Terror, plague and disease threaten the future - but there is a better way!

Persecution calls for joy in hope, patience in affliction and faithfulness in prayer.

Imagine feeling a shot of panic every time you hear a motorbike go past your home. Or waving your spouse off to the shops, or your children off to school, knowing there is a distinct possibility they may be abducted or slaughtered. Or wondering every time you go to a church service whether you and your loved ones will come out alive.

This is the grim reality for Christians in many parts of northern and central Africa, where Islamist militant gangs like Boko Haram and al Shabaab are spreading terror, inspired and supported by better-known groups like Al Qaeda.

This month alone, the Barnabas Fund has reported that Islamist gunmen have been on a killing spree in northern Burkina Faso, storming church services, rounding up congregants and shooting them dead. In predominantly Muslim Niger, a pastor has been shot and a church looted, following a spate of attacks on churches. In mainly Christian Cameroon, two Christian villages have been ransacked.

In Nigeria, one of the deadliest countries in Africa for Christians, 17 church-goers were abducted by Boko Haram last weekend whilst at their choir practice. ISIS-inspired Boko Haram are intent on establishing a caliphate from north-eastern Nigeria to northern Cameroon.

Writing this on a beautifully sunny spring day in England, it’s difficult to imagine what these believers and their families are going through. The long night of Islamist persecution in Africa (particularly in the Sahel region) grows ever darker, with no sign of dawn.

Great is the Darkness

The vast regions of western Africa provide sadly plentiful examples of the persecution of the faithful but, as Open Doors unveils every year with its ‘World Watch List’, Christians are being discriminated against and abused, imprisoned and murdered all around the globe.

The Easter Day attacks in Sri Lanka made shocking headlines, but the fuller list is exhausting: Christians are being targeted by hard-line Islamists in Indonesia and Pakistan, communist state pressure in North Korea, China and Vietnam, radical Hindu attacks in India and Nepal, radical Buddhists in Laos and Myanmar, and Islamic persecution in virtually every country in central Asia, the Middle East (save for Israel) and north Africa.

Christians are being discriminated against and abused, imprisoned and murdered all around the globe.

Such a bleak map spurred the Bishop of Truro to claim in his recent report to the Foreign Secretary that persecution of Christians in some areas is at ‘near genocide’ levels, though political correctness has generally stopped it being reported in the mainstream Western press.

Open Doors' 2019 World Watch List map, showing in colour the 50 worst countries for persecution of Christians.Here in Britain, we may justifiably be concerned about the erosion of free speech, or the gradual encroachment of secularism or Islam, or the threats posed by a Corbyn government. But even with the recent spate of Islamist terror attacks on people and churches in Europe, Christians in the West do not yet face anything like the danger being faced on a daily basis by our brothers and sisters elsewhere around the world.

Refining Fire

In Matthew 24, speaking to his disciples, Jesus said that in addition to deception, wars, famines and earthquakes, one sign of his imminent return would be that “you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me” (Matt 24:9). But just because these things ‘must happen’, it does not mean that Christians in the comparatively safe West should turn a blind eye, or fail to speak up on these issues, or withhold their prayers. It may not be long before we are next.

Mark well Jesus’ subsequent words: “At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.” (emphasis added).

High levels of persecution lead to a flourishing underground Church; the Gospel has always, paradoxically, produced most life in the fires of hardship. These fires are refining: strengthening faithful believers and removing their impurities through testing.

But they are also refining in another sense, purging the dross from the Body of Christ. As persecution increases, we see the less committed falling away, their attachment to Christ not strong enough to withstand threats to their personal safety or dignity. Still others become ensnared by the smooth words and enticing promises of false prophets, who provide a tempting diversion from harsh reality.

I believe that we are seeing the beginnings of this refining in the Western Church today, where false teachings have already ensnared many and where an increasingly stark division is apparent between Christians who cleave to Scripture and to their Lord (whatever the cost), and those who have accepted a syncretistic or worldly gospel which cannot save.

Just because these things ‘must happen’, it does not mean that Christians in the comparatively safe West should turn a blind eye.

Momentous Drama

It may be that one day soon, believers in the old heartlands of Christianity will face the same long night as our brothers and sisters are currently enduring elsewhere around the world. We must pray that if and when it comes, we will be found faithful.

The wonderful news is that a worldwide surge in persecution will be accompanied by the worldwide spread of the true Gospel and the adding of many more believers to the true Church, who is being prepared as a Bride for her Husband (Matt 24:14).

As this momentous drama unfolds, we are enjoined by the Lord Jesus to guard our hearts and not let our love grow cold – which I take to mean both our love for him, and our love for each other. May this dreadful news from west Africa this month fan the flame of love in our hearts, especially for our persecuted family, in the knowledge that one day soon, our Lord will return and justice will be done (Rev 6:9-11).

Here are several ministries through which you can stand with the persecuted Church. If you know of others, please post them below.

• Barnabas Fund https://barnabasfund.org/en
  
• Open Doors https://www.opendoorsuk.org/
  
• Release International https://releaseinternational.org/
  
• Samaritan’s Purse https://www.samaritans-purse.org.uk/article/help-persecuted-christians/
  
• Sat-7 (satellite network reaching the Middle East and North Africa with the Gospel) https://www.sat7uk.org/
• Morningstar News (news service focusing exclusively on the persecuted Church) https://morningstarnews.org

We must face the truth about Islam.

How are Christians to understand the merciless slaughter of those who were celebrating the Risen Christ in churches last Sunday? Is there anything in the Bible that leads us to an understanding of what is happening in our world today? We will come to this in just a moment - but first look at how the events have been reported.

The terrible attacks on Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka are still very much in our minds, but it is notable how quickly they disappeared from the Western media or were relegated to personal stories of those who lost family members. It took a long time for major news agencies to report that those who were responsible for these terrorist attacks were Islamic fanatics – NTJ (National Thowheeth Jama’ath) - and our leaders and reporters have generally been reluctant to call the attacks what they were: Muslims attacking Christians.¹

Getting the Balance Right

By contrast, the Western media maintained focus for many days upon the Christchurch mosque murders carried out by a white Australian. He was heavily denounced as a white supremacist whose views were not representative of any mainstream Western institutions.

Photo: Alan Hamilton

The Prime Minister of New Zealand went to great lengths to identify herself with Muslims, declaring how she had abandoned her Mormon religion because of their narrow views.

Churches across the Western world also went out of their way to declare their love for their Muslim friends and neighbours. Churches in Luton still have posters such as that to the right in front of their buildings.

Our leaders and reporters have generally been reluctant to call the attacks what they were: Muslims attacking Christians.

Of course, it is right that we should love our neighbours, including those who hate us. The teaching of Jesus is unequivocal – “You have heard that it was said, ‘love your neighbour and hate your enemy’. But I tell you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt 5:43-44). But this does not mean that we should be unaware of the dangers that face us in the modern world as we try to live our lives in accordance with Kingdom values, rather than those values forced upon us by our secular humanist politicians.

The fact of the matter is this: despite the heavy focus in our media and culture on Islamophobia, Christians remain the most persecuted religious group² – and the vast majority of the persecution they face comes from the Muslim world.

Avoiding the Truth

Yet, Western political leaders will go to any lengths to avoid criticism of Islam. The British Government downplayed criticism of Saudi Arabia’s mass beheading of 37 members of the Shia minority this week, probably to protect oil interests. The Western mainstream media regularly portray Muslims as the victims rather than the aggressors.

They avoid the simple truth that suicide bombers who indiscriminately slaughter Christians and any others who may be around them are carrying out the commands of Muhammad in the Qur’an, who tells them in numerous places to kill ‘infidels’, especially Christians and Jews.

Young Muslims are brainwashed with this teaching by fanatical imams who quote passages in the Qur’an such as Surah 9:111 and tell them that they go straight to paradise if they lose their lives by killing Christians. Such a promise is attractive to young people growing up in poverty who see little prospect of improving their life chances, but the Sri Lanka bombers are reported to come from wealthy, middle-class families. Their hatred obviously goes much deeper.

