IT COULD HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT.

THE MIDDLE EAST COULD HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT

A frog was happily swimming around in a river somewhere in the Middle East. As he swam along, a scorpion attracted the frog’s attention and asked him to carry him over the river.

“Certainly not!” replied the frog. “When I’m halfway across, you might sting me and I’d drown!”

“Are you stupid, or what?” said the scorpion. “If I were to sting you, I would drown as well. Why would I want to do that? Would that be sensible? Come on! Do I look like an idiot!?”

“You’re quite right,” said the frog. “Excuse me for being paranoid. Nobody would be stupid enough to drown himself deliberately. I’ll take you across.”

So the scorpion climbed onto the frog’s back and the frog began to swim across the river. Halfway across, the scorpion stung him. “What did you do that for!?” gasped the frog, as he died. “You’re going to drown too. It doesn’t make sense.”

“I know,” replied the scorpion as he went under. “But this is the Middle East. Nothing makes sense in the Middle East.”

And that is the truth. Nothing makes sense in the Middle East. Why, to take just one example from many, would a Palestinian policeman suddenly turn on his Jewish colleague- indeed, his friend- shout “Allahu Akbar!” and shoot him dead?

The problems in the Middle East will never be solved by cold, hard logic or by human common sense and there is a cold, hard, logical and sensible reason for this: the problems are not human and physical. They have nothing whatever to do with the Arabs or the Jews as human beings. The problems in the Middle East are spiritual.

Ephesians 6:10 Finally, build up your strength in union with the Lord and by means of his mighty power. Put on all the armour that God gives you, so that you will be able to stand up against the Devil's evil tricks.

For we are not fighting against human beings but against the wicked spiritual forces in the heavenly world, the rulers, authorities, and cosmic powers of this dark age.

It is not the Jews or the Arabs, as human beings, who are the problem.

As an example- In early August 2005 I spent an unforgettable day escorting a journalist to some interviews she had in Ramallah. We walked freely around the town centre, had a pleasant meal and conducted the interviews. During that day we did not have even one bad experience and we met several very pleasant, decent people. During the same period we visited Hebron, Jericho and Beitin on the Palestinian side of the line and received nothing but courtesy. We also visited several Jewish settlements, such as Beit El and Qiryat Arba, and- again- we were treated with great kindness.

The problem is not the Jews or the Arabs. The problem is spiritual and there is more truth in this statement, when it is applied to the Middle East conflict, than applied to any other conflict on earth.

A local Moslem Arab, for example, once said this to me:

"Without the Jews and the English there is no life. They teach us how to work. They teach us how to farm. They teach us how to build houses. They educate us. They give us money to help us. They taught us how to take the oil out of our own land, and that is why the Arab countries are now so rich. Without the Jews and the English we would be nothing. We would have nothing. We would be like the Bedouin…"

Another Moslem Arab said this to me:

"The Arabs are the enemies of Allah....Look over there. What colour is the land?...Over there the land is green. That is where the Jews live. Now look at this land here where we live. What colour is it?...Our land is grey dust. If we stopped hating the Jews and ended this war against them, our land would be green like theirs. I tell you, we are the enemies of Allah!"

Another local Moslem Arab said this to me:

"The Jews are good people. In 1967 I ran away to escape the fighting. I saw the Israeli planes come over. When they saw soldiers they bombed them. When they saw civilians they did not bomb them. Arab planes would have bombed civilians as well as soldiers. I tell you, the Jews are good people."

A Moslem Arab farmer from Gaza said this to me in the early seventies:

“The Israeli occupation was the best thing that could have happened to Gaza. When the British were here, they had a lot of farming experts and we prospered under them. Then we were under the Egyptians. The Egyptians knew nothing about farming and they couldn’t have cared less about us. We suffered under them. Then the Israelis came. They have a lot of farming expertise and we have never been better off…”

A Kuwaiti Moslem, in an open letter to the Palestinians, wrote:

"You (Palestinians) should thank Allah five times a day that you are fighting the Jews and not somebody like Saddam!"

And how about this one- and note carefully whosaid it:

"Honestly, the problems we face in our relations with some of our Arab brothers are much worse than those we face vis-á-vis Israel."
Yasser Arafat, 1985

On a human, personal level- on a level of sheer self-interest- most Arabs realise they are better off under Israeli government than under Arab government and many of them will admit it- if you talk to them in private with no other Arabs around- but almost none of them will admit it in public.

