That vicious anti-Semitism would pursue the Jews worldwide throughout history is one of many prophecies about Israel (Dt 28:37; Neh 1:8; 2 Ch 7:20; Jer 24:9; 25:11; 29:18-19; 44:8; Amos 9:9, etc.) that God points to as proof that He is the one true God, that the Bible is His Word, and that the Jews are His chosen people (Is 42:8-9; 43:10; 46:9-10; 48:5, etc.). From a human point of view, there is no rational ground for such persistent, widespread anti-Semitism; yet this prophecy has come true with a vengeance. The only explanation is found in the Bible: the Jews are God's chosen people and under His judgment for their rebellion against Him (Dt 28:15-68; 29:24-28; 30:17-20, etc.).
There is a further obvious reason for this universal anti-Semitism: hatred of Jews and Israel is inspired of Satan because his only hope to escape eternal doom is to destroy them. This he must do to save himself from God's wrath. Had Satan been able to destroy the Jews before Christ came, he would have prevented the birth of the Messiah, the salvation of mankind, and his own defeat through the sacrifice of the Son of God for mankind's sins. Moreover, for promising a Messiah and a salvation that never came, God would have been proved a liar and thus could not righteously have punished Satan.
Of course, the Messiah came and defeated Satan, "tasting death for every man" (Heb 2:9) and bearing "our sins in his own body on the tree" (1 Pt 2:24). Countless multitudes have been redeemed and will spend eternity in the Father's house of "many mansions" because of having received the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior. But Christ's defeat of Satan through His death and resurrection did not end the battle between God and Satan for the hearts, minds, and eternal destiny of mankind. That battle continues to rage--and Israel is at its center.
The God of Ishmael?
The God of the Bible is called "the God of Israel" 203 times. Never is He called the God of any other people--and certainly never is He called the God of Ishmael or of the Arabs. He further declares, "I AM the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations" (Ex 3:13-16). Twelve times this name is given to God. Christ argued the resurrection of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (and thus of all believers) from this title, declaring that "God is not the God of the dead but of the living" (Mt 22:31-32).
The entire land of Canaan (which became Israel) was promised to Abraham and to his seed for ever (Gen 12:7; 13:15, 17:19; Ex 6:8; Lev 25:23). Who can claim to be this "seed"? Islam teaches that it was Ishmael, not Isaac, who was the "son of promise" and was offered by Abraham upon the altar. Ishmael was the firstborn, and thus the Arabs, who claim descent from him, are adamant that they--not the Jews--are the rightful heirs to God's promise of the land of Canaan. Of course, Ishmael was not the son God promised, but the product of Abraham's and Sarah's unbelief. Instead of being born to Sarah, Abraham's wife, his mother was Hagar, Sarah's maid.
The Bible makes it very clear in many ways that the promised son was Isaac and that he and his descendants were the rightful heirs to God's promises to Abraham. Apparently content with Ishmael whom he loved, Abraham desired no other son (Gen 17:15-18). But God insisted that He would give Abraham a son through his wife, Sarah, that his name would be Isaac, and that he would be the heir to the promises and to the land (17:19-21). Furthermore, the true heirs to the promises would be slaves in a foreign land for 400 years (Gen 15:13). This never happened to the Arabs, but only to the Jews, who, during this isolation, did not intermarry with non-Jews but became an identifiable ethnic group, were led en masse into the Promised Land, and we know who their descendants are today. In contrast, Ishmael's descendants intermarried at least with Midianites (Jdg 8:1, 12, 22, 24) and with those of Esau (Gn 28:9) who, in turn, intermarried with Hittites (26:34).
In the beginning, the Qur'an called Jews and Christians the "people of the book" and honored much of the Bible as inspired of the true God. When Muhammad turned against these people, however, the tone of the Qur'an changed. The claim is made today that the Bible was perverted in order to make it seem that the Jews were the heirs. Of course, we have Bible manuscripts both before and after Muhammad, and they are identical. In fact, the Qur'an itself repeatedly declares that the Jews are Allah's chosen people to whom he gave the Promised Land:
"We made a covenant of old with the Children of Israel" (Surah 5:70); "We brought the Children of Israel across the [Red] sea, and Pharaoh with his hosts pursued them and we verily did allot unto the Children of Israel a fixed abode" (10:91, 94); "[Pharaoh] wished to scare them from the land, but we drowned him and those with him [in the Red Sea] all together. And we said unto the Children of Israel dwell in the land" (17:103-104); "we delivered the Children of Israel from Pharaoh. We chose them, purposely, above all creatures (44:30-32); we favored them above all peoples" (45:16); "Remember Allah's favor to you. He gave you what he gave no other of his creatures. O my people, go into the Holy Land which Allah hath ordained for you" (95:20-21), etc.
"Palestine"?
In spite of such Qur'anic passages, Islam claims that "Palestine" belongs to the Arab descendants of Ishmael. This is the basis of the hatred Muslims have toward Israel and of their determination to exterminate its people and to possess all of Israel for themselves. In fact, "Palestine" is not mentioned once in the Qur'an--very strange, considering the importance Muslims attach to it today.
That spurious claim is further "legitimized" through a people who today call themselves "Palestinians." They claim descent from the "original Palestinians" and that, therefore, the entire land of "Palestine" is theirs, but is being unlawfully occupied by Jews. They demand all of this land as their possession. Such a claim is fraudulent for many well-established reasons.
The land to which God brought Abraham (at this time called Abram), and which He gave to him and to his heirs, was called "Canaan" (Gen 12:5, 6-8; 13:7-17, etc.). There was no such land as Palestine and no such people as Palestinians. Its early inhabitants were Kenites, Kenizites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizites, Rephaims, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites (Gen 15:19-21). God never promised anything called "Palestine" to Abraham and to his heirs. The only land He promised was Canaan: "And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God (Gen 17:8); Be ye mindful always the covenant which he made with Abraham, and of his oath unto Isaac; And hath confirmed the same to Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant, Saying, Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance" (1 Chr 16:15-19).
