The pope and the PLO

The Vatican has formally recognized "the State of Palestine." I suppose there's a certain logic in that. A fictitious vicar of Christ makes a treaty with the fictitious state of the fictitious Palestinian people. What it lacks in reality, it makes up for in symmetry. 

A few quick observations:

i) This is additional evidence that the church of Rome has become just another mainline denomination. It is not a moral leader, but a moral follower. It takes its cue from the secular elite.

The church of Rome has had some lingering conservatism on ethical issues. However, under Pope Francis, even that residual conservatism is rapidly eroding.

ii) It's nice to see the Vatican give formal recognition to a jihadist terrorist state. Such moral discernment!

iii) Then we have this statement:

Hanan Ashrawi, PLO executive committee member, welcomed the Vatican's recognition of the state of Palestine.
In a statement, Ashrawi said: "The significance of this recognition goes beyond the political and legal into the symbolic and moral domains and sends a message to all people of conscience that the Palestinian people deserve the right to self-determination, formal recognition, freedom and statehood." 

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/05/vatican-palestine-recognition-150513171949183.html

Ashrawi was an instrumental propagandist. She's the daughter of the PLO cofounder. 

When Peter Jennings was Beruit bureau chief, she became his girlfriend. Recruiting him to the "Palestinian" cause proved to be a very strategic dalliance. It's hard not to suspect that she functioned as a honeypot or Mata Hari. Seducing Peter Jennings was a public relations bonanza for the PLO. He went on to become the ABC anchorman, in which position he could influence elite opinion, recasting Muslim terrorists in the role of freedom fighters, victimized by Israel. Having a PLO plant at the helm of a major American news network was quite a coup, facilitating a successful propaganda campaign.

"Christian Zionism and American Evangelicalism"

Arminian Bible scholar Scot McKnight quoted a boilerplate attack on Israel by former Sojourners' editor, "journalist," and "social justice" activist Ryan Rodrick Beiler:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2015/03/25/christian-zionism-and-american-evangelicalism/

This, in turn, elicited two corrective comments from a reader:

Luke
Scot, I was on the tour (mentioned in the article) that visited Alex Awad in Bethlehem. One of the things that the article missed is that while many of the people in my group could agree with Alex on points of theology i.e.. Jesus fulfills the need for a sacrifice, etc. The nationalism that permeates much of the Palestinian Christian church turned a lot of people off. It is a complicated conflict, but if Christians are going to argue for a Palestinian state they need to do so on the basis of basic human rights. Unfortunately, those human rights are absent from the Palestinian Territories apart from anything Israel might be doing. The PA has promised that a future state would be based on Sharia. It regularly intimidates journalists who challenge the corruption within the leadership. The PA has also promised a future state would not permit Jews to live there. So it is difficult for me to see how one can argue about justice for a people that promises to be unjust to its own people. Please [be] more thoughtful. 

To your question, within the Palestinian Christian community there are several key groups. One group is the old churches like the Catholic, Orthodox, and Lutheran churches. This group is largely nationalist and very influenced by Palestinian Liberation Theology,ie "Palestinians are crucified every day..." type rhetoric. The second group would be the Evangelical churches that are evangelistic to a degree, but are reluctant to criticize the PA and are very anti-zionist. The third is the Evangelical churches that are overtly evangelistic and are not anti-Israel. There is a surprising number of these churches. The most famous among those of us that engage in this stuff is Bethlehem Baptist Church. As you might imagine those groups do not get along well. 

When my groups went to Bethlehem we met with leaders from the two Evangelical camps. It was a stark difference that my group picked up immediately. The anti-zionist Evangelicals spent a lot of time talking about their struggle with the occupation (which I accept is significant) while the evangelistic Evangelical church talked about his outreach to the community, the small groups and small businesses they were trying to assist. So the issue was less theological and more political. The less political the church, the more pressure they receive from their own side (if you are soft on Israel you are seen as a collaborator), but the gospel is changing hearts. By nationalism I am meaning that sense you get when the political seems to be the priority focus and the gospel is used as a political tool. 

I could go on... The situation is very complex and deserves more than all Christian Zionists are heretics and all Palestinians are terrorist type rhetoric. If you can avoid that stuff you will help greatly.

