Dr. Herbert Hillel Goldberg
Israel is a primary target of Satan’s enmity against God and mankind on earth. Called the Accuser (Adversary, or the vernacular devil), the father of lies hates the God of truth and hates His Word because it embodies the truth (Ps. 119:160). Israel became the channel for the Word of God and for the salvation of the world. And because of this, Israel caused the evil one great losses and revealed to mankind how he would ultimately be utterly defeated.
One strategy of the Adversary is to always cast doubt on the word of truth. Israel stands in his way, however, because the millennia-long existence of this nation is in itself an affirmation of the truth of God’s Word and the fulfilled prophecies recorded in its pages.
Using a serpent as an agent, Satan already sowed doubts in man in Paradise, “Did God say?” (Gen. 3:1). It is easy to recognize the Adversary’s own striving for power in the seductive words, “You will be like God” (v. 5).
God called Moses to lead the people of Israel enslaved in Egypt to freedom. He was told to say to Pharaoh, “‘Thus says the LORD, Israel is My firstborn son: And I say unto you, Let My son go, that he may serve Me’” (Ex. 4:22-23). Since Pharaoh would demand wonders, God instructed Moses to throw his brother Aaron’s staff to the ground and it would turn into a serpent. Pharaoh’s magicians and sorcerers did likewise and their staffs turned into snakes. Pharaoh’s heart hardened. This was followed by other cases of deceptive illusions in Pharaoh’s presence.
As a result of the disobedience, the Egyptians suffered great plagues. But throughout, Israel was spared and, ultimately, was “brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand” (32:11) by God.
It is, first of all, God’s land. He is the legal owner and Israel is the custodial proprietor. These are legal distinctions. The list of Bible references as historical and legal proofs for Israel’s property title would fill all these pages. Whom God chose as trustee is known. The rights and regulations governing the working of the land, assigning portions of the harvests for offerings, times to leave the land fallow, terms of land transfer (to whom and for how long), are all recorded in the code of law of the Bible. Israel is familiar with this–and Jews keep it and act accordingly because they believe in the Bible. Only then does the land truly yield fruit. This phenomenon has been confirmed repeatedly during foreign occupations and the subsequent return of the Jewish people.
I urge you to read chapters 30 and 31 of the Prophet Jeremiah, where Israel is promised it would return from all nations to its old borders, “to the land that I gave their forefathers, and they will possess it” (30:3)
After WWI, the former League of Nations decided to return the circa 110,000 sq. km. (42,500 sq. mi.) of Palestine to the Jews. Defiantly, in 1921 the British Mandate gifted eighty percent of the region to a desert chieftain, Abdullah ibn al-Hussein, instead, renaming the land Transjordan. Later this became the Kingdom of Jordan, an entity never-before-seen in history.
In the remaining twenty percent, however, the British adhered to the proposal of their self-produced “White Paper,” restricting Jewish repatriation enormously, while generously permitting Arab immigration.
It might be said that, in this case, the adversarial imitation of prophecies–regarding the land and the people–was doubly successful. But God has not yet closed all His books on this subject.
States that have bullied Israel to give up land for Islamization have themselves suffered loss of land and loss of significance. Even in natural catastrophes, God’s warnings can be seen.
Following the dreadful Holocaust of our people, we were to own the remaining 21,000 sq. km. (8,100 sq. mi.), by international decision, and live there in peace. But a new imitation is being demanded. On Jewish land, falsely called “Palestine,” a second Palestinian state (Jordan is the first copy) is to be formed.
What criminality such a state would achieve we know very well from what happened when we gave up Gaza. It is a society where Muslim suicide bombers are glorified as martyrs for Allah. Consider also that the educators and media teach children beginning in kindergarten that Jews are inferior descendants of pigs and monkeys and must be destroyed.
The Arab states have about 14 million square kilometers (5.4 million sq. miles) of land, some 650 times as much as Israel has today. But when will Islam have enough? The goal is the subjugation of all the world.
But God’s Word speaks about just one nation, Israel. And Bible believers have no doubt about which side they must choose. Christians, too, know what God says: “Blessed is the man who listens to me” (Prov. 8:34). “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).
God warns those who take His land away from the Jews and want to drive them out, “Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Surely in the fire of My jealousy I have spoken against the remainder of the nations, and against all Edom, who have arrogated My land into their possession with the joy of all their heart, with despiteful minds, to cast it out for a prey” (Ezek. 36:5).
Terrorists attacking Israel.
God further declares He will bring all the nations together and “will contend with them there for My people and for My heritage Israel, which they have scattered among the nations, and parted My land” (Joel 3:2; 4:2 in some translations). And He adds, “if you requite Me, swiftly and speedily I will return your requital upon your own head” (v. 4).
So what have the gentile nations done that God wants to repay? The issue is what they have done to Israel. “All those who devoured you shall be devoured; and all your adversaries, every one of them, shall go into captivity; and those who spoil you shall be a spoil, and all who prey on you will I give for prey. For I will restore health to you, and I will heal you of your wounds, says the LORD; because they called you an outcast, saying, This is Zion, whom no man seeks after” (Jer. 30:16-17).
In 2005, Israel was coerced into giving up the ancient Jewish Gaza Strip for the sake of a hoped-for peace. Promises of peace? The region became a center for 12,000 rocket attacks on Israel. And what other nation protects Israel from such attacks?