Even had there been a land of Palestine and "Palestinians," the Arabs could not possibly be descended from them. They claim descent from Ishmael, who was certainly not a "Palestinian." His father, Abraham, was from Ur of the Chaldees, and his mother, Hagar, was an Egyptian. Neither of them was one of the "original inhabitants of Canaan," nor even remotely related to such a people. The land was already settled when Abraham with his wife, Sarah, and her maid, Hagar, arrived there.
Furthermore, as late as the 1950s Arabs refused to be called Palestinians. To the British Peel Commission in 1937, a local Arab leader testified, "There is no such country as Palestine. 'Palestine' is a term the Zionists invented." Professor Philip Hitti, Arab historian, testified to an Anglo-American Committee of inquiry in 1946, "There is no such thing as Palestine in history--absolutely not!" To the UN Security Council in 1956, Ahmed Shukairy declared, "It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria." Eight years later, in 1964, Shukairy became the founding chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization. No "Palestinian," like Arafat, he was born in Cairo.
Abraham settled in Hebron in the land of Canaan (Gen 13:18; 23:2, 19; 35:27; 37:14, etc.). Everyone knows where Hebron and Canaan were located then and now--nowhere near Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Yet the Qur'an and Islam claim that Abraham and Ishmael together built the Ka'aba. This is pure fabrication-as is the claim in the Qur'an that a Samaritan built the golden calf in the wilderness, 700 years before Samaritans even existed.
Ishmael was born after Abraham had lived in Hebron for ten years. Fourteen years later, Isaac was born in Hebron to Abraham and his wife, Sarah. Ishmael mocked Isaac, and Sarah banished him and his mother, Hagar (Gen 21:10-20). From that time onward, Ishmael was no longer part of Abraham's household but lived far away "in the wilderness of Paran" (21:21). Indeed, God did not consider him to be Abraham's son! God told Abraham: "Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest and offer him [as] a burnt-offering" (Gen 22:1-2).
Thirty-seven years after giving birth to Isaac, at the age of 127, Sarah died (23:1). Abraham was still in Hebron of Canaan, where he had lived more than 70 years. He purchased the cave of Macpelah from Ephron the Hittite (23:1-20) and there he buried Sarah. Thirty-eight years later, at the age of 175, Abraham died and was buried in Macpelah next to Sarah. After Abraham's death, Isaac continued to live in Hebron in the land of Canaan another 110 years. One by one, Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob, and Leah all died and were buried in the family tomb, the cave of Macpelah--but not Ishmael. No Arab or Muslim was ever buried there.
David was first crowned king in Hebron and ruled there over Judah 712 years before moving his throne to Jerusalem. Hebron is of great significance to the Jews. Yet Muslims built a mosque at Macpelah, claim the burial place of Jewish patriarchs as their own, forbid access to Jews, have periodically slaughtered and expelled Jews from Hebron, and desire to make it Jew-free today. They also claim that Jerusalem and the entire land of Israel have always belonged to them, that no Jews ever lived there, and that the Israelis are occupying Arab land! Incredibly, the world accepts this lie as the basis for forcing upon Israel a fraudulent "peace" in the Middle East.
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and their families lived for more than 300 years in the land of Canaan, which God had promised to them and to their descendants. (Arabs never lived there in any numbers until after the seventh-century A.D. Muslim invasion of Israel.) Jacob and his family temporarily moved to Egypt because of a famine in Canaan, but remained there 400 years and became the slaves of the Egyptians, then were brought back to conquer Canaan as God had foretold, establishing them as the heirs of God's promises to Abraham (Gen 15:13-14).
Thereafter Canaan was known as the land of Israel, which it is called 31 times in Scripture. Its kings ruled from Jerusalem over a vast empire stretching from the Sinai to the Euphrates, until they were conquered by the Babylonians around 600 B.C. and scattered to many nations, as God had warned. Thus, for 300 years before Egypt and about 1,000 years thereafter--a total of 1,300 years--the Jews dwelled in their own land, the land of Israel. It is an insult to the God of Israel and to His chosen people to call Israel "Palestine"! Please don't encourage this lie!
Ishmael's descendants never lived in Canaan. Most of them settled in the Arabian Peninsula. It would not be until the seventh century, through the Islamic invasions, that Arabs would come in any significant numbers into the land of Israel, which in A.D. 135 the Roman conquerors (after rebuilding Jerusalem as a pagan city dedicated to Jupiter) had angrily renamed Provincia Syria-Palestina after Israel's ancient enemies, the Philistines.
A Sad History
Chased out of their land under God's judgment in the Babylonian dispersion, and later twice by the Romans, Jews always returned to live there. This despised people occupied Israel for another 2,500 years continuously since their return from Babylon (thus for nearly 4,000 years, beginning with Abraham and Isaac), though most of that time they have suffered under the oppressive heel of various conquerors.
Since Israel was renamed by the Romans, its inhabitants have been known as "Palestinians." Who were they? Jews, of course. Chase them out and they return to the land God gave to their forebears. In World War II, Britain had a volunteer brigade known as "The Palestinian Brigade"--all Jews. The Arabs were fighting on Hitler's side. There was the Palestinian Symphony Orchestra, a Jewish orchestra, and the Palestinian Post, a Jewish newspaper. Arabs refused to be known as "Palestinians" and declared that if there were such a people, they were Jews.
Sadly, Israel had gone into idolatry and rebellion and thus forfeited for a time the full blessing God had promised to the patriarchs. Israel has been under God's judgment from the days of Moses to the present time. Her restoration, however, is assured--but only by God's grace, not by her merits. Scripture makes that fact clear. For example: "The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth because the Lord loved you and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers. I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name's sake, which ye have profaned among the heathen be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel" (Dt 7:7-8; Ezek 36:22, 32, etc.).
