​QUESTION: Why has the Gaza Strip been quiet lately? 

ANSWER: Because medical personnel there have been receiving test kits and medical equipment from Israel requested by the Gazans. The Gazans don’t want the Israeli assistance to cease. Therefore, they are behaving themselves. 

GOOD NEWS: In Gaza, the Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed the receipt of test kits and medical equipment from Israel requested by medical personnel there. “Handling the coronavirus outbreak takes precedence over any political consideration, and without help from Israel, Gaza would be in a very difficult situation in the case of an outbreak,” said an Israeli ministry official (Daniel Siryoti, “Why is the Gaza Strip calm these days? Hamas knows the answer,” Israel Hayom, (March 10, 2020).

In the last week of February alone, Israel permitted more than 100,000 Palestinians to enter Israel for medical treatment. Nearly 70,000 more were admitted the first week of March. On March 10, COGAT “coordinated the transfer of 20 tons of disinfectant material from Israeli plants to Palestinian plants. The materials included chlorine and hydrogen peroxide, used for disinfection, preservation of hygiene and sanitation” (@cogatonline, March 1 and 10, 2020).

In addition, in Mid-April, Israel provided a loan to the Palestinian Authority to help avert an economic and humanitarian crisis (Tovah Lazaroff, “Israel loans PA money, FM warns against Palestinian COVID-19 crisis,” Jerusalem Post, April 17, 2020).  (The above information has been taken from “Jewish Virtual Library”)

GRATIFYING: In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, a survey was taken on April 22-23. It indicated that a higher-than-usual percentage of Israelis--both Arab and Jewish--feel an integral part of the State of Israel. 92.5% of the Jews living there and 77% of Arab Israelis identify with Israel and feel that they share a common destiny “very much” or “quite a lot.” That’s high—the highest in a decade. Last year, only 42% of the Israeli Arabs indicated that they felt part of the state. We can guess the reason for this change in the attitude of the Arab Israelis.  

SLANDER: BDS (Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions against Israel) Professor Asad Abukhalil of Cal State University: tweeted, “Israel will—I am sure—have different medical procedures for Jews and non-Jews. Non-Jews will be put in mass prisons.”

The “Students for Justice in Palestine” chapter at the University of Maryland planned a conference on March 10, 2020, suggesting Israel is at least to blame for exacerbating the virus problem in the territories [among the Palestinians].

PREDICTION: The fact that Israel is providing life-saving medical care to Palestinians, a practice that preceded the virus pandemic, will probably also make little difference to propagandists who make the specious claim that Israel is engaged in ethnic cleansing.

IRONY: The BDS Movement (Remember: Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions) which originated in Palestine but is very strong on many American university campuses cannot be pleased. Why? Such cooperation is counter to the anti-normalization campaign of the BDS movement. Yes, that’s right—the BDS Movement wants there to be NO cooperation with the Israelis, including the health of the Palestinians, it seems.

SO BAD: From Israel’s Institute For Contemporary Affairs – Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser: “Since the worldwide spread of the coronavirus, we are witness to anti-Semitic expressions that denote the Jews, in general, and Israel, specifically, as those who have developed the virus and are responsible for its propagation. The anti-Israel BDS community and the Palestinian establishment have been leveraging the coronavirus to defame Israel." 

REFUTATION: “The facts are unimportant to them. In practice, Israel cooperates with the Palestinians in treating the coronavirus, transfers large amounts of medical equipment for their use, and advises medical teams in Gaza and the West Bank on how to treat the disease.” (Jewish Virtual Library)

STATEMENTS OF ISLAMIC SCHOLARS
From Egypt: Mohammed Al-Hefnawi Al-Ansari – “Thank you corona! This pandemic that has spread everywhere is good despite being a plague. When the people stopped enjoying good and forbidding evil, the coronavirus came to enjoy good and to forbid evil.”  Hm-m. 

