Israel - Some Historical Reminders

The war in the Gulf has ended much as expected. Thankfully, the end came swiftly to limit the loss of life on both sides. The Gulf region and the entire Arab world will never again be the same. The painful process ahead will bring new stability and hopes of peace—giant steps toward the new world order. Pressure will increase upon Israel to give the Palestinians independence, forging a new Middle East "peace" that will ultimately be guaranteed by Antichrist, whom Israel will embrace as her Messiah. We dealt with this aspect in Global Peace and the Rise of Antichrist.

President Bush and the Coalition have been repeatedly accused of partiality for enforcing UN Resolution 660 demanding Iraq's withdrawal from Kuwait, while not enforcing Resolution 242, which demands withdrawal of Israel from occupied Palestine. Unmentioned has been the fact that 242 also declares Israel's right to exist behind secure borders—a right which Arabs reject. Moreover, most of the world seems willfully blind to how and why Israel came to possess its occupied territories. Those facts are essential.

Hitler's murder of 6 million Jews and the postwar murders of those who tried to return to their prewar homes set the stage for the birth of Israel. (In Kelsa, Poland, for example, 200 survivors of the original 25,000 community were attacked—76 were killed—by townspeople who refused to give back homes the Jews had owned before being taken to death camps.) Moved by the plight of hundreds of thousands of Jewish holocaust survivors who had nowhere to live, the UN voted in November, 1947, to partition Palestine—about 18 percent to be a Jewish homeland and the other 82 percent for Palestinian Arabs.

After the British withdrew on May 14, 1948, overwhelming forces from five Arab nations attacked to drive the Jews into the Mediterranean. Egypt's King Farouk declared, "I cannot and will not tolerate a Zionist state in the Middle East." The Arabs openly announced in 1948—and have continued to proclaim ever since—their determination to exterminate the Palestinian Jews.

By God's grace, the outnumbered and outgunned Israelis were victorious. Contrary to reports that they drove Arabs from their homes, the Jews tried to persuade them to remain. For example, in April, 1948, the British chief of police in Haifa, A. J. Bridmead, reported, "Every effort is being made by the Jews to persuade the Arab population to remain." A foreign visitor reported, "In Tiberias I saw a placard affixed to a sealed Arab mosque that read,

We did not dispossess them...[and] the day will come when the Arabs will return to their homes and property in this town. In the meantime let no citizen touch their property. Signed, Jewish Town Council of Tiberias.

The London Economist (Oct. 2, 1948) declared, "The Israeli authorities urged all Arabs to remain...(but] the announcement [was] made over the air by the Arab Higher Executive urging all Arabs to leave... [because] upon the final withdrawal of the British the combined armies of the Arab states would invade Palestine and drive the Jews into the sea." The Jordan daily, Al Difaa, complained on September 6, 1948, "The Arab governments told us, 'Get out so that we can get in.' So we got out, but they did not get in." As Time put it (4/4/88, p 47): "Had Egypt, Syria and other Arab nations accepted Israel's right to exist in 1947, the Palestinians could have been living for the past 40 years in a state of their own."

In its 1948 victory, Israel extended its borders to make them more defensible against future Arab attacks. Jordan annexed the remaining land that had been assigned by the UN to Palestinian Arabs, including that portion on the west side of the Jordan River known today as the West Bank. In one uprising against Jordan in 1970, far more Palestinians were killed than by Israel in 43 years.

In 1967, Israel, once again forced to fight overwhelming odds for its very survival, took the West Bank for tactical reasons. Israel's defense is much easier if Arabs do not control land on her side of the natural barrier created by the Jordan River. Yet Israel offered to give the land back—if the Arabs would recognize her right to exist. The Arabs responded with their famous "Three No's": "No recognition of Israel, no negotiation, and no peace."

The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was not founded by a vote among the Palestinians it claims to represent, but was created by Egypt's President Nasser, who appointed its first head. The PLO's current leader, Yasser Arafat, has been "voted" president of the future Palestinian state—not by the Palestinians, but by the PLO Central Committee. Arafat is the nephew of Haj Amin el-Husseini, past Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and admirer of Hitler. Haj Amin openly declared that the Arabs supported the Axis Powers in WW II because they promised a "final solution to the Jewish problem."

