No place on the face of the earth has been the stage for more wars than the Middle East. More than Europe with its two World Wars. More than Asia under the Mongol empires. And within the Middle East, no territory has accumulated more conflicts than the strip of land we know today as Israel. And within Israel, no city has been destroyed and rebuilt as many times as Jerusalem at least 18 times throughout recorded history.
Why does this particular region of the globe concentrate such ancient, deep, and apparently irresolvable tension? The answer requires a journey through millennia of history from the decisions of a man named Abraham, through the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the rise of Islam, and the creation of the modern State of Israel all the way to biblical prophecies that describe exactly this scenario.
This article has no political agenda. There is no interest in determining who is right or wrong in the contemporary conflict. The goal is to understand the roots of this conflict through the lens of history and the Sacred Scriptures.
The Map Europe Drew
To understand the modern Middle East, we must begin with what happened after World War I (1914–1918). The mighty Ottoman Empire, which had governed much of the Middle East for centuries, collapsed. And it was at the European negotiating table that the new map of the region was drawn with little input from the peoples who actually lived there.
Turkey emerged as an independent republic in 1922. The remainder of the Ottoman territory was divided as war spoils between the victorious European powers, primarily France and Great Britain. Syria and Lebanon went to the French mandate. What we now know as Iraq, part of Palestine, and Jordan went to the British mandate. Saudi Arabia was handed over to allied Arab families. Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen countries that are sovereign nations today were, quite literally, given as gifts to specific clans. There was a very concrete interest behind this European generosity: oil.
Over time, many of these countries fought for independence Egypt achieved its own under President Nasser, who closed the Suez Canal and forced a British withdrawal. Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq all went through their own processes of emancipation. What remained under direct British administration was the Palestine mandate and that is where the story becomes far more complicated.
In 1948, with World War II over and the weight of the Holocaust which had killed approximately six million Jews in Europe bearing down on the international community, the United Nations approved the creation of the State of Israel. The name the Romans had given the region Syria Palaestina had been applied since Emperor Hadrian (2nd century AD) to a much broader area that extended into Syria. It was a colonial geographic label, not an ethnic one. But it was in this territory that the new Jewish state was proclaimed and that proclamation immediately triggered wars with the surrounding Arab countries.
The Arab League and Islam's Internal Division
When Israel was created, the countries that had gained independence from the Ottoman Empire were predominantly governed by Muslim leadership. They attempted to unite their forces under the so-called Arab League, reviving the ancient dream of the Prophet Muhammad to create an invincible, unified Muslim empire.
The problem is that this project has always been derailed by a profound internal division: the feud between Sunnis and Shiites. Islam's two great currents carry a mutual hostility that surpasses many geopolitical rivalries. They only unite when the target is Israel as happened with the alliance between Iran (Shiite) and Hamas (Sunni). But if they were ever to prevail, they would in all likelihood turn against each other immediately. This fratricidal division has historically made any truly unified Arab-Muslim empire impossible.
Another complication: not all countries called "Arab" are ethnically Arab. Egyptians have their own ethnic heritage they are descendants of the ancient Copts who adopted Arabic in place of Coptic. Morocco, Algeria, and other North African countries have Berber roots. Iran is not Arab: it speaks Persian and has a different ethnicity. Turkey is Turko-Ottoman. These countries adopted Islam but they are not Arab. The word "Arab" is therefore more cultural and linguistic than ethnic. And to understand its origin, we must go back thousands of years.
The case of Iran deserves special attention, because the relationship between Persia and Israel did not begin with Khomeini in 1979 it has more than 2,600 years of history, spanning liberation, alliance, silence, and conflict. It is one of the most complex and surprising narratives in biblical and geopolitical history, and it helps explain why the contemporary conflict has a depth that goes far beyond what the headlines can capture.
Abraham: Where It All Begins
Around 1850–1900 BC, a man named Abraham left Ur of the Chaldeans in Mesopotamia and set out for the land of Canaan at God's command. He is the common patriarch of three of the world's major religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. And it is in the story of Abraham that the deepest roots of the Middle East conflict are found.
