Let me say from the beginning that I don’t hate anyone as a general rule. I look for and desire to see the good in every human being as I believe everyone else should do as well. If someone has been influenced by an evil mindset in ideology, then my first reaction is not to commence hating that person but rather to make an attempt to shake that person out of that destructive mindset by using logic and reason, along with a persuasive passion for what is spiritually right and true.However, because this is not always possible regardless of the amount of truth that is placed before certain individuals, and because there are those who will always love the evil inwardly more than righteousness, I believe that there can is righteous-based hatred regarding some humans. I don’t believe in living a life for the sole purpose of hating for any cause as do certain political, religious, and non-religious hate groups. But there are things in this life (including evil devoted people) of whom it's righteous to hate.
God judges hatred along with all motivations of the human heart by His law and not by man’s westernized liberal conceptions. There is a big difference between hating your personal enemy on a personal level for personal reasons, and hating an enemy of God on a spiritual level for spiritual reasons. Examine what the scripture states:
"Do not I hate them, O YHVH, that hate thee? And am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred: They are become mine enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart: Try me, and know my thoughts; And see if there be any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting." - Psalms 139:21-24. (also see II Chronicles 19:2)
In this segment from the book of Psalms, the psalmist was searching his heart before God in which he was making sure that his godly resistance towards his enemies - in the form of righteous hatred - was in check. In this passage Israel’s enemies are the ones who hates God. For the psalmist, his thought was that if he did not have a "perfect" hatred towards God’s enemies, then his thoughts of not hating God's enemy would be of a wicked way within his heart. From my point of view, the politically-correct secular world could learn volumes from the simple declaration that this psalmist proclaimed and of which the first and second Jewish Temple singers sang the psalm:1
“Do not I hate them, O YHVH that hate thee?” and "I hate them (God's enemies) with a perfect hatred"
.
I have heard people say that they may hate the things evil people do but not the person themselves. I agree with that concept in general but not as an overall concept. An individual can sink so much into evil that they become “as one” with their wickedness. There is a place in the realms of evil where a person has sold out "soul" lock, stock and barrel in effect crossing the point of no return where their whole lives can only be devoted as an enemy against God. Such was the case with Pharaoh during the time of the Exodus whose heart become more hardened after each manifestation of the ten plagues of Egypt.
To bring this reality into modern times, I do not and cannot love any part of Adolph Hitler including his very soul. I not only hate the things that he did on earth but I also hate him spiritually as God's enemy as well. How about you? Are you a hater of Hitler's very soul?
Fact: There is no separation between Hitler's soul and his Holocaust deeds that he did on earth both now and forever.
Hitler made a choice to become the image of evil rather than expressing the image of God he was made in. I don’t believe God loves him but rather hates him insomuch that Hitler’s soul (and not just the things he did) is in a place of the eternally damned where he will be forever separated from the God of mercy, justice, and righteousness. So in trying to be like minded with God’s thinking towards Hitler, I hate the expressed devil that Hitler was and forever shall be known. I not only believe that it's a righteous act to hate Hitler, but in fact it would be evil of me or anyone else not to do so as the above Psalm of David plainly points out. Furthermore, the so-called do-gooders who actually love Hitler are the ones most likely to support him and his deeds.
.
Hitler is not the only ambassador of evil to walk around in human form. I feel the same way with the likes of other such devils as Yassier Arafat, Louis Farrakhan, David Duke, and now Jimmy Carter who has devoted the rest of his evil life to the cause of Israel's murderous enemy. These men are not simply misguided fools that are followers of evil (a place where true repentance and the turning away from evil are still available to such a person) but they are in fact actual leaders and forgoers of evil for the sole purpose of leading others in their evil!
Since false prophets don’t repent, (no false prophet in the Bible ever did) I have no desire to pray for these men and others like them for a change of their evil ways. Rather, I choose to pray according to God’s promise to them which is for their destruction as God sees fit according to their relentless evil and unrepentant deeds upon this earth.
"And He repays those who hate Him to their face, to destroy them. He will not be slow to repay him who hates Him. He will repay him to his face." - Deuteronomy 7:10 (See also Isaiah 59:18).
Therefore, my Bible-guided prayer is, "May YHVH according to His holy and righteous Torah promise, repay the Arab-Palestinians to their face, along with and all who support them in their terrorist-expressed hatred acts against YHVH's chosen people."
The Palestinians:
There isn't a greater enemy towards the nation of Israel in all the world today than the Palestinians! The Palestinians have taken the title from the German Nazis as "the greatest threat" to the Jewish nation. Mein Kamph gave way to Jihadi - both meaning "my struggles" in both German and Arabic. When Hitler's struggles expired the Islamic struggles picked up the banner. What now is at stake in the conflict between the Jews and the Palestinians that wasn't at stake during Hitler's Final Solution is the possibility of the most evil people in all the earth, worshiping the most evil god (their god Allah), in the most holiest place (Jerusalem and the Temple Mount) in all the world!
The rebirth of Israel as a nation has given rise to Allah (an Arabian deity) wanting to be worshiped by his subjects at the very place designed for the God of Israel to be worshiped (see Psalms 132:13,14). Just the possibility of this scenario alone should show the secularists that there is a God of Israel that holds an everlasting covenant with the Jewish people (see Psalms 105:8-10). For it is impossible to ask for better stage to be set from what we see in the Middle East today to begin an all out "end of the age" showdown between good and evil.
.
There has never been of people in modern times besides the Palestinians whose paradigm is terrorism and whose ultimate goal as a people in the world is towards the annihilation of another people based upon their religion and spirituality. What makes this fact all the more significant is that the Palestinians are given the world's support (7.4 billion dollars worth of support recently > http://www.jewishworldreview.com/1207/west.php3) in their terrorist endeavors and annihilation aspirations, and this was after the Palestinians as a people overwhelmingly voted in the party of Hamas to run their government in January 2006!
.
There has never been of people in modern times besides the Palestinians whose paradigm is terrorism and whose ultimate goal as a people in the world is towards the annihilation of another people based upon their religion and spirituality. What makes this fact all the more significant is that the Palestinians are given the world's support (7.4 billion dollars worth of support recently > http://www.jewishworldreview.com/1207/west.php3) in their terrorist endeavors and annihilation aspirations, and this was after the Palestinians as a people overwhelmingly voted in the party of Hamas to run their government in January 2006!
World actions of this nature adds a greater significance to the end-time war between good and evil (Ezekiel 38:16-23). Besides the 7.4 billion pledged the to Palestinians, billions of dollars more are added in the form of state of the art weaponry being sold to the enemies of Israel >http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/07/28/saudi.arms/.
Along with the billions of dollars that the UN is pledging to the Palestinians, the world's plan for tiny Israel becomes very clear! If the nations hadn't taken upon themselves to support Israel's greatest enemies there would not have been a need for Zechariah 12:9 to have been written: "And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem."
.
To try and understand the depth of the very evil that lies within the Palestinian society, one must look at what they as a society are capable of. The following is a very small and incomplete list as to the kind of things that comes forth from out of the Palestinian people. While viewing this list ask yourself, "Why are the world nations (especially the United States lead by a conservative president) are so desperately seeking to grant these Palestinians (of all people) any kind of a political state?"
Remember, O YHVH , the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof. O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.
The psalmist is not promoting that idea of killing innocent children for the sake of killing children. That would be what the enemies of the Bible and Israel would have you believe! This is the same mindset that the "Human Rights Watch" tried to sell the world (which the world willfully bought) when they accused Israel of killing 54 children in Qana, Lebanon during the 2006 Lebanon-Israeli War. Because of their spiritual state they didn't have the ability nor the will to considered the 4,000 rockets that was shot from civilian locations into Israel to start the war by which was indeed meant to kill as many Israeli citizens including children as possible!
When given over to dark forces the human mind can no longer judge between good and evil. This scripture in the book of Psalms is about God's judgment (of what He will allow to occur) in the form of reaping and sowing. Babylon had "dashed" Jewish babies against stones in their invasion against the Jewish people much like the Palestinians shoot rockets targeting Jewish school children. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6977346.stm The scripture of Psalms 137:7-9 is stating that what the Babylonians did against the Jews would divinely return back to them in the form of the coming Persian Empire. In fact, one could argue that Babylon is still reaping from their deeds of old in today's Iraq!
Likewise, the prophet Ezekiel has declared that Israel's enemies would reap what they have sown at the End of Days (Ezekiel. 35: 5-11). Keep in mind that Psalm 137 is one of the most Zionistic portions of scripture in the entire Bible. In it we find the great love for God's chosen people - the Jews, and for Zion - God's chosen place of worship. But also we find in it a bitter hatred for all those who hate and try to kill God's chosen and possess Zion for their own - kind of like what the Palestinians do.
So why do I hate the Palestinians? Simply put; because God does! Not that every single Palestinian is hated by God, for I know that God loves Palestinians such as Walid Shoebat - a Palestinian who has a deep devoted love for Israel and Israel's covenant with YHVH. But according to the Hebrew scriptures God hates all those who hate His covenant with Israel, which puts the Arab-Palestinians as a people first in line to be hated by God!
.
To try and understand the depth of the very evil that lies within the Palestinian society, one must look at what they as a society are capable of. The following is a very small and incomplete list as to the kind of things that comes forth from out of the Palestinian people. While viewing this list ask yourself, "Why are the world nations (especially the United States lead by a conservative president) are so desperately seeking to grant these Palestinians (of all people) any kind of a political state?"
- Among the two great political parties that rule the Palestinians (Al-Fatah in the West Bank, and Hamas in the Gaza Strip) both covenants from both parties call for for an arms struggle and the destruction of the Jewish State of Israel. http://www.iris.org.il/plochart.htm http://www.palestinecenter.org/cpap/documents/charter.html
- The greatest forms of child abuse in all the world occur among the Palestinians. Children who are barely old enough to speak are taught to Jew-hate with words they don't even understand. http://www.youtube.com/watchv=ZL0C2QvqIlo This gives heed to the saying, "they drink the hatred with their mother's milk"! Just the picture alone (at the top of the article) speaks volumes of the Palestinian society.
- Children TV shows are shown in the name of Shahid (martyrdom). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi-c6lbFGC4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4zgURMOZ6k
- Shahid (martyrdom) for children is glorified of official PA and Hamas television. http://www.pmw.org.il/ASK%20FOR%20DEATH.htm
- An exhibition of glorifying and celebrating suicide / mass murder is displayed with Palestinian gleeful acceptance at Al Najah University in the West Bank town of Nablus in September, 2001. http://www.gamla.org.il/english/feature/sbarro.htm This exhibition included many displays of body parts one of which was a bloody set of blue-jean wearing legs with no torso connected, still sitting on a chair. The bombing of Sbarro pizza restaurant in Jerusalem in which the exhibition re-enacts hits a little close to home. My wife and I personally eat there three years before this massacre occurred.
- School text books promote anti-Israel and pro shahid-martyrdom. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/patext1.html http://www.edume.org/research/testimonies/2007-05-15.html http://www.pmw.org.il/getresults/political/index.html#i214759
- Women who sends their sons to Jew-murder are given high status in Palestinian society, even to run for a government office. http://www.amitiesquebec-israel.org/texts/mother.htm
- Suicide murderers are glorified all through Palestinian controlled areas, in the form of billboards, street names, names of soccer fields, trading cards, names of hospitals, new babies named after suicide bombers, and children's events, songs, chants, and poems during parades, ect. http://programs.ssrc.org/gsc/gsc_quarterly/newsletter5/content/allen/ http://www.zoa.org/2003/07/palestinian_aut_13.htm Even "Saddam Hussein" whose Scud missiles hitting Tel-Aviv civilian areas brought Palestinian cheers, is honored in the Palestinian city of Jenin> http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53882
- Suicide for the murder of Jews is an accepted norm and is a high form of religious devotion. Outside of martyrdom, there is no guarantee of reaching paradise for oneself and family members. This is one of the reasons candy is passed out in celebration at suicide / murderer's funeral. http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/013234.php
- One Hundred Thousand citizens of the would-be future State of Palestine attended the funeral of Yahya Ayyash (a.k.a. "the Engineer") not to mention the many funerals of other Palestinian terrorist and terrorist spiritual teachers like Sheikh Ahmed Yassin! I wonder how many of these one hundred thousand funeral attendees of Yahya Ayyash would consider themselves Palestinian moderates? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahya_Ayyash Moreover, this Palestinian hero has traffic squares named after him in both Jenin and Jericho with no Palestinian complaints. Imagine that! This issue of glorifying and mass murderer among the Palestinians even became part of "peace" negotiation with such a people. See "article 6" section "h" > http://www.israelmfa.gov.il/MFA/Peace+Process/Guide+to+the+Peace+Process/Israeli+View+on+Palestinian+Security+Commitments.htm?DisplayMode=print
- Palestinians seek to destroy the God of Israel through a revised history of Holocaust and Temple denial, and stand as a barricade between God and His fulfillment of the covenant He has with His chosen people, the Jews. http://www.spme.net/cgi-bin/facultyforum.cgi?ID=1735
Muslim religious fervor has many different facets of Jew-murdering expressions that are fully exposed in the Palestinian society. From passing out candy at shahid funerals to eating flesh and drinking blood of Jewish victims as they did on October 12, 2000 in Ramallah> http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/014886.php Yet, the Muslim world has the audacity to vilify Israel as the blood-libel people and state. It is these Palestinians who are on the front lines (even occupying a huge portion of the ancient land of Israel) in the Islamic war against the God of Israel!
The 64,000 dollar question: Does the God of Israel "hate" the Palestinians?
The politically-correct answer would be, "God loves everybody". However, the Bible is never politically correct. The Bible states very clearly that God hated Esau, who like the Palestinians wished to destroy Jacob / Israel.
"I have loved you, saith YHVH. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith YHVH: yet I loved Jacob, And I hated (Hebrew: sanay-ti) Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness. Malachi 1:2,3
The New Testament correctly applies this scripture of God's hatred of an individual as also to the nation that proceeded from that individual (see Romans 9:12,13). The land that should be considered for a Palestinian state is all contained in the ancient writings of which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is all about -the Bible. Aside from Mecca, the Palestinian spiritual base is that of Esau's - Mt. Seir in Jordan, which is why the prophecies of Ezekiel against Israel's most vicious enemy is not against the West Bank, for that is Israel's land and not the Palestinians! http://www.danielpipes.org/article/298
Take another look at the list above as to what the Palestinians are capable of and then see if you notice any similarities in the following scripture: "Because thou hast had a perpetual hatred, and hast shed the blood of the children of Israel by the force of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time that their iniquity had an end...Because thou hast said, These two nations and these two countries shall be mine, and we will possess it; [sound familiar? > http://inbrief.threatswatch.org/2006/02/palestine-from-the-river-to-th/ ] whereas YHVH was there: Therefore, as I live saith YHVH God, I will even do according to thine anger, and according to thine envy which thou hast used out of thy hatred against them; and I will make Myself known among them, when I have judged thee. - Ezekiel 35:5, 10-111
One of the hardest scriptures for most people to understand and one that I personally had an atheist use in trying to discredit the Bible, is Psalms 137:7-9 which reads:Remember, O YHVH , the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof. O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.
The psalmist is not promoting that idea of killing innocent children for the sake of killing children. That would be what the enemies of the Bible and Israel would have you believe! This is the same mindset that the "Human Rights Watch" tried to sell the world (which the world willfully bought) when they accused Israel of killing 54 children in Qana, Lebanon during the 2006 Lebanon-Israeli War. Because of their spiritual state they didn't have the ability nor the will to considered the 4,000 rockets that was shot from civilian locations into Israel to start the war by which was indeed meant to kill as many Israeli citizens including children as possible!
When given over to dark forces the human mind can no longer judge between good and evil. This scripture in the book of Psalms is about God's judgment (of what He will allow to occur) in the form of reaping and sowing. Babylon had "dashed" Jewish babies against stones in their invasion against the Jewish people much like the Palestinians shoot rockets targeting Jewish school children. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6977346.stm The scripture of Psalms 137:7-9 is stating that what the Babylonians did against the Jews would divinely return back to them in the form of the coming Persian Empire. In fact, one could argue that Babylon is still reaping from their deeds of old in today's Iraq!
Likewise, the prophet Ezekiel has declared that Israel's enemies would reap what they have sown at the End of Days (Ezekiel. 35: 5-11). Keep in mind that Psalm 137 is one of the most Zionistic portions of scripture in the entire Bible. In it we find the great love for God's chosen people - the Jews, and for Zion - God's chosen place of worship. But also we find in it a bitter hatred for all those who hate and try to kill God's chosen and possess Zion for their own - kind of like what the Palestinians do.
So why do I hate the Palestinians? Simply put; because God does! Not that every single Palestinian is hated by God, for I know that God loves Palestinians such as Walid Shoebat - a Palestinian who has a deep devoted love for Israel and Israel's covenant with YHVH. But according to the Hebrew scriptures God hates all those who hate His covenant with Israel, which puts the Arab-Palestinians as a people first in line to be hated by God!
As God commanded Israel to hate Amalek that his name be blotted out from under heaven for his deeds in using cowardly acts against Israel in possessing her land of inheritance (Deuteronomy 25:17-19) the modern Amaleks of today should be hated for their cowardly terrorist attacks on Jewish civilians who claim their land of inheritance as well. May Arafat's name and the names of those who support his goal be blotted out from under heaven! Amen? Amen!
"The boastful shall not stand in Your sight; You hate all workers of iniquity." - Psalms 5:5
"YHVH tests the righteous, But the wicked and the one who loves violence [terrorist Palestinians] His soul hates." - Pslams 11:5
Do not I hate them, O YHVH, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. - Psalms 139: 21-24
.
Notes:
1. Psalms chapters 107-150 (the fifth section of the Pslams in the Hebrew Bible) are mostly liturgical psalms for pilgrimages to the temple and festivals.
"The boastful shall not stand in Your sight; You hate all workers of iniquity." - Psalms 5:5
"YHVH tests the righteous, But the wicked and the one who loves violence [terrorist Palestinians] His soul hates." - Pslams 11:5
Do not I hate them, O YHVH, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. - Psalms 139: 21-24
.
Notes:
1. Psalms chapters 107-150 (the fifth section of the Pslams in the Hebrew Bible) are mostly liturgical psalms for pilgrimages to the temple and festivals.
3,878 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 3801 – 3878 of 3878& Continues
"COGAT also opposes plans to widen the road near the Adam Junction because it infringes on “private Palestinian land.” Asked for details about who owns the land in question, COGAT has refused – and COGAT is “the law.”
Who decided that the sewage plant was built on “private Palestinian land”? COGAT. Who decided that a road could not be widened because it would infringe on “private Palestinian land”? COGAT. Who decided that Jews should be barred from access to land registries, without which they cannot possibly prove their claim that land was not “private Palestinian land,” but “state and waste land” that the Jordanian government had illegally distributed for free to local Arabs? COGAT. This has created a situation where all Arab claims to land are accepted, and their all attempts by Jews to prove their invalidity are made virtually impossible by COGAT, which will not allow them to see the land registries.
…The High Court could also require that disputes over land ownership be heard first by District Courts before any appeals, as is commonly practiced in all democratic countries. The High Court’s recent decision striking down the Regulation Law ignores this important first step in judicial procedures and norms. Therefore, the fundamental questions remain: To whom does disputed land belong? Is the Regulation Law legal, fair and just? This is one of the reasons why plans to extend Israeli law and sovereignty to Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria is so important.
According to the Mandate for Palestine, all “state and waste lands” were to be made available for “close settlement by Jews on the land.” But during the period 1949-1967, when Jordan held the West Bank not as by right, but only as the “military occupier,” the Jordanian Government simply gave away many of those “state and waste lands” to Arabs. As Jordan had no valid claim to those lands in the first place, those who took such lands from the government had only as good a claim to them as the donor – which was no claim at all."
& lastly says: "When Israel won the West Bank in the Six-Day War, instead of simply declaring all claims by the Palestinians to what had been identified as “state and waste lands” invalid, the Israeli government decided not to contest the validity of Arab claims to land ownership on those former “state and waste lands.” Worse still, COGAT made it impossible for Jews to consult the land registries in contesting Arab ownership; these were made accessible only to Arabs. No satisfactory explanation for this policy exists, though it has been suggested that for the Israeli government, it was simply less hassle, and less expensive, not to contest Arab claims to those lands handed out by the Jordanian government. And as the Jewish state was starting up its settlement-building in the West Bank, it didn’t want to cause more friction with the local Arabs by reappropriating “state and waste lands” (as it had every right to do), but instead treated such lands, where they had been given by the Jordanian government to Palestinians, as having been validly transferred from a legitimate owner. Thus were Arab claims to what had during the Mandate period been “state and waste lands” honored by the Israeli government. And Israel is now living with the consequences of COGAT preventing Jews from adequately contesting Arab claims to be the “owners of private land” which only the sovereign, that is the government of Israel as the successor to the Jewish National Home, and not the “military occupier” Jordan, has a right to transfer as it sees fit."
COMMENTS people typed in reply to this article,
Walter
Jul 7, 2020 at 10:43 am
If the question is “Does Israel ‘steal’ land for other in the West Bank ?” The answer is “No.” For the Israelis can’t steal land that already belongs to them. The entire West Bank belongs to them by Divine Right as well as by historic right.