Western political leaders will go to any lengths to avoid criticism of Islam.

Christians are facing danger in every part of the world, because these beliefs are fundamental to Islam. They are not just the beliefs of a small fanatical minority; they are the teaching of the founder of Islam and are inseparable from the religion and its texts.

It is, of course, a fact that most Muslims choose to ignore the jihad passages in the Qur’an and live their lives peacefully, accepting Jewish and Christian neighbours and business associates. But until the Muslim scholars and imams declare that the jihad teaching is no longer valid for today, all Muslim communities potentially present a risk.

Persecution Foretold

How should Christians understand what is happening in the world today? Regular readers of Prophecy Today UK will be familiar with the prophecy in Haggai 2 that speaks of God shaking all the nations and even the natural environment. We are certainly seeing evidence of that today.

The next book in the Bible is Zechariah, who was a contemporary of Haggai. He had a vision of four horses sent from Heaven and going throughout the earth. That vision was picked up by John in the revelation given to him when in exile on the island of Patmos.

John foresaw a time coming upon the earth when there would be great turmoil, warfare, famine, disease and death. The fourth horse of the Apocalypse was a pale horse that brought a spirit of death that would lead to a time of great persecution of Christians with an increase of martyrdom – many being killed for their faith in Jesus.

Blessed Assurance

The 20^th Century was the bloodiest in the history of humankind, with more people dying in warfare and political upheavals than at any previous time. But what we are seeing in the 21^st Century is not so much open warfare as political, economic and social upheaval bringing enormous uncertainty, instability and fear for the future.

Cyber-attacks, terrorist bombs, vast changes in technology mixed with economic volatility, political corruption and social upheavals have created a climate of chaos and confusion. Changes in the weather and reports that the future of the earth is threatened by climate change add to the general sense of unease in the world.

On the island of Patmos, John foresaw a time of great persecution of Christians with an increase in martyrdom.

But God has sent us forewarning of these times, which will intensify as we get nearer to the return of the Lord Jesus. The message in the Book of Revelation is one of woe to the great city of Babylon with its wealth, power and corruption that human beings love. But for Christians there is the firm assurance that believers in Jesus will never be separated from him in life or death and that God’s good purposes will triumph over evil in the end, when there will be great rejoicing in Heaven as the multitude of believers join in singing ‘Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns!’

Yes, we can expect plenty of difficulties ahead for Christians: but the firm promise of God is that “nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:39).

References

1 E.g. see articles from Maajid Nawaz at LBC and Rod Liddle for The Spectator (£).

2 According to figures from the Pew Research Centre. Read more here. Open Doors estimates that violent attacks on Christians doubled between 2017 and 2018.

Britain toughens up over Iran-backed group threatening Israel.

Amidst the ongoing shame of anti-Semitic revelations surrounding the Labour Party, it is no small comfort to hear of positive moves in the opposite direction from Theresa May’s Tory Government.

Following an apology of sorts from Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt over Britain’s disgraceful treatment of Jews during our charge of Palestine, Home Secretary Sajid Javid this week announced the full banning of Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, who have long been committed to wiping Israel off the map.

The Government has finally accepted that there is no distinction, as previously claimed, between the group’s political and military wings.

Israel the Divider

At long last we are seeing a clear dividing line between the two main parties which, for the past two decades, have become more or less indistinguishable from one another on many important issues, including the dreadful liberal social engineering which has seen the Judeo-Christian values of our society progressively replaced by those of aggressive minorities.

But now – over Israel – a gaping chasm has opened up, and Opposition Leader Jeremy Corbyn had better watch out. A supporter over the years of the IRA, North Korea, Eastern European and other socialist dictatorships, he has also famously referred to Hezbollah, along with equally frightening neighbours Hamas, as ‘friends’.

This certainly suggests that he shares their vision for Israel’s destruction, as apparently does Seumas Milne, Labour’s head of strategy and communications, who is considered so influential that he has been referred to as ‘Corbyn’s brain’.

According to The Mail on Sunday,¹ Milne’s links with terrorist groups dedicated to destroying the Jewish state are decades old. A party staff member, speaking anonymously, said: “Seumas has been supporting groups that deny Israel’s right to exist for many years.”²

At long last we are seeing a clear dividing line between our two main parties: over Israel, a gaping chasm has opened up. 

A Crisis of the Soul

Javid said: “My priority as Home Secretary is to protect the British people. As part of this, we identify and ban any terrorist organisation which threatens our safety and security…”

It will now be a criminal offence to be a member of, or to invite support for, Hezbollah, carrying a sentence of up to ten years’ imprisonment.³

Much of what goes on within the ranks of today’s Labour Party could surely be interpreted as “inviting support for Hezbollah”. Only last Sunday, Labour Deputy Leader Tom Watson revealed he had received 50 new complaints relating to Jew-hatred in the previous week!

Speaking on The Andrew Marr Show, Watson urged his boss to address “a crisis for the soul of the Labour Party”.

As I’ve said before, the position taken on Israel by nations, governments and even individuals or church denominations will inevitably have a bearing on their respective fortunes. This is based on a crucial promise in the early pages of the Bible (Gen 12:3) – that if you bless the seed of Abraham, you in turn will be blessed, but that if you curse them, you will come under judgment.

Britain has been under a curse since the time immediately before, during and after World War II when we refused entry to their ancient homeland for many of those Jews trying to flee Nazi Europe, while at the same time betraying our pledge to resettle them there through repeated appeasement of Arab demands.

Righteous Intervention

But a light has dawned at the Foreign Office, and we pray it will grow ever brighter. However, this is not just a political issue; it is intensely spiritual. And it is thanks in some measure to the efforts of Christians United for Israel UK (CUFI) that we have got this far.

Their current campaign, Operation Mordecai, is aimed at alerting Government to the grave threat posed to Israel and the West by Iran – supporter of Hezbollah, who have thousands of rockets on Israel’s northern border ready to fire at the Jewish state.

It was Mordecai who heard of a plot to destroy the Jews of ancient Persia and successfully persuaded his niece, Queen Esther, to intervene.

CUFI know full well the importance for Christians of standing with Israel. But there is a deafening silence from the Church in Britain as a whole. Israel Today journalist Ryan Jones told me: “It always amazes me how even many Christians still don’t grasp Israel’s importance when they can see how much impact policies and positions regarding the Jewish people have on the politics of the world’s greatest powers. How else can one explain the fact that tiny Israel and the Jews are consistently major election issues in the US, UK and other powerful nations?”

The position taken on Israel by nations, governments and even individuals or church denominations will inevitably have a bearing on their respective fortunes.

For the Gospel’s Sake

Clearly, today’s Jews are also under threat from hard-left politicians gaining momentum in our country. But this predicament is just the latest example of centuries of European persecution, as was brought home this week in a moving personal documentary on the Jews of Leeds by Simon Glass,⁴ some of whose Lithuanian ancestors were taken out and shot, along with the rest of their community, by invading Nazi soldiers.

CUFI and others have helped to unveil a modern plot against the Jews. But this isn’t just about preserving freedom, fairness or even lives. We need to clear the obstacles to the preaching of the Gospel – to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile (Rom 1:16).

When Rees Howells and his Bible College students fought the great battles of World War II on their knees in Wales, they were mindful that Hitler’s regime blocked the path to fulfilling Christ’s Great Commission.

The Marxist, atheist agenda of the rising tide of hard-left MPs is a demonic distraction from our chief calling. And we desperately need to lance this poisonous boil – not as an end in itself, but so that we can concentrate on focusing the attention of both Jew and Gentile on the destiny of their souls.

The Gospel is the absolute priority for our nation. As St Paul wrote: “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” (1 Cor 9:16).

