Christians for Israel Australia

Beersheba

100th Anniversary of the Australian Light Horse – Coming October 2017

100th Anniversary of the Australian Light Horse – Coming October 2017

Aug 12, 2016

In 2007 the Australian Light Horse Assn (ALHA) conducted the highly successful and much publicised “In the steps of the Light Horse” re-enactment tour for the 90th anniversary of the charge of Beersheba. This tour brought to public attention the significance of the Middle Eastern Campaign in WW1, an often forgotten campaign that has been overshadowed by Gallipoli and the Western Front. During this tour we visited the old battle scarred railway station at Semakh. In WW1 Semakh was a quaint little fishing village located on the shores of the picturesque Sea of Galilee. Our guide, the well known Australian author and historian, Kelvin Crombie, pointed out the historical significance of the battle that took place here at this vital railway junction on the 25th of September 1918. The following brief account of the vital nature of this battle and its significance in hastening the end of WW1 is outlined by a Kinneret College historian; “In the autumn of 1918 the British forces under General Allenby started their northern offensive against the Turkish forces under Liman Von Sanders. The Semakh station was an important gateway on the way to the whole of the Galilee and the road to Damascus. Australian […]

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Israel needs the ‘spiritual ANZACs’ to also be “earthed”

Israel needs the ‘spiritual ANZACs’ to also be “earthed”

Jun 7, 2016

Purpose of this article: To communicate to Aussie and Kiwi Christians who wish to stand with God’s purposes for Israel the importance of being ‘spiritual anzacs’—plugged into the battle for the Land – and pointing to the tie-in with the upcoming elections in Australia. The four years encompassing the 100th anniversarof the Great War (2014 to 2018) have seen a marked growth of pride in the legacy of the ANZACs among young and old Australians and New Zealanders alike. Widely held is the perception that these countries were forged into nations in the terrible furnace of World War 1. By many accounts, ANZAC Day has become a more patriotic event than Australia Day and Waitangi Day respectively. Christians have hardly been immune, and a growing number also hold a Biblical perspective on the subject. Quoting Genesis 12:3—the foundational principle pertinent to those who bless the seed of Abraham—they ascribe the prosperity and peace experienced by their nations since the 1920s to the heroic fighting and sacrifices of the men of the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps; specifically to the fact that their diggers formed the point of the British Empire spear that liberated Israel’s land from centuries of Islamic […]

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Anzacs, Israel & Australia’s destiny – a need for balance

Anzacs, Israel & Australia’s destiny – a need for balance

Apr 1, 2016

Photo of Anzacs from AWM: “Australian light horsemen riding waler horses. The soldiers are of the original contingent of the Australian Imperial Force and the photo was taken prior to their departure from Australia in November 1914. The soldier on the right is Trooper William Harry Rankin Woods, 1st Light Horse Regiment, who died of wounds on 15 May 1915, one of the first light horsemen to die during the Battle of Gallipoli.” I recently re-read an article I wrote in 1992 entitled ‘The Anzacs and Israel’ which had been published in several Christian magazines and circulated around Australia and New Zealand. It portrayed a somewhat patriotic ANZAC perspective – which I now realise was not entirely balanced. At that time I was working as a local guide at Christ Church in the Old City of Jerusalem specialising in British, European and Protestant involvement in the Eastern Mediterranean 1798-1948. This article reflected my attempt to present the significant contribution which ANZAC soldiers had played in helping to lay the foundations for the establishment of Israel – as part of the bigger geo-political picture. This perspective was aided through also conducting In Step with Allenby and the Light Horse tours from Jerusalem, down […]

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Salting Australia for 2017

Salting Australia for 2017

Feb 10, 2016

Dear Aussie brothers and sisters in Messiah. Prayerful (gentile) New Year’s greetings from a wintery Land of Israel. 2017 will be on us before we know it, with a remarkable confluence of events set for that year that could powerfully impact Australia’s future before God: the 100th anniversary of the Beersheba battle that freed up Israel’s land for Jewish settlement the 50th anniversary—Golden Jubilee—of the Six Day War that restored the heart of that land to Jewish control an International Sovereignty Congress planned in the Hague in support of Israel’s legitimate claim to all this land as the Israeli sovereignty campaign gathers momentum the intensifying UN push to pull off the Two State Solution, which seeks to rob Israel of this very same heartland – the cradle of Jewish nationhood. As strongly as I sensed that Australia’s membership on the UN Security Council in 2014 was significant then in regard to the escalating battle over this land, I sense preparations to mark Beersheba in 2017 are also key. It’s a once in a century opportunity to honour that decisive victory with another. And what real value can there be in celebrating the liberation of the land without using the occasion to […]

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