God's Remarkable Promise
Dozens of times in His Word, Yahweh has promised that in spite of their being hated, persecuted, and killed as no other people, and in spite of their being under His severe discipline, He would preserve the Jews from total destruction (Jer 30:10-1; 46:27-28, etc.). He would finally establish them back in their own land as an identifiable, ethnic people with the Messiah reigning over them on the throne of His father David (Jer 31; Ezek 34, 36, 37, etc.). God's integrity is tied to the ultimate restoration of Israel to her own land, never to be displaced again. Satan must destroy Israel in order to discredit God and prevent his own eternal punishment.
For Satan to be defeated, it is not enough for individual Jews to survive. Israel must exist as a nation in her own land: "Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar if those ordinances depart from before me then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever" (Jer 31:35-36). There is only one nation and one people--not Arabs or anyone else but the Jews alone--to whom God ever gave a land and specific perpetual promises.
The delusion of "ten lost tribes," if true, would mean that God could never restore Israel as He promised, because most of His chosen people would have been absorbed into the Gentile world. That ten tribes were not lost is clear. In the revival under Josiah 100 years after the ten tribes had been carried away into Assyria (2 Ki 15:29; 17: 4-6, 17-23, etc.), the remnants of Israel who had returned from Assyria kept the Passover together with Judah (2 Ch 34:1-35:19, etc.).
Christ told His disciples, "When the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel" (Mt 19:28). Paul reminded King Agrippa, "Unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come" (Acts 26:7). Likewise, James wrote "to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad" (Jas 1:1).
And so it is with Replacement Theology. It is just one more form of anti-Semitism, which, if true, makes God a liar and Satan victorious.
"If They Don't Convert, Kill Them!"
Concerning anti-Semitism, one thinks immediately of Hitler and the Holocaust. Centuries before he was born, however, a far worse and more persistent anti-Semitism was conceived in the form of Islam. Its founder, Muhammad, was born in Mecca into the Quraish tribe around A.D. 571. They were the guardians of the Ka'aba, an idol temple filled with some 360 images of various gods. Allah (a contraction of Al-ilah, lit. "the chief god") was recognized as the chief of the idols in the Ka'aba and was the official god of Muhammad's tribe.
Through alleged revelations from the "angel Gabriel," Muhammad claimed that Allah was the only god, and that he was Allah's only messenger/prophet. When his fellow Meccans would not accept his "revelations," Muhammad fled to the town of Yathrib. There he established himself through more than 25 murders of those who opposed him. Many of these victims were poets who wrote verse against him and were doomed by a timely revelation that all poets were inspired of Satan (Surah 26:221-27))
With the plunder from successful attacks upon passing caravans, Muhammad gradually built the power base that he had lacked in Mecca. From that time onward, Islam became an increasingly vicious religion that Muhammad imposed with the sword upon expanding areas of Arabia. He murdered all who would not submit to his authority as Prophet.
Yathrib had been founded by Jews. Muhammad shared his "revelations" with them and also with the Christians living in the vicinity. When they would neither accept Allah as the only true God nor Muhammad as His prophet, he turned against the Christians and Jews, killing all who refused to become Muslims and were unable to escape. Every male Jew of fighting age in Yathrib was slaughtered and their bodies buried under the marketplace. Women and children were taken as "wives" or slaves. The name of the town was changed to Medina, which means "city of the prophet." Here Muhammad himself was buried and his tomb remains to this day.
In A.D. 628, Muhammad approached Mecca with some of his followers, all new Muslims. He wanted to join the pagans in their pilgrimage to the Ka'aba on what is known as the Hajj. Remember that the Ka'aba was at that time filled with idols, the chief of which was Allah. Muhammad and his Muslim followers intended to join the pagans in the same superstitious rituals that their ancestors had followed for centuries!
"Peace! Peace!"
At that time the Meccans were too strong for Muhammad and turned him back. However, they were anxious to make peace with this powerful and violent enemy and entered into one of the most important agreements in Islamic history, the Treaty of Hudaybiyah, a ten-year Ceasefire, called a Hudna. That document set the precedent for Islam ever since. No Muslim leader has the power to go over Muhammad's head to make real peace with non-Muslims. Only a "ceasefire" can be engaged, and that for no longer than ten years. The purpose is not genuine peace but to gain time and advantage to eventually conquer the unsuspecting enemy. This has been Arafat's and the PLO's intent in the entire "peace process."
This treaty allowed Muhammad and his followers to join the Hajj the following year, on the condition that Muhammad acknowledge that he was not the prophet of Allah. Muhammad swallowed his pride and signed. Thus in 629 he came with his Muslim followers, entered Mecca and joined with the pagan Arabs in going seven times around the Ka'aba filled with idols, kissing the dark stone in one corner, and touching another stone in the Yamani corner each time. The new Muslims, with Muhammad at their head, joined in all of the other rituals, climbing nearby Mt as-Safa, then running back and forth seven times to the summit of as-Marwah, supposedly commemorating Hagar's search for water. They climbed Mount Arafat, hurried to Muzdalifah, a place between Mina and Arafat in time for sunset prayer.
The next day, along with the pagans, the new Muslims proceeded to Wadi Mina, where seven stones were thrown at each of three pillars representing Satan. And so it went. These ancient pagan rituals (the full details are too long to recite here) were all carried over into Islam and are practiced to this day along with Ramadan as it had been observed by Arab tribes for centuries before Islam. The Qur'an refers to "The month of Ramadan in which was revealed the Qur'an..." (2:185).
Muhammad's first three attacks on caravans were unsuccessful. Then a timely "revelation" declared that Allah allowed Muslims to fight during that "holy month." Pagan Arabs had long set Ramadan apart for peace. This "revelation" had given the Muslims the advantage of a surprise attack and had brought Muhammad's first success, March 16, 624.
Two years after signing the Treaty of Hudaybiyah, A.D. 630, Muhammad had the necessary power and as noted above took over Mecca. For a time he allowed the pagans to continue to practice the Hajj, joining with the new Muslims in its rituals, then gave them four months to convert to Islam or be killed. Thereafter, only Muslims could approach Mecca and the Ka'aba, and that is the case today. Surah 3:96-97 claims that the Ka'aba was "the first Sanctuary appointed to mankind...where Abraham stood up to pray; and...pilgrimage [hajj] to the House is a duty unto Allah for mankind, for him who can find a way thither."
