John R. Houk
© February 25, 2010
I initiated this post as a lead up to an article entitled, “Israel’s Right to Self-Defense.” As I got into the prologue I realized that I was writing an ever so small essay on Israel’s modern emergence. That is nothing novel at any of the blogs I write on. One could probably search those blogs and find many posts of similar content. This should signify my passion as a Christian Right/Zionist believer that Israel must exist for the return of our Messiah the Lord Jesus Christ.
Honestly I don’t know the specifics of Christian Zionism other than its support for the nation Israel. My position is God Almighty gave the Land to Abraham and was initially possessed by the Hebrew Tribes by Moses and his successor Joshua son of Nun. The promised possession to the Jews is for perpetuity and was based on the Chosen People’s faithfulness to Yahweh. The various Jewish Diasporas (Assyrian expulsion, Babylonian expulsion and Roman expulsion) are evidence the Jews (or at least its ruling elites) stepping into faithlessness. The Promise was and is always for a Divinely protected return culminating with the House of David being returned to the throne of Israel. The Christians believe that is the Second Coming of Christ. Now the eschatology of how Christ returns to reign may differ among various Christians; nonetheless the centrality of it all is that the Resurrected Jesus Christ returns to ultimately rule and reign of the new earth and the new Heaven with the New Jerusalem as the capital city. Hence there is the importance of a restored Jewish homeland.
A Jewish homeland is a right for Jewish people. The land designated as the Palestine Mandate after the Allied victory in WWI in which the primary powers Britain, France and later the U.S. defeated the Germany of Kaiser Wilhelm, Austro-Hungary Empire and Ottoman Turkey. Basically the Brits and the French carved up the non-Turkish part of the Ottoman Empire which included the land which became known as the British Mandate for Palestine in 1920.
The Brits actually expelled Ottoman troops from Palestine (or at least Jerusalem) Dec. 17, 1917. The Brits expecting victory combined with prominent Jewish resources in Britain pronounced the Balfour Declaration in November 1917. Regardless of the intent of the Balfour Declaration, the effect was to create a national homeland for Jews who had been the butt of European persecution for hundreds of years. Take note this is a little over thirty years before Hitler’s Nazis gave a genocidal meaning to the word Holocaust by exterminating about six millions Jews (and about that many more of races and disabled people not fit for the conceived German master race).
It is obvious that international guilt found its way to the victorious Allies of WWII after the full measure of the horror of the Nazi directed Holocaust became public knowledge. The guilt sealed the deal of a Jewish National Homeland even though the Brits had taken some steps back from promises made out their own National Interests. The ever shrinking Empire of the British needed economic allies to offset the evaporating wealth that British Empire administration provided. When it became evident the desert sands and barren lands controlled by Muslims possessed petroleum, British moral obligations were overridden by British National Interests.
Zionist Jews of the British Mandate still had an inside track to nationhood; however British administration kept finding excuses to aid the now jealous Muslim-Arab inhabitants of the British Mandate. Initially Transjordan (today’s Jordan) was to contain Muslims and the eastern Palestine part was to contain Jews. The problem for the Jews is the land envisioned between the League of Nations and finalized (in writing anyway) by the newly created United Nations shrank immensely. The Palestine promised to Jewish Zionists would further be subdivided with the larger portion of Palestine becoming Arabic (mostly Muslim) next door to the already sovereign nation of Transjordan.
Greedy Muslim nations carved into existence by Britain and France surrounding Palestine would not even accept the tinier sliver Palestine intended for a Jewish homeland. The Brits pulled out unconditionally to let the cards fall where they may. The surrounding Muslim nations attacked the Jewish National Homeland portion of Palestine. The Jewish-Zionists declared the independent nation of Israel while the Brits were leaving and the Arabs were invading all in 1948.
The point is Israel has the right to exist and to self-determine their future without international pressure. Take note the Jews were as much Palestinians as the Arabs were. The invading Arab nations and independent Arab armies had taken upon themselves to once again eradicate Jews from their ancestral homeland.
The miracle of 1948 is that multiple Jewish militias united to defeat the invading Arab armies. Unfortunately in 1948 a British General led Transjordan’s army to the heart of Jerusalem dividing the Holy City between Israel and Transjordan. The land occupied by the Transjordanian army was eventually unilaterally annexed. Transjordan became Jordan and called their original land east of the Jordan River the East Bank and the annexed occupied land west of the Jordan River the West Bank.
