British came under fire from both sides. To keep the peace in Palestine while fighting World War II in Europe, the British sought to stop Jewish immigration despite the plight of east European Jews fleeing Hitler's holocaust. The Jews, in desperation, turned to illegal immigration.

When the war ended, Britain refused to continue its mandate over Palestine. The United Nations, having replaced the defunct League of Nations, partitioned Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish state, in spite of strong Arab objections. When the British withdrew and the partition was effected, the surrounding Arab nations immediately invaded the new Jewish state. Almost miraculously, the Jews turned back the Arab armies, and Israel became a free nation in 1948.

The subsequent Arab-Israeli wars of 1956, 1967, 1973, and the Lebanese invasion of 1984-1985 are fairly common knowledge. While the immediate future of Israel is uncertain, there is now a Jewish state in Palestine for the first time since AD 135, nearly two thousand years ago, and to date it has lasted over fifty years.

Not only has the nation of Israel been revived, but the Jewish population in the regions Isaiah explicitly names has in particular immigrated to Israel. The ancient countries of Lower Egypt (Mizraim), Upper Egypt (Pathros) and Gush are included in the modern nations of Egypt and Sudan, perhaps also Ethiopia. In 1947, Egypt's Jewish population was 66,000. By 1967, it had dropped dramatically to 2500.17 In fact, by 1970, only four Jewish families still lived in Egypt; at that time, 35,000 Jews of Egyptian origin lived in Israel, and 47,000 in France, Great Britain, the United States, and Argentina. The resurgence of Islam in the Sudan and famine in Ethiopia is causing Jewish departure from these lands also. Perhaps the most famous recent example was the 1991 airlift of an imperiled Jewish population in Ethiopia. This small group of some 15,000 Jews was an isolated community in Ethiopia unconnected to the rest of the Jewish world for thousands of years. Yet the rescue was widely supported in Israel because of the fundamental belief that Israel should be a safe haven for Jews in need.18