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What, the busy man of affairs, woman of work might enquire, is the point of inventing new words ... if it is an invention.

The point here is this: in Israel there is a certain barbaric triumphalism on the part of its enemies, by which it is chastised, if not chastened, by the tongue of adversaries, as if it were a rogue State, an adventitious intruder, one making the most of its bellicosity and grabbing with those who grab. Israel, the denuded, the defrauded, grabbing !

One of the tongues which seems at least to be of this kind at the present, relative to this stricken land, this courageous people, is that of the United Nations, as expressed through leader Kofi Annan.

Yesterday, March 13, one heard his voice coming with such quiet demeanour, like the 'simple' flight of the aircraft pointing to the Tower in New York. Was it not just a flight ? Until it hit, the question might arise: Why fidget. Afterwards, of course, the thing appeared differently. It had destroyed a suburb in the form of a Tower!

But before it hit ? What might some have thought, watching its wrongful path of approach in New York ? Probably just some strange and erratic aeronautical thing; why shoot it down, the second one ? Might it not be a sort of oddity afterwards to be resolved ?

So here. The sepulchral tones seems soft, almost bland. However the impact and import of the words which went with them can sound more like destruction, than simple death. Intention and invention in this world are often two different things!

That is why it seems fitting to add, if so be - it may have been done before, but it is being done now in any case - to that beautifully adaptable language, the English, the verb to sepulchralise. The formalist can even have a definition here: it means this - so to speak that the tones and overtones of one's utterance seem soft, bland and of fitting dignity, while the impact is nearer deadly than death, more of an assault than an atmosphere of repose.

Thus when the UN via its leader, Annan announced that Israel's territories of 1967 were ILLEGAL, as if this international body itself in some way constituted 'the law', this international assemblage of hope, and fallen ideals - according to the well researched (internally) works of Shirley Hazzard, such as Defeat of an Ideal, and People in Glass Houses: then there was a certain sepulchralising. It sat like death on a monument, smiling at its multiplication. It seemed to possess the peace of a machine gun merely pointing at the sea, but the words added the bullets.

Israel ILLEGAL in having a small part of what was internationally promised in 1919, and this preceded by the British undertaking of 1917, when war was making things bare and clear, to confused thinking, and the atrocities of centuries against the Jews in Europe and the contribution to the winning of World War I of Weissman in Britain, seemed to call for some sort of constructive action ... like giving them a country. Palestine. Your homeland, Jew. That appeared then so fitting. Now a small part is too inclusive, and 'illegal' is the judgment of man in the (oddly enough) other New York mammoth, the UN building. That still stands, and it seems will not stand for Israel having any sort of a homeland at all, just a shambles, and just a bit of its capital.

Palestine was to be the homeland ? But that was comparatively large ... and Israel has now what is much smaller, a nearly contemptible fraction of the territory so consigned. And it is now said to be ILLEGAL to be in a SMALL PART of it ? If it was to be a homeland, is it now to be in two rooms of one building, and one of them illegally at that ?
 
 

Has memory no grace ? Has truth in this no face ?

This however was but a beginning. Illegal occupation of their historic homeland  -in fact,  amidst Islamic nations granted and conferred in some cases, their lands, also after war - amidst the wealth and vast territories of its molesters, this started the verbal crusade of Annan. It went on and on.

What else was the content of this amazing speech ? It was of course a thing to be stopped, this Arab uprising in violence; but Israel, the illegal specialist, it seemed clearly implied that here lay the root and here the body of the trouble. IT must stop dealing with the Arabs in daily humiliations, treating them in ways insufferable to human dignity. IT must yield all it got in 1967, when for the umpteenth time in European history, the existence of the people was threatened, in whole or in part, with a brutality difficult to conceive, unless one has pondered the Khymer Rouge in Cambodia, a body apparently far from removed from ethical acceptance by many in that land!

In Cambodia, THEY got it for some few years (and one would be among the last to minimise the odious odyssey of death, in which selective killing of potential leaders was satanically crafted). Yet the Jews got it for centuries! Devious, deceitful, inflamed and merciless killings, pillagings in which they were expropriated of dignity, the least human dignity, of life, of possessions, of place, of name, accursed, too defiled to number with dogs! treated often with a savage and censorious indifference, as by the Islamic molesters now.