It could have been so different. It should have been different. From the late nineteenth century, up until well into the early twentieth century, many Arabs believed that it was time for the Jewish people to return to the land- and they wanted them to come back for good, practical reasons.

"No national union and no national spirit has prevailed there (in Palestine). The motley impoverished tribes which have occupied it have held it as mere tenants at will, temporary landowners, evidently waiting for those entitled to the permanent possession of the soil" Sir John William Dawson, 1888, (Modern Science in Bible Lands - New York 1890 - pp. 449-450).

“The Jews of the Orient are at home. This land is their only fatherland. They don’t know any other.” Farid Kassab, a famous Syrian author, 1906

“ (I) held conversations with some of the leading sheiks, and they all expressed pleasure at the advent of the Jews, for they considered that with them had come ‘barakat’ – blessing, since the rain came in due season.” Dr. Moses Gaster, 1907.

"The resources of the country (Palestine) are still virgin soil and will be developed by the Jewish immigrants. One of the most amazing things until recent times was that the Palestinian used to leave his country, wandering over the high seas in every direction. His native soil could not retain a hold on him.... At the same time, we have seen the Jews from foreign countries streaming to Palestine from Russia, Germany, Austria, Spain, and America. The cause of causes could not escape those who had a gift of deeper insight. They knew that the country was for its original sons [abna'ihi-l-asliyin], for all their differences, a sacred and beloved homeland. The return of these exiles [jaliya] to their homeland will prove materially and spiritually an experimental school for their brethren who are with them in the fields, factories, trades and all things connected to the land." Hussein Ibn-Ali, Sheriff of Mecca, Mecca's Al Qibla, in 1918.

In 1918 one of the most horrifying wars in history ended. Roughly 10 million soldiers from both sides had died. On top of that, about 20 million others had died of influenza. In all, about 30 million people- more than half the present population of Britain- had died as a result of that war. In the following year, 1919, the battered and bruised “victors” of the war got together in Paris to carve up what had once been the empires of Austria, Germany and Turkey. Palestine, of course, was one of the areas discussed and the land had been part of the Turkish empire for almost exactly 400 years….

"I was the head of the Foreign Office League of Nations section (at the Paris peace talks in 1919) and it so happened that the head of the FO section, who was dealing with the Palestine Mandate, and who was very devoted to the Zionist cause, was a certain Eric Forbes Adams. And so, every day in the delegation offices we used to argue about this matter and every day I would say "Eric it's no good. You can't take a lot of people into someone else's country without creating troubles of every possible description." And he became very exhausted and tired of me saying this rigmarole, which I constantly repeated, and he said, "Will you fix a date to lunch with me some time off, so I can make some arrangements.

When I got to the lunch on Friday week, who were the other guests but Lawrence of Arabia and the Emir Faisal, and I was converted to Zionism by those two men, Faisal making speeches and Lawrence of Arabia translating.

Faisal said to me "Of course we want Zionists to come to Palestine. We know what will happen. They'll bring vast sums of American and other capital from abroad. They'll bring in the greatest scientists (All the greatest scientists are Jewish) The territory of Palestine, now so arid and so much of it a desert, will be transformed. It will become a garden. It will blossom like the rose. We shall borrow their experts. We will work together. We will do the same in all the countries that we Arabs have turned into deserts. We shall make them flourish again, as they used to in the past..."
Philip Noel Baker, a Delegate at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919

So, in 1919, there they all were round the table discussing the future of Palestine- The Zionist leaders under Chaim Weizmann, as well as the Arab leaders and Lawrence of Arabia. Basically what happened was this. The Arab team, led by Emir Faisal from Mecca, welcomed the Jewish delegation as cousins. They told them that they were very happy that the Jews were coming back to establish a homeland in Palestine but they wanted to know what the borders of this homeland would be so that both sides would be talking about the same thing.

The problem was this- Palestine was not a country with definite borders. It was a bit of a splodge that included practically anything you wanted to include. Talking about Palestine in those days was a bit like talking about Scandinavia. Does Scandinavia include just Denmark, Norway and Sweden or is Finland included? Then, what about Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania? Everyone has an opinion on what Scandinavia is but not all agree. It was the same with Palestine. It included all kinds of areas. Palestine even included Damascus and none of the Jews or Arabs would have considered including Damascus in the Jewish homeland as it was so important to the Arabs. So the Arabs were sympathetic but they wanted to know what the borders of this homeland would be.

