In Part I, I came out of the gate with a declaration. The main event in the Middle East is the conflict between Israel and Iran, even though the headlines are mostly about Hamas and Hezbollah. I described the events of October 7 and Israel’s response. I discussed a bit about why wars occur, and the violence that can be caused by merely an idea. Lastly, I made the case that Israel is surrounded by wolves, and the international community is hypocritical and inconsistent in how they respond to Israeli efforts to protect themselves and deter further aggression. We shrug our shoulders because we so often hear the refrain, “They’ve been killing each other for millennia and it’s never going to end.” That sentence leads to a question. From where does this region’s violence originate?

Simply put, it originates in antiquity, specifically in the biography of Abraham, as recorded in the Old Testament’s book of Genesis. God promised Abram (later, Abraham) that he would be the father of a great nation.[i] Later, God told him that his offspring will be as numerous as the stars. That is, uncountable.[ii] Abram’s wife was Sarai (later, Sarah). They believed these promises, even though she was barren well into her later years. As she aged, the promise had not been fulfilled. So, to help things along, she gave her servant, Hagar, to Abram. The hope was that she could obtain children by her.[iii] Hagar became Abram’s wife, and she conceived.

Unfortunately, Hagar looked upon her mistress, Sarai, with contempt because she was blessed with a pregnancy while her mistress was not. This angered Sarai and so she treated her harshly. Hagar couldn’t take it and fled into the wilderness. While there, an angel of the Lord found her and told her to return to her mistress and submit to her. Then, the angel gave her a message from the Lord—a promise, in fact, a prophecy: “I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude.”[iv] The angel went further and said:

Behold, you are pregnant and shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has listened to your affliction.

And he will be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen. (Genesis 16:11-12 ESV)

I believe this prophecy has been fulfilled, is being fulfilled to this day, and will continue into the future. The historical record is clear on this point. To save ink, I need to write a truncated version of this history to get us all on the same page.

Tradition says that Arabs are the descendants of Ishmael, Abraham’s first son. Biblical history says Abraham’s second son was Isaac, who was born of Sarai—and represents a promise fulfilled. Isaac’s son was Jacob. Later an angel changed Jacob’s name to Israel. Jacob’s family tree ended up in Egypt to avoid a drought in Canaan. While there, they became a multitude. Seeing a built-in labor force, Pharaoh enslaved them and built the pyramids, cities, and monuments to his greatness. After four hundred years, God delivered them by the hand of Moses to fulfill another promise, which was that they would enter the promised land—the land we know today as Israel.

But, then there’s the history of Islam.

Muhammed, Islam’s founder, was an Arab. His ancestry traces back to Ishmael. In fact, Abraham and Ishmael are featured prominently in the Koran. Following the logic, God made Abraham the father of two nations: Arabs and Jews. Arabia and Israel.

Is it safe to assume that Hagar told her son Ishmael of how Sarah treated her? Did the account spawn generational bitterness and hatred? We don’t know the answer to these questions, but hatred appeared at some point and is now in the blood, so to speak. Looking back through the ages, can anyone deny that the prophecy has been fulfilled many times over? Arabs have fought each other and their neighbors throughout time. Even Islam has been fraught with contention and war with itself and others. A mere glance at history and one can see it: the Sunnis against Shia, Ottoman against both Jew and Christian, and let’s not forget the Crusades. As it happens, the prophecy is true: “his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him.”

This region’s history is bloody, and it lives the same way today. History is violent.

All of this begs a question. In light of Biblical prophecy, can we really stop this timeless feud through a two-state solution, or  any other way we might design? God’s purposes in the prophecy go way beyond the scope of this article, but they can be understood. Of course, man can argue against their veracity. But, because God is God, his sovereign power and plan for history’s end—that is, the future—will not be thwarted. And all of history points to that future. Therefore, today’s situation is no different from the history of this region. It’s more of the same, just as the prophecy to Hagar about her son foretold.

I hasten to add that even though the world might separate the two parties into their separate corners of the Middle East (the two-state solution), it completely ignores the source of all tension in this region: Iran. I’ll come back to this point later in this series.

At the same time, this doesn’t mean that the wider world should give up on the region. Heavens, no. But perhaps someone must decide who and what is evil, and who or what is not. This is the function of government, informed by timeless truths that come from the Creator of all truth. Unfortunately, though, only the few give any credence to an ultimate, absolute truth. Until this acknowledgment takes place, the future of this region is and will be one of simmering, boiling over, and simmering again. (This is why the US markets at the moment aren’t really concerned. It’s a cynical acceptance of a forever reality. We’ll come back to this in Part V.)

The overall conflict will never cease. The West could dismantle the Iranian regime’s capability, even break them financially, or bomb them into the Stone Age, but this won’t end it without dismantling the ayatollahs’ grip on power. Even then, it would only be for a time. If this head of the snake is cutoff, then at least a temporary stay, say a decade or two, can be had. Until another snake shows up. Even if you rid your yard of one dandelion here, another one pops up over there. This is why most discussions about solutions to this intractable problem are useless without dealing with the actual evil. Again, I’ll address the ayatollahs and the organization that protects them later. (Yes, I just equated the Iranian ayatollahs with evil.)

With that history reviewed, I need to address more recent times. I’ll do that in Part III.