This was long their lot in Europe. Now it is being exported to the Middle East, and they are being blamed as well as trouble makers for having a small sector of the international grant that started the thing in earnest.

As to their European treatment, Hitler capped it, but the arch was already long before, stoutly built. They once exported a bridge from Britain to the USA; and now they export, it seems some of the arch of European mistreatment of the Jew, to the Middle East, and the UN erupts with words of condemnation.

To be sure, one does not have the slightest desire to depict the Jew as angelic, any more than any other person of any other merely human race. It is in no way to comment on their sometimes desperate efforts to avoid total extermination before a hostile environment, saucily supported in this way now, by the UN (as indeed often before). If someone hits a burglar with a bar, one does not necessarily approve; but it is becoming rather ludicrous when burglars can sue for inconvenient things in the garden, which might make them stumble. It is likewise becoming a little ludicrous when Israel is so selected for accountability of the basic sort, when its very existence is by this catspaw, constantly assailed, by word, by war, and now by cowardly domestic assault from terrorists, who seem relatively secure from any war on them by anybody else!
 
 

Is it the exception which proves the rule ? It is an interesting concept that: but its actual meaning appears to be this: the presence of what is recognised as an exception shows the known force of what is the basis from which it strays. It may have other aspects. Let us take this one. Is the exception of the rabid terrorism of the Palestinian 'uprising' from due international action (if one believes in that sort of thing, as evidently President Bush and allies do), an attestation of how much they believe in dealing dynamically with terrorism ? Does it show up the 'law' against terrorism, by being a monstrous and monumental exception ? It certainly does no less.

And now this UN, via speaker Annan - who presumably is not acting alone, for he is not acting in this as a mere individual -  has the gall to talk of their small sector of the promised land (from the 1919 post-war consent of leading nations, meeting to consider such things) as illegally possessed. In that setting, it is the REST of Palestine which is illegally sequestered, wrongly seized, and not by the Jews, but by the Moslem multitude of one kind and another. The Middle East is very largely theirs already. Can they not live together in some kind of harmony ? Must they seek to foist some of their number into the narrow passageway allocated to the Jew ? Has the world come to the point of exalting blindness ? Does justice lie dead in the streets,
as of yore ? (cf. Isaiah 59:14-15, which has imagery not dissimilar).

Ben Gurion, as we have seen before, was less than impressed by this Jordanic allocation, this seizure by those who then had the little omission, that they did not take the Arabs, now so unplaced, in the land they took: or rather, did not elect to KEEP them there. They too seem to have found them ... inconvenient. Now the systematic death impartation, the bodies for bodies exchanges, in which more are to be maimed than suicide, and more to be lost than the loser, this is for the Israeli, not the Islamic world where the people find their spiritual denomination!

As to Jordan: They took the ground, not the people; they gained the territory, but did not choose to harbour the inhabitants, the Islamic inhabitants in most cases, who in this had at once their place, while the Jews had to be taking the small residue, graciously. Now! Not so fast, hand over more of that small residue, illegal! Is this then to be the cry ?

Was it not in 1947 that the Arabs REFUSED the UN allocation which gave them so much of what is now Israel, and made Jerusalem an international setting ? What is this becoming, bringing up junior á la Dr Spock (his more famous model, the first one) ? indulgence without limit, at least seems to be near to the situation.

Is it then to be like this ?

"But I WANT to live there, in Israel, not with the other Muslims in the other part of Palestine!"

"Do you dear ? Then we shall tell the naughty Israelis that they are illegal."

"Yes mummy!"

HE SAYS, This is for them! The world says, This is NOT for them. Hence war against His word! (Cf. Galloping Events Ch. 4, Appendix A of SMR, and  see Index on Israel and the land.) That is certainly one way in which such a thing could be fulfilled.

What does not appear to have impressed the UN, as terrorism to be destroyed, via Annan in his speech at least, is this. The daily indignity (is it daily, then most frequent) of death and maiming, as the Palestinians, intent on seizing by terrorism what was denied them by war when Israel was explicitly marked for extinction as a race (naughty ? oh no, the assault is too well oiled, bears too much importance as a world resource ? or has the right religion for the region ? or is not really racism because the Jew is normally persecuted ? one does not know the equation here): this does not seem to matter at the same level.

