Further shameful acts exposed as Prince makes historic visit to Israel

As evidence has come to light of further shameful acts of anti-Semitism carried out by British officials during its charge over the territory formerly known as Palestine, it is hoped that next week’s Royal visit to Israel will help heal the wounds of those who suffered.

I reported last month on a special ceremony held near Haifa at which UK representatives shared a ‘declaration of sorrow’ for the way our country treated Jews in the years leading up to the re-birth of their nation in 1948.
A more detailed report of that 11 May event has since come into my possession¹ and I am thus able to reveal – exclusively - some shocking facts shared by Holocaust survivors and others attending the ceremony, organised by Love Never Fails, an alliance of Christian groups supporting the Jewish state.

Atlit detention camp (now a museum). Photo Gemma Blech, courtesy Anne Heelis.It took place at Atlit, a former detention camp where Jewish refugees were held as part of British policy to limit immigration to the region, adding further trauma to a people who had already suffered terribly under the Nazis.

Granted a League of Nations mandate to prepare a safe homeland for Jews, Britain instead interred them behind barbed wire complete with watchtowers.

Harrowing Stories of Betrayal

Among those who shared their harrowing stories of the time was Hannah Avrutsky. A survivor of the notorious Warsaw ghetto,² she was hidden in a monastery before being smuggled to the Exodus ship bound for Israel in 1947, only to face a British naval blockade and be sent back to a Displaced Persons’ camp in Germany, where so many of her people had been murdered!

Ben Zion Drutin spoke of being hospitalised after being wounded by the British on board the Exodus and then held in Atlit for six months.

Arie Itamar, who was eight years old on the Exodus, compared Israel to a “betrayed lover” during the Mandate.

Granted a League of Nations mandate to prepare a safe homeland for Jews, Britain instead interred them behind barbed wire complete with watchtowers.

Pinchas Kahane spoke of his parents’ escape from Auschwitz, his birth in a Cyprus detention camp and how Britain prevented them leaving the camps until February 1949, well after the establishment of the State of Israel.

Dr Miri Nehari, whose father had been a leader in mobilising the escape of Jews from Europe after the Holocaust, read out a British telegram to the Polish Government-in-exile asking them to close the borders to escaping Jews.

Brits and Israelis together at the Atlit meeting. Photo courtesy of Anne Heelis.Zehavit Blumenfeld, whose 70^th birthday has coincided with that of Israel’s, said: “I do not forget, but I forgive.” She was born in the Cyprus detention camps where 53,000 Jewish refugees from the Holocaust were interned by the British.

She and others were moved by the warmth and sympathy of the Christians who came to express their sorrow and hope that Prince William’s visit will be an important step towards reconciliation.

The testimonies concluded with stories of British collusion with Arab terror during the Mandate. Noam Arnon, representing the Hebron Jewish Community, spoke on behalf of those who had survived the 1929 massacre there, outlining British complicity.

Zehava Fuchs witnessed the Hadassah convoy massacre as a girl in 1948 when the British had deliberately not intervened to rescue Jewish passengers – 78 people, mainly doctors and nurses, were killed in the attack by Arab terrorists. Zehava is still unable to attend a barbeque as it reminds her of the smell of burning flesh.

Declaration of Sorrow

Rachel Rust, daughter of a former British officer who served in Palestine, confessed her deep sorrow at the cruel treatment handed out by the British army.

On a positive note, Rita Offenbach shared how her mother was among 180 Jewish fighters rescued after being besieged by Arabs attacking their convoy. Another paid tribute to British officer Orde Wingate who is still much loved in Israel for having laid the foundations of the Israeli Defence Force in creating special night squads.

The declaration of sorrow read, in part: “We grieve that [Britain’s policies] led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Jews who could have escaped Hitler’s ‘final solution’ if the gates to their ancient homeland had been fully open.”

Many Israelis are still waiting to hear an apology from Britain for her betrayal of Israel. There is still a need for much repentance and reconciliation.

Film-maker Hugh Kitson³ expressed sorrow, not only for the failures of the Mandate but also for the fact that today’s British Government fails to recognise Israeli sovereignty over their own capital city.

Many Israelis are still waiting to hear an apology from Britain for her betrayal of Israel in breaking a pledge to prepare a safe refuge for the Jewish people. Israel came into being without our help in the end, but not before many lives were unnecessarily lost due to the delay. There is still a need for much repentance and reconciliation.

Hope Persists

Prince William is scheduled to touch down on Monday for the start of the first ever official visit to Israel by a British Royal, during which he will pay his respects at the tomb of his great-grandmother, Princess Alice of Greece, who hid a Jewish family from the Nazis during the war. It is hoped that the visit will mark a turning point in Britain’s relationship with Israel.

It is certainly encouraging that, according to a senior Conservative source, British Home Secretary Sajid Javid will take steps later this year to fully ban Hezbollah, one of Israel’s most implacable enemies. Since banning the terrorist group in 2008, Britain has continued to recognise its political wing – a distinction not even accepted by Hezbollah, a heavily armed proxy of Iran which has held successive London rallies against the Jewish state.⁴

Also encouraging is Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s condemnation on Monday of the United Nations Human Rights Council over its long-standing anti-Israel bias, demanding the Council drop a controversial agenda item placing Israel under intense scrutiny.⁵

These are indeed steps in the right direction, and we trust and pray that the Duke of Cambridge will encounter true peace as he walks in the footsteps of Jesus, the Prince of Peace.

References

1 My thanks to Rosie Ross, Israel’s Love Never Fails representative, for the Atlit report, and to her colleague Anne Heelis for passing it on to me. Further signatures to the declaration can still be made at www.nachamuami.com.

2 Where Jews were herded into a cramped, unsanitary location as a staging post for being transported to death camps.

3 Hugh Kitson’s latest documentary Whose Land? explores Israel’s historic and legal rights to their land.

4 Jerusalem News Network, 18 June 2018, quoting the Jewish Chronicle.

5 JNN, 20 June 2018.

Paul Luckraft reviews ‘The Battle of the Ages’ by Lance Lambert (2014).

This book is a call and a challenge to genuine intercession and “is directed to the remnant of the faithful in the Western nations” (p5). It is based on the transcripts of several messages given in America, turned into seven chapters and an epilogue entitled ‘The Mystery of Israel’.

The book begins by encouraging us to ‘watch and be sober’. The Church has largely been silent while our nation’s Christian foundations have been destroyed. A colossal removal of Christian principles from Western society has taken place before our eyes while we have sat back. Our Christianity is far too comfortable.

Lambert warns that we are now facing not so much a flood of evil as an avalanche, with powerful forces arrayed against us. He explains what these principalities, powers and world rulers of darkness are like and how they engage in ‘the battle of the ages’.

This title, ‘the battle of the ages’, is key. Although there is a strong focus on prayer in this book, it is not a handbook on prayer, as such. Rather, it contains much wisdom and wider analysis of society, which should inform intercessors and direct their prayers.

Seeing the Spiritual Dimension

In the next chapter Lambert shows us that this world is essentially spiritual, if we have eyes to see. All of global history is the expression of a cosmic battle between God and satan, of both fallen and unfallen invisible beings.

Lambert warns that we are now facing not so much a flood of evil as an avalanche, with powerful forces arrayed against us.

Prayer is engaging in this spiritual battle. Equally important, though, is the fight for the truth contained within God’s word, especially defending it against critical analysis (which began in Germany), disputing the Bible’s divine inspiration.

Each chapter is headed with a significant passage of Scripture, of some length - presumably the reading before each talk that he gave. One such passage is the well-known Daniel 9 which informs the book chapter that focuses on the strategic need for intercession. Daniel is the best example of how to counter the excuses we make not to be an intercessor! The whole chapter is an excellent survey of what intercession is about and how to become more powerful in it.

Lambert also provides personal examples and other stories to help illuminate and inspire. These include the Hebrides revival (1950s), the awakening in the Thames Valley and the Welsh revival (early 1900s). But primarily, his appeal is for people to take the first step into intercession, namely to say to the Lord, “I want to be an intercessor”. The Lord is so short of candidates, he argues, that he will snap you up immediately. Despite the humour, this is a serious point. This is how it begins, with a heart which is prepared to be transformed by the will, which says ‘Take me!’

Israel at the Heart

The title of the book emphasises that the battle has run throughout world history and will continue until the very end of the age. It began before Adam and Eve fell, and will climax when the Lord returns victorious.

The Lord is so short of candidates for intercession, Lambert argues, that he will snap up willing volunteers immediately.

Meanwhile, at the heart of the battle today is the tiny nation of Israel. The final two chapters are devoted to this theme which lead naturally into the epilogue, The Mystery of Israel, taken from Romans 11.

Overall, an excellent book from the pen of one of God’s mighty warriors who entered into his rest and reward shortly after its publication. Even if it doesn’t turn everyone who reads it into an intercessor, it will certainly help us all appreciate the vital and costly role that they undertake.

‘The Battle of the Ages’ (130 pages, paperback) is available on Amazon for £6.52.

Now’s the time for Christians to nail their colours to the mast

Bearing in mind the obvious success of President Trump’s ‘Don’t mess with me’ strategy in getting dictators to the negotiating table, surely lessons can be learnt from this. It certainly gives a whole new meaning to ‘playing the trump card’.

But the stubborn Europeans refuse to take note, or even learn from history. Did not Jesus say that wisdom - and recognition of his Lordship in particular - was hidden from “the wise”, but revealed to “little children” (Matt 11:25)?

I am more staggered than ever at the lengths to which the British Government will go to appease dictators since learning for the first time last Saturday that the England football team had, in 1938, raised a Nazi salute to Hitler in front of a crowd of 105,000 before a friendly match against Germany in Berlin – on the orders of the Foreign Office!¹

This was apparently designed to pave the way for Neville Chamberlain’s efforts to appease the Fuehrer, instead of squaring up to him as Churchill was later to do.

Fearing Man, Not God

This shameful (1938) episode in Britain’s history was a natural progression of her foreign policy in bending over backwards to keep the Arabs happy throughout the 1920s and 30s when she was supposed to be preparing a home for the Jewish people.

