The importance of Israelis and the State of Israel stems from a combination of profound religious and historical roots, significant geopolitical influence and alliances, and major contributions in technology and innovation.
The Significance of Israel
It's not just a nation or a piece of land; it symbolizes the Lord's chosen people. Given to Abraham as a promise, the land has spiritual implications for believers today.
One of the world's most technologically advanced countries, Israel allocates a larger share of its economy to research and development than any other state and is believed to possess nuclear weapons.
The Israelites left an extraordinary religious and ethical legacy. They were some of the first monotheists, worshipping a single god, whom they referred to as Yahweh. Their religious texts from the ancient world, including the Hebrew Scriptures, served as the foundational texts of Judaism.
The State of Israel is the only Jewish nation in the modern period, and the region that now falls within its borders has a lengthy and rich history that dates from prebiblical times.
This longstanding history of exclusion and persecution led many Jews to conclude that the only future for Jewish communal life was the creation of a homeland in the Land of Israel. In the late 19th century, a new Jewish political movement called Zionism was founded to advocate for this goal.
10 AWESOME ISRAELI INVENTIONS
As already noted, through Abraham's descendants would come the Messiah, the One through whom “all the families of the earth” would be blessed (Genesis 12:3). God wanted Israel to be a model nation, a group of people through whom other peoples could learn vitally important lessons.
It is inaccurate to say Arab Palestinians lived there first. Jews have lived on the land of Israel continuously for almost 4,000 years. The land of Israel is the birthplace of the Jewish people.
Israelite is a term used in English translations of the bible to describe the Children of Israel who crossed the desert after the Exodus and who settled in the land of Israel. Jew is a word which developed from the Anglicization of the label for someone from the kingdom of Judea (Yehudi).
Israel was called British Palestine in 1920 because that portion of the Ottoman Empire was given to the British to manage after World War I.
8) God's Summoning to Stand with Israel
A biblical assignment and a divine promise summon our stand in faith, our intercession with expectancy and our support with promise (Eph. 6:10-20). Scripture declares there will come a time when all the nations of the world will turn against Israel (Zech. 12:1-14).
Israel's quality higher education and the establishment of a highly motivated and educated populace is largely responsible for ushering in the country's high technology boom and rapid economic development by regional standards.
The land of Israel is central to the Jewish faith and is mentioned throughout the Bible. In the Book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, God promises the land of Israel to Abraham, the first Jew, and then reaffirms the promise to Abraham's son Isaac and grandson Jacob.
Later on, in Deuteronomy 30:3-5, God promises to Israel a specific land – you guessed it! From that moment on, we know it as the Promised Land. The Lord said He would bring his people to the land He chose, and He would make their descendants prosperous.
It was founded on the belief that Judaism was not only a religion but a nationality, and that Jewish people deserved a state like British or French people did. Due to historical and religious ties to the region, Palestine became the desired location for this future Jewish state.
Under the leadership of Theodor Herzl, the organization considered areas in East Africa and Argentina as sites for the Jewish national home. However, it finally decided on Palestine, claiming it as a national home on the basis of ancient Jewish links with the holy land.
By more than 1,000 years, “Israel” predates “Palestine.” The land then became home primarily to an Arab population, again for more than a millennium. Both Jews and Arabs thus have a legitimate claim to the land. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has seen myriad wrongs and brutalities on both sides.
So, were Jesus and his parents Palestinian? Bethlehem is now a city located in the Israeli-occupied West Bank of the Palestinian Territories, about ten kilometres south of Jerusalem. So the short answer is: yes, Jesus was a Palestinian, according to modern geopolitics at least.
God promises in His Word that He will protect Israel, the apple of His eye. We give you five Bible texts that underline this. For this is what the Lord Almighty says: After the Glorious One has sent me against the nations that have plundered you—for whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye.
Since the founding of the modern State of Israel, Israel has built a thriving country that protects the rights of its citizens, protects freedom of religion and ensures that all religions have access to their religious sites - something that was not allowed when Israel was not governing Jerusalem.
Another popular understanding of Israel as the Promised Land comes from Genesis 17, where God's covenant with Abraham and his offspring is affirmed, and God promises to be the God of Abraham's offspring and gift them the land of Canaan for “a perpetual holding.”
Tax rates in Israel are among the highest in the world, with income, value-added, customs and excise, land, and luxury taxes being the main sources of revenue. The government has gradually raised the proportion of indirect taxes since the late 1950s.
What's less widely known is the astounding number of Jewish inventors, and their contributions to modern science, medicine, infrastructure and technology. All of the items mentioned above (TV remote control, shopping cart, Barbies, jeans and aspirin) were invented by Jews.
Although the American tech giant is based in California and employs hundreds of sub-suppliers, many the components found inside Apple's iPhones and products are built and assembled in Israel.