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WHAT'S
HAPPENING?
BY
SANDRA
ROBINSON
PART
II
WHAT
HAPPENED TO...?
CONTENTS
Chapter 6 The
Dispersed Jews
Chapter 7 World
Wars I and II
Chapter
8 Anti-Semiticism
CHAPTER
6
THE
DISPERSED JEWS
Roman
Catholic Church Persecutes Jews
In
313, the Edict of Milan of Constantine and Licinius enabled
Christians to be freed from persecution. However, as a result of the
church marrying the pagan world, this led to apostasy, and the
result was that the church was paganised, and became synonomous with
the Emperor, and became the Roman Catholic Church, with all the
imperial robes and wealth and pagan rites. Throughout
the next 1750 years, the Roman Catholic Church persecuted the true
believers and
the Jews, torturing them to get them to renounce their faith, and
killing them when they did not.
Around
700, Mohammed
started his religion, Islam, the worship of the Moon God, Allah,
intending to rule the world by wiping out all other religions,
especially Christians and Jews. His followers conquered many
countries and set up Califates, but, over time, there were lots of
varieties of Islam, and they all fought each other.
To raise an army
for the First Crusade, Pope Urban II promised instant entrance into
heaven without purgatory for all who fell in that great cause. The
knights and knaves who responded with enthusiasm to that deceitful
promise left a trail of mayhem, plunder and murder on their way to
Jerusalem, where they massacred all Arabs and Jews. One of their
first acts after their triumphal entry into Jerusalem was to herd the
Jews into the synagogue and set it alight. On their way to the Holy
Land, the Crusaders gave the Jews the choice of baptism or death.
In 1096 half the
Jews of Worms were slaughtered as the Crusaders passed through the
town. The rest sought protection from the bishop. He agreed on
condition they asked to be baptised. The Jews retired to consider
their decision, and all 800 were found later to have committed
suicide.
During the brief
pontificate of Pope Paul IV (1555-9), the population of Rome was
decimated by almost half, with the Jews the main victims. Three
hundred years earlier, the church had put Jews in ghettos and
labelled them with a yellow circle of cloth on their chest. On July
17, 1555, they were forcibly returned to their ghettos, had to
sell their properties at huge losses, and reduced them to the
status of slaves and rag merchants, treating them like lepers and
unworthy of the protection of the law. A succession of popes
continued this anti-semitism for another three centuries. Eleven days
after Rome fell on 2 October 1870, the Jews were given the freedom
the papacy had denied them for over fifteen hundred years. The last
ghetto in Europe (at that time) was dismantled.
The
Roman Catholic Church blamed the Jews for every disaster. Accused of
causing the Black Death, Jews were rounded up, hanged, burned and
drowned by the thousand in revenge. An occasional Pope now and then
sought to ameliorate the situation. However, there were more than
100 anti-Semitic documents published by the Roman Catholic Church
between the 6th
and 20th
centuries. Anti-Semitism became official Church doctrine. The
rationale was that “Christ crucifiers” had no rights in
God's holy kingdom, the land of Israel no longer belonged to the
Jews, but to the Christians, and the church had to wrest the land
from the possession of both Arabs and Jews.
Spanish
Persecution Of Jews
Around 1492, King
Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain pressured Pope Sixtus IV to
allow a monarchy-controlled Inquisition. Through the Inquisitor
General of Spain, Tomas de Torquemada, the villainous acts of torture
ultimately surpassed the Medieval Inquisition of 1233 in scope,
intensity and atrocities. Neighbours could dob in a crypto-Jew
(secretly observant) because of lack of chimney smoke on Saturdays (a
sign the family might be secretly honouring the Sabbath) or the
buying of many vegetables before Passover, or the purchase of meat
from a converted butcher.
The Inquisition's
court employed physical torture to extract confessions. Crypto-Jews
were allowed to confess and do penance, although those who relapsed
were burned at the stake.
Anti-Semitism
sponsored by the Roman Church began to manifest itself openly in
1412, when Jews were told they would have to live in separate
quarters. These isolated quarters were the later template of the
Polish ghettos established by the Nazis (1939-42) and the Minsk
Ghetto of Russia (1941-43).
Eventually, on 30
March, 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella signed a decree
ordering the Jews to leave Castile and Aragon by August 1. The
ousted Jews were stripped of their wealth. More than poverty,
however, the decree meant homelessness and uncertainty, since the
Jews did not know which nations would receive them. They also feared
the journey, which would bring death to those too weak to endure it.
