World Jewry celebrates May 14 as the day the Jewish State was reborn in its ancestral homeland following two thousand years of enforced exile. It is Israel's Independence Day, the day when, for the first time since Sargon II conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel in BC 702, there was a Jewish homeland called “Israel.”

    Although the Southern Kingdom of Judah survived assimilation by the Babylonians, the Northern Kingdom of Israel ceased to exist from the face of the earth a half-century before Nebuchadnezzar forced the Jews of Judah into 70 years of exile in Babylon. This is significant in that the ancient Hebrew prophecies for the last days were penned subsequent to the destruction of Israel by the Assyrians. At the time in which Zechariah, Ezekiel, Daniel and Isaiah wrote their prophecies for the last days, there was no such place as Israel anywhere in the world, and had not been, for generations.

    The remnant that survived Sargon, the Southern Kingdom of Judah, were not known as 'Israelites.' From the destruction of the Ten Northern Tribes forward, they were known as the 'Jews' of Judah. Yet each prophet wrote confidently of the existence of a Jewish homeland called “Israel” in the last days. On May 14, 1948, the most amazing fulfillment of Bible prophecy witnessed by men in nearly two thousand years took place when David ben-Gurion ordered the hoisting of the Star of David over the newly declared State of Israel.

    Immediately following Israel's declaration of statehood, the combined armies of the Arab world converged to push the tiny nation into the Mediterranean Sea. Prior to the invasion, two things took place. First, the Arab world sent word to the Arabs living inside the new Israeli State to flee in advance of the attack. They were assured that their land would be restored when they returned after the Jewish State was annihilated.

    The Jews, who knew their declaration of statehood meant war, also sent word to the Arabs who lived inside the borders of the new state. They were encouraged to stay and not take up arms against the Jews. In exchange, those Arabs would enjoy full Israeli citizenship. After Israel won the 1948 War of Independence, it granted citizenship to those Arabs who did not flee or join the invading Arabs. The Arabs who fled to the safety of the Arab world were locked up in Arab concentration camps, renamed 'refugee' camps, where they languished for generations, waiting for the promised 'Right of Return' to be fulfilled.

    Two decades later, a new war saw Jerusalem fall into Jewish hands, another amazing example of precise prophetic fulfillment. And another sign that further establishes that this is THE generation that will see the fulfillment of all remaining Bible prophecy, including the Rapture of the Church.

    To Christians and Jews, the existence of a Jewish State is a fulfillment of the prophecies of God. But to the Muslim Arab world, it is a blight on Islam, on Arab dignity and on the Koranic principle that land once conquered in Allah's name would remain under Islamic control for perpetuity.

    The Arabs known to the world as 'Palestinians' celebrate May 14 as the al Nakba, or “The Catastrophe”. Until the early 1960's most Arabs living in what had been the Southern Province of Syria from 1517 to 1917 under the Ottoman Empire, violently resisted any suggestion that their homeland was called “Palestine”. Testifying before the British Peel Commission in the aftermath of the Jerusalem riots in 1937, Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi angrily exclaimed, “There is no such country as Palestine! 'Palestine' is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria."

    No independent Arab or Palestinian State ever existed in Palestine. When the distinguished Arab-American historian, Princeton University Prof. Philip Hitti, testified against partition before the Anglo-American Committee in 1946, he said: "There is no such thing as 'Palestine' in history, absolutely not." In fact, Palestine is never explicitly mentioned in the Koran, rather it is called "the Holy Land" (al-Arad al-Muqaddash).

    Prior to partition, Palestinian Arabs did not view themselves as having a separate identity. When the First Congress of Muslim-Christian Associations met in Jerusalem in February 1919 to choose Palestinian representatives for the Paris Peace Conference, the following resolution was adopted:

    We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographical bonds. The representative of the Arab Higher Committee to the United Nations submitted a statement to the General Assembly in May 1947 that said "Palestine was part of the Province of Syria" and that, "politically, the Arabs of Palestine were not independent in the sense of forming a separate political entity."

