WHO SHALL POSSESS PALESTINE?

By Richmond N. Stuart

A Search of the Scriptures Reveals the Rightful Heirs

“There is no such place as Palestine, legally and diplomatically, it doesn’t exist. In the eyes of the world, if not the Palestinian people, it’s a would be country, a state of mind, a nation in waiting.” – Associated Press, writer Laura King, Gaza City, Gaza Strip, September 27, 1998.

Now Yasser Arafat says that wait is nearly over. In a speech to the U.N. General Assembly, September 27, 1998, the Palestinian leader made his boldest bid yet to turn the statehood dreams to reality a scant seven months from then.

Arafat has said for months that barring some negotiating breakthrough, the Palestinians were likely to proclaim statehood as soon as the interim Oslo peace accords expire – on May 4, 1999, according to the Palestinian interpretation.

Arafat’s direct appeal for international support for an independent Palestine before the United Nations carried far more symbolic weight than any previous statements.

And it came only four days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used his own appearance before the world body to deliver a blunt warning: “Don’t do it.”*

Oddly, those seeking an answer to the Palestinian enigma rarely raise the question: Who are the Palestinian exiles consigned to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip or endless refugee status as homeless pariahs among the nations of Islam?

THE HOLY BIBLE is the only authoritative source of evidence determining conclusively who shall possess Palestine. The claim of any people or nation to the Promised Land is irrevocably linked to the Lord’s promise to Abraham nearly 4,600 years ago.

Because Abraham obeyed God’s Word (Genesis 12:17) all the land of Canaan from the river of Egypt to the great river Euphrates was promised to Abraham’s seed for an everlasting possession (Genesis 15:18).

When the distinctions the Scriptures make among the various branches of the seed of Abraham are recognized, it then becomes clear who are the rightful heirs to the Promised Land.

It is generally understood that Christians, Jews and Muslims share a common belief that Palestine is the Promised Land given by God to Abraham:

“In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.”– (Genesis 15:18)

But beyond this point it is not generally understood that, in fact, neither the Arabs nor the Jews were ever given title to the Promised Land.

The patriarch Abraham had eight sons and among their descendants are those who are indigenous to the land of Palestine. They are the Palestinian Arabs who are descended from Ishmael, Abraham’s firstborn. But Ishmael was born of Hagar, the Egyptian handmaid. Thus, his posterity are not “the seed of promise,” for God said to Abraham:

“In Isaac shall thy seed be called.” – (Genesis 21:12)

Although the son of the bondwoman was given no legacy in the Covenant Promises to the seed of Abraham – a fateful provision was made that Ishmael’s descendants would multiply exceedingly and dwell in the presence of all his brethren. It was an ominous portent of trouble to come in Jerusalem – the epicenter of the Lord’s coming controversy in Zion.

A LEGACY OF VIOLENCE

The Lord characterized Ishmael as the progenitor of a volatile people whose untenable residence in Palestine can find no peaceful resolution:

“And he will he a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.” – (Genesis 16:12.)

Today, a whole generation of displaced Palestinians have known only a precarious existence scattered among their brethren in five Arab countries.

Ishmael has indeed become “a wild man: his hand against every man, every man’s hand against him.” A man without a country, without an army; in fact, with no military resources other than small arms and explosives; his only recourse: terrorism.

The Zionist/Israel State is no longer the sole target of Arab reprisal. France and Britain and now the United States have suffered a series of devastating terrorist attacks. The West and particularly the United States, having long aided and abetted the Zionist usurpation of the Palestinian homeland, are beginning to reap a whirlwind.

Recent news reports indicate that American retaliation against terrorist suspects in Islam only serve to escalate the jihad (holy war) against the United States.

A DISTINCTION OF GREAT SIGNIFICANCE

To this day, high caste Brahmins of India and many Muslim peoples and nations in Islam can trace their lineage to Abraham. In our Lord’s day, the Idumean Jews who conspired against Him could claim Abraham as their father. The Lord called Isaac’s seed out from among the various branches of Abraham’s descendants as recorded in Genesis 21:12:

“In Isaac shall thy seed he called.”

This exclusive consideration for Isaac’s posterity is made abundantly clear:

“And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. And I will bless her, and … she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people [kings of nations, R.V.] shall he of her … And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.” – (Genesis 17:15, 16 & 19)

Now the crux of the matter is the fact that neither the Palestinian Arabs nor the Jews are the rightful heirs to the Promised Land. When God called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees, He promised that his posterity would possess the land of Palestine forever.

