Question: Do you know of the book, Blood Brothers, by Elias Chacour? The author is a Palestinian ...

Question: Do you know of the book, Blood Brothers, by Elias Chacour? The author is a Palestinian "Christian" (a Greek Catholic Priest), who's been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three or four times. The book states, "In 1948 after a United Nations resolution, the country of Palestine became the sovereign state of Israel."

Response: Such are the kinds of lies that the world favors over truth. We document in Judgment Day! that both the land of "Palestine" and a "Palestinian" people are myths. The Promised Land was Canaan, given by God to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and their descendants. At God's command, because of the wickedness of the Canaanites, the children of Israel conquered Canaan and it became the land of Israel. In A.D. 135, the Romans angrily renamed Israel, "Provincia Syria-Palestina."

For the next 1,820 years, Jews living there were called "Palestinians." Repeatedly evicted, the Jews always came back. Arabs never lived there in any numbers until the seventh-century Muslim conquest—and even then very few ever settled in "Palestine," which lay barren and largely neglected, as God had foretold. The 1917 Balfour Declaration, 1919 Paris Peace Conference, and 1922 Declaration of Principles by the League of Nations all designated the territory known as "Palestine" to be restored to the scattered and persecuted Jews as their national homeland. Britain was given the mandate to oversee this plan, but betrayed the Jews and favored the Arabs for oil.

We quote Arab leaders testifying at the UN and elsewhere into the late 1950s that "Palestine" was "a Zionist invention" and that Jews were the Palestinians. Then Arabs changed their tune and in 1964 founded the "Palestine Liberation Organization." For the first time in history, Arabs claimed that they were descended from the "original Palestinians" (a non-existent people) and that the Jews were occupying their land.

Yet during all the centuries that the Muslims through conquest controlled the entire Middle East (ending with the 400-year Turkish Ottoman Empire), there was never a word of a Palestinian State nor did any Arabs ever claim to be Palestinians. They had little interest in that barren place until the Jews began (with the "Zionist" movement) to turn swamps and deserts into farmland—then they moved in as Britain, violating its mandate, kept Jews out (even Holocaust survivors) and let the Arabs in by the tens of thousands. Britain created Jordan out of two-thirds of the land promised to the Jews.

The so-called "Palestinians" are Arabs who claim descent from Ishmael, Abraham's first (but illegitimate) son. Ishmael's father was a Chaldean, his mother an Egyptian, and when Abraham arrived in Canaan (there was no such place as Palestine) it had already been settled for centuries by Canaanites. What a fraud for the descendants of Ishmael (half Chaldean, half Egyptian) to pretend to be descended from the "original Palestinians"!

Those who claim to be "Palestinians" today have no unique language, culture, religion, ethnic heritage, but are indistinguishable from their Arab relatives living in the nations around them. In contrast, there are many distinct ethnic peoples who have legitimate claims to a national homeland and to whom the world shows little sympathy. Consider the following:

The Basques...live in the northwestern region of Spain...a unique people with a language and culture that has no relationship to anything else in the world. They have been fighting to be liberated. But Spain-most vociferous in the promotion of a "Palestinian homeland"—refuses. An independent Basque homeland would not endanger Spain in any way....

The Kurds...are a distinct group [living] in a land that is part of Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria, and Armenia. They have been fighting for independence for centuries, but it has never been granted. An independent Kurdistan would not endanger the countries that now occupy it....

The Tibetans...are a distinct people, unique in language and religion. They have been annexed by China...an independent Tibet would not [threaten] China. Does the UN support the [Basques, Kurds and] Tibetans in their quest for independence? Of course not.(U.S. News & World Report, FLAME, April 11, 2005, 81.)

Yet the pressure continues from the United States, UN, EU and rest of the world (which will soon bring God's judgment - Joel:3:2I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.
See All...) to squeeze Israel into an ever smaller territory and to expand at her expense the territory of enemies whom the whole world knows do not acknowledge Israel's right to exist (no Arab map anywhere shows Israel) and who have sworn to annihilate her. And the lies continue in support of this gross injustice, even from those who call themselves "Christians."