S.S. leader Heinrich Himmler explained that "solution": "The Jewish race is in the process of being exterminated...that is our program...a splendid page in our history." Himmler cabled Haj Amin the welcome news: "The National Socialist Party has inscribed on its flag 'the extermination of world Jewry.' Our party sympathizes with the fight of the Arabs...against the foreign Jew." On Radio Berlin, March 1, 1944, the Mufti, Arafat's uncle, issued the following call: "Arabs, rise as one man and fight for your sacred rights. Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God [Allah] and religion [and] saves your honor. God is with you."

Similar cries, ignored by the world now as were Hitler's then, are still being screamed by Muslim leaders in mosques everywhere! The Satanic spirit that inspired Hitler's holocaust continues to call for "peace"and demands the same price. Yasser Arafat sees the extermination of the Jews as the sacred Islamic duty of the PLO, whose very charter calls for Israel's destruction!

The Palestine National Council's "Phased Plan" involves four stages: "(l) The rejection of Israel's right to exist; (2) The establishment of an aggressive Palestinian state on any territory it can acquire; (3) The use of this territory to continue the war against Israel for the "liberation" of more of Palestine; and (4) The employment of confrontation states to assist in the final destruction of Israel." Arafat has declared, "The goal of our struggle is the end of Israel and there can be no compromise." Yet Israel is condemned for not "negotiating" with the PLO for the establishment of a Palestinian state!

Islam itself is the major obstacle to peace in the Middle East. The reason is simple: hatred of Israel is central to Islam and is preached in every mosque. The Koran falsely claims that God promised the land of Palestine not to the Jews but to the Arabs. Thus Israel's very existence contradicts Islam and must be dealt with in the manner which the Koran decrees for all non-Muslims ("infidels"): death! To obey Muhammad, Muslims must force all mankind to submit to Allah at the point of a gun and kill all who refuse.

World opinion and lack of sufficient military power make it impossible to follow Muhammad's commands literally these days as was earlier attempted during the Islamic conquests that nearly subdued all of Europe. Wherever Islam is in control, other religions are suppressed and Muslims who convert to Christianity are killed! Islam has perpetuated harsh dictatorships that treat "infidels" as second-class citizens and deny basic rights even to Muslims.

Taking advantage of the freedom in non-Muslim countries, Islam has become the world's fastest-growing religion. There are more Muslims than Methodists in Chicago, about 400,000 in Los Angeles and 7 million in the United States. Islam is Britain's third largest faith, behind Anglicans and Catholics. The 50 million Muslims in the USSR are the fastest-growing segment of the population.

In spite of the murders that marked Saddam Hussein's rise to power and his open support of worldwide terrorism; in spite of his war against Iran and his slaughter of 5,000 Iraqi Kurds with nerve gas; in spite of his barbaric rape and plunder and wanton destruction of Kuwait and his unparalleled catastrophic devastation of the environment—yet Saddam remains the hero of millions of Muslims and their leaders. That does not speak well for Islam.

How could such an inhuman monster be admired by Muslim masses? That question must haunt thinking Arabs! Saddam's hero status lies in his promise to "destroy Israel" and to "liberate Palestine." Even after Kuwait's rape, Jordan's King Hussein said that "to the majority of the Arab world [Saddam] is a patriotic man who...[treats] others on the basis of mutual respect." Evil becomes good when dedicated to the "just cause" of Jewish extermination!

"These are not human beings," declared a Kuwaiti Oil Company official being interviewed on TV with oil-well fires blazing in the background. "They are creatures like nothing that ever lived on this planet before. They have destroyed the environment for an entire country...for the whole world. I don't trust any Iraqis." Yet a similar destruction wreaked upon Israel would have been cheered. Yes, Islam must share the blame for Kuwait's horror.