Today Abraham’s seed of promise are the descendants of Isaac and are called by their family name, “Saxsons,” a derivation of the Hebrew, ‘Saac’s sons’. Isaac had two sons, Esau and Jacob. The birthright was given to Jacob, not Esau. God gave Jacob a new name, or title, ISRAEL, meaning “a prince, or ruler with God”:

“And God said unto him, I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins. And the land which I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee I will give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give the land.” – (Genesis 35:10-12.)

The 48th and 49th chapters of Genesis record that Jacob/Israel had twelve sons who became the progenitors of the twelve tribes of Israel. Jacob, now called “Israel,” called his sons together and divided the inheritance among all twelve – (Genesis 49:1 & 2).

But a most extraordinary birthright blessing of a national pre-eminence was given to the sons of Joseph: Manasseh was destined to become a great people, or republic, and Ephraim to become even greater as a great kingdom and a “company,” or “multitude of nations” – (Genesis 48: 19-20).

Manasseh became the great people, or republic: The United States of America. And Ephraim, became even greater as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and the Commonwealth of British Nations. Moreover, Jacob’s very name, ISRAEL, was given to his grandsons, Ephraim and Manasseh, as the patriarch blessed Joseph saying:

“God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, the Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and let my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude; in the midst of the earth.” – (Genesis 48:15-16.)

As the leading birthright nations in Saxon-Israel, Great Britain and the United States have a crucial stake in the final resolution of the Promised Land. But national blindness which is responsible for our pro-Zionist bias in Palestine reflects the spiritual blindness of the church in Western Christendom. Unmindful of our heritage as God’s witnesses and His servant people, Israel – successive U.S. Administrations have sanctioned and supported the Zionist-Israeli occupation of the Palestinian homeland for over 50 years.

All during the Cold War, the U.S. State Department insisted that American interests in the Middle East depended largely on the preservation of our friend, and strategic ally: Israel must be kept strong and viable as a bulwark against Soviet expansion in the region.

The collapse of the Soviet Union notwithstanding, fears of a Russian offensive in the Holy Land were well-founded perhaps more than anyone in government then, or now, may realize. In the “Day of the Lord,” Russian-led armies of the great anti-God confederacy of prophecy will move against the Holy Land – (Ezekiel 38:16), and against Israel in the West – (Ezekiel 38:10-13).

JERUSALEM TRODDEN DOWN

To understand why Palestine is embroiled – in seemingly interminable conflict, we need to look back to Israel’s long estrangement from the Lord in exile among the Gentiles. It should be recalled that 130 years after the twelve tribes were taken captive by the Assyrians in a series of deportations, a remnant of Judah still in Jerusalem was taken captive by the Babylonians when the city fell in 604 B.C. This date marked the beginning of the “times of the Gentiles.”

The reign of Nebuchadnezzar began the Babylonian Succession of World Empires: Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Imperial Rome, and later subdivisions of the Roman Empire into the nations of Continental Europe. In the latter years, the Empire’s seats of power moved from Rome to Berlin and Constantinople to Moscow.

In the Great War of 1914-1918, the defeat of the last Kaiser and Czar marked the termination of the prophetic “times of the Gentiles.”

The Great War also marked the end of another phase of the “times of the Gentiles” foretold by our Lord in the New Testament – (See Luke 21: 24).

JERUSALEM LIBERATED

“Seven times,” i.e., 2,520 years* after the fall of Jerusalem in 604 B.C. brings us to 1917 A.D. On December 9, 1917 the Turks surrendered the Holy City to British forces led by General Allenby. General Allenby, who later became Viscount Allenby, was a serious student of the Bible. According to his own record he was awed by the tremendous responsibility at his command. As he led his British Army into Jerusalem, he dismounted from his white horse and walked into the city. Not a shot was fired.

The overwhelming numbers of Turkish forces abandoned Jerusalem through the rear gates of the city. God’s time was up and another major prophecy was fulfilled. Jerusalem was delivered by an army of Ephraim Britain. The “times of the Gentiles” was fulfilled.

Looking back to the deliverance of Jerusalem – a DESTINY Editorial in December 1947 commented: “The taking of Jerusalem should have been a trumpet blast to Christendom that the end of the age has come.” How then could an event of such magnitude pass virtually unheralded and unheeded?

