Semach & Hezbollah rockets over the Galilee
On 25 September 1918 the Australian Light Horse captured the Sea of Galilee following a victory at the Turkish railway station at Semach on the southern shore. An anniversary event was scheduled for 25 September 2024 organised by the Kinneret College and Australian Embassy, but due to Hezbollah rocket attacks, the official ceremony was cancelled. Undeterred Ziv Ophir of the Kinneret College, and local guide Joe Sofer, decided to proceed with an unofficial event – if I was still willing to come up from Jerusalem and give an historical presentation.
My family agreed to continue with our plans to go to the service and also to visit Israeli friends from Kibbutz Mayan Baruch who had been evacuated to a hotel on the Sea of Galilee. Leaving Jerusalem early in the morning daughter Abigail suddenly witnessed four rockets in the sky above us. Daughter Orit stopped the car and we got out to observe the missiles being taken out by Israel’s Iron Dome. This was a Hezbollah welcome to the Galilee!
Several hours later we sat together with about ten other stalwarts in front of the statue of the Aboriginal Light Horseman and together remembered the brief but intense battle in September 1918 – in which Aboriginal horsemen participated.
I first took my wife Lexie, daughters Orit, Nirel and Talia and other Light Horse enthusiasts to this site in the 1990s when it was a dilapidated site and used for dumping rubbish by the local municipality. Interest in the location grew when I took a group there led by Barry Rodgers from the Emu Gully Adventure Education camp in 2005. When we put the programme together for the 2007 Light Horse re-enactment tour, Semach was firmly on the schedule.
Just after completing my historical presentation during that 2007 tour a dump truck backed in right in front of us and dumped its load of rubbish. The group, composed of some seventy Light Horse enthusiasts, was abhorred – how could this happen at a site where nineteen Australian soldiers had been killed in battle! Barry then declared that we were going to do something tangible here.
In 2008 I arranged a meeting between some Australian Light Horse Association (ALHA) directors who were in Israel, with members of the local Municipality of Semach and a local historian. The ALHA directors agreed to pursue the vision of a Museum, which was then taken up by the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) College, the ALHA and other entities.
Then in 2010 Barry and I met with Ken Wyatt MP in Parliament House in Canberra. Ken and I had connections to Corrigin in Western Australia and by marriage through my Aboriginal heritage. We proposed that a statue of an Aboriginal Light Horseman be based at Semach, to which Ken readily gave his support. The vision was then pursued.
In 2013 I met up with an Aboriginal man named Raymond Finn, a former member of the Light Horse Association and asked if he could locate at least six young Aboriginal horsemen to ride in the 2017 100th Beersheba re-enactment event. Raymond took up the challenge and located some young riders at Hermansburg mission near Alice Springs. Thereafter Barry took on the task of instructing these young men in the various protocols connected to being a Light Horse rider.
In October 2017 there were a number of Aboriginal riders at Beersheba, and some also rode in a guard of honour at Semach – at the opening of the Museum in the former Turkish railway station. The following year the statue of the Aboriginal Light Horseman was officially unveiled. So being able to attend and speak at the 2024 anniversary event, despite Hezbollah rocket attacks, also had some personal significance.
Iranian missiles over Jerusalem
A week later while based at Christ Church Ministry Centre inside the Old City of Jerusalem my phone suddenly gave out a warning signal. Thus alerted we went out onto our balcony and noticed dozens of lights moving over us from the east. These were missiles from Iran, courtesy of the Shi’ite Muslim regime, which has a stated goal of liquidating Israel. Then the official air raid siren sounded – but by this time the Israeli defence system had begun knocking out these missiles. We lingered to observe the spectacle – until ordered by our daughter Abigail, who had some authority at Christ Church, to get to the bomb shelter.
This episode reminded us a little of the 1991 Gulf War when Iraq sent missiles, but on that occasion we sheltered in our sealed rooms.
Christ Church, incidentally, was the first Anglican-Protestant-‘Messianic’ entity to be established in the land of Israel, by a British-based society named CMJ, which had a vision for the complete restoration of Israel. It stands immediately opposite the entrance to David’s Citadel, part of which was left standing by the Romans in 70 AD to reveal Roman might – and Jewish defeat and exile. Then on 11 December 1917 General Allenby stood on the steps of the Citadel for the ceremony ending Ottoman Turkish control over Jerusalem. On that occasion some 65 New Zealand and Australian soldiers were in the guard of honour – and they brushed up against the buildings of Christ Church Ministry Centre.
