Israel at 66

Celebrating Israel's independence in Jerusalem

Though Israel was created by God about 3,200 years ago to be the home of the Jewish people, not everyone agrees.

Certainly, much of the world refuses to recognize the Jewish nation, preferring instead to embrace the propaganda promoted by the Islamic world that Israel is a rogue state that--with the aid of the United Nations--unlawfully occupied land in 1948 that belonged to the Palestinians.

Anyone who possesses even a rudimentary knowledge of history knows that's a lie. There never ever existed a Palestinian people, nation or tribe. 

The Palestinians are a mixture of Arabs, Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians and Bedouins that came into that land during the 1,800 years that Israel ceased to exist when Roman Emperor Hadrian renamed that nation Syria Palestinia in 130 A.D. after he put down the Bar Kochba rebellion.

The name Palestine is derived from ancient Philistia (Philistine) that was a maritime nation of non-Semitic light-skinned people that existed about 3,500 years ago. The ancient Philistines occupied part of what now belongs to the eastern portion of Israel along the Mediterranean Sea.

The fact that the ancient Philistines were non-Semitic means that those who identify themselves today as Palestinians are not their descendants. Even Yasser Arafat, the infamous terrorist and founder of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was an Egyptian who was born in Cairo in 1929.

Why then, is Israel so reviled throughout the world today? And why is anti-Semitism making such a strong comeback in nations that pledged to never allow that to happen again after the nightmare of Hitler's Holocaust?

Why? Because the Jewish people and the nation of Israel remain under an ancient curse. Where did that curse come from, and who pronounced it? 

The Lord Himself pronounced it in the ancient times after the Jewish nation had repeatedly broken His laws, violated his covenants and rebuffed His prophets that He sent to warn the nation to repent. 

Finally, the Lord announced His verdict through the ancient prophet Jeremiah (600 B.C.): "I will make them (the Jews) abhorrent and an offense to all the kingdoms of the earth, a reproach and a byword, an object of ridicule and cursing, wherever I banish them. I will send the sword, famine and plague against them until they are destroyed from the land I gave to them and their fathers." (Jeremiah 24:9-10)

Certainly, that curse has manifested numerous times throughout the centuries. Wherever the Jews have gone in the world, trouble has followed closely behind. Without a doubt, they have been reviled like no other group in history. 

Even today, the Jews are despised throughout the world, even by many who call themselves Christians, which is also a tragedy. The Lord, whose name they proclaim also happens to be Jewish and He is the Jewish Messiah. Unfortunately, many professing Christians seem to have forgotten that fact.

Nevertheless, the curse will soon come to an end. The reemergence of Israel as a sovereign nation once again in 1948 began the fulfillment of God's promises to restore the Jewish nation. Though some Christian churches teach an unbiblical heresy called Replacement Theology--that the church has replaced Israel as God's chosen people--nothing could be further from the truth.

Consider God's prophetic words spoken through the ancient prophet Amos concerning Israel's restoration: "I will bring back my exiled people Israel; they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them." (Amos 9:14-15)

That prophecy saw its fulfillment in 1948 when Israel was restored once again as a sovereign nation. Though the nations of the world were chagrined, God had fulfilled his promise. And when Jesus Christ returns to Jerusalem to establish His kingdom on earth, the Jews will worship Him as their Messiah (Zechariah 12-13) and the curse will be broken forever.  

Happy Independence Day Israel!