Contemptuous of all scientific achievements of the Jews, Israel is now being pressed again, by academic boycotts and slogans similar to the Nazi era (“Don’t buy from Jews”), to give up Judea, Samaria, the Golan Heights down to the Sea of Galilee, even the oldest portions of Jerusalem with centuries-old synagogues. Via the United Nations, the European Union, and lately the United States as well on the side of the Arabs, it amounts to worldwide pressure on the Jewish state.
It is a deceitful effrontery and lie to call Israelis occupiers for freeing their own land, which had been occupied by the Arabs from 1948-1967. Many areas of Israel could be listed, which the Arabs are occupying. By contrast, Israel does not possess a grain of sand belonging to others.
What is to come? If Jerusalem, God’s personal domicile on earth–and He wants no other gods besides Himself–is to be Islamized, then the nations need not be surprised how quickly they themselves are Islamized–think of what has already tran-spired in Europe.
God promised a rebuilt land of Israel, through which all the world will be greatly blessed, a reawakening of ancient Israel. But the adversary wants something else–an imitation.
“Palestine” has been picked as the name for the land of Israel. Yet there has never been an autonomous Palestine, nor a Palestinian language or culture. In the second century, this was the name the Roman Emperor Hadrian chose for the land because he wanted to erase Israel and Judea once and for all. Accordingly, the Jews were called “Palestinians” and the name stuck. Before 1948, Jewish institutions, hospitals, newspapers bore the name. Even Jews living abroad were called Palestinians who would one day return to Palestine. I witnessed this personally.
Muslims lived here too. Most of the Arabs came from the surrounding nations in the region in the 20th century to find work among the Jews. Now they want to convert their host nation into one of their own making. Even today they still have relatives in the countries they came from. Previ-
ously, these Arabs refused to call themselves “Palestinians,” deeming the label Zionistic. Only in 1967, when Israel liberated Jewish areas–Judea, Samaria, Gaza and Jerusalem’s Old City–from 19 years of Arab occupation, did they come up with the notion to adopt the designation “Palestinians” for themselves and to declare themselves the “descendants of the Philistines.” Curiously, the Philistines had already died out 2,500 years ago.
These artificial Palestinians are not their own nation. Their language, culture/folklore, religion are exactly that of their neighbors. They do not fulfill the preconditions for sovereignty, haven’t even their own land to show. It is an effort to erase God’s plan with His people and replace it with a man-made copy.
“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap” (Gal. 6:7).
When the State of Israel was declared on May 14, 1948, within 24 hours, five Arab nations attacked the newly arisen Jewish state.
The invading armies called on their Arab fellowmen to leave Israel at once. They declared their intention to drive the Jews into the Mediterranean. Once the Jews were drowned, they boasted, the Arabs could return and seize the Jews’ property as well. The Arabs were even threatened by the armies that, should they not leave, they would be killed off along with the Jews. Israeli citizens urged their Arab neighbors to stay, but some 650,000 of them fled Israel.
The outcome, however, was different than the attackers had imagined it. They were not victorious, but they did now have responsibility for Arab “refugees.” From whom had they fled? Here again there is a copy.
(Concurrently, Jews in Muslim countries were dispossessed of citizenship and property and expelled. This resulted in 850,000 Jewish refugees from Arab lands, who left behind their wealth and some 100,000 sq. km. (38,600 sq. mi.) of land. Of the Jewish refugees from Arab lands, some 650,000 came to Israel, but many moved to France and other countries. Those with Bible knowledge will recognize in this population exchange a fulfillment of the prophecy of Jeremiah 12:14-15.)
For 66 years now, the Arabs have been called “refugees” and do not receive citizenship from their Arab homelands, from which at least their grandparents or even parents originate. Appallingly, here too the United Nations makes a striking exception and declares even the descendants of the original “refugees,” already up to the fourth generation, refugees as well. The United Nations has even created an aid agency, UNRWA, exclusively for them.
What does assigning refugee status to these grandchildren and great-grandchildren accomplish for the Arab/Muslim world? It is a powerful pawn on the path to the destruction of Israel. We are being told today that they already number 4.5 million (sic), all of whom should be permitted to return to Israel–not in their own Palestinian-Arab state (on Jewish soil), but in the remainder of the 20 percent that would be left over for Israel. Were they to achieve that, the “refugees,” combined with the Arabs in Israel who already are Israeli citizens, would become the majority of the population. It would be the end of the democratic, Jewish state of Israel. This was already predicted by the former dictator of Egypt, General Gamal Abdel Nasser. So simple is the calculation of imitation, duplicity, nihilism.
What does God say to such nefarious subterfuges of the enemy? “Thus says the LORD, Who gives the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, Who divides the sea when its waves roar; The LORD of hosts is His Name: If those ordinances depart from before Me, says the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before Me forever. Thus says the LORD: If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, says the Lord” (Jer. 31:35-37).
Israel cannot be destroyed. It has been created very specially and with a goal of salvation that is world encompassing. “Salvation is of the Jews” (Jn. 4:22). Only in the case of Israel’s creation is the identical word used in the Hebrew Bible that is used for the creation of the world. So Israel’s existence, too, is guaranteed by God Himself by tying it to the eternality of the universe.