One of the great paradoxes of Zionism is that a movement for Jewish national self-determination has found itself so often at the mercy of Gentiles.
Precedent for this goes all the way back at least to Cyrus the Great, the Persian king who roughly 2,600 years ago allowed the Jews to return to the promised land and rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.
"But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons."
And so wrote St Paul to the Galatians, setting forth his argument that the Old Testament prophecies had been fulfilled with the coming of Christ, and that the faithful no longer needed to wait for God because God had entered existence in the flesh. For Christians, the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, and His birth at Bethlehem, signaled the dawn of a new era: God became man, and eternity entered time. It was the decisive moment in the history of the world — the moment when history gained direction and purpose. It was the moment when time itself began to matter.