For the truth is the God had given all land that now composes the State of Israel, including all of the West Bank, to the Jewish people. This may be found in the Bible, as seen in, for example, Genesis 28:13-15. 35:10-12. Deuteronomy 32:48,49. Psalm 105:7-11. 135:4. In other words the Jews have all this land by Divine Right. Furthermore, the Jewish people should have this land by historic rights as shown in First Kings 4:20,21, 24,25. 8:55, 56.
mortimer says
Jul 7, 2020 at 12:55 pm
When Zionists began to settle in Israel, it was the Syria of Ottoman Turkey. Landowners lived in Constantinople and they charged rent. The Zionists began buying land from the Ottoman deed-holders.
After the defeat of Turkey in WWI, the landowners in Turkey still claimed to own the land in Mandatory Palestine. The Zionists continued to buy land. They were not invaders, but real estate developers. The West Bank was designated in 1923 as part of the future Jewish homeland by the Colonial Office.
When Jordan invaded the West Bank, it became clear what the Arab side wanted: no Jewish homeland and the annexation by Jordan of all land until the Mediterranean Sea.
mortimer says
Jul 7, 2020 at 1:06 pm
Hugh Fitzgerald describes a dictatorial and absurd body that is unaccountable and a mishmash of legal ideas that are contradictory. Under the terms of Ottoman law and under the law of conquest the Israeli state has inherited most of the land. Israelis should continue to buy and develop land on the West Bank and in 50 years, the controversy will be much less, because all will benefit from the development.
gravenimage says
Jul 7, 2020 at 11:02 pm
Does Israel “Steal” Private Palestinian Land in the West Bank?
…………..
Nope.
angelo says
Jul 8, 2020 at 6:34 am
On the contrary, It’s the Arabs who are attempting to steal the history of that region for themselves."
From the Jerusalem Post website jpost.com an article is headlined "Is Israel stealing private Palestinian land? – opinion"
By MOSHE DANN JULY 1, 2020 the article says
"One of the most serious accusations against Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria to “end the occupation” and in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaigns is that Israel systematically steals or “seizes” “private Palestinian land.” Not only would that be illegal, it is immoral. This seems to be the basis for the High Court’s decision to strike down the Regulation Law.
It is important to remember the reason for the Regulation Law. When Jewish communities (“settlements”) were established, it was done “in good faith,” and with government approval on vacant land. Arabs did not go to court to claim “their land.” Only much later, led by left-wing NGOs, were Arabs encouraged to make their claims.
The humanitarian purpose of the Regulation Law was to protect Jews who had built their homes “in good faith.” Most other countries have similar laws which protect homeowners in cases where the value of what was built far exceeds the value of the land. Destroying the homes of many thousands of Jews to resolve questionable or false Arab land claims would be unfair and unjust. Therefore, compensation was offered to Arab claimants, regardless of proof of ownership.
The source for the charge that “Israel is stealing privately owned land” is not only PLO/PA, Hamas, left-wing and anti-Israel media, and Arab propaganda, but an agency of the Israeli government: Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT).
COGAT, a unit of the Defense Ministry, is responsible for “implementing government policy in Judea and Samaria.” But COGAT not only “implements,” it also makes policy. And, as a separate independent military-legal administration, it is virtually unaccountable to anyone except the defense minister and the prime minister. They are responsible for this misrepresentation of fact.
COGAT and the IDF legal adviser, in cooperation with the attorney-general’s office, the state prosecutor’s office, the Justice Ministry and the High Court (Bagatz), routinely decide that land claimed by Arabs is valid. These claims, however, are based on massive distributions of state land throughout Judea and Samaria during the Jordanian occupation. They lack supporting evidence of ownership, such as deeds, transactions and actual possession, or usufruct. Nevertheless, COGAT recognizes the claims as valid, thus supporting charges that Israel steals private land.
Based on COGAT’s decisions, which are not reviewed by district courts – the only judicial body mandated to determine matters of land ownership – NGOs supporting Arab claims appeal to the High Court, which relies heavily on COGAT as the government’s authority."
the article continues
"COGAT defends its decisions by citing the land registry (taba) for Judea and Samaria, which lists names of “owners,” mostly villages and tribes who were given state land during the early 1960s. None of the land was purchased, most of the land was never used, no taxes were paid and the original Arab recipients of land are no longer alive. To whom does this disputed land belong?
ACCORDING TO Ottoman and British Mandate law, gifted land could not be inherited without approval by the sovereign. Moreover, land that was given by the sovereign could be claimed as private only if the land was used continually (usufruct) for 10 years and taxes were paid. Otherwise, unused land reverts to the sovereign by law. Jordan changed this law and registered the land as privately owned, permanently, without conditions.
Since Jordan was never acknowledged as the legitimate sovereign over this territory, its occupation and anti-Jewish laws – including prohibiting non-Jordanian citizens from owning land and incurring the death penalty for selling land to Jews – have no validity; COGAT differs.
The status of land in Judea and Samaria was further confused by former High Court Chief Justice Dorit Beinisch, who, at the end of her term decided unilaterally that hazakah, the right to claim title to land by working it and paying taxes applied only to Arabs, not Jews.
Since COGAT considers the land registry for Judea and Samaria “confidential,” it restricts access to it by Jews, making it nearly impossible to challenge Arab claims of private ownership or for Jews to acquire land. COGAT’s secretive procedure is backed by the High Court, which defends COGAT’s rule as a government agency. COGAT refuses to explain why their rules prevail exclusively and why access to public documents is forbidden.
Regavim, an NGO, challenged the legality of COGAT’s position specifically with regard to land surrounding the Jewish community of Psagot. Regavim claimed that COGAT’s policies discriminate against Jews. The Jerusalem District Court agreed, awarded the case to Regavim, and ordered COGAT to make available land records of the surrounding area; COGAT has appealed to the High Court."
& continues "According to Ari Briggs, spokesman for Regavim, COGAT‘s policy restricts access to the land registry for Judea and Samaria only to people who are “connected to the land,” and defines those people only as Arabs. Regavim’s legal challenge is to force COGAT to end its discriminatory policy and allow equal access to Jews. Not only did COGAT appeal to the District Court’s decision, they also forbade access to the land registry by military order – thus transforming what should be a normal administrative process into their own exclusive domain.
Since 2008, COGAT has prevented the operation of a sewage treatment plant between the Arab village of Silwad and the Jewish community of Ofra because, COGAT ruled, it is built on “private Palestinian land” which belongs to the village. The attorney-general and the High Court have ordered that the project – which would serve all residents of the disputed area – be removed.
COGAT also opposes plans to widen the road near the Adam Junction because it infringes on “private Palestinian land.” Asked for details about who owns the land in question, COGAT has refused – and COGAT is “the law.”
The government sought to rectify this discriminatory and undemocratic system by appointing independent courts to adjudicate land disputes and determine ownership, and/or by extending the jurisdiction of District Courts as recommended by a commission of legal experts headed by the late justice Edmund Levy. That was the purpose of the Regulation Law."
& lastly says "The High Court could also require that disputes over land ownership be heard first by District Courts before any appeals, as is commonly practiced in all democratic countries. The High Court’s recent decision striking down the Regulation Law ignores this important first step in judicial procedures and norms. Therefore, the fundamental questions remain: To whom does disputed land belong? Is the Regulation Law legal, fair and just? This is one of the reasons why plans to extend Israeli law and sovereignty to Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria is so important.
The writer is a PhD historian and journalist in Israel."
Some comments people typed in Reply to this Jerusalem Post article are
OliveCar
2 July, 2020
"Private Palestinian land" is a propaganda point, not a real entity. The individuals who claim land have no deeds. Legal doctrines, used in Common Law legal systems (which Israel can adopt) provides for "adverse possession" by the occupants against stale land claims. These doctrines also can limit claimant's to money damages, rather than possession of the property. Israel needs court reform, now.
RedPumpkin
2 July, 2020
"These claims, however, are based on massive distributions of state land throughout Judea and Samaria during the Jordanian occupation."
Enough said. Jordan was an invader and an occupier in Judea and Samaria, an had no legal authority to distribute state lands to anyone."
At this Blog, let's talk about the illegal ARAB Settlements, the illegal ARAB Settlements, since Anti-Israel Losers always Cry and Complain about Israel Legally building Jewish Settlements, from the San Diego Jewish World Website
sdjewishworld.com an article is headlined About
"Illegal Arab settlement changing face of ‘Area C’ "
August 15, 2019 /
-First in a series-
(c) By Edwin Black the article says:
"WASHINGTON, D.C. — “Area C,” which comprises some 60 percent of the West Bank, also known as Judea and Samaria, is making news these days. This time, the hot button issue is illegal Palestinian settlements sprouting across the region, shredding the last vestige of the Oslo Accords, which, for a generation, propelled the “two-state solution.”
Most observers of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis are accustomed to hearing talk of “illegal Jewish settlements” on slivers of land comprising one to two percent of the West Bank, mostly near the green line of Israel proper. But, attention now focuses on an explosion of thousands of illegal Palestinian constructions: village clusters, agricultural tracts, water networks, roads, and general infrastructure crisscrossing Area C of the West Bank. All of this violates the 1993 and 1995 Oslo Accords, which specify full Israeli administrative control in Area C. Under the international agreement, only the Israeli Civil Administration can authorize new construction in the zone—for Israeli and Arab alike. However, continuous waves of recent Palestinian settlements are being established without permits—often without even bothering to apply. One senior official of the Israeli security apparatus called it “the wild west.”
According to Israeli activist watchdog groups, such as Regavim, in the past half-decade, illegal Palestinian settlements and infrastructure have sprawled across more than 9,000 dunams in more than 250 Area C locations, supported by more than 600 kilometers of illegally constructed access roads and more than 112,000 meters of retaining walls and terracing. This massive works project is being conducted in broad daylight, often heralded by tall announcement placards and proud press releases.
When questioned, various Israeli government officials did not dispute the Regavim numbers. In exasperation, one military spokesman close to the Area C files located at Bet El estimated “close to 10,000” illegal construction efforts are now underway—adding they felt “powerless to stop them.” The rapid build-up is funded by hundreds of millions of euros annually, funneled by the European Union and individual European nations into scores of building and infrastructure projects.
Understanding the tortuous history that created the current sovereignty vacuum in Area C can be daunting and confusing.
Leaving out 99 percent of everything … the indigenous Israelites of Canaan were expelled starting in 70 C.E. by the Romans, who renamed the region “Syria-Palaestina”—or Palestine, for the Philistine sea invaders from the Greek Islands. In about 637 C.E., the Islamic invasion swept up from the Arabian Peninsula to conquer and convert. For about four centuries, the Turkish Ottoman Empire governed until its 1918 defeat in World War I. After WWI, the Allies dismembered Ottoman colonies throughout the Middle East and concomitantly encouraged self-determination for ethnic peoples across the Levant. The League of Nations, in association with 51 countries and competing nationalist groups, eventually established five modern Arab countries: Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, modern Hejaz (Arabia) and post-colonial modern Egypt, plus one democratic and pluralistic Jewish State in Palestine. The original 1920 “Mandate” boundaries of the modern Jewish State extended from the Mediterranean Sea across the area now known as Jordan—a country which then did not exist."
the article continues "The Arabs were shortchanged by the French in their quest for an Arab Kingdom in Syria. So, in recompense, the British modified the Palestine Mandate in September 1922 by virtue of an official memorandum, carving off some 70 percent of the intended Jewish nation to invent Trans-Jordan (now Jordan)—the territory extended from the Jordan River east to the borders of Iraq and what is now Saudi Arabia. For decades, co-existence between Arabs and Jews in the former Turkish colony could not be achieved. In 1947, the non-binding UN Resolution 181—known as Partition—recommended side-by-side Jewish and Arab states. In those days, the identity of the two peoples was “Arab” and “Jewish,” as local Arabs did not adopt the identity of “Palestinian” until about 1964.
Israel accepted Partition, but the Arabs refused. The surrounding League-created Arab nations attacked the newly declared Jewish State. In 1948, Jordan (created by the British memo) illegally invaded and annexed the area west of the Jordan River, including East Jerusalem, thus coining the new term, “West Bank” for the still-disputed former Turkish colonial provinces.
In 1967, when Israel fought its preemptive Six Day War, expelling Jordan, the Jewish State occupied this same disputed former Turkish colonial region, still called the West Bank. In 1988, Jordan rescinded any claim of sovereignty, deepening the sovereignty vacuum.
In 1993 and 1995, after years of diplomatic wrangling, Israel and the avowed terror group Palestine Liberation Organization signed the Oslo Accords, envisioning a peaceful two-state solution. Under the complex Oslo Accords, and subsequent modifications at Wye, Sharm el-Sheikh, and elsewhere, the “West Bank” is divided into three separate administrative zones, Areas A, B and C.
Area A is reserved for Palestinian civil and administrative control and seats the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. Area B is governed by Palestinian civil control under a joint Israeli-Palestinian security apparatus.
Area C —also called Judea and Samaria—comprises roughly 60 percent of the West Bank. It more closely resembles the Biblical and original international demarcation of a Jewish State during the initial League of Nations mandate—but is now considered occupied by the international community. The majority of Area C residents are Israelis—an estimated 325,000 alongside some 300,000 Arabs. In essence, Oslo normalized and structured the Israeli occupation and administration of the disputed former Turkish lands.
But by virtue of a cumulative multibillion-euro effort, European capitals are working hard to destabilize the last pillars of the Oslo Accords. Thus, these countries seek to create a Palestinian state along the 1948 armistice line — also known as the 1967 lines— without further consulting the Jewish State. This ensures the Palestinian Authority knows it need not negotiate with Jerusalem—even as the United States and Gulf countries make a daring dash to achieve peace.
As the urgency of Area C is becoming clearer, still murky is the source of the diverse European funding that enables this conflict and the routes those billions of euros take across the Mediterranean. What’s more, there is widespread fear that millions in funds are continuously funneled through entities openly accused of being affiliated with established terrorist organizations.
Edwin Black is the award-winning New York Times bestselling author of IBM and the Holocaust, Funding Hate, and the journalist who in Financing the Flames documented the terrorist salaries now known as “Pay to Slay.”
More information about illegal ARAB Settlements, israelunwired.com has an article headlined
"THE REAL ILLEGAL SETTLEMENTS IN “THE WEST BANK” "
written by Leah Rosenberg August 7, 2019 the article says:
"The media blasts what they deem to be illegal settlements in Judea and Samaria. But this is the REAL occupation going on that the EU and UN are funding!
The REAL Illegal Settlements
No, the real illegal settlements are not Jewish towns and cities in the land of Judea and Samaria. What is really illegal is the Arabs who build on land that is not theirs. They do so in the Israeli state. They do so WITHOUT permits.
So the world and the UN should condemn them and stop them. But they do not. Instead, they fund these illegal outposts. They HELP the Arabs, despite the fact that there are major security concerns for Israelis. When it comes to the life of a Jewish person, the UN does not seem to have the same standard as when it is the life of a Palestinian Arab. And this has been the case for decades. It is the sad, sad truth.
Jews Are in Danger!
The Palestinian Arabs are illegally creating a state for themselves, on the ground, right around Jewish homes. THIS is the real threat to peace! The Arab illegal settlements that are being built without the condemnation of the UN is what is threatening peace in Israel as well as safety for the people of Israel.
The media, the UN, and the world all need to stop talking about Jewish “settlements” in Judea and Samaria and referring to them as illegal. Because, as you now can see, the Arabs are the ones creating illegal cities. These cities are polluting the land and ruining the environment of Israel by dumping garbage, burning tires, and more. The Judean desert now has a virtual city with illegal roads leading to the Negev Desert. What does this create? Drug, people, and weapons smuggling. WITHOUT going through checkpoints!
The next time someone tries to tell you about so-called illegal Jewish settlements, show them the REAL illegal settlements being built in Judea and Samaria!" Countless Legal Experts Agree that the Jewish Settlements are NOT illegal, but the Arab Settlements are definitely illegal
From campus.zoa.org an article is headlined
"MYTH: Settlements are the Obstacle to Peace" the article states:
An Israeli and Palestinian-Arab man in a "settlement" in Judea/Samaria. "Settlements" throughout Judea and Samaria employ thousands of Palestinian-Arabs and pay them roughly 3-4 times what they would make working in the Palestinian Authority (photo credit: Yaacov, Wikipedia Commons).
FACT: “Settlements” (Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria – the “West Bank”) are a distraction, not an obstacle. In other words, settlements distract from the real issues that prevent peace between Israel and the Palestinian-Arabs. Settlements are not an obstacle to peace for many reasons:
Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders openly admit that settlements have nothing to do with peace. Through their media outlets, schools, and mosques, PA leaders preach the destruction of all of Israel and say that peace will not come until they wipe all of Israel off the map. They never call for destruction of the “West Bank” and peace with the rest of Israel; rather, they call for the destruction of all of Israel. They never call for the “liberation” of the “West Bank” and then to live in peace next to Israel after a Palestinian-Arab state is created; rather, they call for the liberation of all of Israel and chant, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” They never call for the killing of Jews in Judea and Samaria and then to coexist with Jews in the rest of Israel; rather, they call for the killing of all Jews in Israel. In other words, according to PA leaders, if settlements were to disappear tomorrow, we would not be any closer to peace.
Israel completely withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and evacuated numerous settlements and 9,000 residents. Many thought this would bring peace; however, in return for this move, Israel received even more terrorism. Hamas took Gaza from the PA and launched thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians and initiated three wars. If settlements were the obstacle to peace, there would be peace in Gaza.
Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”) take up less than 2 percent of the land currently proposed for the creation of a Palestinian-Arab state. Meanwhile, Palestinian-Arab communities take up roughly 40 percent of the land, while 58 percent of the land is uninhabited. It is misleading for one who advocates for a Palestinian-Arab state to argue that communities on less than 2 percent of the land block an entire state from coming into existence."
the article continues
"To argue that the removal of Jewish communities from Judea and Samaria is necessary for peace is to argue that the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the area is necessary to bring peace. Ethnic cleansing is never the answer. If a Palestinian-Arab state were to be created today, there would be roughly 100,000 Jews within the boundaries of the state (after land swaps recognized by the international community to keep most Jews from Judea and Samaria in Israel). Israel currently has a roughly 25 percent Arab minority living in Israel with equal rights, so why can’t a future Palestinian-Arab state have a roughly 4 percent Jewish minority with equal rights? Unfortunately, the reason this is not possible is because PA leaders regularly say that no Jews would be allowed to live in a future “Palestine.” Moreover, given the fact that PA leaders incite their people to kill Jews (read below), the citizens of a future “Palestine” would most likely attack the Jewish residents.
If settlements were the obstacle to peace, the PA would have accepted Israel’s offers in 2000 and 2008 of nearly all of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza to create a sovereign Palestinian-Arab state. These offers would have destroyed all settlements in a future “Palestine” and given all of the land in question to the PA. Instead, however, the PA rejected both offers and resorted to an increase in incitement and terrorism.
Settlements in Judea and Samaria only date back to 1967 – the year took control of the area after Jordan (along with three other Arab nations) invaded Israel intending to destroy it. However, the Palestinian-Arabs – along with the rest of the Arab World – had been calling for Israel’s annihilation and had been attacking the Jewish state long before this. The Palestinian-Arab leadership has had the stated goal of destroying Israel since long before settlements existed, meaning settlements cannot be the problem. In fact, current PA President Mahmoud Abbas (along with former terrorist Yasser Arafat and mentor Hajj Amin al-Husseini – a close friend of Hitler) founded the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) – now the PA – with the goal of eliminating Israel in 1964, years before any settlements existed.
The real obstacle to peace is the Palestinian Authority’s refusal to make peace and its continued incitement and funding of terrorism. Instead of preaching peace and coexistence, PA leaders preach the genocide of the Jewish people and the destruction of the Jewish state. Through their media outlets, mosques, and schools, PA leaders teach their children that Jews are root of all problems and that Israel must be destroyed. It is impossible to make peace with a government that has a stated goal of Israel’s annihilation. It is impossible to make peace with a government that has created the most anti-Semitic society on Earth (according to the ADL’s 2014 Survey of Global Anti-Semitism, 93 percent of Palestinian-Arabs hold anti-Semitic views – the highest rate in the world).
Moreover, PA President Mahmoud Abbas refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, stating that the Jews have no claim to the land and that all the land belongs to the Palestinian-Arabs. He also names schools, streets, summer camps, and more after the terrorists who have killed the most Jews, thus furthering the hate-based education of his people and leading them further away from peace."
Also from campus.zoa.org another article is headlined
"Anti-Zionist Hypocrisy on Campus"
Campus Activism, Incitement & Terrorism, Middle East Conflict, Palestinian-Arab State, Zionism
Kevin Brum - UC Irvine
the article states:
"Being a vocal Zionist on a college campus is only half the battle, especially when you are not Jewish. The other half is attempting to show other students, who have largely been misinformed about Israel, that a Zionist is not a mythical beast to be whispered about in the same breath as the archetypal racist, misogynist, and/or sexist. Zionism is a legitimate ideology that has been unfairly slandered and demonized by the anti-Zionist movement on my campus of UC Irvine.
I recently attended an event at my university’s Cross Cultural Center. This center has historically been the headquarters of certain anti-Zionist, anti-establishment, and anti-American groups like the MSU and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). Throughout this article, I will be using the term “anti-Zionists,” when referring to SJP as they must be called out for who they really are. By no means do I mean to refer to all anti-Zionists as a general group; I am simply addressing those who hosted this event and their followers.