During a famine in Canaan, Abraham went down to Egypt — and there he made a serious mistake. Fearing he would be killed by Pharaoh because of his wife Sarah's beauty, he said she was only his sister. Pharaoh took her into his household. God intervened with plagues upon Pharaoh's house, and Pharaoh expelled Abraham with gifts. Among those gifts were Egyptian slave women. One of them was named Hagar.
Back in Canaan, Abraham still had no children with Sarah, and the divine promise of a vast descendants seemed distant. Sarah then proposed that Abraham have a child through Hagar, her servant a culturally accepted practice at the time. Abraham agreed. Ishmael was born.
Later, when Abraham was already 99 years old, God fulfilled the original promise: Sarah conceived and gave birth to Isaac. The tension between the two mothers and between the two sons eventually resulted in the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael. But God made a specific promise to Abraham: "I will also make the son of the slave into a nation, because he is your offspring" (Genesis 21:13).
Ishmael would become the ancestor of much of the Arab peoples. Isaac, in turn, was the father of Jacob, who was renamed Israel, and of Esau, ancestor of the Edomites. And Jacob fathered the twelve tribes of Israel.
There is more: after Sarah's death, Abraham took a concubine named Keturah and had six sons with her. These sons were sent to the land of the East (Genesis 25:6) most likely the region of the Arabian Peninsula and Mesopotamia. Mingling with Ishmael's descendants, they gave rise to other Arab peoples. The biblical account is clear: seven Arab peoples descend from Abraham through Ishmael and the sons of Keturah. One Jewish people descends from Abraham through Isaac.
Abraham's nephew Lot also did not escape the story unscathed. After the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, his two daughters got him drunk and conceived children by him, giving rise to two peoples: the Moabites and the Ammonites who became historic enemies of Israel.
What Does the Word "Arab" Actually Mean?
The word "Arab" in Hebrew is aravi, which derives from aravah a term meaning desert, desolate plain, remote and inhospitable place. In Joshua 18:18, the word aravah is used to describe the wilderness. Ishmael's and Keturah's descendants settled in exactly these arid and desert regions of the Arabian Peninsula which is why they came to be called "Arabs," the people of the desert.
The oldest mention of the name "Arab" outside the Bible appears in the Kurkh Monolith, also known as the Stele of Shalmaneser III, king of Assyria, from the 9th century BC. In this inscription, he describes the Battle of Karkar and mentions fighting against the land of Omri which is Israel as well as against an Arab leader named Gindibu. This is the oldest extrabibilical reference to the Arab people.
Jews and Arabs in the Arabian Peninsula Before Islam
Here is a little-known chapter of history: before the rise of Islam, a significant Jewish population lived peacefully on the Arabian Peninsula not dozens, but hundreds of families distributed across at least 14 settlements recognized by historians today.
How did they get there? In waves of migration driven by the great traumas of Jewish history. When Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem in the 6th century BC and took Daniel and others into exile in Babylon, many families fled to the Arabian Peninsula and never returned. After the Romans destroyed the Second Temple in 70 AD, another wave of migrants settled in the same region. And in 135 AD, when Emperor Hadrian expelled the Jews from Jerusalem following the Bar Kokhba revolt, a third group established itself on the Peninsula.
These Jews built fortresses, observed the Sabbath, maintained their traditions, and lived in relative peace with the surrounding Arab clans. Arabs and Jews coexisted in part because their languages share common roots. "Night" in Hebrew is laila; in Arabic it is leila. "Peace" in Hebrew is shalom; in Arabic it is salam. "Princess" in Hebrew is sarai; in Arabic it is soraya. Ishmael in Hebrew is Yishmael; in Arabic it is Ismail. They are sister Semitic languages and the peoples who speak them are, biologically, cousins.
Muhammad, Islam, and the End of Peace with the Jews
Around 570 AD, in Mecca, a man named Muhammad was born. An orphan raised by his uncle, he married a widow named Khadijah and grew deeply troubled by the widespread polytheism around him. The Kaaba of Mecca today Islam's central site of pilgrimage housed hundreds of idols at the time. The Arabs were polytheists.