Excerpts from the DESTINY Editorial offer the following explanation: “With the ending of World War I, the house of Israel had come into possession of their ancient homeland. However, because of their blindness, and particularly the blindness of Israel’s spiritual leaders to the Israel identity of Great Britain, they failed to recognize that Palestine belongs to her as a gift from the Almighty …. Thus Great Britain must repudiate the mandate as the first step toward the ultimate solution to the present problem. From the inception of this mandate there has been nothing but turmoil and trouble, bloodshed and murder as the Jews challenge the British right to rule in Palestine.”

THE MANDATE THAT FAILED

Great Britain had taken unilateral possession of the Promised Land. But as a member of the League of Nations, created at the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, she accepted a mandate from the League to govern the land. When the League was dissolved in 1946, the mandate’s authority dissolved with it.

At the end of thirty years, Britain’s heroic but thankless mandate to govern and maintain peace, despite relentless Zionist atrocities, was abandoned when the League of Nations was superseded by yet another godless organization – the United Nations.

Great Britain, oblivious to the fact that Palestine belongs to the House of Israel as an everlasting inheritance, was led providentially to repudiate the Gentile League of Nations mandate and withdraw from the land. But in the final disposition of the Promised Land, the House of Israel will return – this time according to the Lord’s Sanction and His Authority.

POLITICAL ZIONISM

A diverse people whom the Lord calls “an hypocritical nation and the people of my wrath” – (Isaiah 10: 6) and “the tabernacles of Edom” – (Psalm 83: 6), are of an historic Esau/Edom/Idumean cabal.

In Jeremiah’s day they were of a minor faction in Judah whom the Lord characterized as bad figs, they were so evil – (Jeremiah 24:1-3). The prophet Ezekiel identified them as “the inhabitants of Jerusalem” who said to the house of Israel wholly:

“Get you far from the Lord: unto us is this land given in possession.” – (Ezekiel 11:15.)

The prophet foresaw the present-day “inhabitants of Jerusalem” oppose the house of Israel’s right to govern Palestine because the Zionist Jews are not descendants of Judah much less of Israel.

Mr Benjamin Freedman, a Jew, explains: “Political Zionism is almost exclusively, a movement by the Jews of Europe: But these Eastern European Jews have neither a racial nor a historic connection with Palestine. Their ancestors were not inhabitants of the Promised Land. They are direct descendants of the people of the Khazar Kingdom which existed until the 12th century.”

The Khazars were a non-Semitic, Turko-Finn, Mongolian tribal people who, about the first century A. D., emigrated from Middle Asia to Eastern Europe.

About 7th century A.D., the King of the Khazars adopted Judaism as the state religion, and the majority of inhabitants joined him in the new allegiance. Before that date there was no such thing as a Khazar who was a Jew. Neither then nor since was there such a thing as a Khazar whose ancestors came from the Holy Land.

“The Eastern European, Yiddish-speaking Jews have no historic or racial connection with Palestine or, for that matter, with other Jews who existed in other countries for thousands of years prior to the Khazar conversion.”*

THE BARREN FIG TREE

Our Lord used the parable of a barren fig tree to depict Jewry’s failure to show forth the fruits of the Kingdom. Because the Jews rejected Him, Jesus declared that all rights to the Kingdom would be taken from them and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof – (Matthew 21:43). The Jews refused to accept Jesus Christ of the House of David as King (Luke 1:31-33), and nearly two thousand years later they refused to accept the sovereignty of the Throne of David as represented in the Crown of Great Britain.

Our generation has seen the fig tree beginning to put forth leaves in the aspirations of Jewish nationalism – (Matthew 24: 32-34). With the liberation of Jerusalem in 1917, a vanguard of Jews had already moved into Palestine ostensibly as the chosen people returning to the Promised Land.

Ironically, Ephraim-Britain made possible the incursions of the Turks who are a major part of Edom in the world today. The British military action was a partial fulfilment of the Lord’s ultimate judgment upon Edom:

“And I will lay my vengeance upon Edom by the hand of my people Israel.” – (Ezekiel 25:14.)

The progeny of Esau/Edom together with various heterogeneous proselytes in Judaism are the present-day inhabitants of Jerusalem and the greater part of Palestine. The Lord foretells how the House of Israel will be returned to the land of their inheritance – (Jeremiah 3:14-18):

“I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion: And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding … At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the Lord, to Jerusalem: neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart. In those days, the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers.”

* Associated Press, September 27, 1998

*A prophetic “time” is found to be 360 years. “Seven times” 360 years is 2,520 years.

* See Palestine: Centre of World Intrigue, p.12. Available from Destiny Publishers, Merrimac, MA 01860-0177