The event, titled “Unlearning Zionism,” led me to question why one would need to ‘unlearn’ anything in a place supposedly dedicated to learning? As a Star Wars fan, Master Yoda’s words to Luke Skywalker came to my mind. What was taught at this event was far more fictitious than even Star Wars.
The hosts of the event proceeded to break Israel down into several ‘supremacist’ groups— racial supremacy, male supremacy, Christian supremacy, and heterosexual supremacy. I sat in on this event for an entire hour. I did not disrupt– unlike they have done in the past – but I wanted to get some insight as to what they believed a Zionist was. During that hour, they did not present a single fact or cite a single source. The most absurd of these categories, I thought to myself, was Christian supremacy – being a Christian myself, I do not see how the Jewish State of Israel is pushing an agenda of Christian supremacy."
the article continues
"The other categories were also absurd; Jews come from all over the world and are of all ethnicities, therefore Zionism cannot be racism. Male supremacy is equally absurd. As one meme I saw online stated, “there are more Israeli women flying fighter jets than Saudi women driving cars.” As for heterosexual supremacy, they point to the religious teachings of Orthodox Judaism, yet at the same time, claim that their issues are with Zionism, not fundamentally with Judaism.
Despite some innate hypocrisies in their statements, what I find most hypocritical is their solution. They would like to see Israel dissolved. Interesting how amongst the Palestinian people, the categories they mentioned are actually prevalent and pervasive (except Christian supremacy of course). According to the World Anti-Semitism Index, the Palestinian people harbor some of the highest percentages of global anti-Semitism. We see this clearly identified in government-sponsored incitement videos where young children are encouraged to stab Jews and music videos that glorify those seeking “martyrdom” to “roast Jewish flesh” and “blow the roof off the [Israeli] bus.”
How is this not racism?
It doesn’t end there. The Palestinian culture is one of the most patriarchal in the world, where women are stoned to death for being raped. Islam is the dominant religion amongst the Palestinian people and their ongoing anti-Christian policies have led to mass exoduses of Christians from largely religious epicenters like Hebron, Jericho, and Bethlehem.
As for heterosexual supremacy, we all know which Palestinian authority and Gaza controlling terror groups have codified polices prescribing hanging for homosexuals who are caught.
Israel is not perfect. Every country has its flaws, blemishes, and places to improve upon. Though, if you take up the position that because something is flawed, it must be completely dissolved; you allow worse forces to take over. Dissolve Israel and the anti-Semitic terrorist-controlled PA takes over. If the PA takes over, then all of the categories that the anti-Zionists on my campus mentioned become a reality.
It’s hypocrisy to suggest that the only way to improve the lot of the people you claim to fight for is to thrust them into the hands of individuals who would treat them even worse than those you claim to be fighting against.
The anti-Zionist argument revolves around placing Israel in a vacuum. Israel is judged based on “Social Justice Warrior” standards and if Israel does not meet those standards, then Israel automatically equals bad. However, you cannot examine anything in a vacuum, you have to compare it to others in the same or similar environments.
If Israel is clearly the better option, then why do anti-Zionists constantly push the complete dissolution of the State? For anti-Zionists Israel is bad because Israel is Jewish. I find the most confounding hypocrisy in anti-Zionist philosophy is the declaration that they are fighting against racism and discrimination, yet the motivation behind their anti-Zionism is – at its root – anti-Semitic.
The students on college campuses hear the buzz words “racism, patriarchy, oppression, supremacy,” and instantly react. The anti-Zionists who hosted this particular event knew how to press all the right buttons to get this unwitting group of college students ready to tear down Israel in the name of “social justice.”
To this breed of anti-Zionists, I say, what matters to you is not the welfare of the people you claim to be fighting for, but the destruction of the state of Israel by any means necessary. I have witnessed first hand your unabashed manipulation of university students to gain clout on campus, and it is abhorrent. Furthermore, I have found your label of “anti-Zionism” simply a cover for your true beliefs as anti-Semites."
From factsaboutisrael.uk and article is headlined
"The Amazing Jews" the article states:
"Now learn from the parable of the fig tree ... when it puts forth its leaves ..."
“You [Zionist regime] will not see 25 years from today!” [Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, Sept. 2015]
Strictly speaking, today’s Jews are those who follow Judaism and who are descendants of the kingdom of Judah. But today the word ‘Jew’ is used to refer to all of the physical and spiritual descendants of Jacob/Israel; talk of the Jews and you are talking about the nation Israel.
Isn’t it amazing that the nation Israel has survived for over 3,000 years despite world-wide persecution and some 2,500 years of exile from their God-given land? When King Louis XIV of France (1643-1715) asked Blaise Pascal, the great Christian philosopher to give him proof of God, Pascal answered, ‘Why the Jews, your Majesty, the Jews!’ The fact that the Jews have survived points to their unique role in the world.
Winston Churchill once said:
Some people like the Jews, and some do not. But no thoughtful man can deny the fact that they are, beyond any question, the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has appeared in the world.
The moral and religious teacher Leo Tolstoy acknowledged that there is something very special about the Jew:
What is the Jew? … What kind of unique creature is this whom all the rulers of all the nations of the world have disgraced and crushed and expelled and destroyed; persecuted, burned and drowned, and who, despite their anger and their fury, continues to live and to flourish
Even the atheistic German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who famously asserted that “God is dead”, said of the Jews:
The Jews are beyond all doubt the strongest, toughest, and purest race at present living in Europe; they know how to succeed even under the worst conditions"
the article continues
"The Jews: their Purpose in the World
Men might wonder and marvel at the phenomenon of the Jew, but the Bible explains Israel’s purpose – the reason for her existence – quite succinctly:
What one nation on the earth is like Your people Israel, whom God went to redeem for Himself as a people and to make a name for Himself, and to do a great thing for You and awesome things for Your land (2 Sam 7.23)
You are My witnesses … and My servant whom I have chosen (Isa 43.10)
Summarizing: The Jew and the nation of Israel is the servant of God and His chosen witness of Himself to the nations. Look at the history and future of Israel and you can find the one true God – the One who calls Himself “the God of Israel”.
the Jews
In the Millennial age, Christ will rule the earth from a new temple in Jerusalem.
The Future is Jewish
Only some 0.2% of the world’s inhabitants are Jews. Yet, despite this, the Bible says that the future of the world depends principally upon the tiny nation of Israel and that one day all Gentile nations will honour the Jews. The outworking of Bible prophecy is clear, even to those who hate Israel. In just 130 years God has gathered many of His people from out of the nations and established them in their homeland. But as of 2015, the world Jewish population was 14.2 million, of which only 6.2 million (44%) resided in Israel. What about those still dispersed amongst the nations? Prophecy implies that virtually all those dispersed among the nations will return to the Promised Land; God leaves “none of them there any longer” (Ezek 39.28). So it seems that aliyah is not yet complete. But when it is – what then?
Jews will be Respected
This current age is rapidly drawing to a close and prophecy says a ‘Millennial age’ will follow. It is a time when man sees the fulfillment of God’s plan for the world, a time when the nation Israel has been fully restored to her intended place, namely, to be His servant and witness amongst the nations, and a time when the world at last recognizes that the nation Israel is a very special people – God’s chosen people. At last, the Gentile nations will acknowledge and value the unique role of the Jew:
In those days ten men from every language of the nations shall grasp the sleeve of a Jewish man, saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you’ (Zech 8.23)"
From the New York Daily News website, nydailynews.com an article is headlined
"Ben & Jerry’s unjust desserts: A bad move in Israel"
By MARK GOLDFEDER
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS |
JUL 21, 2021 AT 5:00 AM
A man buys Ben & Jerry's ice cream in Jerusalem. the article says:
"Monday, Ben & Jerry’s announced that it would terminate its business relationship with its Israeli distributor because the distributor has refused to go along with Ben and Jerry’s decision to end the sale of its ice cream in the “occupied Palestinian territory.”
The decision came after months of online campaigning by those who were indignant that Israel dared defend itself against attacks from the terrorist group Hamas in ways that regrettably cost some innocent Palestinian lives.
For an American company like Ben & Jerry’s, the decision to align with the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, a movement that has been denounced by both major U.S. political parties as well as the majority of states as just another in the long history of boycotts against Jews, is not only shameful; it is possibly illegal.
Since Israel is the world’s only Jewish state, singling it out for boycotts and other punitive economic actions involves blatant discrimination on the basis of nationality and ethnicity. If you are curious as to what this looks like, consider Ben & Jerry’s announcement that it will work to “find a different arrangement” to “stay in Israel” that cuts their long-term Israeli licensee out of sales to the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. The company refused to comment when asked if their products would still be sold in Palestinian-owned stores in those areas (and it is unclear how they intend to continue sales in Israel while boycotting Judea and Samaria, which is illegal under Israeli law), but the strong implication is that if a Palestinian licensee wanted to sell in those regions, Ben and Jerry’s would allow it.
Such discriminatory business practices are contrary to public policy. That is why there has been consistent bipartisan condemnation of the BDS movement by U.S. lawmakers. American anti-boycott regulations under the 1977 Export Administration Act, the Ribicoff Amendment to the 1976 Tax Reform Act and The Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act all express opposition to such boycotts. Acquiescence to a BDS pressure campaign could therefore expose a company like Ben & Jerry’s to expensive legal challenges."
the article continues
"Second, boycotting Israelis in a discriminatory fashion violates the fiduciary duties of both loyalty and care that officers and directors owe a corporation and its shareholders. The duty of loyalty requires decision-makers to put the welfare and best interests of the company before their own personal interests (including the desire to virtue signal), while the duty of care requires them to reasonably consider the impact of their decisions on the company’s economic prospects. BDS is bad for business: Thirty-five states already have anti-BDS legislation in place which might block those states from doing business with companies that proudly announce they will henceforth engage in BDS. That means that in many of these states, cafeterias at government offices, universities and so forth will not be allowed to stock their ice cream — and perhaps the much larger number of products made by its parent company, consumer products giant Unilever.
Losing that much market share by politicizing ice cream, all in the service of a controversial and arguably bigoted ideological stance, cannot be justified as good corporate governance.
Finally, Unilever is a publicly owned company. As such, they are required to file documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission and send disclosures to investors about risks that may affect the company. Presumably, after having agreed to divest based on a years-long anti-Semitic blacklist campaign, their next disclosure report will need to include a paragraph like this:
“Investment may involve serious risks, because we are currently engaging in a discriminatory boycott, in violation of applicable laws, and for no discernable corporate or business objectives. We may also incur significant liability and cost in defending the company against litigation and enforcement actions responding to our violations, and will likely incur loss of business from jurisdictions that have anti-boycott provisions in place.” In fact, with reports that Ben & Jerry’s has been sitting on this decision for months, they may already be liable for their failure to disclose.
Unilever has tried to distance themselves from the decision, noting in a separate statement that Ben & Jerry’s Board made this decision entirely on their own. That does not absolve them of legal responsibility for the company they own. If Unilever has made agreements with Ben & Jerry’s that prevent them from controlling such actions, they may find themselves in a position of having to choose between selling off the damaged brand or facing regulatory and legal responsibility for its actions."
Goldfeder is an attorney.
From the New York Daily News website, nydailynews.com an article is headlined
"Ben & Jerry’s defense is hard to swallow"
By ALAN DERSHOWITZ
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS |
AUG 01, 2021 the article states:
"Bennett Cohen and Jerry Greenfield’s self-righteous defense of boycotting disputed territories in Israel fails to put their namesake ice cream company’s actions in a proper context. Both Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and its corporate owner, Unilever, continue to sell their products in many of the most repressive countries in the world — countries that murder dissidents, imprison journalists, enslave women, exploit children and occupy other people’s land.
So, the question that Ben and Jerry refuse to answer is: Why do you single out only parts of Israel and Palestinian territories for a boycott? Why not list all the countries in the world that they serve in order of the seriousness of their human rights violations and boycott them in order of their seriousness?
Such an action would, of course, damage the bottom line of both companies far more than its selective boycott of portions of Israel and the disputed territories.
Motorists drive past a closed "Ben & Jerry's" ice-cream shop in the Israeli city of Yavne, about 30 kilometres south of Tel Aviv, on July 23, 2021.
The issue is not whether one agrees or disagrees with Israeli policies; I disagree with some, just as I disagree with some American policies. The key question is whether singling out part of the nation-state of the Jewish people for a boycott is moral, legal and proper. Thomas Friedman, a frequent critic of Israel, put it very well when he said, “Criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitic, and saying so is vile. But singling out Israel for opprobrium and international sanction out of all proportion to any other party in the Middle East is anti-Semitic, and not saying so is dishonest.”
The reality is that no country in the Middle East, or indeed in the world today, that is faced with threats comparable to those faced by Israel can boast a better record of human rights, compliance with the rule of law and concern for the lives of enemy civilians. Israel’s record is far from perfect, but it is better than most and better than any other country in the Middle East. Yet, Ben & Jerry’s and its parent company continue to sell to other countries in the Middle East and around the world with far worse records.
Nor can this selective boycott be justified on the claim that Israel is different because of its close relation to the United States. Jordan and Egypt receive massive economic and military aid from the United States and have far worse human rights records. The same is true of other recipients of American economic and military aid. The American connection is a phony excuse for bigotry and anti-Semitism against the world’s only Jewish state."
the article continues
"Israel’s continuing control over the disputed territory is largely a function of Palestinian refusal to accept generous Israeli offers to end the military occupation that began in 1967. Under international law, military occupations are justified so long as resistance continues and peace is not accepted. Israel offered to end its occupation in 2000 and 2001 and 2008. It unilaterally ended its occupation of the Gaza Strip in 2005, removing every single soldier and settler.
The result was a Hamas takeover, thousands of rockets, terror tunnels and continued belligerence. Israel would have every right under international law to re-occupy the Gaza Strip, but it has chosen not to. Were it to abandon its military control over the West Bank without a permanent agreement — which the Palestinians have rejected — it would be inviting a repeat of the Gaza experience, but a much more dangerous one because of the proximity of parts of the West Bank to parts of Israeli population centers and its international airport.
The issues surrounding the continued occupation of the disputed territories, including East Jerusalem and the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, including the Western Wall, are complex and difficult. They are not the sort of issues that should give rise to boycotts and other economic sanctions. They are not like the imprisonment of journalists and dissidents by Turkey, not like the gender discrimination practiced by most Arab and Muslim states, not like the detention camps created for Uyghurs by China, not like the denial of basic liberties by Cuba, and certainly not like the hanging of gays by Iranian and Hamas mullahs.
As an advocate for the two-state solution since 1970, I fervently hope that the Israeli government and the Palestinian leadership will return to the negotiating table. But a boycott of the West Bank — which will hurt Palestinians that work for Ben & Jerry’s — will not help achieve a two state solution.
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, Vermont Jews who say they are “supporters of the state of Israel,” should be ashamed of their hypocrisy. I for one will never eat Ben & Jerry’s ice cream again, not only because it has too many calories, too much fat and uses sugar and cocoa from countries that exploit child labor, but because their decision to single out parts of Israel for an economic boycott is anti-Semitic.
Dershowitz is the author of “The Case Against BDS” and other books."
From cansino.com an article is headlined
"The Uniqueness of Palestinian Terrorism"
May 30, 2002
By Prof. Louis Rene Beres, Purdue University
and Alessandra Delgado,Lima, Peru the article says:
"According to The Covenant of Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement is "universal." All Palestinian groups - whether it be the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and its subunits or any other "revolutionary"faction - share an understanding that "There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad....(Holy War)." As for Israel, all Palestinians have a firm obligation to "obliterate it." The Charter of the PLO mirrors the Hamas Covenant, calling the "nucleus" of the Palestinian movement only those who are "fighters and carriers of arms. All terrorist groups, of course, emphasize violence and the use of force, but the Palestinian groups are altogether unique in several important ways. Most significant of all is that, for the Palestinians,violence is generally its own reward. Rejecting more instrumental views of force, Hamas, PLO and all other movement organizations have now come to regard terror violence as an end in itself. The root of this dark sentiment lies in their common and all-consuming hatred of "The Jews."
When Haj Amin al Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, spoke together with Hitler on Berlin Radio in 1942, he cried out: "Kill the Jews -kill them with your hands, kill them with your teeth - this is well pleasing to Allah." Today the PLO call for annihilation of Israel still remains codified at PA websites and publications, and the Hamas Covenant still calls insistently for the "realization of Allah's promise: `The Day of Judgment will not come until Muslims fight the Jews, killing them.'" Directed toward Jews, the violence of Palestinian terrorism is always "sacred" violence. Unlike terrorists in other parts of the world, the Palestinian movement fighters aspire to immortality. Paradoxically, that is why they commit uniquely homicidal forms of "suicide." Urged on by Arafat-appointed clergy in the mosques, they believe fully that by dying in the religiously-mandated act of blowing up Jews they buy themselves free from the penalty of death. As for their fiery self-immolation, it is only a momentary inconvenience on the "martyr's" journey to union with God Almighty. Identifying the PLO as "a father, a brother, a relative, a friend," the Hamas Charter instructs: "We (all Palestinians) know the Palestinian problem is a religious one, to be dealt with on this premise....`I swear by that (sic) who holds in his hands the Soul of Muhammad! I indeed wish to go to war for the sake of Allah! I will assault and kill, assault and kill, assault and kill.'"
the article continues
"For terrorists elsewhere in the world, suicide is something "crazy,"certainly not a tactic to be used as a proper strategy of revolutionary confrontation. For the Palestinians, however, suicide in the act of murdering Jews represents the very highest form of political engagement, a properly Islamic method that distinguishes it from merely secular forms of insurgency. Consider, for example, the Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac Amaru, a Latin American terrorist group that took 74 hostages at the Japanese Embassy in Lima, Peru on December 17, 1996. After the kidnapper's initial demands were rejected by the Government, the terrorists threatened to blow the entire Embassy as an act of suicidal desperation.
Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori's response was to say simply: "There cannot be peace talks or agreements while terror is being used as the principal argument." Again, the terrorists threatened: "If the Government doesn't cede, we will die with all the hostages." Five months later, on April 22, 1997, with not a single hostage harmed, the hostages were rescued.
Unlike Palestinian terror groups, who seek to inflict gratuitous harm on noncombatants - often by filling bombs with nails, screws and razor blades - the MRTA rejected suicide terrorism as both irrational and inhumane. Palestinian terror seeks national self-determination, but shouts to the world that even after statehood, violence must continue against the Jews. Every map of every Palestinian group features a new Arab state incorporating all of Israel. Not only Al-Fatah, the Arafat faction of PLO, but also the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine; the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine; the Palestine Liberation Front; Al-Saika and the PLO itself have already exterminated Israel cartographically. Terrorism has brought pain and suffering throughout the world, but Palestinian terrorism remains grotesquely unique. In Latin America, groups such as MRTA and Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) have resorted to bloodshed in a class-based fight for social, economic and political equality.But their violence is plainly instrumental and their goals have nothing to do with genocide. In Peru, moreover, whenever Sendero Luminoso exploded bombs in cars and buses, citizens uniformly condemned the terror."
& lastly says
"All Palestinian terror groups, on the other hand, are determined to use violence even where it is manifestly unsuitable for political gain and -as expressed at Article 15 of the PLO Charter - to achieve "total elimination of Zionism in Palestine." As for Palestinian civilian populations, they regularly celebrate even the most barbarous forms of anti-Jewish terrorism. When a terror organization linked closely to Arafat took credit for the May 27 Petah Tikvah attack on babies and children at a suburban ice cream parlor, thousands of ordinary Palestinians in Jenin, Nablus and Ramallah cheered the "heroic military operation."
Latin American terror groups fight for human improvement and survival, but look ultimately toward peace and coexistence. Palestinian terrorists, on the other hand, fight to expunge an entire people, the Jews, from the face of the Middle East. Palestinian terrorism is not a plea to Israel to relieve material needs, but rather a demand to die so that Arabs can realize their spiritual wants. Citing to a major HADITH (an Arab term which refers to the oral tradition by means of which sayings or deeds attributed to the prophet Muhammed have been handed down to Muslim believers), King Sa'ud once informed a British visitor to his court: "Verily, the word of God teaches us, and we implicitly believe it, that for a Muslim to kill a Jew, or for him to be killed by a Jew, ensures him an immediate entry into heaven and into the august presence of God Almighty."
Palestinian terrorism, based upon fanatical religious hatreds and intentionally wanton killings, bears no close resemblance to other forms of contemporary terror violence. Starkly medieval, it seeks the death and dismemberment of individual Jews and the total annihilation of the Jewish State. It follows that there can be absolutely no civilized justification for its manifold crimes and harms."
biblebaptistpublications.org has an article by James L. Melton in 2005 headlined
"Don't Mess with Israel"
part of the online article says
"God and Nations
After the universal flood of Genesis 6-8, men began to multiply upon the earth and God allowed them to form nations so long as these nations remained divided (Gen. 10:5, 32, Deu. 32:8). However, after forming nations, men decided to form a sort of “united nations” in Genesis chapter 11. This was contrary to the will of God, so He intervened with judgment. We read in Genesis 11:8-9, “So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.”