In 610 AD, Muhammad reported receiving a vision from the angel Gabriel. He began preaching monotheism and faced violent opposition from Mecca's leaders. When his life was threatened, he fled to Medina an episode known as the Hijra. And in Medina, Muhammad found an unexpected reception: the city's Jews sympathized with him, because he was rebelling against idolatry and preaching belief in one God.
The initial alliance between Muhammad and the Jews was short-lived. Muhammad began demanding that the Jews recognize him as a prophet. The Jews refused for two fundamental reasons: first, in Jewish tradition prophecy had concluded with Malachi, and the next prophet would come only in the context of the messianic return. Second, Muhammad recognized Jesus of Nazareth as a prophet something Judaism does not accept.
The refusal triggered a violent rupture. Muhammad organized military attacks against the Jewish settlements of the Peninsula. At the Battle of Banu Qaynuqa, one of the first confrontations, the Jews were expelled. In 628 AD, at the Battle of Khaybar the region's largest Jewish settlement the men were executed and the women were enslaved and forced to convert to Islam. These events are recorded in both Islamic sources and secular historiography.
This rupture crystallized in the Quran itself, which contains passages that initially treat the Jews as "People of the Book" with a degree of respect, but progressively adopt a hostile tone, at some points asserting that Jews should be humiliated. From that point forward, as Islam expanded across the Arabian Peninsula and then the world reaching Constantinople in 1453 Jews, without a homeland, lived in Muslim-controlled territories under conditions that ranged from relative tolerance to severe persecution.
The same paradox applied in Christian countries: sometimes Jews were tolerated and prospered; at other times they were persecuted by the Inquisition, expelled, or forced to convert. Spain expelled them in 1492; Portugal briefly welcomed them and then persecuted them as well. In Muslim lands, forced conversion or death were the options presented. In Christian lands, forced baptism or exile. For centuries, Jews lived a diaspora without a fixed homeland, caught between two worlds that never fully accepted them.
Persia: The Enemy That Was Once an Ally
No relationship in the contemporary Middle East is more laden with paradox than the one between Iran and Israel. Today, the Iranian government finances and trains Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis of Yemen, all directed toward Israel's destruction. Its nuclear program is treated by Jerusalem as an existential threat. In April 2024, for the first time in history, Iran attacked Israel directly with more than 300 drones and ballistic missiles.
But the history between Persia and Israel begins in a radically opposite way with an act of liberation without precedent in the ancient world.
In 539 BC, the Persian king Cyrus II conquered Babylon without battle and did something no sovereign of the era would have done out of political calculation: he decreed the freedom of all captive peoples and authorized each to return to their homeland. For the Jews who had been in exile since the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar (586 BC), this decree was more than diplomacy it was the hand of God in history. The prophet Isaiah had called Cyrus by name approximately 150 years before he was born, describing him as the "Lord's anointed" (mashiach) who would open the way for Israel's restoration (Isaiah 44:28–45:1). He is the only non-Jewish leader in all of biblical history to receive the title of God's anointed. The Cyrus Cylinder, discovered in 1879 and preserved in the British Museum, archaeologically confirms this policy of liberating captive peoples.
The following centuries brought Greek domination, the Maccabean revolt, the Roman period, and the diaspora while the Jewish community in Persia (Babylon and Iran) flourished as the largest and most influential in the world for centuries. It was there that the Babylonian Talmud was compiled. Jews and Persians coexisted for more than a thousand years under different empires with periods of tension, but also of prosperity and mutual influence.
When the modern State of Israel was proclaimed in 1948, the Shah's Iran was the second Muslim-majority country to recognize it de facto (after Turkey). During the 1950s through 1970s, Israel and Iran were strategic allies: Iranian oil supplied Israel, Israeli intelligence (Mossad) helped train the SAVAK (the Shah's secret police), and the two countries participated in what was called the "Peripheral Doctrine" an informal alliance between Israel, Iran, and Turkey as a counterweight to Arab nationalism.
