WHY CONFLICT RESOLUTION WON'T WORK BETWEEN ARABS AND JEWS

These are scenes at the Western (Wailing) Wall in Old Jerusalem. In the background, the Dome of the Rock, built on the Temple Mount, site of Solomon's Temple, now the third holiest site in Islam. It serves the Jews as a reminder, that they have been displaced as God's Chosen People, and in their grief, they face the wall and mourn their losses. Sometimes, we Christians become disheartened and frustrated when it seems the whole world is against us. We have Jesus' words to comfort us during such times when he said, "Be of good cheer for I have overcome the world."

Right now, many of us are experiencing economic hardship and our government doesn't seem to be able or want to do anything about it. The price of crude oil has really put a crimp in our lifestyle and what little disposable income we might have is being taken from us in the form of higher fuel costs. One side, the one not in power at the moment says, "drill here, drill now," which would bring down the cost of fuel by increasing the supply side. The other side, the one that is in power and could do something about it, won't do anything because of pressure from environmental groups that oppose any form of increasing the supply side. We are forced to buy petroleum crude from our enemies, and they are using that as a weapon against us by wrecking our economy because there is no way they can defeat us militarily in the War on Terror. Who is this enemy and why are they trying to destroy us? We buy a lot of oil from the Arabs, but they are not our enemy on paper, although our enemy lives among them. Militant Islamo-fascism is our enemy and the attack on the World Trade Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington on September 11, 2001 was the day we received our last wake up call. We had been given several wake up calls and it was the present President of the United States that decided to answer the call. The Taliban, Al Qaida and Muslim extremists around the world, not just in the Arab countries have been at war with us for twenty years prior to 9/11, but we did little to nothing about it. Now we have a better picture of what we're dealing with, but still there are some that have eyes, but refuse to see, and ears, but refuse to hear.

Recently, I visited the web site of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press because I wanted to get a true feel for what the media thought about Muslims and Islamics throughout the world. What I got was a lot of polling data, and few facts. (I don't consider polling data factual; not very reliable)I didn't get information much on Islamic extremism, but poll results in a country by country list of whether a particular country had a positive, negative or neutral view on Muslims and Islam on whether they were supportive or against suicide bombings and random attacks on innocent people, including the elderly and children, and even other Muslims. There were no surprises there. In most Muslim countries, including some of our so called allies, the majority saw the necessity and approved of such extreme measures. Whenever I see a news story about this or containing this topic, it doesn't seem to matter what source, it nearly always reveals that the reporter doing the story is ignorant of world history, especially Jewish history and completely misses the reasons why this ruthless kind of violence is condoned in most of the Arab, Islamic world. This point was clearly illustrated by the United Nations and the 9/11 Commission in the months following the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. The Commission found that the number one reason why the United States is hated by most of the Muslim world, (surprise-surprise) is because of our support for Israel. The majority of the left, demographically speaking is made up of the 18-35 age group. Since the overwhelming majority rarely go to church or Sunday School, they know little to nothing about the history of the Muslims and the Jews. For most of them, including the reporters and correspondents in the media, who are supposed to bring us the unfettered truth about what's going on in the world, history began at their birth, and the entire Jew-Arab conflict is a result of the Jews(Israelis) taking land away from the Palestinians. None of the reports that I have ever seen bothered to venture when all the conflict began, about four thousand years ago. In addition to ignorance, one has to believe in God in order to believe the stories below. Since the left don't believe in God, then these stories to them are not true, which is why they are passed off as myth or ignored altogether by the left leaning news media.

Here is a brief history lesson according to Hebrew ancient writings, mainly Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament in the Holy Bible. First of all, it was the Jews who introduced the belief, revealed the One True God, monotheism, to the world; not the Arabs, and certainly not the Muslims. In the Book of Genesis, the eleventh chapter, several generations after the great flood, in the re populated earth, a man named Abram lived in Ur, in the land of the Chaldean's. (present day Iraq between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers) In a manner best describe as being a prophetic dream, the Lord came to Abram and told him that he and his family must leave the land of the Chaldean's and go to a land He had given them, the Land of Canaan. Now, this next paragraph contains scripture from chapter twelve of Genesis, and is critical to the point I'm trying to make. It is quoted from the New American Standard Bible.