Buckling under the pressure of Muslim-inspired riots over the prospect of a Jewish nation in their midst, Britain betrayed both her international obligation and her own Balfour Declaration promising to do all she could to ensure that Zionist aspirations were met.

I am more staggered than ever at the lengths to which the British Government will go to appease dictators.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict could well have been nipped in the bud if we had acted with more integrity and courage. And after all these years, Britain is still batting for the wrong side by refusing to follow President Trump’s lead in recognising Jerusalem as the Jewish capital.

Fear of Muslim-Arab fury, rather than pleasing God in blessing Israel, once again turns us into cowards presiding over the potential ruin of our country (see Isa 60:12).

Not Taking Danger Seriously

Theresa May and her European allies are also refusing to take President Trump (and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu) seriously over the danger posed by Iran, insisting on sticking to the Obama-led nuclear deal designed to keep the lid on the rogue state’s weapons build-up.

The Ayatollah’s threat of removing and eradicating the “malignant cancerous tumour” he calls Israel² is shrugged off in a manner reminiscent of the 1930s, when Hitler’s rantings were not taken seriously.

Mr Netanyahu says it is “amazing that at the beginning of the 21^st century, somebody talks about destroying Israel – that means destroying another six million-plus Jews…”³

This is the same country that was behind the bombing of the Buenos Aires Jewish community centre in 1994, leaving 85 dead, an atrocity that has blighted Argentina ever since.

Our weakness with Iran seems to chime with our stance on its terrorist proxy Hezbollah who, last Sunday, were once again free to parade their hate-filled views on Israel through the streets of London despite ongoing calls for a ban.

Refusing to apply an outright ban on the organization (in recognising separate political and military wings which Hezbollah itself does not acknowledge) is not only encouraging ‘hate speech’ which is supposed to be illegal, but is obviously against the interests of our 300,000-strong Jewish community, as well as Israel.⁴

Fear of Muslim-Arab fury, rather than pleasing God in blessing Israel, turns us into cowards presiding over the potential ruin of our country. 

Lessons from East and West

By sanctioning the belligerence of those who seek Israel’s demise, we are certainly not being a blessing to the seed of Abraham, and are thus in grave danger of bringing a curse upon our nation (Gen 12:3). We at least have a chance to begin putting things right later this month when Prince William makes the first ever official visit to Israel from a British royal.

Can we not learn from Brazil where, just a fortnight ago, two million Christians took to the streets of Sao Paulo for their annual March for Jesus? According to one report, the crowd were waving Israeli flags while cheering and praying for the Jewish state.⁵

For the first time in nearly 20 years of the event, Jewish officials were invited to attend. Addressing the gathering, Israel’s consul Dori Goren said: “Attending the march is our way to express our gratitude for the evangelical people and the Brazilian people.”

Argentinian evangelist Andrew Palau, son of Luis, preached the Gospel and a “sea of hands” were raised in response to his call to faith and repentance.

We can also learn from ordinary Iranians, tens of thousands of who have also expressed support for Israel in a Twitter campaign to distance themselves from the opinions of their own regime.⁶

Standing Up for Truth

Christians who know their Bible and are committed to following Jesus are also serious about their love for Jews. For it was they who gave us the patriarchs, the prophets, the Bible itself and indeed the Lord Jesus.

Since God consistently proclaims his unfailing love for his chosen people despite their repeated backsliding, Bible believers naturally follow the same path so that it becomes the case that if you love Jesus, you find yourself also loving the Jew.

Christians are those who follow Jesus – “despised and rejected of men” (Isa 53:3) – and are thus prepared to suffer abuse and ridicule as he did. In the same way they will also be ready to wave Israeli flags, which is to swim very much against the tide in almost every generation.

True Christians are happy to nail their colours to the mast – and to support the real victims of society, not necessarily those groups beloved of our politically-correct world.

True Christians are happy to nail their colours to the mast – and to support the real victims of society, not necessarily those groups beloved of our politically-correct world.

So why do British Christians (on the whole) not get the connection between following Jesus and befriending the Jews? Could it perhaps be something to do with Pentecost, which I touched on last week? For Jesus explained that the Holy Spirit, poured out at Pentecost, would “guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13).

And he also said: “Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels” (Luke 9:26).

Notes

1 Daily Mail, 8 June 2018. A copy of the infamous ‘Nazi salute’ photo, reproduced in last Saturday’s Daily Mail, was sent to Britain’s Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson from his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in response to Johnson’s suggestion that Russia was using the World Cup for propaganda purposes in the same way that Hitler had done with the 1936 Olympics.

2 Jerusalem News Network, quoting Medialine/Jerusalem Post, 6 June 2018. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, later sought to clarify his position by saying that the conflict should be resolved through a referendum among “all real Palestinians including Muslims, Jews and Christians” who trace their roots back to before the creation of Israel in 1948. World Israel News & Associated Press, 11 June 2018.

3 An obvious reference to the Holocaust and the fact that more than six million Jews now live in Israel – Ibid.

4 Reports that Home Secretary Sajid Javid is to “proscribe Hezbollah in full later this year” have raised hopes that the terrorist group will be completely banned in the UK in response to a 17,000-strong petition. Christians United for Israel UK, 13 June 2018.

5 Gateway News, South Africa, 7 June 2018.

6 Jewish News Syndicate, 13 June 2018.

Jews teach the Church what is really important

With anti-Semitism on the rise, and Jews under threat as never before, it is astonishing that the Government is again allowing the staging in London of Sunday’s annual Iranian-backed Al Quds parade.

What sense does it make that, in a country where ‘hate speech’ is supposedly illegal, a march fronted by the Hezbollah terrorist group – committed to the destruction of Israel – is free to spread its poison?

Among the cheerleaders, and one of the speakers down to address the rally, is Rev Stephen Sizer, who has already been severely reprimanded for his anti-Semitic views by his own Church of England.¹

The whole scenario is an absolute disgrace. And yet Israel’s greatest need is not protection! Bear with me as I will explain in due course.

Pentecost: Passé?

You will no doubt have heard talk of how we are now said to be living in a post-Christian era, with British society largely having rejected biblical values of the past. But I also detect a very worrying trend in the Western Church towards a kind of post-Pentecost line of thinking that appears to relegate its teaching as ‘passé’.

As the disciples of the Lord Jesus were empowered on the Day of Pentecost to spread the Gospel throughout the world, giving life to what is now known as the Church, does this mean that the body of Christ is now in its death-throes?

I detect a very worrying trend in the Western Church towards a kind of post-Pentecost line of thinking.

I have just reviewed the most brilliant book I have ever had the pleasure to read – RT Kendall’s Whatever Happened to the Gospel? – and hereby offer this piece as a brief postscript to the much-beloved preacher’s latest volume.

Whatever happened to Pentecost? Many British churches seem to have stopped celebrating the day, or even mentioning it, although it’s much more than a day anyway – it’s an experience. Even Pentecostals and charismatics, who supposedly base much of their theology on this vitally important feast, seem largely to have abandoned it.

The need for believers to be emboldened with power from on high, for which the resurrected Christ commanded his disciples to wait in Jerusalem, is rarely discussed. And we wonder why there is a lack of power in our witness.

The Meaning of Pentecost

The Bible feasts, which include Passover and Pentecost (also known as Shavuot), are meant to be celebrated to remind us of key truths and of God’s great bounty and deliverance. Pentecost comes 50 days (or seven weeks) after Passover, is also known as the Feast of Weeks, and is a celebration of the first fruits of the harvest – specifically wheat, the main ingredient of bread.

Jews also mark the occasion to celebrate the giving of the Law on Mt Sinai. And Jesus, the ‘bread of life’ born in Bethlehem (literally house of bread) is the fulfilment of the Law (Matt 5:17). And thus Pentecost is a fulfilment of Passover. Jesus, who died for our sins of which the Law convicts us (Rom 7:7), sends his Holy Spirit to empower us to keep a Law that is now “written on our hearts” and not just on tablets of stone (Ezek 36:26; Rom 2:15; 2 Cor 3:3), thus enabling us to witness boldly for the Gospel.

And so it was that, on the Day of Pentecost, 3,000 souls were added to the body of believers. We absolutely cannot do without Pentecost. Jesus paid a very high price for it. It cost him everything.

Jews for Jesus

Britain is proud to have produced one of the outstanding preachers of 20^th Century Pentecostalism, Smith Wigglesworth, who was illiterate prior to his conversion and subsequently only ever read the Bible. He took the message of the Gospel around the world and raised 14 people from the dead in the process – a modern-day apostle if ever there was one.

Yet today, Pentecost is largely forgotten and considered almost irrelevant; something of an embarrassment even. To their credit, the Anglicans, who in some ways are leading the march towards apostasy, still hold on to the feast.

The need for believers to be emboldened with power from on high is rarely discussed. And we wonder why there is a lack of power in our witness!

But Jewish believers are doing much more than that. No doubt partly due to their awareness of the festival’s roots going back thousands of years in their history, they are taking Jesus’ words seriously, and literally, as – empowered by the Holy Spirit – they share the good news, beginning in Jerusalem (Acts 1:8).

Jews for Jesus had specifically chosen the feast of Shavuot to preach the Gospel in the streets of Jerusalem, just as the apostles had done 2,000 years ago. And while they are not claiming that 3,000 souls responded, dozens decided to follow Yeshua (Hebrew for Jesus) as they learnt how he had fulfilled Messianic prophecies in the Tenach (our Old Testament). And hundreds more were willing to discuss his claims to be the Messiah of Israel.

One woman, when reminded of what happened in Jerusalem with Jesus, was shocked, and said: “I need to read those prophecies about the Messiah as soon as possible, because although I always believed in God, I did not know about them.”

The general openness was apparently profound, as I have experienced myself. David Brickner, of Jews for Jesus, wrote in their June update:

Of course, the key to success for those first disciples who began in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago was the power of the Holy Spirit. That is still true for Jews for Jesus and anyone else who wants to do God’s work in His way…I don’t know how much more time we have before the return of the Lord, but just like those first Jews for Jesus, we cannot just stand gazing up into heaven (referring to Jesus’ ascension).