But this alliance carried a shadow. In 1951, elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh nationalized Iranian oil, challenging the British Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. In 1953, the CIA and MI6 orchestrated a coup that toppled Mossadegh and restored the Shah as absolute ruler to protect Western oil interests. The Iranian people lost their democracy. The resentment generated by this coup, amplified by decades of SAVAK repression and the sense that the West was exploiting the country's wealth, directly fueled the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
When Ayatollah Khomeini came to power, the rupture was immediate and total. The Israeli embassy in Tehran was handed over to the PLO. Khomeini declared Israel "the Little Satan" and the United States "the Great Satan," and instituted Quds Day (the last Friday of Ramadan) as an annual day of protest against Israel. More than 80,000 Iranian Jews emigrated to Israel and the United States in the following years. Within decades, Persia had gone from liberator to declared enemy a reversal that 2,600 years of history make all the more striking.
Today, Iran has funded Hezbollah in Lebanon since 1982, Hamas in Gaza, and the Houthis in Yemen a network of proxies surrounding Israel on multiple fronts. Its nuclear program, with uranium enriched to 84% (the threshold for a bomb is 90%), is treated by Israel as an existential threat comparable to the Holocaust. Israeli operations against the Iranian nuclear program from the Stuxnet virus in 2010 to the assassination of scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in 2020 are part of a shadow war that escalated to direct confrontation in 2024.
"Persia, Cush, and Put will be with them... they will invade a restored Israel" — Ezekiel 38:5
Ezekiel wrote this in the 6th century BC when Persia was still the power that had liberated the Jews. That the same nation would be named in a prophecy of future conflict is one of Scripture's most striking ironies. And it is exactly this 2,600-year journey from liberation to confrontation, from alliance to declared enmity that our special editorial documents in full.
Special Feature
Persia & Israel: From Prophecy to Conflict
An immersive journey through 2,600 years of history between two peoples who shaped the world — from the Edict of Cyrus to the missiles of 2024, from the prophecies of Isaiah and Ezekiel to the contemporary conflict. Features an interactive timeline, maps, 50 historical figures, and in-depth analysis of biblical prophecy.
The Spiritual Dimension of the Conflict
For those who read the Bible carefully, there is a dimension to this conflict that goes beyond geopolitics. In Genesis 12:3, God said to Abraham: "I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." In the original Hebrew, the verb "will be blessed" can be read either in the passive voice or the reflexive the nations will be blessed through Abraham, or they will find blessing through him.
This promise pointed the spiritual adversary toward exactly which lineage needed to be destroyed to prevent the fulfillment of the divine plan. Since Genesis 3:15 when God told the serpent that there would be enmity between it and the woman's offspring the spiritual target was the messianic line. The Messiah would come through the line of Abraham, Isaac, and David. Therefore, destroying that lineage would interrupt the fulfillment of the promise.
That is why Psalm 122:6 records an explicit divine instruction: "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem." This is not a political recommendation it is a spiritual directive. Jerusalem stands at the center of a battle that transcends diplomacy and armies.
Is There Hope? What the Prophecies Say
The Bible does not ignore the possibility of peace. On the contrary, it proclaims it. In Isaiah 19:23–25, there is one of Scripture's most striking prophecies:
"In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. In that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing on the earth. The Lord Almighty will bless them, saying, 'Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance.'"
Egypt to the south, Assyria (today Iraq and Syria) to the north, and Israel in the middle. All three together, worshiping the same God. That is the exact inverse of what the Middle East map shows today. Isaiah 2:2–4 deepens this vision:
"In the last days the mountain of the Lord's temple will be established as the highest of the mountains... All nations will stream to it... He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore."
The question that divides biblical interpreters is: when does this come to pass? Luke 21:24 provides a revealing context: "Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled." The "times of the Gentiles" is interpreted by many theologians as the period of divine grace extended to all non-Jewish nations a time still in progress. When that time is completed, with the second coming of Christ, the prophecy of Isaiah about universal peace will find its full fulfillment.
There is also a prophecy in Ezekiel 38 frequently cited in the context of the contemporary conflict. The text describes a coalition of nations that will attack Israel "in the last days." It explicitly mentions "Persia" (Ezekiel 38:5) alongside Cush and Put as part of that alliance. Many scholars today identify modern Iran as the fulfillment of that reference. Others adopt more cautious interpretations, noting that all prophecy requires careful contextualization before being applied to contemporary events. Our Persia & Israel special dedicates a full section to this prophetic analysis, with the historical context needed to engage it responsibly.
