Posted on 04/27/2011 7:50:39 AM PDT by bsaunders
The recent murder of one Jewish worshiper and injuring of four other worshipers, one critically, in a hail of sustained gunfire initiated by the Palestinian Authority Police assigned to guard Joseph’s Tomb sends an ominous message of what sort of treatment to expect should Jewish holy sites in Judea and Samaria be turned over to Palestinian control. Taking this latest overt belligerence towards Jewish worshipers visiting a Jewish holy site, some of which include Joseph’s Tomb, the Cave of the Patriarchs, Rachel’s Tomb, the Peace on Israel Synagogue in Jericho, the Temple Mount, and the Kotel, reveals the unsuitability of allowing the Palestinians to be charged with the responsibility of allowing universal access to Jewish (Christian and other than Islamic) holy sites. One must also remember the numerous times that these Jewish holy sites have been desecrated and destroyed by Palestinians rioting, or sometimes during their joyous celebrations.
Many have forgotten the fact that the many holy sites were mostly off limits, especially for Jews, before June 1967 when Jordan held total control of the Old City of Jerusalem and the West Bank, including the Temple Mount, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and the multitude of other religious shrines, churches, synagogues, tombs, etc. On the other hand, all these sites were universally open to all visitors and worshipers while they were under Israeli control and security. This accessibility continued until the Oslo Accords led to returning some of these holy sites to Palestinian control and security. Actually, as soon as the area around Joseph’s Tomb came under Palestinian control and despite the tomb still being denoted to be under Israeli control and guarded by a small contingent of the IDF, Palestinian rioters were left unimpeded by Palestinian Security units in the area and proceeded to utterly destroy Joseph’s Tomb injuring one IDF soldier in the process. The Palestinians refused to allow the rescue of the injured Israeli soldier by rescue personnel while threatening to shoot and kill any who made the attempt, allowing the soldier to slowly bleed to death. These precedents, among many others, including the desecration of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem by Palestinian terrorists on April 2, 2002, are being disregarded by many world organizations, countries, and NGO’s as they work to force a peace between the Palestinians and Israelis, placing many of the world’s greatest and most treasured holy sites under Palestinian care. Should such a day come, which seems inevitable at this time, we can only pray and hope that these treasures of Judaism, Christianity, and other religions will not suffer a similar fate as the ancient Buddhist relics in Afghanistan, in particular the two soaring statues of Buddha carved from a cliff that were destroyed with explosives in March 2001. This threat to historical and holy sites other than Islamic ones being placed under Palestinian control and care is real, threatening their suffering irreparable damage and desecration.
In addition to probably losing all access to many of the holiest sites in all of Judaism, Israel is also in danger that any peace will also remove many sites of historical importance to the Israelis from back to the first arrival of the Hebrews, as they were then known, from Egypt, including the first battle for the Promised Land at Jericho, to sites of modern importance. The first lands bought by the first Jew, Abraham, in the area then known as Shechem, now called Nablus, which was the first Capital before King David moved the Capital to Jerusalem, will be placed beyond the borders of modern Israel. The ancient Old City of Jerusalem, the actual city where King David established his throne and the throne for Israel’s Kings from that day forth would be torn from the modern state of Israel. The world thinks nothing of blithely ripping large areas of biblical Israel, not the furthest expansions of conquest under King David, but the very core of biblical lands, from the heart of Israel. The proposal of making yet another state for the Palestinian Arabs out of the remnants of the original Mandate Lands which were intended for the forming of a Jewish State by every previous treaty is nothing short of insane. The British responded to Arab (Palestinian) insistence of having claims to all of the lands of the Mandate were awarded the Mandate lands east of the Jordan River as a compromise approved by King Faisal from which the modern country of Jordan was formed. With the founding of Transjordan (currently Jordan), the remainder of the Mandate Lands west of the Jordan River were to institute the Jewish State. Then Arab rioting against Jews west of the Jordan River began which led to weakening of intentions to have all the land used for a Jewish state.
The confusion and blurring of the actual conditions agreed upon by the League of Nations and treaties signed by King Faisal representing the Arabs began with Arab riots which were most intense during the years 1920, 1922, 1929, 1933, and 1936 which led the British to place restrictions on Jewish immigration. Then after the 1949 peace was established leaving the West Bank under Jordanian control, established an apparent Arab ownership of the land now in question. Through the entire time, until June 1967, when Jordan occupied the West Bank, Jordanian attempts to annex the lands were not recognized by the United Nations. When Israel retook the lands west of the Jordan River after the 1967 war, they were considered by many as being restored to Israel. The PLO which had begun its war of terror against Israel in 1964, well before the Six Day War of 1967, then assumed the claim to the West Bank with the blessings from Jordan who bequeathed their claim to the West Bank to the PLO. The claim to the land by the PLO has slowly gained recognition even though Jordan never had recognized rights for them to transfer them to the PLO, as the world opinion has turned against Israel. This was partially accomplished by constantly publicizing the plight of the Palestinian refugees, a group of Arabs who have been refused acceptance by their fellow Arabs and forcefully kept in camps denied any rights wherever they are detained. These Arab refugees stand in stark difference from a roughly similar number of Jewish refugees who were expelled from their homes in many Arab countries and were accepted and melded into Israeli society, not ostracized and kept in misery in order to gain sympathy and political leverage.
Should the gifting of the lands originally known as Judea (from where the word Jew is derived) and Samaria be transformed into a second Palestinian state, a great injustice will have been done. This would be an inglorious act of stealing the core and soul of the Promised Land from the entire Jewish people, not just the Israelis. Should this become the new reality, then the entire of the Jewish people will be denied access to their historic lands and the majority of their holiest sites and not just a theft from Israel alone. This is the real basis of the entire conflict manufactured by the Arab states in applying political leverage in order to take from the Jews the soul and history this land represents. This entire charade is being perpetrated in the hope that this will cause Israel to be cut off from their historic Judean Hills causing Israel’s demise. The good news is that such a denial will not be sufficient to bring the end of Israel which has been the dream of the Jewish people for two thousand years. The Jewish spirit and love of all that is Israel was not killed by an unimaginably long exile from which they are still recovering. This recovery will soon be complete with the final return of the Jews from the Diaspora to the Promised Land. During the exile, the Jews suffered being Dhimmis in the Muslim world, Pogroms in Czarist Russia, the cruelties and torture of the Spanish Inquisition, two periods of being purged from the British Isles, dispersion meant to destroy the Jews as a people by the Roman Empire, the Purification of France, and many other persecutions, degradations, tortures, forced ghettoization, and mistreatments beyond imagination, and finally the horrors of intended genocide of the Holocaust (Shoah) of Nazi Europe. Jews having survived struggles over such a period of time that had caused virtually every civilization existing at the time of earliest Judaism to have not survived, this will not bring the end of Israel, as Jewish patience and faith are eternal.
Christians have to realize that soon, their holy sites will be off limits to them as well. The only thing saving them now is the money that the PA makes from tourists to these sites.
Daniel 9:27 He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’ In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on a wing [of the temple] he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.”
King James Bible
And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily [sacrifice], and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate.
Look for a new religious war again to start in that area called the Holy Land.
Jewish holy sites have no more value to Pali’s than pearls do to swine. There will be no peace as long as there are muslims.
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