JUDAIZATION_OF_JERUSALEM_ERETZ_ISRAEL_IDEOLOGY_AND_THE_CONSEQUENCES_FOR_FULFILLMENT_OF

JUDAIZATION OF JERUSALEM, ERETZ ISRAEL IDEOLOGY, AND THE CONSEQUENCES FOR FULFILLMENT OF PROPHECY

America has formed the Image to the Beast, and is rushing towards the establishment of a violent theocratic dictatorship. Simultaneously the very same forces advancing in America have been allied with the right-wing Zionist government of Israel in tightening the Jewish stranglehold on Jerusalem. This is obstructing the fulfillment of the great prophecy of Daniel 11:45 which predicts the imminent close of probation and the great tribulation which immediately precedes the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. One is led to wonder why, and reflection suggests the inference that it is not yet time for the signal of the end. However, the prediction of the Apostle Paul in Romans 9:28 should not be overlooked: "For he will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth." It is therefore critically important to heed our Lord's repeated admonitions to "watch," and follow with intense focus the current events in Palestine, and Jerusalem in particular. The statement of Ellen G. White that "the final movements will be rapid ones" (Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 9, p. 11,) also should not be overlooked. It is highly likely that the acceleration will come suddenly. We have already seen demonstrations of such changes in the pace of events.

Given the history of her own oppression, Israel should be strongly inclined to be a liberal democracy guaranteeing human rights and individual liberty for all under her governmental control. However, the religio-political ideology of Zionism and the concept of Eretz Israel has led her in exactly the opposite direction. In this she is also strongly supported by the Christian Zionist movement.

It is well to note the ideology of the Eretz Israel movement hyperlinked above:

The Greater Israel Movement (in Hebrew "Hatnuah Lema'an Eretz Yisrael Hashleimah - "The Whole Land of Israel.") An Israeli extremist ideology that believes variously either that Israel should settle as much as possible of the territories conquered in the Six Day War, annex the West Bank and Gaza Strip conquered in the Six Day War and not exchange any territory for peace, or that Israel should expand to take up all of the "historic" land of Israel including the kingdom of Jordan, originally part of the Palestine Mandate, including Transjordan, and in the most extreme forms, sometimes including all of Israel as promised by God and never fulfilled - from el-Hama in Syria in the north to the Nile in the south, and from the Euphrates River in Iraq to the Mediterranean.

The official Greater Israel Movement is a secular ideology of the Likud party, but they are joined by the Gush Emunim religious group which has the same goal. Arab extremists and anti-Zionists caricature the Greater Israel movement and indeed all of Zionism, as aspiring to the maximal territories according to the biblical promise. While Zionists always have tried to get the largest possible territory for a Jewish state, no particular boundaries were ever considered to be vital to fulfillment of the Zionist ideal. (Underscored emphasis added.)

Note that the Likud party has dominated Israeli politics since its founding in 1973 and the significant fact that Religious Right leaders such as the late Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and John Hagee have been strong supporters of the Eretz Israel concept.

Overall, the major stumbling block to the realization of the papacy's objective for Jerusalem is Zionism - Jewish and Christian. Both envision Palestine and Jerusalem undivided under Jewish control. However, the interpretation of the prophecy of Dan. 11:45 is confirmed by past history and current events as documented above. Rome is certain to achieve her goal. How the stumbling block will be removed or circumvented continues to be an open question. Will it be by world opinion turning on Israel and imposing crippling sanctions, which seems quite possible because of the oppression of the Palestinians? Historically and under current government policy the United States would be certain to block the imposition of sanctions. This is so in spite of the fact that power has temporarily been wrested from the American Christian Zionists.

Those of us in the Seventh-day Adventist community who think about the how of unfulfilled prophecies must already have received some dramatic surprises. We know about the Apostle Paul's prophecy of 2 Thess. 2:10-12; but how many could foresee a sufficient percentage of the American electorate deluded beyond reason to elect a President who proved himself to be insane, moronic, a criminal and a congenital liar? How many of us could have foreseen that Trump's supporters would idolize him as a God-appointed Cyrus and be eager to re-elect him? How many could have foreseen that this deluded movement would complete the forming of the Image to the Beast? One could clearly see the Image to the Beast forming when George W. Bush became President; but he advanced the catholization of America as essentially a conventional President elected by a sane electorate.

How many of us put it all together by reading Rev. 16:13-14 in the context of the following revelation in the Writings of Ellen G. White?:

For thousands of years Satan has been experimenting upon the properties of the human mind, and he has learned to know it well. By his subtle workings in these last days, he is linking the human mind with his own, imbuing it with his thoughts; and he is doing this work in so deceptive a manner that those who accept his guidance know not that they are being led by him at his will. The great deceiver hopes so to confuse the minds of men and women, that none but his voice will be heard. 2SM 352.3

Fulfilled prophecy may be understood by the Bible student. Prophecy is history in advance. He can compare history with prophecy and find a complete fit as the glove to the hand, it having been made for it. But in exposition of unfulfilled prophecy, where the history is not written, the student should put forth his propositions with not too much positiveness, lest he find himself straying in the field of fancy. (Review and Herald, Nov. 29, 1877)

Mindful of this wise counsel, the thoughts that follow are offered with the utmost caution; but with a sense of the need to be watchful against being caught unawares by the ultimate supernatural event predicted in Bible prophecy (Rev. 17:7-8; Isa. 14:12-14; Isa. 2:2-4 cited above.)

Elder Wm. H. Grotheer begins his Revelation seminar sermon, Part 3, with the following quotation:

The great Joseph Mede long ago remarked that “the Jews expected Christ to come when he did come, and yet knew him not when he was come, because they fancied the manner and quality of his coming like some temporal monarch with armed power to subdue the earth before him. So the Christians, God’s second Israel, looked [expected that] the coming of Antichrist should be at that time when he came indeed, and yet they knew him not when he was come; because they had fancied his coming as of some barbarous tyrant who should with armed power not only persecute and destroy the church of Christ, but almost the world; that is, they looked for such an Antichrist as the Jews looked for a Christ.” (Mede’s Works, p. 647.)-“Daniel and His Prophecies,” Charles H. H. Wright, D. D., “Introduction,” p. xvi. London: Williams and Norgate, 1906.

Perhaps the danger for our generation which believes that THE Antichrist in the person of Satan impersonating the TRUE Christ will come, is that we misjudge how near and sudden this stupendous event might be, and are caught unawares. While we may look for and anticipate the successful completion of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process as a necessary precursor to the fulfillment of Dan. 11:45, might fulfillment emerge suddenly out of widespread conflict in the Middle East?

Turning again to a statement of Elder Grotheer, in JERUSALEM - PAPAL POLICY, WWN 8(84) he writes: "It would appear that the Basic Law of Israel, and the policy of the Vatican are on a collision course. But should Satan coming as the Messiah in the outward splendor as the Jews have perceived the coming of the Messiah to be, and claim "the throne of his father, David," could Israel resist such an overwhelming "delusion?" There does not appear to be any elaboration of this statement elsewhere in his writings; but the statement seems to be very reasonable, given the obstinacy of the Israeli government and the strong convictions of the Zionists, Jewish and Christian.

Elder Grotheer based his observation on the certainty of Dan. 11:45 being fulfilled in spite of the intractable opposition of the Zionists. An investigative journalist based in Israel views the Vatican's designs on Jerusalem from a different perspective; but the scenario he presents of how this is being approached follows a strikingly similar track to that observed as possible by Elder Grotheer:-

It can't be that the Vatican is only interested in "access to their Holy Sites" in Jerusalem. They already have that as well as legal jurisdiction under Israeli law for their institutions and assets in Jerusalem. Also, when these "Holy Sites" were under the jurisdiction of the Jordanians from l948-l967, no Pope demanded the "internationalization of Jerusalem".

It is something else, which the Vatican wants. The Roman Catholic Church, need to have certain versions of events be played out for them to stand in front of mankind and proclaim: our Messiah has returned.” Of course, to the Jews, this Messiah will be as false as the first one was supposed to be. Don’t matter. This is the goal of the Vatican and this is what all Israelis need to worry about.

They know this isn't the end of the story that the Jewish G-d had in mind, but that doesn't mean they won't try and engineer their own ending to the story. So what if it is fraudulent. Doesn't matter, that is their game plan and that is what matters and that is what Israeli Jews need to be better informed about. It is important for everyone to know what The Vatican have up its sleeve because it directly relates to our existence and our future destiny as an independent nation. This a very powerful force this is scheming to get control of the Old City of Jerusalem so you better know why and how the Vatican intends to do this. Once you have all the facts and the chronological record you will be better informed deal with this issue and of foreign control over Israel's political existence and destiny.

First, you have to realize that for centuries The Vatican has attempted to obtain control of Jerusalem, which started with the Crusades. For them to convince the world that the Messiah they put on the world's stage is going to be accepted as genuine, they need to perform this play in the Old City. The story of this production is that this "Messiah" will merge the three monotheistic religions, usher in peace and harmony in the world, and solve the Middle East conflict. The location for this "production" will be in none other than the Old City of Jerusalem.