Should Christians support a Palestinian state?

http://philosproject.org/should-christians-support-a-palestinian-state/

Anti-Semitism in the Arab/Muslim World

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/arabantoc.html

Moving Forward in the Current Israeli Conflict

http://www.dts.edu/thetable/play/moving-forward-current-israeli-conflict/#transcript

Evangelical attitudes towards Israel

http://www.dts.edu/thetable/play/evangelical-attitudes-towards-israel/

http://www.dts.edu/thetable/play/evangelical-attitudes-towards-israel/#transcript

Backgrounds to the current Israeli conflict

http://www.dts.edu/thetable/play/backgrounds-to-current-israeli-conflict/

http://www.dts.edu/thetable/play/backgrounds-to-current-israeli-conflict/#transcript

Cruz and Arab Christians

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/388041/print

Was Cruz right?

http://thefederalist.com/2014/09/11/ted-cruz-was-right/

The game is rigged

Recently I read a couple of articles about nationalistic youth gangs in Israel. Young men who go around attacking Arabs. 

I don't condone the violence, and I don't know for a fact what motivates them, but it wouldn't surprise me if this represents a predictable backlash. You have Israeli youth who see their leaders trying to fight Muslims terrorists with one hand tied behind their back due to pressure from the "international community." They see that even when the IMF goes out of its way to minimize civilian casualties, Israel gets blamed anyway. They see the foreign press exhibit blatant double standards. They see that no one is going to come to Israel's aid. No one will rescue them. They are on their own in the world. They have to look out for their own interests. The world doesn't care about dead Jews. It only cares about dead Muslims. Even dead Muslim terrorists. That's where all the sympathy leis. 

If you're going to get blamed no matter what, if you're going to get blamed even when you try to minimize collateral damage, then why bother? Why hamstring your military effectiveness with restrictive rules of engagement when the international community will still accuse you of war crimes? 

I can see how, out of frustration and aggravation, some young Israeli men would become extremists. I don't say that to excuse their actions, but to point out that this is a predicable result of how the "international community" has decided to make Israel a pariah. It's the international community that's provoking Israeli youth to realize the futility of self-restraint. When they play by the rules, their side always takes the blame–even when the other side never plays by the rules. At that point, what's the incentive to honor the laws of warfare? The game is rigged against them. The cheaters enjoy all the sympathy. No matter what atrocities the Muslims commit, that doesn't count. That doesn't register. 

Like Dr. Frankenstein, Israel's knee-jerk critics are creating the very monster they then deplore. 

Israel: past, present, and future

I don't support the modern state of Israel for dispensational reasons. That said, it's important to know what the dispensational case for modern Israel is. Hacks and quacks like John Hagee and Pat Roberson do more harm than good. Here's the dispensational case from a number of reputable dispensational scholars:

http://www.videos.chosenpeople.com/

More Jewish than Jews

Schlessinger began her August 5 program by noting that, prior to each broadcast, she spends an hour reading faxes from fans and listeners. “By and large the faxes from Christians have been very loving, very supportive,” she said. “From my own religion, I have either gotten nothing, which is 99% of it, or two of the nastiest letters I have gotten in a long time. I guess that’s my point — I don’t get much back. Not much warmth coming back.” 

http://forward.com/articles/7887/dr-laura-loses-her-religion/?

This exposes a paradox in contemporary Judaism. On the one hand, I assume the primary constituency for right-wing Jewish talk-show hosts like Michael Medved and Dennis Prager comes from the evangelical community. Conversely, you have rampant anti-Semitism within Jewish ranks. For instance:

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/383004/print

Ironically, there's a sense in which many evangelicals are more Jewish than many Jews. 

Religious support for Israel

Religious support for the modern state of Israel typically involves a commitment to dispensationalism. However, that can distract us from the fact that a religious motivation for supporting Israel isn't confined to dispensationalism. There are, in principle, more generic religious reasons, independent of dispensationalism.

i) Religious Jews and Christians share a fundamental theological solidarity. Both groups believe in the OT. And, of course, Christians inherited the OT from the Jews. So we have that basic common ground. That common foundation. 

ii) Moreover, there are Messianic Jews, some of whom live in Israel. As fellow Christians, that's stronger that solidarity–that's identity. That's supporting persecuted Christians. 

iii) Furthermore, you don't have to be a dispensationalist to believe in a future Christian revival within Judaism. Amils, postmils, and historic premils can (and sometime do) believe that.

iv) Of course, the religious angle isn't limited to Jewish/Christian relations. We should also be concerned about the plight of indigenous Christians (e.g. Arab Christians) in the Mideast. They have a claim, too. I'll admit, however, that I'm put off by how often Arab Christians side with Muslims against Israel. 