There were many,
many other examples of mass murders, burnings etc. recorded at that
time.
The
Roman church was not the only persecutor. Martin Luther also wrote
against the Jews and stirred up hatred against them, and, as a
result, many more were murdered, synagogues burned, etc. All because
they would not convert from their belief in the One God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob. For hundreds of years, it may have been called
Christianity,
but
the acts of the Inquisition and others had nothing
to
do with Christianity.
They had nothing to do with the love of God. They were not
connected
to our Saviour and Lord. These villainous acts were nothing more
than religious tyranny. They were the acts of pious church leaders
whose souls had been poisoned with the evil seed of anti-Semitism.
The Inquisition should never be labelled as one that was sanctioned
by the message of Jesus Christ. Never!
A
Harbour of Refuge
God caused
Christopher Columbus to discover the “new world”, which
would eventually become America, a refuge to the Jewish people and
all who were oppressed by tyrants and religious dictators around the
world.
God had promised
Abraham centuries before in Genesis 12:3,
“I
will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you;
and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
God blessed
America because they opened their arms to the seed of Abraham, who
have blessed the world beyond measure. The day America turns its
back on Israel and the Jewish people will be the exact day in history
when God Almighty lifts His hand of blessing from America. The
policies of the 2014/2015 government put distance between Washington
and Israel. Beware, America! God's honour and integrity rest upon
His supernatural defense of Israel. Israel must never be separated
from the land of Israel.
God promised, “I
will curse him who curses you” (Genesis 12.3). The prosperity
of Spain plummeted after the Jews were expelled, and has never
recovered. Spain has been ruled by dictators and despots, and today
is facing national bankruptcy. Today, Spain is controlled by radical
Islamists, who blow up their trains, and plot the death of anyone who
dares to resist them. Spain is experiencing the above curse.
God
continues His promise to Abraham, “And in you (the Jewish
people) all the families of the earth shall be blessed”
(Genesis 12:3). The Jewish people have given us the Bible, the
patriarchs, the first family of Christianity, and the apostles.
Christianity cannot explain its existence without Judaism. That's
why our faith is referred to as the Judeo-Christian
faith.
Our roots are found in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
The expulsion of
the Jews from Spain in 1492 was a world-changing moment. The
mantle of prosperity was lifted from Spain, and placed upon the
shoulders of an infant nation that would become the United States of
America.
When Britain was
given the Mandate to protect Palestone, they ignored the fact that
Israel had been given a good size chunk of land for their own land.
They curried favour with the oil-rich Arab nations around Israel, and
gave out presents of parcels of land to all and sundry, leaving
Israel with about a quarter of what they had been given legally. So,
because they had partitioned the land God promised Israel that he had
given them permanently, the British Empire was broken up, and proud
Britain has been humbled, and has lost its military and political
power. Nobody messes with God's people or separates them from their
land without being punished by their God.
CHAPTER
7
WORLD
WARS I AND II
World War I
1914-1918 – Germany
Let us consider
the impact of World War I on the State of Israel.
In World War I,
the British were cut off from their source to make cordite
gun-powder. First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill went to
Chaim Weizmann, a Jewish chemist, and asked him if he could find a
way to make several tons of synthetic gunpowder. Without it, bullets
couldn't be fired, artillery was useless, and cannons on ships were
mere ornaments. The outcome of the war was at stake.
Weizmann and his
associates discovered how to make this massive amount of synthetic
gunpowder within weeks. This Jewish inventor played a major role in
the victory of WWI over Germany.
After the war,
Lord Balfour asked Chaim Weizmann what England could do to honour
him. Weizmann asked that his people (the Jews) be given a homeland.
Lord Balfour
created a historic document known to this day as the Balfour
Declaration, giving the Jewish people what God had already guaranteed
in the book of Genesis – a homeland.
Though the Balfour
Declaration went through several drafts, the final version was issued
on November 2, 1917, in a letter from Balfour to Lord Rothschild,
president of the British Zionist Federation.
The Zionists of
the world continued to return to the Land of Promise. God's
all-seeing eye was watching over the seed of Abraham as He was
regathering the exiles from the nations of the world.
Who
Does The Land Of Israel Belong To?
Four
indisputable reasons why it is the land of the Jewish people: 1. The
Bible, the Word of the Lord
As Christians,
when we look for the answer to this question, there is only one place
we should search. Not on television, nor the many opinions you can
find on the internet! The Bible is the only authority. If you
follow the line of these verses, it suddenly becomes very clear who
the disputed land belong to.