This so-called "Messiah" that will be proclaimed, will be a false one and it will insist that by having a "world government" (i.e., the United Nations) the world peace and harmony will be ushered in. This will be a lie, and a fraud, but never mind. In our world, reality isn't important. Public perceptions are. The end result is the stripping of Israel's sovereignty as an independent nation giving way to a "regional bloc of nations" in the Middle East. Israel will be pressured to accede to these demands by all world bodies and the superpowers on the claim that "this is the only way to solve the Middle East conflict). In order to the Jews to go along they will convince them that with the "Messiah" having appeared for the Jews, it is time to start rebuilding the Third Temple- what they call "Solomon's Temple". This version of events is widely available through a simple search on the Internet as there are many Christian groups and organizations (the majority of which who are very pro-Israel) who don’t buy into these beliefs and thus are against them. I didn’t come up with the theory- I am just bringing it to the attention of the Israeli public. . .

Reading the foregoing, it almost seems that Bainerman was aware of the prophecies concerning Jerusalem, not least of all Isa. 14:12-14; but there is no mention of Bible prophecy in his essay.

He set out a chronology of events which extends from October 1991 to July 2002, with no mention of the 1996 election in which Benjamin Netanyahu defeated Shimon Peres for the premiership. This ushered in the era of increasingly rightwing Zionist leadership under first Ariel Sharon and then Netanyahu, who has won the premiership four times, most recently in 2015. This course of events, coupled with unwavering support from Christian Zionists in the United States both at the grassroots and Republican government level, has hardened opposition to the "Vatican Agenda.". . .

Putting together Rome's objective, the challenge of Jewish Zionist governmental opposition, the apocalyptic ideology of the Christian Right now in the ascendancy in America combined with that of the Jewish "Temple Mount Faithful," it is reasonable to wonder whether Elder Grotheer's suggestion of how the impasse might ultimately be resolved was not prescient. Bainerman's thinking in his essay is also consistent with this idea.

Once again recalling James White's counsel, this is not a prediction. However, the possibility that there might be a sudden and totally unexpected realization of the Vatican Agenda by supernatural intervention demands close watching of the course of events in the United States and Israel.

With the probability of being surprised by the unexpected, (1) the presently continuing obstruction by Zionism might end by agreement between the opposing parties, (2) the obstruction might be overcome by the pressure of international sanctions, or (3) as improbable as it might seem, the obstruction might end because of a supernatural intervention.

The Likud Party's leadership, and especially Benjamin Netanyahu, have made no secret of their ideology that Israel has the right to claim the entire land of Palestine:

A LOT OF people were appalled last week when Israel's Likud party declared there should never be a Palestinian state.

Likud, which is the largest coalition of Israel's right-wing, ultranationalist factions, made this declaration following the exhortations of Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu, a former prime minister and one of the slipperiest characters ever to occupy that office. The party acted against the stated wishes of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who has said he accepts the inevitability of a Palestinian state. The action also was a slap in the face to the Bush administration and most other parties that see the promise of Palestinian statehood as necessary to induce Palestinians to make peace with Israel.

No question exists among sensible people that Palestinian statehood is necessary and inevitable if there is ever to be peace between Israel and the Arabs living next to them. Whether Yasser Arafat, the present leader of the Palestinians, deserves to be the head of such a state is less important than the proposition that without the hope of self-rule and independence, the Palestinians have little incentive to work toward peace. The brutal forces that accompany hopelessness have made their mark all over Israel as suicide bombers.

But while the Likud party's declaration against Palestinian statehood, urged on by Netanyahu, is appalling, it may not be a bad thing.

What the declaration accomplished was to deliver a crystal-clear reminder of what the Likudniks represent in the abiding division between the militant "revisionist" Zionism of the Likud and the moderate side of Zionist politics, represented by the Labor Party.

The revisionists, disciples of a Polish Jewish militant named Ze'ev Jabotinsky, have never wavered from the conviction that all of Palestine belonged to the Jews, by rights enshrined in religious inheritance. Prime Minister Menachem Begin learned his stuff as Jabotinsky's acolyte. He could give up the Sinai peninsula for the sake of peace with Egypt in 1979, but never the West Bank and Gaza. Eretz Israel - the Land of Israel - included all the territory from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, including all of the West Bank, which he vigorously filled with Jewish settlers. . .

This website has consistently identified Israeli Zionists, supported by Christian Zionists in the United States, as the obstacle to the internationalization of Jerusalem and the fulfillment of Dan. 11:45. This continues to be true, because of the controlling power of the Likud Party. However, on further investigation, the issue runs much deeper.

Although the ideology of the Likud Party is the most extreme form of Eretz Israel, the Labor governments which preceded the rise to power of Likud also had a policy of seizing Palestinian land:

Since 1967, each Israeli government has invested significant resources in establishing and expanding the settlements in the Occupied Territories, both in terms of the area of land they occupy and in terms of population. As a result of this policy, approximately 380,000 Israeli citizens now live on the settlements on the West Bank, including those established in East Jerusalem (this report does not relate to the settlements in the Gaza Strip).

During the first decade following the occupation, the Ma'arach governments operated on the basis of the Alon Plan, which advocated the establishment of settlements in areas perceived as having "security importance," and where the Palestinian population was sparse (the Jordan Valley, parts of the Hebron Mountains and Greater Jerusalem). After the Likud came to power in 1977, the government began to establish settlements throughout the West Bank, particularly in areas close to the main Palestinian population centers along the central mountain ridge and in western Samaria. This policy was based on both security and ideological considerations.

The political process between Israel and the Palestinians did not impede settlement activities, which continued under the Labor government of Yitzhak Rabin (1992-1996) and all subsequent governments. These governments built thousands of new housing units, claiming that this was necessary to meet the "natural growth" of the existing population. As a result, between 1993 and 2000 the number of settlers on the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem) increased by almost 100 percent. . .

Israel has used a complex legal and bureaucratic mechanism to take control of more than fifty percent of the land in the West Bank. This land was used mainly to establish settlements and create reserves of land for the future expansion of the settlements.

The principal tool used to take control of land is to declare it "state land." This process began in 1979, and is based on a manipulative implementation of the Ottoman Lands Law of 1858, which applied in the area at the time of occupation. Other methods employed by Israel to take control of land include seizure for military needs, declaration of land as "abandoned assets," and the expropriation of land for public needs. Each of these are based on a different legal foundation. In addition, Israel has assisted private citizens purchasing land on the "free market.". . . (Underscored emphasis added.)

There is a reason for what is a fundamental consistency in the policies of both Likud and Labor concerning the treatment of the Palestinians:

When in the late nineteenth century Zionism arose as a political force calling for the colonization of Palestine and the “gathering of all Jews,” little attention was paid to the fact that Palestine was already populated. Indeed, the Basel Program adopted at the First Zionist Congress, which launched political Zionism in 1897, made no mention of a Palestinian native population when it spelled out the movement's objective: "the establishment of a publicly and legally secured home in Palestine for the Jewish people.”

Moreover, in the early years of their efforts to secure support for their enterprise, the Zionists propagated in the West the idea of "a land without a people for a people without a land," a slogan coined by Israel Zangwill, a prominent Anglo-Jewish writer often quoted in the British press as a spokesman for Zionism and one of the earliest organizers of the Zionist movement in Britain. Even as late as 1914, Chaim Weizmann, who was to become the first president of Israel and who, along with Theodor Herzl and David Ben Gurion, was one of the three men most responsible for turning the Zionist dream into reality, stated:

In its initial stage, Zionism was conceived by its pioneers as a movement wholly depending on mechanical factors: there is a country which happens to be called Palestine, a country without a people, and, on the other hand, there exists the Jewish people, and it has no country. What else is necessary, then, than to fit the gem into the ring, to unite this people with this country? The owners of the country [the Turks] must, therefore, be persuaded and convinced that this marriage is advantageous, not only for the [Jewish] people and for the country, but also for themselves.

Neither Zangwill nor Weizmann intended these demographic assessments in a literal fashion. They did not mean that there were no people in Palestine, but that there were no people worth considering within the framework of the notions of European supremacy that then held sway. In this connection, a comment by Weizmann to Arthur Ruppin, the head of the colonization department of the Jewish Agency, is particularly revealing. When asked by Ruppin about the Palestinian Arabs, Weizmann replied: "The British told us that there are there some hundred thousands negroes [Kushim] and for those there is no value.” Zangwill himself spelled out the actual meaning of his slogan with admirable clarity in 1920:

If Lord Shaftesbury was literally inexact in describing Palestine as a country without a people, he was essentially correct, for there is no Arab people living in intimate fusion with the country, utilising its resources and stamping it with a characteristic impress: there is at best an Arab encampment.