From Jordan: Islamic Scholar Dr. Ahmad Al-Shahrouri – “Coronavirus and Zionism are both pandemics we need to fight.” Zionism should be fought like coronavirus is being fought because it is also a pandemic. He also said that Westerners’ use of toilet paper is an indication that they have poor hygiene. (MEMRI TV Clip No. 7920) 

​FROM THE SCRIPTURES (PSALMS 64 ESV)
                                                     Hide me from the secret plots of the wicked…
                                                           Who whet their tongues like swords,
                                                              Who aim bitter words like arrows,
                                                       Shooting from ambush at the blameless…

ISRAELI RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN CORONAVIRUS
Ben-Gurion University Researchers Developing Coronavirus Test that is 8 Times Faster. They are using AI to develop an algorithm-based test that can speed Covid-19 testing eightfold and help locate asymptomatic carriers. This new test is just one of 50 initiatives as part of the Ben-Gurion University Covid-19 response. (Daily Alert & from B-G University) Ben-Gurion University is a relatively new university located in the Negev Desert in Beer-Sheba. (or Beer-Sheva)

One of Israel’s new start-up companies is “CLEW Medical.” This company’s mission is to provide health care workers with high accuracy analysis and predictions of a patient’s outcome. Using artificial intelligence, it detects respiratory deterioration in advance, enabling early interventions and allows healthcare workers to identify disease severity from a remote command center and  then act accordingly. This is now undergoing extensive testing at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, Mass and WakeMed in Raleigh, North Carolina. (Jerusalem Post, April 17-23, 2020)

REPORT ON ISRAEL’S CORONAVIRUS DEATH TOLL. Israel’s death toll is 202. 129 are in serious condition. There are 383 coronavirus patients receiving treatment in hospitals (coming down) and 1,775 in specially designated hotels (down from 2,501) a few days ago, 796 have recovered. (Ynet News and Daily Report)

FROM THE SCRIPTURES: (PSALMS 124 ESV)
                                             If it had not been the Lord who was on our side--
                                                                    let Israel now say--
                                              if it had not been the Lord who was on our side
                                                            when people rose up against us,
                                               then they would have swallowed us up alive….
                                                 then the flood would have swept us away….
                                                                    Blessed be the Lord,
                                                                   who has not given us
                                                                  as prey to their teeth!...
                                                        Our help is in the name of the Lord,
                                                             who made heaven and earth.
 
 
 
 

As with the ancient Hebrews on approaching the land reported that there were giants there, so, with every Jewish return to the land since then, there is fierce opposition. But in every case, the “giants” weakened and in good time were overcome.

In the very first modern “alijahs” (the Hebrew word meaning “to go up” to the land) in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, there were two mighty giants there—first the Ottoman Empire. It took the First World War to fell that giant.

After that war, Palestine was placed in the hand of the British Empire-- the second giant. That giant was supposed to be benevolent—called “a protectorate”, assisting the Jews in their efforts to establish a nation. The Second World War felled Britain as a viable empire.

​The Jewish leaders thought Britain would be the ideal protectorate for Palestine.  But the relations very quickly got nasty.

THE COLONIAL ADMINISTRATION   
In 1919 The Military Administration of Britain moved out of Palestine, and the Colonial Office moved in. The generals exited, and the bureaucrats took over.

The British Colonial Code existed to develop and acquire cheap raw material from the dominated country and then manufacture goods with that material. Finally, they would take the finished product back to the subservient country to sell it for hefty profits. Its officials were men of cold reserve and had no feelings for Jewish sufferings.

But the Zionists/Jews in Palestine didn’t really need Britain to develop Palestine. They began developing it themselves as soon as they entered.  Even though they were professionals and intellectuals back in their European countries of origin, they had already trained themselves in land development, building and infrastructure. 

The Jewish development of Palestine was phenomenal. The British Mandates Commission in 1935 described the Jewish performance as an amazing record of progress—“the most notable colonization undertaking of modern times.” And the Brits had seen a lot of those undertakings. If they were unsuccessful one way, with unshakable willpower they tried another.

