An Englishman’s affinity with Israel and Russia

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For over five hundred years my mother’s family has lived in the same middle England village. The house I live in today stands on the ground where my great-great-grandfather once ran his smithy, and the churchyard holds the graves of the generations who came before. A stone bridge spans the village brook where my grandfather as a child inscribed his initials. At the same time his older brothers were shipped to all corners of the globe to fight the Japanese and the Germans. My love for my homeland runs deep, and yet I can only imagine the bond felt by those whose ancestors have inhabited the same piece of land for thousands of years, and then been displaced, only to recently return.

My love for Israel and the Jewish people is rooted in my love for God and my reverence for the covenant He made with the Jews as His chosen people. This sacred bond, established in Scripture, transcends all earthly claims and human disputes. It is a divine promise, one that supersedes political or territorial arguments about the land. When I walk through my village, feeling the weight of the sum of my ancestors, I am reminded of the Jewish people’s unbroken connection to the promised land. Their yearning to return is a yearning for the fulfilment of God’s eternal covenant.

This same faith has engendered in me a deep love for Russia. As I wrote previously, Russia’s actions on the global stage reflect a commitment to preserving the Christian heritage that has birthed Western civilization. While the West departs from its spiritual foundations, Russia has held the mantle of defending these values. Beyond endorsing every action of any nation, my bond with Russia is about recognizing the overarching spiritual struggle at play. Just as I stand with Israel because of God’s covenant with the Jewish people, I respect Russia’s role in safeguarding Christian values against the tide of secularism and materialism. Both Israel and Russia, in their own ways, serve as signs of contradiction to a perishing Europe.