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CHAPTER 8
News 139
Advertiser,
Dec. 28,
Who do you think you are ? This is my land, mate.
The
little matter of
It is of the most singular interest that it has happened yet once more.
In 1948, the British
were foolish enough to deter Jews from returning to
It is always true that the Balfour Declaration has two vastly important elements.
1) PALESTINE (not 10 or 1000 acres), Palestine, which was later partly taken up into such places as JORDAN, that whole area by name Palestine, of which the current Jewish State is a small FRACTION, was to become a NATIONAL HOME for the Jews. That is, the British Government "viewed with favour the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people."
It is true it was
not to be a FATHERLAND. It is equally true that as a homeland, as
On the other side, there is the second and qualifying point.
2)"It
is clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the
civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in
To be fair, this
meant that
But what of the Moslems ? In FACT, the Jews have ALLOWED - despite
their military victories including that of 1967 when they simply TOOK
Of course, how it
could be a homeland without
Thus, indeed, they have not noticeably sought to proselytise Moslems; and even if they sought to bring any voluntarily to their religion, is THAT to proselytise ? Is fear to mask truth in failing to DISTINGUISH between free EXPRESSION of any non-violent religion, at the complaisance of the listener; and are peaceable together with forceful means, the intimidatory misuse of persuasion instead of illuminatory use, as is most proper: are BOTH to be condemned as if reason had (once again) fled!
Otherwise, how can persons be persons! If a person WANTS to listen, shall he/she be forbidden by some sort of trade union movement of religion, which bullies its people into conformity and submission! THAT it the obverse of proselytising, a sort of negative compulsion which refuses to allow people to think and listen, in narrow sectarian interests.
It is true, of course, that when people are MEMBERS of some religious body, the leaders of the same are justly sensitive to their being swayed away; but it is not just to PREVENT their hearing what others AND the members themselves, may want to hear. IF of course people will invent some new Muhammad or new Christ and try to sell that, this is plagiarism and justly despised by all and any. The sects are a vast immorality.
However, this is not that. It is question of Christ or Muhammad, the sinless or the sinner, the predicted or the casual, the crucified or the battle leader (cf. Chapter 6 above). People can hear of these things. It is paternalistic impropriety, fiddling with flesh, a take-over movement over members of the human race, as though one were God, to prevent due hearing, IF the party concerned WISHES to hear.
TRUTH is afraid of
nothing, ashamed of nothing, can stand before ANYTHING!
All that having been
said, two things remain in this immediate context.
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1) A
NATIONAL HOME for the Jewish people must be a home, not an apartment. |
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2) A
NATIONAL home must be a nation. |
A sophisticated nation with due care for otherwise minded elements, which of course, in a HOME could not be militant or excessive in intimidatory fashion - that is no home - was thus promised for what ? For 20% of Palestine ? or some such figure ? No, for PALESTINE. This has nowhere near been fulfilled. Further, the Balfour Declaration added this: "I would be grateful if you would bring the Declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation." This naturally tended to define the action relative to the party concerned, the Zionists. Here was a Zion for them.
One might argue that it was only IN Palestine that the national home was to be; but the reference to NOT disenfranchising the rest of the occupants in religion and civic ways would appear to imply that the WHOLE of Palestine was in mind; for if a part only were in view, how would this prevent or act on the OTHER part of Palestine ? It would be simple sovereign co-existence. Such, however, was the nature of the offer.
Of course the British
do not run the world. THEN, at that time, in 1917, they had the power, THEN
Britain with General Allenby LIBERATED Jerusalem
from an ISLAM ENEMY, namely Turkey, beaten in an aggressive German war, with
Turkey as an ally of Germany! However, one must now realise
that the LEAGUE OF NATIONS also was involved in the declaration’s
outworking.
Thus, in the Penguin
Dictionary of the 20th Century, we learn this:
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"The
Declaration was confirmed by all the allied governments and formed a
basis for the |
So while it is true, the British do not run the world, it is equally true that the world body, the League of Nations used this consideration in assigning the Mandate, and that the ALLIED GOVERNMENTS CONFIRMED the Balfour Agreement. This was the body which resisted Germany invasions in Europe. This was their disposition, and the League of Nations assisted in its assignment of the WHOLE AREA and ARENA of Palestine to Britain.