Israel’s Greatest Need

Al Quds rally in Tehran, Friday 8 June. London's counterpart rally is due to be held on Sunday 10 June. See Photo Credits.

Israel is currently surrounded by implacable enemies who have vowed to bring about their annihilation. This is why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the target of a recent assassination plot, is warning Theresa May and other European leaders of the danger posed by Iran.

Yet their greatest need is not defence. For God, who brought them back to the Promised Land in fulfilment of ancient prophecies, also plans to restore them to a living relationship with him. And when they are back with their Lord, the Lord will come back to the world (Zech 12:10, 14:4).

Indeed, as Israel comes to know that he (Jesus) is the Lord, the nations too will understand this truth (Ezek 36:23). And none of this would happen without Pentecost.

References

1 Anti-Israel vicar, Stephen Sizer, to speak at London’s pro-Hezbollah Al Quds rally. Christians United for Israel, 4 June 2018.

Our second excerpt from Sandra Teplinsky's ‘Why Still Care About Israel?’

Palestinian Injustice

A sad reality is that the War of Independence was not fought without collateral damage to both Palestinian and Jewish civilians. For the sake of perspective, no war can be fought without collateral damage - and in this instance, there would not have been a war if the Arabs had not insisted on starting one. Nevertheless, some Arab families and villages were wrongly expelled or inexcusably overrun by Jewish soldiers.^q In at least one such raid at Deir Yassin, genuinely innocent victims were massacred.³¹ Upon learning of the sordid event, Israel denounced it and sought to compensate the victims.^r

The Palestinian narrative claims that since 1948, Israel has stolen or destroyed over four hundred Arab villages. This figure, based on a recently created map of dubious veracity, cannot be objectively verified. Israeli historians point out that many Arab families who were forced to leave their homes did not actually own the lands or homes they left. Some were long-term renters - for generations - of lands sold legally, but without their knowledge, to the Jews.^s

Moreover - and without diminishing the loss some Arabs have suffered - a large Palestinian state (Jordan) existed just across the border. Those who might be displaced were expected to seek refuge there, just as 800,000 Jewish refugees were forced to leave their homes and wealth behind and relocate to Israel.^t (More on this momentarily.)

No war can be fought without collateral damage - and in 1948, there would not have been a war if the Arabs had not insisted on starting one.

Lacking objective documentation of their plight, Palestinians have amassed global sympathies through a narrative that inverts history.^u Many share tragic personal tales - that prove either unverifiable or outrageously embellished.^v Their stories tend either to romanticize Arab tribal-village life or misrepresent it as a bustling society.^w Sadly, some of these accounts are presented by Christians as honest-to-God facts. Their pitiable tales tug at the heartstrings of any hearer. It’s their personal story, we reason. How can it not be true - and how can we not be deeply moved? Emotions are stirred, then inflamed - against Israel. Gradually, hearts are hardened against the Jewish people and what God is doing with them today.

Jesus loves and died for the Palestinian people: He does not want us to disparage them. We must compassionately acknowledge their suffering and seek a right response to it. But even genuine suffering must be viewed in context to rightly ascertain truth and transform realities justly.

Palestinian - and Jewish - Refugees

Palestinians were not the only refugees to result from the War of Independence. According to official UN figures, over 800,000 Jewish refugees were forced to flee homes and lands in North Africa and the Middle East where they had lived for generations.³² Unlike some Palestinians, they were in no sense “voluntary refugees”. Jews were expelled, stripped of citizenship or both in retaliation for Israel’s declaration of statehood. Arab nations have persistently refused to compensate these refugees for their confiscated properties, valued today at billions of dollars.³³

Meanwhile, during the War of Independence, unincorporated areas proposed by the Partition Plan for a second Palestinian Arab state were illegally annexed and occupied - not by Israel but by Jordan and Egypt. Jordan seized Judea and Samaria, including East Jerusalem, while Egypt staked claim to Gaza.

Now, the Arabs’ publicly stated goal for the war had been to liberate Palestine. But neither Jordan nor Egypt ever gave the territories they annexed back to the Palestinians to liberate them. Instead, the latter were compelled - by their own brethren - to stay put indefinitely in refugee camp limbo.^x Why? you may ask. They would not talk about it; let me explain.

Lacking objective documentation of their plight, Palestinians have amassed global sympathies through a narrative that inverts history.

Israel began offering, as early as 1949, to negotiate for the refugees’ return - and full repatriation - back into the Jewish state. But no Arab leader was willing to negotiate with the Jews. Transacting with Israel, they said, would involve an implicit recognition of her existence. This they had vowed never to do.³⁴ Further, by refusing either to negotiate for the refugees’ return or to absorb them themselves, they could continue the war against Israel in the political realm.^y This they had vowed never to cease doing.

Children in Jabalia refugee camp, Gaza. See Photo Credits.In 1949 the UN established a relief fund (United Nations Relief and Works Agency or UNRWA) to provide for the refugees’ basic needs. Soon thereafter, UNRWA acceded to Arab demands to grant refugee status - for the first time in history - not only to those who fled but to their descendants, indefinitely. This redefinition of “refugee” guaranteed the Palestinian population would dramatically increase over time.³⁵ By 2013, of an estimated Palestinian population of five million, only 30,000 - or approximately half of 1 percent - actually ever left a home in Israel.³⁶

Meanwhile, many billions of dollars have been given to Palestinians by Israel and other nations to provide for their “basic needs”.^z At this writing, UNRWA remains the largest employer in the West Bank, with thousands of Palestinians on its payroll and, according to some, padding the personal fortunes of Palestinian leaders.³⁷

Former UNRWA director Ralph Galloway concluded early on:

The Arab States do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it as an open sore…as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders don’t give a damn whether the refugees live or die.³⁸

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu similarly noted:

The consistent refusal of Arab leaders to solve this problem is particularly tragic because it would have been so easy to do…That the fifty million Arabs In 1948 could not absorb 650,000 Arab refugees - and have not finished the job even after half a century, and even after the fantastic multiplication of their oil wealth - is an indication of [how] the Arabs have manipulated the refugee issue to create reasons for world censure of Israel.³⁹

Of the situation an Arab American journalist comments:

What are the real roots of this [Palestiman-Israeli] conflict?...That Palestinians want a homeland and Muslims want control over sites they consider holy?...These two demands are nothing more than strategic deceptions. propaganda ploys. They are nothing more than phony excuses and rationalizations for the terrorism and murdering of Jews. The real goal of those making these demands is the destruction of the State of Israel.⁴⁰

Israel began offering, as early as 1949, to negotiate for the refugees’ return - and full repatriation - back into the Jewish state. But no Arab leader was willing to negotiate.

Palestinian Statehood and the Phased Plan

In 1964, Yasser Arafat assumed leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), a terror group with the stated purpose to liberate all of Palestine. It was not, however, created to liberate the West Bank and Gaza; this was never the “Palestine” to which it referred. Recall that in 1964, Gaza still belonged to Egypt and the West Bank was governed by Jordan. Since 1964 the Palestinian agenda has been to liberate a Palestine that includes, by definition, every square inch of land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River - that is, all of Israel.^{41 aa}

Shortly after the PLO published its goals, Israel fought for her life in the Six Day War of 1967. To the world’s surprise, she defensively acquired Gaza from Egypt and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, from Jordan. Then, in 1973, Egypt and Syria launched another unprovoked attack, the Yom Kippur War. Again Israel prevailed. As a result of these mounting Arab defeats, the PLO announced its “Phased Plan” the following year. The Phased Plan has never been revoked and still represents Islamist/Arab/Palestinian strategy today.

The Phased Plan refers to the slightly revised goal of liberating Palestine not all at once, but in stages. Phase One is the establishment of an independent, combatant national authority consisting of Gaza and the West Bank. This was to a large degree accomplished by developing the PLO into the PA and by Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza. Phase Two is the reconfiguration of Gaza and the West Bank into launching pads for provoking an all-out regional war, in which Israel is wiped off the map.⁴²

This is to be accomplished by military operations, lawfare diplomacy, cyberattack or any combination thereof.

On the Occupation

When Israel pushed back her attackers in the Six Day War and gained Gaza and the West Bank, she acquired land that had been originally allotted to her in 1920. By 1967, however, the areas were inhabited by over a million Jew-hating Palestinians and angry insurgents.⁴³ Israel had no desire to “rule over” them.⁴⁴

The Six Day War ended with UN Security Council Resolution 242, a truce that purposefully did not define borders. Resolution 242 authorized Israel to remain in possession of newly acquired territories until peace was established and final borders secured. It was meticulously and explicitly worded so that Israel would not be forced to withdraw from all the newly acquired territories, back to the boundary lines from which she had just been attacked.⁴⁵

When Israel pushed back her attackers in the Six Day War and gained Gaza and the West Bank, she acquired land that had been originally allotted to her in 1920.

Those boundaries, the 1949 armistice lines ending the War of Independence, were never meant to be permanent. Nor were they intended to substitute for negotiations to determine final borders. In less than twenty years, the lines had proved indefensible,^{46 bb} leaving the middle and most populous section of the country only nine miles wide. With Palestinians having shown themselves unwilling or unable to make peace, some Israeli leaders have termed the 1949 lines “Auschwitz Borders”, referring to a notorious Nazi death camp. Nevertheless, by 2011 the international community would euphemistically call them “pre-1967 borders” and urge Israel to retreat to them - with no enforceable guarantee of peace in return.

After the Six Day War, Egypt and Jordan eventually signed peace treaties with Israel. These nations refused, however, to take back either Gaza or the West Bank. Reclaiming these territories would have betrayed the pan-Arab plan, notoriously reaffirmed after the war,⁴⁷ to leave in place a local population to help destroy Israel. As a result, Gaza and the West Bank remained in a state of perpetual war with Israel, ruled by the increasingly militant PLO. That being the case, Israel was authorized by international law to administratively govern the territories, with quasi-military powers of enforcement, until peace could be achieved. The administration of law and order in a hostile, enemy population in such circumstances is called an occupation.