Chaim Weizmann and his team drew up a set of proposals, which they presented to Faisal. Here is the relevant part of the document:

The boundaries of Palestine shall follow the general lines set out below:-

Starting on the North at a point on the Mediterranean Sea in the vicinity south of Sidon and following the watersheds of the foothills of the Lebanon as far as JISR EL KARAON, thence to EL BIRE, following the dividing line between the two basins of the WADI EL KORN and the WADI ET TEIM, thence in a southerly direction following the dividing line between the Eastern and Western slopes of the HERMON, to the vicinity west of BEIT JENN, thence eastward following the northern watersheds of the NAHR MUGHANIYE close to and west of the Hedjaz Railway.

In the east a line close to and west of Hedjaz Railway terminating in the Gulf of Akaba.

In the south a frontier to be agreed upon with the Egyptian Government.

In the west the Mediterranean Sea.

The details of the delimitation's, or any necessary adjustments of detail, shall be settled by a Special Commission on which there shall be Jewish representation.

So, imagine a line from just below Sidon (a large chunk of Lebanon) a line going south east cutting Mount Hermon in half and going over the Jordan and on as far as the Hedjaz railway, then following a little to the west of this railway, ending up to the west of Aqaba. The Egyptian border would be more-or-less as it is today and to the west would be the Mediterranean. This was, of course, far larger than Israel is today.

What was the attitude of the Arab team to the proposed border of Jewish Palestine- and to the rest of the package presented to them by Chaim Weizmann?

The Emir Faisal wrote:

"We feel the Arabs and Jews are cousins in race, having suffered similar oppression at the hands of powers stronger than themselves and by a happy coincidence have been able to take the first step towards the attainment of their national goals together. We Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement. Our delegation here in Paris is fully acquainted with the proposals submitted yesterday to the Zionist organization to the Peace Conference, and we regard them as moderate and proper....we will wish the Jews a most hearty welcome home."
King Faisal, in letter to leading American Zionist, Felix Frankfurter,1919.

This is the agreement that was signed:

Text of the Weizmann-Faisal Agreement January 1919

His Royal Highness the Emir FAISAL, representing and acting on behalf of the Arab Kingdom of HEJAZ, AND Dr. Chaim Weizmann, representing and acting on behalf of the Zionist Organization, mindful of the racial kinship and ancient bonds existing between the Arabs and the Jewish people, and realizing that the surest means of working out the consummation of their national aspirations, is through the closest possible collaboration in the development of the Arab State and Palestine, and being desirous further of confirming the good understanding which exists between them, have agreed upon the following articles:

Article I

The Arab State and Palestine in all their relations and undertakings shall be controlled by the most cordial goodwill and understanding and to this end Arab and Jewish duly accredited agents shall be established and maintained in their respective territories.

Article II

Immediately following the completion of deliberations of the Peace Conference, the definite boundaries between the Arab State and Palestine shall be determined by a commission to be agreed upon by the parties hereto.

Article III

In the establishment of the Constitution and Administration of Palestine all such measures shall be adopted as will afford the fullest guarantees for carrying into effect the British Government’s Declaration of the 2nd of November, 1917 (Balfour Declaration-SEH).

Article IV

All necessary measures will be taken to encourage and stimulate immigration of Jews into Palestine on a large scale, and as quickly as possible to settle Jewish immigrants upon the land through closer settlement and intensive cultivation of the soil. In taking such measures the Arab peasants and tenant farmers shall be protected in their rights, and shall be assisted in forwarding their economic development.

Article V

No regulation or law shall be made prohibiting or interfering in any way with the free exercise of religion; and further the free exercise and expression of religious profession and worship without discrimination or preference shall for ever be allowed. No religious test shall ever be required for the exercise of civil or religious rights.

Article VI

The Muslim Holy Places shall be under Muslim control.