Now the Lord said to Abram,"Go forth from your country, And from your relatives, And from your father's house To the Land which I will show you, And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing, And I bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." Don't you find that fairly simple and easy to understand? One of the biggest reasons that the United States has had such prosperity, is that it stands with Israel, practically its only friend. With the exception of a couple of administrations in the past forty years, namely the Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton years, when those two presidents gave credence to Israel's enemies and known terrorist organizations. During Carter's one term, he gave us double digit inflation and interest rates, called the misery index, and the disposing of the Shah of Iran who was friendly to the United States and enabled the exiled Iyatollah Humani to tyranically take over Iran and give rise of militant Muslims and Islamo-fascism in the Persian Gulf region. Clinton had one scandal after another, the most remembered Monica Lewinsky affair, which did much to denigrate the Office of the Presidency of the United States.

Let us fast forward and skip over other unrelated stories, such as his journey into Egypt and his stay in Sodom and Gomorrah, and remain with the theme of when the conflict began between the Arabs and the Jews. We pick up where Abram and his wife Sarai were for ten years living in the land of Canaan. In a prophetic dream, God came to Abram and made a covenant with him. He said that he would give them the land from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates. However, in subsequent prophesies, God also said that the land would not become theirs until they had spent four hundred years in Egypt as slaves, and another forty years wandering in the desert when Moses would lead them out of Egypt and Joshua would take them into the Promised Land. When Abram and Sarai were in their eighties, God came to Abram and told him he would have an heir. Sarai was barren and women in their eighties don't have children. When Abram told Sarai what God had told him, she had her doubts. She had thought that God had prevented her from having children. Sarai must have thought that Abram was having delusions. Rather than disappoint her husband, she offered her Egyptian maid servant, Hagar, to him and let her bear him his child. Of course, for every action, there is a reaction, and usually with unforeseen consequences. Hagar conceived and Sarai reacted with jealousy and treated her very harshly. An angel of the Lord came to Hagar and gave her the following prophesy."Return to your mistress and submit yourself to her authority. Moreover, the angel of the Lord said to her, I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they will be too many to count." The angel of the Lord said to her further,"Behold, you are with child, And you shall bear a son; And you shall call his name Ishmael, Because the Lord has given heed to your affliction. "And he will be a wild donkey of a man, His hand will be against everyone, And every one's hand will be against him; And he will live to the east of all his brothers."

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord came to him again, and said,"I am God Almighty, Walk before Me and be blameless."And I will establish my covenant between Me and you, And I will multiply you exceedingly."And Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him saying,"As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, And you shall be the father of many nations,"And you shall be the father of a multitude of nations." God changed Abram's name to Abraham and Sarai, his wife became Sarah. God added to the covenant.
"And I will give to you and your descendants after you, the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God."God promised to give Abraham another son by his wife Sarah, named Isaac through which His covenant will be established. It must be noted here that Isaac is the child of the Promise, not Ishmael. In Genesis, Chapter 17, starting with verse 18; And Abraham said to God, "Oh that Ishmael might live before Thee!"
But God said, "No, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and shall call his name Isaac; and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.
"As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I will bless him and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall become the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. "But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this season next year."




So, Abraham had two sons, but only one would be the heir, and that would be the child of the promise. Abraham loved Ishmael, but the older lad picked on his younger half brother, out of jealousy and mocked him. This angered Sarah and she went to Abraham and complained about it. She demanded that Hagar and her son Ishmael be driven away, that Ishmael will never be a co-heir with Isaac. Hagar left with her son, Ishmael and settled in the land of Paran. To make a long story short, the descendants of Isaac became the Jews and the descendants of Ishmael became the Arabs, and the two have been at odds with each other ever since.