Despite such statements, however, the Zionists from the outset were well aware that not only were there people on the land, but that people were there in large numbers. Zangwill, who had visited Palestine in 1897 and come face-to-face with the demographic reality, acknowledged in 1905 in a speech to a Zionist group in Manchester that "Palestine proper has already its inhabitants. The pashalik of Jerusalem is already twice as thickly populated as the United States, having fifty-two souls to the square mile, and not 25 percent of them Jews…” Abundant references to the Palestinian population in early Zionist texts show clearly that from the beginning of Zionist settlement in Palestine-which Zionist historiography dates to the arrival of the members of the Russian Bilu Society in 1882-the Palestinian Arabs were far from being an “unseen" or "hidden" presence. Moreover, recent studies have shown that Zionist leaders were concerned with what they termed the "Arab problem" (Habe'ayah Ha'aruit) or the “Arab question” (Hashelah Ha'aruit). As seen in their writings, the attitudes prevailing among the majority of the Zionist groups and settlers concerning the indigenous Palestinian population ranged from indifference and disregard to patronizing superiority. A typical example can be found in the works of Moshe Smilansky, a Zionist writer and Labor leader who immigrated to Palestine in 1890:

Let us not be too familiar with the Arab fellahin lest our children adopt their ways and learn from their ugly deeds. Let all those who are loyal to the Torah avoid ugliness and that which resembles it and keep their distance from the fellahin and their base attributes.

There were, certainly, those who took exception to such attitudes. Ahad Ha'Am (Asher Zvi Ginzberg), a liberal Russian Jewish thinker who visited Palestine in 1891, published a series of articles in the Hebrew periodical Hamelitz that were sharply critical of the ethnocentricity of political Zionism as well as the exploitation of Palestinian peasantry by Zionist colonists. Ahad Ha'Am, who sought to draw attention to the fact that Palestine was not an empty territory and that the presence of another people on the land posed problems, observed that the Zionist "pioneers" believed that "the only language that the Arabs understand is that of force .... [They] behave towards the Arabs with hostility and cruelty, trespass unjustly upon their boundaries, beat them shamefully without reason and even brag about it, and nobody stands to check this contemptible and dangerous tendency." He cut to the heart of the matter when he ventured that the colonists’ aggressive attitude towards the native peasants stemmed from their anger "towards those who reminded them that there is still another people in the land of Israel that have been living there and does not intend to leave.

Another early settler, Yitzhaq Epstein, who arrived in Palestine from Russia in 1886, warned not only of the moral implications of Zionist colonization but also of the political dangers inherent in the enterprise. In 1907, at a time when Zionist land purchases in the Galilee were stirring opposition among Palestinian peasants forced off land sold by absentee landlords, Epstein wrote a controversial article entitled "The Hidden Question," in which he strongly criticized the methods by which Zionists had purchased Arab land. In his view, these methods entailing dispossession of Arab farmers were bound to cause political confrontation in the future. Reflected in the Zionist establishment's angry response to Epstein's article are two principal features of mainstream Zionist thought: the belief that Jewish acquisition of land took precedence over moral considerations, and the advocacy of a separatist and exclusionist Yishuv. . . (Underscored emphasis added.)

To appreciate the weight of the next hyperlinked article, the following "About Us" information provided by the publishers is helpful:

American Educational Trust (AET) is a non-profit foundation incorporated in Washington, DC in 1982 by retired U.S. foreign service officers to provide the American public with balanced and accurate information concerning U.S. relations with Middle Eastern states. . .

AET's Foreign Policy Committee has included former U.S. ambassadors, government officials, and members of Congress, including the late Democratic Senator J. William Fulbright, and Republican Senator Charles Percy, both former chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

IN THE PAST few years, references to Israeli “settler colonialism” have become increasingly common, but what does this term actually mean?

Settler colonialism is an important concept because it helps explain the core identity not only of Israel but also of its chief benefactor, the United States. Indeed, the shared identity as settler colonial states goes a long way toward explaining the “special relationship” between the two nations as well as the history of the Middle East conflict.

Surveying changes that were remapping the world as a result of the First World War, President Woodrow Wilson declared that “Jewish Palestine” should “never go back to the Mohammedan apache.” By linking Arab Muslims with the southwestern Indian tribe, which had relatively recently been violently subdued by the United States, Wilson invoked the shared history of settler colonialism. Just as American settlers had “tamed” their own frontier—“Winning the West,” as Theodore Roosevelt put it in his multi-volume pop history—many Americans assumed that the Zionists were on a similar mission of settling and bringing civilization to the backward Islamic world.

Israel and the United States, like nearly all societies, create mythological histories for themselves—a “usable past”—that puts a positive spin on history, thereby obscuring more critical analysis and understanding. Americans, for example, like to think of themselves as the “land of the free,” yet the nation sanctioned slavery at its founding, clung to it long after most nations ended the odious practice of human bondage, and today has the highest rate of incarceration in all the world. There’s not a lot of “freedom” to be found in those facts.

Zionists likewise bristle over application of the term settler colonialism to Israeli history. “Colonialism” is recognized as an exploitative economic system, animated by racial oppression, one that ought to be relegated to the past, hence it is not a desirable label to have applied to your country. But it is the “settler” component that really defines and distinguishes the concept.

Conventional colonialism, normally associated with the British empire and other European colonizers, centered on economic exploitation of colonies for profit, but settler colonies are altogether different. In the 19th century, Europeans carved up China and competed in the imperial “scramble for Africa” in order to exploit those lands for profits to take back home.

Settlers, however, come to stay in a new land, rather than merely to exploit its natural resources and native labor for short-term profit. Settlers cultivate racial, religious and nationalist frameworks that serve to justify the takeover of lands on which other people already live. They assume new identities as chosen peoples who believe they are destined or divinely sanctioned to inherit a new land, which they sometimes even depict as an uninhabited “wilderness” or “virgin land.”

One of the most important aspects to understand about settler colonialism is that it is a zero-sum game: settlers do not intend to share the land with indigenous people, rather they intend to remove them in order to establish sacred homelands of their own. By means of mass migration and violent removal policies, settlers seek to drive out the native residents. Settler societies thus work relentlessly to establish enduring “facts on the ground.”

For the Zionist movement, success depended on the migration of masses of Jews and their takeover of as much land in Palestine as possible with as few indigenous people as possible remaining on that land. As the Zionist patriarch David Ben-Gurion succinctly explained to his son in 1937, “We must expel Arabs and take their place.” Likewise, in the 19th century, Americans famously proclaimed it was their “manifest destiny” to seize by means of war a massive territory inhabited by Indians and Hispanics.

Because people do not give up their historic homelands peaceably, settler states invariably resort to violent solutions including ethnic cleansing and warfare, massacre and collective punishment, incarceration and torture. Settler states—as Palestinians and Native Americans can attest—are intrinsically violent societies, particularly in the early stages of their evolution.

Another crucial characteristic of settler society is abhorrence of legal constraints and of external authorities. Israel, typically backed by the United States, has a long and flagrant record of ignoring or defying the U.N. and other international entities in order to pursue its own ends in Palestine and the greater Middle East. . .(Underscored emphasis added.)

The next hyperlinked article cannot be accessed in full; but the following opening paragraphs provide a deeper insight into the intractable problem posed by Israel's "Settler Colonialism" imposed on the land of Palestine:

The ideals, goals, strategy, and tactics of Jewish settlement in Palestine may agree in some respects with those of settler regimes elsewhere. But there is a basic difference. Unlike other settler regimes Israel claims to be a return. According to Zionists and Israelis the Jewish state is not an entirely new venture, but the restoration of a state that was temporarily disrupted.

European colonialism and ethnic national liberation movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries no doubt stimulated feelings of nationalism among European Jews and led to the birth of organized political Zionism. But Jewish nationalism -7- and its nemesis, anti-Semitism — existed long before the nineteenth century and the era of European colonialism. The Jewish phrase "Next Year in Jerusalem" is a witness to the existence, throughout the centuries of the European diaspora, of this nationalism which implied, from its inception, the colonization of Palestine. The roots of Zionism, therefore, transcend both Europe and the nineteenth century. Messianic movements in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries attempted a "return" to Palestine to recreate a Jewish Commonwealth in the Promised Land. The "Return to Zion" was even the theme of the Jews in Babylon as far back as the sixth century B.C.

European nationalism and colonialism of the past century left their mark more on the methods and tactics than on the substance of Zionism. . . (Underscored emphasis added.)

The following hyperlinked articles provide corroborative facts about the brutal Settler Colonialism manifested in Israel's policy of expropriating the lands of the Palestinians:

Since military occupying the Palestinian West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza in the June 1967 War, Israel has implemented a series of policies intended to contain and restrict the growth of Palestinian population centers and to make life difficult for ordinary Palestinians in the hopes that they will leave and can be replaced with Jewish settlers. These policies include the theft and destruction of Palestinian land for the building of illegal Jewish settlements and making it extremely difficult for Palestinians to get permission to build or expand homes and then destroying structures that have been built without a permit.

