First hostages released in Hamas–Israel ceasefire

After 471 days of war in Gaza, a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel went into effect on January 19. Romi Gonen, Emily Damari, and Doren Steinbrecher—the first Israeli hostages released by Hamas as part of the deal—later arrived in Israel.

Israeli officials said the three women were in “good health” considering their fifteen-month captivity. The family of Emily Damari said she lost two fingers due to Hamas gunfire on October 7, 2023.

In response, ninety Palestinian detainees held in Israel were released early Monday in the first phase of the agreement. The list includes sixty-two women, one of whom is a minor, and twenty-eight men, including eight minors. None has been convicted of murder. Israeli forces also began withdrawing from some areas in Gaza as part of the agreement.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said the return of the three women hostages “symbolizes a moment of light within the darkness, a moment of hope and of triumph of the spirit.”

While this is very good news in this seemingly interminable conflict, it’s natural to ask: Can there ever be true peace between Arabs and Jews?

Isaac and Ishmael

How does the Bible help us with our question? Consider these facts:

• In Genesis 17, the Lord promised Abraham regarding his first-born son Ishmael, “I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. He shall father twelve princes, and I will make him into a great nation” (v. 20).
• His twelve sons are later named (Genesis 25:12–16) and located “from Havilah to Shur, which is opposite Egypt in the direction of Assyria” (v. 18a), an area scholars identify with Arabia.
• We also read that Ishmael and his descendants “settled over against all his kinsmen” (v. 18b), a Hebrew phrase indicating hostility between them and Isaac’s Jewish descendants. However, note that the text describes this hostility rather than prescribing it or predicting such animosity in the future.
• In Genesis 37, Ishmaelites are identified as Midianites (vv. 25–28, 36). The Midianites later oppressed the Jews and threatened their future before they were defeated by Gideon and his army of three hundred (Judges 6–8).

From these facts, many have concluded that the Arab–Jewish conflict we see today began with Ishmael and Isaac and is therefore unlikely ever to be resolved.

However, the story is more complex.

Muslims and Jews

If by “Arabs” we mean people who speak the Arabic language, we can trace their recorded history to the mid-ninth century BC with the earliest known attestation of the Old Arabic language. This would enable us to locate them chronologically after Ishmael (ca. 1900 BC) and thus possibly as his descendants. However, some historical linguists date the origins of their language back much further than the time of Ishmael.

In addition, if by “Arabs” we mean people who inhabit the Arabian Peninsula, historians trace their origins to out-of-Africa migrations that occurred between 125,000 and 60,000 years ago, far earlier than Ishmael.

Numerous Muslim sources stated that not all Arabs are descended from Ishmael. It was Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian, who first advanced and popularized the idea that Ishmael was the sole ancestor of the Arabs.

Some Muslim literature also made this identification, claiming that Abraham offered not Isaac but Ishmael on the altar. (Qur’an 37:103 states that he offered his “son” but does not name him.) In addition, the Qur’an takes a hostile view toward the Jews, stating that God has “cursed” them (2:88) as “apes and swine” (5:60, 64–65).

Taking these facts together, some Muslims claim that God intended Ishmael’s descendants to be the “chosen people” and the rightful possessors of Palestine, not the Jews. In their view, the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 is therefore a theft of land from its rightful Arab Muslim owners and an attack on Islam by the “cursed” Jews. Since the Qur’an (2:190) requires Muslims to defend Islam, they believe they are required to attack Israel (and its Western allies) in response.

However, while this can explain some hostility between Muslims and Jews, we should note that Arab and Muslim are not equivalent terms. Nearly all Arabs are Muslim, but only 20 percent of the Muslim world is Arab. In fact, the largest Muslim nation in the world is Indonesia.

As a result, the hostility of some Muslims toward Jews is not incumbent upon all Arabs. In fact, as we will see, the largest source of such hostility toward Israel today comes from Iran, which is Persian, not Arab.

Iran and Israel

All this to say, there is nothing in Scripture to indicate that hostility between Jews and Arabs must be perpetual. Even the Genesis 25:18 reference to Ishmael’s descendants as settling “over against all his kinsmen” does not predict such hostility, much less mandate it.

I have led more than thirty study tours to Israel. My experiences there give me hope that animosity between Arabs and Jews need not be permanent, since millions of them have learned to live together as neighbors and fellow citizens.

Many people do not know that of Israel’s 9.7 million citizens, 2.1 million (21 percent of the country) are Arabs. They have the same legal rights as Jewish Israelis. In walking through the Old City of Jerusalem, you encounter Arabs and Jews living in close proximity, tending each other’s shops and living as neighbors.

The long-running conflicts in the Middle East are driven largely by external forces, primarily Iran’s desire to rebuild the Persian Empire. As I have written before, its leaders see Israel as the primary obstacle to its regional ambitions; some believe that the Mahdi (their messiah) will not return so long as Muslims tolerate Israel’s existence.

Accordingly, Iran has been staging multi-front aggression against Israel utilizing proxies in Gaza (Hamas), Lebanon (Hezbollah), the West Bank (Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad among others), Syria (Shiite insurgents), and Yemen (the Houthis). In addition, Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations pledged to the destruction of Israel.

For its part, Israel’s parliament (the Knesset) includes some far-right political parties that do not recognize the Palestinians’ right to statehood and consider the entire region to be biblical Israel. Some want to annex the West Bank as Samaria and Gaza as well.

But in my experience, the large majority of Israelis want to live in peace with their neighbors. Hostility between Arab and Jew is not endemic to the two races or necessarily a permanent feature of their future.

How to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem”

The good news is that the good news is for everyone, regardless of our race or region: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Paul adds: “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (v. 29).

Accordingly, the best way to bring peace between Arabs and Jews is to help both turn to Christ as their Messiah and Lord.

Both believe that a messiah is coming. Both believe in one God. Both seek a personal relationship with him. And both, according to my friends serving in the Middle East, are experiencing a true spiritual awakening in these days.

Multitudes of Muslims are seeing Jesus in dreams and visions and turning to him. Multitudes of Jews are turning to Jesus as their Messiah. I know many people personally who can attest to both facts.

We can help by praying for these awakenings to continue and escalate. In this way, we “pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:6), the true shalom of God that brings all in the Middle East into peace with the Lord, others, and themselves.

And we can share Jesus with the Jews and Arabs God gives us the privilege of knowing personally. In this way, we introduce them to the only One who can change the human heart and bring God’s kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).

Will you stop right now to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem”?

Will you then do what you can do to answer your prayer?