PALESTINIANS
A People Who Are Now but Never Were
Reprinted with permission.
Ezekiel 36:
1-12
In his State
of The Union speech, President Bush included Hamas, Hizbullah and the Islamic
Jihad as part of the terrorist network, with whom the United States is at war.
From the
early 1970s until Rabin and Arafat signed the 1993 Oslo Peace Accord, Arafat
was considered a terrorist. His PLO was on the US list of terrorist nations or
organizations. Why the change in 1993?
One of
Israel's conditions before even entering a peace process with Arafat was that
Arafat renounce terrorism. Arafat made this promise. But he broke it again and
again and again. Now in 2002 Arafat's terrorism is at an all time high.
The US
perspective began to change after September 11. With the declaration of war on
terrorism, the US has been pressuring Arafat to not only stop terrorism but to
dismantle the terrorist organizations among the Palestinians. Since Arafat's
Palestinian Authority was caught smuggling 50 tons of highly sophisticated
weapons from the terrorist state of Iran, the Pentagon wants the US to sever
all ties with Arafat.
But when the
terrorism issue is concluded, the US expects Israel and the Palestinians to
return to the peace negotiations. Secretary of State Colin Powell has stated
that he expects Israel to give all or most of the West Bank to the
Palestinians. Evidently Arab oil not historic-rights is the bottom line of much
Middle East policy. Not all of Israel's actions are correct. We grieve for
innocent Jews or Arabs who are killed. But the Lord is angry with the nations
who divide Israel's Land. Joel 3:1,2
Brief
History
Jews lived
in their Land for 1700 years virtually uninterrupted. Then the Roman
destruction of their polity in AD 70 marked God's temporary rejection and
chastening. The Jewish population of over 3 million was decimated by slaughter
and expulsion. The Arabs conquered and dominated the Land for over 300 years
beginning in AD 640, yet the Jews remained the largest minority.
The noted
Arab historian Khaldun (called one of the greatest historians of all time by
Arnold Toynbee) observed that as late as A.D. 1400 the Land still was permeated
with Jewish culture and customs. Nearly 300 years after Arab rule ended, there
was still no evidence of Palestinian roots or established culture.
Thus an Arab
historian, who happens to be one of the greatest historians of all time,
demolished the claim that there is an uninterrupted Palestinian culture dating
back to AD 640.
James
Parke's exhaustive work WHOSE LAND observes, "It is not until the Turkish
period, AD 1517-1917, that it [the Land God gave Israel] acquired a substantial
Arab population." How? By Arabs emigrating from Arab nations into the
Land, which then became utterly desolate. Thus the claim of a thriving verdant
Palestinian culture since AD 700 defies Scripture and history.
During these
centuries the total combined population of Moslems, Christians and Jews was
less than 200,000. Compared, therefore, with the previous Jewish population of
over 3 million, the land did become relatively "desolate of man and
beast." Jeremiah 3:10 Notice, there was a continual nucleus of Jews in the
Land.
Why did the
Land of Israel become a barren wasteland? The pro-Arab British Palestine Royal
Commission in 1937 completely placed the blame on the destructive life style of
the Arabs who wandered in and out of the Land.
Who Are The
Palestinians?
Ezekiel
36:1-12 predicted that the "heathen (people) round about" the Land of
Israel would render it desolate. Who are the "people round about?"
Look at a map. Israel is a little island surrounded by a sea of Arab nations.
Arab people who immigrated to the Land of Israel desolated the Land, fulfilling
Ezekiel 36. The so-called Palestinians are simply Arabs from Syria, Egypt, Iraq
and other Arab countries that immigrated to the Land.
How desolate
did the land become? In 1738 Thomas Shaw observed a land of "barrenness….
from want of inhabitants." In 1835 Alphonse de Lamartine wrote,
"Outside the city of Jerusalem, we saw no living object, heard no living
sound. . .a complete eternal silence reigns in the town, in the highways, in
the country . . . The tomb of a whole people." In 1867 Mark Twain wrote,
"Palestine is desolate and unlovely. Over it broods the spell of a curse
that has withered its fields and fettered its energies…."