After the 1967 War, Israel expropriated approximately 209,792 acres of Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. It also expanded the municipal boundaries of East Jerusalem, which comprised about four square miles, adding an additional 45 square miles (more than 17,000 acres) of the occupied West Bank to the city, which was then annexed to Israel in a move that has never been recognized by the international community, including the United States.

Since 1967, Israel has expropriated approximately 5776 acres of Palestinian land in occupied East Jerusalem. Thirty-five percent of the land in East Jerusalem has been confiscated for Israeli settlement use, with only 13% zoned for Palestinian construction, much of which is already built-up.

In occupied East Jerusalem and the approximately 60% of the West Bank over which Israel retains total control under the terms of the Oslo Accords, it is nearly impossible for Palestinians to get permission to build new homes or additions to old ones. According to a June 2017 statement from Human Rights Watch entitled, Israel: 50 Years of Occupation Abuses :

"Israeli authorities have expropriated thousands of acres of Palestinian land for settlements and their supporting infrastructure. Discriminatory burdens, including making it nearly impossible for Palestinians to obtain building permits in East Jerusalem and in the 60 percent of the West Bank under exclusive Israeli control (Area C), have effectively forced Palestinians to leave their homes or to build at the risk of seeing their 'unauthorized' structures bulldozed. For decades, Israeli authorities have demolished homes on the grounds that they lacked permits, even though the law of occupation prohibits destruction of property except for military necessity, or punitively as collective punishment against families of Palestinians suspected of attacking Israelis."

Since 1967, Israel has destroyed more than 48,000 Palestinian homes and other buildings in the occupied territories, including agricultural buildings and places of business, because they were built without permission from Israel's occupying army.

Israel has also destroyed large amounts of Palestinian farmland to make way for settlements, military bases, and the wall it is building on occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which has been deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice.

Since 1967, Israel has uprooted approximately 800,000 olive trees belonging to Palestinians.

Israel's settlement enterprise and related infrastructure, including roads that are off limits to Palestinians, cover approximately 42% of the occupied West Bank. (Underscored emphasis added.)

The following reports detail how the state of Israel has been "sailing close to the wind" in defying international law:

Human rights and Palestinian solidarity activists frequently mention violations of international law and the commission of war crimes by the state of Israel. The IPSC National Coordinator Kevin Squires took a look at some of these offences in detail for Liberty, the monthly newspaper of SIPTU, the largest trade union in Ireland.

It was part of a four page ‘Palestine Special’ in the September edition, which also included contributions from Palestinian lawyer Diana Buttu, Dr. Claudia Saba of Gaza Action Ireland, and Mags O’Brien of Trade Union Friends of Palestine. You can read the whole section online by clicking here on pages 15 to 18 (PDF) (Hyperlink not copied here.)

Israel operates a military policy of collective punishment called the ‘Dahiya doctrine’, after the area in Lebanon where it was first used by Israeli forces in 2006. Simply put, the doctrine sees massive force being used upon the civilian population in order to exert political pressure on enemy forces. Aside from being a classic definition of the word “terrorism”, Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention defines collective punishment as a war crime, stipulating that “No persons may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited … Reprisals against persons and their property are prohibited.”

The first Israeli settlements were built in late 1967, immediately following the military occupation of the Palestinian territories. Today over half a million Jewish-Israelis live in such settlements. As Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states that it is illegal for an occupying power to “deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”, all such settlements are thus war crimes. UN Security Council Resolution 446 declares settlements have “no legal validity”.

In 1980 Israel formally annexed East Jerusalem as Israel’s “complete and united” capital. UNSC Resolution 478 declares the annexation “a violation of international law” which is “null and void and must be rescinded.” UNSC Resolution 497 similarly states that Israel’s annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights is also illegal.

In 2002 Israel began building 710km a barrier consisting of 8m high concrete walls, military watchtowers and barbed-wire fences on Palestinian land. Israel claims its purpose it to prevent Palestinians from crossing into Israel, but its route winds deep within the West Bank –only 15% of its route follows the Green Line border– leading it to be dubbed the ‘land grab’ or ‘Apartheid’ wall. In 2004, the International Court of Justice (The World Court) issued an Advisory Opinion regarding the legality of the wall, stating that the wall “and its associated régime, are contrary to international law” and called for reparations for those affected by its construction.

Between 1947 and 1949 Jewish-Israeli military forces ethnically cleansed at least 750,000 Palestinians from what became the state of Israel, representing some 85% of the indigenous Palestinian population. 1967, Israel forced around 300,000 people (around half of them already refugees from 1948) from their homeland. Today, refugees and their descendants number, at a conservative estimate, around five million people. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states that “forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.” Under Article 147 of the 1949 Geneva Convention IV, “unlawful deportation or transfer … of a protected person” constitutes a grave breach of the Convention.

For six decades Israel has refused Palestinian refugees their Right of Return; UN General Assembly Resolution 194 states that Palestinian “refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date.” This resolution has been reaffirmed many times over by UNGA. Opponents of Palestinian rights claim 194 is irrelevant as UNGA resolutions are non-binding, however Israel’s accession to the UN was predicated upon its acceptance. Furthermore, the resolution is merely an acknowledgement of the specific applicability of the right of return to Palestinian refugees which, according to the Cambridge Journal of International & Comparative Law can be found in eight branches of international law: inter-State nationality law, law of State succession, human rights law, humanitarian law, law of State responsibility, refugee law, UN law, and natural/customary law.

Since 2007, the 1.8 million people in the Gaza Strip have existed under a regime of land, sea and air closure, known as the Siege, or Blockade, of Gaza. This siege has kept Gaza on the brink of a humanitarian disaster for the past seven years, a policy described by an Israeli official as being to “put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.” There is broad consensus amongst human rights organisations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International Committee of the Red Cross as well as UN offices such as the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) and United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) that this siege is illegal. UNOCHA called it “collective punishment, a violation of international humanitarian law,” while outgoing UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, has stated that it “is illegal and should be lifted.”

Israel is currently in breach of, or has been the subject of, over 30 UN Security Council resolutions directed at it alone for violations which it has never taken action to remedy. (Underscored emphasis added.)

The following article provides information about the rules of international law which are being flouted by Israel:

International law establishes the normative framework binding on Israel in its conduct in the Occupied Territories. The relevant provisions are enshrined in two branches of law: international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law. It was once the agreed convention that the two branches do not apply concurrently, namely that IHL applies during armed conflict and occupation, while human rights law applies during peacetime.

Over the years, however, legal conventions have undergone changes, and this distinction has been blurred. Current convention holds that human rights law continues to apply during armed conflict and occupation, concurrently with IHL. Since the protection IHL provides civilians and victims of war is more limited than the protection afforded under human rights law, this view significantly broadens protection afforded civilians during armed conflict. In the rare instances when IHL and human rights are not in agreement in a situation of armed conflict, the convention is for the provisions of IHL to takes precedence.

IHL sets out the rules applicable to parties to an armed conflict, seeking to minimize, as much as possible, harm to civilians and combatants who are no longer taking part in the hostilities, such as the wounded and prisoners of war. To this end, the provisions of IHL limit the methods and weapons that may be used. For example, IHL stipulates that only military targets may be attacked (the principle of distinction) and even then, only on condition that the harm to civilians is not expected to outweigh the military advantage anticipated (the principle of proportionality).
IHL also establishes the rules that apply to an occupying power. The rules state that occupation is, by definition, temporary and that the occupier is never the sovereign in the occupied territory. The temporary nature of the occupation gives rise to the restrictions imposed on the occupying power, and most especially to the rule that the occupier may not make permanent changes in the occupied territory, with the exception of changes made for the benefit of the local population or to meet the occupier’s imperative military needs. Among the restrictions set out in this rule is that the occupying power may not change the law that applies in the occupied territory, build permanent settlements there or exploit natural resources. IHL also establishes that the people who lived in the occupied territory prior to the occupation are considered “protected persons” and may not be subjected to collective punishment or violence, their private property may not be confiscated, their dignity may not be violated and they may not be expelled from their homes. . .

Over the years Israel has also argued that its actions in the Occupied Territories are, in any event, “lawful” and in compliance with the provisions of international law: The building of scores of settlements in the West Bank, and the theft of thousands of hectares of land are lawful because they are pursued under the narrow exception that allows the destruction of private property in case of a “military necessity”; the administrative detention of thousands of Palestinians is lawful because preventing future crimes and security reasons underpinned putting them behind bars; and more than anything – the killing of thousands of Palestinians during the recurrent spells of fighting in the Gaza Strip is lawful because they were always killed in keeping with the fundamental principles of IHL – the principle of distinction and the principle of proportionality. These arguments have nearly always been accepted by Israel’s High Court of Justice. . .

