The news converging on Israel

On page 1 of yesterday’s newspaper there was a story about Yemen—and Israel. On page 4, a column about invitees to last night’s State of the Union address—and Israel. On page 6, a report about an Argentinian special prosecutor found dead on Sunday of gunshot wounds—and Israel. Also on page 6, trouble in Syria’s Golan Heights—and of course Israel.

Here is a variation on an old joke: A man obsessed with ladies’ handbags goes to a psychiatrist who seeks to determine the man’s psychological profile by having him free-associate with a series of photographs of random assorted items. With every photo, the man blurts out, “Ladies’ handbags.” At the end of the examination, the psychiatrist says, “Sir, you have a problem.” The patient replies, “What do you mean? You’re the one with all the pictures of ladies’ handbags.”

But I do not think I am delusional. Much of today’s news really does, in some way or another, relate to Israel. If the fact does not strike us as odd, it may be because we are so inured to its oddness by the very commonness of it. But just think of how strange it would be if the Yemen story included a subtext about Latvia. Or if the story on the State of the Union address brought in Latvia. Or if the Argentinian prosecutor’s murder was somehow tied to Latvia.

More specifically—and chillingly—when we scratch the surface of the Yemen story, which at first seems to revolve around an internecine squabble between the Houthi rebels and President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi over the drafting of a new constitution, we learn that the militants’ slogan is “Death to Israel! Death to America!” What?

The State of the Union story? A man chosen to sit near Michelle Obama last night was a former federal subcontractor imprisoned in Cuba in 2009, where he had gone to set up internet access in the Communist country—for its small population of Jews.

The Argentinian saga? The official found dead in his apartment was investigating a 1994 bombing in Buenos Aires—of a Jewish cultural center.

The Golan Heights trouble spot? OK, this one is not strange inasmuch as Iran’s proxy war through Hezbollah has waged on the small strip of land touching Israel’s northern border for 30 years. But note the chant of thousands of mourners at the Monday funeral of a well-known Hezbollah fighter: “Death to Israel!”

What is my point? That God made Israel the center of the nations: geographically, theologically, historically. We would do well to connect the dots on our maps from Yemen to Argentina to Cuba to Syria to the kosher deli in Paris singled out for destruction by Islamic terrorists two weeks ago.

“Thus says the Lord GOD: This is Jerusalem. I have set her in the center of the nations, with countries all around her” (Ezekiel 5:5, ESV).

A student of the Bible is not delusional to see the news of the world converging on Israel in a way that is not true of any other nation on the earth.