Last night (Tuesday, October 13^th), during dinner with my family, I found myself in a challenging situation that many parents here in Israel have to face when my kids asked me “Abba, why do the Arabs hate us and want to kill us?”

The reality here in Israel during the last two weeks (I am writing this blog entry on the morning of Wednesday, October 14, 2015) is that 7 people were brutally murdered and 92 others injured in different terror attacks throughout Israel. As I wrote last week, the reality is that the Palestinian Leadership alongside the King of Jordan and others from the Arab world inflamed and encouraged the current round of violence here in the Land. The international community through the one-sided, senseless, and blind support of the PA also played a big part in the current situation simply by keeping silent and not condemning it.

And here we are today, in the midst of a very difficult season, where I must explain to my children why so many people hate us.

For us the reality this time is very different from last year’s war in the Gaza strip. At least we had some kind of warning that an attack was headed our way. This time, the enemy could be sitting right next to you on a bus, or walking next to you in the street. You simply don’t know. Just yesterday, in two of the five attacks, one of the terrorists was street cleaning in one of the municipalities, and the other was an employee of Israel’s biggest phone company, “Bezeq”. In fact, he attacked innocent people waiting for a bus with his company car! With such realities, the fear is very palpable and the tension heavy.

The first thing that my wife and I explained to our kids was that not all Arabs hate us; in fact many are vehemently opposed to the current wave of terrorist attacks, and many would love to live in peace with us Jewish Israelis, and beyond this, many Arab people believe in and love the God of Israel.

The second was to put things in perspective when it comes to fear… We fear terror and that causes us not to walk on the streets and to “watch our backs”, but in reality more people are killed and injured every year in Israel because of car accidents than any of the terror attacks, so does that mean that we won’t drive in the streets?

But then we came to the ultimate core of the problem, which is spiritual. God has a plan for the Children of Israel and for His Land. God’s desire is for the people of Israel to return to Him and to be in relationship with Him. Because of His great love for us, God will allow us to go through periods of hardships and uncertainties, which will draw us back to Him:

“I will go away and return to My place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek My face ;In their affliction they will earnestly seek Me.” Hosea 5:15

Our ultimate enemy, Satan, will do whatever he can to destroy God’s plan and to instill war, distraction, and fear. However as we studied previously in our series on God’s promises, His plan will not be thwarted…it will last forever.

As we will be returning to our blog series on God’s promises, I found a very interesting prophetic blessing that was given to Rebecca and I believe is connected to the times in which we live today:

“And they blessed Rebekah and said to her, “ Our sister, you will become thousands of ten thousands, and your descendant inherit The gate of those who hate them.” Genesis 24:60

Our suffering is temporary; our time here is temporary as we are heading to our everlasting shelter under the wings of the everlasting King, Yeshua, our promised Messiah.

Please continue to pray that God will remove the veil from the eyes of our people today, and that Israel will return to God, through her Messiah.

Shabbat Shalom,

Moran