Islam nurtures the hatred that creates a Saddam Hussein, an Arafat or Egypt's Nasser, who also used poison gas in his war against Yemen. When Kaddafi roars, "The battle with Israel must be such that after it Israel will cease to exist," he cannot be dismissed as lacking Islamic compassion. Such Hitlerian threats pour continuously from the mouths of Muslim religious and political leaders over radios and loudspeakers and TV in every Arab country.

The Islamic world is one of constant unrest, double-cross, uprisings and wars. Arab leaders distrust one another and fight among themselves. Only Islam and the passion to destroy Israel unites them. Yet Islam itself has inspired this way of life.

Kuwait was the chief paymaster to the PLO and its international terrorists, who "fight Israel" by killing civilians. After a number of diplomats, including a US Ambassador, were killed by terrorists, the Emir of Kuwait was asked whether he would continue to finance the PLO. He replied that he would indeed, "with unlimited funds." The PLO repaid that kindness by giving intelligence data to Iraq for its invasion of Kuwait—after which Arafat declared, "We say to the brother and leader Saddam Hussein, 'Go forward with God's [Allah's] blessing!'" Behold a brotherhood of murderers!

Saudi Arabia's fulminations against Israel have been no less extreme than Saddam's or Arafat's. Typical has been the following from Saudi King Fahd: "The media must urge the Muslims to launch jihad [holy war]...united in the confrontation with the Jews and those who support them." That Kuwait and Saudi Arabia had to turn to "infidels" and "Israel supporters" to rescue them from an admired Islamic leader bent upon their destruction must affect the thinking in the entire Arab world. Yet hatred for Israel will remain.

A renewed wave of anti-Semitism is sweeping the world. For example, in Poland, Jewish cemeteries are once again being defaced with swastikas. Israel is considering evacuation of Poland's 7,000 Holocaust survivors, remnants of 3.5 million who once lived there, because Poland is not safe for Jews. Warsaw's Jewish State Theater has been defaced with slogans such as "Jews to the ovens." Poland's new president, Lech Walesa, a Catholic, declared on TV, "A gang of Jews took over our resources and exploited our land, and their aim is to destroy us." Hitler said the same.

After Kuwait's rape, Jerusalem's Catholic patriarch, Michel Sabbah, commended Saddam for "truly carry[ing] in his heart the Palestinian cause," and would not concede that Saddam was "more dangerous" than President Bush. Iraq's ranking Catholic leader, Patriarch Raphael Bidawid, defended Saddam's invasion and annexation of Kuwait and its missile attacks upon Israel's civilians. "This entire war has been planned by Israel," said Bidawid from Rome, where he was conferring with the Pope and other Vatican officials about Middle East "peace." The Roman Catholic Church, which opposes Jewish control of Jerusalem, has yet to acknowledge Israel's right to exist in the 43 years since it became a state.

Evangelical leaders, too, in growing numbers denounce Israel and deny that its existence today relates to God's promises. Yet Bible prophecies concerning Israel continue to be fulfilled. For example, in Jeremiah:23:7-8 [7] Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that they shall no more say, The LORD liveth, which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; [8] But, The LORD liveth, which brought up and which led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all countries whither I had driven them; and they shall dwell in their own land.
See All... God promises to bring back Jews in the last days to their own land "out of the north country [Russia] and from all countries whither I had driven them...." As Time (1/14/91) declared, "Nearly one-third of the estimated 3.5 million Jews remaining in the Soviet Union are expected in Israel by 1992...."

God's promise to Abraham is still in force: "I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that curseth thee" (Gen:12:3And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
See All...). Saddam Hussein, like Hitler, now knows what that means. Let us bless Israel, though it may well shrink in the days ahead as the Arabs get their Palestinian state and Israelis quarrel among themselves over how to respond to worldwide pressure to make dangerous concessions. Let us "pray for the peace of Jerusalem" (Ps:122:6Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee.
See All...) as God has commanded; and let us remember that the gospel is still "to the Jew first, and also to the Greek [Gentile]" (Rom:1:16For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
See All...). TBC