Topics Menu
We are a Christian Fellowship meeting in North London with a strong interest in teaching the Bible and understanding our time in
the light of Bible prophecy
Under siege - Israel or the Palestinians
Recently I had the opportunity to address a mixed audience at a meeting in
Southend arranged by Fair Reporting, a response group looking at the issue
of bias in media reporting on Israel. A number of church-goers who take a
negative view to Israel turned up which gave rise to lively discussion after
my talk.
Their view was that Israel is a country which has taken Arab land by force
and is guilty of running an Apartheid regime in which the Palestinians are
like David, oppressed by a cruel Goliath called Israel supplied with the
latest weapons by the United States. Influential on their thought was the
Christian Aid film, Peace under Siege, which claims that Israel is
responsible for the continuous displacement of the Palestinian people and
the fact that there are no jobs in the Palestinian areas. Rev. Lucy Winket,
interviewed on the film, spoke of Israeli soldiers shooting at children
firing live ammunition at stone throwers with a result that at every
corner a Palestinian boy is shot.
Israel under siege from Islamic hatred
The very title of this film gives the lie to the real situation. It is not a
peaceful Palestine that is under siege to an aggressive militaristic
Israel. In real terms Israel remains the David besieged by the hostile
Islamic Goliath, which is indoctrinating its population, especially its
youth, with the most virulent anti-Semitic hatred imaginable and arming
itself to the teeth.
Textbooks in Palestinian Authority (PA) schools teach that Jews are evil
racists, treacherous, enemies of the Prophets, and that suicide bombers
who murder Jews are heroes and martyrs. Parents of suicide bombers
publicly declare how proud they are that their children choose to become
martyrs. In PA run summer camps, children receive weapons training, stage
skits in which they kidnap and murder Israelis, and sing songs about
destroying Israel and replacing it with Palestine. None of this of course
is mentioned in the Christian Aid film. Nor did it show Palestinian gunmen
using children throwing stones as a cover for their attacks on Israeli
soldiers. These gunmen are the ones really responsible for every child who
is shot or hurt in the conflict.In their mosques PA appointed clergymen
teach Muslims that they have a religious obligation to wage jihad (Muslim
holy war) against Jews and Israel. The PA controlled media pumps out a
constant flood of hatred, which has become so severe that Rabbi Eric Yoffie
protested what he called the anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi language in the
Palestinian media. The maps used in PA schools, media, official offices,
and even on the T-shirts worn in summer camps show all Israel as Palestine.
The goal of destroying Israel is not some theory or far-off dream. It is
the living, breathing reality of everyday Palestinian Arab society.
Of course this is not just the situation in the PA controlled areas. Hatred
of Jews is widespread throughout the Muslim world. Muslim anti-Semitism sees
Jews involved in a sinister plot to destroy Islam, depicting Jews as enemies
of God, of humanity, and of Islam. In Muslim countries, The Protocols of
the Elders of Zion, the 19th-century document claiming to reveal a Jewish
plan to conquer the world, is widely distributed, quoted, and believed. This
notorious forgery, which originated in Tsarist Russia, was a key part of
Hitler’s propaganda campaign to demonise the Jews in the run up to the
Holocaust. The official Egyptian Government Television broadcast a 40-part
series claiming that for the past century, Jews have been trying to take
over the world in accordance with the plan described in The Protocols of
the Elders of Zion. A study of Saudi Arabian school textbooks found
numerous references to the Protocols.
Mahathir Mohamad, Prime Minister of Malaysia, used his speech at the opening
session of the 57-state Organisation of the Islamic Conference in Putrajaya,
Malaysia, on 16 October 2003 to argue that the Jews control the world: The
Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million, but today the Jews rule
the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them. The speech
got a standing ovation from the assembled kings, presidents, sheikhs and
emirs, including many who run supposedly moderate pro Western regimes.
Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi, in his role as President of Europe,
wanted to put out a statement from the EU condemning Mahatir saying he used
expressions that were gravely offensive and very strongly anti-Semitic.
This move however was vetoed by French President Chirac.