Muhammad died in A.D. 632, poisoned by the widow of a man he had murdered. Having been forced into Islam by the sword, much of Arabia tried to defect. Muhammad, however, had said, "Whoever relinquishes his faith, kill him!" This is the law still practiced in Muslim countries today.
His Legacy Lives On
In obedience to Muhammad, successor and father-in-law, Abu Bakr, and loyal Muslim warriors killed about 70,000 Arabs, former Muslims, in the "Wars of Apostasy." Thus Arabia was forced back into Islam once again.
Thereafter, under Abu Bakr and succeeding caliphs, Islam spread swiftly by the sword from France all the way to China--"defensive" wars, of course. Millions were killed by the conquering Muslim armies. There is no way to "explain" away today's suicide bombers and other Muslim terrorists as a handful of extremists. This is Islam as Muhammad and his successors established and practiced it from the beginning and down through the centuries. Historians describe the conquest of India as "the bloodiest story in history." There Muslims killed more Hindus, Buddhists, and Sikhs than Hitler killed Jews. The Taj Mahal was built by a Muslim mogul with 20,000 slave laborers.
Foundational to Islam is the declaration Muhammad made: "Allah has commanded me to fight against all people until all people confess that Allah is the true god and Muhammad is his prophet." The entire world is divided by Islam into Dar al-Islam (the house of peace) and Dar al-Harb (the house of war). There is perpetual Jihad by Islam against Dar al-Harb. There can never be "peace" until Islam has subjected the entire world to Allah. Verses advocating fighting to take over the world for Islam (of which there are more than 100) include the following: 2:190-193, 210, 224; 4:74-76, 89, 101; 5:36, 54; 8:12, 17, 59-60, 65; 9:5, 14, 29, 41, 123; 47:4, etc.
Muhammad also declared, as recorded in the Sahih Al-Bukhari Hadith, "The last day will not come until the Muslims confront the Jews and the Muslims destroy them. In that day Allah will give a voice to the rocks and the trees and they will cry out, 'Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me. Come and kill him!'" This is not an obscure teaching from Muhammad, but the very foundation of Islam, taught to Muslims through the centuries from their earliest years.
As a result, ever since the Muslim conquest of the Middle East, Jews have suffered in Muslim countries from inhumane treatment and periodic bursts of violence that left many of them dead or seriously wounded. Take only one country, Morocco, as an example of what occurred everywhere under Islam. Jews were forced to live in ghettos called mellahs. One historian writes that rape, looting, burning of synagogues, destruction of Torah scrolls and murder were "so frequent that it is impossible to list them." As only one instance of many, in Fez, in A.D. 1032, about 6,000 Jews were murdered and many more "robbed of their women and property." In 1066, after Islam took over Spain, the Jews of Granada were massacred--and that fate periodically overtook those who would not bow to Islam.
The fierce persecution of 1640, in which even women and children were murdered, was called the "al-Khada." Under Muslims, Jews suffered "such repression, restriction and humiliation as to exceed anything in Europe." Continuing that tradition, although there were no Jews in his country and none are allowed to enter to this day, Saudi Arabia's King Ibn Saud said, "for a Muslim to kill a Jew...ensures him an immediate entry into Heaven...." Diabolical motivation indeed!
Home, Not-so-sweet Home
On May 14, 1948, Israel declared itself an independent nation once again. Israel's Proclamation of Independence stated: "We extend our hand to all neighboring States and their peoples in an offer of peace...and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land...placing our trust in the Almighty...." That olive branch was trampled by the regular armies of at least five Arab nations attacking Israeli settlers in what they described as a war of extermination. That to exterminate Israel is required by Islam (no Arab map shows Israel's existence) makes real peace in the Middle East impossible--but political correctness won't admit it.
More than 800,000 Jews fled from Muslim lands to Israel for refuge, leaving behind virtually everything they had possessed. This was almost double the number of Arab refugees who fled from Israel during the war of independence. Yet these Jewish refugees who fled persecution and slaughter are ignored in the media. For example, in 1948 there were about 265,000 Jews in Morocco, today there are about 5,000. There were about 140,000 Jews in Algeria, while today there are none. There were about 135,000 in Iraq, 75,000 in Egypt, and 30,000 in Syria, with only about 100 remaining in each of these countries.
The Arabs who fled Israel in 1948 (in spite of Israel's urgent invitation to remain to build a new country together) did so at the insistence of the Arab military. They were warned that those who remained would be considered traitors to the Arab cause. Most of those who fled never saw an Israeli soldier. They are the only "refugees" in the Middle East as far as the world is concerned and to whom all the sympathy is given. Jewish refugees count for nothing. The families of those who did not flee comprise about 25 percent of Israel's citizens today and have full voting rights. Some are even members of the Knesset, in spite of their opposition to Israel's existence. In stark contrast, no Jew can be a citizen of any Muslim country, where the few remaining have almost no rights.
One would expect that the Jewish refugees, numbering about twice as many at the time and having fled indescribable persecution in Muslim lands, would be more than a fair exchange for the Arab refugees. Jews would never want to go back to these Muslim lands, and have been well absorbed into normal Israeli life. But the Arab "refugees" (in spite of the Arabs possessing 700 times the land given to Israel, and with vast sums of oil money available for assistance) have been deliberately kept in squalid camps as a festering sore to support Islam's controversy with Israel. They have multiplied into millions and would literally destroy Israel if the world could ever force Israel to receive them back. On October 11, 1949, Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Saleh el-Din, declared that in demanding the return of the refugees to Palestine [i.e., Israel], "the Arabs intend that they shall return as masters.... More explicitly: they intend to annihilate the state of Israel."
Why the Jews?