Instead of adopting international law – both IHL and human rights law – as its moral compass, Israel cynically uses it as a manual for the systematic abuse of human rights. The provisions of international law lie before Supreme Court justices, lawyers of the State Attorney’s Office and officers of the MAG (Military Advocate General) Corps. Yet they all manage to interpret them and work around them with one sole objective of lending a guise of legality to the violation of international law. Israel’s policies throughout the Occupied Territories over the past half a century have been veering farther and farther away from protecting the population to verging on actual neglect. This is not an abstract issue. It has tangible repercussions: dispossession, oppression, abuse and killings are the outcome of a formalistic interpretation of rules designed to prevent exactly that. (Underscored emphasis added.)

The following letter from the Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations includes a list of Israeli violations of international law in the brief period between April 9 and April 14 of 2016:

The time is overdue for the international community to put an immediate end to Israel’s colonial enterprise in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. Actions must be taken to uphold the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the relevant Security Council and General Assembly resolutions, as well as the advisory opinion rendered on 9 July 2004 by the International Court of Justice to bring the occupying Power into compliance with its legal obligations. In particular, while recalling the many Security Council resolutions directly addressing this crime, including resolutions 446 (1979), 452 (1979), 465 (1980) and 478 (1980), we call on the Security Council to act in unison in calling on the occupying Power to halt its settlement enterprise, since it is clearly acknowledged that settlements pose the biggest challenge to a peaceful settlement.

Moreover, it is not only Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise that continues to violate international law and the human rights of the Palestinian people. The occupying Power also persists with all of its other policies and measures against the defenseless Palestinian population, which include, among many other things, the killing and injuring of innocent Palestinian civilians, among them women and children. In this regard, since October 2015, Israeli occupying forces have killed over 200 Palestinian civilians, including scores of children, and have injured more than 15,000 Palestinians. Moreover, the occupying Power continues to employ measures of collective punishment against the entire Palestinian population living under its ruthless military occupation. This includes the illegal and immoral blockade of the Gaza Strip, in which almost 2 million civilians are suffering from a dire socioeconomic and humanitarian crisis deliberately caused by the occupying Power. Moreover, in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, measures of collective punishment, such as home demolitions, curfews, checkpoints and closures, not only continue but are also on the rise.

While it is impossible to record every single crime perpetrated daily by the Israeli occupying forces and terrorist settlers against the Palestinian people, in addition to the above, the list below is a compilation of many crimes in the recent period:

• Israeli occupying forces detained four Palestinians and summoned four others from across the West Bank.

• Israeli naval boats shot heavy machine gunfire on Palestinian fishermen sailing offshore of the northern Gaza Strip.

• Israeli occupying forces shot machine gunfire at Palestinian shepherds in Gaza.

• Israeli occupying forces detained at least 10 Palestinians, including a journalist, during raids across the West Bank.

• Israeli occupying forces detained 19 Palestinians, including two minors, and summoned two others from across the West Bank.

• Extremist Israeli settlers resumed their provocative tours to Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem, amid calls by extremist Jewish organizations for mass visits to the holy site.

• Israeli occupying forces demolished three homes in the village of Al-Waljeh, to the north-west of Bethlehem, under the dubious pretext of “construction without a permit”.

• Israeli occupying forces detained 20 Palestinians, including two minors, from the West Bank and Gaza.

• Israeli occupying forces destroyed a playground, which was used as a children’s park, in Za’tara, a small village to the south of Nablus.

• Israeli occupying forces reclosed with cement cubes the entrance to the village of Aqraba, to the south of Nablus.

• Israeli occupying forces detained 13 Palestinians during pre-dawn raids in Nablus, Al-Khalil, Tulkarm, Bethlehem and Jerusalem.

• Israeli settlers stormed the village of Kherbet Tana, south-east of Nablus, harassing Palestinian civilians. About 20 Palestinian students suffocated as Israeli occupying forces fired tear gas canisters at a girls’ school in Jaba' town, south of Jenin.

• Israeli occupying forces destroyed a Palestinian-owned charcoal facility in the village of Barta’a, to the south-west of Jenin.

• Israeli occupying forces detained 30 Palestinians, including a girl, 2 boys and 11 elderly persons, during extensive pre-dawn raid campaigns across the West Bank.

• Israeli occupying forces raided and burned down a Palestinian-owned currency exchange shop in central Al-Bireh.

• Israeli occupying forces raided the campuses of two Palestinian primary schools in the town of Al-Khader, to the south of Bethlehem.

• Israeli occupying forces demolished a rainwater harvesting well near Al-Arroub refugee camp, north of Al-Khalil.

• Israeli occupying forces shot and killed Ibrahim Mohammed Baraz’iyeh (age 45) near Al-Arroub refugee camp in Al-Khalil.

The continuation of such illegal policies and measures are clearly exacerbating the volatile situation on the ground and heightening tensions between the two sides. Israel, the occupying Power, must be held to the same standards as all other States and comply with international law, and cannot continue to be absolved of its legal obligations. In this regard, we reiterate that Israel, the occupying Power, must be held fully accountable in accordance with international law and the principles of justice for all of its violations and for its continuing obstruction of peace. Moreover, we also reiterate our appeal for protection for the Palestinian people in accordance with international humanitarian law. This is imperative to save lives and to salvage the minimal prospects for peace before us, and the international community, particularly the Security Council, has clear responsibilities in this regard that must be upheld in all seriousness and without delay. (Underscored emphasis added.)

The following passages copied from an article in the Washington Post include the article's internal hyperlinks which shed additional light on the subject matter:

It is no coincidence that the latest episode in the hundred-plus year war on Palestine should erupt over the issues of Jerusalem and refugees. Both are entwined with the history of Israel’s efforts to dispossess and displace the Palestinian people. In recent weeks, Israel’s brutal actions in and around Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque, and its attempts to forcibly displace Palestinians in the nearby neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, were triggers for another violent, asymmetrical confrontation (illustrated by the greater than 10-to-1 disparity in casualty figures). Both issues go to the core of this one-sided struggle against dispossession, and both have long been diligently swept under the rug by U.S. policymakers charged with bringing it to an end.

These are not “riots” or a “real estate dispute,” as the endlessly repeated Israeli talking points would have it. The context for these events in Jerusalem, in Gaza and elsewhere in Palestine and Israel is summarized in the words of the Israeli deputy mayor of Jerusalem, Aryeh King, who recently stated that the Sheikh Jarrah evictions were “of course” part of Israel’s plan to place “layers of Jews” throughout the eastern half of the city. The aim, he said, was to “secure the future of Jerusalem as a Jewish capital for the Jewish people.”

This process of “Judaization” (the official Israeli term), based on the inexorable logic of settler colonialism, has operated through the confiscation of homes and land and the displacement of their Palestinian owners inside Israel since 1948, and since 1967 in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Golan Heights.

This is the logic behind marches by heavily armed Jewish religious nationalist settlers through Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem, protected by Israeli security forces as they attack and intimidate residents. It is the logic behind Israeli police forcibly preventing Palestinians from enjoying Ramadan nights at the Damascus Gate plaza, one of the few open areas around the Old City. It is the logic behind attacks by soldiers on worshippers at the al-Aqsa Mosque compound night after night during the last days of Ramadan, including firing stun grenades and tear gas canisters into the third-holiest mosque in the Islamic world. What would the global reaction be to a similar attack on worshippers inside a major church or synagogue on a religious holiday?

What is at work here is the logic of the 2018 law that raised a central tenet of political Zionism to the level of a constitutional principle: that only the Jewish people have the right of self-determination in the Land of Israel. Since 1967, Israel has been extending its sovereignty over the entirety of former Mandatory Palestine, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, in an inexorable process of creeping annexation. The 2018 law, which established “Jewish settlement as a national value,” implies that the Palestinian people have no national rights in their ancestral homeland, and that their dispossession is a legitimate and necessary Israeli endeavor.

This discriminatory logic explains why the Israeli state puts its powerful repressive apparatus at the disposal of religious extremists as they expel Palestinian residents from their homes by claiming prior ownership in Sheikh Jarrah. Meanwhile, it bars consideration of the ownership claims of these same residents to their properties confiscated after they were driven from their homes in Haifa, Jaffa and West Jerusalem in 1948. (Underscored emphasis added; internal hyperlinks in the original.)

The prevailing consensus among Israelis that Palestinian nationalism had been defeated – and thus that a political solution to the conflict was no longer necessary – lies in tatters. And even as the violence escalates, it has become clear to both sides that the era of glorious wars and victories is over.

TEL AVIV – The sudden eruption of war outside and inside Israel’s borders has shocked a complacent nation. Throughout Binyamin Netanyahu’s 12-year premiership, the Palestinian problem was buried and forgotten. The recent Abraham Accords, establishing diplomatic relations with four Arab states, seemed to weaken the Palestinian cause further. Now it has re-emerged with a vengeance.

Wars can be triggered by an isolated incident, but their cause is always deeper. In this case, the trigger, the eviction of Palestinians in favor of Israeli nationalists in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem, touched all the sensitive nerves of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem, its humiliating control of access to the Al-Aqsa mosque, the ever-present memory of the 1948 Nakba (the displacement of 700,000 Palestinians when Israel was founded), and the grievances of Israel’s Arab minority are all fueling the current flare-up.

