A Call to Prayer: Whose Land Is It?

Newsfeeds are filled with not only the war in Israel but also various rallies in the streets of large cities or university campuses protesting Israel entering Gaza to eliminate the Hamas terrorist threat and return Israeli hostages.  Reports abound of the IDF’s “killing Palestinian babies and civilians” despite the fact they drop leaflets to ask civilians to escape where the war with Hamas will occur and take every precaution to protect the innocent despite Hamas using their own people as human shields.  Hamas’ main command center has clearly been exposed as being located in an underground bunker under Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital. They claim Israel has no right to exist as a nation. The phrase ‘from the river to the sea’ is being chanted, promoting the elimination of Jewish presence from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea.  Truly, there is a battle not only in the land of Israel with tanks and guns but in worldwide ideology.  It is the battle for truth.

The question bears answering: whose land is it?  I hope you appreciate history lessons as we will take a historical trip down memory lane to tackle this question.

God Almighty commissioned Abraham to the land of Canaan from the Ur of the Chaldeans in 2095 B.C.  The eternal Abrahamic Covenant was made to be carried on through Abraham’s son Isaac, the father of the Jewish people.  In it, the Lord promised Abraham through Isaac descendants, land, and to be a blessing to the world. (Genesis 12:3-7, 22; 13:14-16; 15:5,17-21; 17:4-8; 22:16-18; Psalm 105:7-11).

After the time of slavery in Egypt, the nation of Israel entered the Promised Land in 1406 B.C. King David’s reign was from 1010-970 B.C. King Solomon’s reign followed with the building of the First Temple in 950 B.C. The kingdom was divided under Solomon’s son Rehoboam as a result of falling away from adherence to the leadership of Jehovah. Assyrians conquered the northern tribe of Israel in 722 BC.

In the year 586 BC, Jerusalem and the southern Kingdom of Judah fell to the Babylonians.  Most of the Hebrew people were taken into captivity in Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar. Persia defeated the Babylonians, and under King Cyrus, a change occurred. Jeremiah’s prophecy of 70 years of captivity was accurate, as three waves of those in captivity were released to return to the land under Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah. The Second Temple was built at this time, and the walls around Jerusalem were restored.

Pictured: Reconstruction of Jerusalem by Cyrus, Darius and Xerxes, Picture from the Bible, Book of Ezra, 1921.

The Hellenistic Period or Greek rule of the land began under the conjuring of Persia by Alexander the Great and occurred during the years 333-167 B.C.  The land conquered by Alexander was divided into four parts, each ruled by one of his generals after his death, with the land of Israel under the rule of the Ptolemies.  They were subsequently defeated by the Jewish rebellion led by Judah Maccabee when the miracle of the oil in the temple did not abate, leading to the Jewish holiday, Hanukkah. The Maccabean Rule is known as the Hasmonean Period of 167- 63 B.C.

Jerusalem was conquered by Roman general Pompey in 63 BC, leading to the Roman rule of the land until 313 AD.  Under Roman Rule,  Herod the Great ruled the land of Israel, rebuilding the Temple and other monumental projects such as Caesarea, Herodian, and Masada. Jesus was born in 4 BC, and His ministry and life occurred under Roman rule.

The taking of Jerusalem by Herod the Great, Jean Fouquet 1470–1475

The Byzantine Period of 313 - 614 of Eastern Roman Empire Rule began with Constantine and his conversation to Christianity.  Constantine’s mother, Helena, went to the land of Israel and built many churches and basilicas on holy sites. The Persian Period came next when Persia conquered the Holy Land from 614 to 628 and subsequently destroyed many churches. Muslim/Arab conquest of the land occurred in 638, and in 691, the Dome of the Rock was built. The Crusader Period spans from 1099-1291 AD, where Catholic armies from Rome conquered many parts of the Holy Land. The Mamluk (Muslim) Period spans from 1291 - 1517. By the end of the Middle Ages, the country was in ruins. There are locust invasions and devastating earthquakes.

