A Palestinian State?

by David Brewer
(graphics added by Shalach Ministries)
www.amfi.org

On the eve of Retired Marine General Anthony Zinni’s trip to Israel to mediate the cease-fire process, John Negroponte, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, introduced a resolution to the UN Security Council which endorsed a Palestinian state to exist alongside Israel.  Unfortunately, the resolution passed unanimously, with one abstention (Syria).

To understand the issues with a little more clarity we need to look back in history.  The Arabs were offered a state in 1947 from the UN Partition Plan.  They, along with Britain were against it, while the US and Russia supported the plan.  They could have had their state then!  However, Yasser Arafat[1] began working against Israel before they even became a fledgling nation in 1948.  Arafat’s goal has been and remains to “push the Israelis into the sea”,[2] in other words, completely destroy them!  The Palestinian Authority (Arafat is the head of this organization) has never amended its charter, which calls for “the elimination of the Jewish state.”  Please do not be duped by what Arafat says to the American media, but pay very close attention to what he says to his own people in Arabic.[3] 

Arafat stated[4] about Jerusalem, “Whoever does not accept the fact that Jerusalem will be the capital of a Palestinian State, and only that State, can go drink from the Dead Sea [die] and go to hell.”  Arafat, in his Independence Anniversary Speech on November 14, 1999, stated about his goal to control Jerusalem, “The sun of freedom, independence, and sovereignty will rise in the sky of independent Palestine with Holy Jerusalem as its capital whether they [Israel] like it or not.”[5]  Arafat also said, “Peace for us means the destruction of Israel.  We are preparing for an all-out war that will last for generations. . . We shall not rest until the day when we return to our home, and until we destroy Israel.”[6]  Isn’t it amazing that in 1994, Arafat shared the Nobel Peace Price with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres!

Arafat has been the master planner of many terrorist activities, including “the 1972 murder of the Israeli Olympic team in Munich, the 1974 murder of schoolchildren at Ma’alot, the murder of infirm Jewish passengers on the Achille Lauro cruise ship, the murder of a U.S. ambassador in Sudan, and the bombing that killed 265 U.S. Marines.  He is also a friend of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.”[7]

One of the main goals of Islamic holy war is “the liquidation of the Jewish people, the total destruction of Israel, and complete sovereignty over Al-Quds (the Jerusalem of Islam).”[8]  Faisal Al-Husseini, one of the leaders (late administrator for Jerusalem Affairs) of the Palestinian people, stated on December 26, 1997,[9] “We Palestinians will take over everything, including all of Jerusalem . . . We plan to eliminate the State of Israel and establish a Palestinian state.”

On May 14, 1948, the day that Britain pulled out of Israel and she became a state, many Arab nations attacked Israel.  The Arab nations were so certain they would be able to destroy the Jewish state, that they rejected the UN partition plan and launched local attacks followed by an army assault on four fronts.  If the Arab nations had not responded in this way, the plan could have been carried out with no forced refugees[10], very little violence and they WOULD have had their state.  Please understand that it was the Arabs who initiated the 1948 self-declared total war of destruction against the newly-born Jewish state after turning down the partition plan.

In 1967 another war was on the horizon -- it was very evident that a number of Arab countries were planning to try to wipe out Israel once again.[11]  Israel made a pre-emptive strike[12] on June 5, 1967 upon Egypt since they knew that they would be completely outnumbered by Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.[13]  In this "Six Day War," Jordan opened fired on Israel even though she asked them not to get involved in the war.  One of the results of this war of self-defense was Israel captured the West Bank, Golan Heights, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem.  According to David Dolan in his April 2002 Israel News Digest,[14] based on international law, if a sovereign country like Israel is attacked by a country on its border (like Jordan), "it has a right to occupy that territory until a final peace treaty is achieved." 

In September 1967 at a meeting with Arab leaders in Sudan, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol was prepared to give back most of the conquered territories, on the agreement that the Arabs stop their 20-year old jihad against Israel.  But at this meeting, the Arab leaders stated that they would not negotiate, recognize, or make peace with the "Zionist entity."[15]

How would a Palestinian state put Israel at risk today?  Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explains that “once a Palestinian state is established, we will be unable to prevent ships from delivering weapons to it day and night, and it will become nothing less than a sovereign terrorist power.”

In July 2000, Ehud Barak offered Arafat ninety-six percent of the West Bank, all of Gaza and equivalent land to make up for the four percent deficiency of the West Bank.  He included all of east Jerusalem[16] (completely going against one of the promises he made during the 1999 election campaign), where the Arabs would build their capital.  You might think that Arafat’s response would be positive.  After all, this was what he was asking for, but instead his response was increased violence!  In understanding Arafat’s predicament we need to realize that if he had accepted the Camp David offer, would there be anything left to fight over?

Please pray that our leaders will make wise decisions when it comes to Israel.  We need to heartily support the right of Jacob’s children to live in the Middle East amidst a Muslim majority based on biblical, legal, and moral grounds.  Remember the words of Scripture “the gifts and the calling of God cannot be revoked or withdrawn” (Romans 11:29) (personal translation).

David Brewer is a Gentile believer, a full-time staff member of AMF International, a part-time professor at Philadelphia Biblical University in Hebrew, Bible, and Theology and is working on his Ph.D. in Jewish Studies and the Hebrew Bible at the Baltimore Hebrew University; e-mail: dbrewer@pbu.edu.