It may be true that the contested real estate in Sheikh Jarrah did belong to Jewish family before 1948. But Palestinians saw the incident as part of Israel's unrelenting drive to "Judaize" Jerusalem, and a striking injustice, because the state of Israel was built partly on the abandoned properties of Palestinian refugees. . . (Underscored emphasis added.)

It’s time for the international community to address this crisis with greater honesty about the key players and solutions

The sudden rekindling of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and the ensuing horrors, is a shameful reminder of the international community’s almost criminal neglect of the crisis. There have been no substantive peace talks for more than a decade. Donald Trump’s “deal of the century” was a cruel sham. Efforts now under way to engineer a ceasefire, or what is called a “sustainable calm”, amount to applying a sticking plaster to a deeply felt, long-festering wound.

This story of neglect, cementing in place injustices and inequities stretching back to the 1948 Palestine war, made a new explosion of violence all but inevitable. It has played into the hands of extremists on both sides who seek victories, not peace. It threatens the future of Israel and Palestine and regional stability. The events of the past week have rendered the prospect of a lasting settlement more distant than ever.

In several respects, the latest clashes broke new ground, all of it negative. The sustained rocket barrage mounted by Hamas from its Gaza stronghold, targeting Tel Aviv and penetrating deep into the country, has surprised and alarmed Israel’s leaders. So, too, has intercommunal violence pitting Arab and Jewish Israelis against each other in numerous towns and cities. This fracturing is potentially deeply damaging in the longer term.

But other aspects of the crisis are sickeningly familiar. As in previous wars between Israel and Hamas, in 2009, 2012, and 2014, the principal casualties are civilians, including many children. Given Israel’s vastly superior resources, the toll of death and destruction is disproportionately felt by Palestinians. As in the past, the violence is exacerbating political divisions and polarization. It feeds the extremists’ narratives of hate.

This state of affairs is inhuman, intolerable, irrational and wholly unacceptable. This cycle of mutual terror and suffering must not be allowed to repeat itself at some future date. Jews and Arabs living side by side can and should do better. Yet for this to happen, greater honesty is essential. It is no good pretending, as so many in Israel, the US, Europe and the Arab sphere do, that the “Palestinian problem” will somehow go away by itself. It will not. . . (Underscored emphasis added)

Israeli forces tear gas Palestinian counter-protesters gathered at Damascus Gate after a week of anti-Palestinian attacks

Hundreds of far-right and anti-Palestinian activists took to the streets in Jerusalem's Old City on Thursday chanting "Death to Arabs" as they protested through the city centre.

The march, led by Lehava, a far-right Israeli group, was organised as a call to "restore Jewish dignity" in Jerusalem.

It came after a week of increased violent assaults against Palestinian citizens of Israel in the Old City.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the uptick in anti-Palestinian violence began after a video was posted to TikTok of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man being slapped - seemingly at random - on Jerusalem's light rail train.

Two 17-year-old Palestinians were subsequently arrested in relation to the incident.

On Thursday, Palestinian counter-protesters gathered at Jerusalem's Damascus Gate, the main passage used by Palestinians to enter the Old City's castle walls.

Israeli security forces attempted to block the anti-Palestinian march from reaching the counter-protesters, but Haaretz reported that eventually forces started shooting tear gas at the Palestinian activists, trying to disperse the crowd while utilising horse-mounted officers to push back far-right Israeli activists. . . (Underscored emphasis added.)

The UN Secretary-General said he was "gravely concerned" at escalating violence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory on Tuesday, while the UN rights office, OHCHR, appealed for “a redoubling of efforts to restore calm”, after airstrikes and days of clashes between protesters and Israeli police.

The ongoing violence marks a dramatic escalation of tensions linked to the potential eviction of Palestinian families from East Jerusalem by Israeli settlers and access to one of the most sacred sites in the city, which is a key hub for Islam, Judaism and Christianity.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres expressed his deep concern over the situation, including the escalation of violence in Gaza, "which add to the heightened tensions and violence in occupied East Jerusalem", the statement issued by his Spokesperson said. (Underscored emphasis added.)

The following report is indicative of the Vatican's intense interest in what is happening in Palestine, and particularly its support of a two-state solution to the long and continuing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians:

A prominent Palestinian authority calls the Vatican Secretary for Relations with States "to inform the Holy See about recent developments in the Palestinian territories".

The Holy See has once more reiterated the two-people, two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem for peace in the Holy Land.

A statement by the Holy See Press Office on Wednesday said that the Chief Palestine negotiator and Secretary General of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Saeb Erekat, called the Vatican Secretary for Relations with States, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher.

Erekat called to “inform the Holy See about recent developments in the Palestinian territories and of the possibility of Israeli applying its sovereignty unilaterally to part of those territories, further jeopardizing the peace process”.

In this regard, the Press Office said, “The Holy See reiterates that respect for international law and the relevant United Nations resolutions, is an indispensable element for the two peoples to live side by side in two States, within the borders internationally recognized before 1967.”

“The Holy See is following the situation closely, and expresses concern about any future actions that could further compromise dialogue.”

The statement concluded saying that the Holy See hopes that “Israelis and Palestinians will be soon able to find once again the possibility for directly negotiating an agreement, with the help of the International Community, so that peace may finally reign in the Holy Land, so beloved by Jews and Christians and Muslims”. (Underscored emphasis added.)

Saeb Erekat died from COVID-19, in November, 2020; and reports indicate that it is going to be hard to replace him. The above report conveys how closely the Holy See is monitoring events in Palestine. It also focuses attention on Israel's violations of international law. There is unmistakable disapproval of Israel's role in blocking a solution to "the Israeli-Palestinian problem for peace in the Holy Land." The following are reports about how this entity has reacted to the recent violence:

On Sunday, Pope Francis expressed “particular concern” at the clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police in Jerusalem and appealed for an end to the violence. He invited all parties to “seek shared solutions so that the multi-religious and multicultural identity of the Holy See is respected” and people can co-exist in Jerusalem in fraternity.

He expressed his concern publicly when, speaking from the study window of the papal apartment, he greeted pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square on a warm and sunny Sunday, May 9.

Tensions have been rising over the threatened eviction of Palestinian families in East Jerusalem’s Shaikh Jarrah district, the BBC reported. It recalled that Israel has occupied East Jerusalem since the 1967 Middle East Six Day War and considers the entire city its capital, though this is not recognized by the vast majority of the international community, including the Holy See.

The BBC reports that the United Nations has said Israel should suspend any evictions and employ “maximum restraint in the use of force” against protestors. Moreover, it added that the League of Arab states has called on the international community to prevent any forced evictions.
Israel’s Supreme Court is expected to hold a hearing on the long-running legal case on May 10, according to the BBC. [The hearing was postponed.]

On Monday, Hamas militants fired dozens of rockets into Israel, including a barrage that set off air raid sirens as far away as Jerusalem, after hundreds of Palestinians were hurt in clashes with Israeli police at a flashpoint religious site in the contested holy city.

The rocket fire drew heavy Israeli retaliation in the Gaza Strip. Health officials said at least 20 people, including nine children, were killed in fighting, making it one of the bloodiest days of battle between the bitter enemies in several years.

The fighting escalated already heightened tensions throughout the region following weeks of confrontations between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters in Jerusalem. Those confrontations, focused around a disputed hilltop compound in Jerusalem’s Old City, have threatened to spark a wider conflict.

Pope Francis, who as a young Jesuit was in Jerusalem in June 1967 during the Six Day War and returned there again when he visited the Holy Land in May 2014, told pilgrims on Sunday, “I am following with particular concern the events that are happening in Jerusalem.”

“I pray that it may be a place of encounter and not of violent clashes, a place of prayer and of peace,” he said. “I invite everyone to seek shared solutions so that the multi-religious and multi-cultural identity of the Holy City is respected and that fraternity may prevail.”

Pope Francis was referring to the fact that Jerusalem is a city that is sacred or holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims alike and the importance of allowing the followers of each faith to worship there freely and in peace, an aspect that he and the Holy See have frequently underlined. He concluded his message by saying, “Violence only generates violence. Stop [the clashes!]” . . .

According to CNN, the U.S. State Department spokesperson, Ned Price, said, “The U.S. is extremely concerned about ongoing confrontations” and called upon Israeli and Palestinian officials “to deescalate tensions and bring a halt to the violence,” to exercise restraint and refrain from provocations to preserve “the historic status quo on the Haram-al-Sharif/Temple Mount, both in work and in practice.”

The BBC reported that the Quartet of Middle East negotiators—the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations—expressed “deep concern” on May 8 over the spiraling violence in Jerusalem. (Underscored emphasis added.)

Again clearly discernible is Vatican and international opinion weighted against Israel. More reporting:-

Pope Francis has called on the world’s Catholics to pray May 22 for dialogue, forgiveness and peaceful coexistence in the Holy Land.

As local Catholics were set to gather at St. Stephen’s Church in Jerusalem May 22 to “implore the gift of peace” on the vigil of Pentecost, the pope asked “all the pastors and faithful of the Catholic Church to unite themselves spiritually with this prayer.”