References

1 The Mail on Sunday, 24 February 2019.

2 Quoted by United with Israel, 25 February 2019.

3 Christians United for Israel UK, 25 February 2019.

4 A Very British History, February 25 2019, BBC4.

Exploited idealism and deliberate deception.

Editorial introduction: In the first of two articles, David Longworth looks back over a year of the ‘March of Return’ at the Gaza border.

According to Enas Fares Ghannam,¹ it all started in 2011. A Facebook post expressed the dream of a 33-year-old man in Gaza named Ahmed Abu Ratima. Gazing at a tree on the other side of the barbed fence that separates the Strip from Israel, Abu Ratima had thought, “Why can’t I go and sit under that tree just for a while, like a free bird?” The post asked (rather impractically) what could happen if 200,000 Palestinians headed peacefully to cross the border.

As the Arab Spring swept the region, Abu Ratima and his friends issued a statement entitled ‘The Palestinian Refugees Revolution’, calling all Palestinian refugees to gather peacefully at the nearest point by the Israeli border to call for their ‘rights’. At the time, they were considered crazy. But in 2018, Abu Ratima and his friends found encouragement.

In early 2018, Gazan journalist Muthana al-Najjar, whose family originally hailed from Salama (near Jaffa), pitched a tent near the border. He stayed for over a month, while others began planting olive tree seedlings in the area. But these idealised aspirations were soon taken over by the Hamas authorities.

Public preparations for a mass protest started to appear in February. On the 6^th, Hamas official Isma'il Radwan said that the activity would begin on 30 March and would reach its peak on 15 May, ‘Nakhba Day’.² He stressed that this activity "should take place without clashes [with Israel] in order to protect the young people...The plan of action focused on organizing a march of hundreds of thousands towards the border in order to pressure the occupation."³

Idealism Exploited

On 22 February 2018, the ominous image on the right was posted on Facebook:⁴

The UN symbol and the ‘194’ refer to UN Resolution 194 (of December 1948), which resolved that “refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date” (my emphasis), the so-called ‘Right of Return’. When the resolution was passed it was envisaging those who had just become refugees, not the millions of later generations.

The key evokes memories of those who left having locked their homes and retained their keys: another powerful symbol of ‘Right to Return’. However, notice that the key is held in a red clenched fist, a not-so-subtle suggestion of aggression.

Note also that the area between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean is entirely covered by the colours of the Palestinian flag. This image therefore denies not only the territories agreed under the Oslo Accords, but also UN Resolution 181, of 29 November 1947, which agreed the partition of the British Mandate of Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states.

By 28 February 2018 the Great Return March Facebook page featured a much clearer emphasis on violence, as the left-hand picture illustrates (the text reads, ‘We will strike the Guard Fence’, i.e. the international border security fence).⁵ 

Incitement from the Beginning

At the March’s official start on Friday 30 March, an inflammatory Islamic sermon was preached and broadcast on Hamas’s al-Aqsa TV:

We are very near our blessed land, which is being trampled by those descendants of apes and pigs. We are here to embrace the blessed land with our hearts and our eyes, which is being trampled by those accursed descendants of apes and pigs, the remnants of the brutal, savage, and barbaric colonialism, which continues to drain our resources…⁶

So much for the idealist peaceful origins! By 6 April, three Palestinians penetrated the border and planted two improvised explosive devices.⁷

Worse rhetoric was to follow. Two weeks later, at the March venue, Gaza scholar Khaled Hany Morshid, said:

Khaled Morshid, speaking at the March venue. Video initially released on social media, 14 April 2018. Image from MEMRI, used with permission.…when the Jews of the Qurayza tribe violated their treaty with the Prophet Muhammad, the Prophet Muhammad exterminated them…The best way to describe the record of the Prophet's treatment of the Jews is one of violence and force…This is what all the Muslims should know. The relation between us and them is one of eternal enmity. The Jews will never stop this enmity unless the sword of Jihad for the sake of Allah is brandished, and they are made an example of, as was done by the Prophet Muhammad…I call upon every Muslim: Do not stand idly by and let those Jews spread corruption upon the land. Carry out glorious deeds against them!⁸

Social media posts called Palestinians to clash with Israelis after breaching the fence and entering their communities. 'Emad 'Aql, of Gaza, tweeted, "Sderot is only 700 meters east of [the Palestinian town of] Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza. The headquarters of the Israeli army is there, and houses about 800 pigs. It can be reached in two minutes on motorcycles or in five-eight minutes at a brisk run…Murder, slaughter, burn and never show them any mercy."⁹

The left-hand image was posted with the following text: "Kibbutz Kerem Shalom, east of Rafah, is only 300 meters from the border. It has turkey pens, a football field and a pool, it houses only 15 families. Pounce on them with knives."¹⁰

Deliberate Deception

By May, things were literally hotting up. Thousands of tyres were burned to create smokescreens for those attacking the fence, while mirrors were used to blind IDF soldiers. Meanwhile, Western media were decrying the injuries caused to ‘peaceful protestors’ by Israel’s defensive actions.

On 13 May, the day before the originally-planned climax of the March, Mahmoud Al-Zahhar a co-founder and senior member of Hamas, was interviewed on al-Jazeera TV, Qatar. Questioned about Hamas adopting Fatah’s ‘peaceful resistance’ policy, he replied,

This is a clear terminological deception…This is not peaceful resistance…when we talk about 'peaceful resistance’, we are deceiving the public. This is a peaceful resistance bolstered by a military force and by security agencies, and enjoying tremendous popular support…This deception does not fool the Palestinian public.¹¹

On 16 May, Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, was interviewed for the same channel, saying,

I must emphasize a great strategic goal accomplished on May 14. Our people in Gaza recorded, for the whole world to see, their testimony over the transfer of the United States embassy to Jerusalem and the declaration that Jerusalem is the capital of the occupation entity. On behalf of the Arab Palestinian people and all the Arab and Islamic peoples, our people in Gaza have rejected that decision and that move, by this great activity and by recording its testimony for the sake of history, and by signing this testimony with the blood of the martyrs – our people sacrificed sixty martyrs on May 14, as well as three thousand wounded…Many of them took off their military uniforms and put their weapons aside…¹²

Here we can clearly see the shameless use of ‘martyrdom’ as a motivating factor when inciting aggression against Israel. Sinwar openly admits to satisfaction in the gruesome outcome. Moreover, he also admits that many protestors weren’t ordinary civilians!

The involvement of militants was confirmed in more detail in a broadcast on Baladna TV, Gaza, on the same day, by a member of the Palestinian National Council:

50 of the martyrs were from Hamas, and the other 12 were regular people…What did Hamas gain? 50 martyrs...I am giving you an official figure. 50 of the martyrs in the recent battle were from Hamas. Before that, at least 50% of the martyrs were from Hamas.¹³

Other Tactics

In addition to the above, in the last year tactics have included hand grenades, stones and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) being hurled across the border. Snipers have been in action. Hundreds of rockets and mortars have been deployed.

According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, by mid-October almost 3,300 acres of forest and 4,000 acres of farmland had been destroyed by incendiaries carried by kites and balloons from Gaza.¹⁴ In the forest nature reserves, thousands of animals perished and conservation work was set back by decades. Earlier, as the wheat harvest was imminent, the loss of crops by farmers was estimated at £1.4 million. On one kibbutz alone, some 320 acres of irrigation equipment was also destroyed. In addition, honey farms, avocado and jojoba orchards were devastated.¹⁵

Sometimes explosives were carried similarly, such as those attached to gaily-decorated helium balloons which landed close to a kindergarten in late December.

Another tactic has been deception by false news reports and the posting of staged video clips on social media. Of one such incident on 4 May, IDF video footage shows a group of Palestinians rushing away a seemingly-injured man on a stretcher; then, after smoke and bushes provide some screening, the man clearly rolls off the stretcher, gets up and walks away!¹⁶ Also in May, the death by tear gas of 8-month-old baby Layla Ghandour was widely reported. By 26 June it emerged that the father is a member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade who admitted that his daughter died from a prior condition and that he had been paid $8,000 by Hamas to lie.