Now, perhaps some of that is explicable due to the fact that Arab Christians aren't at liberty to express their true feelings about Islam. Even so, there's a difference between not saying what you believe and saying what you don't believe.

Finally, the church should maintain a vigorous missionary outreach to Muslims. Unfortunately, many Muslims and Muslim regimes make that extremely difficult. 

Should Israel be held to a higher standard?

I expect the current conflict between Israel and Gaza will burn out. The media will shift attention to other stories, like the latest celebrity scandal. However, the current conflict is worth discussing because it's a microcosm of perennial issues and perennial arguments. 

1) One thing I notice is that opponents of Israel hold Israel to a higher standard. In the case of evangelical or "progressive Christian" critics, they judge Israel's conduct by Christian standards (as they define it). 

What's striking about this is how one-sided they are. They don't hold Israel's Muslim adversaries to Christian standards. They may admit that jihadist tactics are inexcusable, but that's a throwaway concession which they admit or volunteer at the outset to get it out of the way so that they can ignore it and fixate on Israel. 

There's a racist quality to that double standard. "Well, that's just the way Muslims are. What did you expect?" But it's clearly unfair to hold Israel to a different, and higher standard, than the Muslims. 

2) But another problem is disagreement over Christian ethics. What is morally permissible in war? 

i) Generally, critics of Israel operate with one of two ethical paradigms. Some critics espouse a crude form of deontology in which circumstances or outcomes never affect the morality  of the action. Every action comes down to a choice between what's intrinsically good or intrinsically evil. They don't allow for the possibility that there are special situations in which something that's normally wrong might be permissible or even obligatory. 

ii) You also have critics who operate with an abstract pacifism, a la Ron Sider, Jim Wallis, Stanley Hauerwas, &c. 

In both cases, critics fail to offer workable guidelines on how a country like Israel can effectively defend its citizens. It's all about restrictions. What you're not allowed to do to defend yourself. 

3) Not surprisingly, these objections are typically raised by critics who are not in that position. And this can have profoundly ironic results. If you espouse the wrong ethical absolutes, then your position is inherently unstable. Today's moral absolutist can easily become tomorrow's moral relativist, if his ethical commitments are hypothetical and impractical. Today's pacifist can quickly become tomorrow's war criminal.

Someone who espouses a chic, pollyannaish code of conduct is, if anything, far more likely to commit atrocities than someone with a principled, but realistic code of conduct. Oftentimes, their pacifism or idealistic deontology goes up in a puff of smoke the moment it comes in contact with harsh, unyielding reality. Because their moral absolutism is so inflexible, they have nothing to fall back on if it fails to give them practical guidance in a real-world situation. Once they lose it, they are prepared to do anything to survive. 

I lived through the Vietnam War. I wasn't draft age, so I didn't serve. But I was exposed to the coverage. Due to the draft, you had many G.I.'s who were opposed to the war. Some of them were very pacifistic or idealistic before they were deployed. They couldn't imagine killing another human being. 

But when they suddenly found themselves thrust into a combat situation where they own life was on the line, they ditched their scruples. Raw instinct took over. 

I remember watching an interview with some Vietnam vets. They talked about their attitude before they were drafted. Then they talked about the kinds of things they ended up doing in theater. 

Not only would they kill the Viet Cong– they cut their ears off and wore thesevered ears around their neck, as a trophy. Mutilating the dead would have been inconceivable to them before they were drafted. But once they shuffled off their glib, pollyannaish code of conduct, there was no moral floor left. 

This is the danger of having a purely abstract, unworkable code of conduct. It's an exercise in self-flattery. But it can only survive so long as that's never put to the test. The moment it's gone, the former absolutist has no moral inhibitions whatsoever. He will do whatever it takes to stay alive, by any means necessary. Having crossed a certain line, there is no line he will not cross. 

That's why the ethics of war need to be principled, but practical. Otherwise, anything goes. Sheer pragmatism. 

4) Let's take the ticking time bomb scenario. Suppose a terrorist is nabbed after he planted a bomb on a passenger plane. If you find out where he hid it, the bomb can be ejected from the plane before it denotates

If necessary, is it wrong to torture the terrorist to extract that life-saving information? I'd say no. By his actions, he has forfeited the normal immunities. He has no right to endanger the passengers. And he has no right to withhold that information.  