From this we learn a valuable lesson: God is the Judge of Nations. Jeremiah 10:7 even states that God is the “King of nations.” He allows men to build communities, cities, and nations, but He maintains a watchful eye over them at all times. Proverbs 15:3 says, “The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.” The words “every place” would have to include the White House, the Pentagon, the Senate Chamber, the Supreme Court, the House of Representatives, and the United Nations headquarters in New York. The King of nations, the Judge of all the earth, is on His throne rendering perfect justice with every passing day. Some of His judgments are harsh in nature (II Sam. 21:1, I Kgs. 17:1), while others are just plain devastating (Jer. 52:1 – Lam. 5:22). Being the omnipotent God that He is, the Lord doesn’t have to exert Himself to bring a measure of judgment on a nation. In Jeremiah chapter 18, He speaks of nation building and nation destroying as being no harder than planting or pulling up a plant: “At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it; If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.” (Jer. 18:7-10) "
the article continues
"Men are real proud of themselves and their great nations and kingdoms, but God really isn’t impressed. This is made more than clear in Isaiah 40:15: “Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing.” If that’s not bad enough, God delivers the death blow two verses later: “All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.” (Isa. 40:17) God isn’t very patriotic, is He?
Yes, God is pleased to bless those nations that live righteously (Psa. 33:12), but the record of history is that nations do not live righteously. They grow more and more proud and wicked until God demotes them and promotes another. This is confirmed with the words of Psalm 75:6-7: “For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another.” The up/down cycle of Gentile nations has been continuing for thousands of years, but it is about to end with judgment. No one who reads the Bible has to wonder about the future of the United Nations for Zephaniah 3:8-9 paints the picture for all to see: “Therefore wait ye upon me, saith the LORD, until the day that I rise up to the prey: for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy. For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the LORD, to serve him with one consent.” The glory days of the Gentile empires are fading into the past because the “times of the Gentiles” are drawing to a close (Luke 21:24), and the nations of this world are headed for judgment (Joel 3:2, Mat. 25:32). "
& continues
"God’s Country
However, there is one nation that is unlike all the rest. After the original “UN” movement was judged at Babel (Iraq!) in Genesis 11, God called a man named Abram out of that same region and made an unconditional covenant with him. Abram (later named Abraham) left Ur of the Chaldees for a better land that God would give him. The original promise, which is just as sound today as it was 4,000 years ago, is found in Genesis 12:1-3: “Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”
There are several things that we could mention about this covenant, but five items will suffice for this study:
(1) It’s an unconditional covenant after Abraham leaves
his father’s house. God doesn’t say He’ll bless
Abraham if Abraham does such and such. There’s no
if in the passage or anywhere in the chapter.
(2) Abraham is given some land.
(3) Abraham’s people will become a great nation
in the promised land.
(4) A divine blessing is given to Abraham, to those whom
he blesses, and to those who bless him.
(5) A curse is given to those who curse Abraham.
There is nothing anywhere in the Bible that disannuls the above covenant. One cannot relegate it to the “law of Moses” because it was given hundreds of years before Moses, and there is nothing in the New Testament that says this covenant was disannulled at Calvary. The law of Moses was fulfilled by Jesus at Calvary (Mat. 5:17, John 19:30, Col. 2:14), but God’s unconditional covenant with Abraham still stands, just as God’s unconditional covenant with Noah still stands (Gen. 9:11-17). When you see a rainbow, remember God’s covenant with Noah. When you see a Jew or a Jewish flag, remember Genesis 12:1-3 (unless, of course, you prefer a curse over a blessing).
As sinful humans who make covenant-breaking a way of life, it is hard for us to comprehend someone keeping a promise for thousands of years, but that is precisely what God has done with Israel, and that’s what He continues to do. A blessing is a blessing, and God does not reverse His blessings. Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac in Genesis 25:5-6. Then in Genesis 27:27-29 Isaac passed God’s blessing on to his son Jacob (Israel). When he learned that Jacob had gotten this blessing through deceit, he stated that he could not reverse the blessing, but that Jacob would indeed be blessed. Genesis 27:33 says, “And Isaac trembled very exceedingly, and said, Who? where is he that hath taken venison, and brought it me, and I have eaten of all before thou camest, and have blessed him? yea, and he shall be blessed.” God had already determined in Genesis 25:23 that Jacob, not Esau, would receive the blessing; so, although Jacob did not get the blessing honestly, it was still God’s will for him to have it, and God would not go back on His word and reverse the blessing.
A similar thing happened in Genesis 9. In Genesis 9:1, God blessed the three sons of Noah, including Ham. Then Ham sins in Genesis 9:24-25, yet God does not curse him. Instead, God curses his son Canaan. As strange and unfair as this might seem, we must believe the word of God and trust God’s judgment. God does not reverse an unconditional blessing or covenant."
& continues
"Numbers 22 offers yet another example. Balaam was hired to curse God’s people, the children of Israel, yet he is told by God Himself, “Thou shalt not go with them; thou shalt not curse the people: for they are blessed.” (Num. 22:12) In spite of all the sins that Israel had committed since leaving Egypt, God still counted the descendants of Abraham a blessed people whom He could not curse. That is, the original blessing of Genesis 12:1-3 was still binding. Like it or not, the Jews are God’s chosen people, they are blessed of God, and anyone who “messes” with them is cursed. (By the way, Balaam ended up dead in Numbers 31:8)
Just as the United States Government views some nations of the world as “most favored nations,” God too has a favored nation, the nation of Israel. Other nations who desire to be favored by God must “bless” Israel (as the United States did before the 1990’s). Nations who oppose or curse Israel become God’s enemies.
Isaiah 62:1-2 says, “For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth. And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory: and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the LORD shall name.” God says that He will not rest until Jerusalem shines forth in righteousness. That is obviously not happening today, and it will not happen until she (Jerusalem) receives her King, the Lord Jesus Christ (Mat. 5:35, Psa. 24). God isn’t resting—He isn’t being content and satisfied—until Israel receives the fullness of His blessing. Those who hinder this blessing by opposing Israel can expect nothing but curses from God."
& continues
"The Land Grant
Genesis 12 continues by pointing out which piece of land God had in mind for the Jews: “So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came. And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land. And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him.” (Gen. 12:4-7)
The land of Canaan, according to God, was to become the land of the Jews, the land of Israel. This, of course, is the area that people call Palestine today. As the above text reveals, God promised this land unto Abraham and his seed. Genesis 17:7-8 emphasize that this is an everlasting covenant: “And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”
The Arabs lay claim to this land because they too are descendants of Abraham, through Ishmael, but God was careful to cover this issue as well. In Genesis 17:18-21, Isaac, not Ishmael, was chosen of God to receive the blessing: “And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee! And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation. But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year.” Abraham honors these words of God a few chapters later when he gives all his possessions to Isaac, not Ishmael: “And Abraham gave all that he had unto Isaac. But unto the sons of the concubines, which Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts, and sent them away from Isaac his son, while he yet lived, eastward, unto the east country.” (Gen. 25:5-6)."
"God wanted Abraham to exercise some faith by sojourning in the promised land, the land of Canaan, fully believing that God would make good on His promise and give him the land. Then Abraham sojourned too far southward, a famine came, and he traveled on down to Egypt. Immediately, he encountered problems (Gen. 12:6-20). That turns out to be the pattern throughout the Bible: when the Jew is in the land, he is in fellowship with God; when he’s out of the land, he is out of fellowship. This truth is echoed again with Isaac in Genesis 26:2-3: “And the LORD appeared unto him, and said, Go not down into Egypt; dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of: Sojourn in this land, and I will be with thee, and will bless thee; for unto thee, and unto thy seed, I will give all these countries, and I will perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham thy father.”
Two chapters later God brings Jacob’s name into the covenant: “And Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him, and charged him, and said unto him, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan . . . And give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with thee; that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave unto Abraham . . . And, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.” (Gen. 28:1, 13-15) Jacob, of course, is the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. In fact, God changes Jacob’s name to Israel in Genesis 32:28. In Genesis 35:9-12, God reminds Israel of this, and He reminds him of the land grant for his people: “And God appeared unto Jacob again, when he came out of Padanaram, and blessed him. And God said unto him, Thy name is Jacob: thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name: and he called his name Israel. And God said unto him, I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins; And the land which I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee I will give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give the land.”
"To the Bible-believer, one thing is very clear: God gave the land to the Jews, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If He had stopped with Abraham, the Arabs could claim the land through Ishmael. If He had stopped with Isaac, the A-millennial and Post-millennial “Christians” could claim the land as a spiritual blessing through Christ (Gal. 3-4). God knew this very well, so He out-smarted everyone by naming Jacob/Israel as the rightful heir to the land of promise. That one would upset the world for the next 3,800 years.
Of course, 3,800 years is less than four days in God’s sight (II Pet. 3:8), so the promise is still fresh on the mind of God. It never left His mind (Exo. 2:23-25; 3:8, 17; 15:14-18; 23:31-33; 32:13; Jer. 32:37-41; Joel 3:2; Amos 9:14-15, etc.), and it’s more on His mind today than ever. Hopefully, it’s also on your mind (Jer. 51:50; you’ll get a lot more out of this if you check the references and mark them!).
The land grant itself extends west to the “river of Egypt” and east to the Euphrates (Gen. 15:18-21). Hammath is the boundary in the north (Ezk. 48:1), while Kadesh serves as the southern boundary (Ezk. 48:28). So, while the UN, the news media, the “Palestinian Authority”, the Pope, and the U.S. President are losing sleep over Israel’s “occupied territories,” God is preparing to have the last laugh by letting Israel occupy the entire territory! In plainer words, the “Gaza strip” and the “West Bank” will seem like nothing when Israel finally possesses all of the occupied territories plus parts of Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia! The “wild” men from Ishmael (Gen. 16:12) have proven unworthy to inhabit this land, so God will “spue” them out (Lev. 18:28, Psa. 78:55) and give the land to its rightful heirs.
God’s Sweetheart
To better understand how serious this matter is in the mind of God, let’s look at how God chooses to illustrate his relationship with Israel. As already noted, Israel is spoken of as God’s son. A good father will always provide and protect his son, a very close relationship. I personally have three sons and two daughters, and, though I am a rather peaceful man, I’m certain I could and would ruin anyone’s day who chose to harm one of them (You toucha’ my kid, I breaka’ you face, etc.). Well, Israel has an even more protective Father, and He’s rather large. In fact, the earth is His footstool (Isa. 66:1). What do you suppose He could do to someone who “messed with” His son?"
"In the Bible God also likens Israel to His wife (You toucha’ my wife . . .), a relationship which is even closer than that of a child. A marriage is one flesh, a love relationship based on a covenant. A good husband will love, protect and provide for his wife. God knows this better than anyone, so He wouldn’t have made the comparison if it didn’t best illustrate his love and care for Israel. Ezekiel 16:1-14 records how this romance and marriage began: “Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations, And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto Jerusalem; Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite. And as for thy nativity, in the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee; thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all. None eye pitied thee, to do any of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee; but thou wast cast out in the open field, to the lothing of thy person, in the day that thou wast born. And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live; yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live. I have caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased and waxen great, and thou art come to excellent ornaments: thy breasts are fashioned, and thine hair is grown, whereas thou wast naked and bare. Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord GOD, and thou becamest mine. Then washed I thee with water; yea, I throughly washed away thy blood from thee, and I anointed thee with oil. I clothed thee also with broidered work, and shod thee with badgers' skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk. I decked thee also with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon thy hands, and a chain on thy neck. And I put a jewel on thy forehead, and earrings in thine ears, and a beautiful crown upon thine head. Thus wast thou decked with gold and silver; and thy raiment was of fine linen, and silk, and broidered work; thou didst eat fine flour, and honey, and oil: and thou wast exceeding beautiful, and thou didst prosper into a kingdom. And thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty: for it was perfect through my comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord GOD.” That’s some pretty intimate language, is it not? God was the Knight in shining armor who came to rescue the damsel in distress. Israel was in bondage to Pharoah and the Egyptians, yet God moved in with “a strong hand, and with a stretched out arm” (Psa. 136:12), gave the Egyptians a “fairly good whippin” (to quote a black preacher I know), and then He drowned Pharoah and his army in the Red Sea while riding off with his new bride. You gotta’ admit, that’s a pretty memorable way to start a marriage! My, what a honeymoon! I bet that if your marriage began like that you’d never forget it. In fact, you’d probably tell the story every chance you got (Num. 21:14, Jsh. 2:10, 24:6, Psa. 78:1-72; 106:7-11, Isa. 51:9-10, Acts 7:36, Heb. 11:29, etc.). Around 1490 B.C., Israel became God’s sweetheart, and she still is today."
s a good husband is willing to sacrifice for his sweetheart, God is willing to sacrifice for Israel. Note the wording of Isaiah 43:1-4: “But now thus saith the LORD that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the LORD thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee. Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee: therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy life.” Did you get that? America, England, China, Africa, Russia, Italy, Syria, and all the rest are expendable. If you doubt it, just try finding their names on the gates of New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:12). Israel is God’s wife. Yes, they’ve had their “ups and downs,” due to her unfaithfulness, but He hasn’t forgotten His vow, and He’ll ruin anyone’s day who messes with her. If my language seems exaggerated, please consider Zechariah 2:8: “For thus saith the LORD of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye.” Go ahead, make God’s day.
Although Israel is presently living out of fellowship with God, His plan is to gather her back to her land (Amos 9:13-15, which He has been doing for over 100 years), judge her for her sins in the Great Tribulation (Jer. 30:7, Mat. 24:9-51, Rev. 6-16), grant her a new birth as a nation (Isa. 66:7-8, Rom. 11:25-28), renew their marriage vows (Isa. 54:1-8), and then enjoy a 1,000 year “honeymoon” (Isa. 11:1-12, Mat. 19:28, Rev. 20:1-7)."
"Again, this is not exaggerating matters in the least, which is clear from the following passages: “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her. And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt. And it shall be at that day, saith the LORD, that thou shalt call me Ishi (meaning her man or her husband); and shalt call me no more Baali. For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name. And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely. And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies. I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the LORD.” (Hos 2:14-20) A similar passage that conveys the same truth is Isaiah 54:1-8: “Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the LORD. Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes; For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left (There goes the Palestinian State!); and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles (There goes Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia!), and make the desolate cities to be inhabited. Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed: neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame: for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more. For thy Maker is thine husband (Did you get that? Please get that!); the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called. For the LORD hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God. For a small moment have I forsaken thee; (only two days--II Peter 3:8) but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; (Great Tribulation) but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the LORD thy Redeemer.”
"Such passages are often erroneously spiritualized by the commentators and applied to the church, to Israel’s past, or to both. A good example is Matthew Henry’s comments on Isaiah 54:1-5:
If we apply this to the state of the Jews after their return out of captivity, it is a prophecy of the increase of their nation after they were settled in their own land. Jerusalem had been in the condition of a wife written childless, or a desolate solitary widow; but now it is promised that the city should be replenished and the country peopled again . . . But we must apply it to the church of God in general.[2]
Why must we apply it to the church of God in general? Matthew Henry was a devoted man who loved the Lord dearly, but, like most commentators and preachers of his day, he didn’t believe the Old Testament literally. He insisted on spiritualizing God’s promises to Israel and applying them to the church. This is partly understandable since the Jews had not yet returned to the homeland, and it didn’t appear that they would return, but the Scriptures were very clear in stating that they would. As for these passages having reference to the Jews returning from the Babylonian captivity, one only has to read Isaiah 11:11 where God speaks of a second restoration: “And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.”
So, the a-millennial and post-millennial writers were in error. Clarence Larkin exercised more faith when he wrote. Though the Zionist movement had begun during Larkin’s life, he went home to be with the Lord nineteen years before Israel became a state. Yet, in 1918, thirty years before Israel would become a sovereign state, when there were less than 100,000 Jews living in the homeland, Larkin wrote the following words:
When the Children of Israel return to their own land it will be to possess and occupy all that was promised to Abraham. “The Royal Grant” given by the Almighty to Abraham, extended from the “River of Egypt” unto the “Great River,” the River Euphrates (Gen. 15:18); and according to Ezekiel (Ezek. 48:1-29), from Hammath, north-east of Damascus, to Kadesh on the south. The Temple will be rebuilt. The Glory of the Lord will return. Sacrifices will again be offered. The Government shall be reestablished, and the nations of the earth will be blessed through Israel. Zech. 8:20-23.[3]
Larkin believed that Jehovah and his Jewish sweetheart would “get back together,” and he had the boldness to tell others about it at a time when most preachers were still stuck in the mud with Matthew Henry and Adam Clarke. Consequently, to this day, Larkin’s books remain some of the best Bible study materials available (“I will bless them that bless thee . . .”, etc.)
Just as on “the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee” (John 2:1), there will be a marriage between Jehovah and Israel on the “third day” after the first coming of Christ (II Pet. 3:8). Hosea, the prophet who speaks of Israel’s reunion with God after a period of separation, speaks this very truth in Hosea 6:1-2: “Come, and let us return unto the LORD: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight.” The first day was from the time of Christ till about 1,000 A.D., then the second day runs up until our present time, ending with the second coming of Christ. The third day (as in resurrection) will be the Millennial kingdom of Christ and His saints with Israel being the head of all nations. According to the Bible, God’s sweetheart returns home (1890 to the present), the “old flame” is rekindled, and a happy marriage begins. Woe be to the poor sucker who gets in the way (Zch. 2:8)."
From the website, nydailynews.com , a letter to the Editor is headlined for Yom Kippur on September 15, 2021
"A Yom Kippur message to a bigot
Bozeman, Mont.: Dear anti-Semite: We are a few short hours away from Yom Kippur, our day of atonement — a day of forgiveness, mercy and reconciliation. It’s a day on which Jewish souls shine, our people’s uniqueness comes to the forefront and our holy relationship with G-d is strengthened. The Jewish tenacity expressed on this day reawakens within us our infinite indestructibility. In the words of Mark Twain: “All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?”
We are blessed to live in the U.S., where law enforcement agencies deal with you cowards every day. Here in Montana, our government bodies stand with the Jews any time something arises that requires their intervention. Yet, at times, your intimidation, threats and hurtful words get to us, making us look over our shoulders. I am certain you have no idea who we are. You’re either misinformed about us or misguided in your understanding. No, we aren’t Christians or Muslims, and your saviors aren’t ours, but we are a great people who have added much to the world in the realm of morality, ethics, values, charity, compassion and holiness. Like most people of faith, we strive to be good neighbors and citizens.
You’ve been told that we are rich and powerful, but the Jews who I know are hardworking, taxpaying and country-loving patriots, mostly middle-class, who are Jewish first but enthralled with the country that welcomed their grandparents at Ellis Island. We have no animus toward anyone. I don’t write this arrogantly, just factually: We aren’t going anywhere. We love, cherish and celebrate life and we wish you well. Contemplate your purpose on Earth and recognize that hatred is toxic and love is delicious." Chaim Bruk
the article continues
"Now think how broken your moral compass would have to be to spend all your time griping about Israel and those perfidious Jews while remaining silent as the Taliban returns to power in Afghanistan.
We are witnessing the rebirth of a medieval slave state roughly the size of Texas (with a population 50% larger) and most of “rose emoji Twitter” would rather talk about anything else. Specifically, they would rather talk about Israel. This country is not perfect – no country is. But it’s a bastion of liberalism and tolerance in a sea of repression and bigotry. Women, gay, and trans people certainly have a better life here than they would anywhere else in the region.
Rather than ask why the anti-Israel crowd is silent on the Taliban, perhaps we should be asking a better, more fundamental question – why are they so obsessed with us?"
From the website, gatestoneinstitute.org an article is headlined
"What about Arab War Crimes against Palestinians?"
by Khaled Abu Toameh
January 5, 2015 , this article says
"And who ever heard of the case of Zaki al-Hobby, a 17-year old Palestinian who was shot and killed last weekend by Egyptian border guards? Had he been shot by Israeli soldiers on the other side of the border, the EU and UN would have called for an international commission of inquiry.
The stories of the Palestinians tortured to death in an Arab prison have also failed to win the attention of the Western media. Nor have the EU and the UN, which called for an investigation into the death of Abu Ein -- who died of a heart attack while in a confrontation with an Israeli soldier -- deemed it necessary to tackle the plight of the Palestinians being killed and tortured to death in Syria and other Arab countries.
As far as the Palestinian Authority is concerned — and the media, the EU, the UN and human rights groups — the only "war crimes" are being committed by Israelis, and not by Arabs who are killing, torturing and displacing tens of thousands of Palestinians. And all this is happening while the international community and media continue to display an obsession only with everything connected to Israel.
More than 2,500 Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of the conflict in Syria three years ago, according to a report published this week by the Working Group for Palestinians in Syria. It revealed that 2,596 Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of the conflict in that country in 2011.
But this is a news item that has hardly found its way into mainstream media in the West. Even Arab media outlets have almost entirely ignored the report about Palestinian casualties in Syria.
The reason for this apathy, of course, is clear. The Palestinians in Syria were killed by Arabs and not as a result of the conflict with Israel.
Journalists covering the Middle East do not believe that this is an important story because of the absence of any Israeli role in the killings.
Arabs slaughtering, executing and torturing Palestinians is not sensational enough to grab a headline in a major Western or Arab newspaper. That is why most Middle East correspondents have chosen to turn a blind eye to the report."