Thus
when Britain left in 1948, hers was a notable failure - to say no more -
to make ANY provisions for a Jewish national home. Rather did she choose
to have close relationships with the Arab Legion, so that it is perhaps the
most stark of national miracles, together with Dunkirk, of the 20th century,
that the Jews every managed to come out of being a mere presence in Palestine,
to reach nationhood at all, let alone in ALL OF PALESTINE, including Jordan,
which has been assessed as some 77% of what was in 1917, deemed 'Palestine'!
(cf. It Bubbles, It Howls
... He calls Ch. 10).
2. MY LAND ?
It is a matter of assignment and consignment. To be sure, the Jews have forfeited all RIGHT to Israel; but God has forfeited NOTHING, precisely and accurately. Not a speck of dust has He decided to leave free to drift. He ASSIGNED the land unconditionally to Abraham as seen in Genesis 17, removed it covenantally as in Leviticus 26, when the Jews played havoc with the divine covenant, after much forbearance and many opportunities with which the books of Kings and Chronicles abound in testimony, as do the prophets.
What is more staggering, amazing in this genre, than the offer enshrined in Jeremiah 17! It was a simple offer of prodigious divine grace and marvellous magnanimity; but it too was simply refused, and that, even after a tempestuous past and the due prospect of a horrifying future alike played like flames flaring from different directions upon recalcitrant Israel of that day!
BUT after both these
events, the glory of Solomon's kingdom and the abasement which followed in
due course, and indeed the very exile into Babylon, for Judah, with the Northern
part actually DISPERSED and another people sent in from Assyria to populate
the rebellious land: what then ?
THEN there was the
crucifixion of their Messiah. Is it possible ? Could yet MORE have been done
in alienation from the divine majesty ? Alas, alas for Israel, and how it
has as predicted, suffered; for how long; how gravely. But it is marked to
endure, and it does (as in Jeremiah 33:17ff., where the Messiah as in Jeremiah
23, is in view, and HIS satisfactory service is the guarantee, He the Guarantor,
of His word and works, whether for Jew or Gentile - as in Isaiah 49). The
two houses (for the Jewish kingdom had divided) are to return by divine appointment.
It is ONLY in the Messiah that they will prosper, to be sure; but we have
seen all these things in SMR Appendix A; and that they will come in a national
manner, back to Him, as in Zechariah 12:10.
Meanwhile, to continue our outline, yes, it is true, they did do MORE to provoke the Lord than they had done. They killed His Son, slew the Messiah, with help from Gentile Rome.
Not very nice, you may ask ? leaning perhaps towards the Arab resettlement and perhaps take-over with oil rich Islam jihads and the like...
No, it was not good... As the Lord said prophetically of the implicit assassin, a fine price, 30 pieces of silver, by which to value their Lord! (Zechariah 11). It was, this whole sacrificial scenario, in its murder aspect, a breach of covenant so intense (as seen in dramatic and vigorously realistic style in Zechariah 11:12-16) that it would lead to the BREACH of the bond of the covenant, to exile and destruction, and that allied with international mockery for long!
It was slated to
be predictively. It happened historically. He
WOULD do it. He did. It all happened.
It always happens.
It is notorious for happening. It is as simple as that. Faith does
not here enter in, except for the vision of reality which it provides, and
of course the friendship with God.
The
immediate point here, it is just fact.
Now, this, it is
not surprising. You would and should EXPECT the word of God Almighty to be
like that, as explained in detail in SMR Ch.
1 and Barbs, Arrows and Balms Chs. 6 and 7.
God is not at war with
His own word, and is not distressed or disenabled by ANYONE in ANYTHING.
Nothing else has this nearly 3.5 millenium record;
for how could it, since there is but one God, and He, He has spoken (cf.
SMR Ch. 1).
Thus it is of the
most immense importance to realise that God said
some more on this topic.