But what if he doesn't break under torture. Suppose, however, his 4-year-old son was with him at the time he was nabbed. He will divulge the information if his son is tortured before his eyes.

Is that permissible? I'd say no. His son has done nothing to forfeit his normal immunities. That would be committing one wrong to prevent another wrong.

Sometimes, doing the right thing has deplorable consequences. All the passengers will die. 

We're not God. There are limits to what we can prevent, consistent with our moral parameters.  

So what about Arab Christians?

http://www.americanthinker.com/assets/3rd_party/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/10/demonizing_israel_more_important_than_defending_persecuted_christians.html

Double effect principle in warfare

Doug Webber7/29/2014 10:19 PM

Its posts like these that allow Israel to target innocent women and children while the world just stands back and watches.

i) I'm flattered that you think Triablogue is so influential. Has Netanyahu been quoting my post in interviews and press conferences? 

ii) Israel isn't "targeting" women and children. Rather, Hamas is using women and children as human shields. Jihadis are cowards who hide behind women and children in a game of chicken. They attack Israel, then dare Israel to retaliate. 

Israel's response is justified by the double effect principle. For instance:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/double-effect/#applications

The true evil lies, not in killing women and children under those circumstances, but in putting women and children in harm's way–thereby forcing Israel's hand. Hamas is culpable, not Israel. 

Remember the good Samaritan? Jews despised the Samaritans because they did not believe as he did. But the Samaritan did the Father's will. He put his faith into action by doing it.

That's a non sequitur. Israel isn't striking Gaza because Israelis hate Arabs. Although the Arabs are motived by religion, many Israelis, especially the policymakers, are secular Jews or nominal Jews. Rather, Israel is counterattacking. Defending itself. 

And when Paul spoke against the works of the law he was speaking of the ritualistic Mosaic laws, not acts of kindness and love.

Paul didn't speak against works of the law. Rather, he spoke against law-keeping as a means of justification.

Travel to a Muslim country, and you will find that there is more kindness there then you will find from your average American neighbor. Don't be deceived by Western propaganda.

My view of Islam isn't based on "Western propaganda." I get my view of Islam straight from the horse's mouth.

ISIS - the radical group we are seeing today - is the product of a joint effort by the CIA, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar to overthrow Assad. 

Islamic aggression has been going on ever since Muhammad. Century after century. 

That failed, but now we have yet another radical group as an excuse to go to war yet again.

There's no evidence that we're going to wage another foreign war anytime soon.

Due to the fact that Islam destroyed idolatry, and returned many to monotheism, he was a sort of prophet.

Given your attachment to Swedenborg, I understand how one false prophet might pay tribute to another false prophet. Birds of a feather. 

False monotheism is no better than polytheism. Worshipping one false God (Allah) is just as idolatrous as worshipping many false gods. It simply consolidates idolatry into a single object of impiety. 

He was not given the same revelation as Christianity.

That's euphemistic. 

But it was a step in the right direction, for at that time the church began to fall away under the influence of the Catholic Church. 

Replacing one heresy with another is not a step in the right direction. 

Don't judge Islam by the radicals - its like Muslims judging Christianity from the crusades.

i) The Crusades were a counteroffensive to Muslim aggression. 

ii) I don't think there's anything wrong with judging Catholicism by the crusades (among other things).

iii) Radical Islam isn't the radical fringe, but the historic center. 

Fatal attraction

http://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-defector-slams-death-worship/

When Christians Become Apologists for Terror

http://www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/24794/Default.aspx

Three-hanky theology

I'm going to comment on this post:

http://bethbc.org/news/statement-bethlehem-bible-college-regarding-current-crisis-gaza

If I had my druthers, I'd rather not pick on Bethlehem Bible College. Problem is: their statement has been hailed in many quarters of the Internet as representing the authentic Christian response. Modeling how Christians ought to view the issue. Striking the right balance. 

I have great sympathy for the plight of indigenous Christians in the Mideast. They find themselves caught in a vice. Usually it's a Muslim vice but sometimes they are squeezed between Muslim and Israeli combatants. It's a pretty untenable position. 

By the same token, I realize that Arab Christians aren't free to speak their minds. Even if they were more sympathetic to Israel, or resentful of their Muslim overlords, they can't afford to say what they really think. 

