Throughout time the Jews have faced the possibility of extermination. Think about the times past where Israel was assaulted:

In 1458b.c. Amenhotep I, as the new pharaoh of Egypt attempted history’s first effort to exterminate the Jews when he ordered all newborn Hebrew males be tossed into the Nile.

In 72b.c. the Assyrians culminated a three-year siege on the northern tribes of Israel. They sacked Samaria, depopulated the country and marched their Hebrew captives into exile and oblivion.

In 701b.c. the Assyrian monarch Sennacherib turned his attention on the Jews and uprooted them.

In 586b.c Nebuchadnezzar demolished Jerusalem, burned the temple, slaughtered Jews wholesale, and deported the remainder to Babylon.

In 473B.C Haman persuaded Xerxes of Persia that it would be to his benefit to rid the world of Jews.

In 169b.c Antiochus Epiphanes captured Jerusalem and put the Jews to the sword. He defiled their temple, issued idolatrous laws and did his best to replace Jewish culture and religion with Hellenism.

In A.D.70 Jerusalem fell to Rome. During that war, over a million Jews perished by the sword, starvation, crucifixion, internal strife, and disease. The Romans glutted the slave markets and arenas of the world with captured Jews.

In 135 the Roman, Hadrian made it a capital offense for anyone to practice Judaism.

In 339 Constantius II made it illegal for Jews to intermarry with Christians.

In 438 Emperor Theodosius II banned Jews for all high office in the Roman world.

In 531 Justinian resurrected and enforced the prohibitions and made it illegal for Jews to appear as witnesses against Christians in court.

In 630 the Byzantine emperor Heraclius connived at the massacre of Jews who had re-infiltrated Palestine.
In 722 Emperor Leo III ordered all Jews to become Christians.

In 1066 the Muslim rulers of Granada in Spain massacred four thousand Jews in a single day.

In 1149 the Berbers, who controlled the greater part of Spain, gave Spanish Jews the usual choice: convert to Islam or get out.

In 1215 the fourth Lateran council of the Roman Catholic Church ordered all Jews to wear a badge to distinguish them from other people.

In 1371 Jews were massacred in Castile under the rule of Henry II.

In 1391 they were massacred in Seville.

In 1479 Ferdinand and Isabella united Spain and cleared the country of Moors. The Catholic Church introduced the Inquisition to root out heretics, especially Jews.

In 1492, by Edict or Expulsion, 300,000 Jews were tossed out of Spain to set out on a dreadful journey to nowhere.

In 1506 many Spanish Jews, who had sought refuge in Portugal, were mobbed and massacred.

In 1531 the Inquisition was imported into Portugal and she became another Spain.

In 1648 hundreds of thousands of Jews in Poland were massacred by the Cossacks.

In 1660 the Jews of Europe were accused of spreading the Black Death and were therefore slaughtered in country after country by the panic stricken populace.

And so it went. Ever since the Jewish people in Pilate’s judgment hall pulled down on their heads the dreadful curse “His blood be on us and on our children,” they have wandered from land to land, from one graveyard to the next.

And so you see, there has always been a hated for Israel. Time and time again (and the above list is certainly in no way complete) there has been an effort to rid the world of the Jewish people.

There can be but one rational reason for the hatred of the Jews. It is crystal clear in scripture that God has always had one specific plan for the world and that plan is Jesus Christ the savior of the World! The plan is first mentioned to us in Genesis 3:15 when God said to the fallen Adam in Eden

And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."

This is the promise of Jesus, God’s only son, sent into the world as the payment for and victory over Satan and our sin. The plan became even more specific when God said to Abraham, in Genesis 12: 1-3

The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."

The plan of God, revealed in the Garden, now becomes even clearer as we understand that the Promised One would come into this world through a particular people – the seed of Abram (later his name was changed to Abraham

And even though Israel, as a people, rejected Jesus as the Son of God, He is the redeemer of the World, as promised by God.

The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God- children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. -- John 1:9-14

Scripture teaches us that Satan’s plan has always been to offer a “solution” which is contrary to the plan of God. At every turn Satan has been, and will be defeated because Jesus defeated him on the cross. In today’s world we are seeing a last ditch effort of the old serpent to destroy and discredit the nation of Israel, through whom the Messiah came, even through rejected by the Jews. We are closing in on the closing days of human history. Think of this:

The Jews have defied thousands of years of persecution, endemic and epidemic anti-Semitism, bloodbaths, and holocausts. They have defied, too, the trend toward assimilation and absorption into other nations. They have retained their racial purity, outlived the nations that persecuted them, and returned in our times to the land of their fathers.

Two kinds of Jews have been repatriated by the newborn state of Israel. From the lands of the West have come the enlightened, educated, sophisticated Jews – the lawyers, the doctors, the professors, in industrialists. From the lands of the East have come deeply religious, orthodox Jews, passionately devoted to building Zion into an exclusive religious state. Both kinds will see a promised messiah in the antichrist. Secular Jews will hail him because he will offer them a peace treaty that will guarantee their frontiers against attack. Religious Jews will embrace him because he will permit them to rebuild their temple under his protection … The fact that Israel is back in the land adds a new urgency to our conviction; end-time events can now take their ultimate shape.