Sadly, the damage of these ‘news’ items is done by their high initial impact, with later revisions mattering little.

Conclusions

Whatever the original intentions of the March of Return, it has clearly turned into an ugly, deceitful battle, on the ground and in the media. Next week we will ask where things are now, in 2019, and put the Palestinian ‘cause’ in greater context.

Meanwhile, watchfulness, discernment and prayer remain essential weapons for Christians in the battle for truth.

Part 1 of 2. 

References

1 Ghannam, EF. Despite Israel’s threats of violence, Gaza protesters have peaceful dream. Mondweiss, 29 March 2018.

2 ‘Nakba’ means ‘catastrophe’, originally used by Arabs to refer to the 1920 partitioning of the Ottoman Empire. Informally used by groups of Palestinian Arabs to refer to their displacement during the establishment of Israel by 14 May 1948. Later adopted by the PLO, Nakba Day was inaugurated by Yasser Arafat in 1998.

3 Palinfo.com, 6 February 2018. Obtained from MEMRI.

4 Picture obtained from the official GRM Facebook page by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center. Originally posted as the GRM Facebook page profile picture on 22 February 2018 (the profile picture has since been modified slightly, but the original image can also be seen in other photos on social media, such as this one).

5 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip continue preparing a mass march to the Israeli border ('the great return march'), planned for Land Day, March 30, 2018. Meir Amit, 8 March 2018. Picture obtained from the official GRM Facebook page, February 28, 2018.

6 Gaza Friday Sermon: Our Blessed Land Is Being Trampled by the Accursed Descendants of Apes and Pigs - Scenes from Gaza "Return March". Sermon transcript, MEMRI, Clip no. 6500, 30 March 2018.

7 Gross, JA. IDF: Palestinians who breached fence planted explosives. Times of Israel, 8 April 2018.

8 Gaza Scholar Khaled Hany Morshid Calls to Brandish the Sword of Jihad, Fight the Jews - Scenes from Gaza "Return March". MEMRI, Clip no. 6537, 14 April 2018.

9 Twitter.com/imad_aql, May 13, 2018, reported via MEMRI.

10 Picture obtained from Facebook, 14 May 2018. Translation by MEMRI.

11 Senior Hamas Official Mahmoud Al-Zahhar on Gaza Protests: This Is Not Peaceful Resistance, It Is Supported by Our Weapons. MEMRI, Clip No. 6573, 13 May 2018.

12 Hamas Leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar: Our People Took Off Their Military Uniforms and Joined the Marches… MEMRI, Clip No. 6576, 16 May 2018.

13 Hamas Political Bureau Member Salah Al-Bardawil: 50 of the Martyrs Killed in Gaza were from Hamas, 12 Regular People. MEMRI transcript, Clip No. 6575, 16 May 2018.

14 Thousands of acres of forest land have been destroyed in 6 months of Gaza arson balloons. JTA, 10 October 2018.

15 Zikri, AB. We Flew a Drone Over the Fires Raging Around Gaza. This Is What We Saw. Haaretz, 26 June 2018.

16 Zitun, Y. WATCH: Hamas fakes injuries, uses children in Gaza border protests. Ynet News, 5 May 2018.

On Ari Fuld’s loss and Palestinian incitement to kill.

Last Sunday, 16 September, a 17-year old Palestinian high-school student stabbed to death a 45-year old father of four who was shopping for groceries at Gush Etzion, south of Bethlehem.

The father was Ari Fuld, an American Jew who had immigrated to Israel in 1994 and held dual nationality, living in the nearby settlement of Efrat.

In spite of his fatal wound, he prevented his assailant from then attacking the female shop assistant, saving her life by shooting and wounding the youth.

The young attacker, Khalil Jabarin, is from the village of Yatta, some five miles south of Hebron and is receiving treatment in Israel’s Hadassah hospital in Ein Kerem. His father had informed Palestinian authorities that he was missing following an argument about skipping school, whilst his mother had notified Israeli authorities of her fears that he was intent on making an attack somewhere.¹

The Fulds and the Jabarins. Just two of many devastated families in the ‘Land of Promise’.

Incitement with Money and Lies

Such attacks are encouraged by the long-term policy of the ‘cash-strapped’ Palestinian Authority of rewarding families of injured or killed perpetrators of violence (otherwise known as ‘martyrs’) with substantial sums. In this case, the Jabarin family is eligible for some £2,500.²

But the situation is also made far worse by incitement to violence from Palestinian leaders and media, wielding claims about Palestinian ‘heritage’ and Israeli ‘occupation’ that are blatant lies. Let’s consider this in more depth.

Such attacks are encouraged not only by the ‘pay-to-slay’ policy of the PA – but also by inciteful lies from Palestinian leaders and media.

‘Al-Aqsa Intifada’

Shortly after Sunday’s attack, Palestinian media claimed that it had been carried out in defence of Al-Aqsa. According to the news agency Donia al-Watan, Ari Fuld’s murder “is a response to warnings regarding the danger of what the occupation is currently doing, and what it intends to do at the Al-Aqsa Mosque.”³ What, you may ask, was the connection with Al-Aqsa?

To understand this, we need some background. The so-called ‘Al-Aqsa Intifada’ began in 2015. Between 1 October and 31 December of that year there were 88 stabbings, 32 shootings and 14 car-ramming attacks. Allegedly ‘spontaneous’, it was accompanied by vicious incitement. In early October a Palestinian Member of the Knesset, Haneen Zoabi, had written in the Hamas-affiliated newspaper al-Resalah,

Hundreds of thousands of worshippers should go up to al-Aqsa in order to face down an Israeli plot for the blood of East Jerusalem residents. Today there are actions only by individuals, and what is needed is popular support. If only individual attacks continue without popular support, they will sputter out within a few days. Therefore the outpouring of thousands of our people will make these events a real intifada.⁴

On 9 October, in a sermon at Friday prayers in Rafah (Gaza) which was streamed online, imam Sheikh Muhammad Sallah called on Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank to “attack in threes and fours…cut them into body parts…stab the myths about the Temple in their hearts!”⁵

Around the same time, a slew of posts appeared on social media praising attacks and providing advice for how to make them effective. One Gazan, using the hashtag #Stab, posted an anatomical chart on Facebook showing which parts of the body to aim for. Using the hashtag #SlaughteringtheJews, another user posted a message addressed to "our brethren in the West Bank and all of Palestine" who wish to kill "pigs" (an Islamic epithet for Jews) in the quickest possible manner, including graphic advice.⁶

The official PA daily al-Hayat al-Jadida has acknowledged that in the first year alone of that intifada “250 [Palestinian] civilians died as Shahids [martyrs], 161 of them while carrying out stabbing operations against the occupation's soldiers and its settlers” (my emphasis).⁷

The allegedly ‘spontaneous’ Al-Aqsa Intifada has been accompanied by vicious incitement since it began in 2015.

False Claims of Excavation

This year, although the casualty rate is much lower, the Islamic rhetoric has been ramping up again.