As to Israel, is it terrorism to seek to overcome mass murdering insurgents, misusing their opportunities in your country ? Why then is terrorism not consigned as elsewhere ?

The Israeli phenomenon, butchery by Arab bombs in domestic places, this may be 'repugnant' or adjectivally unacceptable; but there is no word of power, merely rebuke, while there is desire to be proceeding to dismember Israel, donating portion of its minuscule margins as a prize for the party parade of terrorists whose vile practices merely aggravate the perfidy of nations in
making Israel already near to indefensible, even yet more slender. Is it then to be compromised forever^*1 ? prepared for the slaughter more readily, just as the UN pulled out its troops from the margin separating Egypt and Israel, before Nasser's offence!

Is it because men play God with the treacherous implements of faithless power, that the action against terrorists is absolute only sometimes !

Indignity ? Is this the problem for the Arab assassination fervour ? What then of the prior indignity of squalid corpses, squirming adolescents, Jewish ones, their bodies partially ripped, their lives forfeit to this savage and inhuman maiming, this disregard total and absolute, in order to get EVEN MORE LAND ?

Is not really terrorism ? Does it need reward ? Is a territorial bonus to be the condemnation of such terrorism ? Most just!

A new definition then for the term ? Is it to be more like this: Terrorism is that form of popular assault, often on populous places, in which indiscriminate, or worse, discriminatingly large dispersal of death and intimidation occurs with a view to the obtaining of political, territorial or other gain is in view, provided it is recognised as such by the UN ? or by the US ? or some other body. The thing becomes subjective, and then it all depends on who thinks who should have what, not on what any group is doing to another. A new definition then ?

A sepulchral one ?

The world has its own outlook, its cultural interchanges making this more and more evident; and although it has always been a sinful substitute for spirituality, as defined by Christ (cf. John 14:30, James 4:4, I John 1:15-17). Let us hear that last citation:

"Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world - the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life - is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it: but he who does the will of God abides forever."

They all KNOW, but the knowledge is vanity, unfounded in either truth or possible truth (cf. SMR Ch. 3, That Magnificent Rock Ch. 5, Benevolent Brightness ... Ch. 80 ). The world is its own witness! Its ways do their own work (much as in Proverbs 1!).

Now the solution is not difficult, but pride and lust will not tolerate it: Israel is no more brutally assaulted, the UN ceases its stirrings, the Palestinians in Israel that now is, are given choice. IF you want Islam and its terrorist arm, then go to any Islamic country, and if no other will take you, to Jordan which incorporates much of Palestine, and represents a just option. IF you want to be Jewish, or to have some other religion which expressly disdains and departs from all violence as a means of life, a political or religious arm of life, and recognises citizenship with relish, the same according you reasonable privileges as in other democracies, then STAY and behave.

After all, citizens do not normally, individually or in groups, have liberty to arm, to seize, to defile, to break bones and murder the young, smash the babes. It is not normally non-terrorist for them to do this. Is Israel then so very different ?

And it is not racism which says so ?

Interesting, definitionally speaking, and sepulchrally. One wonders, for that matter, how many non-terrorist induced sepulchres have been fashioned by such Islamic insurgencies in Israel, which of course, as Annan makes so clear, must STOP and HAND OVER, the way it is trying to deal with the increasingly massive murders which provoke so many of its efforts at order.

That, it is a partial solution. It is no more. The reason is this: it is not only negative, the lusts of desire for territory, for Allah's dominion and so forth, jealousy or vying, and the like. It is also positive. When a false god is presented as the true one, the true one is not satisfied; and when TWO peoples each fail to make peace with the One who attests Himself, exclusively, rationally and with verificatory certainty, then there is no solution. The MAIN authority is quenched, and folly is certain. It is certainly true that it is occurring.

When Israel comes to the actual God, who made its name so famous in the first place, when it returns to Him in the end, as is the song of so much of the Old Testament and is so clear in the New, THEN there will be the first leg of the peace. It will be internal, a pre-condition of any lasting external peace. However, though this is to happen as so often shown from the Bible on these pages, it is not the peace of the land when only one participant finds it with God! The world as a whole will continue on its fated path, like an automatically controlled air-liner, lined up on its prey. It cannot stop because it will not, and it will not, because it will not receive the only Saviour, so that it is unsaved as well as unsavoury, and its end is in sight.