If the question of "occupied territory" simply involved Israelis and Arab Christians, I'd take a different position on israeli claims. The problem is that Muslims make compromise impossible. 

Unfortunately, the statement issued by Bethhem Bible College is sappy-headed sentimentalism. Bad theology underwriting bad ethics. 

Today God weeps over the situation in Palestine and Israel. Today God weeps over Gaza.  With God, our hearts are broken when we see the carnage in Gaza and in Israel. 

i) Does God weep at the sight of violence? Is God sitting on the throne with a big box of Kleenex, daubing his moist eyes and blowing his nose whenever he sees human violence? 

Honestly, what kind of God merely weeps in the face of evil? How does that help anyone?

ii) Imagine if a sniper entered an elementary school. Imagine if an armed security guard was on duty. An hour later, police have secured the scene. You have 20 dead children. A TV reporter interviews the security guard: "Why didn't you do anything?"

"Oh, I did," says the guard. "Every time I saw the sniper shoot a child in the head, I cried. I pleaded with the sniper to stopping killing them."

Would we consider that a satisfactory response?

iii) If God is that passive and ineffectual, then the logical response would be to conclude that, "Hey, God won't intervene–ever. So we better arm ourselves to the teeth and take preemptive action. Shoot first, ask questions later. For we are on our own. No one will rescue us–least of all God. It's every man for himself."

“All forms of violence must be refuted unequivocally”, stated the Christ at the Checkpoint manifesto…As Christians committed to nonviolence, we do not and cannot endorse Hamas’ ideology.

i) Okay, so they're pacifists. Now I realize that at this point, armed resistance is probably futile. Arab Christians are vastly outnumbered and outgunned by the Muslims. So pacifism is making a virtue of necessity–like people who become vegetarians because they have no meat to eat–even if they wanted to. 

ii) Suppose, for the sake of argument, that God is a pacifist. Does that mean you should be a pacifist? Follow his example?

Problem is, God has nothing to lose. It doesn't cost God anything to be a pacifist. He's invulnerable. He doesn't bleed. He can't be hurt. If anything, the comparison invites the reverse strategy for Christians.

At the same time, we are shocked by the unproportional and inhuman response by the Israeli military and the disregard of civilian life and specially innocent women and children.

In a fallen world, sometimes it's necessary to take life to save life. Otherwise, even more innocent women and children will die. 

A "disproportionate" response may be necessary to remove the threat. 

In the face of this, we affirm – using the words of our own Dr. Yohanna Katanacho:

We are against killing children and innocent people. We support love not hatred, justice not oppression, equality not bigotry, peaceful solutions not military solutions. Violence will only beget wars, it will bring more pain and destruction for all the nations of the region. 

That's the cycle of violence nonsense. But violence doesn't necessarily beget more violence. 

Suppose a couple of men armed with baseball bats break into your home, threatening you and your family. You have a choice: you can reach for a gun or a box of Kleenex. 

Here's my advice: put the box of Kleenex down and pick up your gun. Two well-placed bullets will end the violence before it begins. 

Evaluating the Arab–Israeli conflict

One reason professing Christians disagree on the Arab-Israeli conflict is because they approach the issue with different criteria. Instead of debating the particulars of the Arab-Israeli conflict, it would be more productive to analyze the criteria by which they evaluate this conflict. To some extent I think there's a failure to recognize or make explicit their criteria.

I. Theological

Dispensationalists side with Israel because they think the modern state of Israel represents the ongoing fulfillment of promise and prophecy. God gave the Jews this land. That's an irrevocable divine promise. 

Conversely, you have Reformed Baptist and Reformed Presbyterians who either side with the "Palestinians" or at least try to be even-handed (as they see it) in opposition to dispensationalism. The position they take on the Arab-Israeli conflict is an indirect result of the direct position they take in opposition to dispensational theology.

Nowadays, some Christians have a Calvinist soteriology, but a dispensational eschatology. But I'm referring to Reformed Baptists and Reformed Presbyterians who espouse traditional covenant theology.

II. Social justice

i) Many people who side with the "Palestinians" frame the issue as a social justice issue. This includes many secular liberals, and "progressive Christians," as well as some conservative evangelicals. 