Palestinians oppressed by their own leaders
At the meeting in Southend a number of accusations were made about the way
Israel treats the Palestinians, for example the erection of the wall in the
West Bank, which makes it difficult for Palestinians to travel, and the way
Arab Christians are treated in Bethlehem and Beit Jala. I pointed out that
the wall is only being built because of terrorism against Israel. If
terrorism ceased there would be no need for the wall.
Before the current Intifada began in 2000 many Israelis were travelling into
Palestinian areas to trade and to visit restaurants and other businesses to
the benefit of the local Palestinian economy. In our Winter 2000 / 2001
issue (available on request) I quoted an article written just before the
Intifada began written by Hirsch Goodman in The Jerusalem Report
expressing the Israeli hope that normal relations would develop between
Israelis and Palestinians through trade and leisure activities. When Arafat
chose to abandon the peace process and launch the Intifada this hope was
cruelly dashed.
As far as the treatment of Arab Christians is concerned, the inhabitants of
Bethlehem and Beit Jala and other traditional Christian areas of the
territories have been systematically oppressed and often driven from their
homes by force by Muslims. When Palestinian gunmen were attacking the
southern Jerusalem suburb of Gilo during the current Intifada, they forcibly
commandeered Christian homes just across the Green Line in Beit Jala as
bases from which they fired on Jewish homes. There have also been examples
of Muslim converts to Christianity in the PA areas being persecuted and even
killed by the authorities.
In fact all over the Muslim world Christian minorities are facing
persecution, with churches being burned down, forced conversions to Islam
and the suppression of the most basic human rights. Why is there so little
protest about this from the Western church when it happens in Egypt, Saudi
Arabia, Iran and Iraq, but uproar over the situation for Palestinian
Christians? Why is Israel always blamed for the problems of Palestinian
Christians instead of Islam?
Regarding the economic situation for the Palestinians, again the real
responsibility for this must lie with those who have launched the Intifada.
Israel has to take steps to defend itself against terrorism. As a result
Palestinians have lost their jobs in Israel and also trading opportunities.
Added to this is the scandal of Arafat’s gross misuse of funds. The
International Monetary Fund reported that between 1995 and 2000 Arafat
seized $750 million from the PA budget and placed the funds in a bank
account under his sole control. Much of this money was donated by the EU to
provide hospitals, schools and basic infrastructure for the PA areas.
As in many other Arab regimes, the poverty and backwardness of the people is
caused by the corruption and incompetence of the leaders. Israel then
becomes the convenient scapegoat to blame for the suffering of the people,
diverting attention from their rulers who are the real culprits, just as
happened to Jewish people in Tsarist Russia and Nazi Germany. For the most
part our media buys this lie which is why so many people today, including
Christians, are seeing Israel as the cause of all the troubles of the Middle
East and even as the number one threat to world peace, as a recent survey in
the EU concluded.
Conclusion
All of this reminds us of the words of the Bible which speak of a time of
trouble coming for Israel and the Jewish people in the last days of this
age. In Daniel 12.1 we read:
At that time Michael shall stand up, the great prince who stands watch over
the sons of your people; and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never
was since there was a nation, even to that time. And at that time your
people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book.
God is looking for believing Christians to stand by Israel and the Jewish
people and to oppose the spirit of anti-Semitism, which is always
anti-Christian in essence as well. As Paul wrote in Romans 11.28-9 the
Jewish people are beloved for the sake of the fathers, for the gifts and
calling of God are irrevocable. The reason for this whole controversy over
Israel and the Jewish people is that Satan knows that Jesus is coming again
soon to destroy his evil world system and he is throwing everything he can
against Israel and the Jewish people in the vain attempt to prevent this
from happening. The place Jesus is coming to is Jerusalem and that is why
the whole situation around Jerusalem is the focus of so much world
attention. In the book of Zechariah we read that Jerusalem will be a
burdensome stone for all nations (i.e. the whole world will somehow be
involved in a controversy over Jerusalem) in the days before the second
coming of Jesus. When He comes He will set up His Millennial kingdom from
Jerusalem and The kingdoms of this world will become the kingdom of our
Lord and of His Messiah and He shall reign forever and ever! (Revelation 11.15).