Psalm
24:1
The
earth is the Lord's and all its fullness.
It
is the Lord's land – He can do what he wants with it.
Psalm
115:16 The heavens are the Lord's, but the earth He has given to the
children of men.
The
land belongs to whoever God gives it.
Acts
17:26 And He has determined their pre-appointed times, and
boundaries of their dwellings.
God
has allocated the boundaries of every country. He allocated Israel a
certain area in the Middle East, which was called Canaan.
What
Land Is It?
In Genesis
15: 18 it
says: “On the
same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying: To your
descendants I have given this land, from
the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates.
And now for the
most binding and legitimate land deed ever written, because it was
written by God himself.
In
Psalm
105:6-11, it
is written: O
descendants of Abraham his servant, the word he commanded, for a
thousand generations, the covenant he made with Abraham, the oath he
swore to Isaac, and. He confirmed it to Jacob as a decree, to
Israel as an everlasting covenant: “TO YOU, I will give the
land of Canaan as the portion you will inherit.”
God
made an everlasting covenant with Israel THREE
TIMES.
To
Abraham, to his son Isaac, and to his grandson Jacob, who became
ISRAEL. The covenant is permanent. It applies to Abraham's family,
the family of Israel his grandson, who became the nation of Israel.
It is their land FOR
EVER, NO MATTER WHAT!
“Yes”,
you may say, “but Israel broke the covenant”. No they
didn't! When God cut the covenant with Israel, He put Abram to
sleep. Israel disobeyed God, but didn't break the covenant promises
because Abram was asleep (Gen.15:12-21). They
were disobedient to God's commandments,
so the result was, as expected, that they were
removed from Israel the country, for a certain time as punishment,
and then returned to Israel. First, the ten tribes were deported to
Assyria, and the two remaining tribes later were deported to Babylon.
After seventy years, the exiles who wished to return from Babylon
were allowed to do so, to build a temple for the Lord in Jerusalem by
order of Cyrus king of Persia (Persia had conquered Babylon by then).
2
Chronicles 36: 23, Ezra 1:
1-4.
The people of
Israel lived again in the land until A.D.70, when the Romans
destroyed Jerusalem, and deported the remnant left after slaying most
of the population. They were dispersed throughout the then known
world, and were mercilessly persecuted wherever they went. The
remnant who survived in Israel (renamed Palestine, from the word for
Philistine by a Roman emperor who hated Israel), sharing land with
the Arabs living there.
Since
300 A.D., the church has been fed lies of hatred against the Jews for
the death of Christ, which were the result of Pilate's statement in
Matthew
27: 24,
“I
am innocent of this man's blood,” he said. “It is your
responsibility!”
In verse
25:
All
the people answered, “Let his blood be on us and on our
children!”
There
have been purges (exterminations) of Jewish settlements in many
countries throughout the centuries, and finally, during the Second
World War, the Haulocaust in Germany killed 6 million Jews.
Once Mohammad
started his religion, his fanatics began taking over the world, and
Palestine was taken over in the Ottoman Empire, and ruled by Moslems.
In many Crusades, the Crusaders tried to defeat the Moslems, and
also, because of their anti-Semitic feelings towards the Jews, they
murdered many of them, too. No wonder Jews hate Christians.
Although
God did scatter the Jews, He also promised them that He would
regather them at the end of the age.
Deut. 28:64
Then the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the
earth to the other.
Jer.
30:3 For behold the days are coming says the Lord that I shall bring
back from captivity my people Israel and Judah, says the Lord, and I
will cause them to return to the land I gave their fathers, and they
shall possess it!
2.
The British Partition of Palestine In
1917, British politician and Bible-believing Lord Balfour, presented
a paper to the British government, stating the case for a Jewish
homeland. He divided the land following the Jordan River, from the
Golan Height to the Red Sea, and across to the Mediterranean
coastline. All of the land west of the Jordan was to be for the
Jews. A
large chunk of land around the top and east of the Lake of Galilee
was removed by Britain, and given to Lebanon and Syria.
This
reduced by one-eighth the area of land given by God to the Jewish
people.
In
1921, all of the area east of the Jordan, given by God to the Jewish
people by conquest, was separated from Palestine by Britain, plus all
of the area up to the border with Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia, and
given to Emir Abdullah, and re-named Transjordan. This area was
immediately closed to Jewish settlement. That left just half of the
area originally given by God to Israel.
3.