In July a member of the Islamic Waqf in Jerusalem said on the Palestinian Authority’s official TV channel, "The blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque has no foundations now...Al-Aqsa is now empty of the rocks and that which supports it, due to the Israeli machine that is excavating under it, as rats burrow under the ground only for evil and destruction."⁸

This is pure fabrication – the only excavators of the Temple Mount since 1967 have been Muslims! Yet, a few days later, this was broadcast on PA TV:

The Fatah Movement emphasized that Israel has prepared a plan - and began carrying it out a while ago - to destroy the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque through the ongoing excavations underneath the mosque…[and] that the Al-Aqsa Mosque – above ground, under it, and around it - is a completely Islamic site to which the Jews have no right.⁹

Muslim worshippers during Ramadan, earlier this year. See Photo Credits.The provocative nature of these and many more such statements is recognised by Samir Awad, a political scientist at Bir Zeit University north of Ramallah:

Al-Aksa is a place heavily charged with emotions, people are willing to die for it and become martyrs going to heaven. A lot of Palestinians feel they are defending al-Aksa on behalf of all Muslims. Palestinians consider al-Aksa the gem of their future state. It signifies Palestine itself.¹⁰

Denying History

Denial of the existence of a Jewish Temple is an essential part of the ‘Palestinian narrative’. For example, Mahmoud Abbas said in 2000:

[The Jews] demand that we forget what happened 50 years ago to the refugees – and I speak as a living, breathing refugee – while at the same time they claim that 2000 years ago they had a temple. I challenge the assertion that this is so. But even if it is so, we do not accept it, because it is not logical for someone who wants a practical peace.¹¹

Denial of the existence of a Jewish Temple is an essential part of the ‘Palestinian narrative’.

So much for ‘logic’! Speaking to a journalist at Die Welt in 2001, Sheikh Ikrima Sabri (then Grand Mufti of Jerusalem), said,

There is not the smallest indication of the existence of a Jewish Temple on this place in the past. In the whole city, there is not even a single stone indicating Jewish history…¹²

To make such statements is not only a denial of Jewish history and archaeology, but of Islamic history! The Brief Guide to the Al-Haram Al-Sharif, published in 1924 by the Supreme Muslim Council of Jerusalem, freely states, “Its identity with the site of Solomon’s Temple is beyond dispute”, even quoting 2 Samuel 24:25. Much longer ago, Islamic historians and writers such as Abu Jafar Muhammad al-Tabari (9^th Century),¹³ Muhammad ibn Ahmad Shams al-Din al-Muqaddasi (10^th Century)¹⁴ and Nasir-I Khusraw (11^th Century)¹⁵ all acknowledged the same.

Western Perspective Change

In the West, there is still no official recognition of the ongoing anti-historical brainwashing and anti-Semitic incitement in the disputed territories, especially of young Palestinians, deceiving them into committing atrocities against ordinary Jewish people such as Ari Fuld.

Whether or not Jabarin was acting out of genuine concern for Al-Aqsa, as Palestinian media claim, the claim itself should not go unnoticed as yet another instance of incitement.

When 28-year-old American Taylor Force was stabbed to death in Tel Aviv in 2016, also as part of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, the issue of ‘martyrdom’ payments gained widespread media and political exposure in the US, with direct consequences for US-Palestinian diplomatic relations and for PA funding.

In this extraordinary window in international politics, is it too much to pray that blind eyes in Western politics and Church life would also be opened regarding the vicious incitement to violence coming from Palestinian leaders and media? At root it is all part of an intense spiritual battle against God, his covenant People and Land, but if ever there was a time when a change of perspective in the West was possible, it is now.

In the West Bank, the best hope for Palestinian youths is that Almighty God would grant them access to the truth before they reach for a knife. Surely our prayers for “the peace of Jerusalem” should be oriented in these ways.

Postscript: As the latest example of the perversion of truth in Palestinian youth, readers are advised to read about Ahed Tamimi's media tour and compare it with an interview broadcast on Russian TV, translated by Palestinian Media Watch here.

Also recommended:

• This 2-minute video from Boomerang on Palestinian indoctrination of children.
• Melanie Phillips’ recent article for the Jewish News Syndicate about the Western media’s excusal of Ari’s murder and general complicity in Palestinian violence.

References

1 Terrorist’s parents say they alerted PA, Israel before deadly stabbing of Fuld. Times of Israel, 16 September 2018.

2 PA hasn’t yet paid family of terrorist who killed Fuld, but they’ll be eligible. Times of Israel, 19 September 2018.

3 Translation by Palestinian Media Watch.

4 Eldar, S. Bibi blames everyone but himself for recent violence. Al-Monitor, 12 October 2015.

5 Gaza cleric calls on Palestinians to stab Jews, ‘cut them into body parts’. Times of Israel, 12 October 2015.

6 Social Media As A Platform For Palestinian Incitement – Part II: Video Tutorials, Tips For Achieving More 'Effective' Attacks. MEMRI Special Dispatch No.6186, 14 October 2015.

7 Marcus, I and Zilberdik, NJ. Official PA daily admits 161 Palestinians did carry out stabbing attacks during Palestinian terror wave 2015-2016. PMW Bulletin, 6 February 2018.

8 See note 3.

9 Ibid.

10 Lynfield, B. Is the ‘stabbing intifada’ back? Jerusalem Post, 23 July 2018.

11 In Kul Al-Arab on 2 August. Hollander, R. The Battle Over Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. CAMERA, 26 March 2010.

12 Ibid.

13 Friedmann, Y, 1992. The History of al-Tabari: Volume XII, The Battle of al-Qadisiyyah and the Conquest of Syria and Palestine. NY: State University of New York Press, p195.

14 Jerusalem mufti: Temple Mount never housed Jewish Temple. Times of Israel, 25 October 2015.

15 Nasir i-Khusrau, Diary of a Journey Through Syria and Palestine. Translated and prefaced by Guy Le Strange. London: Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society, 1893.

Reflections a year on from Grenfell and Manchester.

This week we were reminded of two tragedies in our nation. On Monday the media carried harrowing reports of the tragic loss of life at Grenfell Tower, as the main inquiry into the cause of the disaster began.

On Tuesday, memories of the 22 lives lost and the multitude injured in the Manchester Arena terrorist attack replaced memories of Grenfell.

I heard no-one in the media asking the obvious question, “Where was God in all of this?” Indeed, God has been so sidelined in the thoughts and lives of the majority of our nation that we no longer even hear the question, “Is there a God?”

Yet, we still live in a nation whose Queen, at her Coronation, swore an Oath to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who has protected us beyond our deserving over many years. Central to that Oath was the commitment to maintain his laws and the true profession of the Gospel. Over a generation, this commitment to God has largely been forgotten by the nation’s leaders and is rarely mentioned by the leaders of the established Church.

Unprotected Children

As far back as the 1980s, I was waiting one day in the playground of the school where our youngest two children were about to finish their school day. I watched as the classes were dismissed and as a crowd of children emerged, each looking for a parent to take them home safely. I thought I heard the voice of God in my mind saying that these children were no longer under his protection.

Over a generation, our national commitment to God has largely been forgotten.

I wondered if I had imagined it, because these were simply innocent children, embarking on their lives in a country God has greatly blessed and protected. I recalled the wonderful protection of my own childhood when, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, family and community co-operated to re-build our nation after the devastation of war, thankful for God’s deliverance from the evil that so easily could have engulfed us.

Yet, since that day when I thought I heard that voice of God, one disaster has followed another in our nation, making me think that God was indeed speaking, in the early stages of removing his hand of protection.

Let me say clearly, however, concerning both the Manchester and Grenfell disasters that God was not punishing those who had assembled there, any more than those who lost their lives when the Tower of Siloam fell in Jesus’ day. The picture is bigger: that, whilst we must also recognise that God allowed these disasters, they serve as signs to our nation – warning signs that we will not live in safety if we choose to live outside of his protection.

Knowing God’s Ways

If, as we should, we search our Bibles to discover God’s ways, we will see that God does take his protection away from his people if they do not seek him with all their heart. At the time of Samuel, for example, when the religious framework of the nation had decayed under Eli the priest and his wicked sons, the Philistines prevailed over Israel.

Again, when the kings of Israel and Judah led the people astray (kings whom God warned his people they should not desire), the troubles of the nations soon followed. Ultimately, God’s protection was removed: first from the Northern Kingdom of Israel which fell to the Assyrians, and then from the Southern Kingdom of Judah which fell to the Babylonians.

Disasters like Grenfell are warning signs that we will not live in safety if we choose to live outside of God’s protection.