According to the report, the victims include 157 women who were killed in the fighting between Bashar Assad's army and various opposition groups in Syria. It also said that 268 Palestinians were killed by snipers, while another 84 were summarily executed. Another 984 Palestinians were killed when their homes and neighborhoods were shelled by the Syrian army and the opposition groups.
The report also reminded the international community that the Palestinian Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus has been under siege by the Syrian army for the past 547 days. Approximately 160 residents of the camp have died as a result of the siege, the report said."
the article continues
"It also pointed out that the camp has been without electricity for more than 620 days. Camp residents have also been cut off from water for the past 117 days, the report added.
In addition to the deaths, some 80,000 Palestinians have fled their homes in Syria due to the ongoing conflict. Nearly 15,000 have crossed the border to Jordan, while another 42,000 have fled to Lebanon, the report disclosed.
As if that were not enough, last week Muslim terrorists executed six Palestinians from Yarmouk camp after finding them guilty of "blasphemy."
A senior PLO official in Syria, Anwar Abdel Hadi, said that the Palestinians were executed by the Al-Qaeda-affiliated An-Nusra terror group.
Abdel Hadi said that only 15,000 Palestinians remain in the refugee camp, which until three years ago was home to some 175,000 people.
Another report published recently revealed that 264 Palestinians have died as a result of torture in Syrian government prisons over the past few years.
The most recent deaths in Syrian prisons occurred last month, when three more Palestinians died after being tortured. The three were identified as Bila al-Zari, Mohamed Omar and Mohamed Masriyeh.
These Palestinians were arrested by the Syrian authorities on suspicion of helping anti-Assad forces in different parts of the country.
The stories of the Palestinians tortured to death in an Arab prison have also failed to win the attention of the Western media. Had any one of them died in an Israeli prison or in a confrontation with Israeli soldiers, his story and photo would have appeared on the front page of many newspapers and magazines in the U.S., Canada and Europe.
By contrast, when a top Fatah official, Ziad Abu Ein, recently died of a heart attack after an altercation with Israeli soldiers in the West Bank, his story immediately caught the attention of the international media and human rights organizations. Many foreign journalists covering the Middle East covered the story of Abu Ein from every possible angle and conducted interviews with his family members and friends.
In an incident widely reported by international media, Fatah official Ziad Abu Ein (center) is shown suffering a heart attack while sitting on the ground, moments after an altercation with Israeli soldiers. Abu Ein later died. (Image source: RT video screenshot)
But the Palestinians who are being killed and tortured to death in Syria and other Arab countries have never received the same attention from the same journalists and human rights activists. Nor have the EU and UN, which called for an investigation into the death of Abu Ein, deemed it necessary to tackle the plight of the Palestinians in Syria."
& Lastly says
"And who has heard of the case of Zaki Al-Hobby, a 17-year-old Palestinian who was shot and killed last weekend by Egyptian border guards? The Palestinian teenager was killed because he came too close to the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Witnesses said he was shot in the back and died instantly.
Once again, Al-Hobby's story has hardly received any coverage because Israel was not involved in that incident. Had he been shot by Israeli soldiers on the other side of the border, the EU and UN would have called for an international commission of inquiry. But the teenager was unfortunate because he was shot by Egyptian soldiers, making his story "insignificant" in the eyes of the international community and media.
That Palestinians are being killed by Arabs does not seem to bother even the Palestinian Authority, whose leaders are busy these days threatening to file "war crimes" charges against Israel with the International Criminal Court. As far as the Palestinian Authority is concerned — and the media, the EU, the UN and human rights groups — the only "war crimes" are being committed by Israelis, and not by Arabs who are killing, torturing and displacing tens of thousands of Palestinians. And all this is happening while the international community and media continue to display an obsession only with everything connected to Israel." The International Community and Media display a Sick Unhealthy Pathological Obsession only with everything connected to Israel
Also from gatestoneinstitute.org an article is headlined
"How Arabs Discriminate Against Palestinians"
by Khaled Abu Toameh
March 19, 2021 , this article says:
"Palestinians have effectively been stripped of their identity and travel documents by successive Iraqi governments," according to another report by Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.
In 2003 alone, 344 Palestinian families were forcibly expelled from their homes [in Iraq] by militias. Between 2003 and 2016, an estimated 300 Palestinian refugees were killed by these militias.... Palestinians have been demonized even in social media posts as potential 'terrorists' by accounts linked to the [Iraqi] interior ministry." — Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.
In 2017, Iraqi President Fuad Masum approved a law that stripped Palestinian refugees living in Iraq of their rights and classified them as foreigners.
The international reaction would, of course, have been completely different if Israel taken such measures against Palestinians. Evidently, no one really does care about the plight of the Palestinians. They are only cared about if they can be made to appear as victims of Israel, never of an Arab country.
Palestinian leaders are much too busy attacking Israel and demanding that the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecute Israelis for alleged "war crimes" against the Palestinians to notice the suffering of Palestinians at the hands of an Arab country.
The ICC, which appears obsessed with Israel, is unlikely to launch an investigation into Iraq's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Likewise, the United Nations Security Council is unlikely to hold an emergency session to denounce Iraq for its discriminatory measures against the Palestinians. The international media, for its part, will also continue their usually venomous -- and usually unjustified -- attacks on Israel, while ignoring the horrendous treatment the Palestinians receive from their Arab brothers.
Iraq is among the many Arab countries where Palestinians continue to face discriminatory measures and laws. Worse, it seems the Iraqi authorities are carrying out a policy of ethnic cleansing against the few thousand Palestinians who still live in Iraq. Pictured: A man rides a bicycle under Palestinian flags hung for the celebrations marking "Al-Quds Day," on May 22, 2020 in Baghdad, Iraq. (Photo by Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP via Getty Images)
The Palestinian Authority (PA) has invited Iraq to send observers to monitor the Palestinian parliamentary elections, if and when they are held on May 22. The invitation was extended to Mohamed al-Halbousi, Speaker of the Council of Representatives of Iraq, by the PA ambassador to Iraq, Ahmed Akl, during a meeting in Baghdad.
It is not clear whether the Iraqis have accepted the invitation. What is clear, however, is that Iraq is among the many Arab countries where Palestinians continue to face discriminatory measures and laws.
Worse, it seems the Iraqi authorities are carrying out a policy of ethnic cleansing against the few thousand Palestinians who still live in Iraq.
According to a recent report, the Iraqi authorities are now demanding that Palestinians who leave Iraq for a period exceeding three months apply for an entry visa.
A member of the Iraqi parliament told the pan-Arab media outlet Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs has circulated a directive preventing the return of any Palestinian who spends more than three months outside Iraq, unless he or she is granted an entry visa by an Iraqi embassy."
The unnamed MP said that the directive requires the Palestinian to explain the reason why he or she stayed out of Iraq for more than three months. The new measure, he added, also applies to Palestinians who were born in Iraq."
the article continues
"Some Palestinians who approached the Iraqi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, to obtain an entry visa so that they could return to their homes in Iraq were turned away, the Iraqi MK disclosed. "This is an immoral decision that is incompatible with the slogans raised by Iraq in support of the Palestinian issue," he remarked.
The new measure means that hundreds of Palestinians who left Iraq for various purposes, including medical treatment or education, will find now find it difficult to return to their homes. These Palestinians, who were never granted Iraqi citizenship, will become refugees in the countries they are visiting. The number of Palestinians residing in Iraq fell sharply from about 40,000 before the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 to fewer than 4,000 today.
Many Palestinians fled Iraq after they were exposed to campaigns of violence and killing from Iraqi militiamen, who accused them of being affiliated with the regime of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
"Palestinians have effectively been stripped of their identity and travel documents by successive Iraqi governments," according to another report by Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.
"Having been maligned as being 'Baathist loyalists' and 'Saddam's favorites,' Palestinians refugees were heavily targeted by sectarian Shia militias. In 2003 alone, 344 Palestinian families were forcibly expelled from their homes by militias. Between 2003 and 2016, an estimated 300 Palestinian refugees were killed by these militias. The Iraqi authorities largely turned a blind eye, as Palestinians have been demonized even in social media posts as potential 'terrorists' by accounts linked to the [Iraqi] interior ministry."
In 2017, Iraqi President Fuad Masum approved a law that stripped Palestinian refugees living in Iraq of their rights and classified them as foreigners.
The Palestinian Return Center condemned in the strongest terms the law and said it discriminates against Palestinians living in Iraq. The center called on the international community to condemn the new legislation and apply strong pressure on the Iraqi government to respect its international obligations toward the Palestinians.
The international community and so-called pro-Palestinian groups and individuals, however, have still not uttered a word about the discriminatory measures targeting the Palestinians living in Iraq."
& lastly says
"The international reaction would, of course, have been completely different if Israel taken such measures against Palestinians. Evidently, no one really does care about the plight of the Palestinians. They are only cared about if they can be made to appear as victims of Israel, never of an Arab country.
A Palestinian man who left Iraq for leg surgery in Turkey was quoted as saying that the Iraqi embassy in Turkey refused his request for an entry visa more than once. "I don't know where to go now," he said. "I was born in Iraq and I have no other place to go. My family and all my relatives live in Iraq."
Thamer Ali, a 66-year-old Palestinian from Iraq, said that the Iraqi government "still deals with us as foreigners, and we have no right to employment or work in governmental or private institutions."
Ali said that he and other Palestinians living in Iraq have appealed to the Palestinian Authority for help "dozens of times," to no avail.
The Palestinian Authority's silence about the mistreatment of Palestinians in Iraq comes as no surprise. Palestinian leaders are much too busy attacking Israel and demanding that the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecute Israelis for alleged "war crimes" against the Palestinians to notice the suffering of Palestinians at the hands of an Arab country.
This ongoing silence means that soon no Palestinians will remain in Iraq.
The ICC, which appears obsessed with Israel, is unlikely to launch an investigation into Iraq's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Likewise, the United Nations Security Council is unlikely to hold an emergency session to denounce Iraq for its discriminatory measures against the Palestinians. The international media, for its part, will also continue their usually venomous -- and usually unjustified -- attacks on Israel, while ignoring the horrendous treatment the Palestinians receive from their Arab brothers."
From the New York Post website, nypost.com an article is headlined
"New proof that it was Hamas — not Israel — that committed war crimes last May"
By Geoffrey Corn and Richard Natonski
November 12, 2021
The Israeli Iron Dome missile defence system (L) intercepts rockets (R) fired by the Hamas movement towards southern Israel from Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip as seen in the sky above the Gaza Strip overnight on May 14, 2021.
this article states
"In its conflict with Hamas in May, Israel endured a barrage of rockets — as well as war-crime accusations. Iron Dome intercepted most of the former. The latter are more dangerous, for Israel and even the United States.
After reviewing the Israeli Defense Forces’ operations during the Gaza conflict as retired senior US military officers, we find these accusations spurious — fed by Hamas’ disinformation and a widespread misunderstanding of the Law of Armed Conflict, or LOAC. These dynamics could soon feature in conflicts involving the US military.
Delegitimizing Israeli operations — not military victory — was one of Hamas’ main objectives in this conflict. “The real crimes,” Hamas’ spokesperson told the media, “were committed by [Israel] targeting civilians … killing more than 100 children and women and demolishing buildings.”
With such false claims, Hamas casts any civilian casualty as illegal. Unfortunately, many in the media and public embraced this false narrative.
“Destroying a civilian residence sure seems like a war crime,” comedian John Oliver opined on his show. Seeming like a war crime and being one are quite different.
LOAC requires militaries to distinguish between — and only attack — military, not civilian, targets. Commanders are obliged to make a good-faith effort to take all feasible precautions to mitigate civilian risk.
These rules do not preclude unavoidable civilian casualties. It is a sad but undeniable reality of war that international law tolerates harm to civilians if it’s not deliberately inflicted, caused by indiscriminate attacks and avoidable with feasible precautions.
Rockets are launched towards Israel from Gaza City, controlled by the Palestinian Hamas movement on May 18, 2021.
Israel has acted like a moral beacon in the latest Gaza war against terror
In our professional opinion, Israeli actions in Gaza reflected a consistent and good-faith commitment to respect and implement these LOAC principles.
IDF military legal advisers vetted all proposed targets. Its commanders took all feasible precautionary measures, at times implementing more than the law required as a matter of policy. The IDF dropped leaflets, placed phone calls and sent text messages warning Gazan civilians in advance of airstrikes.
Small “knock on the roof” munitions delivered further warning. We saw footage of the IDF waiting for civilians to clear a building — and of commanders calling off strikes when they did not.
These precautions came at a cost. They often allowed enemy fighters to escape. They also tied up Israeli aircraft, reducing the number of targets that could be monitored or struck. The IDF accepted these costs because of its commitment to protecting civilians."
the article continues
"The same can’t be said of Hamas. It deliberately targeted Israeli civilians. Even when ostensibly attacking military targets, it routinely did so indiscriminately. It exploited Gazan civilians as human shields, deliberately locating its military assets — including rocket launchers, mortars, command posts and military tunnels — in civilian areas when other options were available. This is all compelling evidence of LOAC violations.
This was an intentional, and integral, part of Hamas’ strategy. Putting Gazans in harm’s way made it harder for the IDF to strike Hamas targets while complying with LOAC. It also created the potential for civilian casualties that could be leveraged to accuse Israel of LOAC violations.
Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system intercepting rocket attacks from Hamas in Gaza on May 16, 2021.
Attempts at good messaging were not enough to confront such disinformation. Israel tried communicating its good intentions to the public during the conflict but was unfairly accused nonetheless. It could certainly have been better. Yet we heard a lingering resignation among Israelis that nothing they do could overcome the rush to condemnation reserved for Israel. This is truly unfortunate.
Averting similar feelings of futility among US and allied forces is vitally important, lest they dilute the commitment to the law that separates us from our war criminals.
We cannot cede the information domain to our adversaries. Or let unfounded legal accusations go unanswered. The United States must consistently and unapologetically stand up for our law-abiding partners, like Israel, and ensure a genuine appreciation of the complex application of law to war.
Lt. Gen. (ret.) Richard Natonski is the former commander of US Marine Corps Forces Command. Lt. Col. (ret.) Geoffrey Corn is the former US Army special assistant for law of war matters and the Gary A. Kuiper distinguished professor of law at South Texas College of Law Houston. Both are members of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America’s Gaza Conflict Task Force.
From timesofisrael.com an article is headlined
"'LIKE MY SURVIVAL, THE DECLARATION CAME AGAINST ALL ODDS'
Holocaust survivor publishes PhD dissertation on ‘serendipity’ of Balfour"
Paul Goldstein, whose studies were interrupted in WWII, became one of the oldest doctoral recipients in the world when he graduated last year from Israel’s Ariel University
By RENEE GHERT-ZAND
2 November 2021, 4:03 am
Shmuel Ben David (Davidov), c. 1917. (Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
Paul Goldstein is not the oldest person to receive a PhD, but he comes pretty close. In September 2020, Goldstein earned a doctorate in political science from Israel’s Ariel University at age 87. , this article says:
"In September 2021, Goldstein’s dissertation on the Balfour Declaration was published as a book by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, another achievement he could not have foreseen earlier in his life.
That Goldstein would have the opportunity to pursue higher education, let alone a doctoral degree, was far from a given. As a child, his schooling was abruptly halted as he hid to survive during the Holocaust. As a young man, he had to make up for those lost years, and also find a way to support himself — first in his native Belgium, and then as an immigrant to Canada.
After learning English and earning a bachelor’s degree in political theory at Montreal’s Sir George Williams University (now Concordia University) in 1958, Goldstein worked for a packaging company. In a bid to be more financially independent and better able to support his Israeli-born wife and their three children, Goldstein moved into the financial services industry in 1966. He found success in the field, and still maintains some of his longtime clients.
“It was only at an older age that I had the maturity and perspective to write this book,” Goldstein said of “The Serendipitous Evolution of the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917.”
The 315-page scholarly, yet accessible, work unpacks the different twists and turns of Jewish and world history in the 18th and 19th centuries as they led — individually and jointly — to the issuance of the Balfour Declaration, in which a major world power recognized for the first time the right of the Jewish people to a homeland in Palestine.
Arthur Balfour, and the Balfour Declaration. (Wikipedia)
In a recent interview with The Times of Israel from Toronto, his home since 1970, Goldstein lamented the lack of knowledge about the Balfour Declaration, not only among Israel’s younger generation but also among academics.
“And those who do write about the Balfour Declaration tend to do so only in light of the events that came after it, in terms of World War II and also the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” Goldstein said."
the article continues
"Goldstein meticulously demonstrates how the national interests of the countries involved in World War I concurred, at least at the time, with the aspirations of the strengthening Zionist movement.
Paul Goldstein (Courtesy)
Throughout the book, Goldstein likens the process to precision clockwork.
“Each element, regardless of shape or size, played an essential part in the functioning of the whole, while the absence of one of them would have altered the outcome of the entire process,” he writes in the book’s introduction.
The author devotes chapters to each of the various pieces and delves into the motivations — and secret machinations — of the British Empire as it vied for power in the Middle East with other European powers and the Ottomans.
“The Jews were crushed between the two tectonic forces of the British Empire’s geopolitical interests and the Islamic world,” he said.
In his book, Goldstein, also shows how the United States’ entry into WWI in April 1917 turned the tide for the Allies and had a major positive impact on the diplomatic process eventually leading to the Balfour Declaration.
On the Jewish side, Goldstein looks at emancipation’s effects on Jews in Western and Eastern Europe as countries began repealing discriminatory laws and allowing Jews to integrate and obtain citizenship, as well as the development and complexity of Zionist political thinking in the mid-late 19th century.
“One of the most challenging things was to convert historical facts into something dynamic and visual,” Goldstein said.
A march in support of the Balfour Declaration in 1917, in front of the parliament building in Toronto Canada. The man in the shiny black top hat is Rabbi Yosef Weinreb, the chief rabbi of Toronto at the time. (Photographer unknown, via Wikimedia Commons)
He achieved this with graphic descriptions of the devastating persecution of Jews in Tsarist Russia in the 19th century, many of which were taken from firsthand accounts from Simon Dubnow’s multi-volume (1916-1920) “The History of the Jews in Russian and Poland: From the Earliest Times until the Present Day.”
& lastly says
"Goldstein said he was aware of the pitfalls of using secondary sources, so he relied on primary sources as much as possible in his research. He read the works of early Zionist thinkers such as Leon Pinsker, Peretz Smolenskin, Moshe Leib Lilienblum, and Theodor Herzl, widely recognized as the father of modern political Zionism.
“I read the approximately 3,000 pages of Theodor Herzl’s diaries. It took me months,” said Goldstein.
He said that Herzl came across “totally different” from the literature on him. The diaries allowed Goldstein to get behind initial impressions of the iconic figure and “meet him more personally and get to know what made him tick.”
Famous picture of Theodor Herzl on the balcony of the Hotel Les Trois Rois in Basel, Switzerland (photo credit: CC-PD-Mark, by Wikigamad, Wikimedia Commons)
Theodor Herzl on the balcony of the Hotel Les Trois Rois in Basel, Switzerland, 1897. (CC-PD-Mark, by Wikigamad, Wikimedia Commons)
“It is impossible to understand him without reading his diaries,” Goldstein asserted.
The book’s final part deals with the various draft versions of the Balfour Declaration that were put forth by all involved parties before a final one was settled upon. The various nuances reflect the political push and pull exerted by all sides.
Goldstein exposes the vehement disagreements between British Jewish Zionists and anti-Zionists that took place prior to the decision by the British War Cabinet (which fortuitously comprised several powerful Christian Zionists) to issue the Balfour Declaration.
“To do this, I pored through the minutes of every single War Cabinet meeting in 1917,” Goldstein said.
The octogenarian widower’s road to this doctoral dissertation and book began in 2013, when he decided to enroll in a master’s program in political science at the University of Toronto. With his professional commitments and work representing Holocaust survivors within Jewish organizations slowing down — but his physical and mental health intact — he knew it was now or never.
“I wanted to get back to life’s purpose,” said Goldstein.
‘The Serendipitous Evolution of The Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917’ by Paul Goldstein (Cambridge Scholars Publishing)
After receiving his MA in 2015, he decided to continue on for a doctorate, ultimately studying under adviser Dr. Eyal Lewin, assistant professor in the department of Middle East studies and political science at Ariel University. (Lewin has a co-author credit on “The Serendipitous Evolution of the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917.”)
“Although I was accepted elsewhere, I decided to do the degree at Ariel University because I could do it all online,” said Goldstein of a prescient decision that proved its soundness during the coronavirus pandemic.
Goldstein admitted that he knew nothing about the Balfour Declaration before embarking on his dissertation. It was upon meeting and speaking with Lewin at an Association for Israel Studies conference at Brandeis University in June 2017 marking the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration that Goldstein zeroed in on his topic.
Goldstein continues to reflect on the serendipitous nature of the Balfour Declaration — how it could have been derailed by the absence or alteration of any one element of the “precision clockwork” of events leading up to it.
“I feel the same way about it as I do about the fact that I survived the Holocaust. Both were against all odds,” Goldstein said.
“The element of happenstance is so frightening and daunting. We see how little is due to human agency. There is a higher force at work. The things we can’t control can overthrow the things that we can control,” he said."
From cambridgescholars.com a description of the book by Paul Goldstein
"The Serendipitous Evolution of the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917"
The Serendipitous Evolution of the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917
View Extract
Description
Author Bio
"The Balfour Declaration was one of the most important events in the history of the Jewish people prior to the Holocaust, signaling the beginning of a new era of self-determination in the reconstituted Jewish homeland.
