The New Testament is the only hope for peace between Israel and its neighbors.
This is true because the conflict between Muslims and Jews is at its heart spiritual. Muslims largely accept the fact that the Jews were once the “chosen people.†But they believe if this were still true it would leave them out in the cold. God’s choice must be either/or, either them or us. It is for this reason that Muslims believe God has rejected the Jewish people, that the battle against them must go on until the end of time, that not one grain of the sand of Palestine can remain under Jewish sovereignty. Anything that speaks of Jewish acceptance also speaks of Muslim rejection. If their covenant is true, mine is false.
Rabbinic Judaism, according to my understanding, largely agrees with this assessment. We’re in and you’re out. It has nothing to offer a God-fearing Muslim. (If any readers can enlighten me to the contrary, please do using the comments section below; a one-time registration is required).
The revelation recorded in the New Testament documents, however, shocked the Jewish world by doing away with the either/or dichotomy and replacing it with a both/and. God both chose the Jewish people, and through Messiah has also chosen many from all the peoples of the earth. The wall of either/or has been torn down, formerly orthodox Paul writes in Ephesians 2, and from the two one new both/and has been created.
Here is the message which the Jewish people have to offer to their neighbors: a place for everyone in the favor of God. And those of us who have already entered in from the nations are now ourselves responsible: to help the Jewish people understand and widen the invitation to include their neighbors in the Middle East.