First however God is going to make a point (as in Zechariah 14:5). And before that, Israel in large part is to be saved spiritually (Zech. 12:10). The point ? the millenium (q.v.). The prior point ? The removal of all Christians (Matthew 24:36ff., 13:41ff. cf. A Spiritual Potpourri Ch. 18), including such of Israel as believe at that time. The end of the world ?

Two phases: the arrival of Christ, which removes its satanic SYSTEM, and later, the dismissal of the heavens and earth, astronomically, with a replacement set, the new heavens and the new earth. The Lord is interested in phase 1, that the "earth should be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea."

You see another side of it all in Psalm 2, and again in Psalm 45, Psalm 72! Then the new one, the new model!

It is good to await; but better by far is Christ, now in you, the hope of glory; it is HE who is the expression definitively of God, and to know Him is glorious (cf. John 17:1-3). It is this which adorns all phases!

Then, He is coming, and that is "near", to remove His people, and return as ruler on earth. In heaven, that haven of holiness where nothing unclean can so much as come (Rev. 21:27, 22:11), the eternity of eternal life past all these pilgrimage tests, continues unmolestable. That inheritance for the saints of God, those who receive the only Saviour the world ever has had (Acts 4:11-12, Ephesians 1:4, Colossians 1:19ff., cf. Barbs, Arrows and Balms 17), and it is as Peter says, "incorruptible, undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time."

No wonder he adds: "In this you greatly rejoice..."!

You do not however rejoice when He is not your Saviour, for as I John 2:22 puts it, "Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ ?" If for a moment, the heart swells, yet the spirit is deprived, and life is under sentence (John 3:17ff.).

It matters, in this, not in the least whether you are Jew or Arab or UN official. There are different authorities, divine and human. Of the divine, there is God over all, and it is not possible to deceive or invent Him (cf. Psalm 50, SMR Chs. 1, 3, 10). He is there. His word has taken hold and the earth not only shakes, but does so on the wave length precisely as specified (cf. SMR Chs. 8  -  9).

The spirit of man will have no rest without Him, and He has given Himself no rest till the salvation came into place, because of His love (cf. Psalm 40 and Joyful Jottings 22). It is not only a denial of truth, but an affront to love, to deny Him; and you DO deny Him when you do not receive the salvation which He declares essential, so that you might be at peace with Him (Acts 4:11-12, Colossians 1:19ff., cf. Little Things Ch. 5). It is, as Peter puts it, the case that there is no other name under heaven by which we MUST be saved.
 
 

For more on this, see SMR pp. 502-524. See also A Spiritual Potpourri Ch. 17.

*1
The question is simply rhetorical, and reflects the trend of this world's meandering movement, now stridently assertive, now connivingly recessive,  from righteousness.

In fact, as so often shown on this site, God will intervene firstly in a massive overcoming of feisty and self-confident human greed and self-determination, in abrupt overthrow of those seeking the overthrow of Israel. They will get what they are planning to give, and more also! This divine deliverance will be as epochal in power and demonstration, as was the Exodus (cf. Micah 7:15ff., SMR Appendix A, and pp. 510ff.).

THAT was often a matter for reflection in the Psalms (as in Psalms 105-106). Soon, when it occurs, it will be a topic of the times again!

The coming assault on Israel will be international enough likewise, and many are the nations predicted to be experiencing on an acutely angled learning curve. When the millenium comes, the things on all sides, of all types, will be exhibited in their puniness, like the corpses of the slain; but the righteousness, no longer stricken and smitten with the sword of cruelty, unbelief, persecution, distaste, distemper and resentful passion against the Lord and His people, even that of God Himself will be seen in its beauty, its peace, its power and its purity (cf. Psalm 67, 72, 2, 45, 110, Isaiah 11, Micah 4).

See for further background, The Impregnable Tower Ch. 6, It Bubbles, It Howls, He Calls ... Ch. 7, No. 31, Ch. 10, SMR pp. 502-524