This book provides an all-inclusive understanding of the complex geopolitical elements that shaped the facts on the ground in the Middle East. Analyzing the chain of events that led to the Balfour Declaration through a uniquely holistic approach, it demonstrates how the national interests of the nations involved in the World War I theater intersected with those of the Jewish nation in the final phase of its long march towards political sovereignty. Like the multiple parts of precision clockwork, each element, regardless of shape or size, played an essential part in the functioning of the whole, while the absence of one of them would have altered the outcome of the entire process.
The text is bound to be of interest to specialists and researchers wanting insights into the historic, international and psycho-sociological processes that have been changing the Middle East throughout recent decades. It will also serve as an important academic source, or even a textbook, for university courses about the history of Israel and the Middle East."
From the New York Daily News website, nydailynews.com
an article is headlined
"UNsurprising: The world body keeps up its assault on Israel"
By DAILY NEWS EDITORIAL BOARD
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS |
DEC 03, 2021 , this article says
"Credit UN Watch in Geneva for keeping a careful eye on the goings-on here on the East River, as the United Nations continues its incessant campaign to isolate, condemn, vilify, ostracize and denounce the most democratic nation in the Middle East. That’s Israel, the only Jewish country in the roster of 193, which is probably just a coincidence, as no one would ever think of singling out and targeting Jews. What a crazy idea.
What’s not crazy, or funny, is that the UN’s General Assembly, dominated by various shades of dictatorships and tyrannies, is obsessed with the Jews and is annually lining up Israel in the dock for vote after vote to deliver the formal opprobrium from the Parliament of Man.
Israel and Jews on the brain. (SPENCER PLATT/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
The pile-on against Israel also ignores the great many countries that engage in objectively horrendous human rights abuses, from North Korea to Iran to a little place you may have heard of called China.
UN Watch has a new database to track the world body’s disproportionate focus on Israel. Over the last six years, the General Assembly has approved 115 resolutions against Israel and only 45 against the other 192 member countries combined. That’s 72% of the resolutions for 0.5% of the countries. It’s even more warped considering that there are 9 million people in Israel out of 7.9 billion on Earth. So Israelis are 0.1% of the world, but they still get almost three-fourth of the UN’s brickbats.
This session’s votes of 14 anti-Israel tallies include such winners as denying the Jewish nature of the Temple Mount, where this guy named Solomon built some kind of prayer area a while ago, and there’s this Wall thing there. There was also the annual vote to continue the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Human Rights Practices, a 1968 Cold War relic that the anti-Israel cabal keeps alive.
America and Canada are the few decent countries siding with Israel to oppose this swill, while many cowardly European states abstain and large majorities join the gang up."
From the website hasbarafellowships.org an article is headlined
"False Arab Claims to The Land of Israel"
July 29, 2019
Hasbara Staff
Uncategorized
Anonymous author, this article says
"Arabs continuously protest that the land of Israel was “stolen from them”. Despite the mass territory that they currently occupy (such as Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt), they still covet the tiny land of Israel. They do so even as Israel comprises only 0.1% of the Middle East’s land mass and is surrounded by 22 Arab/Muslim nations.
All Arab claims to jurisdiction based on inherited historical control are illegitimate. As a strictly legal matter, the Jews obtained the land of Israel from the British, not the Arabs. There were legal mandates and conditions involved which the Jews followed; indeed, the British transferred the land recognizing the Jews as its rightful historical heirs. In July of 1922, the League of Nations recognized “the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine,” and thus entrusted Great Britain with the Mandate for Palestine. To take a step further back, the land still would not be Arab territory, as the British seized it from Turkey, –who also do not want the land back–during the Great War in 1917.
The Arabs took Palestine by military conquest, and also lost it by conquest, to the Christian Crusaders in 1099. The Arabs have no grounds to complain about the expansion of Israeli territory to the West Bank in 1967, which was an act of self defense, as it was Jordan who attacked Israel despite their desperate pleas to avoid this conflict.
Arabs are native to Arabia, not Palestine. One of the many differences between Israelis and Arabs include the the letter P. Anat Berko, a conservative lawmaker from the governing Likud Party, stated in parliament that Palestine could not possibly exist because there is no sound of a ‘P’ in the Arabic language. After the Bar Kochba revolt in 135 CE, it was the Romans, the ruling power at the time, who renamed Judea ‘Aelia Palestina’, after the Philistines who were enemies of the Jews. This change was made in an attempt to erase Jewish connection to and minimize Jewish identification with the land.
‘Free Palestine’ is a term we often hear nowadays. The Free Palestine Movement opposes the existence of the land of Israel and believes there is no grounds for coexistence between Jews and Arabs. They claim that they have owned the land for hundreds of years. However, there was never an independent Palestinian state in the first place. Despite the Arab’s supposed connection to the land, the word ‘Jerusalem’ is not mentioned once in the Quran. Furthermore, as mentioned, Arabs defensively claim that the letter P is not represented in their alphabet because Israel is the land of ‘Filastin’ and not ‘Palestine’. Even so, the word ‘Filastin’ does not appear in the Quran either.
The land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people and Arabs have no right to protest that they are the rightful inhabitants. Their claims to the land are both false and illogical."
From besacenter.org an article is headlined
"Why Do the Arabs Hate the Palestinians?"
By Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Mordechai Kedar September 24, 2020
Bourj el-Barajneh camp for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, image via Wikimedia Commons
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,758, September 24, 2020 , this article says:
"EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: For many reasons, the Arab world is not at all interested in giving the Palestinian Arabs a state. The Palestinian Arabs don’t really want one either, because why kill the “refugee” goose that lays the golden eggs?
In Israel and in much of the Western world, we tend to think the Arab world is united in its support for the Palestinians—that it wants nothing more than to solve the Palestinian problem by giving them a state, and that all Arabs and Muslims love the Palestinians and hate Israel. This is a simplistic and incomplete view. While it is true that many, perhaps even the majority, of Arabs and Muslims hate Israel, there are a good many who hate the Palestinians just as much.
Their hatred of Israel stems from its success at surviving despite wars, terror, boycotts, and constant enmity. It stems from the fact that a Jewish state exists even though Judaism, in the Muslim view, was superseded by Islam, the “true religion.” This hatred is exacerbated by other stark disparities: Israel is a democracy while many Arabs and Muslims live under dictatorships; Israel is rich while many Arabs and Muslims are poor; Israel is a paradise compared to some Arab countries, many of which resemble nothing so much as the last train stop before hell (see Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Sudan; the list goes on). In short, they despise Israel because it has succeeded in areas where they have failed.
But why should they hate the Palestinian Arabs? After all, the Arab narrative says the Palestinian Arabs’ land was stolen and they were forced to become refugees. Surely they are deserving of unreserved support?
The answer to this question is complex. It is a function of Middle Eastern culture that neither Israelis nor most Westerners fully understand or recognize.
One of the worst things to experience, in Arab eyes, is to be cheated, fooled, or taken advantage of. When someone attempts to cheat an Arab—and even more so, if that person succeeds—the Arab is overcome by furious anger, even if the person who did the cheating was his own cousin. He will call on his brother to take revenge on that cousin, in line with the Arab adage: “My brother and I against my cousin—and my brother, my cousin, and I against a stranger.”
the article continues
"Regarding the Palestinian Arabs, the first point to make is that many of them are not originally Palestinians at all. They are immigrants who came to the Land of Israel from all over the Arab world during the British Mandate in order to find employment in the cities and on the farms the Jews had built. These immigrants still have names like Hourani (from Houran in southern Syria), Tzurani (from Tyre in southern Lebanon), Zrakawi (from Mazraka in Jordan), Masri (the Egyptian), Hijazi (from the Hijaz province of the Arabian peninsula), Mughrabi (from the Maghreb), and many other names that point to their true geographical origins. Why, ask the other Arabs, should they get preferential treatment over those who remained in their original countries?
Starting with the end of the 1948 Israeli War of Independence, the politics in the Arab world began to center on Israel and the “Palestinian problem,” the solution to which was to be achieved by eliminating Israel. In order to succeed in that mission, the Arab “refugees” were kept in camps, with explicit instructions from the Arab League that they be kept there and not absorbed into other Arab countries.
UNRWA ensured that they were provided with food, education, and medical care without charge—that is to say, the nations of the world paid the bill, even as the Arab neighbors of these eternal “refugees” had to work to provide food, education, and medical care for their own families by the sweat of their brow. “Refugees” who were supplied with free foodstuffs, such as rice, flour, sugar, and oil, for the use of their families, would often sell some of it to their non-refugee neighbors and make a tidy profit.
Residents in the refugee camps do not pay municipal taxes. This tax exemption has led a significant number of “refugees” to rent out their homes and collect exorbitant sums in comparison with those renting apartments in nearby cities. In other words, the world subsidizes the refugees’ taxes, and the refugees line their own pockets."
& Continues
"In Lebanon, several refugee camps were built near Beirut, but they were incorporated into the expanding city and then turned into high-class neighborhoods with imposing high-rise apartment buildings. Someone profited from this change, and it was not the man in the street. He has every reason to feel cheated.
The Palestinian “refugee” camps in Lebanon were taken over by armed organizations, from the PLO to ISIS, including Hamas, the Popular Front, the Democratic Front, and Salafist jihadist organizations. These groups acted viciously toward the surrounding Lebanese citizens, and in 1975 brought on a civil war that lasted for 14 long years of bloodshed and destruction. The war saw hundreds of thousands of Lebanese forced to leave their villages only to enter into lives of horrible suffering in tent camps all over the country. Many took refuge in Palestinian “refugee” camps, but the Lebanese refugees received less than 10% of what Palestinian Arabs received. This too caused much internecine jealousy and hatred.
In 1970 in Jordan, the Palestinian terror organizations, led by PLO head Yasser Arafat, attempted to take over the country by establishing autonomous regions of their own in the north, complete with roadblocks and armed Palestinian Arabs who challenged the monarchy. In September 1970, known as “Black September,” King Hussein decided he had had enough and would show them who was boss in Jordan. The war he declared against them cost thousands of lives on both sides.
Meanwhile, in Israel, 20% of the citizenry within the pre-1967 borders is made up of “Palestinian” Arabs who do not rebel or fight against the state. In other words, the “Palestinians” living in pre-1967 Israel enjoy life in the only democracy in the Middle East, while the Arab countries sacrifice their soldiers’ blood to liberate “Palestine.” Many an Arab soldier has been exploited by having his life put at risk for the sake of this meaningless cause.
Worse still is what every Arab knows: Palestinian Arabs have been selling land to Jews for at least a century, profiting immensely from the deals, and then wailing to their Arab brethren to come and free “Palestine” from the “Zionist occupation.”
& continues
"Over the years, the Palestinian Arabs were given many billions of euros and dollars by the nations of the world, so that the yearly per capita income in the PA is several times greater than that of the Egyptian, Sudanese, or Algerian man or woman in the street. Their lives are many times better than that of Arabs living in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen, certainly over the past seven years.
On a political level, the Palestinians have managed to arouse the hatred of many of their Arab brethren. In 1990, Arafat supported Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. In revenge, Kuwait, once it was freed of the Iraqi conquest, expelled some 400,000 Palestinians, most of whom had been living in the emirate for decades, leaving them destitute overnight. This led to an economic crisis for their families in the West Bank and Gaza, who had been receiving regular stipends from their relatives in Kuwait.
Today, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad are supported by Iran, a country abhorred by many Arabs who remember that airplane hijackings and the ensuing blackmail were invented by the Palestinian Arabs. It was they who hijacked an El Al plane to Algiers in 1968, 52 years ago, beginning a period of travail still being endured by the entire world.
Despite the 1989 Taif agreement, which ended the civil war in Lebanon and was supposed to lead to the disarmament and dissolution of all the Lebanese militias, Syria allowed Hezbollah to keep its arms and develop its military power unrestrainedly. The repeated excuse was that the weapons were meant to “liberate Palestine” and would not be aimed at the Lebanese. To anyone with a modicum of brains, it was clear that the Palestine story was a fig leaf covering the sad truth that the weapons were going to be aimed at Hezbollah’s Syrian and Lebanese enemies. “Palestine” was simply an excuse for the Shiite takeover of Lebanon.
Worst of all is the Palestinian demand that Arab states refrain from any relations with Israel until the Palestinian problem is solved to the satisfaction of the PLO and Hamas leaders. A good portion of the Arab world cannot find any commonalities that could unite the PLO and Hamas. As they watched the two sides’ endless squabbles ruin any chances of progress regarding Israel, they gave up on the belief that an internal Palestinian reconciliation can be achieved."
& lastly says
"To sum up the situation, the Arab world—that part of it that sees Israel as the only hope in dealing with Iran—does not appreciate the expectation that it must mortgage its future and its very existence to the internal fighting between the PLO and Hamas.
And let us not forget that Egypt and Jordan have signed peace agreements with Israel, moved outside the circle of war for the “liberation of Palestine,” and forsaken their Palestinian Arab “brothers,” leaving them to deal with the problem on their own.
Much of the Arab and Muslim world is convinced that the “Palestinians” do not in fact want a state of their own. After all, if that state were established, the world would cease its steady donations of enormous sums. There would be no more “refugees,” and Palestinian Arabs would have to work just like everyone else. How can they, when they are addicted to handouts that come with no strings attached?
One can say with assurance that 70 years after the creation of the “Palestinian problem,” the Arab world has realized that no solution will satisfy those who have turned “refugee-ism” into a profession. The “Palestinian problem” has become an emotional and financial scam that only serves to enrich the corrupt leaders of Ramallah and Gaza."
Great News and Thank God, that vile Anti-Semite, Jew-Hater, Anti-Israel Bigot Desmond Tutu has been sucked back into Hell at the age of 90 on December 26, 2021. Good that Desmond Tutu is Dead, again we at this blog Proudly say
Good that Desmond Tutu is Dead, His Death brings Glory to God !!!! Praise God that Desmond Tutu is Dead and
Rotting in Hell, he was a Nasty Piece of Trash , we all wish he had died decades ago !!!! We all wish he had choked to death on the bile and hateful things that came out of his Mouth decades ago !!! Good that he's Dead !!! He was a Heretic, Racist, Anti-Semite, False Prophet, Fraud, Jew-Hater, Anti-Israel Loser , Worthless Loser . If only his Mother had that Abortion while pregnant with him
Tutu was full of Hate, Hate and Lies. Desmond Tutu said Many Many Hateful things in his Life , he will Not be Missed,
Do a Google search to see all the Hateful Anti-Israel & Anti-Semitic Lies that Desmond Tutu said in his Life,
those things Tutu said are Not "Out of Context" even when viewing Tutu's statements in Full Context, it just shows what a
Hateful Nasty Liar and Fraud he was, he was a Worthless Loser and a disgrace to Genuine Christian Clergy that
Support Israel and the Jewish people. Israel supporters all over the World should Celebrate his Death !!!
Another good Pro-Israel website is, theisraelguys.com Good website
Yet Another good Pro-Israel website is IsraelForever.org , Superb Pro-Israel website
allisrael.com the website for All Israel News is Superb , from allisrael.com it says
"All Israel News is a news and commentary site based in Jerusalem that is focused on Israel and the broader Middle East, bringing together in one place all of the most important events and trends in the region from a wide range of existing news sites, as well as providing fresh, original and exclusive reporting, polls, interviews and analysis.
The eyes of the nations are increasingly riveted on Israel and her Arab and Muslim neighbors, the Epicenter of the momentous events that are shaking our world and shaping our future.
The world’s Evangelical Christians – of whom there are upwards of 600 million[1] – are especially and increasingly fascinated in the geopolitical, economic, financial, religious, archaeological, tourist, cultural, entertainment and other news in the region.
The site was founded by Joel C. Rosenberg, the New York Times best-selling author, Middle East analyst, columnist and Evangelical leader who lives with his wife and sons in Jerusalem.
The number one question that Joel is asked these days is, “What news sites do you read – and trust – to know what’s happening in Israel and the Middle East and to truly understand what it all means?” The good news is that there is actually quite a bit of useful reporting out there both from Christian and non-Christian sources. The challenge is that most people don’t have the time, experience or discernment to know how to extract the useful from the worthless.
Add to this the rise of fake news – as well as so much anti-faith, anti-Christian, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim bias – in the modern, secular, mainstream media and it’s not surprising that Evangelicals and others are increasingly searching for a reliable source of truthful reporting and sound analysis.
Astonishingly, there has not been a single, trusted, must-read, “one-stop-shopping” website that covers all of the breaking news and important trends affecting the people, governments, businesses and ministries in Israel and the Middle East.
And there certainly has not been a single website that does so in manner that speaks directly to the world’s Evangelical Christians and analyzes events with a Biblical perspective and worldview.
Until now.
Welcome to All Israel News."
digitalcommons.liberty.edu has an article headlined
"Ezekiel 38 & 39"
by Thomas D. Ice
Liberty University,
Scholars Crossing Pre-Trib Research Center
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/pretrib_arch
Recommended Citation
Ice, Thomas D., "Ezekiel 38 & 39" (2009). Article Archives. 1. https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/pretrib_arch/1
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Pre-Trib Research Center at Scholars Crossing. It has been accepted for inclusion in Article Archives by an authorized administrator of Scholars Crossing. For more information, please contact scholarlycommunications@liberty.edu.
EZEKIEL 38 AND 39
Part I
by Thomas Ice
The battle of Gog and Magog in Ezekiel 38 and 39 is one of the most debated items in the area of biblical prophecy. Commentator Ralph Alexander said, “One of the perennial enigmas of Biblical prophecy has been the Gog and Magog event described in Ezekiel 38 and 39.”1 Almost every aspect of this ancient prophecy has been disputed, including whether it was fulfilled in the past or is still a future prophecy. Who are the peoples involved and do they relate to modern nations? How should we understand the weapons that are described? If a future event, when does it take place on the prophetic timeline? This is why I want to attempt an in-depth analysis of this important passage.
REAL OR ONLY IMAGINED?
One of the first things to handle when dealing with this or any Biblical prophecy is whether or not the God and Ezekiel intended to communicate a message that would be fulfilled in history. Since I believe that all Biblical prophecy intends historical fulfillment, there is nothing in this passage that would suggest differently. However, there is a school of interpretation, primarily among liberal scholars, that does not believe that the Ezekiel passage (or most prophetic Scripture) was meant to give a prophecy that would be fulfilled in history. This view is often known as idealism. The idealist does not believe either that the Bible indicates the timing of events or that we can determine their timing in advance. Therefore, idealists see prophetic passages as a teacher of great truths about God to be applied to our present lives. Idealists believe that the Bible uses prophetic passages to present principles between “a message that is universal and abiding. That message is not bound to any particular time or place even though these terms and expressions represent scenes taken from countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea and other places in the Middle East.”2
One who advocates a non-historical, idealist approach to Bible prophecy is Brent Sandy in his Plowshares & Pruning Hooks.3 Typical of those under the spell of today’s postmodern influence, Sandy exalts the interpretative process at the expense of arriving at a definite theology. Sandy’s doublespeak is evident in the following:
The limitations of prophecy as a source of information for the future were demonstrated with examples from various prophetic parts of Scripture. It became evident that the predicative element of prophecy is more translucent than transparent. Prophecy is always accurate in what it intends to reveal, but rarely does it reveal information so that we may know the future in advance. Figures of speech function to describe not the details of what is going to happen but the seriousness of what is going to happen." The Full article can be found online
From askdrbrown.org an article is headlined
"Did the Prophet Ezekiel Predict Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine?"
Posted March 04, 2022 by Michael L. Brown , this article says:
"According to Pat Robertson, Vladimir Putin is being “compelled by God” to invade Ukraine. Indeed, “He went into the Ukraine, but that wasn’t his goal. His goal was to move against Israel, ultimately.” And, according to Robertson, this was all prophesied by Ezekiel, who lived more than 2,500 years ago. Is this true?
Over on the Bible Prophecy News website, Dr. Bob Thiel asks, “On February 24, 2022, Russia's President Vladimir Putin announced a 'special military operation' into Ukraine. Are Jewish sources correct that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is the start of the Gog and Magog war of Ezekiel 38? Are Protestant sources, and people like Trumpet editor Gerald Flurry right that Vladimir Putin is the 'prince of Rosh/Rush'? Does Ezekiel 38 include Russia? What are some of the other nations involved in Ezekiel 38? Does this battle happen BEFORE or well AFTER Jesus returns? Can you know the answer from the actual passages in Ezekiel 38?”
A Christian Zionist website makes this claim (note that this was posted on December 10, 2021, so more than two months before the Russian invasion): Based on Ezekiel 38-39, the armies that will one day invade Israel “include Russia and Turkey from the north, Sudan/Libya (possibly including Algeria and Tunisia) from the south and west, and Iran from the east. Consequently, sometime in the future, an enormous military force surrounds Israel, which is far beyond their capacity to defeat. God alone can deliver them from annihilation, which Ezekiel reveals He does (38:17–23; 39:1–6).”
In stark contrast, Old Testament and Semitic scholar Michael S. Heiser tweeted, “The idea that Ezekiel 38 and 39 is about Russia or a Russian invasion has literally no merit in terms of exegesis.” (Exegesis refers to accurate interpretation of the Scriptures.)
Who is right here?
Dr. Heiser, without a doubt.
Allow me to explain.