But the Bible also shows that peace before that final fulfillment is not impossible. In Genesis 25:9, after Abraham's death, Ishmael and Isaac appear together burying their father in peace. In Genesis 33:4, Jacob and Esau, historic enemies, are reconciled with an embrace full of tears. And the Ishmaelites Ishmael's own descendants were the ones who saved Joseph from the hands of the brothers who wanted to kill him (Genesis 37:27–28).
God blessed both the descendants of Isaac and those of Ishmael. The wealth of the Persian Gulf countries with oil reserves that sustain some of the world's largest economies can be read, within a biblical worldview, as fulfillment of the promise God made to Hagar: "I will make him into a great nation" (Genesis 21:18). The promise was fulfilled in both branches.
Conclusion: A Family Feud With Thousand-Year-Old Roots
The Middle East conflict is not merely geopolitical. It is not merely religious. It is not merely ethnic. It is all of these at once, rooted in a past of at least four thousand years that begins with the decisions of a single man Abraham and branches into peoples, religions, and nations that still bear the marks of those ancient choices today.
Europe redrew the map of the region with a ruler and a pen after World War I, with no regard for the ethnic, religious, and tribal complexities that existed there. Islam was born with a deep tension built into its relationship with Judaism a tension that began as alliance, became demand, and ended in violence. The creation of the modern State of Israel in 1948 reopened wounds that had never fully healed.
But the Bible which predicted with remarkable precision the dispersion, persecution, and return of the Jewish people to their land also foresees a day when Egypt will call God "my Lord," when ancient Assyria will worship alongside Israel, and when swords will become farming tools. Until then, the instruction is clear: pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
And anyone who recognizes Jesus as Messiah whether Japanese, Brazilian, Nigerian, or Argentinian is, according to the apostle Paul (Galatians 3:29), a spiritual descendant of Abraham and an heir of the promises God made to the patriarch. The blessing that began with one man in Ur of the Chaldeans was promised to all the families of the earth.
Notes and References
- The Cyrus Cylinder, discovered in Babylon in 1879 and preserved in the British Museum, is considered one of the most important historical documents of antiquity. It confirms Cyrus II's policy of freeing captive peoples and allowing them to return to their lands — directly corroborating the account in Ezra 1:1–4.
- Operation Ajax (CIA) and Operation Boot (MI6), which overthrew elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in August 1953, were officially acknowledged by the CIA only in 2013. The event is widely considered the catalyst for Iranian resentment toward the West that culminated in the 1979 Revolution.
- The Kurkh Monolith (also known as the Stele of Shalmaneser III) dates to the 9th century BC and is housed in the British Museum. The inscription mentions both the kingdom of Israel and Arab warriors at the Battle of Karkar (853 BC) — the oldest extrabibilical reference to the Arab people.
- The traditional date of the Hijra — Muhammad's migration from Mecca to Medina — is 622 AD, and it serves as the starting point of the Islamic calendar.
- Muhammad's battles against the Jewish clans of the Arabian Peninsula are described in the Sirah (prophetic biography), particularly in Ibn Hisham and Ibn Sa'd. The Battle of Khaybar (628 AD) is particularly well documented.
- The Camp David Accords (1978) and the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty (1979) were mediated by President Jimmy Carter. The Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty was signed at Wadi Araba in 1994.
- The Abraham Accords, signed in September 2020 under U.S. mediation, normalized diplomatic relations between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, with Sudan and Morocco joining subsequently.
- The interpretation of Galatians 3:29 — which includes Gentiles as heirs of the Abrahamic promise — is the consensus among Reformed and evangelical theologians, and is developed by Paul also in Romans 4 and 9–11.
- The prophecy of Isaiah 19:23–25 is considered one of the most striking in the Old Testament for explicitly naming Egypt and Assyria as "God's people" and "the work of his hands" alongside Israel.
Perguntas Frequentes
Continue studying Current Events
Discover the Secrets of the Bible