The San Remo Convention of 1923
The Balfour
Partition was only a paper for the British Government – it
carried no international authority. However, in 1923, the San Remo
Convention held in San Remo, Italy, and attended by 51 members of the
League of Nations, including Britain, USA, Canada and Europe,
ratified or confirmed the Balfour Agreement, giving all of the land
west of the Jordan to the Jewish people.
4.
International Law
Since
the Six
Day War of 1967,
the UN, the media and many politicians constantly claim that Israel
is illegally occupying the territory that it gained during the brief
war. However,
International Law clearly states that land gained in defence of
external aggression is seen as the legitimate spoils of war.
World War II
1939-1946 – Germany (And Japan In Asia)
Hitler
made it clear in Mein
Kampf that
he intended to kill the Jewish people. The world simply did not
believe he would do it. The birth of the “Final Solution”,
and the death of six million Jews, is living proof he meant every
word.
The shortening of
WWII ended the Holocaust. One-third of European Jewry had been
“wiped out” - Hitler's goal was total extermination.
General
Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered the global media to film the unspeakable
hell of the Holocaust. General Eisenhower feared there would come a
day when there would be “Holocaust deniers” who would
declare it never happened.5
Rebirth
Of State Of Israel May 1948
From the tears and
tragedy of World War II came the rebirth of the State of Israel in
May 1948.
I will take you
from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring
you into your own land...Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave
to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God.
(Ezekiel 36:24, 28)
The mighty right
hand of God gathered the Jewish people who, beginning in AD 70, had
been scattered across the earth, when Titus besieged Jerusalem. The
Jewish people of the Diaspora were brought back to Israel, just as
the Old Testament prophets had prophesied.
It was in 1948
that Israel was once again declared a nation. There is no greater
miracle in human history than the miracle of the ingathering of the
seed of Abraham. The land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish
people. The Land of Israel was where their spiritual identity was
shaped. The Land of Israel is where the Jewish people will reside
forever.
After being
forcibly exiled by Titus in AD 70, the Jewish people never lost their
love and connection to their sacred land. Throughout the Diaspora
they never ceased to hope for the restoration of their national
identity and freedom. Their prayer was, “Next year in
Jerusalem.”
Compelled
by the Abrahamic covenant, and as a result of the horrors of the
Spanish Inquisition and Holocaust, the Jewish people endeavoured to
re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland more than ever.
They returned to the Land as pioneers or ma'pilim,
which
were
immigrants
coming to Eretz-Israel (the Land of Israel) in defiance of
restrictive legislation. They committed themselves to make the
deserts bloom, to revive the Hebrew language, to build villages and
towns, all the while ready to defend themselves from the enemies that
were dedicated to their destruction.
These were
peace-loving people who desired nothing more than independent
nationhood, which would open the gate of their biblical homeland to
every Jewish person scattered among the nations.
Israel was at war
from the moment they declared statehood.
The War of
Independence of May 15, 1948, through March 10, 1949, occurred the
day after Israel's rebirth. Seven Arab nations came against the
apple of God's eye. The war was fought along the entire length of
the country's border; against Lebanon and Syria in the north; Iraq
and Transjordan in the east; Egypt, assisted by contingents from the
Sudan, in the south; and Palestinians and volunteers from Arab
countries in the interior of Israel.
It was the
bloodiest of Israel's wars with a total of 6,373 killed in action.
The jubilant celebration of the nation's rebirth was over.
Sandwiched between
the War of Independence and the Six-Day War was the Sinai War of
October 29 through November 7, 1956, which was fought against Egypt
over the control of the strategic Sinai Peninsula.
The Price of
Independence – The Six Day War
Yet I have chosen
Jerusalem, that My Name may be there.
(2 Chronicles 6:6)
1967-68 was
significant to Jewish history. 1967 was the year Jerusalem became
part of Israel again. Jerusalem is unlike any other city on the face
of the earth...it is the city of God.
See how your
enemies growl, how your foes rear their heads. With cunning they
conspire against your people; they plot against those you cherish.
“Come,” they say, “let us destroy them as a nation,
so that Israel's name is remembered no more.”
(Psalm 83:2-4 NIV)
In 1967, the Arab
nations, committed to driving the Jewish people into the sea, once
again rallied against Israel. On May 15, as Israel commemorated
their Independence Day, the buildup of Egyptian troops began moving
into the Sinai near the Israeli border. By May 18, Syrian troops
were prepared for battle along the Golan Heights.
The
growling
voices that King David prophesied concerning Israel's enemies echoed
through the airwaves.