Some Israelis say, however, that they have not occupied any of these areas because the land rightfully belongs to them under customary international law. Customary international law refers to the body of international law and policy that Western nations have traditionally practiced and followed.

In either case, Israel’s quasi-military administration known as the “occupation” is not illegal. The term “illegal occupation” is a pejorative mischaracterization, intended to conjure up images of oppression and abuse. Admittedly, Israel has not always acted fairly or justly during the difficult course of governing people dedicated to her demise. But to brand her lawful jurisdiction “illegal” or “oppressive” obscures the reality that if Palestinians sincerely accepted Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, the war and the occupation would be history. Allow me to explain.

Peace Negotiations

In 1993, the PLO morphed into the Palestinian Authority under an agreement called the Oslo Accords. At that time Palestinians gained the right to negotiate peace with Israel for themselves.^cc Sadly, rather than pursue a peaceful coexistence alongside Israel, history records how they proliferated terror instead.

Nevertheless, in 2000, Israel offered the Palestinians full sovereignty over 95 percent of the disputed territories, including East Jerusalem, with secured geographic contiguity. There was virtually nothing left for the Jews to give away. But the Palestinians said no. Offering no counterproposal to the offer, they literally walked out on negotiations⁴⁸ and immediately launched a violent intifada (“uprising”) of deadly terror lasting several years.^dd US Middle East envoy Dennis Ross, who was present, said the Palestinians’ main objection was the insertion of one critical clause in the agreement: “This is the end of the conflict."^{49 ee} The Palestinians could not end the conflict with anything less than ending Israel.^ff

In 1993, the Palestinians gained the right to negotiate peace with Israel for themselves – but rather than pursue this, they proliferated terror instead.

Yasser Arafat, who signed the Oslo Accords and walked out on the offer of a sovereign state, said (in Arabic): “I do not consider the [Oslo] agreement any more than the agreement which was signed by our prophet Muhammad and the Qurayish.”⁵⁰ Arafat referred to an agreement that established the right, called hudna, for Muslims to fake peace when they are weak so they can wait for better timing to fight when they are strong.^gg Thus an Arab saying goes like this: “When your enemy is strong, kiss his hand and pray that it will be broken one day.”⁵¹

Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Shimon Peres signs the Oslo Accords outside the White House, alongside PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat. See Photo Credits.Faisal Husseini, a moderate Palestinian leader, compared the whole peace process to a proverbial “Trojan horse”.⁵² From the Arab perspective, it had been designed to fool Israel into letting the Palestinians arm themselves in order to destroy it. Said Husseini, “If you are asking me as a pan-Arab nationalist what are the Palestinian borders according to the higher strategy, I will immediately reply, from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea.”⁵³

Perhaps that would explain why, in 2008, when Israel offered Palestinians 93 percent of the territory they desired - including 98 percent of the West Bank - they again said no.⁵⁴ And why, in 2009, PA leaders said they would resume negotiations on the pre-condition that Israel stop all settlement construction - but still refused to talk when Israel complied with their demand. After that, with one perceived betrayal following another, Israelis were not so willing to believe Palestinians were sincere about peace.^hh

In 2011, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu tried to restart peace talks and pleaded at the UN with PA President Abbas to meet face-to-face, without preconditions. Abbas refused, demanding that Israel first agree to an expanded list of preconditions.ⁱⁱ Under the Oslo Accords and other agreements, however, these preconditions were in fact supposed to be the subject of the negotiations. By agreeing to all the preconditions first, there would be very little left to negotiate. So Netanyahu replied with one precondition of his own. He demanded that Palestinians recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. If the PA would agree to the one precondition, Israel would agree to their whole list of them. But the Palestinians refused.^jj

In 2012, Palestinians sidestepped negotiations, and thus breached the Oslo Accords, by seeking to forge a path for statehood in the UN. At the same time, they launched a war from Gaza and a terror wave in the West Bank. In 2013, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon commented on the situation:

This is our history: Every time a proposal was raised to partition the land, the other side started a war. Every time we expressed willingness to give up territory, terror rose to new heights.⁵⁵

In 2012, Palestinians sidestepped negotiations, breaching the Oslo Accords, by seeking to forge a path for statehood in the UN.

Palestinians often say they resort to terror because Israeli proposals do not offer them a universal “right of return”. Israelis reply this is because Palestinians are unwilling to limit the “right” to refugees who personally left Israel; they insist on extending it to every Palestinian in Gaza, the West Bank or anywhere else in the world. Therefore, when Israel has expressed willingness to give them land, Palestinians have sometimes agreed to recognize a country named Israel - but never as a Jewish state.^kk The difference is critical. If Palestinians acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, they relinquish a strategy for turning it into a Palestinian/Islamist one by flooding it with millions of Arabs “returning” there.^ll

The right of return has remained, at this writing, uncompromisable - even though “homeland” is only a few miles away, and even though Palestinians would finally be getting a second sovereign state. From Israel’s perspective, granting several million Muslims, many of whom are murderously militant, permission to immigrate and repopulate the country is tantamount to committing national suicide.

Israeli Settlements

In 2012, the PA began claiming that Israeli settlements were the main reason for the failure of the peace process. In fact, settlements represent only 1.6 percent of the disputed territories,⁵⁶ and 70 percent of settlers live in suburbs adjacent to major Israeli cities, not deep inside the West Bank.⁵⁷ Settlements do not disrupt Palestinian geographic contiguity. Despite public opinion to the contrary, settlements officially authorized by the Israeli government are not illegal under standards of customary international law.^mm To be sure, settlements have been built on lands whose ownership is disputed. But in this dispute, Israel actually possesses the best claim to lawful - if not politically feasible or practical - ownership.ⁿⁿ

Recall that when Israel acquired the West Bank, no state or political entity held legal title to it. The last rightful owner of the land had been Israel, and historically, a Jewish presence has been maintained in Judea and Samaria for thousands of years. After World War I, Britain obtained the land and, through international agreements, returned recognized legal title to the Jews. When the UN offered the land to Palestinian Arabs in 1947, it wrongfully tried to take that title away. But the Palestinians rejected the offer, thereby rendering it null and void.

Years later, Jordan illegally annexed the West Bank, but Israel defensively - and therefore, legally - acquired it from Jordan in the Six Day War. Under international law, the land has been technically “disputed” since 1967.^oo In the future, international bodies may decide to rule on the legality of the territories and settlements built on them. Given the nations’ collective stance toward Israel, it would likely take an act of God for a ruling in her favor to result. Which of course we cannot rule out.

In this dispute, Israel actually possesses the best claim to lawful - if not politically feasible or practical – ownership of the ‘disputed’ territories.

Meanwhile, Israel’s settlement policies are not necessarily perfect. Growing numbers of extremist settlers (and Palestinians) have turned violent, and the violence must be stopped. Some Israelis have tried to stake claim to biblical lands by erecting self-declared, unauthorized outposts. Usually these are dismantled by Israel within a short time. Jewish settlement construction has resulted in genuine hardship for some Bedouin and other Arabs, not always handled properly by Israeli courts.^pp But these proportionately few unfair cases do not make all the settlements illegal. Nor do they provide a reason to suspend peace negotiations, if the parties sincerely desire peace.

Future Palestine

Repeatedly, Israel has demonstrated her willingness and even desire to accept Palestine as a new sovereign state. But as this book goes to print, Palestinians still insist (in Arabic) their state must stretch from the “river to the sea” and encompass all of Israel.⁵⁸ Surveys consistently reveal that a solid majority of Israelis would agree to live alongside a peaceful Palestinian state. (The operative word is peaceful.) But similar surveys consistently show the majority of Palestinians say they would never accept peaceful coexistence with a Jewish state.^qq In 2011, 66 percent of West Bank Palestinians said that while they would accept a two-state solution as a “first step”, they wanted to eventually replace Israel with a single Palestinian state.⁵⁹ In 2012, 88 percent of all Palestinians preferred a strategy of terror, or another intifada, over diplomacy to achieve it.⁶⁰ In 2013, similar polls yielded similar results.⁶¹

As you can see, the root of the Palestinian plight is well hidden beneath the surface tension exposed to public view. Deep-seated realities that will not change unless faced forthrightly are disguised and distorted. I do not minimize the genuine suffering, frustration and injustice that affects some Palestinians. But, fundamentally, these conditions are not the cause of Arab and Islamist enmity toward Israel; they are the result of it. Moreover, injustices have repeatedly come about at the hands of Arab, not Israeli, leaders betraying their own people. That the world faults Israel - and threatens her survival - for a Palestinian plight that is Islamist/Arab generated, is highly unjust.

God wants transformational justice for both Israelis and Palestinians. But justice must be pursued and attained His way - according to righteousness based on truth - however His enemies try to obscure it. He wants us to “test and approve what [his] Will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will" (Romans 12:2) as He restores His ancient covenant people. Toward them we must “not be arrogant, but tremble" (Romans 11:20).

About the author: Sandra Teplinsky is a Messianic Jew who lives in Jerusalem and teaches about Israel. With her husband, Sandra runs a ministry called Light of Zion. Find out more about the book 'Why Still Care About Israel?' on its website.

References

Letters q-qq can be found on this page.

31 Bard, “The Refugees”, Jewish Virtual Library, accessed April 30, 2013; Efraim Karsh, Palestine Betrayed (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010), 122

32 Auguste Lindt, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, “Report of the UNREF Executive Committee, Fourth Session”, Geneva, January 29 to February 4, 1957; Dr. E. Jahn, Office of the UN High Commissioner, “United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Document No.7/2/3," Libya, July 6, 1967, as cited in Alan Baker, ed., Israel's Rights as a Nation-State in International Diplomacy (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and World Jewish Congress, 2011), 50.

33 “Refugees Forever? Issues in the Palestinian-lsraeli Conflict," International Jerusalem Post, February 21, 2003, special supplement; Bard, “The Refugees."

34 Terence Prittie. “Middle East Refugees,” in Michael Curtis, Joseph Neyer, Chaim Waxman, and Allen Pollack, ed., The Palestinians: People, History, Politics (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1975), 66—67.