Regardless of that affirmation of Jewish endeavors, The Colonial Administration after the First World War began looking at the Jews with disdain. The literature of anti-Semitism at the time was flooding the book market. “The world Jewish plot” was the bait by which the Zionists were accused. In London, officials of the Colonial Office took Palestinian-Jewish tax revenue and with it actually organized a campaign to de-legitimize the Zionist effort!

Let’s get down to some specifics on how this anti-Zionist fever was institutionalized.

September, 1923: The Palestine Mandate was issued by the League of Nations. Point #1 of it makes it obligatory upon the administration of Palestine “to facilitate Jewish immigration.” Well, the British Colonial Office did everything it could to lessen  Jewish immigration to the Holy Land!  They sided with the Arabs who claimed that the land was already overpopulated and couldn’t assimilate any more Jews. At the time, there were less than a million residents. Today, in the reduced land, there are over nine million, and no one now says that Israel is overpopulated.

The Colonial Office Immigration Department acted more like an FBI than a facilitator. Anxious Jews were being turned away at the docks of Jaffa and Haifa while industries were frustrated with labor shortages.
A spirit of despondency set in to the Jewish community. Yet, Jewish ingenuity and hard work was truly making the saying fit: “The desert shall bloom like a rose.” While most other countries were suffering from the Great Depression in the 1930’s was rapidly increasing production.

Jewish farmers were the first to create markets, advertise, grade and select and introduce new varieties. EXAMPLE: In 1936, their average milk production per cow was 3695 quarts annually compared with the Arab average of just 845 quarts. EXAMPLE: Likewise with Jewish industry: In 1930 the Brits “proved” that there was no more land for development and thus the industrial outlook was hopeless. But in the time from 1930 to 1936, the Jewish community increased factories from 2274 to  4615. The Brits had warned that it would be very bad and possibly fatal to attract large capital for “doubtful industries” in Palestine. But in that 6-year period, industrial output went from 2,100,000 lbs. to 9,109,330.

On and on we could go.

In the 1930’s the major Jewish settlements were in the coastal plain and valleys around Haifa and Tel Aviv. Scores of settlements were located there. But the roads were few and inadequate. The British plans for roads were only to Arab villages. And that is the way it was and remained despite constant coaxing by the Jewish residents. And…get this: the Colonial Administration denied the colonists permission to build the roads themselves in their free time. The two main roads through Palestine went to Jordan. Ziff says that “for two decades Jewish colonists pled to deaf ears, issuing volumes of protest that would fill a library.”  
*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
SO, OUR OBSERVATION: One element in the English peoples was pro-Zionist/pro-Jewish represented by David Lloyd-George and Arthur Balfour. The other element, represented by the Colonial Administration of Great Britain, was crassly materialistic, imperialist-driven and clearly anti-Semitic. 

CONCLUSION:  The Jewish people are a work of God; they are called by Him and given gifts. (Though they are sinful witnesses.) Therefore, they are a conundrum.   
 
 The talents that are given to His Chosen People are striking, and the Gentiles cannot understand such things unless they take into account that God the Lord has called this people—called them to stand out in order to make Him known. Unless we acknowledge this, we, in my opinion, will not understand “Israel the Chosen.” (My book title)

We will pursue this theme in coming blogs. Next week I intend to report on what the Israelis are doing to shorten the time the world will have to contend with the corona virus. 

In the early 20th century the British reactions were representative of the world’s reactions. Some see and believe in the God of history—the  sovereign God—through His strange and mighty acts. Others are skeptical and preoccupied with reaching a selfish goal. They do not believe. They are crassly materialistic and filled with enmity, in this case, towards the Chosen People. And they make more than their share of trouble.