In the last century there were more than 100 million displaced refugees (about 15 million in the creation of India and Pakistan). None ever go back nor does the United Nations concern itself in any attempt to send them back. This is the rule and practice. Ah, but there is one exception--the "Palestinians" must be received back to Israel in order to destroy her.
Nothing aroused Satan's hatred and the wrath of Islam like the birth of the nation of Israel. It must be annihilated. And here Islam itself is the driving force, not a few "extremists." Islam promises Muslims victory against the Jews as well as against the entire world. Instead, they taste only humiliation in every attack they launch. Israel, on the other hand, in spite of being under God's judgment, enjoys His protection in many ways, as foretold: "In that day will I make the governors of Judah like a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the people round about" (Zech 12:6). The wars of 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973 have borne eloquent testimony to the truth of Scripture: "If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, now may Israel say; If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when men rose up against us: Then they have swallowed us up quick, when their wrath is kindled against us Blessed be the Lord, who hath not given us as a prey to their teeth.Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth" (Ps 124:1-8).
The Arabs' repeated defeat at the hands of Israel is for them both embarrassing and maddening. The Imams blame this shame upon the departure from true Islam by the masses of Muslims. They are whipping up a worldwide revival of fundamentalist Islam as the way to regain Allah's blessing and thereby defeat Israel.
There is a law in Islam that once Muslims have possessed a territory in their conquest of the world (as commanded by Allah through his prophet Muhammad), that land can never be relinquished. Islam cannot tolerate having territory which it once controlled regain its independence. Nor can non-Muslims reign over Muslims. Having taken Jerusalem in 641, Muslims controlled all of what had once been Israel for centuries. The Turkish Ottoman Empire held the entire Middle East for 400 years until 1917. It is therefore an unacceptable reversal of Islamic history for Jews now to be in control of any of their Promised Land. Thus, as soon as the UN partitioned "Palestine" in 1947, the Arabs rioted in protest.
So long as Israel retains autonomy over one square yard of land in the Middle East, it is an affront to Islam and declares to the world that Islam is a false religion, Allah a false god, Muhammad a false prophet, and the Qur'an a false revelation. This is the issue--and all the talk of "peace" without recognizing and changing this teaching of Islam is both a fool's dream and a fraud.
God, Ever Faithful to His Promise
Israel's declaration of independence on May 14, 1948, brought an immediate attack against the poorly armed Israeli settlers by the regular armies of five Arab nations, with tanks and planes. In a BBC interview May 15, 1948, the Arab League declared, "The Arabs intend to conduct a war of extermination." The entire world expected that massacre to occur. Instead, exactly as God had promised, the poorly armed Israeli settlers routed the Arab armies. That the Arab Muslims have suffered humiliating defeat in every war they have launched against Israel has only made their determination to destroy Israel to the glory of Allah grow ever stronger.
In the 1948 war of independence, Jordan (which England had created out of land that the 1922 Declaration of Principles of the League of Nations had recognized belonged to the Jewish people) took what is now known as the "West Bank." Egypt took the Gaza Strip. All Jews were expelled and all Jewish property was destroyed or confiscated.
These territories, so much in the news today, were held by Jordan and Egypt for 19 years and used as terrorist launching pads against Israel until the latter was forced to take them in the Six-day War in 1967. During those 19 years, not one word was ever heard from the Arab world about a "Palestinian state." It was the Arabs, not Israel, who put the "refugees" in the camps and have kept them there ever since.
What About the PLO?
One often hears the complaint, "Just move the borders back to 1967 and that will bring peace." It was in 1964, however, during those 19 years when Jordan and Egypt held the West Bank and Gaza, that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was formed. What was "liberation" intended to accomplish at that time? The PLO charter declared that the very existence of Israel was illegitimate, that the Jews were merely citizens of the countries where they happened to live all over the world, not entitled to a land of their own, and that the intention of the Arabs was to take all of "Palestine" for themselves and literally "exterminate" the Jews. The logo of the PLO shows "Palestine" as comprising the entire territory from the Mediterranean to the River Jordan. For Muslims, Israel does not exist.
To Egypt's National Assembly, March 26, 1964, Gamal Abd-Al Nasser, who founded the PLO in Cairo ("Palestinians" in the camps had nothing to do with it), declared that the problem was "the very existence of Israel." On March 8, 1965, he boasted, "We shall enter [Palestine] with its soil saturated in blood." Shortly thereafter he declared, "We aim at...the eradication of Israel." The Arab world had spent 19 years for this war, and they were supremely confident that they would destroy Israel.
On May 16, 1967, Nasser ordered UN peace-keeping forces to leave the Sinai. By May 18, Egyptian troops were massed in the Sinai on Israel's border and Syrian troops had done the same on the Golan. The "Voice of the Arabs" broadcast, "The sole method we shall apply against Israel is total war, which will result in the extermination of Zionist existence." On May 20, the Syrian Defense Minister declared, "Our forces are now entirely ready...to explode the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland...to enter into a battle of annihilation." On May 22, Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran to all Israeli shipping. It was an act of war. On May 27, Nasser threatened, "Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel.... We will not accept any coexistence with Israel...."
On May 30, Nasser announced, "The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel...while standing behind us are the armies of Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan and the whole Arab nation...the critical hour has arrived." Iraq's president thundered, "The existence of Israel is an error which must be rectified. This is our opportunity to wipe out the ignominy which has been with us since 1948. Our goal is clear--to wipe Israel off the map." Such is still their intent. In fact, no Arab map then or now shows Israel's existence, as already noted.
My wife, Ruth, and I together with our four children, ages 8-15, were in Egypt at that time, as eyewitnesses to Arab intentions. On an Egyptian freighter from Alexandria to Beirut, I sat in the lounge with wild-eyed, shouting Arabs around me, watching the Arab arms buildup under Nasser. We saw the complete confidence with which the Arab world, momentarily united behind Nasser in this common goal, prepared to exterminate the Jews. We were heading for Jordan in our VW micro-bus when the Lord graciously redirected us north through Syria. We crossed into Turkey safely just hours before war broke out.