35 Daniel Pipes, “Peculiar Proliferation of Palestinian Refugees,” Washington Times, February 20, 2012.

36 Donna Cassata, “Defining a Palestinian Refugee,” Associated Press. May 31, 2012.

37 Jonathan Shanzer. “Chronic Kleptocracy: Corruption within the Palestinian Political Establishment,” Hearing before House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Congressional Testimony, July 10, 2012.

38 As cited by Prittie, “Middle East Refugees," 71, emphasis mine.

39 Netanyahu, A Durable Peace, 155.

40 Joseph Farah, speech given at Messiah College, Grantham, Pennsylvania, July 3, 2003.

41 See for example Palestinian Media Watch, “PA Depicts a World Without Israel,” 2011; “Mashaal: We Will Never Give Up Any of Palestine,” International Jerusalem Post, December 14-20, 2011.

42 “Political Plan of the PLO Council," June 8, 1974.

43 Jewish Virtual Library, “Demography of Palestine & Israel, the West Bank & Gaza."

44 See for example Michael B. Oren, Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East (New York. Ballantine Books, 2002), 306-27.

45 Jewish Virtual Library, “The Meaning of Resolution 142"; Dore Gold, The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, the West and the Future of the Holy City (Washington D.C.: Regnery, Inc, 2007), 172-74; Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Disputed Territories-Forgotten Facts About the West Bank and Gaza Strip.” February 1, 2003.

46 Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Israel's Critical Security Requirements for Defensible Borders (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs).

47 The Arabs' Khartoun Resolutions of 1967 solidified the notorious “Three No’s”: No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel. Jewish Virtual Library, “The Khartoun Resolutions.”

48 Benny Morris, “Camp David and After: An Exchange (Interview with Ehud Barak),” New York Review of Books 49, no. 10, June 13, 2002.

49 Ambassador Dennis Ross, in a Fox News interview, as reported by David Kupelian, “The Real Reason Arafat Rejected a Palestinian State,” Whistleblower 12, no. 3 (March 2003): 7.

50 Speech by Arafat in Johannesburg, May 10, 1994 (while Oslo was in effect), as cited in Daniel Pipes, “Lessons from the Prophet Muhammad in Diplomacy,” Middle East Quarterly, September 1999.

51 Kupelian, “The Real Reason,” 8-9; Pipes, “Lessons.”

52 “Faysal al-Husseni in His Last Interview,” MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 236, July 6, 2001.

53 lbid.

54 Reuters and Aluf Benn, “PA Rejects Olmert‘s Offer,” Haaretz, August 12, 2008.

55 Mazal Mualem, “New Defense Minister No Threat to Netanyahu’s Policies,” Al-Monitor, March 13, 2013.

56 See Michelle Whiteman, “To the Media, Building Settlements in Israel’s a Crime,” Huffington Post, December 26, 2012; and Mitchell G. Bard, “The Settlements,” Myths and Facts Online, Jewish Virtual Library, accessed April 30, 2013.

57 Bard, “The Settlements.”

58 “Jerusalem-on-the-Line,” Jerusalem News Network, Prayer Letter, April 3, 2013, quoting Palestinian Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal’s speech in Arabic at a rally in Gaza City, March 30, 2013.

59 United Press International, “Poll: Arabs Reject Two-State Solution," July 26, 2011.

60 Elhanan Miller,“88 Percent of Palestinians Believe Armed Struggle Is the Best Way," Times of Israel, December 16, 2012.

61 Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, “Palestinian Public Opinion Poll No. 47," press release, April 1, 2013.

Paul Luckraft reviews a selection of books on the making of modern Israel to round off our celebration of her 70^th anniversary.

‘The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel under International Law’ by Howard Grief (732pp, Mazo Publishers, 2008/2013)

This is a weighty treatise on Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel, written by a legally-trained Canadian Zionist as the culmination of 25 years of serious study and analysis of Israel’s legal foundation and rights under international law.

Although as a whole this will appeal more to readers with specialised knowledge or interest, there are nevertheless certain chapters which will benefit anyone with a heart to know more about the legality of various claims.
Taking the Balfour Declaration and the subsequent San Remo Resolution as the origins of the legal title and sovereignty, he goes on to look at the continuation of these matters upon the termination of the British Mandate and discusses why these origins have become obscured and forgotten. Grief’s section on the meaning of Palestinian nationality during the British Mandate period and the Arab appropriation of the name ‘Palestinians’ will be helpful to the general reader, as will his overall approach and conclusions.

Available on Amazon in e-book, paperback and hardback forms, starting from £13.10.

Trilogy on the history of Israel, by Leslie Stein

‘The Hope Fulfilled, The Rise of Modern Israel’ (300pp, Praeger, 2003)

‘The Making of Modern Israel, 1948-1967’ (412pp, Polity Press, 2009)

‘Israel Since the Six Day War’ (440pp, Polity Press, 2014)

The first volume in this trilogy effectively starts with the first Aliyah in 1882 and covers the origins of modern political Zionism. Stein then works his way through the second Aliyah (1904-1914), the First World War and the Balfour Declaration and the early years of British Rule in Palestine (1917-1930). The difficult years from 1930 onwards leads us towards World War 2 and the post-war struggle for independence.

The second volume, as its title suggests, tackles the important two decades from independence to the Six Day War and its aftermath. Although some of this is extremely well known, other parts of this period are often overlooked. Stein does us great service by providing a continual commentary through these years, for instance focussing on the Sinai campaign and interlude between this and the Six Day War.

The third volume looks at the aftermath of the Six Day War and the prelude to the Yom Kippur War, and then brings us up to date through the 1980s and 1990s, culminating in the al-Aqsa (second) Intifada (2000). Overall, it is as a set of three volumes that Stein’s work is to be most appreciated, and would sit well on the shelves next to other writings on these themes.

Available on Amazon: here, here and here respectively, starting at £11.39.

‘A History of Israel: from the Rise of Zionism to Our Time’ by Howard Sachar, (887pp, Knopf, 1979/2007)

The late Howard Sachar, Professor Emeritus of History and International Affairs at the George Washington University in Washington, DC, has written many books on the Middle East and Jewish history, but this one is regarded as definitive.

Its full, single-volume account of the Jewish movement towards statehood and the period since was updated significantly in 2007, extending its comprehensive study up to the 2006 Lebanon war. This is a classic that is both readable and informative in its analysis.

Available on Amazon in paperback, hardback and Kindle forms, starting at £23.08.

‘Churchill’s Promised Land: Zionism and Statecraft’ by Michael Makovsky (368pp, Yale University Press, 2007)

For anyone with an interest in Churchill in general and his relationship with Zionism in particular, Makovsky’s book is a well-constructed and balanced study that will enable the reader to gain a clearer perspective of the role of this key figure at a vital time in the history of the Middle East.

Churchill’s political and intellectual response to the Zionist project is a complex one, and Makovsky manages to explore this in an honest and approachable way which will shed light on the man, his beliefs and the practicalities of politics.

Available on Amazon in paperback, hardback and Kindle forms, starting at £10.

Our leaders have a veil over their eyes.

Up to 50,000 people attempted to break through the border between Gaza and Israel this week according to press reports. Their use of smoke and mirrors, petrol bombs, incendiary kites and other weapons must have been a terrifying experience for the tiny detachment of Israeli part-time soldiers guarding the border to protect Israeli citizens from slaughter.

But far from giving a factual picture of events, the BBC, The Guardian and others¹ poured out their anti-Semitic invective against Israel.

The BBC had been preparing for this event for a long time and sent some of their senior reporters to give maximum cover to criticise Israel. In the event there was no breakthrough and no massacre.

Though each life lost is a heart-rending matter, it is to the credit of those defending the border that relatively few died, and most casualties were known terrorists. Hamas called off the protest the next day after Egyptian intervention; but not before they achieved their objective of getting anti-Israel propaganda into the Western media and calling for a UN enquiry - even at the expense of lives of their own people.

The Creation of the Gazan Refugees

The whole Gaza issue is tragic, both for the people who live there and for Israel. But it has been deliberately created as the front line in the drive to destroy Israel. The Palestinians themselves are despised by the Arab nations. Before they were brought together in the 1960s, there never was a Palestinian nation.

Historically, before the Jewish resettlement began in the early 20^th Century, Palestine was a largely barren land. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica 1900, there were less than 100 trees in the whole of Palestine with a sparse population of nomadic Arabs living in tents, whose goats ate every bit of vegetation. The absentee land-owning Arabs were only too willing to sell land to the Jews in those days.

The whole Gaza issue is tragic, but it has been deliberately created as the front line in the drive to destroy Israel.

When the state of Israel was created in 1948 the neighbouring states of Jordan, Egypt and Syria combined their armies, ordered any non-Jewish residents to leave their homes and go to two newly created refugee camps at Jericho and Gaza so that their forces could clear the land and drive the Jews into the Mediterranean. What they now call their ‘catastrophe’ was the failure of their armies to defeat the tiny group of Holocaust survivors who, in successive conflicts, went on to retake Jerusalem and to clear the whole land of foreign fighters.

With 70 years and a high birthrate the dreadful conditions in Gaza have been created by the Arab nations, who could easily have solved the situation by taking in the Palestinians. But even the small groups who succeeded in crossing the River Jordan and settling in Jordan and Syria were never accepted and today live in separate enclaves, denied citizenship. This is the measure of hypocrisy among the Arab nations who simply use the West Bank and Gaza situations for political purposes – in their drive to destroy Israel.

Leaders Without Knowledge

The Gaza issue was debated in the House of Commons this week with the usual mixture of anti-Israel and friendly comments. I was particularly disappointed to hear Alistair Burt, Foreign Office Minister for the Middle East, whom I’ve counted among my friends for the past 25 years, making a politically-correct bland statement.

The UN Security Council has strongly condemned Israel's activity at the Gaza border. See Photo Credits.As a Bible-believing evangelical brother I was hoping that he would put some backbone into the Foreign Office and declare that the time has come for Britain to implement the policy it advocated 100 years ago in the Balfour Declaration and move the British Embassy up to Jerusalem, alongside that of the USA.