In 1857, the
British consul in Palestine, James Finn, reported, "The country is in a
considerable degree empty of inhabitants and therefore its greatest need is
that of a body of population." What a remarkable confirmation of the
Biblical prediction that during Israel's period of punishment and dispersion,
the Lord would cause the Land to become desolate of man and beast (Jeremiah
33:10). By 1857 it was just waiting for "a body of population!" In
the Lord's providence this needed body of population—the Jewish people—began to
return after 1878. God's favor was now returning.
Verses 8-12
reveal the Jewish people would return in mass and their Land would again return
to the fertility of old. But from 1878 onward, the influx of "the people
round about"—the Arabs—accelerated. Why? The Jews returned to build an
infrastructure for a new Jewish State. This created jobs and the Arabs rushed
in to take advantage of the new economy.
Both British
Prime Minister MacDonald and President Roosevelt confirm this flood of Arab immigration
since 1918. In 1946 Bartley C. Crum, a United States Government observer, noted
that tens of thousands of Arabs had entered Palestine "because of this
better life—and they were still coming." Some writers have claimed that 75
percent of the Arab population were either immigrants or descendants of
immigrants into the Land after 1882.
Arabs in the
Holy Land did not adopt the Palestinian identity until the 1960s. They referred
to themselves as Southern Syrians. In 1956, Ahmed Shukairy, the first head of
the PLO observed to the Security Council, "It is common knowledge that
Palestine is nothing but southern Syria." TIME magazine reported. "It
was Arafat who made the intellectual leap [1964] to a definition of the
Palestinians as a distinct people; he articulated the cause, organized for it,
fought for it and brought it to the world's attention." (http://www.bible411.com/newsletters/nb200203.htm)
But God promised the Land to Israel, not the so-call Palestinians. The
Peace Process will end in an Israeli-Arab war in which the Arabs will be
decisively defeated and Israel will acquire parts of Jordan and Southern
Lebanon. Isaiah 11:14; Zephaniah 2:4-12
The
Problem—Arab Elitism
Saudi Arabia
is in favor of the war on terrorism but unhappy that the US is waging war
against Islamic Afghanistan with its large Arab population. In fact, many
wealthy Saudi princes have been financing Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda
terrorists. The Arab oil rich nations have warned Bush not to attack Iraq in
its war on terrorism. Why? Simply because Iraq is Arab. Never mind Iraq's long
record of terrorism. The prison on the US Guantanamo Base, incarcerates Taliban
and al-Qaeda captives. Over 100 are Saudis. Saudi Arabia is demanding the
Saudis be turned over to them for trial. Some how it is demeaning to the Arab
world for Arabs with Islamic fervor to be judged by non-Arabs. Some might say,
infidels. Remember the terror attack on the US military base in Saudi Arabia?
Many US personnel were killed. Saudi Arabia restricted the scope of US
investigation so that the Arab terrorists have never been apprehended.
Why do Saudi
Arabia and the other Arab countries back Arafat and his Palestinians? Even
though at times they might cringe at his extreme terrorism, the bottom line is
the Palestinians are Arabs—part of the Arab Elite.
There is a
sharp disagreement among non-Islamic writers and even Islamic clerics on the
meaning of the word Jihad in the Koran. One source of controversy is at what
point of events in his personal history did Mohammad write and apply certain
Jihad verses. But none can deny that the military expansion of the Arab Empire
was premised on Holy Jihad.
Now 10
prominent Islamic clerics of differing theological backgrounds, including the
Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, have publicly declared that Arafat's terrorism
directed at civilians, including woman and children, is not Holy Jihad.
One of these
Islamic clerics, Sheikh Professor Abdul Hadi Palazzi, in a video interview
proves that the designation "Palestinian people" is a political
deception and that Arafat's application of Holy Jihad to his terrorist killing
of civilians is a violation of the Koran.