Israel in the News Sep/Oct 2009
No Peace!
“Our goal has never been peace,” a Fatah official admitted on Palestinian Authority (PA) TV. “Peace is a means; the goal is Palestine,” meaning the conquest of Israel.
“It has been said that we are negotiating for peace,” she further stated, “but our goal has never been peace.” Arutz-7 reported that Kifah Radaydeh, deputy head of the Jerusalem chapter of Fatah, openly said the PA will resume violence and terror against Israel when Fatah is “capable” and “according to what seems right.”
Fatah MP Najat Abu Bakr said Fatah’s goal remains the destruction of Israel, but that its political plan is to focus on returning to the 1967 borders. “It doesn’t mean that we don’t want the 1948 borders,” Abu Bakr said, referring to all of Israel, but rather that “our current political program is to say that we want the 1967 borders.”
Obama Pressure
ARUTZ-7—U.S. President Barack Obama assured 15 leaders of Jewish American organizations of his commitment to Israel, but he also insisted he will publicly press the Jewish state to conform to his vision of Middle East peace.
Hosting the Jewish delegates in the White House, Obama repeatedly made it clear that, in his view, this can only mean the creation of an Arab state within Israel’s current borders. Obama also said he will continue to press his administration’s demands on Israel urgently and publicly, regardless of opposition from the Israeli government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu.
A Ploy to Kill Israel
ARUTZ-7—Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Arabs must renounce their demand for the “right of return,” which he said reflects a will to destroy Israel after signing a peace accord with it.
“I yearn for the day,” he said, “that the Palestinian leaders face their people and say these clear words: ‘We have had enough of this conflict. We, the Palestinians, recognize the right of the Jewish people to a country of its own on this land. We will live beside you in true peace.’”
Readmitting the refugees would be equal to the U.S. admitting nearly 70 million of its sworn enemies.
The “right of return” is the Arab claim that Arab residents of Israel who left their homes during the 1948 Independence War be allowed to return. But, as Mitchell G. Bard documents, many left by choice, preferring to adhere to promises of the invading Arab armies that if they evacuated, they would return after the war to their own homes as well as those of their Jewish neighbors.
Contemporary press reports conspicuously fail to mention any forcible expulsion by the Jewish forces. The Arabs are usually described as “fleeing” or “evacuating.” One refugee, quoted in the Jordan newspaper Ad Difaa (September 6, 1954), said, “The Arab government told us: Get out so that we can get in. So we got out, but they did not get in.”
Bombed Hospital Never Existed
ARUTZ-7—Another anti-Israeli campaign, this time charging on television that Israel destroyed a Christian hospital in Gaza, has gone up in smoke following an investigation by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA).
A star-studded, television telethon was conducted earlier in the year in Greece to raise funds for a hospital Israel allegedly “destroyed with their bombs” during the Operation Cast Lead counterterrorist campaign from December 2008 through mid-January 2009.
However, the JTA revealed that the supposed hospital was not on UN or Red Crescent Society lists of damaged structures. Officials of non-government groups in Gaza said only one Christian hospital was used during the campaign, and it did not sustain damage.
When questioned, the Greek television station said it was only responsible for providing air time and that the government and a trade union ran the campaign. The union referred the JTA to the government. The Greek ambassador in Israel in turn referred the JTA to the Greek consulate in Jerusalem.
After the investigation, a financial newspaper in Greece published a small article that “a project is being sought in Gaza to be financed by the money” that was raised in the telethon.
Arabs Protest Road Signs
ARUTZ-7—In an attempt to create uniformity in road signs, Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz wants to adjust English and Arabic versions of city, town, and village names to a direct transliteration of Hebrew. However, Arab Knesset members expressed outrage over the move.
Road signs in Israel are written in Hebrew, English, and Arabic and feature the names used by each language. Jerusalem, for example, is identified as Yerushalaim in Hebrew, Jerusalem in English, and Al Quds in Arabic. In addition, a wide variety of English and Arabic spellings can be found throughout the country, which Ministry officials say “reflect the vast changes and development in Israel’s high-ways.” Caesarea, for example, appears as Caesarea, Qesarya, Qesariyya, and Ceysaria.
To make things easier, the new signs will still feature Hebrew, English, and Arabic but rely exclusively on Hebrew transliteration. In all three languages, for instance, Jerusalem will be Yerushalayim, Natzrat for Nazareth, Kesariya for Caesarea, and Yafo for Jaffa. More than 2,000 names are expected to be adjusted.
“Christian Palestinianism” Moves Church Toward Islam
A new and growing slant on Replacement Theology not only replaces Israel with the church but is moving the church toward Islamic subjugation.
Its proponents, all of whom oppose Israel and Christian Zionism, include Stephen Sizer, a vicar of Christ Church in England, who calls Christian Zionists one of “the most powerful and destructive forces in America”;1 Donald Wagner, one of America’s leading opponents of Christian Zionism; Marc Ellis of Baylor University; Gary Burge of Wheaton College; and Hank Hanegraaff of the Creation Research Institute in Charlotte, North Carolina, and host of the radio show “The Bible Answer Man.”
In an online article, Thomas Ice, executive director of the Pre-Trib Research Center in Lynchburg, Virginia, quoted Egyptian scholar Bat Ye’or who said this movement “paves the way for the Islamization of the Church as it prepares mentalities for an Islamic replacement theology.”2
The movement rejects Dispensationalism, which maintains that Israel will one day receive all God has promised it, and discards the literal interpretation of Scripture. Ice noted that Philip Sa’ad, a Palestinian Christian in Haifa, Israel, said some Christian Palestinians “do not use the Old Testament as a source for their theology”; and they all spiritualize the text rather than use the literal method of interpretation.3
In her book Eurabia, Ye’or said Islamizing Christianity involves separating Christianity from Judaism and turning the historical, Jewish Jesus into an Arab Palestinian.4 Ice said Ye’or “declares that the Palestinian Christian movement is guilty of ‘“de-biblicizing” the Bible,’ expelling ‘the Jews from their own Scriptures,’ and reinterpreting it ‘from the viewpoint of the Qur’an.’” Ice also said Donald Wagner’s “attempt to disestablish the role of Israel and to exalt Palestinians into their place is typical of the movement.”
Sizer, Wagner, Ellis, and Burge all spoke at a 2004 conference in Jerusalem titled “Challenging Christian Zionism.” The event’s highlight was a meeting with then-Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat.
“The Bible teaches Zionism (Psalm 132),” wrote Ice. “It is becoming clear that when one rebels against God’s Word on this point, it opens them to not only replacement theology, but to an increasing acceptance of Islamic viewpoints. As issues clarify, there is no place for neutrality where one can hide.”5
ENDNOTES
- Phil Baty, “Zionism Thesis Stirs Up a Storm,” August 6, 2004 <timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=190483§ioncode=26>.
- Thomas Ice, “Christian Palestinianism,” July 3, 2009 <bible-prophecy-today.blogspot.com/2009/07/christian-palestinianism.html>.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