But postmodernism, with its Darwinian and Marxist roots, has not only driven radical change to the social and personal values of the nation, but has spread a veil over the eyes of the leaders of both Church and state, so that they are unable to perceive the truth. They are like the leaders whom the Prophet Isaiah referred to as ‘blind watchmen’ who “all lack knowledge” (Isa 56:10). They cannot see the big picture because they do not understand the purposes of God and what is happening in the world today.

Postmodernism has spread a veil over the eyes of the leaders of both Church and state, so they are unable to perceive the truth.

Our leaders are part of a generation of biblical eunuchs: they have no understanding of the ways of God because they have turned their backs upon the word of God. For years we have been living upon the spiritual capital of our 19^th Century Victorian Bible-believing forefathers; but it is not enough to support us today, as the world moves onto the cusp of the most incredible period of turmoil since the creation of the world. There is a desperate need for people to hear the word of God before it is too late.

Coming Judgment

In the spring of 1986 there was a gathering of men and women with prophetic insight who met in Israel for a time of prayer and seeking God, to understand what is happening in the world today. One day I was standing alone with Lance Lambert on the top of Mt Carmel looking up at a remarkable sight I’d never seen before, of a complete rainbow encircling the sun; although Lance said it’s not unusual in Israel. We both received words which we shared with others in the evening meeting.

I was led to the prophecy in Haggai 2:6:

This is what the Lord Almighty says: in a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations and the desired of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord Almighty.

I said that the USSR, the mighty communist empire that appeared all-powerful in 1986, would very soon collapse. Three weeks later the Chernobyl nuclear power station blew up which began the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

That same evening Lance Lambert gave one of the most remarkable prophecies of our time. He said:

It will not be long before there will come upon the world a time of unparalleled upheaval and turmoil. Do not fear for it is I the Lord who am shaking all things. I began this shaking with the First World War and I greatly increased it through the Second World War. Since 1973 I have given it an even greater impetus. In the last stage, I plan to complete it with the shaking of the universe itself, with signs in the sun and moon and stars. But before that point is reached, I will judge the nations, and the time is near.

It will not only be by war and civil war, by anarchy and terrorism, and by monetary collapses that I will judge the nations, but also by natural disasters: by earthquakes, by shortages and famines, and by old and new plague diseases. I will also judge them by giving them over to their own ways, to lawlessness, to loveless selfishness, to delusion and to believing a lie, to false religion and an apostate church, even to a Christianity without me.

Our leaders are part of a generation of biblical eunuchs: they have no understanding of the ways of God because they have turned their backs upon the word of God.

Need for the Word of God

This next stage in the history of the world has now been reached. Most of the nations of the world are conspiring to hate Israel, as foretold in the word of God: “Come, they say, let us destroy them as a nation, that the name of Israel be remembered no more” (Ps 83:4).

The Prophet Zechariah received a revelation that the day would come when the focus of the world would be upon Jerusalem. He said:

This is the word of the Lord concerning Israel…I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling. Judah will be besieged as well as Jerusalem. On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure [rupture] themselves.

Never has there been a greater need for biblical truth to be brought into the affairs of the nations than today, with the nations armed with weapons capable of destroying the world and driven by a spirit of hatred and destruction.

Jeremiah foresaw the fall of the mighty Babylonian Empire and that Babylon would become “a heap of ruins, a haunt of jackals” (Jer 51:37), as it is today. So, in our lifetime, unless the nations of the world study the word of God and bring their policies in line with his truth, they will create a catastrophe that will engulf the world.

The great question is: – Will the Bible-believing faithful remnant in the Western nations break their silence and declare the word of the Lord to bring life and light to this generation, and hope for our children and grandchildren?

Notes

1 For further information on this, we recommend UK Media Watch, a watchdog seeking to hold the British media to account for their biased treatment of Israel.

An excerpt from Sandra Teplinsky’s book ‘Why Still Care About Israel’. Part I of II.

Last week on Prophecy Today UK we reviewed ‘Why Still Care About Israel’ as part of our ongoing coverage of Israel’s 70^th anniversary. This week, we are pleased to bring you the first of a two-part excerpt from this book (taken from chapter 10), focusing particularly on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Please see the base of the page for more information about the author. Reprinted with permission.

 Israeli Statehood and the Arab/Palestinian Plight

“Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Romans 12:2

A true story opens on May 14, 1948, as the Jewish people prepare to declare a state. The air is electric. After two thousand years of exile, the sons and daughters of Jacob have come home. High-pitched excitement circles the globe.

That morning, Israel's founding father and first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, pores over maps showing the array of Arab armies poised to attack. The Jews are outnumbered 100 to 1.¹ “I feel like a mourner at a wedding," he writes in his diary.²

In a few hours Ben-Gurion will deliver Israel’s Declaration of Independence. He scribbles down notes for his speech on the only writing material at hand - sheets of toilet paper.^a

At exactly 4:00pm, he steps to the podium in an overcrowded hall in Tel Aviv, before a hushed audience. This is the moment for which millions of Jews have lived and died. As Ben-Gurion reads the Israeli Declaration of Independence, those present cling to his every word. He speaks of Bible history and the Jews’ undying hope to return to their ancestral home. Then with prophetic clarity Ben-Gurion decrees: “By virtue of the natural and historic right of the Jewish people…we hereby proclaim the establishment of the Jewish state in Palestine, to be called the State of Israel…for the fulfillment of the dream of generations—the redemption of Israel.”

At once, cheers and tears resound. Golda Meir, who would later serve as prime minister, cannot stop crying. Her sobs, she explains, are for the many who should have been there, but are no more.³ According to the nation’s chief rabbi, “The dawn of redemption has broken.”⁴

As the Jewish people prepare to declare a state, the air is electric. After two thousand years of exile, the sons and daughters of Jacob have come home. High-pitched excitement circles the globe.

Euphoria erupts in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, where traffic stops as streets swell with singing and dancing. But the party is soon interrupted. Sirens wail to warn of Egyptian bombers overhead. Joining them are the armies of Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq, together with militants from throughout the Arab world. All have a common goal: to annihilate the Jewish state in Allah’s name.⁵ The War of Independence has begun. Happy birthday, Israel.

Since 1948, tomes have been written on the history of Israel’s restoration, and the Islamist/Arab/Palestinian resistance against it. Time and space permit us to summarise only basic facts (for more detail, please refer to the notes at www.whystillcareaboutisrael.com). I think you will discover a surprising perspective on today’s conflict emerges when you consider the context from which it arose. You will see that Israel is not so much in a fight for land as for her life - and that changes everything.

Palestinian History: The Back Story

In the first century AD, Israel was renamed Palestine by the Romans who conquered her. This was done in derisive remembrance of the Jews’ former - and extinct - enemy, the Philistines. The Philistines had by then already died out, so despite the similarity in name, they are not related to the Palestinians of today.^b Collectively, Palestinians have no traceable ancient tie to the land of Israel and never identified as a self-governing people group. Like other Arabs in the Middle East, most of their ancestors dwelt as scattered family tribes on lands they often did not personally own. Generally, they coexisted alongside Jews who had, in small numbers, lived in Palestine since biblical times on inherited or legally purchased land.⁶ But periodically, Islamic terror would erupt⁷ and jihadi expropriation of Jewish real estate took place.⁸

From the 1500s up until World War I, the entire Middle East was ruled by the Ottoman Turkish Empire, a type of Muslim caliphate. No autonomous Arab state was on the map; most Arabs belonged to nomadic tribes wandering all over the Middle East.^c At the same time, hundreds of thousands of Jews also lived in the region under Ottoman rule. According to a census taken in 1882, approximately 25,000 of them lived in Palestine, along with 260,000 Arabs.⁹ As tourists and pilgrims testified, Palestine was by then mostly desolate and depopulated,¹⁰ a far cry from the land of milk and honey it had once been for millions of Jews.

Israel is not so much in a fight for land as for her life - and that changes everything.

By the early 1900s, Palestinian Arab identity was said to be extremely mixed.¹¹ Persons counted as indigenous Palestinian Arabs included ethnic Balkans, Greeks, Syrians, Latins, Turks, Armenians, Italians, Persians, Kurds, Germans, Afghans, Circassians, Bosnians, Sudanese, Samaritans, Algerians, Tartars and others.¹² An official British document published in 1920 stated the majority of people living in Palestine were not indigenous Arabs but only Arabic-speaking.¹³

When Zionist pioneers began arriving in the early twentieth century, the number of Arabs immigrating to Palestine also sharply increased. With Jews from the West came new job opportunities, vastly improved medical care and a higher standard of living, all of which attracted their tribal neighbors.¹⁴ Once inside Israel, most Arab immigrants continued living as bedouin, built simple villages or served for decades as tenants on farmlands owned by others. Later, countless more poured in from surrounding countries - not to carry on normal lives but to fight the formation of a Jewish state.¹⁵ Together with the small indigenous Arab population, these individuals and their descendants comprise the Palestinian people of today.

Palestinians are not, as some have rather unkindly said, “an invented people". They are flesh-and-blood human beings created in God’s image, with inherent dignity and worth. Though most of their ancestors came from across the Middle East and even beyond, they did form an identifiable collective by the mid-twentieth century. Palestinians are not the first people group formed by the force of history. They are, however, the only modern group whose creation and self-definition, as one Palestinian journalist writes,¹⁶ rests largely on the planned elimination of another, namely Israel - or as they prefer to call her, “the Zionist entity."

Zionism and the Reestablishment of a Jewish State

Zionism is defined, in a broad secular sense, as the national liberation movement of the Jewish people. The Zionist movement contends that the Jewish nation, like every other indigenous people, is entitled to live autonomously in its ancestral homeland. As such, Zionism cannot be viewed as something separate from the Jewish people and nation-state. To be anti-Zionist is akin to being anti-Israel and, to a degree, anti-Jewish.

Zionism is not and has never been entirely secular; a strong religious element has always underlain it.^d Officially launched in 1896, modern-day Zionism involves the return of the Jewish people to their God-given ancestral homeland.^e The name of the movement derives from the Bible, where Zion is used over 150 times. “You will arise and have compassion on Zion; for it is time to show favour to her; the appointed time has come…For the LORD will rebuild Zion and appear in his glory” (Psalm 102:13, 16). Zionism precipitates His Kingdom glory.