                                                                                       *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * *

-- The picture above is of Lord Arthur Balfour, author of "The Balfour Declaration," a public statement promoting Palestine as a homeland for the Jewish People. 
 
 
 

1917-1920

Towards the end of World War I, the fate of empires was at stake. The Ottoman Empire (The Turks), without doubt, would be defeated. Who would take the spoils?

It would be largely Britain and France that would decide.
Britain wanted Palestine. Under the Ottomans, Palestine had been a mere province in Syria. Get that? Pretty amazing considering the narrative that Palestinians promote today as to the importance of Palestine. Yes, it was only a backwater province under the Muslim Ottoman Empire.

The British General Allenby took it late in that war.

William B. Ziff in The Rape of Palestine writes: “The surrender of Jerusalem coincided exactly with the Feast of Hanukkah, which commemorates the recapture of the Temple from the heathen Seleucids by Judas Maccabeus in the year 165 B. C.”  Wow! “Lending color to this coincidence, the Englishman, General Allenby said, on entering the city: ‘We have come not as conquerors but as deliverers.” (From the book The Rape of Palestine by William B. Ziff) A nice statement.

The British wanted to be the Protector of Palestine—to work to develop a nation in what previously had been just a province in a Muslim empire.  Why did they want this?  Many reasons, but here are three main ones:

First, they wanted a land route to India which Palestine would provide.

Second, they wanted to keep Russia out of the Middle East.  

Third, some British leaders wanted Palestine for religious purposes. They believed it was time for the Chosen people to get that land.   

Stay with me on this brief history.

Some of Britain’s principal leaders carried a lot of sympathy for the Jewish people. They had been steeped in Old Testament history and believed that God wanted His people back in the land. Prime Minister Lloyd-George was one of these. Lord Balfour was another.

Lloyd-George was not educated in an exclusive English public school that stressed the Greek and Latin classics; he was brought up on the Bible. He frequently commented that the place names of the Bible were more familiar to him than the places that figured in the European war. He was brought up in a Disciples of Christ Church in Wales. Hm-m.

There were a considerable number of Jews in Palestine, and a lot in Jerusalem. Quite a few were Zionists--new Jewish immigrants—the beginning of the Zionist state. They really wanted the British to be in control while the foundations of the Jewish National Home were being laid.

And so the Brits took it. The official document making this official is The Balfour Declaration. But not much time elapsed before it became apparent that the entire British military administration was uncompromisingly opposed to the letter and spirit of the Balfour Declaration. The British generals virtually refused to carry out London’s
orders. They didn’t care one whit for the Jews/Zionists.

UNDER THE MILITARY ADMINISTRATION

In April, 1918, General Allenby set up the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration to make the transition easy from the Ottoman administration to the British. But the officials in the British military administration immediately dissociated themselves from what they called the British ”Zionizing” policy! The chairman of the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration in a display of anti-Semitism said that the “Jews of Jerusalem were bringing up the rising generation in their schools to be dirty, idle wasters….Their men turn out more idle wasters and their women more prostitutes than the rest of the population put together.” And, he regarded the Jews as an inferior class morally and intellectually.  (p. 89, Righteous Victims: Morris: )  Mercy!

Despite the Jews having a majority of the population of Jerusalem, the British Army made the city administration two-thirds Arabic.  Horace Samuel wrote: The British officers there regarded the Balfour Declaration as damn nonsense, the Jews as a damn nuisance, and ……..and the Arabs as damn good fellows.”  

Before the League of Nations put the Palestine Mandate into effect wherein Palestine would be declared the homeland of the Jewish people by this international organization, the British Military, with conscious purpose, proceeded to foster conflict between the Jews and Arabs, which encouraged the Arabs to make trouble instead of peace!

The generals themselves, according to Ziff, conceived of a pogrom (organized harassment and massacre) in Jerusalem against the Jews, hoping it would provide impetus to the death of the Jewish organization! They supplied the Arab opposition with funds and wrote the anti-Jewish documents for the Arabs. Their intent: the end of Zionism wherein the League of Nations would be forced to favor the Arab native population and crush the Zionist program!