The liberals view Hamas and the PLO as freedom fighters rather than terrorists. They distinguish between the just cause (as they define it) and the means. Even if Hamas or the PLO resorts terrorist tactics, that's in the service of a just cause. And they view that as counterterrorism in response to Israeli terrorism. 

The just cause is the axiom that Palestine is "occupied" territory. The Israelis expelled the Palestinians from their homes during the war of independence. Therefore, "Palestinians" are simply fighting back to reclaim what was theirs all along. 

Conservative evangelicals don't go that far. But they try to be equitable. They deplore the "cycle of violence" on both sides. They want to be fair to the "Palestinians." They think the "Palestinians" suffered a genuine and grave injustice during the war of independence. "Palestinians" have legitimate historical grievances with their Israeli overlords. 

ii) One problem with the social justice angle is that it's premised on a historical narrative that's hotly contested. Jewish sources present a very different version of events:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/refugees.html

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths3/MFrefugees.html

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths3/MF1948.html

iii) Apropos (ii), someone might object that I just cited a biased source. And I don't dispute that. But that's a problem with the premise. Most of us aren't qualified to assess the historical claims and counter-claims. Most of us are in no position to sift through the competing narratives and decide which account is more accurate. 

iv) However, some proponents of this criterion also cite pro-Palestinian Jewish sources. Supposedly, that's objective and unbiased. After all, these are Israelis or Jews criticizing their own people. Speaking for myself, the mere fact that you can find Jews who take the Palestinian side leaves me unimpressed. 

a) Judaism isn't monolithic. It ranges all along a political and theological spectrum, from far left to far right. 

b) To my knowledge, Israel has nearly universal conscription (with few exemptions). The IDF isn't composed of rightwing patriots who volunteer to defend their country. Rather, every political viewpoint will be represented in the IDF, due to the demographically sweeping scope of the draft. As such, it isn't hard to quote dissenters within the ranks.

Likewise, you have Jewish-American professors who, from the safety of their American campus, can afford to pander to the jihadists. So what? 

v) There is also the underlying assumption that social problems in the present have their "root cause" in the past. To solve the problem, we must discover the source of the problem by tracing the effect back to some past miscarriage of justice–be it real, imagined, or exaggerated. It's like Freudian psychology transposed to a sociological key. Like something went wrong in childhood. So we're always treated to a history lesson. 

But aside from the question of whether the historical reconstruction is accurate, another weakness with this analysis is that the same types of problems recur in different settings, where the background conditions are very different. 

vi) Yet another problem with the social justice angle is the assumption that Israel should treat Muslims better than Muslims treat each other. But why do Muslims expect strangers to treat Muslims better than Muslims treat their own kind? Muslims routinely brutalize fellow Muslims. 

vii) Apropos (vi), by what standard are we judging Israelis? Are we holding them to Christian standards? But since most Israelis aren't Christian, why would we expect them to defend themselves according to Christian ethics? In a sense, we can judge all parties to that standard, but we can't very well hold them to that standard. 

viii) There's also the question of how Christians could or should defend themselves in similar circumstances. If you're up against a ruthless, fanatical opponent who sacrifices his own women and children for the cause, who will never make peace with you, what realistic choice does he leave you? Frankly, I think Israel exhibits excessive restraint.  

ix) Thankfully I don't live in Israel. I can only imagine what a tremendous cumulative psychological toll it takes to live in a place where you never feel safe. Where you're in constant danger.

The predictability of the general threat (something bad is bound to happen every so often), yet unpredictability of the specific threats (not knowing when and where the terrorists will strike next). The tunnels exemplify that. The enemy can pop out of nowhere. I think that would generate a claustrophobic cultural mindset. 

That's exacerbated by the fact that Israel is so small: the size of NJ. So there's no buffer zone. It can hit you before you know it. The enemy can be right on top of you before you know it, much less have time to react. 

How can you live in a state of fear 24/7? Do Israelis just become inured to the omnipresent sense of danger? Do they become fatalistic? 

III. Risk Assessment

Then you have folks who pick a side based on who's a natural ally or adversary. Who poses a threat to you, your family, you're livelihood? It isn't based on history or eschatology, the past or the future, but on the present. Jews and Israelis aren't dangerous to Americans–although some Jews espouse secular ideologies that are dangerous to Christian freedom of expression. By contrast, Muslims have proven themselves to be dangerous to everyone. 

This is not the same thing as Realpolitik. We have a Christian duty to protect our dependents and practice our faith.