Palestinians are not the first people group formed by the force of history. They are, however, the only modern group whose creation and self-definition rests largely on the planned elimination of another, namely Israel.

In rebuilding Zion, Sovereign God has worked through nations and human beings. The modern story starts with World War I, when the Ottoman Turks aligned with Axis nations, and collectively they lost the war. As a result, the Allies dismantled the Ottoman Empire and created Syria, Lebanon, Iran and Iraq for the Arabs and Persians to inhabit.^f In an international agreement known as the San Remo Resolution of 1920, they set Palestine aside for the Jews.^g Great Britain was made responsible for implementing the resolution by unanimous vote of the League of Nations, predecessor organisation to the UN. The League of Nations directive, called the Mandate for Palestine, reserved explicitly for the Jews not just present-day Israel, but all of Judea, Samaria, Gaza and Jordan.¹⁷

The Mandate for Palestine was scarcely issued when Palestinian Arabs began rioting and conducting terror operations in protest of it. The deadly terror had nothing to do with occupation, settlements or allegedly disproportionate military force. From the beginning, Islamic terror had everything to do with opposing the existence of a Jewish state.

In an effort to appease Palestinian Arabs - and although international law forbade such an action^h - Great Britain unilaterally took back 78 percent of the land allotted to the Jews. She then gave it to Palestinian Arabs—specifically to create a Palestinian state. Today that state is known as Jordan. Palestinian Arabs were expected to move to Jordan, and any Jews living in Jordan would relocate to the 22 percent of land remaining from the San Remo and Mandatory allotments. A smaller section of land in the Golan Heights, originally designated for the Jews, was also given away by Britain to Syria. But appeasement did not work - which we would do well to remember. Those who forget history, it is said, are doomed to repeat it. The acts we engage in for appeasement today, Britain’s Winston Churchill presciently forewarned, we will have to remedy at far greater cost and remorse tomorrow.¹⁸

Not surprisingly, after Jordan was established, Palestinian rioting and terror killings of Jews persisted.ⁱ An exasperated Great Britain finally turned the political foray over to the UN (when the League of Nations failed to prevent World War II, the UN was formed to replace it). The UN’s charter required that it adopt all laws and resolutions passed by the League of Nations. So when it inherited the Mandate for Palestine, the UN became responsible for creating a Jewish state.

As you can see, plans for the reestablishment of Israel were underway well before the onset of World War II. Israel’s right to exist by international law is not fundamentally based on the Nazi Holocaust, as compelling a cause as that is from a humanitarian point of view. Certainly, the Holocaust demonstrated the need for a Jewish state to protect Jewish lives. But if we believe Israel’s right to exist is rooted in a compassionate response to the Holocaust, when that compassion wears off, so will our belief that Israel has a right to exist. Israel’s fundamental right to exist under international law rests on the recognition of the Jews’ ancestral, sovereign control over identifiable land that, since their forced removal from it, remained sparsely occupied and mostly undeveloped.

Israel’s right to exist by international law is not fundamentally based on the Nazi Holocaust, as compelling a cause as that is from a humanitarian point of view.

Notwithstanding Israel’s historical and legal right to the land, and dismissing international commitments to the Jews, the UN continued with a policy of Arab appeasement. In 1947, it partitioned the remaining 22 percent of the original Mandate for a Jewish homeland into two proposed states: one for Jews and yet another, second state for Palestinian Arabs. The Partition Plan, also called UN Resolution 181, recognized the Jews’ right to sovereign control over a sliver of space amounting to a mere 10 percent of the original British Mandate. It offered the Arabs who lived within Mandate territory a state - in addition to Jordan - consisting of Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

Zionist pioneers felt it best to accept the UN’s offer. Ten percent of the Promised Land after nearly two thousand years was better than zero. Moreover, they had no political clout or practical means with which to resist whatever the world community told them to do. The Arabs, however, thoroughly rejected the Partition Plan, which legally voided the offer to them. Ninety percent of the land, they insisted, was not enough. They wanted it all - an empire spanning the entire Middle East, leaving no place on earth for the Jews. They mobilised for a war against Israel they felt certain they would win. The world wondered, much as it does today. Will Israel survive?

Israel's Rebirth—Into War

Israel did not want the War of Independence to occur and tried extremely hard to prevent it.¹⁹ When her every effort toward peace was rebuffed, Ben-Gurion extended a final appeal to the Arabs in his Declaration of Independence speech:

We yet call upon the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve the ways of peace and play their part in the development of the State, on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its bodies and institutions…We extend our hand in peace and neighborliness to all the neighboring states and their peoples, and invite them to co-operate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all.²⁰

The same invitation had been offered daily for weeks.^j British Mandate authorities who were stationed on the ground testified: “Every effort is being made by the Jews to persuade the Arab populace to stay and carry on with their normal lives…and to be assured that their lives and interests will be safe.”²¹ Most, however, chose to flee, creating a local refugee crisis that would upend history. A Palestinian priest who watched the events unfold stated, “[The Arabs] fled in spite of the fact the Jewish authorities guaranteed their safety and rights as citizens of Israel.”²²

Arab-Nazi Alliance

Why did so many Palestinians run from their homes and livelihoods? An overlooked historical fact is perhaps one of the most pivotal and still fuels the conflict today. An unshakeable Islamic/Arab-Nazi alliance predated World War II, and as a result of it, many Arabs vehemently despised and feared the Jews.

Early in his career, Hitler formed a pact with Jerusalem’s grand mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini. The notoriously anti-Semitic mufti held religious and political sway over Muslims throughout Palestine and the larger Middle East. He and Hitler schemed together to annihilate the Jewish people worldwide. The fuehrer would focus on Europe and the extraordinarily influential mufti would target Palestine’s growing Jewish population.²³

An unshakeable Islamic/Arab-Nazi alliance predated World War II, and as a result of it, many Arabs vehemently despised and feared the Jews.

Building on fundamental Islam’s anti-Jewish ideology, Husseini mobilized an Arab militia, which served as a formal Nazi brigade. Supplied with German weaponry, the brigade murdered Palestinian Jews in acts of heinous terror throughout World War II.²⁴ To keep the violence going, Husseini saturated the Middle East with lies about the Zionists via propaganda broadcasts radioed in from Berlin.^k So after the Holocaust ended in Europe, he and other Arab leaders hoped to immediately start another.

Creating a Refugee Crisis

When, to their profound dismay, Israel declared statehood, Palestinian Arabs panicked. An estimated 600,000 to 700,000 fled.^{25 l} Approximately 150,000 to 160,000 chose to remain inside the Jewish state.²⁶ Today, they and their descendants enjoy full democratic rights of Israeli citizenship, including a standard of living much higher than that of their brethren anywhere else in North Africa or the Middle East.

Under the influence of Muslim/Nazi anti-Semitism, the majority of Arabs who left their homes did so because their leaders told them to. Evacuations were ordered to make way for approaching armies that would quickly destroy the Jewish state.^m Arab leaders boasted that lsrael would be “driven into the [Mediterranean] sea" within a few days. Accordingly, the Higher Arab Executive gave Palestinians a choice: Quit and run, or accept Jewish protection and be regarded as a renegade in the Arab world that would imminently take over. The Arab National Committee in Jerusalem ordered its constituency out of their homes, adding “Any opposition to this order…is an obstacle to the holy war…and will hamper the operations of the fighters in these districts.”²⁷

The Arab Legion and Arab Liberation Army directed whole-sale civilian flight form entire villages. Leaders like Iraqi prime minister Nuri Said warned, “We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down.”²⁸ To ensure compliance, some leaders planted rumours of Israeli terror operations and non-existent atrocities.^{29 n} Shortly after the war – which to their deep humiliation they did not win – Arab leaders freely admitted to having created the refugee crisis.^o Mahmoud Abbas,^p who would later serve as president of the PA, confessed:

The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny, but instead they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and leave their homeland, and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live.³⁰

Next week: Part II concludes the chapter, looking in more depth at the refugee crisis (including claims of Israeli atrocities) and the attempts at peace settlements since.

About the author: Sandra Teplinsky is a Messianic Jew who lives in Jerusalem and teaches about Israel. With her husband, Sandra runs a ministry called Light of Zion. Find out more about the book 'Why Still Care About Israel?' on its website.

References

Letters a-p refer to notes on this page.

1 The Peace Encyclopedia: Palestine, 2002.

2 Charly Wegman, “Friday May 14, 1948: Israel’s Debut”, Agence France Presse-English, 1998; Benny Morris, 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 178-79.

3 Golda Meir, My Life (London: Futura Publications, 1989), 186.

4 Mark Lacqueur, “The Struggle for a Jewish State,” The Palestine-Israel Journal.

5 Palestine Post [predecessor to the Jerusalem Post], May 16, 1948.

6 Jewish Virtual Library, “Demography of Palestine & Israel, the West Bank and Gaza”.

7 Peters, From Time Immemorial, 392.

8 Benzion Dinur, “From the Conquest of the Land of Israel by the Arabs to the Crusades”, Israel in the Diaspora, Vol. 1 (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1960), 27-30, as cited in Netanyahu, A Durable Peace, 27.

9 Howard M. Sachar, A History of Israel from the Rise of Zionism to Our Time, 2nd ed. (New York: Knopf, 1996), 24, 167.

10 Michael Rydelnik, Understanding the Arab-Israeli Conflict: What the Head-Lines Haven’t Told You (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2004), 58-59. Israel consisted mostly of swampland, desert and barren wasteland due to the Ottoman policy of denuding forests through the centuries. Peters, From Time Immemorial, 221-68.

11 Peters, From Time Immemorial, 156-7, citing Jacob de Haas, History of Palestine (New York: Macmillan, 1934), 145, 258.

12 Peters, From Time Immemorial, 155-56, citing The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1911 ed. While some of Peters’ research is disputed, it has also been recently corroborated.