On May 18, 1967,
The Voice of the Arabs radio station proclaimed:
As
of today, there no longer exists an international emergency force to
protect Israel. We shall exercise patience no more. We shall not
complain any more to the UN about Israel. The sole method we shall
apply against Israel is total war, which will result in the
extermination of Zionist existence.Isi
Leibler, The
Case for Israel (Australia:
The Globe Press, 1972) 60
On May 20, Syrian
Defence Minister Hafez Assad threatened Israel with the following
declaration:
Our
forces are now entirely ready not only to repulse the aggression, but
to initiate the act of liberation itself, and to explode the Zionist
presence in the Arab homeland. The Syrian army, with its finger on
the trigger, is united...I, as a military man, believe that the time
has come to enter into a battle of annihilation.Isi
Leibler, The
Case for Israel (Australia:
The Globe Press, 1972) 60
On May 27, Nasser
of Egypt challenged Israel:
“Our
basic objective will be the destruction of Israel. The Arab people
want to fight,” he said.Isi
Leibler, The
Case for Israel (Australia:
The Globe Press, 1972) 60...The
following day, he added: “We will not accept any...coexistence
with Israel.”Isi
Leibler, The
Case for Israel (Australia:
The Globe Press, 1972) 18
On May 30, King
Hussein of Jordan signed a defence pact with Egypt. Nasser then
announced:
The
armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders
of Israel...to face the challenge, while standing behind us are the
armies of Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan and the whole Arab nation.
This act will astound the world. Today they will know that the Arabs
are arranged for battle, the critical hour has arrived. We have
reached the stage of serious action and not declarations.Isi
Leibler, The
Case for Israel (Australia:
The Globe Press, 1972) 60
President Abdur
Rahman Aref of Iraq joined in the vicious war of words:
The
existence of Israel is an error which must be rectified. This is our
opportunity to wipe out the ignominy which has been with us since
1948. Our goal is clear – to wipe Israel off the map.Isi
Leibler, The
Case for Israel (Australia:
The Globe Press, 1972) 18
On June 4, Iraq
joined the military alliance of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria.
The
Arab rhetoric was matched by the mobilization of hostile Arab forces.
Approximately 465,000 enemy troops, with more than 2,800 tanks, and
800 aircraft surrounded Israel.Chaim
Herzog, The
Arab-Israeli Wars (New
York: Random House, 1982), 149
The Hand of God
He did this so that
all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is
powerful, and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.
(Joshua 4:24 NIV)
The Six-Day War
was a war of miracles. God gave Israel triumph after triumph against
their ancient enemies, that had occupied their land and divided the
sacred city of Jerusalem for centuries. There was no military reason
for their victory; it was simply the hand of God!
Here are some
eyewitness testimonies of the miracles in the Six-Day War:
The Conquest of
Shechem
Israel's military
commanders recognized that the taking of Shechem would be one
of the toughest and bloodiest battles of the war. The largest
crossing of the Jordan River began in the country of Jordan
and continued through the Samaritan Mountains and into the city of
Shechem. Abraham used this very crossing as he entered into the land
of Canaan (Genesis 12:6).
The Jordanian army
assumed that Israel would enter Shechem through their coastal region,
so they placed their heavy artillery and tanks on the other side of
the city, overlooking the roads leading to Shechem from the west.
The IDF (Israel Defence Force) decided to outmanoeuvre the enemy by
first fighting to the north and west, and then coming back down to
enter Shechem from the east, which was the “back door” of
the city.
Colonel
Uri Banari gives his eyewitness account:Original
text on pages 215-19 from R Menachem Mendel Kasher, The
Geat Era
(Torah Shelemah Insitute).
At
the entrance to Shechem stood thousands of Arabs who waved white
handkerchiefs, and clapped their hands. In our naiveté,
we returned greetings and smiles. We entered the town and wondered:
We are advancing and there is no disorder, no panic, the local armed
guards stand by with rifles in their hands keeping order, and the
crowds are cheering.
Suddenly something
happened which changed the entire picture in a moment. One of our
officers wanted to disarm an Arab guard. When the latter refused,
our officer fired a shot in the air. At that moment, all the crowds
disappeared, and the streets emptied out. The Arabs began sniper
fire.
I didn't comprehend
what had transpired. Only later did I understand.
The residents of
Shechem thought that we were the Iraqi forces who were due to arrive
from the direction of Jordan. The numerous enemy tanks were situated
on the west side of Shechem. They woke up to their error very late.
The Arabs were
surprised; the fear of the Jews fell upon them. In Hebron, and in
Shechem, in Jenin and in Jericho the Arabs were heavily armed. There
was not even one small Arab village without arms. With great haste,
the Arabs, however, hid their weapons and didn't consider using them.