The Jews, as often
noted in the past in this site, had to come back, CONTRARY TO MERIT, for,
said the Lord, "NOT
for your sakes am I doing this" (Ezekiel 36-37 traces it
cf. SMR Appendix A). WHY
then ? He has, He declares, pity on His own name.
He SAID He would do it; and of course, when you think about it, it was in
FAITHFUL LOVE that He said it in the first place; and so He will DO IT.
He traces in these chapters and those immediately following in Ezekiel the protestations of power IN THIS WORLD, to PREVENT this resettlement (cf. It Bubbles, It Howles, He Calls ...Ch. 2, at Divine Destiny). Similarly, from other nearer quarters, He indicates the contests in the neighbourhood to come, after the Jews, following the crucifixion of their (and our) Messiah, were returned, but had not yet repented as a nation (to come later as noted, in Zechariah 12;10).
The point is VERY SIMPLE. It is GOD's LAND and not that of some race or people. This is true of ALL lands. Those who, as in Australia, occupied first some portions of it, do not thus own ALL of it; and have no indelible right to ANY, except through agreement and understanding. It is true in their case they SOLD some as in Victoria, and other parts, as also in the USA, were taken by force. There was some eviction, some sale, and some of the land was not occupied. NONE of it was unitedly occupied to form a nation, in Australia. Talk therefore of invasion of Australia is a-factual, it is contrary to reality, a dream.
THIS does not make grace and agreement wrong, or efforts to bring redress where evil was wrought by non-aborigines, undesirable. Far from it; it merely makes mouthings without reality, an unfortunate substitute for reality; and of course, in this it DOES remind one in some ways of the Jewish position in Palestine, where the Arabs want more and more and more. We are coming to that, and to the variety of divine interventions which appear already to have happened.
In the meantime, the point is simple: the LAND belongs to GOD. HE made it. It is HIS POSSESSION, and if ANY race or people want to argue the point with Him, to divest it from His will, then their position is that of ROBBERS of land! Thus if HE assigned THAT area to the Jews, and then assigned them to discipline, and then made the discipline, in stages, more and more intense, as the provocations and unfaithfulnesses rose (as from an unfaithful wife, as the book of Hosea so intimately and dramatically makes very clear); and if He did this, until they were cleared out of the land assigned them by the Almighty, that is HIS affair.
If, then, others want to take it in tow in the interim, so be it. They would need, of course, to watch their OWN attitudes, as they seized what had been vacated in terms of divine discipline, of a temporary nature, at this level. It would reach its term, and the Jews would be returned.
Thus, WHEN God wants to bring His disciplined people back, it is well for those who wish to contest and contend with HIM, to realise that there is ONE God Almighty. If they make another one up, without evidence, contrary to reason, a newcomer as in Deuteronomy 32:17, they invite their own disaster, and the more so, if they simultaneously contest what the divinely attested, evidentially indicated and logically uniquely demonstrable God has to say.
God is not in favour of new gods (as in Psalm 96), and notes that "the gods of the heathen are idols" - referring to mankind's vastly insufferable tendency to make up gods. HE declared Himself to the Jews, and to the world in Christ.
It is HIS LAND. He deputes it, anoints it and determines its ownership AS HE WILL; and He does this PRECISELY AS HE WILL, and WHEN HE WILL. THIS is NOW. The scenario has its current situation, its contemporary index. The divine agenda, duly declared for a few thousand years, and traceable in every preliminary step, is here; and the Jews in these terms, are there. The land is there also.
It is to the Jews.
3. GIVE IT AWAY ?
But perhaps the Jews themselves could give it away ?
No. It is not to
be given away. How CAN anyone give away what is not his own to give, anyway
?
It is presumption and
folly, not to mention a subtle form of theft.
The United Nations cannot make the idea good by being united; even if they were... so.
In any case, the League of Nations has already endorsed the Palestine Home for the Nation for Jews. There seems a certain degree of schizoid tension here, a wobbling of the mind; and is it possible the oil is smoothing the way to amplify that wobbling ? or fear of jihads ? Justice does not thus appear.
But what happened before, when such gifts were to be made by the JEWS, when they came near to home in their give-aways of their slender land, in the recent past ?
