Sound The Trumpet : Arab Claims to the Land of Israel are Invalid

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“Arab Claims to the Land of Israel are Invalid”
by Art Sadlier
May 1st, 2012

The Arabs claim that they have had a long prosperous history on the land of Israel; such is not the record of history.

After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70AD until the First Aliyah in 1882 the record shows that the land was never dominated by Arabs.

The following material is from Israel Today.

[In 985 AD Arab geographer Al-Muqaddasi, a native of Jerusalem wrote: “The Jews constitute the majority of Jerusalem’s population.”

In 1377, Arab historian Ibn Khaldun noted: “The Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel extended over a period of 1400 years...It was the Jews who implanted the culture and customs of the permanent settlement.” (Yahya Armajami: Middle East Past and Present, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1970)

In 1695, Dutch scholar Adriaan Reland visited the Holy Land and described it as being empty and desolate, while noting that most of the places retained Hebrew names. Reland recorded that in the cities, the majority of the population was either Jewish or Christian. In Jerusalem, most of the 5,000 inhabitants were Jews. Even in Gaza, half of the 550 local residents were Jews. (Hadriani Relandi: Palaestina ex monumentis veteribus illustrate, 1714)

In 1866, Presbyterian clergyman W.M. Thomson wrote while on a mission to the Holy Land: “How melancholy is this utter desolation. Not a house, not a trace of inhabitants, not even shepherds, to relieve the dull monotony. ...Much of the country through which we have been rambling for a week appears never to have been inhabited, or even cultivated.” (W.M. Thomson: The Land and the Book, London: T. Nelsons & Sons, 1866)

In 1867, American author Mark Twain toured the Holy Land and wrote: “One may ride ten miles, hereabouts, and not see ten human beings. ... No man can stand here…and say the prophecy ‘and your land shall be desolate and your cities waste’ has not been fulfilled...hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere…Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince...It is a hopeless, dreary, heart-broken land…Renowned Jerusalem itself, the stateliest name in history, has lost all its ancient grandeur, and is become a pauper village.” (Mark Twain: The Innocents Abroad, American Publishing Co., 1869)]

We see the audacity of the Palestinians in claiming that the Land of Israel is their land and stating that the Jews have no claim to the land. Even more disturbing is the manner in which the nations of the world are adamantly backing these false claims. We read in Joel 3:2 how the God of Israel will deal with the nations that defy Him in this matter, “I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead (judge) with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.”

Yet more disturbing is the fact that the majority of Israel’s leaders today are willing to give up much of the land God has promised to them. They also will be judged by God for this unbelief, Zechariah 13:9, “And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God.”

This is a repeat of Israel’s unbelief at Kadesh-barnea, where they exercised the same disobedience and unbelief. Just as God chastened that generation He will chasten today’s generation of Jews.

There is no excuse for this unbelief and disobedience, the promise of God is very clear. “And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.” This basic promise is repeated many, many times in the scriptures.

In fact, in the war of 1967 God miraculously returned Israel to all the land that David had possessed. He gave them Judea and Samaria, (the so-called West Bank) Gaza, the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem. Surely if God could give it back to them, He could sustain them on it.

Before we as believers are too hard on Israel, we need to consider how many promises of God we have failed to believe and appropriate? I tremble as I consider this in my own life.

Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13