These planned riots were well-timed to hurt the Jewish population. Muslim  crowds had gathered for a festival in Jerusalem. The Jewish policemen had been relieved from duty in the ‘Old City’ where most of the Jews lived.   
The author, William Ziff, wrote: “Jerusalem had undergone an orgy of slaughter, rape, torture and sack. Everywhere homes and stores were wrecked. Sixty innocents lay dead, and innumerable victims were injured.” And, get this, it
was  Zionist Jews that were sentenced to prison--15 years at hard labor!

My beloved Englishmen (my family origins), how could you do this?

But as the news was broadcast to the world, it brought about a huge wave of protests. As it was, England had her hands full with difficulties in Ireland and India, and she couldn’t afford to have her national reputation smeared with this.

So the British officials retreated under a torrent of condemnation.
As for the Jewish leaders at that time, Ziff says they reacted like scared puppy dogs.   

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Just as Israel’s ancient approach to the Promised Land was challenging and their battles were many to secure the land, so with the modern day return to the Land. It has been fraught with many difficulties and extreme hardships due to fierce opposition.

This is only the beginnings of British opposition. I have presented a sampling of difficulties the Jewish immigrant-Zionists faced under the Military Administration. Next week, I will elucidate some of the excessively-severe anti-Jewish ordinances and policies put into effect by the Colonial Administration.

                                                         But you, O Lord, are enthroned forever;
                                                  Your name endures through all generations.
                                                You will rise up and have compassion on Zion;
                                                                   For it is time to favor it. 
                                                                  (Psalms 102:12-13 NRSV)
 

14th Day of Nissan

On that first original Passover night, the blood from the sacrificed animal was to be smeared on the door posts and lintel and possibly threshold of the house. Then the meat, being roasted was to be hastily eaten with belt fastened--ready to leave the home and enslaved condition. 

But, before the Israelites got out of Egypt, the Land of Bondage, they were commanded to kill the lamb, take the blood and eat the sacrifice.

Why? Because they were a motley group of people about to be born a nation—chosen by the Most Holy God! And the Holy God required that propitiation be made for that sinful congregation.  

NOTE: This is the first time that the Children of Israel were called “a congregation.” Not since their first complaints about their bondage in slavery was it recorded that they would do something together—with one accord—the 10th day of the month and year just beginning. At that point, they would select the unblemished kid or lamb to sacrifice to the Lord; and at dusk of the 14th day, the whole congregation would kill the lambs together. 

This corporate action would take place at full moon so that all Egypt would be able to see. They could see the smearing of blood on the lintel and sides of the doorways of the Israelites and would be able to inquire of the meaning of this action.

Then, the Lord, or His angel, would go through the land and strike death to the firstborn of every household with the exception of those whose house displayed the blood of the lamb. For, says the Lord God,
                                 On all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. The blood [of the sacrifices]                                            will be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you,
                                and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 12, ESV)

Later, Passover became an annual feast and was observed at the tabernacle and later the temple. “There you shall offer the Passover sacrifice.”
(In addition, other offerings/sacrifices were included in the cultic system such as the burnt offering, sin offering and peace offering.)

The primary purpose of animal sacrifice was to make atonement for sin.  "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls." (Leviticus 18:11)  

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Later,  the temple was the place to offer the Passover sacrifices. But when that was destroyed by the Romans, what then?  At that point, the whole cult of the sacrificial system had no city. No center. No place for the congregation of Israel.   It was finished—all of the sacrifices including the burnt offering--finished.   

And the priesthood was declared null and void.

But the prayers and the prayer books expanded as if there were still a temple, a priesthood and altars—on and on as if to take up all the time required to offer a sacrifice.