Article VII

The Zionist Organization proposes to send to Palestine a Commission of experts to make a survey of the economic possibilities of the country, and to report upon the best means for its development. The Zionist Organization will place the aforementioned Commission at the disposal of the Arab State for the purpose of a survey of the economic possibilities of the Arab State and to report on the best means for its development. The Zionist Organization will use its best efforts to assist the Arab State in providing the means for developing the natural resources and economic possibilities thereof.

Article VIII

The parties hereto agree to act in complete accord and harmony in all matters embraced herein before the Peace Congress.

Article IX

Any matters of dispute which may arise between the contracting parties shall be referred to the British Government for arbitration.

Given under our hand at LONDON, ENGLAND, the Third DAY OF January, one thousand Nine Hundred and Nineteen.

(Faisal then added the following in his own handwriting before signing)

Provided the Arabs obtain their independence as demanded in my Memorandum dated the 4th of January, 1919, to the Foreign Office of the Government of Great Britain, I shall concur in the above articles. But if the slightest modification or departure were to be made. I shall not then be bound by a single word of the present Agreement which shall be deemed void and of no account or validity, and I shall not be answerable in any way whatsoever.

FAISAL IBN HUSAIN

CHAIM WEIZMANN

And so, during the Paris peace talks in 1919, the Arabs on Faisal’s team were happy about the idea of a Jewish homeland. They felt that it would be good for the Arabs as well as good for the Jews. They all smiled and shook hands. Chaim Weizmann went home and told the Jews they had a homeland and King Faisal and his team went back to Mecca.

And this is where it all went pear-shaped….

There were several problems. The first problem- many would argue- was that the Emir Faisal did not represent all the Arabs. He represented the Kingdom of Hedjaz, around Mecca and he did not have a large power base. The Arabs as a whole, had no real concept of Arab unity. Their loyalties were to their tribes and to their tribal leaders.

If you have ever watched the film “Lawrence of Arabia” starring Peter O'Toole, you might recall one scene in which Lawrence is talking about Arab independence. One of the tribesmen with him says, “I know the X tribe and I know the Y tribe but who are these Arabs?”

That pretty well summed up the situation. Just because the Emir Faisal signed an agreement did not necessarily mean that every Arab from every tribe in every area considered himself bound by that agreement. (That was one of the reasons for the British Mandate. The Mandate was not only to prepare the Jews to take over their independent homeland but to train and prepare the Arabs to take over their homeland and to govern it responsibly.)

So, as a result of the agreement with Sharif Husayn, how many Arabs ended up fighting alongside the British?

David Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister, noted that, in contrast with the Moslems in the British Empire, most of the Arabs in the Ottoman Empire fought for their Turkish rulers. (The Turks had, after all, ruled there for about 400 years and most Arabs- and Jews- thought it likely they would remain there for another 400 years. It is hard to blame the Arabs for fighting with the Turks- and practically all the Arabs in Palestine did.)

Faisal was one of the very few exceptions and he had very few troops at his disposal:

"Lawrence’s army amounted to only 1,800 men in his most famous action, the capture of Aqaba in the summer of 1917, and only 600 of his men took part in General Allenby’s campaign to conquer Jerusalem.

The British treasury paid, in gold, the equivalent of $20,000,000 for Arab cooperation. That comes to $11,111 for each one of the 1,800 Arabs who fought at Aqaba."
British Government Archives.
( C:\WINDOWS\Desktop\The Roadmap to\Arabs, Jews & Promised Land.htm )

"The Emir Faisal, in addressing the Paris Peace Conference in February 1919, turned the few train wreckings by his Bedouins into an "advance of 800 miles by the Arab army." The army (of 600 men) did, in fact, move about 800 miles north-ward, but most of the advance took place only after the British, Australian, and French forces (and in the latter stage a Jewish force) had already driven out the Turks. The size of the army, Faisal claimed, was 100,000, and it had suffered 20,000 casualties. To top it all, his army, he declared, had taken 40,000 prisoners. This tale, however, so suited the British interests at the time that it was only eighteen years later that the British Prime Minister, who had been present at Faisal's speech, described his figures as "Oriental arithmetic." At the time the statement was woven into the fable, disseminated by the British, and accepted by the world at large as a measure of the scope and impact of the "Revolt in the Desert." "
From "A Garland of Myths" by Shmuel Katz (Chapter 6- Battleground)

So Faisal did not represent many of the Arabs and he did not have a large power base. He only got away with it at the time because it was so much in Britain’s interests to put him forward as the main spokesman for the Arab people.