“May every community pray to the Holy Spirit ‘that Israelis and Palestinians may find the path of dialogue and forgiveness, be patient builders of peace and justice, and be open, step by step, to a common hope, to coexistence among brothers and sisters,'” he said, quoting remarks he made May 16.

The pope’s comments came May 21 as he welcomed nine new ambassadors to the Vatican who were presenting their letters of credential.

He told the diplomats that he could not help but think of the events unfolding in the Holy Land.

“I thank God for the decision to halt the armed conflicts and acts of violence, and I pray for the pursuit of paths of dialogue and peace,” he told the diplomats.

The pope’s remarks came the same day Israel and Hamas were to begin a cease-fire after days of airstrikes, rocket attacks and fighting that claimed hundreds of lives.

In this most deadly violence since 2014, at least 230 Palestinians — including 65 children — have been reported killed, and thousands injured. Israel reported 12 Israelis, including two children, killed.

As violence continues to escalate in Jerusalem, the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches of the Holy City appeal for an intervention on the part of the International Community.

In a joint statement the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches of Jerusalem have expressed their profound concern for the recent violent events in East Jerusalem.

“These concerning developments, whether at the Al Aqsa Mosque or in Sheikh Jarrah, violate the sanctity of the people of Jerusalem and of Jerusalem as the City of Peace. The actions undermining the safety of worshipers and the dignity of the Palestinians who are subject to eviction are unacceptable,” the statement said.

The past few days have seen the worst violence in Jerusalem for years, with confrontations between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters in Holy sites and in parts of the city, which, the statement continues, “violate the sanctity of the people of Jerusalem and of Jerusalem as the City of Peace."

The clashes came amid mounting Palestinian anger over the threatened eviction of families from their homes in East Jerusalem by Jewish settlers, fuelled by a month of altercations between protesters and police in the predominantly Arab part of the city. . .

The Jerusalem Church Leaders’ statement noted that “the special character of Jerusalem, the Holy City, with the existing Status Quo, compels all parties to preserve the already sensitive situation.” It added that the “growing tension, backed mainly by right-wing radical groups, endangers the already fragile reality in and around Jerusalem.”

“We call upon the International Community and all people of goodwill,” the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches of Jerusalem concluded, “to intervene in order to put an end to these provocative actions, as well as to continue to pray for the peace of Jerusalem.” (Underscored emphasis added.)

The Vatican Secretary of State said Tuesday that the Holy See is committed to doing everything it can to help end the Israel-Gaza conflict.

“This conflict is bringing destruction and death,” Cardinal Pietro Parolin told journalists in Rome May 18. . .

He added that he does not see the Holy See as acting as a “mediator, in the technical sense of the word,” under the current conditions, stressing the importance of direct negotiations.

“It’s necessary that any action, any initiative of goodwill, must lead to a cease-fire. Direct negotiations must be taken up again between the two sides, in such a way that puts an end to this age-old conflict and reaches a solution,” he said.

“The solution ought to be in keeping with the two-state solution, which will enable each of them to live in peace.” . . .

Parolin said that Pope Francis would discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when he meets with Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, on May 22.

Earlier this week, the pope also addressed the conflict in conversations with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

After his Regina Coeli address on May 16, Pope Francis called for an end to the violence.

“Many people have been injured and many innocent people have died. Among them are even children, and this is terrible and unacceptable,” the pope said.

The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem asked Catholics to pray for “peace and justice” in the Holy Land as the conflict entered into its second week.

Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa said: “Until we decide to really face the problems that have afflicted these countries and these peoples for decades, in fact, I fear that we will be forced to witness more violence and other grief.”

“It is important that all the Church will join the mother Church of Jerusalem in the prayer of intercession for peace and justice in the Holy Land,” he said. (Underscored emphasis added.)*

Israel has imposed brutal oppression on the Palestinians, and has thumbed the nose at legitimate accusations that she has been violating international law. Current reports may hint that her illegal behavior is wearing thin. There is a question being raised with increasing force about her right to exist as an ethnic state.

From its very inception Israel has faced violent opposition, with millions within and outside of Palestine questioning the very right of Israel to exist as a State; and enmity towards Israel is not always the reason for this questioning. There are valid arguments on both sides of the issue as evidenced by the following essays written by Jewish authors both supportive of their faith:

Is it possible to justify the existence of a Jewish state? This question, raised with increased frequency in recent years, is not just a theoretical one. Israel will endure as a Jewish state only if it can be defended, in both the physical and the moral sense. Of course, states may survive in the short term through sheer habit or the application of brute force, even when their legitimacy has been severely undermined. In the long run, however, only a state whose existence is justified by its citizens can hope to endure. The ability to provide a clear rationale for a Jewish state is, therefore, of vital importance to Israel’s long-term survival.1

Over the many years in which I have participated in debates about Israel’s constitutional foundations and the rights of its citizens, I did not generally feel this question to be particularly urgent. Indeed, I believed that there was no more need to demonstrate the legitimacy of a Jewish state than there was for any other nation state, and I did not take claims to the contrary very seriously. Those who denied the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state were, in my eyes, little different from the radical ideologues who dismiss all national movements as inherently immoral, or who insist that Judaism is solely a religion with no right to national self-expression; their claims seemed marginal and unworthy of systematic refutation.2

Today I realize that my view was wrong. The repudiation of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state is now a commonly held position, and one that is increasingly seen as legitimate. Among Israeli Arabs, for example, it is nearly impossible to find anyone willing to endorse, at least publicly, the right of Jews to national self-determination in the land of Israel. Rejection of the Jewish state has in fact become the norm among most representatives of the Arab public—including those who have sworn allegiance as members of Knesset. As far as they are concerned, the state of Israel, inasmuch as it is a Jewish state, was born in sin and continues to live in sin. Such a state is inherently undemocratic and incapable of protecting human rights. Only when it has lost its distinctive Jewish character, they insist, will Israel’s existence be justified.

More worrisome, perhaps, is the fact that many Jews in Israel agree with this view, or at least show a measure of sympathy for it. Some of the Jews committed to promoting the causes of democracy, human rights, and universal norms are, knowingly or not, assisting efforts to turn Israel into a neutral, liberal state—a “state of all its citizens,” as it is commonly called. Few of them understand the broader implications of such a belief for Israel’s character. Most are simply reassured by Israel’s success in establishing a modern, secular, liberal-democratic state with a Jewish national language and public culture, and think these achievements are not dependent on Israel’s status as the nation state of the Jews. Like many liberals in the modern era, they are suspicious of nation states, without always understanding their historical roots or the profound societal functions they serve. This suspicion often translates into a willingness to sacrifice Israel’s distinct national identity—even when this sacrifice is demanded on behalf of a competing national movement.3

Nor, at times, have Israel’s own actions made the job of justifying its unique national character an easy one. On the one hand, the government uses the state’s Jewish identity to justify wrongs it perpetrates on others; on the other, it hesitates to take steps that are vital to preserving the country’s national character. The use of Jewish identity as a shield to deflect claims concerning unjustifiable policies—such as discrimination against non-Jews or the Orthodox monopoly over matters of personal status—only reinforces the tendency of many Israelis to ignore the legitimate existential needs of the Jewish state, such as the preservation of a Jewish majority within its borders and the development of a vibrant Jewish cultural life. . .

In my view, it is crucial to base the justification of a Jewish state on arguments that appeal to people who do not share such beliefs. We must look instead for a justification on universal moral grounds. This is the only sort of argument which will make sense to the majority of Israelis, who prefer not to base their Zionism on religious belief, or to those non-Jews who are committed to human rights but not to the Jews’ biblically based claims. Moreover, such an argument may have the added benefit of encouraging Palestinians to argue in universal terms, rather than relying on claims of historical ownership or the sanctity of Muslim lands. Locating an argument within the discourse of universal rights is, therefore, the best way to avoid a pointless clash of dogmas that leaves no room for dialogue or compromise. . .

One commonly held view of liberal democracy asserts that the state must be absolutely neutral with regard to the cultural, ethnic, and religious identity of its population and of its public sphere. I do not share this view. I believe such total neutrality is impossible, and that in the context of the region it is not desired by any group. The character of Israel as a Jewish nation state does generate some tension with the democratic principle of civic equality. Nonetheless, this tension does not prevent Israel from being a democracy. There is no inherent disagreement between the Jewish identity of the state and its liberal-democratic nature. The state I will describe would have a stable and large Jewish majority. It would respect the rights of all its citizens, irrespective of nationality and religion, and would recognize the distinct interests and cultures of its various communities. It would not, however, abandon its preference for the interests of a particular national community, nor would it need to.