Yes, even the Jews could decide to GIVE IT AWAY. It costs them dearly to be so embroiled, in the predicted period of tensions following their return, before the national turning to their own Messiah (and, we continue to stress, ours). They may think to yield it up. They may so intend, but it will come to nothing. They are no better than anyone else when it comes to fighting God Almighty, the Lord!
1) Thus in SMR pp. 834ff. (cf. *10 on p. 881), we found of Peres, seeking support politically, that this leader failed to gain his objective by just ONE knesset vote. ONE JEW refused the prospect that ANY part of Jerusalem would come to be in ANY WAY dependent on the will of the Arabs. He resigned, thus blocking the opportunity for this direction of flow in the political life of the people at that time. This feeling is not confined to a minor sector of the Jews. Thus when the father of the current US President, that is, George Bush (senior), as noted on p. 836 SMR, stated that he was opposed to new settlements in the West bank "or in East Jerusalem", Time magazine made the assessment that "most Israelis would consider East Jerusalem liberated, not occupied. Even the most dovish government would insist on an undivided Jerusalem as the permanent capital of Israel" - April 23, 1990!
It is true they may weaken. it is much more to the point that the Lord does not. It is easy for them to do so, since the Lord has not yet been found, who is the traditional and historic source of their strength (cf. Deuteronomy 32:29-37). But the Lord is not a derivative but the Creator, and does what He pleases both in heaven and on earth (Psalm 115). Tyrannies of words and stones and propaganda, these do not dismay Him. He proceeds as always, according to His word.
2) Again, before Rabin was killed - a deplorable horror of misplaced zeal - there as further opportunity for cedings; but then Netanyahu entered as Prime Minister in a NARROW vote.
3) Then, there was an amazing situation just last year, some few days ago, in December 2000. The Palestinians appeared to have scored one of the biggest propaganda victories since Hitler with his Goebbels.
HAVE 90% or more of the West Bank and Gaza strip.
TAKE OVER land developed by Jewish enterprise ? Yes.
More ? Yes, to be sure.
What more ? "Annex blocs of Jewish settlements".
Have an independent Arab state in the very midst of the vastly reduced national home for Jews ? Why not. Would sir like it with ice or iced coffee ?
ALL THAT. The world could well tremble. Would persecuted, virtually disembowelled little Israel, oppressed by the UN, and misunderstood most fatefully now by the USA, despite the marvellous aid in Nixon's time in 1973, would the land all go, just like that ?
Would the tiny lebensraum be dismantled by stones ? and cries to the 'world', whoever they may be! NO! Impossible, surely ?
Not at all. Arafat on TV interview at the time in question, was heard to indicate that there were NUMBERS OF MATTERS, or issues needing to be resolved. It was not settled yet.
Barak ? Yes YOU CAN HAVE IT, IT GOES, PROVIDED THE ARABS AGREE. What a proviso! What a gift for negotiating purposes. The other side had only to say, Yes.
They did not, it appears, so much as ATTEND the meeting! Indeed, TV news on Jan. 2001 indicates that Arafat and his planners are still seeking clarification of various aspects of the US deal. They have, to be sure, failed to meet the Clinton deadline (one very understandable in view of the near approach of the Bush Presidency) for action, without which the offer was null.
Small point, let it roll on.
However, with the Jan. 1, 2001 report (Advertiser and TV news) of the assassination of the son of a prominent Rabbi, himself also assassinated some years earlier, there is little likelihood of further concessions. The time appears now past. One Jewess on TV, expounded her view that Barak was a traitor for dealing with a murderer relative to peace, for making so many give-aways of what is needed for Israel. She spoke with a passion matched by some looking without favour on finding ANY Palestinians in West Jerusalem. They do not like first a Rabbi then his son being killed; are not drawn to his 5 children being wounded, one babe critically, to his wife soon afterwards dying. It does not ... appeal.
