Celebrating forty years after the miraculous Israeli victory in the 1967 Six Day War, an analysis of the circumstances of that momentous event has recently been published by a panel of investigative journalists and historians. Its conclusion is that so many factors came together for Israel’s success that it is impossible to conclude that they were natural outcomes or the normal course of events.

“This is from God”.

Prior to June 1967, Israel’s borders were precarious, indefensible - at one point, south of Haifa, the width of Israel from the Mediterranean Sea to Jordan-controlled West Bank was less then ten miles. The war increased the size of Israel-controlled area by more than double. Most importantly, Jerusalem became a unified city and Israel’s capital. The Arabs recognise their disastrous defeat by constantly calling for “the return to pre-1967 borders” in any peace deal with Israel.

In the war Israel fought twice as many enemy soldiers, three times as many tanks and four times as many aircraft. The night before the war started Egypt’s Commander-in-Chief gathered his high command for a party at a distant airbase where they were trapped next morning, unable to return to their bases. Jordan’s radar detected the squadrons of Israeli attack planes taking off and warned Egypt but the cipher clerk used the wrong code book and could not understand the urgent message.

All top army commanders in the Sinai were replaced two weeks before and were unfamiliar with the territory they were meant to defend.

Author Sarah Rigler, who’s written about the Six Day War, believes that series of Egyptian mistakes revealed the work of an unseen hand: “You can say, what a lucky coincidence or you can see the Divine Hand,” she said. “You can see God arranged all these things to happen the way they did because He wanted the Israeli strike to succeed. He wanted us to win. He wanted us to regain our holy places.”

Famous General Moshe Dayan, the commander of the Israeli forces, was a very secular person. Yet he went to visit the Western Wall the day after it was liberated. There’s a tradition to put notes to God in the wall. So even he put a little note to God in the crevices in the wall. As soon as he left, a newspaper man ran and took the note out and read it.

It was a line from Psalms that said; ‘This is from God. It’s wondrous in our eyes.” (Psalm 118:23).

One of the many places in the Bible that refers to the latter day lowly state of Egypt is Isaiah 19. “The Lord has mingled a perverse spirit in her midst, and they have caused Egypt to err in all her work, as a drunken man staggers in his vomit” v.14. This description could have been specially written for Egypt’s performance in the Six Day War.

A reading of any detailed record of the 1967 war, such as The Swift Sword by Brig. Gen. S. Marshall and published by the American Heritage Magazine, will confirm hundreds of battlefield incidents that are simply beyond normal experience. These miracles have been a recurring theme throughout Israel’s sixty years of modern history and testify to God’s overriding care for Israel. “Behold, he who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper” Psalm 121:4-5. “He who touches you touches the apple of his eye” Zechariah 2:8.

Israel Desperately Needs a Better Government
The present leaders of Israel have little to no idea of Israel’s divine destiny. Surrounded by hostile Arab forces, Israel’s politicians are trying to find the least repulsive of the options open to them - coexistence with a Palestinian state - to divert the worst of the Arab invective and make Israeli life more tolerable. They don’t seem to realize that the 3000 year old Arab enmity will not go away, “…you have had an ancient [other versions "perpetual", "continuous"] hatred, and have shed the blood of the children of Israel by the power of the sword…” Ezekiel 35:5. Furthermore, the Bible destiny of the Palestinians is surrender of the lands on which they now camp [Obadiah vv.18-20 where modern Esau = Palestinians] rather than an official identity. The only Biblical [and therefore certain] option for Israel is to stand firm against Arab efforts to annihilate her as tough as that course may be.

The UK newspaper The Economist recently issued a 14 page assessment of Israel in 2008. A key conclusion is that, over many decades, the proportional system of election, rejected by nearly all democracies, is producing an increasingly irresponsible brand of government in Israel. At present there are 12 political parties represented in the Knesset, each scrabbling for a place in the ruling coalition, resulting in risky promises, shaky loyalty and unstable alignments. Corruption of politicians is on the rise. Integrity is at a discount. Harassment is increasing. Israelis of integrity and talent are avoiding politics and turning to business. It is a sad decline from the old days of visionary government.

On the other hand, Israel’s economy and tourism is healthy, the value of the shekel improving. The Bank of Israel governor Stanley Fischer announced plans to buy daily $25 million of foreign currency to arrest further rises in the shekel value. It will boost reserves from $28 billion to $35-40 billion to aid Israeli business competitiveness.

At an international business conference in Jerusalem, a US-based investor said, “Israel boasts many advantages for foreign investors: including terrific universities, a wealth of experienced managers, quality engineers and scientists, well-trained physicians and more. But I have never seen a lower calibre of government than you have in this country. Your foreign ministry is staffed with low quality people and a low quality leader. The Supreme Court is a collection of far-left activists who then appoint more far-left activists to join them on the bench. It feels like all the smart people in the country have started their own companies, and the rest have been left to run the country”.

God will not let Israel disappear or be displaced. He did not restore Israel to the Holy Land in vain. Despite the politicians, God has given Israel a sound base to survive. The politicians will lose the plot and let Israel’s enemies grow to the point where Jesus will need to deal with them [Isaiah 63:1-6]. Then the politicians will be replaced by Jesus ruling out of Jerusalem. “For out of Zion the Law shall go forth and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem” Micah 4:4.

And Still the Tourists Come
While Israel watchers deplore the political ineptitude of Israel’s government and its inability to deal effectively with Hamas, Gaza and the Palestinians, and while rockets from Gaza pepper two towns in Israel [Ashkelon and Sderot], the tourists are not deterred. The following information from the Israeli Tourist Board is surprising:

“February 2008 saw 200,000 tourists arrive in Israel, an increase of 46% in comparison to 2007. The U.S. tops the list, providing more than a quarter of all tourists, followed by France and Russia. Poland, Italy, Ukraine, Germany and England also rank high. Individuals from China and Korea are also beginning to show a keen interest in visiting Israel.”

Jesus Christ’s coming Kingdom Age will see enormous crowds arriving in the Holy Land, “And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts” Zechariah 14:16. They will come in their millions, not as tourists, but as worshippers of the true God.