The Jewish state whose existence I will justify is not, therefore, a neutral “state of all its citizens.” Israel has basic obligations to democracy and human rights, but its language is Hebrew, its weekly day of rest is Saturday, and it marks Jewish religious festivals as public holidays. The public culture of this state is Jewish, although it is not a theocracy, nor does it impose a specific religious concept of Jewish identity on its citizens. No doubt this kind of state should encourage public dialogue about the relationship between its liberal-democratic nature and its commitment to the preservation of Jewish culture. In what follows, I will offer an argument for the justification of an Israel that is both proudly Jewish and strongly democratic–and that has the right, therefore, to take action to preserve both basic elements of its identity.4 . . . (Underscored emphasis added.)

With her eyes wide open on the injustices of the Jewish state as it is presently constituted, at the heart of the foregoing is disagreement with the principle that a liberal democracy "must be absolutely neutral with regard to the cultural, ethnic, and religious identity of its population and of its public sphere." The following article presents a contrary viewpoint which takes into consideration the human rights of non-Jews:

“LET’S BE CLEAR,” tweeted the Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) last month, “Arguing that the Jewish people is the only people in the world not entitled to self-determination is a form of anti-Semitism.” It’s a claim that in recent years has become ubiquitous in American Jewish establishment discourse. On the same day as DMFI’s tweet, Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), penned an op-ed declaring that “denying the Jewish people the same right to self-determination that you would extend to other people” constitutes one of the “modern manifestations of the oldest hatred, anti-Semitism.” Earlier this month, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations wrote a letter to Joe Biden requesting that “all federal departments and agencies should, in their work, consider the IHRA [International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance] working definition of anti-Semitism (with examples).” Those examples include “[d]enying the Jewish people their right to self-determination.”

The timing of this push is not accidental; it is the American Jewish establishment’s response to the death of the two-state solution. For roughly a quarter-century—from the Palestine Liberation Organization’s recognition of Israel in 1988 until John Kerry’s last-gasp bid to broker the creation of a Palestinian state in 2014—the mainstream Palestinian national movement did not challenge Israel’s existence, which meant pro-Israel groups did not need to aggressively defend it. But in recent years, that has changed. As Israeli settlement construction has made the creation of a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip increasingly unlikely, a new generation of Palestinian activists has begun advocating one equal state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Rather than challenge the status quo—one unequal state in which millions of Palestinians lack basic rights—establishment American Jewish groups have reacted by insisting that advocating for one equal state, which favors neither Jews nor Palestinians, constitutes anti-Semitism because it denies Jews the right to self-determination.

Their efforts have proven successful. The US Departments of State and Education now use the IHRA’s definition of anti-Semitism, and legislation incorporating the IHRA definition into federal anti-discrimination law enjoys the support of prominent Democratic and Republican senators. Similar campaigns are succeeding worldwide: Twenty-eight other countries—including the United Kingdom, Germany, and France—have adopted the definition. The claim that opposing Jewish statehood constitutes bigotry because it denies Jews the universal right of national self-determination has become a widely accepted axiom of American and global political discourse.

Yet this claim makes no sense. For more than a hundred years, politicians and academics have debated whether or not nations have the right to self-determination. But a review of that history makes one point clear: If there is a right to national self-determination, it cannot mean that every nation has the right to its own country. In a binational state like Israel/Palestine, where partition into separate countries has become impossible, the only coherent and moral way to interpret the right to national self-determination is as the right not to sovereignty, but to autonomy. Such a solution would constitute not bigotry, but its opposite, equality. . .

Although the idea of national self-determination has roots in the 19th century, it assumed center stage in the 1910s. Woodrow Wilson, who was determined to remake world affairs after the cataclysm of World War I, believed that building global peace required replacing Europe’s multinational empires, which had shattered during the war, with new countries that embodied the national yearnings of individual peoples. “The countries of the world,” Wilson declared in a 1919 address, “belong to the people who live in them,” and “no body of statesmen, sitting anywhere . . . has the right to assign any great people to a sovereignty under which it does not care to live.”

The idea had its detractors. Wilson’s own secretary of state, Robert Lansing, recognized that self-determination—if defined as independent statehood for every people that wanted it—was a concept “loaded with dynamite.” Too many peoples in too many overlapping places desired their own countries. There was no uncontested way to decide which peoples deserved which land, or even which group of people constituted a people deserving of a state. Granting self-determination to one group might mean trampling the rights of others. . .

It was once possible to argue credibly that the best way to satisfy the Jewish and Palestinian rights to self-determination was for both peoples to control their own states. Yet even this solution would have entailed real costs to other rights. It would have meant second-class citizenship for those Palestinians (often called “Arab Israelis”) who lived in a state that privileged Jews over them. It would have curtailed the right of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to return—a right recognized by the UN—to a Jewish state that sought to maintain its demographic majority. It might also have infringed upon the rights of Jewish settlers living in the territory on which Palestinians established their country, since a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip might have discriminated against Jews, or even expelled them.

Nonetheless, when this vision of self-determination via partition appeared feasible, it had important advantages. It enjoyed significant support among both Jews and Palestinians. It would have allowed both peoples substantial control over their own affairs. And by creating two relatively homogenous states, it might have made governing each easier. But by claiming much of the land on which Palestinians would build their state, Israel has made dual self-determination through two adjacent countries impossible. Instead, Israeli Jews enjoy maximum self-determination—a state that privileges them—in a territory where a roughly equal share of the population is Palestinian.

As a result, Jewish self-determination violates Palestinian rights on a massive scale. It violates the rights of individual Palestinians living in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip by denying them citizenship in the country under whose rule they live. It violates the individual rights even of those Palestinians who enjoy Israeli citizenship by denying them equality under the law. And it violates the rights of Palestinian refugees and their descendants by preventing them from returning to the places from which they were expelled. Without these individual rights, Palestinians can’t truly control their communal affairs—meaning that Israel denies the collective Palestinian right to self-determination as well.

Given the impossibility of a two-state solution, the only way to respect both the Jewish and Palestinian rights to national self-determination is to define that right as autonomy, not sovereignty. Jews and Palestinians could exercise that autonomy in a binational state that gave each the authority to preserve its language and culture. Governing binational states is difficult.

But contrary to the claims of establishment American Jewish groups, a democratic binational Israel/Palestine would be no more bigoted against Jews than binational Belgium is bigoted against Walloons or binational Canada is bigoted against Quebecers. To the contrary, if you truly believe it is bigotry to deny any people its national—let alone individual—rights, then a binational Israel/Palestine would be far less bigoted than the status quo. (Underscored emphasis added.)

Whether or not Israel has the right to exist as a state in geo-political terms, the nation of Israel has been dependent on Bible prophecy from its creation as the ancient state of Israel; and the modern state of Israel will continue to be so dependent to the end of this world's history.

Ancient Israel was established as a Jewish state by the will of God and His promise to Abraham (Deut. 7:6-8.) Time and again the corporate body played the harlot by spiritual adultery, and the state ultimately rejected and crucified the Messiah. The Jewish people were scattered over the globe in the diaspora, fulfilling the prophecies of God by His prophet Moses. The ancient state of Israel had ceased to exist. This geo-political reality persisted for nearly two millennia. By logical deduction it is clear that the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948 was a necessary prophetic event as a prelude to the fulfillment of Jesus Christ's prophecy recorded in Luke 21:24. The prophecy could be fulfilled only by the existence of a state of Israel.

Ellen G. White revealed that fulfillment of this prophecy would begin the closing events of earth's history as follows: "In the twenty-first chapter of Luke, Christ foretold what was to come upon Jerusalem and with it He connected the scenes which were to take place in the history of this world just prior to the coming of the Son of man in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory" (Counsels to Writers and Editors, pp. 23-24.)

The current history of Palestine revolves around Jerusalem as indicated by the reports contained in this study paper. There is an ultimate signal that "Michael" (Jesus Christ) as Melchisedec the High Priest) is about to "stand up" and end His priestly ministry of intercession for humanity before the throne of God the Father. This signal is to come by the event prophesied to take place in Jerusalem (Dan. 11:45.) Israel cannot continue to block the fulfillment of this prophecy. The modern state of Israel may continue to exist until the end of time; but her power will of necessity have to be curtailed to clear the path of prophecy. By what means is yet to be seen.

Finally, there are Christians, in alliance with the Israeli Greater Israel Movement, who select passages from the Old Testament to suit their preconceived notion that modern Israel was established in fulfillment of the promises of God to make her a great nation. This ignores the glaring fact that all of these promises were conditioned on the faithful obedience of ancient Israel to the "oracles of God." (Romans 3:1-2.) The prophecies of Moses in Deuteronomy, Chapters 28-30 establish this fact conclusively and, as painful as the thought may be, Chapter 28 in particular explains the Diaspora and its horrors. Sadly and tragically, anti-Semitism is still a virulent problem in the contemporary world. This might be an indication of Satan's unrelenting hatred of the Jews for their preservation of the oracles of the Old Testament which are the foundation of the New Testament and the true Christian faith, even after they rejected Jesus as Christ the Messiah. He knows that this has been and is the guarantee of his condemnation by the victory of Jesus Christ over him, and of his own ultimate extinction from God's universe.