Israel had no choice but to make a preemptive strike in self-defense. The destruction of the Egyptian and Syrian air forces on the ground and the conquest of the Arab armies in what became known as the "Six-day War" is history, another fulfillment of Zechariah 12:6: "In that day will I make the governors of Judah like a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the people round about and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again."
Nasser never recovered from the blow to his ego, and died of a heart attack in 1970. He was succeeded by Anwar Sadat. The latter is remembered for making "peace" with Israel, for which he was murdered by the Muslim Brotherhood
The real Sadat is revealed in an open letter he wrote to Hitler after the latter's death, expressing the hope that the Fuhrer was still alive, and sympathizing with his just cause against the Jews. Similarly, Egyptian columnist, Ahmad Rajab (Al-Akbar, 4/18/01), wrote: "Thanks to Hitler, blessed memory, who on behalf of the Palestinians, revenged in advance, against the most vile criminals on the face of the earth. But we do have a complaint against him--his revenge was not enough."
Hitler's Mein Kampf is still a bestseller in Muslim countries. The Palestinian Peace Prize for Culture was awarded to Abu Daoud for his book telling how he planned and carried out the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
What about Today?
Textbooks in Syria today lead pupils to the "inevitable conclusion...that all Jews must be annihilated." Calls for annihilation of Jews still resound throughout the Muslim world, such as the Friday sermon in Gaza's Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan mosque, Oct 14, 2000: "Have no mercy on the Jews...kill them...and those Americans who...established Israel here, in the beating heart of the Arab world...." That very day, two Israeli reservists took a wrong turn into Ramallah and were literally torn apart by a frenzied mob--an event that was cheered when the grizzly details were shown on Palestinian T.V.
Hamas Leader, Mahmoud al-Zahar, a surgeon, expressed Islam's sentiment, "From our ideological point of view, it is not allowed to recognize that Israel controls one square meter of historic Palestine." In view of Islam's passion to destroy Israel, "peace" plans are a macabre joke!
Muhammad's command that all Jews must be killed is not an obscure teaching which one must search to find. It is in today's textbooks in Islamic schools worldwide, including, for example, the Muslim Academy outside Washington D.C. This declaration is continually repeated in Mosques and on Muslim radio and TV.
This theme is prominent in publications officially distributed by Ministries of Education in Muslim lands. For example, in Jordan, a book used in the first year of high school declares, "Israel was born to die. Prove it." A book for the second year of Junior High in Damascus declares: "The Jews are vile, greedy, enemies of mankind." In Syria, a 5th grade book boasts: "We shall expel all Jews from all Arab countries." In Egypt, a textbook for the first year of junior high urges students: "The Arabs do not cease to act for the extermination of Israel." A 9th- grade textbook declares: "Israel shall not live if the Arabs stand fast in their hatred.... Even if all the human race and the devil in hell conspire to aid her, she shall not exist."
When I present such facts to audiences, I see many eyes glaze over in unbelief. It is nearly impossible for anyone with a normal conscience to accept the fact that a religion in our day literally calls for the extermination of an entire people. Not a few fanatics, but Islam itself is Israel's chief and most determined enemy.
The Arabs were converted to Islam by the sword, and that is how they became the battering ram in this battle for Israel's survival. It is really a war between God and Satan that will finally come to its climax at Armageddon. How did we arrive at the present state where an enemy that is determined to annihilate Israel is looked upon as her "partner for peace"?
The naivete of Western leaders in attempting to bring peace is illustrated no better than through former President Jimmie Carter. On March 26, 1979, he hosted at the White House the signing of a "peace treaty" by Israel's Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. Carter wanted to quote one verse each from the Bible and the Qur'an about peace. There are some 400 such verses in the Bible, but his speechwriters, after much searching, could find only one verse about peace in the Qur'an.
Carter optimistically declared: "In the Koran, we read: 'But if the enemy incline towards peace, do thou also incline towards peace, and trust in God...[Surah 8:61].' So let us now lay aside war.... We pray God...that these dreams will come true."
Islam's "dream," however, is not what Carter and Israel hoped. The verse says "Allah," not God--and Allah hates Jews! Surah eight is titled Spoils of War and it is all about fighting and plunder in the conquest of the world for Allah and Islam. Verse 65 says, "O Prophet! Exhort the believers to fight...." Verse 67 says, "It is not for any prophet to have captives until he hath made slaughter in the land."
The very verse Carter so naively cited declares that the only "peace" Islam offers to anyone is to those who surrender to its conquests and convert to Islam. As noted above, Sadat's reward was assassination at the hands of fellow Muslims for daring to establish "peace" on any other basis than conversion to Islam. In so doing, he had betrayed Islam itself.
On October 14, 1988, Arafat (the worst mass murderer of modern times other than Hitler, Stalin and Mao) condemned all forms of terrorism and recognized Israel--on paper. Lying to the enemies of Islam is honorable. Arafat's re-invention as an icon of peace was childishly simple: he vowed to reform--and presto--his heinous crimes of four decades were as though they had never been. Under pressure from the world, Israel made the huge mistake of believing this evil man and making him its "partner for peace." The Madrid Peace Conference in October 1991 brought together delegates from Israel, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon along with "Palestinians." Next came secret PLO-Israeli talks in Oslo in January 1993.
In a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Rabin, September 9, 1993, Arafat said: "The PLO recognizes the right of...Israel to exist in peace and security...commits itself...to a peaceful resolution of the conflict between the two sides...renounces the use of terrorism and other acts of violence [and] affirms that those articles of the Palestinian Covenant which deny Israel's right to exist...are now inoperative and no longer valid [and] undertakes to submit to the Palestinian National Council for formal approval the necessary changes...." As a reward for this transparent lie, President Clinton promised to pay $500 million to the PLO and its agencies. In exchange, Arafat solemnly swore to comply with all terms of the Oslo Accords.
