The 70th anniversary of Israel: “If you will it, it is no dream”

On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion gathered with 250 guests in the Tel Aviv Museum (known today as Independence Hall). Ben-Gurion was head of the World Zionist Organization, a movement dedicated to creating a homeland for the Jewish people in their historic Promised Land.

Behind him hung a portrait of Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism. At 4:00 p.m., Ben-Gurion banged his gavel. He then read a proclamation declaring the existence of the modern State of Israel.

I have stood several times in Independence Hall. Each time, I am moved again by the courage of the men and women who risked their lives and families to birth their nation.

In a move timed to coincide with this dramatic anniversary, the United States is relocating its embassy to Jerusalem at 4:00 p.m. (8:00 a.m. in Dallas) today. Palestinian marches against the move have already begun.

Four biblical themes that explain modern-day Israel

In Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn, historian Daniel Gordis describes Israel as “a story of a homeless people that kept a dream alive for millennia, of a people’s redemption from the edge of the abyss, of a nation forging a future where none seemed possible.”

Gordis traces several biblical themes that converged in the creation of modern-day Israel.

One: The importance of the Promised Land.

Gordis notes, “There could be no Jewish nation, and no Jewish family, their ‘diary’ [the Bible] intimated, without their land at the center of the story.” He adds, “Genesis is fundamentally the story of Abraham’s complex family, but central to that story is the land on which they have been told to live.”

Two: The need for courage.

The Zionists understood from Scripture that “the road to true freedom would be long and difficult.” In the book of Joshua, the people had to cross a flooded river. Canaan was occupied by seven different nations. Wars were frequent, and the land was seldom without conflict.

Three: The danger of…