What about the Palestinians? First of all, there were never was a land called Palestine. General Edmund Allenby of the British Army, early in the last century, drew the boundaries of the present day middle east and he named the the land of ancient Israel, Palestine. The people that lived there were naturally called Palestinians. Where did the Palestinians come from? For that, we must go back to the Abraham's son of the Promise, Isaac. Isaac also had two sons; the older named Esau and the younger named Jacob. From the story in the ancient Hebrew scripture, Esau sold his birthright to his younger brother for a bowl of lintels. Jacob, using deception tricked his father Issac into given his blessing intended for his older brother, to him. Jacob and Esau separated and Esau and his descendants settled in a region south of Canaan called Moab. Jacob had twelve sons and each of them became one of the twelve tribes of Israel. Jacob's, just as his grandfather's name had been changed, name was changed to Israel. Esau's descendants all but died out, but some intermarried with people in Gaza called the Philistines, who became a perpetual thorn in the side of Israel. Some of the other descendants of Esau intermarried with the sons of Ishmael and became the Idumeans. When Israel was taken into exile by the Babylonians, the Idumeans moved into the vacated land. However seventy years later, the Israelites returned to find their land squatted upon. There was a lot of violence and bloodshed, because the Idumeans thought that Israel had given up their right to own the land when they were in exile. Rome then moved in to take control of the region. In Jerusalem, Herod Agrippa, was installed as the puppet King of Judea (Israel) by Julius Caesar. His son Herod the Great, and his son Herod Antipas, all cruel and wicked tyrants, were not Jews, but Idumeans, the present day Palestinians. So if you think that killing children is something born from jihad, you are wrong. From the capital, Jerusalem, Herod the Great, issued a decree that all the children two years old and younger in Bethlehem slaughtered when he heard from the three wise men that a new king, the messiah, the King of Kings, (Jesus Christ) was to be born there.

Rome, put down the Jewish rebellion at Masada, their last stronghold, and in a.d. 70, the Jews were dispersed throughout Europe. It was after the Jewish Holocaust in the 1940's that the few Jews that weren't killed, or survived the concentration camps, returned to the state of Israel, set up by the United Nations and the United States given them as a homeland, which was rightfully theirs in the first place. Once again, in 1948, they returned and had to fight for possession of the land that God had given to them. In 1967, in the Six Day War which was started by Egypt, Syria and Jordan, in an attempt to drive the Jews out, Israel took back all the land which God had given them. This included the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the Jordan West Bank, land in Egypt east of the Nile River, and all of divided Jerusalem, in which the capital was moved from Tel Aviv. In typical naive, liberal conflict resolution, little by little, treaties and land for peace deals by European third party negotiators,(Oslo Accord) all favored everyone but the Israelis; have eroded their boundaries, save for Jerusalem, back to where they were before the Six Day War. This precedent was set and meant for the Jews only; where else has there ever been a country required to give back land they captured in a war that the other side started?

