Australia’s defining moment

Beersheba – October 31, 2014: The long, lonely note of the Last Post hung in the air under the overcast skies high above this city. Here, in the heart of the Israeli capital of the Negev, men wearing Australian, New Zealander, historic and modern military uniforms stood to attention among a crowd of adults, their ranks in turn permeated by young people wearing the colours of various Jewish youth movements.

The gathering, held to commemorate the 1917 Battle of Beersheba, heard how soldiers “from the uttermost parts of the earth” – the ANZACS – opened the way for the rebirth of the national home for the Jewish people.

Whether most Australians accept this connection or not, the fact of history cannot be denied: like the Ghan crossing a steel track junction on the great Trans-Australia train line, the destinies of Israel and Australia came thundering together.

Today, right now, they are linked together again.

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Ask any Australian – 100 years ago this year began what was to become the defining moment hitherto in the history of that enormous but sparsely-populated southern country. It was then that the Land Down Under paid the inestimable price to earn its place among the nations of the modern world.

Beginning in August 1914, half-a million young men – one out of every 10 of their country’s citizens – sailed, rode and marched off to war. Over 60, 000 would never come home. By the buckets-full, Australian blood would saturate the soil of Asia Minor and Europe, and the desert sands of the Middle East.

But while battles would be fought ferociously on many fronts, by soldiers from many nations, the most enduring impact on modern human history would be made on the area of the ancient land of Israel – three years after Australia first went to war.

And it would be made by the ‘Diggers.’*

Known as Ottoman Turkish Palestine, the long forsaken but never forgotten homeland of the Jews had for more than a millennium been trodden underfoot by Muslims – none of whom cared especially for the territory, and none of whom would establish it as a country of their own. Interspersed with them, other gentiles held the land – Crusaders, Byzantines and Romans. It had been more than two thousand years since the Jews were able to be sovereign in their own country.

Three years after the commencement of World War I, on October 31, 2017, all that was to change.

On that momentous day, armed only with bayonets, Australians of the 4th Light Horse Brigade – of the Anzac Mounted Division – charged the Turkish trenches around the city of Beersheba in the southern province of Palestine, and took the city.

Risking – and giving – their lives, these soldiers opened the door for the armies of the British Empire to wrest the land from the Islamic world in readiness for the return of the Jews.

Three years from now, Australia will be caught up in the centennial celebrations of the Battle of Beersheba – that moment that helped to characterize the last 100 years of Aussie identity, patriotism and pride.

Shockingly, however, also three years from now, those very, priceless Australian sacrifices may be rendered negligible, void and even worthless.

Three years from now, Israel’s most implacable and hate-filled enemy – the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) – plans to see the Jews expelled from the heart of their restored biblical lands, and an independent Arab state called Palestine established there.

Three years from now – the land unchained from Islamic rule by the free world, with Australia playing that key role – could be set to be returned to Muslim rule by the ‘free world’ and taken – forever – from the people to whom Australia helped return it in 1917.

As the Jews of Israel have for decades, their spokesmen in Beersheba last week expressed Israeli’s heartfelt acknowledgement of the debt it owes Australia for the resurrection of their homeland.

This month, Israelis will watch and listen as petition is made by the PLO to the United Nations Security Council to pass international law that will set in motion their eviction plan for the Jews from Israel’s biblical heartland and strategic high ground.

It is the intention of the Palestinian Arabs to have Palestine created de jure by 2017. After repeatedly vacillating about the timing, latest reports indicate the PLO is gearing up to push for this at the Security Council this November after all.

Yesterday (November 4), senior PLO official Wassel Abu Yusef announced that the PLO would submit a draft resolution to the Security Council later this month calling for an end date for Israeli occupation [SIC].

And these Arabs have friends in high places, like the new European foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, who – also yesterday – announced that the main goal of her five-year term will be to see the creation of this Palestine.

Meanwhile, the highly placed friend Israel always believed it could depend upon appears – to the Israelis – to be ready to switch sides.

Yesterday the Times of Israel’s top story was headlined, “US veto at Security Council may no longer be a given.” The Algemeiner enlarged on this in a report that in “a dramatic development, Israeli cabinet members are warning that US President Barack Obama threatened Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the US may opt not to oppose future hostile UN Security Council votes, unless Israel accedes to American policy demands.”

In the midst of all this, where is Australia positioned?

Some would say the great southern land has arrived again – almost unexpectedly – at the next defining moment in its history.

As I write this, Australia holds – possibly for the final time** – the presidency of the Security Council. It will relinquish the chair to Chad on December 1, and itself be rotated completely off the Council at the end of the year.

The trenchant question facing concerned Australians and others is this: how will this country go out? How will Australia’s term on the Security Council be remembered? How will Australia make use of the authority and responsibility she has been accorded (believers would say by God) to lastingly impact the history of the nations of the world, the history of Israel, and the history of Australia itself?

Will Australia go out with a fizzle, or with a bang?

On the critical, about-to-be-tabled, question of dividing the historical Land of Israel into two states, will Australia’s representatives in the Security Council behave like politicians – concerned about their country’s immediate and short term perceived interests? Or will the Abbott government rise to the occasion and refuse to bow to the pressures and expectations of an Israel-hostile world, following in the way upon which it has already embarked, even if doing so means it stands alone?

What can Australia do?

Practically speaking, as president of the Security Council, Australia can put her role to good use and call to have the Palestinian Arabs’ 2011 petition for Security Council recognition – currently stalled in mid-process – declared null and void.

In the way the Almighty has always had when dealing with the nations of the world in relation to Israel, it seems as if Australia has been positioned by God to bless Israel by standing with her if she so chooses, and to accrue blessings in turn. The biblical principle, found in Genesis 12:3 is rock solid – as testified to by the track record of nations, kingdoms and empires for thousands of years.

The British Empire wore the crown as a nation that blessed Israel and was blessed in turn, but lost it after it forsook the Balfour Declaration and betrayed its mandate to oversee the creation of the Jewish national home in Palestine.

The United States had it, but has dropped it too – and the consequences for doing so will yet be seen.

For Australia, now being offered the crown to bless Israel and be blessed in turn, the “reckless charge” to capture Beersheba almost a century ago proved to be a defining moment.

Today, right now, she faces another defining moment, a moment of destiny. It too may require another “reckless charge.” Can the spirit of the Light Horse Brigade reach out across the years to ignite Australian action on Israel’s behalf?

Can the spirit of the ANZACS move Australia to use her position of influence in a pivotal and crucial way in what believers would also understand could be her “Esther” moment?

Let Christians with understanding and conviction earnestly petition the Throne, that God would move upon Prime Minister Abbot and his cabinet, causing them to do what is right.

For who knows, but that Australia has come to the presidency of the United Nations Security Council for such a time as this?

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* The popular term for Australian World War One soldiers.

** There is no guarantee that Australia will be re-elected to the Security Council again – especially if she bucks the international consensus on Palestine, but even if she doesn’t. At least 60 UN member states have never been voted to serve on the Council.

 

 

Recommended reading on this subject: Books by historian Kelvin Crombie, who can be contacted at [email protected]

– Anzacs, Empires and Israel’s Restoration 1798-1948
– Anzacs & Israel: A Significant Connection
– El Alamein: Halting an Impending Holocaust in the Middle East
– Journey to Beersheba
– Gallipoli – The Road to Jerusalem