The Arabs that were encouraged to flee the Jewish Homeland prior to the Muslim invasions mostly congregated in Jordan occupied West Bank. Jordan accepted citizenship of some those Arabs but for the most part these Arab refugees and their current descendents were held Stateless as an excuse to eradicate Israel.
In one of the Arab invasions to destroy Israel, Jordan lost handily. Israel thus in 1967 regained old Palestine Mandate land occupied by Jordan in 1948. This included the re-uniting of the Holy City Jerusalem.
Today these highly propagandized Stateless Arabs have adopted the name Palestinians with the continued goal to eradicate Israel.
Israel has attempted time again to be generous to allow a creation of a Palestinian State in the midst of their ancestral land with the ruling terrorist elites of the Palestinians shooting down nationhood on terms that would provide security for Israel. I believe God was in that, for the Palestinian Muslims have become propagandized in Jew-hatred there is no way for a peaceful co-existence of two States – one Jewish and one Muslim.
And yet military and economic powers of the West are forcing this Two-State Solution upon Israel even though a Palestinian State will be an existential threat to Israel.
Just as during independence in 1948, Israel has the right to self-defense in 2010 or anytime in the future. Palestinians have used terrorism effectively against Jewish civilians at least since the days Yasser Arafat came on the scene in the 1960’s. Some might even argue Muslim-Arab terrorists were very active before 1948 at the instigation of Arafat’s uncle Haj Muhammed Amin al-Husseini the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. Al-Husseini had personally hooked up with Adolf Hitler as a partner in the extermination of Jews. Al-Husseini even organized some Slavic Muslim Nazi SS units to aid the Holocaust effort of Hitler.
Israel has developed a tactic to bring justice to Islamic pseudo-Palestinian terrorists who are either Stateless, protected by terror supporting rogue nations or are a citizen of a Muslim nation (the later is the lesser case). That tactic is the assassination of Islamic terrorist leaders who have orchestrated terrorist attacks in Israel or against Israeli Jews abroad.
The tactic is controversial among Western hypocrites yet typical among Muslims themselves in Islamic nations. Israel has owned up to some assassinations and not to others. Since the Israel does dispense justice to Islamic terrorists, arrogant Muslims (terrorist or government) have often placed the blame on Israel to stave off the blood libel retribution that is typical between Muslim clans and organizations.
One such case is the assassination of Hamas terrorist Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai and Hezbollah terrorist Imad Moughniyeh in Damascus, Syria.
In the West, should assassination become an accepted path to dispense justice to elusive Islamic terrorists or political big dogs protected by the official sovereignty of a nation? Twenty or less years ago the American government would officially deplore assassinated executions as acts morally above the rule of law. The reality is America assassinates the elusive just like Israel. America might limit publicly acknowledged assassinations of Islamic terrorists to taking a wide swath shot of a protected Islamic terrorist under a situation of war which may have collateral damage. An example of this are the unmanned drones used to take out a dwelling or village to get the enemy. I suspect the CIA or similar American Covert organization unofficially also exacts specific targeted assassinations just as Israel does.
If you ignore the filter of ethics geopolitically, why would America assassinate an elusive terrorist? The obvious answer the individual terrorist is proven to have committed acts of terrorism or murder in America or to Americans abroad. The hypocrisy of the lack of adherence to international legal protocols might inspire a covert action toward justice in which the physical evidence would never see the light of day in a court or a military tribunal. In other words America would be defending itself via means possible.
The American Leftist would whine that Machiavellian means do not justify the ends. In a black and white utopia a Leftist would be absolutely correct. Today’s 21st century politics does not match Leftist idealism. This is particularly the case that regimes associated as Leftist would not hesitate to utilize Machiavellian means to achieve a planned end. Islamic terrorism has molded the use of Machiavellian means of the geopolitical reality submerging the utopian idealism of human protocols of the rule of law. When it comes to humanity the only thing that is absolute is the Will of God and the divine law of sowing and reaping.
If America does not limit its means of self-defense, then why should America or the West impose geopolitical solutions on Israel that limit its means at self-defense?
JRH 2/25/10
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