Meanwhile, Fatah, the Arafat faction of the Arab movement relative to Israel, has steamed on with the Palestinian juggernaut. In what ? In this: that they have now sought for ESCALATION of the 3 month intifada (uprising) movement. Part of the reason ? "usher in 2000 as the year of Palestinian independence". Force is the mode. This ? It is a dangerous concept, especially when those who breathe depend on God Almighty for the next breath (Isaiah 2:22 puts it perfectly), with which to fight and speak; and who in context, are at odds with the owner of ALL land… This, for its part, is not to mention the enormous Moslem hinterlands, and likewise, not to mention the over 70% GIFT OF MUCH OF PALESTINE TO THE ISLAMIC leaning JORDAN, AFTER the Balfour Declaration.
HOW MUCH, then, do they want ? WHY do they want it ? Our studies in Islam in an earlier chapter ( 6) suggest the reason. The intractability indicates the result.
The Jews, earlier in the negotiations, have already been told that it would be appropriate for them to go to hell, by Arafat… These newer developments do not seem very much to vary.
Thus, once more, events have intervened. Again, the Arabs, who could at the mere word ‘yes’ have taken so much back in 1947 with UN backing, have failed to grab what was simply offered freely!*1
THAT, it is the way,
for the third time in recent years, it hs come
... to be. It is the FOURTH
time since 1947,
they have thrown it away. It does not work that way. The powers conspire,
but the Palestinians aspire; and Israel continues to respire in possession
of this small portion of the Palestinian national home, once offered to them
by the powers that then were, but never given, this portion of an area long
ago assigned by God.
4. MYSTERIOUS
? IMPERIAL ?
yes MAJESTIC
with MIGHT AND RIGHT IN UNISON
God, some say, moves
in a mysterious way. Rather, He moves PRECISELY as he says.
NO scientist can equal
the Maker, the Creator of the order of this world and its laws, and the scientist's
capacity to investigate the same with another of God's invention, the human
mind.
How is this so ? It is so in this way.
NO SCIENTIST HAS EVER INVENTED
AN ENTIRE SYSTEM OF UNDERSTANDING which covers the workings of the physical
universe, to last for 3400 years such that
1) it is never wrong
2) it is never revised
3) it never NEEDS revision
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That is negative; there is no contest, let alone for this further. Has anyone done such a work of prediction concerning the decisions and developments of MANKIND!
As to the latter, it is as far above matter as heaven above the earth, and further than the starry heavens; for these are merely extensive, but MAN is intensive, and highly, acutely (for himself) UNPREDICTABLE!
God however predicts with seemingly effortless grace, and perfected speech as far ahead as you could wish.
HE SAYS IT. HE DOES IT. WE ARE WATCHING THE PROGRAM, PRE-ANNOUNCED.
It is simply the divine agenda.
But there is something even more important. To this we turn in our next Chapter, which is not a NEWS ITEM, but which can be found from HERE. Look for it shortly.
The
Yes, but ... the
mountain does not have wings. Its supreme sacrifice is now fully effected
(Hebrews 8-10). Symbolically highly significant ? Yes. Spiritual efficacious
? Of course not. But as to what is, consider that "those
who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall run and not
be weary, walk and not faint." Indeed, "they
shall mount up with wings as eagles." As to that, a look at the
book of Hebrews is most instructive for Jew and Gentile alike. It is freely
available to BOTH and to ALL! IT has priceless treasure.
NOTES
*1
Arafat, in early January,
2001, proceeds belatedly to see President Clinton in Washington. Whatever
wheelings, dealings, scenes, scenarios, clarifications
and complications, graspings and raspings, crepitations
or explosions, slitherings or ditherings, terrorisings
and proddings are in store, and however many
new bodies of children, infants, youth and others are to be maimed, 'on the
critically injured list' and evacuated from this earth by mindless civil
explosions, Israel is not about to be lost. Jerusalem will not be accorded
to its assailants.
To be sure, in Daniel 11, the last verse, we read of the evil king, "And he shall plant the tents of his palace between the seas and the glorious holy mountain: yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him", E.J. Young in his The Prophecy of Daniel is one confirming this type rendering, with the point ''seas' is poetic (as in Deuteronomy 33:19). On may add this: that 'seas' would readily refer to the magnitude of - as also to the diversity of specific local seas within - the Mediterranean.