Hamas atrocities where ANZACs had fought and died
A week later, on 7 October, my wife Lexie and I went down to visit Pastor Howard Bass in Beersheba. Howard then invited us to join him on a visit to the Nova Festival massacre site. This we had not planned to do. A few hours later we joined hundreds of Israelis at the site of this Hamas atrocity. It was a very solemn occasion, punctuated by the cries of anguish by a young Israeli lady and the visit of the Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.
Then an unexpected opportunity arose for me to speak to the Defence Minister, and the words: “Minister go to the woman who is crying” just came forth. These words had not been fore planned, and unfortunately Minister Gallant did not go to the woman who was in anguish of heart – as is much of the country.
This area was very familiar. From 1988 onwards I had led dozens of ‘In the Steps of Allenby and the Anzacs’ tours to this area – tours which began in Jerusalem and ended in Beersheba. This was the very region where Australian and New Zealand horsemen had fought in 1917, and is also the site of the Anzac Memorial at Kibbutz Beeri.
The battles fought here in 1917 revolved around Gaza. But British and ANZAC troops also headed out from this region towards Beersheba in October 1917, resulting in Beersheba’s capture on 31 October. This was also the very day that the British War Committee in London passed a resolution promising the establishment of a Jewish National Home in the land of Israel (then Turkish-occupied Palestine).
Conflict in 1917-18 and conflict in 2024 – is there a connection?
The common denominator between the 1917-18 and 2023-24 conflicts is the land of Israel. This land of covenant promise was redeemed from Islamic (Ottoman Turkish) control in 1917-18, while in 2023-24 Islamic forces are endeavouring to restore this land back to Islamic control.
According to Genesis 15: 7-8 Almighty God ‘cut’ the covenant with Abraham to confirm the promise of the land. Although there were other promises bestowed to Abraham in Genesis 12: 1-3, such as that all the families of the earth would be blessed through him, yet the reason why the covenant was ‘cut’ and sealed with an oath was because Abraham wanted confirmation of the promise of the land.
This Covenant and promise of the land was part of Almighty God’s great plan of worldwide redemption, of restoring or bringing humankind back into personal relationship with Himself. Such a restoration was necessary due to the disobedience of Adam and Hava (Eve) in the Garden of Eden, which resulted in separation and the penalty of death.
Jesus came to the land of Israel to restore this relationship by taking the penalty of death upon Himself and to die as a substitute for humankind. But most of His own people according to the flesh, the Jewish people, did not receive Jesus as their Messiah and redeemer.
Following His death and resurrection Jesus ascended from the Mount of Olives, but He instructed His followers to take this message of restoration, reconciliation and redemption out to the ends of the earth. Then as He ascended angels reminded Jesus’ followers that He would return in like manner – meaning in the clouds and to the Mount of Olives to the east of Jerusalem.
Scripture indicates that somehow connected to Jesus’ return all Israel would be saved; that all the people of Israel would ‘know’ God through the new covenant; that the people of Jerusalem would cry out to Jesus ‘Blessed be He who comes in the name of the Lord’; and that Jesus would be the glory of God’s people Israel.
It is clear, therefore, that the Jewish people would need to be dwelling in Jerusalem and the land of Israel. But in 1917-18 the majority were dispersed all over the earth, while a usurping worldview, Islam, claimed hegemony over the land of covenant promise. The role that the ANZACs played, as part of the British-led Egyptian Expeditionary Force, at Beersheba, Jerusalem and Semach, was vital in redeeming the land of Israel from Islamic control, thereby permitting Israel’s establishment.
But the enemy of Almighty God always endeavours to thwart the completion of God’s redemptive plans, especially through Nazi Germany. The Allied victory at El Alamein, in which ANZACs played a pivotal role, halted the Nazi plans to destroy the Jewish people in the Middle East. Today this opposition is mostly associated with Islam, led at this point by Iran and its proxies Hamas and Hezbollah. But there are other forces dedicated to the destruction and discrediting of Israel, including cultural Marxism and secular humanism.
This present conflict is not merely one of flesh and blood, but it is a spiritual conflict at the highest level. It revolves around the integrity and character of Almighty God to keep His covenant promises, and is being undergirded by ideologies and worldviews dedicated to hindering the return of Jesus to Jerusalem.
So what is our role as Australians and New Zealanders today? Our main task in these days of turmoil is to continue bringing the message entrusted by Jesus to His Jewish followers prior to His ascension, a message about true and enduring peace. This message is for all peoples, to the Jew first and also to the non-Jew.
References:
i For further information concerning this Anzac related Museum, contact Ziv Ophir at Kinneret College: ziv@kinneret.ac.il
ii See Romans 11, esp verses 11-16 & 26; Jeremiah 31: 31-37; Matthew 23:37-39; Luke 2: 29-32.
Iii There are a number of publications by the author on these subject matters.
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