The Ottoman (Muslim) Period followed from 1517 to 1917 and was ruled from Istanbul, Turkey.  Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Israel in 1799 but failed to capture it and was forced to leave.  In 1882, the first large-scale immigration to Israel, mainly from Russia, occurred.

After the First World War, which included the defeat of the Ottomans, who aligned with Germany,  international law repeatedly granted the Jewish people political sovereignty in Palestine.  On November 2, 1917 British Foreign Minister Lord Balfour issued the Balfour Declaration, which gave official support for the ‘establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.’  In 1920, the San Remo (Italy) Conference of Allied Supreme Council leaders led to the San Remo Resolution and later the July 1922 British Mandate for Palestine, giving Britain the leadership of Palestine with the express purpose of helping establish a home for the Jewish people. This was agreed upon by the League of Nations, which was replaced by the United Nations.  The agreement was that the Jewish people were to have the land from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea. Incidentally, the British withheld Jews fleeing the Holocaust and WWII to enter Palestine and continued catapulting to Arab uprisings.

On November 29, 1947 the United Nations approved the partitioning of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states, with 56% of the land going to a Jewish State and 43% to an Arab State.  On May 14, 1948 the day when the British Mandate in Palestine expired, the State of Israel was instituted under the presidency of David Ben Gurion with the backing of the United States under President Harry Truman.

There is an important event to note:  The Arabs did not accept the UN partitioning of the land to receive their Arab State.  Instead, they declared war on the new State of Israel, leading to the Arab-Israeli War of 1948-1949.  Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon, and Iraq attacked Israel, but miraculously, Israel won the war.

The 1967 Six-Day War occurred after Egypt, under President Gamal Nasser, closed the Straits of Tiran. Israel launched a preemptive strike on Egyptian, Jordanian, Syrian, and Iraqi airports on June 5, 1967.  After six miraculous days, Israel conquered Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, Sinai, Judea, and Samaria.

On October 6, 1973 the Yom Kippur War began when Syria and Egypt launched a surprise attack against Israel on their holiest day of the year.  After many casualties, Israel was able to cross the Suez Canal into Egypt and was nearing Cairo when the USA and USSR intervened; Israel ended the war.

Photo Courtesy: Council on Foreign Relations

In the Camp David Accord of 1978, Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula, and in 1979, the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty was signed.

In August of 2005, under pressure from US President George W. Bush and the agreement of Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Israel withdrew from Gaza, displacing 1700 families and 21 Jewish communities in the region.  This ‘land for peace’ agreement led to the closure of synagogues, greenhouses, and military bases in the region. Within one year, the Palestinian people of Gaza voted for Hamas to be the governing body of Gaza.  

Photo Courtesy: Reuters

Incidentally, the Palestinian people of Gaza receive the most global financial aid of any people group per capita in the world and in all of history.  Yet, what was once a fertile region has become the home of 300 miles of underground tunnels built for the purpose of terror, the launching of tens of thousands of rockets into Israel, teaching from childhood to hate and kill Jews, and the celebration of “martyrs” or those who die while killing Jews with financial aid given to their families.

So, whose land is it?  Going back to the time of Abraham, the covenant was made through his son Isaac, the father of the Jewish people; the land was given to the Jewish people by God Himself.  Then we see historically that the land was given to the Jewish people through international law, from the Balfour Declaration to the San Remo Conference to the 1947 United Nations partitioning of the land to Israel’s subsequent victory in wars to defend their right to exist.  

The Lord has this to say to those who seek to divide up the land of Israel, which He gave to His people, “For behold, in those days and at that time, when I bring back the captives of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; and I will enter into judgment with them there on account of My people, My heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations; They have also divided up My land.” (Joel 3:1-3).

Personally, I feel a holy fear of God pertaining to those who seek to challenge Israel’s right to exist or defend itself.  Hebrews 10:31 comes to mind, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”  May we be found on the right side of history, the right side of the Bible, the right side of God.

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