According to the Bible, God gave the land of Israel exclusively to His chosen people, the Jews. It was specifically promised to the descendants of “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” (Genesis:12:7And 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.
See All...; 13:15; 15:7; 18-21; 17:7-8, 19, 21; 26:3-5; 28:13; Exodus:6:4And I have also established my covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers.
See All...,8; 1 Chronicles:16:16-18 [16] Even of the covenant which he made with Abraham, and of his oath unto Isaac;
[17] And hath confirmed the same to Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant,
[18] Saying, Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance;
See All..., etc.). Israel was the new name given by God to Jacob, and it is from this name that the Promised Land derives its proper title to this day. The importance of these people can be seen in the fact that God tells Moses, “I am…the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob…this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations” (Exodus:3:6Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.
See All...,15). The Bible identifies God in this way 12 times, the number of the tribes of Israel. Another 203 times He is called “the God of Israel.”
Certain Arabs, who only within the last forty years began to call themselves “Palestinians,” claim the land of Israel as the surviving descendants of its original inhabitants. That clearly fraudulent assertion is the basis for their intended displacement of Israel and causes the conflict in the Middle East.
These Arabs claim that they are descended from Ishmael, Abraham’s first son, and that therefore the Promised Land belongs to them. But Ishmael—even had there been a Palestinian people—was not a Palestinian. His mother was Hagar, the Egyptian maid (Genesis:16:1Now Sarai Abram's wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar.
See All...) of Abraham’s wife, Sarah, while Ishmael’s father was Abraham, who was from Ur of the Chaldees (Genesis:11:31And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.
See All...)—neither of them were Palestinians! When Abraham brought his wife, servants, and flocks into the Promised Land that God gave to him and to his heirs by an everlasting covenant (Genesis:13:15For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.
See All...; 17:7, etc.), it was called Canaan and was inhabited by Canaanites (Genesis:12:5-6 [5] 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.
[6] And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land.
See All...; 13:7,12, etc.). Arabs who make the impossible claim of descent both from Ishmael and from the original inhabitants of that land are simply lying.
The land of Canaan, to which God brought Abraham, became Israel, a great kingdom of the Jewish people for more than 1,500 years. There was no such place as “Palestine” and no such people as “Palestinians” until the Romans, in anger, in A.D. 135, renamed Israel Provincia Syria-Palestinia after her chief enemies, the Philistines. Thereafter, its inhabitants were called “Palestinians,” an appellation which the Arabs steadfastly refused, insisting that the Jews were the “Palestinians.” It was not until the early 1960s that certain Arabs began to claim that they were indeed “Palestinians” and that the Jews were occupying the land that they had inherited from ancient ancestors.
On the contrary, God told Abraham specifically that Isaac (his son by Sarah) and his descendants would inherit the Promised Land (Genesis:17:15-21 [15] And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be.
[16] And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her.
[17] Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?
[18] And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee!
[19] 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.
[20] 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.
[21] But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year.
See All...). The earliest verses in the Qur’an support the writings of Moses as true. To escape the honest consequences of that embarrassing fact, Islam claims that the Bible was subsequently corrupted—a claim for which no evidence can be offered. In fact, we have Torah manuscripts both before and after Muhammad, and they are identical. The Qur’an itself declares repeatedly that Allah brought the Jews out of slavery in Egypt, destroyed Pharaoh’s pursuing army, gave Israel the Promised Land, and brought them into it (Surah 5:70; 10:91,94; 17:103-104; 44:30-32; 45:16; 95:20-21, etc.).