God’s sadness was displayed through the weeping of the Prophet Jeremiah, as recorded in the Book of Lamentations. Similarly, Jesus wept over Jerusalem when he foretold the coming second fall of the City.

God knows what will happen when the doors are allowed open to the evil adversaries of the people of this world – adversaries both physical and spiritual. God weeps when the time comes for him to remove his protection from a people who do not seek him, who choose to try to live without him under the beguiling principles of humanism and false religion, where false gods are honoured. But he is willing to remove his protection.

We are reaping the consequences of this in Britain today despite the fact that we have had sign after sign that should bring us to ask, “where is our God?”

The Prime Minister adds her condolences to a 'Tree of Hope' in Manchester. See Photo Credits.The Power of Testimonies

The testimonies of those who lost loved ones at Grenfell and the memories of the fatal night in Manchester are profound. But they should not only be sparking human sympathy and attempts to celebrate and unite a community (such as in Manchester where a concert has been held), but be compelling those who have responsibility for our nation to lead us in seeking God in repentance.¹

God is a loving Father to those who seek him with all their heart and protects his loved ones beyond their deserving – always. But he is also a strong God who will not bend from the eternal balance of justice and mercy. He is Judge of the entire earth and cannot compromise in the ‘big picture’ of his eternal covenant purposes throughout history.

God weeps when the time comes for him to remove his protection from a people who do not seek him.

If he did not spare his own Son in these eternal purposes of overcoming sin and offering eternal redemption to those who would accept it, he cannot continue to protect a people who reject him and choose lives of sin.

There is a Way Back

There is always a way back and those who know the Lord, namely those in the churches of our nation (especially the leaders of the churches), should be his prophetic voice. It is imperative that we take the opportunity while we still have it to call this nation back to repentance and seeking God.

It is time for the leaders of our Government - from the Royal Family through to the executives who are duty-bound to outwork the purposes of the Monarch’s Oath - to take their responsibility before God and lead the nation back to him. This is what the tragic signs are telling us. We are vulnerable outside the protection of Almighty God and that vulnerability is bringing increasing pain, sadness and loss of life - not only to those who lead but to those for whom they are responsible.

Notes

1 And we do not mean just any God. The multi-faith service in Manchester which was part of the memorial activities a year after the attack is yet another symptom of how far our nation has compromised our allegiance to the One True God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.

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.

Just how peaceful is the ‘March of Return’?

After our overview last week of the Gaza border protests, which Hamas claims will climax this coming week, David Longworth takes an in-depth look at Palestinian rhetoric, asking whether we can trust the Western media’s assertion that the protests are ‘peaceful’. N.B. Some of the information in this article might be distressing.

The American news agency Bloomberg, reporting on the ‘Great Return March’ activities promoted by Hamas on Friday 6 April, carried the following comment: “…protesters sought to thwart Israeli snipers by burning mounds of tires and using mirrors to reflect the sun’s rays into soldiers’ eyes, as some pelted soldiers with rocks and firebombs. The Israeli army said it used water cannons to put out fires, a giant fan to dispel the tire smoke and live rounds against people who tried to breach the fence.”¹

The irony of this literal illustration of the deception being largely swallowed whole by the Western media seemed lost upon the writers of the article. Smoke and mirrors indeed!

Spontaneous?

There is little in the demonstrations that is spontaneous. Hamas, the organisation that governs Gaza, organises protestors and provides transport to the fence area. Yet its website maintains the camouflage of spontaneous and peaceful protest; for example:

The Zionist entity is gearing up to confront the mass participation and expansion of the Great March of Return amidst internal Israeli conflict on techniques needed to quell this peaceful form of resistance, which is capable of gaining worldwide support…

The Zionist occupation terrorised and threatened the peaceful protesters of the Great March of Return and conveyed a message that it isn’t concerned about the popular achievements on the ground…²

Compare this with a recording made of a conversation in which the Arab owner of a Gaza transportation company is heard telling an Israeli administrator about Hamas: "They came in, arrested us and pressed charges. They told me they wanted to lock me up and brought in other drivers. They said they wanted to impound my buses. What was I supposed to do?"³

Behind the various activities is a web of Islamist incitement and deceit which is rarely, if ever, commented upon by Western media.

For Justice?

Behind the various activities is a web of Islamist incitement and deceit which is rarely, if ever, commented upon by Western media. The so-called ‘Great Return March’ began on Friday 30 March 2018. Yet as early as 27 January a Friday sermon in Gaza by Imam Musa Abu Jleidan, posted on the internet, included this:

The Great Return March, which is the national and Islamic consensus, is a form of Jihad. It does not eliminate the need for Jihad by the sword, by missiles or by rockets. They go hand in hand. It has caused harm to our enemies and today they are in a state of distress.

Allah said to us about the Jews, ‘Whenever they kindle the fire of war, Allah extinguishes it. They slay the prophets and people who command justice. They are the philosophers of terrorism and crime, people of treachery and deceit, who slayed the prophets of Allah. It is an honour for us here on this blessed land to have been chosen by Allah to fight them and to strike fear in them.⁴

It seems no coincidence that on the very same Friday in Saudi Arabia, a prominent imam proclaimed in his sermon, “These are the Jews. Allah cursed them, was angry with them, and turned them into apes and pigs. He would keep sending to them until the Day of Resurrection those who would lay upon them a cruel torment. They instigate strife among Muslims, and the Muslims will continue to confront them until Judgment Day.”

The sermon ended with Islamist invocations:

Imam: Oh Allah, hasten their annihilation.

Congregation: Amen.

Imam: Oh Allah, count them one by one, and kill them down to the very last one.

Congregation: Amen.

Imam: Do not spare a single one of them.

Congregation: Amen.⁵

Such anti-Semitism is endemic to the situation in Gaza, 99% of whose population is primarily Sunni Muslim.

Peaceful Intentions?

How ‘peaceful’, then, are the intentions behind the organised protests? A leader of the Al-Sawarka Bedouin tribe preached a sermon broadcast on Gaza’s Al-Aqsa TV on 29 March, in which he asserted, forcefully:

This is a message to the whole world: The Palestinian people shall never relinquish the Right of Return. The Palestinian people shall liberate its land with blood, with martyrs, with women, and with children. We shall never relinquish our land, the land of our fathers and of our forefathers. We shall return with all our might.

We shall return as liberators, with our heads held high, and carrying the banner of 'There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is His Messenger…This siege must be shattered with all our might – with our bodies, our lives, our hands, and our bare chests. We shall come and take down that fence with the fingernails of our children, Allah willing.⁶

The irony of the use of smoke and mirrors is largely lost on the Western media.

If that might be dismissed as mere religious rhetoric, here’s what Yahya Sinwar, the Prime Minister of Gaza said on Al-Jazeera TV, on Friday 30 March: “Let them wait for our big push. We will take down the border and we will tear out their hearts from their bodies.”⁷

He was also reported by Britain’s Labour Friends of Israel as adopting a particularly blood-curdling tone. They quoted him as saying “The March of Return will continue…until we remove this transient border” and vowing that the people of Gaza will “eat the livers of those besieging” them.⁸

On 5 April Iyad Abu Funun, a Hamas cleric and TV host, said on Al-Aqsa TV, “If our generation today makes a decision – and indeed, we are making this decision, and all our people’s generations need to make this decision…Our hijra [emigration/flight] must come to an end. We have a right to our land, and we must return to it. We must return to it – above ground, underground, by means of demonstrations, bombs, weapons, explosives, explosive belts…We must return to our land…”.⁹

Mohammed Talatene/DPA/PA ImagesAnimated footage followed these words, showing Palestinian men attacking Israeli towns in the West Bank with rifles, missiles, and hand-grenades, torching homes and leaving the land barren and in flames.

Non-Violent Behaviour?