On September 13, 1993, Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin and Arafat signed the Oslo "Declaration of Principles"--a mockery of the League of Nations' "Declaration of Principles" in 1922--and Israel recognized Arafat and the PLO. In fact, Arafat never kept one provision of this agreement. He couldn't without betraying Islam and suffering the same fate as Sadat. He began immediately over radio and television to apologize in Arabic for Oslo, telling Muslim audiences that he was following the Prophet's example by entering into a temporary cease fire that would lead to Israel's destruction.
Muhammad's treaty of Hudaybiya--a
10-year ceasefire agreement with his own tribe, the Quraish of
Mecca--set the legal precedent. Two years later, on a pretext,
with an army of 10,000 he took over Mecca with its Ka'aba. Such
a ceasefire is agreed to only when the Muslims are too weak to
pursue conquest, and is broken as soon as they have the power
to renew the attack. Such is the law of war and peace in Islam,
as established by Muhammad. No Muslim has the authority to change
it.
A False Peace
The whole "peace process" was an Islamic ploy by Arafat, and will be no different under his successors, whoever they may be. Oslo required Arafat to remove from the PLO Charter the call for Israel's annihilation. In grand style he announced that the clause had been revoked. Yet in the same speech he praised terrorists and terrorist countries. It was a bald "hoax" as London's Daily Telegraph (5/2/96) declared. The clause had not and has not been removed. And even if it were, that would change nothing. It is not the PLO Charter that defines Israel's extermination, but Islam itself.
Blind to the obvious truth, Rabin's widow proclaimed in confident but misplaced trust, "Tonight I can tell you that the Palestinian National Council has revoked the clauses in its covenant that called for the destruction of Israel." Rabin's successor, Prime Minister Shimon Peres, hailed this "most important historical development in our region in 100 years." Peres exulted on Voice of Israel Radio, "Today we have ended the Israeli--Arab conflict--Utopia is coming!" What madness!
He willfully was closing his eyes and ears to the frequent calls for an end to Israel, repeated throughout the "peace negotiations" many times by Arafat and other PLO leaders, such as this by Arafat's deputy, Abu Iyad: "It is our right that we should have...an independent Palestinian state that will function as a base from which to liberate Jaffa, Akko and all of Palestine." Another aide, echoing Nasser and many others, had earlier said, "The struggle with the Zionist enemy is not a struggle about Israel's borders, but about Israel's existence." This is Islam.
Oslo only brought increased violence against Israel. In the ten years prior to Oslo, about 200 Israelis had been killed by terrorists, while in the ten years following about 1,200 were killed and more than 5,000 wounded.
On May 4, 1994, in Cairo, Arafat and Rabin signed the "Jericho First" Peace Accord implementing Oslo. The afternoon of the historic handshake with Yitzak Rabin on the White House lawn, Arafat's name appeared near the top in a list of "world terrorists released by a congressional committee." He is one of the most evil mass murderers in history. Yet he was given the Nobel Prize for Peace, and Clinton and Gore received him repeatedly as an honored statesman in the White House. Thankfully, President Bush refused to deal with Arafat at all. What the world (including Bush) won't admit, however, is that Arafat's bloody, terrorist career was based on Islam!
Following 9/11/01, Prime Minister Tony Blair declared: "This terrorist act has nothing to do with Islam." Colin Powell, likewise, said, "Leave Islam out of this. Islam is peace." In fact, evidence gathered by the FBI shows that the Twin Towers were brought down to the glory of Allah in pursuit of world conquest and to obtain Islam's promised Paradise for the hijackers.
In a speech at the Islamic Center at Washington D.C., President Bush reiterated: "The face of terror is not the true face of Islam. Islam is peace." He reassured a joint session of Congress and the Senate and the people of the United States, "Terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim clerics [and] perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam.... It's teachings are good and peaceful."
In fact, the very morning of September 11, in a time zone six hours to the east, an editorial in Arafat's controlled newspaper, Al-Hayat al-Jadida, stated: "The suicide bombers of today are the noble successors of the Lebanese suicide bombers who taught the U.S. Marines a tough lesson in Lebanon [243 were killed]. These suicide bombers are the salt of the earth, the engines of history the most honorable people among us." Then, down came the Twin Towers!
Yet President Bush insists, "The terrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself." If that is true, then Muhammad "hijacked" Islam 13 centuries ago at its very start. But how could the founder and his immediate successors practice an extreme form of Islam? Who knew Islam better than Muhammad himself?
By any standard, Muhammad was a terrorist, and so were his followers. In the Qur'an, Allah declares that he will strike terror into the enemies of Islam.
In the Wall Street Journal, Eliot Cohen of John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies reminded any world leaders who would listen that "an hour spent surfing the Web will give...the kind of insights [into Islam]...found during World War II by reading Mein Kampf or the writings of Lenin, Stalin or Mao. Nobody would like to think that a major world religion has a deeply aggressive and dangerous strain in it...but uttering uncomfortable and unpleasant truths... defines leadership." The major threat to Israel today is not from a few fanatics, as we pointed out, but from devout Muslims. Indeed, from Islam itself!
A number of available videos document the blatant deceit with footage of Arafat and his spokesmen and Islamic clerics over the last 20 years stating clearly to Muslim audiences that all of the "peace" negotiations are aimed at one thing: the ultimate destruction of Israel. Repeatedly, they speak of a "Palestinian state" from the Mediterranean to the Jordan with its capital in Jerusalem. But the world, including its media and leaders, close their eyes and ears to the obvious truth.
A number of such diatribes were put together on a video by then Chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee Ben Gilman, who offered to show them in a press conference September 21, 1995. No one from the press was interested! Even more disturbing, Israel's Ambassador to the US, Itamar Rabinovich, pleaded with Gilman not to air the tapes--it might hinder the "peace process"!
Netanyahu writes, "...my party and I were virtually isolated in our warning that Arafat would not keep his word.... We were widely castigated as enemies of peace.... Our argument was that handing Gaza over to Arafat would immediately create a lush terrorist haven...." Of course, he was right.
