Israel's land: Separating fact from propaganda

 Israel's land: Separating fact from propaganda - By Pastor AllenJackson - https://www.wnd.com/2023/11/israels-land-separating-fact-propaganda/ Much of what's being reported about the war in Israel is disconnected from facts and reality. The outlets communicating information to us seem to no longer have the responsibilityof fact checking – and when they tell you they're fact checking, it's usually just censorship. To interpret some of the things you're hearing about Israel and the Middle East, it's important to understand some basic history. Being informed will help you knowhow to categorize the information you're hearing – whether it bears reflection, or if it should be discarded as propaganda. To help you get started, here's a very abbreviated list of historical facts and information about the land where Israel rests today – the land that is at the point of thiscurrent conflict. Let's begin by acknowledging that Palestine was not an Arab nation in 1948, when the nation of Israel was recognized by the United Nations. So, formally and technically, theJewish people did not take over someone else's territory. Great Britain had mandated authority over the Middle East until they became tired of governing the volatile area and asked the United Nations (U.N.) to help resolve the problem.Before Great Britain was tasked with administering the region after World War I, the Turks had controlled the area since the 1500s. (Just for the record, the Turks are not Arabs.) Palestine has never been the name of any country. The name "Palestine" came from the Romans. After the Jews rebelled (again) in A.D. 130, the Romans wanted to rid the regionof any semblance of Jewishness. So, they moved the Jews out, populated the area with former soldiers, and renamed it. They wanted to separate Jerusalem, so they renamed the city and the region. The name that was chosen was "Philistia," which eventually turned into "Palestine." The name camefrom the ancient Philistines – Goliath, in the story of David and Goliath, was a Philistine. The Philistines were a biblical people back in the Old Testament, but they were eliminated and removed when the Babylonians marched on that part of the world in theseventh century B.C. The present-day Arab world has no connection to those biblical people. "Palestine" was a geographic region. It was never a nation. There was never a president of the state, or a Palestinian governor, or a Palestinian government. It's similarto how the Midwest is a region of our nation. We understand it to be a region of territory, but it's not governed by some central administration. It's simply a way of designating an area. In addition, the region of Palestine did not have any connection to Arab ethnicity. Muhammad was not born until the seventh century A.D., but the Romans labeled the area "Palestine"in the second century A.D. The U.N. Partition vote, which took place in November of 1947, extended the opportunity for two nations to be recognized. They proposed an Arab nation on the west side ofthe Jordan River, but the Arab world rejected the partition. The other part of the plan was for a Jewish nation. Israel accepted the offer, and in May of 1948, the modern state of Israel was born. The day after the nation of Israel was born and recognized, five Arab nations declared war on the new Jewish state. Over the radio stations (the primary media outlet at thetime), those nations told the local population to take a vacation while they drove the Jews into the sea. To the world's great surprise, those five Arab nations and their standing armies, in their united front, lost that war. The people on the West Bank of the Jordan River could have had peace. But they chose war, in an attempt to drive the Jews into the sea. That language is similar to what we'rehearing today. In 1948, when the ceasefire was declared, Israel had defended the territory they had been granted. Jordan controlled the territory on the West Bank of the Jordan River, andEgypt controlled Gaza. The Arabs in the West Bank became part of Jordan, and the Arabs in Gaza became part of Egypt. When the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was created, Jordan controlled the West Bank, and the "Palestine" they wanted to liberate was Israel. Israel was occupyingthe land that had been granted by the U.N. As a part of that original plan, if the PLO really wanted to liberate the land that had been granted to that area by the U.N., they should have been fighting Jordan and Egypt. Before Israel was birthed in 1948, everyone living in the region was considered Palestinian, whether they were Arab or Jew. The Jewish-owned newspaper was called The PalestinianPost. If you want a little broader view of history, Jerusalem has been the capital of only one country: Israel. King David established Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in 1000B.C. If you do the math, that was more than 1,500 years before Muhammad was born. Today, you hear that Israel was a country recognized by the U.N. but that they don't have an historic right to the land (or something along those lines).But most of the countries of the Middle East are relatively new: •Jordan was created in 1922 by Great Britain. They took 80% of the ancient region known as Palestine, and they created Transjordan on the eastern side of the Jordan River.It achieved independence in 1946. •The Syrians were under French control until 1946. •Lebanon received independence from France in 1943. •Iraq became an independent nation in 1958. •These were nations created from the Ottoman Empire after World War I, when the Turks were defeated. They hadn't existed prior to the San Remo conference, which took placein 1920. If you need a different perspective, the land mass of the Arab states (not including the non-Arab states of Turkey and Iran) occupies about 98.4% of the land in the region.Israel occupies about 1.6%. These are the facts, but the talking point we hear is, "There can be no peace until Israel gives up some territory." Another interesting fact is the words "Jerusalem" or "Zion" appear nearly a thousand times in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. It never appears in the Quran. That's a quick history of the land where Israel rests today, and most of it fulfills biblical prophecy. Doing a little bit of work to understand the facts of history willhelp you separate truth from propaganda. Now, let's explore what this means to those who are Christ-followers. Whenever there's a war in the Middle East, and particularly when there's a war that includes Israel (andthere have been a number in my lifetime), the Christian world begins to talk about the end of time. We discuss Jesus' return, Gog and Magog, the armies coming out of the north, Armageddon, or some combination of these. At the very best, this response is confusing. It can also be intimidating or frightening. Oftentimes it interrupts our momentum. We tend to get distracted, trying to figureout what's going on, and we end up withdrawing from the arena we've very clearly been assigned. Today, I invite you back to your kitchen table, your holiday table, and into your peer groups to be advocates for Jesus. Because no matter what you believe about the raptureor the end of time, our assignment stays the same: To go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. Jesus said He would be with us always, to the very end of the age. And if you're not busy with the assignment, you have no promise from Scriptureof His abiding presence. Here's one final fact: The absence of truth in the public squareis primarily because there's an absence of truth in the hearts of God's people. If we have a desire to seek the truth and see truth find its way, once again, into those broader discussions of our culture, society, academia and wherever that may be – it willbe because God's people have chosen the truth with a greater intensity and a greater purposefulness than has defined our lives to this point. As much as we want others to change, I believe that in God's sovereign plan, we are the change agents. The authority that we stand in isn't political or economic. It's alsonot about our numbers, because Jesus very clearly said His followers would be in the minority. Our authority comes from the One we serve. The United Nations didn't establish Israel. In the book of Genesis, God promised a piece of territory – a piece of terra firma that you can find with Google maps – to thedescendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob forever. God is unchanging and all-powerful, and as we move forward, we will see His purposes accomplished for Israel and His people.