One may then ask, what about peaceful behaviour? On 28 April members of a ‘Tyre-Burning Unit’ proclaimed:

Martyrs in the millions are marching to Jerusalem! Martyrs in the millions are marching to Jerusalem! Martyrs in the millions are marching to Jerusalem! Allah Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!...We, in the tire-burning unit – this important unit in Gaza – say to all those who conspire against the Palestinian people: we are steadfast, we persevere, and we are ready to sacrifice our lives…Let despicable Trump hear the voice of the mujahideen: What is our loftiest aspiration? To die for the sake of Allah!¹⁰

Gazans readying a weaponised balloon. NurPhoto/SIPA USA/PA Images.Photos taken of Palestinians within the Gaza boundary clearly show determined efforts to cause injury and damage. Very large catapults have been used to propel rocks and improvised explosive devices against the IDF.

Large kites have been used with devastating effect to carry flaming fuel-soaked material into Israel’s nature reserves and cereal fields. YNet News reported on 24 April that “Four kites affixed with burning objects were flown from Gaza at a wheat field in the Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council on Monday. While there were no casualties, the consequent fire caused immense damage, torching an estimated 100 dunam (equal to 1,000 square meters) of wheat…Other Gaza perimeter farmers echoed his opinion, estimating the damage caused by the incendiary kites to reach the thousands of shekels, with torched chickpea and wheat fields in their wake."¹¹

Then on 2 May hundreds of dunams of lovely grasslands and woodlands of the Be’eri Forest were left badly charred. Ten firefighter teams were battling the weather conditions for hours as well as the blaze, due to a sharav currently gripping the country – a hot, dry desert wind that combines super-high temperatures with low humidity and strong easterly winds, all of which is a recipe for increasing any kind of wildfire.¹²

Photos taken of Palestinians within the Gaza boundary clearly show determined efforts to cause injury and damage.

And an IDF video shows masked Gazans chanting, “Allah willing, the Jews’ hearts will burn. We will not stop until the Jews leave our land and, Allah willing, we return to it.”¹³

There can be no doubt that Islam and its inherent deception lie at the heart of Palestinian political and military action, especially in Gaza. We must not be fooled. If recent events are anything to go by, it seems that the need for watchful prayer has never been greater.

References

1 Palestinians clash with Israeli troops along Gaza border. Bloomberg, 6 April 2018.

2 Great March of Return...An option feared by the occupation. Hamas, 5 May 2018.

3 COGAT reveals Hamas threats against bus company owners. YNet News, 5 April 2018.

4 Translations from Arabic by the Middle Eastern Monitoring and Research Institute (MEMRI). Taken from here.

5 MEMRI TV, 28 January 2018.

6 MEMRI TV, 29 March 2018.

7 Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar - We Will Tear Out Their Hearts - April 6, 2018. Youtube.

8 Clashes at the Gaza border leave sixteen Palestinians dead. Labour Friends of Israel, 4 April 2018.

9 MEMRI TV, 5 April 2018.

10 MEMRI, 28 April 2018.

11 Continuing kite threat puts Israeli farmers on edge. YNet News, 24 April 2018.

12 WATCH: Be’eri Forest Fire Started by Gaza Terror Kites. Jewish Press, 2 May 2018.

13 PEACEFUL PROTEST? ‘The Jews’ Hearts Will Burn,’ Threaten Gaza Rioters. United With Israel, 7 May 2018.

The Gaza border protests enter their sixth week.

For several weeks now, thousands of Palestinians have lined up along the Gaza border fence in protest. Stones and Molotov cocktails have been flung, burning tyres have been rolled and attempts have been made to breach the barrier. The IDF has responded with crowd dispersals, rubber bullets and occasionally live fire, with 40 deaths so far.

But the promised break-through and subsequent flooding of Israel with millions of Gazans has not yet materialised – and events in Syria and elsewhere have gradually drawn the eye of the media away.

The so-called ‘March of Return’ began in late March, with protests planned to continue up to Israel’s 70^th anniversary in May, when a new ‘intifada’ may be launched. This article puts some facts about the protests into historical context, and then reflects a little on their biblical significance.

Some History

The recent history of the Palestinian war on Israel is composed of sporadic attacks on Israeli citizens (stabbings, kidnappings, suicide bombings), interspersed with escalations of violence known as ‘intifadas’.

Both the First Intifada (1987-1993) and the Second (2000-2005) ended with Israeli agreements to compromise – first with the 1993 Oslo Accords, which created the Palestinian Authority (PA) and agreed a phased Israeli withdrawal from the so-called ‘Palestinian territories’, and secondly with Israel’s agreement to withdraw unilaterally from the Gaza Strip. The border fence was constructed in 1994 as part of the Oslo negotiations, to provide a security barrier limiting the movement of people and arms. It quickly became a hot spot for clashes.

The promised break-through and subsequent flooding of Israel with millions of Gazans has not yet materialised.

Since the relinquishment of Gaza and its wresting from the PA by terrorist group Hamas in 2007, the Strip has become a base for rocket attacks and tunnel warfare. But successful Israeli combating of these strategies has meant that Hamas is now resorting to higher-profile tactics, namely, people power.

Since 2007, the situation in Gaza under Hamas rule has deteriorated to the point, many say, of imminent infrastructural collapse. Relations between Hamas and the PA in the West Bank are extremely poor, and it is likely that the current protests represent a desperate, last-ditch attempt to draw global support.

Six Weeks of Violence

The ‘March of Return’ was timed to begin on what the Palestinians call ‘Land Day’, the anniversary of Israeli-Arab clashes over land in 1976 (it was also the start of Passover) and run until so-called ‘Nakba Day’ (‘Catastrophe Day’), or Israel’s independence day, with spikes each Friday.

Hamas has spent more than $10 million organising the protests, laying on free transport, meals and tented accommodation to encourage attendance. There are questions over how many of the protestors are peaceful¹ as well as how many have come voluntarily.²

Firebomb kites have been causing extensive fires in Israeli farmland. See Photo Credits.

The IDF has repeatedly warned that those getting close to the fence and trying to break through will be fired upon, seeing this as a major attempt to storm Israel and attack civilians.³ Of the 40 killed so far, at least 32 had known terrorist connections – 80% of the fatalities. All those injured and families of the deceased receive financial rewards from Hamas.

Though many have been quick to label this a massacre of peaceful innocents, photos and videos from the border tell a very different story: Palestinians throwing rocks and fire-bombs, burning tyres, planting explosives, employing automatic fire and using children as human shields.⁴

Hamas promised 100,000 on Land Day, but only about 30,000 came. The four Fridays since have seen a much lower turnout – about 10,000 each time – and reports this Friday suggest even less, around 7,000. The threat is that a million will come for Nakba Day, but this estimate is likely also over-hopeful. But what they’ve lacked in attendance, protestors have made up for in creativity, including dramatic faking of injuries to get media attention,⁵ use of literal ‘smoke and mirrors’⁶ and, latterly, kites manned with pipe bombs and marked with swastikas, reportedly in honour of Hitler’s birthday.

Though many have been quick to label this a massacre of peaceful innocents, photos and videos from the border tell a very different story.

Despite all of this, left-wing media in the West have had a field day at Israel’s expense. To them, the Palestinians can do no wrong – they are the ultimate victim group, driven to violence by the aggression of Israel. This means that Palestinian terror is excused or ignored while Israeli defensive reactions are chastised with claims of brutality.

Why?

Through all the drama, the ‘March of Return’ - by Hamas’s own admission - has several goals. One is to provoke Israel to war. Another is to pressure the Israeli Government to the point of collapse.

In the latter respect Hamas has won some PR points. Painting the protests as peaceful makes any kind of forceful response immediately look disproportionate. Indeed, if the fence were to be breached, as has happened before, it would lead to a diplomatic crisis for Israel, forced to fire on civilians marching ostensibly for freedom. However, an internal Israeli collapse remains highly improbable.