Another problem was that, even if Faisal had truly represented the Arabs, some would argue that his heart was not necessarily in the establishment of a Jewish state. They would state that Lloyd George had “made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.” If the Arabs wanted their Independent state, then they would have to accept the Jewish state as well. They would argue that Faisal was willing to go along with it, and to say all the right things for the media, but he was not necessarily an Arab Zionist.

Then there was another problem. Britain, in order to fulfil her promises to both Arabs and Jews, had to take all the land in question. Britain did take all the land and, while she had control of it, she was able to do what she liked with it. Unfortunately the French decided to butt in. They pointed out that they had fought too and had suffered at least as much as the British. Why shouldn’t they be rewarded for their help? So the British said, fair enough, we’ll give the French something too. Shortening the story considerably, the British gave Syria and Lebanon to the French. This became the French Mandate:

“Mesopotamia….yes…oil….irrigation….we must have Mesopotamia; Palestine…yes…the Holy Land…Zionism…We must have Palestine; Syria…Hm…What is there in Syria? Let the French have that…” David Lloyd George, Prime Minister of Britain, overheard thinking aloud by Arnold Toynbee adviser to the British Delegation at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.

All the rest- Palestine and the areas that became Jordan and Iraq- went to the British and became known as the British Mandate. Once this agreement was signed, the Arabs naturally felt that they had been betrayed and they were not going to get their independent state. That meant that all bets were off and any agreements that they had signed were null and void….

Provided the Arabs obtain their independence as demanded in my Memorandum dated the 4th of January, 1919, to the Foreign Office of the Government of Great Britain, I shall concur in the above articles. But if the slightest modification or departure were to be made. I shall not then be bound by a single word of the present Agreement which shall be deemed void and of no account or validity, and I shall not be answerable in any way whatsoever.

FAISAL IBN HUSAIN

All these problems were huge but there was also a far more serious problem: up to this point the Jews had been dealing with the Arabs as human beings. Now they faced the Arabs as Moslems. From that point on, the problems in the Middle East became spiritual and have remained so to this day.

King Faisal and his team were met by the Moslem religious authorities from Mecca, who were not at all happy. “You bunch of idiots!” they yelled, in effect. “What are you doing? You’re giving away Moslem land!”

The problem was (is) that in Islam the world is divided into two camps. Dar al-Islam (The House of Submission) is the area controlled by Islam. (this is sometimes known as Dar as Salaam- The house of peace)

The Rest of the world is referred to as Dar al-Harb (The House of the Sword). In other words, Dar al-Harb is the area not yet under the domination of Islam because one day they intend to get the lot.

"Oh beloved, look to the East of the earth, find Japan and the ocean; look to the West of the earth, find [some] country and the ocean. Be assured that these will be owned by the Muslim nation, as the Hadith says… 'from the ocean to the ocean…'"
Sheikh Ibrahim Madhi at the Sheikh 'Ijlin Mosque in Gaza City, broadcast live on April 12, 2002 by Palestinian Authority television:

The land that King Faisal had agreed would be given to the Jews as their homeland was part of Dar al-Islam and, because of this, it was absolutely forbidden for Moslems to give it to the Jews, or to anyone else. As Palestine had been conquered by Islam, in Moslem eyes it had to remain under Moslem control until judgment day. Any promises made by Faisal to the Jews were null and void.

For several centuries it hadn’t been an issue as Islam had been comatose. It was almost a non-religion. People would say, “I am a Moslem” in the same way that the average nominal Christian today- the sort that might go to church once a year at Christmas- might say, “I am a Christian.”

It was at this time in history, however, after centuries asleep, that Islam woke up.

And here we come to the first key to understanding the Middle East. We need to understand that God actually exists. He is not a myth. He is real. He has absolutely knowledge, understanding, wisdom, authority and power and he is in control of our destinies. God is the Being, who inspired the Bible that we read today. You cannot understand the Middle East unless you understand that God does exist and he has His agenda in the Middle East.

If you are a half-decent Christian or Jew you believe in this God. More specifically, you believe in the existence of the God who created the world; the God who called Abraham from Haran after his father had migrated from Ur; the God who led the descendants of Israel into Egypt- and led them out again centuries later; the God who made a covenant with them at Mount Sinai; who led them through the wilderness and brought them into the Promised Land. You understand all that because you read the Bible, which is the book that you believe that he inspired, and that is what the Bible says.