Islam exercises incredible clout through the possession of the major oil deposits by Muslim nations. In view of that fact, the European Union continues to remind Israel that it "does not recognize Israel's sovereignty" over Jerusalem. The Vatican for its own reasons (numerous official documents declare that the church has replaced Israel as the "people of God") has opposed Israel consistently, refusing even to recognize its existence until 1994, 46 years after its declaration of independence. The PLO are in control of Temple Mount, the very heart and soul of Jerusalem. The nations of the world refuse to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
We are witnessing the continuing fulfillment of Christ's remarkable prophecy: "Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled" (Lk 21:24).
While visiting Jerusalem in 1998, the Vatican's foreign minister called the Israeli presence in East Jerusalem "illegal occupation." In March 1999, Israel was notified again that the European Union "does not recognize Israel's sovereignty" over Jerusalem. In a papal bull on the year 2000 jubilee, John Paul II again rejected Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem. In mid-February 2000, the Vatican signed an agreement with the PLO calling for "international guarantees" to preserve "the proper identity and sacred character" of Jerusalem under international control. Wakf director Adnan Husseini, in charge of Muslim sites on the Temple Mount, declared: "Israel needs to remember that Jerusalem is not an Israeli city but it is a Palestinian city and we decide what happens here" (Jerusalem Post, 11/4/04).
From a religious point of view, Islam is pure paganism almost unchanged from what had been practiced by pagan Arab tribes for centuries before Muhammad was born. Ramadan and the hajj have remained almost exactly the same in Islam. The only changes Muhammad made were to promote Allah from chief god to only god--and to force submission to Allah under threat of death. Yet Christian leaders, among them some evangelicals, insist upon saying that Allah is the God of the Bible and that Islam is not so far removed from Christianity as is imagined.
Billy Graham has naively said, "Islam is misunderstood.... Muhammad had a great respect for Jesus, called Jesus the greatest of the prophets except himself. I think we're closer to Islam than we really think we are...." Yes, as close as the distance between hell and heaven! The Qur'an denies that Jesus is God or the Son of God or that He died on the cross for our sins. There is no salvation in Islam, and it is thoroughly anti-Christian.
Graham's long-time friend Robert Schuller recently basked in the acclaim of Muslims at a Villa Park, Illinois mosque where he declared that he had come to realize that "asking people to change their faith was utterly ridiculous." Coming to the defense of history's most cruel and violent religion, Robert Schuller insists: "This is a time to guard against attacking religion.... It has been my honor to become acquainted with the power leaders of positive Islam. And there is and has been a strong anti-Islam propaganda loose in this world."
Positive Islam? Muhammad never heard of it! "Anti-Islam propaganda"? No one could give Islam a worse name than Muhammad, the Qur'an, and centuries of slaughter have done from the beginning!
In contrast, Jerry Falwell on 60 Minutes declared that Muhammad was a terrorist, and, as Franklin Graham has said, that Islam is "very evil and wicked." For those remarks Christianity Today rebuked them, saying that "Islam would not have become the second largest world religion if it were...as thoroughly evil as these comments suggest." Jesus said something about the "broad road," and Solomon about "a way that seems right unto a man."
In an article titled "Allah Does Not Belong to Islam," the Christian Research Journal has declared: "Allah is the God Arab-speaking Christians worship. The Arabic Bible is replete with the word Allah, beginning with Genesis and ending with Revelation. Jesus Christ is even called the son of Allah in the Arabic Scriptures.... Allah is simply the word or term for God in another language [Arabic].... equivalent to...English God...French Dieu... Spanish Dios.. We can join our Arab brothers and sisters in Christ who often say, 'Allah be praised!'"
This is not true. There is a generic word for God and it is Ilah, found all through the Qur'an such as in Surah 4:171: "Allah is only one Ilah." The confession one must make or die declares that there is "No Ilah but Allah" " (5:73): "La ilaha i' Allah, Muhammadan Rasoulu Allah."
Of Allah the Qur'an says, "Far is it removed from his transcendent majesty that he should have a son (Sur 4:171); Certainly they disbelieve who say: Allah is the third of the three. Then how can the Arabic Bible call Jesus the "Son of Allah"? That Allah has a Son is denied 16 times in the Qur'an. How absurd, then, to use Allah for God in the Arabic Bible! What could, "For Allah so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son," possibly mean?
A Cup of Trembling
Israel only wants to be left in peace. It makes no threats against its neighbors. Yet Muslim nations have spent billions of dollars since the Yom Kippur War for the latest military equipment, with top priority for missiles carrying a variety of deadly warheads. The whole world knows these are not defensive weapons. They exist for only one purpose: to rain death and destruction upon Israel, bringing an end to its existence and taking possession for the Muslim world of all of the land God promised His chosen people.
The world, in taking the side of Islam, is joining this pagan and violent religion in its open defiance of the God of the Bible. He has warned that He will punish all the nations of the world for two things they have done to His chosen people, the Jews: "whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land" (Joel 3:2). This is a remarkable prophecy. Israel has been conquered by many enemies who have occupied it, but never divided it. Not even the Muslims did that.
But beginning with Britain's mandate over "Palestine," during which they gave most of it to the Arabs, and continuing on to U.N. Resolution 181, November 29, 1947, partitioning "Palestine"--and as part of every peace plan since--in fulfillment of this prophecy, not just one enemy but the nations of the world have divided God's land (Lev 25:23). They will be punished for that defiance of God and His Word. Bush ought to tremble. The whole basis of the Roadmap to Peace is a further division of Israel.
Behind it all is Islam, the chief enemy of Israel. The battle over Israel is a battle for survival on Satan's part and a battle for the souls and destiny of mankind. If Islam and the nations siding with her should win, then we are all eternally lost. If God, whose integrity is tied to Israel's ultimate restoration and blessing, has not told the truth about His chosen people and their destiny, then how could we believe His promises that Christ paid the penalty for our sins and His offer of forgiveness and eternal life for those who believe in Him? Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!
Posted 1/14/05. Visit The Berean Call web site.