A more realistic goal is to engage the IDF in a war of attrition that will detract resources and attention from its northern border, where the threat of war from an Iran-backed Hezbollah is very real and imminent. In fact, Iran’s relationship with Hamas in Gaza suggests co-operation towards this end.⁷

Hamas’s least realistic goal is to break down the borders and march en masse into Israel, flooding it with millions of descendants of Palestinian refugees. Claiming the Land remains a fundamental part of Palestinian mindsets, which conceive of it as theirs by divine right, which is why Hamas rhetoric over the last few weeks has consistently used the phrase “right to return”.

However, the unrealistic nature of this goal is not the point – it reflects something ideological, and spiritual, which is important to understand.

The Right to Return?

The claim to a ‘right to return’ hinges on the argument that Palestinians, as the indigenous people of the area, were cruelly and unfairly forced to flee their homes in 1948 when Israel was created. Factually, of course, this is hotly disputed.

The refugee crisis in Gaza was indeed created in 1948, at Israel’s birth. However, contrary to popularly accepted propaganda, this was not due to Palestinians being forced off ‘their land’ by ‘settler-colonialist’ Jews. Nor was it due to any kind of ethnic cleansing on behalf of the Israeli authorities.

The claim to a ‘right to return’ reflects something ideological and spiritual which is important to understand.

The very claim that Palestinians were somehow a coherent people in 1948 and represented the indigenous population of Israel is bogus.⁸ But that aside, the majority of Palestinians who fled in 1948, ending up in refugee camps in Arab-controlled territories, did so because they were fleeing the coming war on Israel, which the surrounding Arab countries were sure would be won in a matter of days. Many residents were deliberately evacuated by Arab leaders. Israeli authorities made efforts to persuade people to stay – but with little success.⁹

Even PA leader Mahmoud Abbas admitted that the refugee problem was a crisis of the Arabs’ own making:

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.¹⁰

Against all odds, Israel won the 1948 war, with Egypt left occupying the Gaza Strip.¹¹ Since, it has become in the strategic interest of Palestinian leaders to keep their people languishing, to garner international support for their cause and to stir up anger and desperation among ordinary Palestinians. This hypocrisy is written from an insider perspective in testimonies such as ‘Son of Hamas’, by Hamas ‘prince’ Mosab Hassan Yousef.

Do the Facts Matter?

Of course, factual arguments aren’t as important as ideology when it comes to the Palestinian cause. Although a large part of their international appeal rests on people thinking otherwise, the ‘right to return’ does not actually refer to a few thousand refugees reclaiming small parcels of land here and there across Israel that they once used to call home.

Neither is Hamas today’s version of the US civil rights movement - those who imply otherwise are imposing Western logic onto an Islamic issue.

The ‘right to return’ is actually a broader reference to the pan-Arabic re-claiming of the whole Land of Israel – by whatever means necessary - until Israel as a state ceases to exist and its Jews (and Christians) have either been eradicated or subjugated to Islam. This has less to do, then, with specific Palestinian lived experience and more to do with general Islamic enmity towards Jews and the religious imperative to ‘liberate’ the Land from Judaism/Christianity and for Islam, “from the river to the sea” as Hamas loves to put it. According to the Palestinians, the Land is ‘waqf land’ – land eternally belonging to Islam and only temporarily ‘occupied’ by Jews.¹²

The ‘right to return’ has less to do with specific Palestinian lived experience and more to do with general Islamic enmity towards Jews and the religious imperative to ‘liberate’ the Land for Islam.

In short, the ‘March of Return’ is about the obliteration of Israel. It’s a literal walking out of anti-Zionism – the belief that the Jewish state has no right to exist and that Jews have no claim to the Land.

Of course such an obliteration is not only based on lies, it is also practically impossible, as the Bible makes clear that Israel has been resettled permanently in the Land – never to be uprooted again (Amos 9:15).

Bible Lens

Whilst of course Israelis don’t get everything right and few yet know their Messiah, it is indisputable that God has set them back in their Land, re-gathering them from around the world in fulfilment of his word, and protecting them miraculously from incessant onslaughts ever since.

It is also indisputable that the Palestinians, dreadfully abused by their own leaders and indoctrinated to hate Jews, are fundamentally setting themselves against God. Though each are loved by the Lord, and he sees the complexities of their individual predicaments, the sum of their activism represents and channels demonic hatred of God’s covenant people and covenant Land. The Bible makes it clear that ultimately this is completely futile (e.g. Ps 2) and worse – brings a curse (Gen 12:3).

Scripture does not clearly predict this current protest (really just the latest manifestation of a very long-running campaign), but it does foresee various attempts to make war on the Jewish state.

As successive storm-clouds gather and burst in the Middle East, it is not difficult to see that the Palestinians are aligning themselves with those Arab nations, such as Iran, that actively plan to wipe Israel off the map. Again, the scriptures make clear the end of those who come against Israel in this way: shame and perishing, becoming like the “whirling dust” (Ps 83:13).

The Bible foretells that the nations of the world will one day gather to make war against Israel (Zech 12). Undoubtedly, the Palestinian ‘cause’, complex though it may be, has done a huge amount to spread anti-Israel hatred around the world, and to deceive many into believing that Israel’s very existence is illegitimate. Thus, however far away we are from the coming global war on the Jewish state, these protests are helping to lay its foundations in people’s hearts, today.

However far away we are from the coming global war on the Jewish state, these protests are helping to lay its foundations in people’s hearts, today.

Watchmen on the Walls

In keeping track of this unfolding drama, it’s important that we do not become passive onlookers, for there is much we can do.

We can use the opportunity to avail ourselves of the facts and disseminate and defend the truth, engaging people in conversation and challenging wrong assumptions and bias.¹³ There are many resources and books available to this end, with more being reviewed on Prophecy Today UK in coming weeks.

We can make sure that we ourselves have built up our own understandings of the conflict from the bedrock of Scripture, more than from media reports. What we see in the flesh is symptomatic of an invisible spiritual battle that the secular media cannot comprehend.

And, not least, we can pray: that Britain will choose her side in this conflict wisely, that God will work to protect his people and Land in ways that bring great glory to his name, and that he will have a huge harvest amidst all the chaos – including from among the Palestinian people.

Fill their faces with shame, that they may seek your name, O Lord. Let them be confounded and dismayed forever; yes, let them be put to shame and perish, that they may know that You, whose name alone is the Lord, are the Most High over all the earth. (Psalm 83:16-18, NKJV, emphasis added)

References

1 Snapshots from Gazan media outlets are illuminating in this respect: see here.

2 E.g. see here.

3 Read this article for a helpful analysis from an Israeli strategic viewpoint.

4 A case is currently before the International Criminal Court to prosecute Hamas in this respect.

5 The unofficial term for this is ‘Pallywood’. E.g. see these rehearsals and this page under ‘Myth: Israel is shooting people in the back or while they are running away.’

6 Mirrors to blind IDF soldiers and huge piles of tyres set ablaze to create a smokescreen covering attempts to storm the fence. The resulting tyre shortage in Gaza was blamed on Israel.

7 See here.

8 Most Arabs living in Palestine before 1948 were immigrants from surrounding countries. Zionist pioneers brought prosperity in the 20^th Century, attracting more in-migration. The uniting of these into a coherent ‘Palestinian’ people group happened in the mid-20^th Century, chiefly out of opposition to the new Jewish state.

9 Those who did stay enjoy full citizenship rights today and a much higher standard of living than in surrounding countries.

10 Falastin a-Thaura, March 1973. Quoted here. There was unavoidable collateral damage during the 1948 war and some inexcusable instances of Jewish aggression. However, Israel denounced these latter events and sought to compensate victims. For more on this issue, we recommend this page as well as Sandra Teplinsky’s book, ‘Why Still Care About Israel?’ (2013, Chosen Books).

11 Read a brief history of the Strip here.

12 See here (Article Eleven) and here.

13 CUFI are currently encouraging people to email the Foreign Secretary, urging him to condemn Hamas’s behaviour.