13 Peters, From Time Immemorial, 157.

14 Peters, From Time Immemorial, 223, 396; Shimon Apisdorf, Judaism in a Nutshell: Israel (Pikesville, Md.: Leviathan Press, 2003), 62-64; see generally Walter Lowdermilk, Palestine: Land of Promise (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1944).

15 Netanyahu, A Durable Peace, 84.

16 Ray Hanania, “The Wandering Palestinians”, Jerusalem Post, December 20, 2011.

17 See Howard Grief, The Legal Foundations and Borders of Israel Under International Law (Jerusalem: Mazo Publishers, 2008); Martin Gilbert, The Arab-Israeli Conflict: Its History in Maps (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1974), 10-11.

18 As quoted in Peters, From Time Immemorial, 412.

19 Efraim Karsh, Palestine Betrayed (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010), 21-38.

20 The New Palestine 38, no. 18 (May 18, 1948): 1.

21 British Superintendent of Police Memo, Haifa, April 26, 1948, as quoted in Samuel Katz, Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine (New York: Bantam Books, 1973), 19.

22 Monsignor George Hakim, Greek Catholic Bishop of Galilee, New York Herald Tribune, June 30, 1949.

23 Wistrich, A Lethal Obsession, 662-683, referencing Joseph Schechtman, Mufti and the Feuhrer (Loneon: Thomas Yoseloff Publishers, 1965), 139ff., 147-52; Karsh, Palestine Betrayed, 16-20, 30, 62-63.

24 Karsh, Palestine Betrayed, 62-63.

25 Peters, From Time Immemorial, 16; Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited (Cambridge, Mass.; Cambridge University Press, 2004), 603-04; Karsh, Palestine Betrayed, 264-272, see also 8-15.

26 See for example Morris, Palestinian Refugee Problem, 588-89; Gilbert, The Arab Israeli Conflict, 57.

27 As reported in Middle Eastern Studies, January 1986, cited in Mitchell G. Bard, “The Palestinian Refugees,” Jewish Virtual Library, accessed April 30, 2013.

28 Myron Kaufman, The Coming Destruction of Israel (New York: American Library, 1970), 26-27, cited in Bard, “The Palestinian Refugees”; Iraqi prime minister Nimr el-Hawari, Sir Am Nakbah (Nazareth, Israel: 1952), as cited in “Refugees Forever?,” International Jerusalem Post, February 21, 2003, special supplement.

29 Karsh, Betrayed, 241-42.

30 Reported in Falastin a-Thaura, March 1973, as cited by Mitchell G. Bard, “The Refugees”. Myths and Facts Online, Jewish Virtual Library, accessed April 30, 2013.

Why evangelical Christians support Israel

As whipped-up Palestinian rioters cry out for Jewish blood in their days of rage against ‘occupation’ of their land, we should be praying that these dear people, for whom Christ died, would instead call on the blood of Jesus for their redemption.

This is their only hope – and ours too for that matter. As Israel is tempted to quake in fear of the vicious international hatred being vented against them, may they too cry out for help from Elohim who sent his beloved Son to die as a sacrificial Lamb to atone for the sins of all who put their trust in him. The doorposts daubed in lamb’s blood back in Egypt later became a wooden cross where God himself took the punishment we deserved.

In this battle over war and peace, the hordes of hell are being unleashed against the Anointed One and his people. But the Prince of Peace – not the diplomats or politicians – has the solution.

Christian Support is Vital

As believers the world over celebrate Pentecost (Shavuot) on Sunday, I think it is highly significant that a Jerusalem Post writer has credited evangelical Christians (or Christian Zionists as they are also known among Jews) for the current political breakthrough which has seen President Trump move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to the ‘city of the Great King’.

“It is evangelical Christians who are standing with Israel today in ways that Nehemiah could never have dreamed about,” wrote Tuly Weisz on 12 May.¹

In this spiritual battle, the Prince of Peace – not the diplomats or politicians – has the solution.

We’re talking about their influence on the President as well as their love for the Jewish people who gave us Jesus and the Bible including almost the entire New Testament.

Weisz had asked Christian participants of a Jerusalem conference why the embassy move was so important to them. “The answer they gave is that it is foretold in the Bible,” she wrote, citing Old Testament examples of Cyrus and Nehemiah. Meanwhile Israel’s Education and Diaspora Affairs Minister Naftali Bennett said the move represented a new era in which the international community’s relationship was based on reality and fact, not fantasy and fiction.²

Gentiles and the Gospel

It’s worth noting that those 3,000 who joined the first disciples on the Day of Pentecost in response to Peter’s sermon were Jews and proselytes from all over the known world (Acts 2:5).

An indication of the significant role Gentiles would play in spreading the good news of Israel’s God came with the healing of the centurion’s servant at the start of Jesus’ ministry. The Roman officer had humbly sought the Saviour’s help, only requiring him to “say the word” as he felt unworthy to receive him into his home.

And so the Gospel – to the Jew first (the leper who preceded this incident in Matthew 8) – was now also offered to the Gentile. We hear much about amazing grace, but Jesus was amazed by this man’s faith. The only other time he is recorded as having been amazed was by the lack of faith in his home town (Mark 6:6).

Faithful Gentiles have made an extraordinary mark on the world.

I wonder too if our Lord was also prophesying of a day when faithful Gentiles would make an extraordinary mark on the world.

The beach near Capernaum, where the Roman centurion asked Jesus to heal his servant. Picture by Charles Gardner.In Yorkshire alone in recent centuries (I am biased because I live there) I can immediately think of three men who changed the world through their faith in Jesus – William Wilberforce from Hull, a co-founder of the Church’s Ministry among Jewish people who successfully campaigned for the abolition of slavery, Barnsley’s Hudson Taylor, to whom millions of Chinese Christians owe their salvation, and Bradford plumber Smith Wigglesworth, who raised 14 people from the dead as he helped to pioneer the modern-day Pentecostal movement which had such a profound impact on 20^th Century Christianity.

The Power of Prayer

In honouring the Jewish people in both word and deed, we are simply building on the foundation laid by the Apostles. But we mustn’t forget the importance of prayer – after all, a ten-day prayer meeting had preceded that great initial outpouring of the Holy Spirit!

In terms of the recognition – and restoration – of Israel, the importance of prayer from men like Rees Howells and his Bible College students at Swansea in Wales cannot be underestimated. They had prayed many long hours at the time of the UN vote in 1947 before victory was secured.

In South Africa, although the government stubbornly refuses to acknowledge Israel’s right to defend itself, many Christians are on their knees praying for the peace of Jerusalem. Farmer friends from where I grew up have just emailed me, saying: “We are extremely excited with the USA’s ambassadorial move to Jerusalem and continue to pray for this beautiful capital as well as for the region. What a privilege to witness what the prophets were only able to see in visions.”

In honouring the Jewish people in both word and deed, we mustn’t forget the importance of prayer.

Those nations who oppose Jewish aspirations are in for a big shock. For they will come to nothing, as Isaiah predicted long ago (Isa 60:12). Even the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign received a bloody nose with victory for Israel’s entrant in the Eurovision Song Contest despite their efforts.

Eyes on Jerusalem

It is significant of course that the United States should take the lead in recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, just as they had done back in 1948 when President Harry Truman was the first to recognise the new-born state. Apparently he took just eleven minutes to do so, but “later regretted that he waited so long”, according to US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman.³

In fact, there will come a time – perhaps in the not-too-distant future – when Jerusalem will become the capital of the world (see Zechariah 14:9, 16).

Israel will soon be blessed with a Royal visit from Prince William, second-in-line to the British throne. But at the Second Coming of Jesus, which is surely also not far off judging by the signs (see Matthew 24, Mark 13 & Luke 21), they will welcome the King of Kings and Lord and Lords (Rev 19:16).

Come, Lord Jesus!

References

1 Time to start crediting the Christians. Jerusalem Post, 12 May 2018.

2 Jerusalem News Network, 16 May 2018, quoting the Washington Post.

3 JNN, 14 May 2018, quoting Arutz-7.

"He will raise a flag among the nations for Israel to rally around. He will gather the scattered people of Judah from the ends of the earth." (Isaiah 11:12, NLT)

This coming week Israel celebrates her 70^th anniversary. To help you as you meditate on the incredible miracle that God has done in restoring his covenant people to their ancient Land, here is a roundup of celebratory articles, videos and music.

Articles and Photography Projects

• Stunning ‘then and now’ photos of Jerusalem: here
  
• A timeline of key moments in Israel’s modern history: here
  
• The Zionist Federation and Christian Friends of Israel catalogue 70 of Israel’s most celebrated achievements in its 70 years: here
  
• Israel Rising: A new photojournalism book comparing early 20^th Century photos of Israel with modern shots from the same angle, showing how much the country has been transformed. Find out more here.
  
• Article looking at the spiritual restoration of Israel and the growth of Messianic congregations: here
  
• Online exhibition of photographs spanning 1948-2018: here
  
• Peace in the Land: First Fruits of Zion look at what it will take to bring real and lasting peace to Israel: here
  

Videos

• Rabbi Jonathan Sacks presents Israel’s restoration in 90 seconds: here
  
• Archive footage of Israel’s rebirth in 1948 (c. 4 mins): here
  
• Mass scratch choirs in Israel perform moving songs for Israel’s 70^th, brought together by Koolulam: here, and one featuring Holocaust survivors here.
  
• Popular Israeli band The Maccabeats perform Megillat Ha'atzmaut – a song drawing lyrics from Israel’s Proclamation of Independence (c. 5 mins): here
  
• Israel Unveiled: a series of half-hour teaching videos with Messianic Jew Amir Tsarfati, on location in Israel and featuring beautiful shots of the Land: here
  
• An overview of Israel’s restoration from the Mizrachi World Movement (international Jewish Zionist organisation) (c. 7 mins): here
  
• The Jewish Agency for Israel reflects on 70 years of Aliyah: here
  
• A catalogue of media reports and documentary snippets showing Israel’s achievements (c. 11 minutes): here
  
• Highlights from the Bnei Akiva UK's Yom Ha'atzmaut service (c. 7 mins): here