And now on to key number two:

You may also be aware that other people read the Bible as well- people, who are neither Jews nor Christians and who have no intention of becoming either. One person, who knows it far better than any Jew or Christian will ever know it in this lifetime, is Satan the Devil. Most people believe that Satan is a myth, but the sad fact is that Satan is not a myth any more than God is a myth. He exists. He is a real being. Understanding that Satan actually exists is key number two. He has vast knowledge; he is highly intelligent and has a great deal of charm and charisma but he is totally warped and unutterably evil. He hates God with all his being and he hates every one of us but he hates the Jews far more than any other people because they represent God and the existence of theJewish people is one of the greatest proofs that God exists. He hates God. He can’t kill God but he can- and he does- attack his people, the Jews.

Satan (It is a Hebrew name. It means Enemy) has read the Bible countless times and he is very familiar with the prophecies that talk about bringing the Jewish people home to the land after their exile by the Romans. When he reads on, he sees that the Messiah/ Jesus is going to come back shortly after that and that he will take over the government of this planet. Satan reads a little further and he sees that he himself will then be out of a job and that he will be flung into the abyss with all the rest of his henchmen. He has known God for countless millennia and he knows that what God says He will do He will do. Satan knows that once the Jewish people start coming back to this land, the clock will start to tick and soon he will be out in the cold.

What can he do? He tried- and failed- to destroy the entire Jewish people during the time of Esther. He tried- and failed miserably- to destroy the promised Messiah. In fact, by his own efforts, he gave this Messiah his final victory, which gave him the right to take over Satan’s position as the god of this world. Time after time he attacked the Jewish people and the Christians. He did them a great deal of damage but, in the end, he only ended up making them stronger.

Then, during the 1880’s, Satan stirred up the Czar of Russia to persecute the Jews and then watched as this persecution caused the Jews to start to leave Russia and to come back to the land in large numbers, like homing pigeons. He watched the first aliyah followed by the second and the third. He watched as the State of Israel was born “in a day” as prophesied and survived attack from five Arab nations simultaneously. He watched as Israel defeated the Arab armies so decisively in 1967 and in 1973. He watched as the Iron Curtain fell and over one million Soviet Jews came here within ten years.

And so, back in 1919, he watched in horror as the Jewish people were promised a homeland in Palestine and he realised that he would have to do something quick. He could see that the Arabs, as human beings, would welcome the Jews back as cousins and also out of sheer self-interest, because anyone with any brains would know that they would bring prosperity to the land- and to themselves.

Satan has a lot of irons in the fire and one of the ones he is using now is the desire of Islam to conquer the world. Reading between the lines, he obviously decided to use Islam to block the Jewish homeland. He would re-awaken the Islamic desire to take over the world and he would remind the faithful that the land in question was Islamic land and must remain so until judgment day. In this way he could con the average sincere Moslem into opposing God and still be 200% convinced that he was serving him. It is not Moslems, as human beings, who are the enemy. Most Moslems, though deceived, are quite normal, decent people. Satan is the enemy and he always has been.

Satan then inspired a re-awakened Islam to fight the British efforts to establish the Jewish State until the British slowly yielded to the pressure and began to deny most Jewish people the right to enter the land. Satan then raised up Adolf Hitler to persecute the Jews in Europe.

A conference was held in Evian, on the Lake of Geneva in France in 1938 to determine how the world could help the Jews. The representatives of almost every nation got up and said how sorry they were for the Jews but they couldn’t possibly help. A few nations did take some Jews but, on the whole, most took none. Hitler was then able to say, “You don’t want the Jews any more than we do. But please don’t worry. I’ll take care of the problem for you!” Satan then inspired Hitler and the Nazis to annihilate every single Jew. He reasoned that, if every Jew was dead, the Messiah would have nobody to come back to, so he might not come at all and Satan would keep his job and would not be flung into the abyss. Under Satan’s influence, Hitler murdered a total of 6 million Jews, but did not succeed in killing them all, and- once again- Satan’s plot backfired as it led to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

Under Satan’s guidance, Islamic opposition to the Jewish State has continued right up the present day.