Let me quote some Jewish authors:
David S. Ariel: ​What Do Jews Believe?  “Torah learning, prayer and moral goodness became the central rituals of Judaism.” Moral goodness a ritual? And this: “Formal prayer was made an alternative to the sacrifices.” Hm-m.

This one from Hillel Halkin, a well-known essayist, author, translator—a man of the world and a Reform (liberal) Jew, comments on the newer Siddur (prayerbook). As you will see, words cannot convey what the blood can:  
      “The flow of blood always shocks. It mesmerizes. Even cutting a finger causes a shiver of horror and                         excitement through us that no pain or ache can duplicate. The few drops that are quickly staunched by a 
       band-aid are the life beginning to leave us. The blood gushing from an animal’s throat at an altar needs no               words. It is wordless prayer, just as prayer is bloodless sacrifice…But the traditional "musaf" (meaning                          "additional prayer")  expressed a passionate wish… the wish to be able to offer to God what is most precious—         and what is most precious is not words that we say day in and day out. Words are what the siddur (prayer                 book)has accumulated, more and more of them, as though in the fear that there can never be enough….None           grabs us and shakes us until  we feel faint. We yearn for the prayer that cuts to the quick like a knife.”  
                                                (Jewish Review of Books, Spring, 2010)

NOTE: that word “Musaf” which means an additional part of the service
What is additional? ANSWER: More praying. More and more praying making the congregants tired. But that extra praying is intended to be sufficient to make up for no sacrifice on an altar.  REPEAT: Ariel and Halkin are exposing the vacuum in Judaism:  more praying has become just a substitute for the real thing—SACRIFICE.

Says Halkin, we the Jews yearn, not for more and more prayers, but for the sacrifice in the worship…for that which will cut us to the quick.

We know that the Orthodox Jews yearn for the sacrifice. But the worldly, liberal, Reform Jews like Halkin and his liberal friends--they, too, in their hearts—even some of them long for that shocking flow of blood that grabs and shakes the worshipper.  In their hearts, they miss the real thing--the blood of the lamb spilt. That, more than all the words in prayer, more than even those mosefs--the additional prayers--would cut to the quick and dramatize the atonement made for sinful lives. 
                                                 
*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
But we cannot conclude this essay until we do recognize the true Passover that does indeed transfix the world. Yes, the place was Jerusalem on Mount Golgotha where Abraham travelled to sacrifice Isaac (and was stopped by the angel)….and the spot where the Holy Lamb of God—Yeshua (Jesus) was taken to be poured out as a sacrifice for the sins of the world.

Truly shocking! “Behold the Lamb of God.”

​In Genesis chapter 26, we have a story of contentiousness.  

Isaac, son of Abraham, moved to Gerar where his father Abraham had previously lived. There he became rich with huge flocks of cattle, sheep and many servants. He also found that all the wells his father’s servants had dug had been stopped up and filled by the Philistines.

The scripture says,
      “Isaac dug again the wells of water that had been dug in the                days of Abraham.”
When Isaac’s men re-dug the first one, the residents of Gerar “quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen, saying, ‘The water is OURS.’” So Isaac named the well “Esek” meaning “contention.” Then Isaac went some distance and re-dug another well; and…the residents again contended with Isaac. So Isaac named the well “Sitnah,” meaning “enmity.”

Those residents of ancient Gerar would have nothing to do with those wells that Abraham dug. So they stopped them up. Then when son Isaac re-dug them, they showed their enmity again by claiming that the wells were theirs.  
 
Fast Forward to the mid-1800’s: Look at what was going on in Palestine a few decades before the Jews began to return to that land.
- constant feuding between rival local chieftains.
--unceasing attacks by neighboring Bedouin tribes driving many peasants (called fellah) into the hills or out of the country.
- the conquest by the Egyptians in 1831 and the re-conquest of the Turks in 1840
- constant blood-feuds between families, clans and entire villages as to land ownership.
(This is taken from two old history books: Land Ownership in Palestine by Moshe Aumann and Whose Land? by James Parkes. The first book is authored by a Jew and the second by an Anglican clergyman/historian.)