Finally, where did the Muslims come from? The Assyrians, Babylonians, Meades, Persians, and Egyptians, were all pagans, idol worshippers. Only the Jews believed in the One God, Jehovah. It was about six hundred years following the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the establishment of the early Christian Church, after much of the Roman Empire and Greece, and Asia Minor had converted to Christianity, that the Prophet Muhammad entered the scene. Muslim believers call Muhammad the last and greatest Prophet. Born in A.D. 570, in Mecca, their holiest city, the religion was founded by Muhammad and based upon both Jewish and Christian beliefs, and mixed in some new ideas and theology along with some of their inherent pagan practices. Actually, they picked the good parts, and discarded the parts that didn't fit their uniquely different beliefs, but made their own versions of laws; for instance, Love your friends and hate your enemies. Kill the infidels where they sleep. Originally, Muhammad was a merchant, searching for something to believe in, has a religious experience that changes not only his life, but the history of a large part of the world. He hears a divine voice, later believed to be the angel Gabriel of the Christian religion, tell him that Allah is the only god. He receives further instructions to adopt the name of "Prophet" and convert the Quaraish(parishioners) to accept the monotheism.The Quaraishs resist the new religion. Muhammad and his small band of followers migrate to the town of Yathrib in the north, which is open to his new faith. They change the name of the city to Medina (the city of the prophet) which is where most of their military campaigns are launched. If Muhammad lived in today's society, he would be branded a child molester for taking a nine year old wife. He was supposed to have ascended into heaven from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem riding a white horse, but that of course was a fabrication, to give him parity with Jesus and the prophet Elijah. Following the death of Muhammad, Islam, by the power of the sword, is spread by war and violence. Struggles within the hierarchy are decided by murder and assassination. When the militant followers move into a new territory, the local people are given an option of, convert or die. This is the way it always has been and still is to this day, no matter how they try to defend or dignify their actions. The murdering of Christians in Dar fur and in Nigeria, causing strife and destruction around the world, proves my point. Calling themselves the religion of peace is a lie from hell itself; there can only be peace when the entire world is Islam. Remember the words of Jesus, "beware of false prophets, for they are ravenous wolves in sheep's clothing." And these words, "the enemy (Satan) comes to steal, kill and destroy, but I have come to give life and to have it more abundantly."

If you listen to Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, it will demonstrate their intolerance and mission of hate. According to an undercover law enforcement officer of my acquaintance, in almost all of the mosques that he has been in, the message of hate and intolerance are being spewed routinely. The mosques are being closely scrutinized in this country, and some have been known to raise funds for our enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan. So called freedom fighters by the left wing liberal media (in reality, terrorists) are given sanctuary; all within our own borders. One expert on Islamic and Muslim affairs has said that there are 1.3 billion Muslims in the world. One in ten want to kill you where you sleep; that's 130 million Muslims, would kill you if given the chance. It is my opinion, and I'm not exclusive in this belief, that the radical Muslims are the ones who left the main body of fundamentalist hate mongers and moderated to peaceful coexistence with their non Muslim neighbors. From all that I have learned, it is the mainstream Muslims who are the ones who bask in violence and perpetuate the doctrine of hate.

Probably, the main reason why there has been so much opposition in this country and in Europe to the war in the Persian Gulf region is because of the inability of many to understand the nature of our enemies. They just can't see why we all just can't get along, hold hands and sing kum ba ya. Add to that the element of ignorance and you have a dangerous combination. Because of immigration, open borders and a much higher birth rate, Europe is being taken over from within by Muslims and a lot native Europeans don't realize it. Muslims in France and the United Kingdom are making a lot of noise, and governments are being forced to deal with their demands.

There is a bright side to all this. First, victory is within grasp in the War on Terror. Al Qaida is on the run and is mainly concentrated in Afghanistan near the Pakistan border, and a new move of moderation is beginning to happen among Islamics in the Persian Gulf region. The hard liners are finding it extremely difficult to recruit new suicide bombers and things are all around are a vastly improved; a lot better in Iraq and Afghanistan than it used to be. Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaida are playing their last hand and placing all their bets on a Democrat victory in November. Hopefully, the right man will be elected President in November, and those who are making life difficult for you will voted out of office. If the Republicans win in November, or least hold ground in the House and Senate, we can prevail Remember, we as Christians are in spiritual warfare and we have to fight a spirtual war in spiritual terms. As the Apostle Paul wrote, "we war not against flesh and blood, but of the rulers, against the powers, against the principalities of darkness, and against the spiritual forces of wickedness in high places." Ephesians 6:12

So, why does the media not tell you the truth regarding why all this is? I assure you that it is a lot more than what a liberal friend told me, "you can't say all that in a two minute report with two or three soundbites."

Daniel Casey 2008