Professor Young, then, renders this verse: "And he will plant the tents of his pavilion between the sea and the mountain of the delight of holiness, and he will come unto his end, and there is none to help him," adding that literally, we find "between the seas to the mountain of the delight of holiness". Such a wording seems to cover a sort of moving in the mind from the Mediterranean, seeking a resting place for the planting prior to Jerusalem. This is "at the time of the end" of the Danielic account leading on to the bodily resurrection in Daniel 12.
It appears therefore that an antichrist figure, regional or ultimate, will be involved and that quite possibly there will be the equivalent of the old battle pavilion of the battle, a power emblem, planted in what is now the West Bank or thereabouts. Then the calamitous end comes. By this battle era, the saints of God, including the Jewish contingent (as in Romans 11:25ff., Zechariah 12:10ff. in the context of 12:1ff., cf. SMR pp. 512-513) will be taken home to the Lord (as in I Thessalonians 4), along with all the other 'wise virgins' as in Matthew 25.
There will however be no great help for the antichrist in that. The intractable forces of inveterate hatred of the Lord, the grizzling hordes will meet in Armageddon (Revelation 16:16, 19:11ff.), surfacing to their grisly end. To these, the "kings of the East" may appear to add their number (Revelation 16:12); and indeed, this reference to the preparation of the way for their coming immediately precedes the announcement of Armageddon in Rev. 16:16, with the insertion of the developments of the false prophets, the lying spirits, the incitation to the "whole world" - and this "to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty".
Meanwhile, the spiritually
intoxicated antichrist (II Thess. 2, cf. Revelation
13:6), 'showing himself that he is God' as we have traced earlier in this
work, will find his personal answer to the gloating vainglory of arrogance
that would even confuse a mortal sinner with the Glory Who is Immortality
and who alone can it, conferring eternal life (I Timothy 6:16, Titus 1:2-3,
II Timothy 1:10).
Light dispels darkness,
and what rejects it is dispersed; so that, in similar mode, the overthrow
of these vaunting inhibitors of the peace and joy of the Lord, will be drastic
and eternal (II Thessalonians 2:8, Revelation 19:20, 12:12, 14:10-11, 20:10,17:14,
16:13ff.).
Toying with the triumphs
of God (cf. Hebrews 10:29-31) is a folly that makes mere earthly suicide
seem almost restrained; and the spirit of man being no mere concoction, but
in the image of God, has sufferings for inveterate and contumacious blindness,
deriding the oculist and denying the light, in the interstices of eternity
in whatever role of time may be fitting, which mirror the madness and illustrate
the flightiness of light living without seeking the Lord (cf. Isaiah 55:6ff.).
Delusive peace is to occur for a relatively short time, in the interests of the entire obfuscation of the issues, and the active delusive forces which prey upon those not in the Saviour (as in Revelation 16:13-14).
This momentary, short-lived pause of peace is specified in I Thessalonians 5:3. It may or may not relate specifically to the Middle East, but since this is a cardinal place for predestined parades of folly from those who have asked for their own delusions (as in II Thess. 2:10-12) by torturous unbelief, it may well apply and presumably would need to do so.
It is WHEN such modes
apply, however, in this case, that the storm is gathering (I Thess. 5:3b).
In a way, it rather
reminds one of the tsunami situation, where the sea seems to remove, perhaps
hundreds of yards, as if breathing, and then the rolled up waters descend
in power to rip the coast-line.
Let us read this revelation given through the apostle Paul:
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"For
when they say, "Peace and safety!" then sudden destruction comes upon
them, as labour pains upon a pregnant woman.
And they shall not escape. But you brethren, are not in darkness, so
that this Day should overtake you as a thief. You are all children of
light and children of the day."The
ONLY peace for |
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It is THAT peace for which one should pray (Psalm 122:6), once provided in the bud of the Old Covenant and now to be found, as for all, in the bloom of the new; and it is a peace which one should personally exemplify, for though one should be valiant for the truth, one should increase in love, with all concern for all, if by any means any may find the resolution which starts within, having been procured without, but not without pain, by the Saviour, and this for all who come to Him (Romans 8:32ff.). |