This strife resulted in a sense of insecurity and a decrease in population as people fled elsewhere.
Adding to that, the burden of taxation was responsible for many farmers leaving the land, leaving it without cultivation to become barren.

This situation puts the lie to the claim that the Palestinian rural economy was interrupted by Jewish immigration and settlement. The British writer, H. B. Tristram. (The Land of Israel: A Journal of Travels in Palestine, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, 1865). In 1865, he wrote as follows:

A few years ago, the whole Ghor (Jordan Valley) was in the hands of the fellahim (peasants) and much of it cultivated for corn. Now the whole of it is in the hands of the Bedouin….and with the Bedouin come lawlessness and the uprooting of all Turkish authority…..Both in the north and south (of the Sharon plain), land is going out of cultivation, and whole villages are rapidly disappearing from the face of the earth.

A writer more familiar is Mark Twain who, after visiting Palestine, wrote this dirge-like description:
Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince. The hills are barren…the valleys are unsightly deserts…It is a hopeless, dreary, heartbroken land. Over it brooks the spell of a curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies. (Mark Twain: The Innocents Abroad, Hartford: The American Publishing Company, Dover Edition, 2003)

A British Christian historian, James Parkes:
In the wars between villages it was far too common a practice to cut down fruit trees and olives and to destroy crops….Bedouins freely destroyed the cisterns….malaria became endemic and the unlucky peasants fled elsewhere or starved in the towns….  (Parkes: Whose Land? 1949, 1970)

On and on goes Parkes’ sad tale and description of Palestine.

Is it any surprise then that when large numbers of Jewish immigrants were entering Palestine in the early 20th century, when they set up business there and when the total population was growing, that the Arab/Palestinians produced turmoil and provoked rioting from time to time? Accusations flew from the mouths of the Arabs: for example, “the Jews are going to take control of our temple mount.” The British Peel Commission, after much investigation, found that Arab complaints about land acquisition were without basis and that the Jewish presence actually resulted in higher wages and an improved standard of living.

I received a report just last week that Gaza’s Ministry of Agriculture, run by Hamas, has been reporting that Israeli authorities have opened water dams to channel wastewater into Palestinian farmlands. This action, they said, was damaging crops, destroying apiaries, causing the death of cows and sheep and causing soil erosion.

But it’s just a part of their war of words. In southern Israel, there are no dams of the type that can be opened. (originally from the Palestinian Information Center, Jan. 5, 2020)
 
MY POINT….
The enmity which brings contention is still there….and is still directed outwards toward many others, but especially towards God’s Chosen People. 

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Those looking on at the strife today ask: “When will it end?”

Well, let me submit these points: 

First of all, as those of you know who read these blogs, I believe that God uses the harassment and persecution of the Jews to unify Israel. They need help to become unified, and lots of it. Why? Because they have a problem with fractiousness/dissension. Religiously, they have everything from the ultra-Orthodox to ultra-liberal. Philosophically, they have everything from socialism to Talmudism. Population wise, they are made up of a number of ethnic groups and colors. And yes, they do have a problem with racism within their ranks.   

QUESTION: So, how can they unify? ANSWER: Through their defense. Every young person serves. Thus, the army becomes the force that aids greatly in consolidating the Israeli people into one nation. 

Could I be judicious and still make this statement? The Lord has provided, or permitted them to have, sufficient enemies to help unify the nation of Israel?  

Furthermore, there is more peace in the land of Israel now that it is controlled by the Jews than there was previous to their return to the land....and since the nations around Israel have given up trying to obliterate it.

Thirdly, those who become the chosen of God can always expect the world’s enmity. That’s just the way it is. They are different because of being the Lord’s. 

​So, this people--chosen of the Lord, will meet with….well…anti-Semitism. For they are the descendants of Isaac.