First, Ezekiel 38 says nothing about Russia, directly or indirectly, despite some translations which read, “Son of man [which is how the Lord referred to Ezekiel], set thy face toward Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, and prophesy against him” (ASV, my emphasis; see also the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament which dates to approximately two hundred years before Jesus).
The correct translation, as recognized by the vast majority of translations and commentaries, is this: “Son of man, set your face toward Gog, of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him” (ESV).
The Hebrew here reads n’si rosh, which could potentially mean “the prince of Rosh” (as if rosh was a place name) but it is better translated as “chief prince” (with rosh carrying its normal meaning of “head, chief”).
Yet even if a case could be made for the Hebrew text meaning, “prince of Rosh,” Ezekiel scholar Daniel Block points out the problems. (This will be a little technical for some readers, but just watch for his conclusions.)"
the article continues .. "He writes, “The popular identification of Rosh with Russia is impossibly anachronistic and based on a faulty etymology, the assonantal similarities between Russia and Rosh being purely accidental. In the 19th century some scholars associated Rosh with Rûs, a Scythian tribe inhabiting the northern Taurus Mountains, according to Byzantine and Arabic writings. Recent attempts to equate Rosh with Râshu/ Rêshu/Arashi in neo-Assyrian annals are more credible, except that the place so named was located far to the east on the border between Babylon and Elam, and would have had nothing to do with Meshech and Tubal. This interpretation is also difficult (though not impossible) from a grammatical point of view. If Rosh is to be read as the first in a series of names, the conjunction should precede ‘Meshech.’ rōʾš is therefore best understood as a common noun, appositional to and offering a closer definition of nāśı̂ʾ. Accordingly, the prince, chief of Meshech and Tubal, combines Ezekiel’s preferred title for kings with a hierarchical designation, the addition serving to clarify the preceding archaic term. Ezekiel’s point is that Gog is not just one of many Anatolian princely figures, but the leader among princes and over several tribal/national groups.” (New International Commentary on the Old Testament, Ezekiel 25-48, 434-435).
Second, Meshech and Tubal referred to nations that were located in what is Turkey today, hence also unrelated to the current war.
Of course, the argument is that the war will expand, involving many other nations, some of which are mentioned in Ezekiel 38:5-6. And I personally believe that the Bible does predict a final war against Israel, one in which the Lord will fight for His ancient people and ultimately destroy the invaders. This is most clearly addressed in Zechariah 12 and 14, as well as in Ezekiel 38-39.
I believe that this will literally happen, just as I believe that the Bible prophesied that God would scatter the Jewish people around the world (I write this as a Jesus-believing Jewish person myself) and then regather us back to our ancient homeland. As it was written, so has it happened.
And Ezekiel’s language is very clear, saying to these nations, “After a long time you shall be summoned; in the distant future you shall march against the land [of a people] restored from the sword, gathered from the midst of many peoples—against the mountains of Israel, which have long lain desolate—[a people] liberated from the nations, and now all dwelling secure” (NJPS Version). This is quite a striking prophecy!
But there is no evidence that Russia’s current invasion is related to these words, nor is there any evidence that Russian is mentioned or alluded to in these chapters.
What about a Jewish tradition that purportedly states, “When you hear that the Russians have captured the city of Crimea, you should know that the times of the Messiah have started, that his steps are being heard. And when you hear that the Russians have reached the city of Constantinople (today’s Istanbul), you should put on your Shabbat [Sabbath] clothes and don’t take them off because it means that the Messiah is about to come any minute.”
It is just that: a tradition, without scriptural support or divine authority. Plus, the Russians have not yet reached Istanbul. Not even faintly, remotely close.
Could it be that, in the years to come, we will see a coalition of nations coming against Israel, with Russia leading the way (or, at least, participating). That’s possible. And could it be that, when that day arrives, we will look back to Ezekiel 38-39, at least as a broad-brushed description of what is taking place? Perhaps.
But right now, there is absolutely no scriptural or factual evidence that connects Ezekiel 38 to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And with hundreds (or thousands) of mistaken date-setting interpretations of the Bible littering our recent past, it’s best to toss this latest one in the dustbin right now."
From watchmanbiblestudy.com an article is headlined
"10 Prophecies Fulfilled in 1948"
Last Updated: 04/29/2021
Jump to Prophecy
These 10 Bible prophecies were fulfilled in 1948 when Israel became an independent, united nation for the second time in history, and for the first time in 2,900 years. © 100 Prophecies
Jacob’s descendants would regain control of Israel
Bible passage: Amos 9:14-15
Written: about 750 BC
Fulfilled: Since 1948
In Amos 9:14-15, the prophet said that there would come a time when the exiles of Israel would again have Israel as their own land and that they would never be uprooted again. Amos lived about 2700 years ago, during a time when the people of Israel were being forced out of their homeland by a succession of foreign invasions. Despite many centuries of exile, many Jews returned to Israel and reclaimed sovereignty over a portion of their ancient homeland. This declaration of independence, in 1948, triggered a war with the surrounding countries, which objected to the presence of a Jewish state. On May 15, 1948, the day that armies from the surrounding countries invaded, Azzam Pasha, the Secretary General of the Arab League, said “This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.” Similar quotes were uttered by others during the war of 1948-49 and during the two major wars that followed. Despite its tiny size, Israel prevailed in these wars, preventing its people from being uprooted again, as they had been in ancient times.
Amos 9:14-15
I will bring back my exiled people Israel; they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them,” says the Lord your God.
Israel would be brought back to life
Bible passage: Ezekiel 37:10-14
Written: between 593-571 BC
Fulfilled: 1948
In Ezekiel 37:10-14, the prophet receives a vision in which Israel was seen as a scattering of dried-up bones. In this vision, God tells Ezekiel that the bones (Israel) would be brought back to life. Just as Ezekiel had prophesized about 2600 years ago, the Jews were brought back to the land, and the country of Israel was brought back to life. Israel re-established sovereignty in 1948, a mere three years after the end of the Holocaust, during which the Nazis killed about one-third of the world’s Jewish population.
Ezekiel 37:10-14
So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet--a vast army. Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.’”
the article continues
"Isaiah spoke of a Israel being reborn in one day
Bible passage: Isaiah 66:7-8
Written: perhaps between 701-681 BC
Fulfilled: 1948
In Isaiah 66:7-8, the prophet foreshadowed the re-birth of Israel in 1948. Isaiah describes a woman giving birth before going into labor, and he speaks of a country being born in one day. This accurately describes what happened on May 14, 1948 - when the Jews declared independence for Israel as a united and sovereign nation for the first time in 2900 years.
During that same day, the United States issued a statement recognizing Israel’s sovereignty. And, only hours beforehand, a United Nations mandate expired, ending British control of the land. During a 24-hour span of time, foreign control of the land of Israel had formally ceased, and Israel had declared its independence, and its independence was acknowledged by other nations. Modern Israel was literally was born in a single day.
Isaiah said the birth would take place before there would be labor pains. And that too is precisely what happened. A movement called Zionism began in the 1800s to encourage Jews worldwide to move to Israel, which at that time was called Palestine. Within hours of the declaration of independence in 1948, Israel was attacked by the surrounding countries of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
When reading Isaiah 66:7-8, keep in mind that Israel’s status as a sovereign nation was established and reaffirmed during the course of a single day, and that it was born of a movement called Zionism, and that its declaration of independence was not the result of a war but rather the cause of one.
Isaiah 66:7-8
“Before she goes into labor, she gives birth; before the pains come upon her, she delivers a son. Who has ever heard of such a thing? Who has ever seen such things? Can a country be born in a day or a nation be brought forth in a moment? Yet no sooner is Zion in labor than she gives birth to her children.”
Israel would be re-established as a united nation
Bible passage: Ezekiel 37:21-22
Written: between 593-571 BC
Fulfilled: 1948
In Ezekiel 37:21-22, the prophet said that God would one day bring the people of Israel back to Israel, as a united nation. This might have been a shock for Ezekiel. He lived about 2600 years ago. At that time, the people of Israel had already divided themselves into two separate kingdoms. And, both kingdoms had been conquered by foreign invaders, who forced many of the people, including Ezekiel, into exile. But, when Jews reclaimed sovereignty in 1948, they did so as a united people, creating one nation - Israel.
Ezekiel 37:21-22
and say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will take the Israelites out of the nations where they have gone. I will gather them from all around and bring them back into their own land. I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. There will be one king over all of them and they will never again be two nations or be divided into two kingdoms."
& continues
"The second Israel would be more impressive than the first
Bible passage: Jeremiah 16:14-15
Written: sometime from 626 to about 586 BC
Fulfilled: 1948
In Jeremiah 16:14-15, the prophet said the second Israel would be more impressive than the first. In many regards, it is. The first time that Israel was established as a country was after Moses led the descendants of Jacob (typically referred to today as Jews) out of Egypt, where they had been enslaved for 400 years. They then conquered Canaan and established Israel about 3400 years ago. But the second time that Israel was established was after the Jews had been scattered far and wide for a few thousand years. This time the Jews had to return from as far away as the United States, China, Russia and South Africa.
Jeremiah 16:14-15
“However, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when men will no longer say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites up out of Egypt,’ but they will say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he had banished them.’ For I will restore them to the land I gave their forefathers.
Ezekiel predicted when Israel would be re-established
Bible passage: Ezekiel 4:3-6
Written: between 593-571 BC
Fulfilled: 1948
In Ezekiel 4:3-6, the prophet said the Jews, who had lost control of their homeland, would be punished for 430 years. This prophecy, according to Bible scholar Grant Jeffrey, pinpointed the 1948 rebirth of Israel. Here’s a summary of Jeffrey’s theory:
Ezekiel said the Jews were to be punished for 430 years because they had turned away from God. As part of the punishment, the Jews lost control of their homeland to Babylon. Many Jews were taken as captives to Babylon.
Babylon was later conquered by Cyrus in 539 BC. Cyrus allowed the Jews to leave Babylon and to return to their homeland. But, only a small number returned. The return had taken place sometime around 536 BC, about 70 years after Judah lost independence to Babylon.
Because most of the exiles chose to stay in pagan Babylon rather than return to the Holy Land, the remaining 360 years of their punishment was multiplied by 7. The reason is explained in Bible’s book of Leviticus. (Leviticus 26:18, Leviticus 26:21, Leviticus 26:24 and Leviticus 26:28). In Leviticus, it says that if the people did not repent while being punished, the punishment would be multiplied by 7. And, by staying in pagan Babylon, most exiles were refusing to repent.
So, if you take the remaining 360 years of punishment and multiply by 7, you get 2,520 years. But, Jeffrey says those years are based on an ancient 360-day lunar calendar. If those years are adjusted to the modern solar calendar, the result is 2,484 years.
And, there were exactly 2,484 years from 536 BC to 1948, which is the year that Israel regained independence.
(In this Bible passage, Ezekiel is asked by God to symbolically act out the 430 years of punishment)"
& continues
"Ezekiel 4:3-6
... Then take an iron pan, place it as an iron wall between you and the city and turn your face toward it. It will be under siege, and you shall besiege it. This will be a sign to the house of Israel. “Then lie on your left side and put the sin of the house of Israel upon yourself. You are to bear their sin for the number of days you lie on your side. I have assigned you the same number of days as the years of their sin. So for 390 days you will bear the sin of the house of Israel. “After you have finished this, lie down again, this time on your right side, and bear the sin of the house of Judah. I have assigned you 40 days, a day for each year.
The people of Israel would return to “their own land”
Bible passage: Ezekiel 34:13
Written: between 593-571 BC
Fulfilled: after May 14, 1948
In Ezekiel 34:13, the prophet said that God would gather the people of Israel scattered throughout the world and bring them back to “their own land.” After many centuries of dispersion, hundreds of thousands of Jews returned to their ancient homeland beginning in the late 1800s. But, millions more returned after Israel declared independence in 1948. In other words, millions of exiles returned to their ancient homeland which was now truly “their own land” in the sense that it was now a sovereign Jewish state.
Ezekiel 34:13
I will bring them out from the nations and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them into their own land. I will pasture them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines and in all the settlements in the land.
God would watch over the people of Israel
Bible passage: Jeremiah 31:10
Written: sometime from 626 to about 586 BC
Fulfilled: 1948, etc.
In Jeremiah 31:10, the prophet said that God would one day gather the Jews back to Israel and that He would watch over them like a shepherd. Believe what you wish, but there is evidence that God indeed has watched over the re-established nation of Israel. Hours after Israel declared independence in 1948, the surrounding countries attacked, hoping to replace the Jewish state with an Arab state. These countries are much larger than Israel. But tiny Israel prevailed in that war and was able to capture additional land, increasing the land size of Israel by 50 percent. Israel also prevailed in the two other major wars that followed.
Jeremiah 31:10
“Hear the word of the Lord, O nations; proclaim it in distant coastlands: ‘He who scattered Israel will gather them and will watch over his flock like a shepherd.’"
& continues
"Israel’s army would be disproportionately powerful
Bible passage: Leviticus 26:3, 7-8
Written: perhaps around 1400 BC
Fulfilled: 1948-49, 1967, etc.
In Leviticus 26:3, 7-8, the Bible says that the army of Israel would have a supernatural power to prevail during times of conflict, if the people are obedient to the Lord. This Bible passage says that 5 people would be able to chase away 100 people, and that 100 would be able to chase away 10,000. Is there any proof to this incredible claim? Judge for yourself:
Example 1: Within hours of Israel’s declaration of independence in 1948, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded Israel. The combined population of those countries was at least 20 million at that time. Israel had fewer than 1 million Jews. Even so, the Jews won the war and expanded the size of Israel by 50 percent.
Example 2: During the War of 1967, Israel attacked the air force bases of the surrounding countries and took control of Jerusalem for the first time in about 2000 years. They also seized additional territory. That war lasted a mere 6 days.
Example 3: On Oct. 6, 1973, Israel was attacked by Egypt and Syria. Other countries later joined the attack. But the Jews were able to push back the attacking armies and occupy land outside of Israel’s borders.
Leviticus 26:3, 7-8
“If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, ... You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you. Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you.”
The fortunes of the people of Israel would be restored
Bible passage: Deuteronomy 30:3-5
Written: perhaps 1400 BC
Fulfilled: 1948, etc.
In Deuteronomy 30:3-5, the Bible said the Jews would be scattered worldwide and that they later would return to their homeland and have their fortunes restored. This prophecy began to be fulfilled in modern times during the late 1800s when many Jews returned to Israel, from as far away as China and the United States, Russia and South Africa. Israel declared independence in 1948. Today, Israel is among the world’s most prosperous countries. In 1999, for example, Israel’s per capita Gross Domestic Product was twice as prosperous than the neighboring countries.
Deuteronomy 30:3-5
then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you. Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back. He will bring you to the land that belonged to your fathers, and you will take possession of it. He will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers."
& continues
"Some more Fulfilled Prophecies: 1948 & Beyond
54 prophecies fulfilled in 60 years (Dr. Ken Johnson)
1948
Israel will be reestablished as a nation. Isaiah 11:11
British ships will be the first to bring the Jewish people home. Isaiah 60:9
Israel will come back as one nation, not two. Hosea 1:11; Ezekiel 37:18,19,22
Israel will be reestablished by a leader named David. Hosea 3:5
The revived state will be named Israel. Ezekiel 37:11
The Star of David will be on the Israeli flag. Isaiah 11:10
The nation will be reestablished in the ancient land of Canaan. Jeramiah 30:2,3; Ezekiel 37:12
Israel will no longer speak of being freed from Egypt. Jeramiah 16:14,15
Israel will not be restored as a monarchy. Micah 5:5
Israel will be established on the date predicted. Daniel 4; Ezekiel 4:4-6
The Hebrew language will be revived in Israel. Jeramiah 31:23
Jerusalem will be divided. Zechariah 14:1-3
JorDaniel will occupy the West Bank. Zephaniah 2:8; Zechariah 12:1-7
Israel will be initially restored without Jerusalem. Zechariah 12:1-7
Israel will have a fierce military (fire-pot). Zechariah 12:1-7; Isaiah 41
Israel will be reestablished by the fourth craftsman. Zechariah 1:18-21
The Jewish people will come back in unbelief. Ezekiel 37:7-8,11
First Shepherd will arise. Micah 5:5-8
1949
Yemenite Jews will return. Isaiah 43:3-7
1951
Israel will control Ashkelon. Zechariah 9:1-8
1953
Egypt will no longer have kings (Suez crises). Zechariah 10:9-11
1967
Second Shepherd will arise. Micah 5:5-8
The 1967 war will occur on the date predicted. Daniel 5
Five Egyptian cities will be conquered by the Israelis.Isaiah 19:16-18
JorDaniel will give up the West Bank. Zechariah 12:6
West Bank Jews will go home to Jerusalem. Zechariah 12:6
1968
Israel will control Ashdod. Zechariah 9:1-8
1973
Yom Kippur War will occur. Micah 5:5-8
Jerusalem will be a burden to all nations. Zechariah 12:2,3
1980
The shekel will be revived as Israeli currency. Ezekiel 45:1,2
1981
Third Shepherd will arise. Micah 5:5-8
Israel will attack Iraqi (Nuclear) facility. Micah 5:5-8
1982
Israel will give back the Sinai peninsula. Zechariah 10:6
First Lebanese War will occur (fire-pot). Zechariah 12:6
1989
The Berlin Wall will fall. Ezekiel 38:4-6
1990
Ethiopian Jews will be brought to Israel. Isaiah 18:1-7
~2000
Cities will be restored and Israel will have non-Jewish farmers. Isaiah 61:4,5; Zephaniah 2
Jerusalem will grow beyond its old walls. Zechariah 2:4,5
Land of Israel will be divided by its rivers and by Muslims. Isaiah 18:1-7
Tourists will fly in and support Israel. Isaiah 60:8-10; Isaiah 61
There will be constant planting and reaping (crops). Amos 9:13-15
Forests will reappear in Israel (cedar, etc). Isaiah 41:18-20
Desolate land and cities will be restored. Ezekiel 36:33-36
Five cities will stay desolate. Matthew 11:20-24
Muslims will not reckon Israel among nations. Numbers 23:9
Israel will inherit remnant of Edom/Palestinians. Amos 9:12
Satellite-Television Communication Systems invented. Revelation 17:8
2004
Sanhedrin will be reestablished. Matthew 24:15,20
2005
Palestinians will want Jerusalem as their capital. Ezekiel 36:2,7,10-11
Gaza will be forsaken. Zephaniah 2:4
Russia and Iran will sign a military defense pact. Ezekiel 38:3-8
2006
Second Lebanese War will occur. Psalm 83:1-18
2010
Turkey makes a military pact with Russia. Ezekiel 38:3-8"
The Jerusalem Post, Jpost.com has an article headlined
"We need to change 'settler violence' to 'settler Zionism' "
Usually, The people who scream about settler violence are the same people who oppose Jewish communities that were built beyond the 1949 lines.
By MOSHE DANN
Published: FEBRUARY 22, 2022, The article says
"For 50 years, Israeli leftists and many in the international community portrayed Jews who moved to eastern Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Gush Katif in the Gaza Strip (until Israel’s withdrawal from the Strip in 2005) as criminals, Violating international law, And immorally building communities on land captured in 1967 by the IDF, Which Palestinians claim as the basis of a state dedicated to destroying Israel.
Supported by the international community, They assert that Israel is occupying Palestinian territory, Which is not limited to the areas which the IDF conquered in the 1967 Six Day War, For many Arabs, It’s everything from the river to the sea. That is what Palestinianism means.
Following the 1967 war, Jewish communities were built on uninhabited state land, Often in places where Jewish communities had existed before 1948, Such as those in Gush Etzion, South of Jerusalem. No Arabs were evicted or displaced as a result of the 1967 war; in fact, They flourished under Israeli rule.
To distinguish between Jews who lived within the Armistice Lines of 1949 and those who lived beyond those lines, The latter were called settlers and their communities were called settlements. This distinction became explicit when the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), The official interpreter of the Fourth Geneva Convention (FGC), Defined the conquered area as occupied Palestinian territory (OPT). Although Jordan conquered and occupied Judea and Samaria, And Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip in 1948, Their claims were rejected by the international community. The term settlers was used in order to create the impression that Jews had no right to live there and to dispute their claims of rightful, Legal ownership. "
The article continues
"Under US president Jimmy Carter (1977-81), The left-wing media, Arab and Muslim countries, And the international community called settlements obstacles to peace, And its residents, Jewish extremists and settler colonialists in order to vilify them. Opposition to settlement expansion became the official policy of many countries, Especially after the Oslo Accords of the 1990s and the expulsion of Jews from Gush Katif during the following decade. It became the basis for the two-state solution, Involving a Palestinian state run by the PLO, Hamas and other terrorist organizations.
Recently, As Arab attacks on Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria have increased and Jews have responded, Sometimes by necessity and forcefully, The Israeli Left promoted the term settler violence as a way of vilifying all Jews who live in Judea and Samaria by equating settlers with violence. It’s a psycho-linguistic trick, Often used in advertising, And it works.
Finally, A perspective: Usually the people who scream about settler violence are the same people who oppose Jewish communities that were built beyond the 1949 lines. They also ignore Arab and Bedouin violence, And widespread arson and thefts, Especially in rural areas. They ignore clan, Tribal and gang warfare among Arabs and Bedouin, Polygamy and child abuse as part of their culture. Although true, Excusing it does not justify it.