So that is spiritual problem number one- the desire of Islam to take back the land stolen from them by the Jews.

The other spiritual problem is that Israel is still predominantly a secular state. Most Israelis in fact, are just as secular and non-religious as most Britons or Europeans. Many of them are totally agnostic and many of them do not even believe in the existence of the God, who appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob.

If God does not exist, it follows that their entire history is a collection of myths; It follows that he did not choose the people of Israel; that he did not bring them out of Egypt; that he did not bring them through the Red Sea; that he did not lead them across to Mount Sinai and that he did not make a covenant with them at the foot of that mountain;

It means that he did not lead them over the Jordan river to this land and that he did not give them this land. It means that he has not been involved in bringing them back from exile after 2,000 years. If God does not exist, then he is not fighting for them and they have exactly the same right to this land that any other nation would have- the right of the strongest.

If God does not exist, then we are left with simple mathematics- about 5 million Israeli Jews (with roughly 18 million Jews worldwide, including Israel) against about 200 million Moslem Arabs who are dedicated to their destruction- not to mention a total of about 1.3 billion Moslems in the world and practically every other nation against them as well! With those odds- if there is no God- who would you say is eventually going to win? You don't have to be a professor of mathematics to realise that Israel is eventually going to weaken and be destroyed. It is inevitable.

Their morale, in fact, is already beginning to weaken. They have been fighting the same war against the same enemy for generations. It doesn't matter how often they win or how decisively they win, the same hate-filled enemy is still there and they have to go on fighting them; their sons will have to go on fighting them and their sons will have to go on fighting them....and their sons....and their sons...No nation on earth could keep up its moral strength for generation after generation- as they have- for all these years, without finally
caving in. It is inevitable that one day Israel will weaken and will be destroyed.....

.....If there is no God.

But the God who created this planet does exist; the God who appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob does exist.

The Jewish people could not have survived 2,000 years of persecution without God. Israel could not have survived through 1948 without God. It would have lasted for about six weeks after its independence was declared- just as General Montgomery predicted! Israel would not have won the 1967 war so decisively without God. (At the time I was in the British Army and was convinced you were going to lose and that there would be another holocaust- this time of the Jews in Israel.

Israel would have been destroyed in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 without God. Anyone who was in that war (as I was as an innocent tourist, doing my best not to get blown to bits!) knows that deep down.

No, the fact is that God does exist and the Jews don't have to worry about the maths. He invented maths but he is not bound by it. He is fighting on their side and he is going to win- whatever the odds.

This, of course, is very reassuring but it is not a blank cheque to live any way they like. Throughout the ages God has blessed his people when they obeyed him and has cursed them when they did not. He has the power to keep the Jews in this land and he has the power to remove them. It would, therefore, be very much in their interests to accept that the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob; the God who created this planet and who called them out of Egypt, does exist; to accept that he did give this land to the Children of Israel and that he did give them his way of life, outlined in the Tanakh. It would be very much in their interests to obey this God and to live his way of life. If they do, their lives are in the hands of God and their future is assured.

The conflict in the Middle East is, therefore, a war between two Gods- the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob against the god of Islam. Many of the followers of the god of Islam are deeply committed to his agenda- driving out the Jews and annihilating them- but, unfortunately, far too many of the Jews do not believe that their God even exists.

It is a very unfair contest. God is God and He can tell the Spirit of Islam, “Enough already!” any time he wants and that Spirit will no choice but to obey. If the Israeli people turn back to God- the God, who brought them out of Egypt; the God who gave them this land in the first place- then you can forget the mathematics. The future is theirs.

As far as the rest of us go: I once saw a poster of a great crowd of ducks all milling around. The caption read, “ Do something! Lead, follow or get out of the way!”

That sounds like good advice.

HOME
ISLAM AND THE WEST
PEACE? WHAT PEACE?
ISLAM AND THE JEWS
HITLER AND THE JEWS.
PALESTINE SINCE THE ROMANS
THE BRITISH MANDATE
ISRAEL IS BORN
PALESTINIAN SOCIETY
VARIOUS ACCORDS AND PEACE PLANS
WHAT IS THE TRUTH?
WORLD ANTI-SEMITISM
ISLAM AND CHRISTIAN ARABS
SUMMING UP
IT COULD HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT.