Israel Turns Her Back on God

“And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiff-necked people: Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them…” Exodus 32:9-10

God has not abandoned Israel; Israel has abandoned God.

Just as the generation of the Golden Calf was denied access into the Promised Land, today also turning one’s back on God will have tragic repercussions for the Jewish people.

Honoring God is not a religious issue. It is an obligation of every human being, every Jew, Christian or Muslim who has been blessed with God’s favor.

In the desert when Moses doubted God, he was punished. Until then God’s blessings had flowed freely to Moses in his struggle to free his people.

Last Wednesday in the United Nations the anti-Semites once again took advantage of an opportunity to discredit and chip away at Israel.

Where was Benjamin Netanyahu? Who spoke for Israel as she was maligned? No one. Even though a member of the Knesset from the Likud (ruling) Party was in New York on that very day. Silence!

Is Netanyahu not aware of the plaque prominently displayed on President Harry Truman’s desk, “The Buck Stops Here?”

Although I supported Netanyahu, he has gravely disappointed me. However, it is not my disappointment he should fear.

Netanyahu should have gone to the UN and said aloud for the entire world to hear, “No more lies about Israel. These claims are not true. We are justly there, and we will stay there, for it is our right and our land. No amount of propaganda will defeat what is the truth.”

As Israel’s leader is his not the voice that should speak for his people and their right to exist? Even Moses begged for God’s mercy for his people after their Golden Calf debacle.

My disappointment in Israel’s leader is irrelevant. God’s is not.

During the Six Day War in 1967, the world watched a miracle unfold. The tiny land of Israel took on the Arab world and was heartily beating it into submission.

Yet, in the Second Lebanon War 39 years later, Israel was defeated.

How could this be the case when Israel is now a much stronger and more powerful nation?

Power and success do not come from any physical component. They come from God.

In the Six Day War Israelis were empowered by their spirit, their appreciation of what God has given them, by the generational price they had paid to be returned to their land after the years of pogroms, murders, terror and the Nazi systematic extermination campaign.

They knew the blessing was from the Lord. They were grateful, thankful, and never for a moment did they disregard the power or magnitude of that blessing.

Now, Israel has forsaken gratitude, forsaken appreciation and is racked with politics and interfaith battles from within. Are not all Jews observant to the same God? Left or right, religious or secular, is God not the holiest of holies to us all?

Jews fighting amongst themselves, political opinions trumping the blessings they received, egos over God.

No wonder the Jewish State is on the decline and soon will be gone.

Yesterday, at lunch in Beverly Hills with my daughter and grandson, an Israeli couple and their two children sat at the next table. They looked like they were from central casting, a handsome Jewish husband, gorgeous wife and two exquisite little girls.

I found myself staring at the youngest child turning over in my mind the fact that she is unprotected from evil. The reality she was the same age as my beloved grandson. Obsessed with the brutal knowledge that rockets fly into Israeli schoolyards and to where children sleep, almost daily, tears filled my eyes.

My daughter, unaware of what I was thinking said, “Mother stop staring.”

Her words brought me back to reality, but I felt an overwhelming sense of grief, not only for this beautiful family, but also for all the children that are now at risk because of Israel’s bad behavior toward God.

If you want to be a Jewish State, how can you survive when you have abandoned the Almighty? Shown ingratitude for his gifts? Judaism is not a pagan religion. It is the religion that brought the world God’s laws. It is the seed of Christianity and Abraham is even the father of Ishmael.

Yet, Israel turns her back on God?

How can this be?

If you believe in God, you believe all things come from the Lord. A land of milk and honey is a treasure to protect, not apologize for and throw back in God’s face.

Humans can be modest, but they must not humble God. Since all gifts come from Him, humbling those gifts humbles the Lord.

Abandoning Israel is spitting in God’s face.

It is no different than someone presenting you with a magnificent gift and you throwing it back and saying it is not what you wanted.

Would you expect that person to give you anything ever again?

Of course not!

And now Israel is saying the Jewish Homeland is not a gift worth fighting for. How does one expect God to feel about this?

Should He continue to give Israel gifts? Continue to make Israelis the leaders in medicine, science and technology? A country flowing with milk and honey where people come to stand on sacred land?

In September, the Palestinians will declare themselves a free state without having to make a single concession to Israel. They will simply take the land that belongs to Israel and say it belongs to them.

The international community will stand by and watch idly. The U.S., once a great ally, will pretend it did not see what was happening and remain mute. The crazy Jews in America will continue to fund President Obama’s campaign after he sells out Israel, and AIPAC will wonder what the hell happened to all their supposed juice in Washington.

In the end it will be over and done.

Yet, it will not be anyone’s fault but the Jewish people, not only in Israel, everywhere around the world.

Little by little the Arab world will chip away at the Jewish State until there is nothing left but the bones.

Just like the tombs of our Hebrew ancestors in Hebron, the Muslims will come in, rename Israel and bury all memory of her existence.

Fifty years from today history books will include a small footnote: “The Jewish people were an ancient culture and religion who, from time to time, occupied the land that is now Palestine. They are all but extinct now, although a few groups around the world continue to practice Judaism’s tenets. It was once believed they delivered the Ten Commandments to the world through their prophet Moses, but history now records it was actually Mohammed who gave the world Allah’s laws.”

I cannot feel sorry for Israel. I can only weep for the little girl the Jewish people are sending into the hands of the hungry, awaiting wolves.

Golda Meir once said there will never be peace until the Arabs begin loving their own children more than they hate us.

How sad, it is the Jewish people who have abandoned God and their own children. I pray we wake up before all the beautiful little Jewish children of the world once again pay the price for our sin of ingratitude.

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*The writers invite readers to view and experience an Israel and her politics through their eyes, Israel visitors rarely discover.*

Norma Zager
Norma Zager is a Jewish woman who lives in the USA.In the series "Postcards from Israel," Ari Bussel and Norma Zager invite readers throughout the world to join them as they present reports from Israel as seen by two sets of eyes: Bussel's on the ground, Zager's counterpoint from home.Israel and the United States are interrelated - the two countries we hold dearest to our hearts - and so is this "point - counterpoint" presentation that has, since 2008, become part of our lives.