The Arab-Israeli conflict is not over territory, The settlements, It is about Islamist theology and the ideology of Arab nationalism, Which denies any Jewish presence in Israel, The homeland of the Jewish people. This explains why the Oslo Accords failed, Instead, Encouraging more terrorism. Land for peace was only a gimmick. The goal of a Palestinian state, By their meaning, Is to eliminate Israel.
In response, Supporters of Israel can promote a positive meaning to the term settler as Settler Zionism. This emphasizes the historical connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel, And the fact that every Jew who lives in Israel is a settler, Whether immigrant or native-born. It is confirmation that a Jewish nation-state of the Jewish people is legally and morally legitimate. This is challenged as a form of racism and apartheid, And that Israel has no right to exist.
Settling Eretz Yisrael (yishuv haaretz) has been part of our history since the time of Joshua. It is a Torah commandment. It was the basis for the First and Second Jewish Commonwealths, And prior to 1948, Settlers were called pioneers, Who enabled the establishment of the state of Israel.
Settler Zionism is integrally apart of the core of Jewish national identity. Moreover, Settler Zionism is not just political, But seeks to create a Jewish culture and society. Settler Zionism is the essence of the role of the Jewish people in history, Of Jewish consciousness and the affirmation of God’s presence in the world. "
The author is a PhD historian and journalist in Israel.
The website, jns.org has an article headlined
Jns. Org has an article headlined
"‘Settler violence’ is an anti-Zionist propaganda phrase" the article says
It’s part of an effort by the left to undermine Israel’s legitimacy in Judea and Samaria.
(February 6, 2022 / JNS) The Israeli left is reviving its propaganda campaign against “the settlers, ” Jews who live in Judea and Samaria. Using powerful, Emotionally charged accusations of “Jewish terrorism” and “settler violence, ” left-wing politicians and officers in the “Jewish department” of the Shin Bet seek to turn public opinion against Jews residing over the “Green Line” (the 1949 Armistice line).
Using a psycho-linguistic trick, These people equate “settlers” with “violence. ” It’s easy and it works.
They never talk about Arab violence or provocations that lead to confrontations. Only Jews are blamed.
“Jewish terrorism” was a term used by the Shin Bet to describe an attack on a car that led to the death of an Arab woman passenger. The Shin Bet arrested several Jewish teenagers who “confessed” under duress and intimidation. But their confessions were rejected by the court.
After months of investigations, A 16-year-old boy was charged with throwing the stone that hit the car. The Shin Bet claims that his DNA was found on the stone. Forensic experts question how that’s possible, However, Given that the stone was in the possession of the Shin Bet for many months, And “touch DNA” lasts for only one or two weeks.
Recently, A young man was assaulted on Shabbat by a group of Arabs near the settlement of Adei Ad, Near Shilo. He was rescued by a first-response security team, But during the confrontation, A 38-year-old resident of a nearby Arab village was killed. A U. N. Representative and most of the media blamed Jews for “settler violence” in this case, Despite the fact that Arabs had initiated the attack and the Jews had acted in self-defense. When an Israel Defense Forces unit finally arrived, It was also attacked by an Arab mob and hostilities continued for several days.
The response of the left is to shift attention from Arab terrorism and violence to Israeli settlements and the people who live there, Especially the “hilltop youth. ” Not only are settlements portrayed as “illegal” and a “threat to Israeli democracy, ” but Jews who defend themselves when attacked by Arab mobs and terrorists are blamed; their self-defense is called a “provocation. ”
A recent example of this is the order by the IDF commander in Judea and Samaria Brig. Gen. Eran Niv that soldiers accused of using “excessive force” in dealing with violent Arabs be severely punished. Who decides, However, What is “excessive, ” especially during violent confrontations? Fear of a court-martial is the last thing that soldiers who risk their life should worry about when facing danger. "
the article continues:
The jns.org article continues
"This propaganda campaign is part of an effort by the left, Including elements of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, The Civil Administration and the State Attorney’s Office, Backed by the High Court of Justice, To undermine Israel’s legitimacy in Judea and Samaria by declaring that Israel is guilty of “stealing private Palestinian land. ”
Using Jordanian law and prohibiting any examination of documents, These institutions have led to the destruction of Jewish communities, Neighborhoods and homes. According to Israeli law, Which governs the military occupation in Judea and Samaria, There is no way to appeal these arbitrary decisions.
Israelis are divided about settlements, But according to polls, Most support them, And few (except for the extreme left-wing and Arab parties) support further evacuations of Jews and giving more territory to the Palestinian Authority.
Such differences are acceptable in a democracy. What is not acceptable is when agencies of the government, Especially those that are part of the security network and some in the judicial system, Participate in the left’s anti-settlement agenda.
Accusing Israeli Jews who live in Judea and Samaria of “terrorism” and “violence” for political reasons undermines the state, The Zionist ethos and faith in the judicial system. Legal advisers and security officials with political agendas have no right to impose their bias on others.
Abusing children in order to obtain confessions is simply not acceptable. Condemning the right of Jews to defend themselves violates human and legal rights and the basis upon which the state was established.
What about Arab arsonists who set Israel’s forests on fire every summer? What about Arabs and Bedouin who steal land in the Galilee and the Negev, And then claim it as their own?
Why does the Israeli government permit widespread illegal Arab and Bedouin construction and then legitimize it? What about agricultural theft and car theft? Why are Jews condemned for protecting their homes, Property and communities?
Yishuv Ha’aretz (settling the land) is a Torah commandment. Pre-state Jewish communities in Palestine were called “the Yishuv. ” Until the Six-Day War in 1967, Jewish settlements were called yishuvim. Since then, Israeli leftists have dubbed them “settlements” and their residents “settlers, ” which are used as words of contempt and scorn.
“Settler violence” is a euphemism for attacking Zionism, The existence of a Jewish state, Homeland and sovereignty in the land of Israel. We Jewish Israelis are all “settlers. ” That’s what being an Israeli and a Zionist means. We should be proud of it. "
Moshe Dann, Ph. D. , Is a historian, Writer and journalist living in Israel.
Another article from jns.org is headlined
"Palestinian violence, Not settler violence, Is the problem"
In conjunction with radical Arab Knesset members, Leftist Israeli politicians focus on settler violence when the real issue is Palestinian violence, Organized from the apex of the P. A. On down.
Hillel Frisch, This article says:
"December 6, 2021 / JNS) A Knesset committee headed by Meretz Party member Moshe (“Mossi”) Raz recently sounded the alarm—sirens, Even—over a supposed rise in settler violence against innocent Palestinians in Judea and Samaria.
The figures provided by Yesh Din, Which calls itself a non-governmental organization, Do seem alarming. Of course, Yesh Din only deals with violence against Palestinians, Not against Israelis.
The organization has counted over 1, 400 acts of violence since 2012—416 of them in the first half of this year. However, Neither the Knesset “fact-finding” committee nor Yesh Din ever bothers pointing out, Let alone comparing, The sheer volume of Palestinian violence committed against Israelis in Judea and Samaria. For every act of violence committed by a settler, There are many more acts of violence committed by Palestinians against Israeli civilians in Judea and Samaria, Against Israeli service providers and Israeli security personnel.
The staggering difference is not only quantitative but also and more importantly, Qualitative; 70 percent of the settler attacks against Palestinians, According to Yesh Din, Involve violence against property. By contrast, Nearly all of the violence committed by the Palestinians against Israelis involves attempts to maim and kill, With firearms, Knives, Vehicles, And, Of course, Stones (whether hurled by hand or by slingshot).
Palestinians firebombed 3, 675 Israeli buses and cars since 2016 (up to and including 2020). In the same period—years of “relative quiet”—there have been 10, 620 stonings and 353 shootings, Stabbings and vehicular assaults. Occasionally, The victims are Palestinians, Mistakenly identified as Israelis or caught in the crossfire.
Yet even these comparisons do not capture the full extent of Palestinian violence.
The major difference between settler and Palestinian violence is that the latter is orchestrated, Financed and abetted by the Palestinian Authority, In cooperation with other factions of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and NGOs funded by the European Committee.
At the center of organized Palestinian violence stands the head of the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, With the rank of minister in the P. A. He works closely with Fatah, Whose salaried district heads are responsible for mobilizing party members and supporters in campaigns of violence against Israelis and Israeli settlements, And coordinating efforts with other factions and the media. "
the article continues
""It is often a Fatah professional who leads these campaigns of violence at the local level, With the help of the local Popular Committee in Defense of the Land and the Coordinating Committee of (Palestinian) Factions. In addition to Fatah representatives, Local leaders from other PLO factions, Such as the Popular and Democratic Fronts for the Liberation of Palestine and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Also participate.
According to the Palestinians, Settlement efforts are a bid to isolate and drive them out. Yet it is the P. A. And its organs that aim to drive out Israelis, By harassment and threats. The campaign of violence against Israeli settlement in the area east of Nablus, To prevent the relocation and resettlement of Eviatar, Is a good example.
At the epicenter of the campaign stand the considerable resources of the town of Beita, Whose inhabitants exceed 20, 000 and dwarf the nearby Israeli settlements of Itamar and Yitzhar, With a combined population of around 3, 000. The local committees, Taking their cue from the Hamas campaign of harassment of Israeli localities in the areas adjacent to Gaza, Have organized weekly Friday campaigns of harassment against nearby settlements. This includes rock-throwing and arson against Israeli settlements. These campaigns are meticulously followed and glorified by the P. A. -financed media.
Most of the responses by the settlers are acts of exasperation in the face of endemic, P. A. -orchestrated Palestinian violence.
Palestinian violence is vastly more common than settler violence. Raz would have been more credible were he to address the P. A. ’s systemic efforts to promote violence against civilians, 30 years after the PLO committed itself to the peaceful resolution of the conflict. "
Hillel Frisch is a professor of political studies and Middle East studies at Bar-Ilan University and an expert on the Arab world at The Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security. "
This article was first published by the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies.
From jewishworldreview.com an article by Dennis Prager is headlined
"Why Arab/Muslim anti-Semites are worse than the Nazis" On October 30, 2001 , this article says
" WITH all the attention paid to how Muslims and Arabs in America feel about the Islamic terrorists' attacks on America, it may come as somewhat of surprise to learn about another anxious group of Americans - Jews.
All Americans are worried about the America hatred among groups who do not value human life. But Jews who know their history have additional fears. We Jews have reasons to worry because a significant part of humanity has a hatred of us indistinguishable in kind and intensity from that of the Nazis.
The most cursory acquaintance with the Arab press and fundamentalist mosque discourse around the world makes it clear that millions of Arabs and Muslims loathe Jews and many want Jews dead. Not to mention the hundreds of millions of Muslims and Arabs who want the one tiny country Jews have ever called their own eliminated from the map. Protests that the Arab/Muslim hostility is directed only at Israeli occupation of that even tinier area known as the West Bank have no basis in reality. The Arab/Muslim world sought Israel's destruction before Israel occupied an inch of the West Bank.
We Jews have reasons to worry because the last time a civilization declared such hatred against Jews, what ensued was the most organized and monumental evil in history, the Holocaust. We hoped that Nazi-type hatred would never reappear. But it has. In fact, in two ways, Arab/Muslim anti-Semitism is more frightening.
First, while both Nazi and the Arab/Muslim anti-Semites have used closed societies with their controlled press to promote horrific lies about Jews, the Nazis hid their murder of Jews from the German public. They did not have confidence that enough Germans would support the murder of Jewish men, women and children. The Arab/Muslim anti-Semites, however, have no such problem. Those who kill Jews in Israel are public celebrities.
On the West Bank, a Palestinian university in Nablus has been putting on an exhibition celebrating the Palestinian suicide bombing of a family pizza restaurant in Israel. The exhibition consisted of a replica of the Sbarro's restaurant complete with Hebrew inscriptions. Inside the exhibit, replicas of human body parts and pizza slices were strewn. Pictures published on the Internet showed Palestinians waiting in line to see the exhibit. In Nazi Germany, there were no public exhibits of Einsatzgruppen (Nazi mobile Jew-killing units) or gas chambers.
The second more frightening aspect of Arab/Muslim Jew-hatred is that many of these haters do not value their own lives. Nazis did.
We Jews have reasons to worry because no libels against Jews are too awful or too incredible in much of the Arab/Muslim world. That is why the father of Mohammed Atta, suspected ringleader of the Sept. 11th attacks, could tell Newsweek that his son was kidnapped by Israelis and that it was Israelis posing as Arab Muslims who actually attacked America. He could say this because he and millions of other Muslims (not only in the Arab world) believe it, as well as the notion that no Jews died in the World Trade Center because they were alerted in advance.
Americans may recall the flap over then-First Lady Hillary Clinton listening to the wife of Yasir Arafat state that Israel was poisoning Palestinian water supplies. Like the Nazis, many Arab/Muslim societies attribute to Jews virtually all evils, including, for example, deliberately spreading AIDS in the Arab world."
the article continues "We Jews have reasons to worry because the West ignores this Jew-hatred. One reason is that Third World evil is rarely taken seriously among Western elites. A second reason is the psychological and political need of Westerners to believe that Islamic societies are, with the exception of "a few extremists," tolerant societies. And the third reason is that Arab/Muslim anti-Semitism is dismissed as a temporary phenomenon that will disappear when Israelis and Palestinians make peace. But this belief inverts reality. The lack of peace between the Jewish state and its neighbors is not the cause of Arab anti-Semitism, it is the result of that anti-Semitism. Since 1948, there has been one reason for the Arab-Israeli conflict - the Arab/Muslim world rejects the concept of a Jewish (or any non-Muslim) state in its midst.
We Jews have reasons to worry because while much of the Muslim world - a billion strong stretching from the Atlantic through Asia to the Pacific - hates us, Europe and Japan do not defend us. Instead they defend their business deals with Saddam Hussein and with Iran's medieval theocracy.
We Jews have reasons to worry because the Islamic terrorists who blow up Jews are not on the list of terrorist organizations our government is fighting. There are political reasons that account for omitting terror groups that target Jews, but whatever those reasons, how can a Jew not worry about this omission? If America, the most philo-Semitic country in the world, will not regard terrorists who murder Jews as worthy of fighting - even though these terrorists share sponsors and philosophy with anti-American terror groups - no nation will.
As I write this article, my 8-year-old son is playing next to me with his Nintendo. While he is painfully aware of the attacks on America, he remains blissfully unaware that a substantial percentage of humanity would like to see him dead. One day, unfortunately, he will know this. Unless the good people of the world finally learn the great lesson of anti-Semitism - that Jew-haters hate all that is good, that they target Jews first but never Jews alone, and that Jew-haters must therefore be fought - one day he may in fact be hurt. That is why at least one Jewish father worries today."
From the Wall Street Journal Website, wsj.com an article is headlined
"There’s Apartheid in the Holy Land, but Not in Israel"
Palestinian law makes selling land to Jews a crime punishable by death, often without trial.
By Eugene Kontorovich
Feb. 8, 2022
Protesters gathered outside the Israeli Consulate in Atlanta last month.
PHOTO: JOHN ARTHUR BROWN/ZUMA PRESS, this article says:
"The report by Amnesty International accusing Israel of apartheid—a likely preview of similar moves at the United Nations and the International Criminal Court—has been widely debunked, including in these pages. Yet what is remarkable about its 200 pages of distortions is the evidence of real apartheid-like policies that Amnesty leaves out. There are reasons to be concerned about the emergence of apartheid in the Holy Land—but not the ones Amnesty cites.
The defining characteristic of apartheid—what distinguishes it from generic racial discrimination—is the rigid separation of groups in public spaces and positions of power. This is the apart in apartheid.
Thus, a sign of apartheid could be a government policy that bans real-estate sales or transactions to the disfavored group. Apartheid is suggested by policies that carve out massive zones where the disfavored group cannot live or work, create ethnically homogenous zones, and restrict the disfavored group to ghettos. One might consider it apartheid if a government enforced a policy of extrajudicial execution of members of a disfavored group.
All these policies are practiced in the West Bank and Gaza—by the Palestinian Authority government against Jews. What makes the “Israel apartheid” meme particularly despicable is that is not just a lie, it is an inversion of the truth. In all areas controlled by Israel, Jews and Arabs mix openly. Yet the Palestinian Authority has for decades ruled over Gaza and about half the West Bank—and all the areas under its jurisdiction are Jew-free.
There isn’t a single Jewish community living anywhere under Palestinian control. This isn’t because of Jewish preferences. Jewish communities exist across the world; they would certainly exist 10 minutes from Jerusalem if it weren’t for the Palestinian Authority’s policies of excluding Jews and inciting violence and prejudice against them.
Palestinian law makes selling land to Jews a crime punishable by death, often without trial. Nor does the authority recognize any Jewish titles to private property. Last year a Palestinian religious official said on Palestinian TV that “this land is a pure right of its Muslim owners, the people of Palestine.” A senior Palestinian Authority figure said in an official publication, “Whoever sells real estate to the enemy . . . is considered a traitor to the religion, the homeland, and the people, and all those who commit this must be punished.”
the article continues
"In Israel, by contrast, Arabs enjoy full property rights, enforced by the courts against Jews. Perversely, Amnesty cites as an example of Israeli apartheid a series of legal proceedings in which Jewish property owners in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah seek (thus far unsuccessfully) to evict squatters who happen to be Arab. In Amnesty’s alternate universe, Jews enforcing their property rights is apartheid; Jews being denied the right to own property isn’t. The South African government used death squads against blacks. The Palestinian government pays terrorists for killing Jews—the more people killed, the bigger the bounty. It regularly imprisons the few brave Palestinians who speak out against its policies.
In all the territories controlled by the Palestinian government, Jews are prevented from worshipping at their holy sites, despite explicit provisions in the Oslo Accords requiring the Palestinian Authority to protect such worship. When Jews manage to visit such shrines, they must come in the middle of the night under armed guard. And even in areas under Israeli control, like the Temple Mount—Jews’ holiest site—the Palestinian Authority prevents public Jewish prayer by threatening mass violence if Jews “defile” it with their “filthy feet,” in the words of President Mahmoud Abbas.
All this is part of a larger vision. The Palestinian Constitution defines Palestine as an exclusively “Arab nation,” with Islam the official religion and Arabic the sole official language. At the same time, Palestinian officials and educators deny any Jewish history or connection to Israel. In Israel, on the other hand, though it is the only Jewish-majority country in the world, Judaism isn’t the official religion. Both Hebrew and Arabic enjoy official status. Yet Amnesty claims that merely identifying as a “nation state” of a particular people is an apartheid practice—but only when it comes to Israel.
Apartheid is not merely a term of opprobrium, it is a crime created by and defined in international treaties. As a legal matter, while Ramallah’s treatment of Jews is discriminatory and violates human rights, it is impossible to say it formally qualifies as apartheid. The standard for apartheid has been set so high by the international community, that thus far only South Africa has been deemed a clear case. But by the standards implicit in Amnesty’s report, the Palestinian government is guilty."
Mr. Kontorovich is a professor at George Mason University Scalia Law School, and a scholar at the Kohelet Policy Forum, a Jerusalem think tank.
From www.barnesandnoble.com a good about how Everyone or almost everyone hates the Jews book is titled
"Jews Don't Count"
by David Baddiel the description says
North American Edition of the UK Bestseller
How identity politics failed one particular identity.
‘a must read and if you think YOU don’t need to read it, that’s just the clue to know you do.’ SARAH SILVERMAN
‘This is a brave and necessary book.’ JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER
‘a masterpiece.’
STEPHEN FRY
"Jews Don’t Count is a book for people who consider themselves on the right side of history. People fighting the good fight against homophobia, disablism, transphobia and, particularly, racism. People, possibly, like you.
It is the comedian and writer David Baddiel’s contention that one type of racism has been left out of this fight. In his unique combination of close reasoning, polemic, personal experience and jokes, Baddiel argues that those who think of themselves as on the right side of history have often ignored the history of anti-Semitism. He outlines why and how, in a time of intensely heightened awareness of minorities, Jews don’t count as a real minority: and why they should."
Product Details About the Author
Product Details
ISBN-13: 9780008490751
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date: 09/07/2021
Pages: 144
Sales rank: 48,821
Product dimensions: 5.10(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.80(d)
Editorial Reviews
David Baddiel is a brilliant thinker and writer. Even when I disagree with him – especially when I disagree with him – I feel profound gratitude for his intellectual and moral clarity. This is a brave and necessary book.” –Jonathan Safran Foer
“[A] genuinely important piece of socio-political work that you can fit in your pocket.” –CAITLIN MORAN
“Jews Don’t Count is a supreme piece of reasoning and passionate, yet controlled, argument. From his first sentence, the energy, force and conviction of Baddiel’s writing and thinking will transfix you…as readable as an airport thriller…a masterpiece.” –STEPHEN FRY
“A fascinating book, I urge you to read it” –Piers Morgan
“Patient, clear and persuasive – which makes it not just admirable but valuable” –Jonathan Freedland
“Just so brilliantly argued and written, I was completely swept along.” –Hadley Freeman
“I don’t think I have ever been so grateful to anyone for writing a book. Baddiel’s Jews Don’t Count is incisive, urgent, surprisingly funny and short. It’s also a beautiful piece of publishing. It needs to be read.” –JAY RAYNER
“Brilliant, furious, uncomfortable, funny. Essential reading.” –SIMON MAYO
From the Publisher
Post a Comment