    A few years later, Ahmed Shuqeiri, later the chairman of the PLO, told the Security Council: "It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria." The tragic problem of the Palestinians is not a new one. Instead, it has a shamefully long and tragic history. In 1798, Immanuel Kant, the famed German philosopher, was talking in rather degrading terms about the Palestinians who were living in Germany among the German people. When Kant was talking about the Palestinians, not for a moment did he think that he was talking about Arabs instead of Jews. Kant, of course, was only one of the many, such as Hegel and Fichte, who believed it was more elegant and civilized to refer to the Jews as Palestinians. For many among the European intelligentsia, especially from the times the Jews were beginning to be looked upon not only as a religious group but also as a nation without a country, the designation of Palestinian was applied only to the Jews. When famed conductor Arturo Toscanini was invited to conduct the Palestinian Symphony Orchestra, he didn't think that he was to be conducting a group of devout Muslim Arab musicians. He knew he would be leading a group of highly skilled Jewish musicians. Because in those days, the Jews were the only 'Palestinians' in the world.

    The existence of Arab 'Palestinians' can be traced historically to the period following Israel's defeat of the Arab world in June, 1967. Those Arabs who fled to Jordan in 1948 were interned in 'refugee camps' in what was then Jordan's West Bank. Israel annexed the West Bank after the 1967 War to serve as a buffer zone along Israel's eastern flank. Israel also annexed the Gaza Strip in the south from Egypt and the Golan Heights in the north from Syria. Those Arabs interned in the West Bank and Gaza had previously been Jordanians or Egyptians, or else, at their own insistence, they were Ottoman Syrians.

    At no time did either Jordan or Egypt ever consider offering the refugees in the camps their own state during all the time they controlled the territories. One of the inhabitants of the Jordanian camps, Yasser Arafat, declared “Palestine” into being, created a Palestinian flag and presented himself to the world as the head of the “Palestine Liberation Organization” and the only true representative of the 'Palestinian' people. It is against this historical backdrop that the “Quartet” is attempting to impose the roadmap for peace on Israel and the Arabs. But Israel will not accept an Arab 'right of return' and the Arabs will accept nothing less.

    According to Bible prophecy, from the restoration of Israel until the return of Christ, Israel will know only false peace. That has been the case from May 14, 1948 to the present day.

The prophet Daniel writes of a false peace treaty imposed on the Jews in the last days. Zechariah prophesied that the recovery of Jerusalem by the Jews would confound the governments of the world in the last days. Zechariah said that, "in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it." (Zechariah 12:3)

    Some weeks ago, the United States defied the United Nations and the expressed will of the majority of nations to remove Saddam Hussein from power by force. Two years ago, the United States was attacked on September 11, at least in part as a consequence of US support of Israel's right to exist. The attack launched a war against the al-Qaeda terror network specifically and organized terror in general. Since then, the US has invaded and conquered two Arab countries, and is in the process of pacification and re-education in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

     Why include that in a column about Israel? Because with all of that, what is the focus of world attention? No matter whether the topic is Iraq, Afghanistan, terror or al-Qaeda, somebody (particularly in Europe or at the UN) will find a way to work Israel into their speech. While Iraq and Afghanistan are on the periphery, the real focus of global attention remains Israel and the Palestinians. And forcing Israel back to pre-1967 borders, which would automatically grant half of Jerusalem back to the 'Palestinians' (who paradoxically did not exist until after Jerusalem was reunited in the Six Days' War). Note also that the road map to peace is a GLOBAL effort. The Quartet consists of the US, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia.     We are eyewitnesses to the unfolding drama of future history. 'History' in the sense future events will take place exactly as written, 'future' in the sense that history is continuing to unfold before our eyes. Just as they have continued to unfold since the day mourned by the Arab world as "The Catastrophe".

By: Jack Kinsella
The Omega Letter