They raised their hands up, and flew white flags of surrender from
every edifice.
The fear of G-d
fell upon hundreds of thousands of proud Arabs, who were filled with
hatred and loathing for Israel. Only yesterday, they had sworn to
fight until their last drop of blood.
A Direct Hit
In the late hours
of the night, an IDF truck loaded with arms and shells parked next to
a building in Jerusalem. Its mission was to bring a fresh supply
of ammunition to the front line outposts. The element of danger was
great for if the truck was hit by enemy fire, the subsequent
explosions of all the ammo would bring all the buildings in the area
down on their inhabitants.
Suddenly, the
whistling of an approaching enemy shell was heard, and the shell,
indeed, scored a direct hit on the vehicle. But the Arab shell did
not explode. It remained perched atop the pile of Israeli shells in
the truck.
Eighteen Against
Two
Yisrael, a cab
driver who was drafted to fight in the Six-Day War as part of the
paratroop unit assigned with conquering the Straits of Tiran, gave
the following account upon his return:
“The
Israeli soldiers didn't have to parachute out of the Nord airplanes
which took them to the Tiran Straits. They landed like spoiled
tourists in the airport, because the Egyptian regiment which was on
guard there fled before the Israeli troops were visible on the
horizon.
“After
landing, I was sent with another reserve soldier, an electrician, to
patrol the area. When we had distanced ourselves two kilometres, an
Egyptian halftrack appeared before us, filled with soldiers, and
mounted with machine guns on every side. We had only light weapons
with a few bullets that couldn't stop the halftrack for a second. We
couldn't turn back, so we stood there in despair, waiting for the
first shot, and for lack of a better idea, aimed our guns at them.
“But
the shots didn't come.
“The
halftrack came to a halt, and we decided to cautiously approach it.
We found eighteen armed soldiers inside sitting with guns in hand,
with a petrified look on their faces. They looked at us with great
fear, as though begging for mercy. I shouted, 'Hands up!'
“As
we were marching them, and I had returned to a state of calm, I asked
the Egyptian sergeant next to me, 'Tell me, why didn't you shoot at
us?'
“He
answered, 'I don't know. My arms froze – they became
paralyzed. My whole body was paralyzed, and I don't know why.'
“It
turned out that these soldiers didn't know that the Straits of Tiran
were already in Israeli hands; why didn't they eliminate us? I don't
have an answer. How can one say that G-d didn't help us.”
The Finger of
God
IDF Director of
Operations Maj. Gen. Ezer Weizmann was asked by Mr. Levanon, the
father of a fallen pilot, how he explains the fact that for three
straight hours, Israeli Air Force planes flew from one Egyptian
airstrip to another destroying the enemy planes, yet the Egyptians
did not radio ahead to inform their own forces of the oncoming
Israeli attack.
Ezer Weizmann, who
later served as president of the State of Israel, was silent. He
then lifted his head and exclaimed, “The finger of G-d.”
Ha'aretz
Newspaper's
Bottom Line
Following
his blow-by-blow analysis, the military correspondent for the secular
Ha'aretz
newspaper
summed up the Six-Day War with the admission: “Even a
non-religious person must admit this war was fought with help from
heaven.”
A Journalist's
Eyewitness Account
A German
journalist summarized:
Nothing like this
has happened in history. A force including 1,000 tanks, hundreds of
artillery cannons, many rockets and fighter jets, and a hundred
thousand soldiers armed from head to toe was destroyed in two days in
an area covering hundreds of kilometres filled with reinforced
out-posts and installations.
And this victory
was carried out by a force that lost many soldiers and much
equipment, positions, and vehicles. No military logic or natural
cause can explain this monumental occurrence.
Scripture declares
in Proverbs 21:1, “The king's heart is like channels of water
in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever He wishes”
(NASB).
King Hussein of
Jordan proposed a cease-fire before the IDF could take back the Old
City of Jerusalem. World leaders put increasing political pressure
on Israel, demanding that they accept the proposed truce. Then
suddenly King Hussein changed his mind, refusing to submit to the
very conditions of the cease-fire that he personally put in place!
God's intervention allowed the IDF to bring the Old City under
Israeli control.
The Old City had
been under Jordanian control since 1948. For nineteen centuries the
Jewish people had been prohibited from the Western Wall, where they
had prayed for thousands of years before. It took just three days
for Israeli forces to defeat the Jordanian army. On the morning of
June 7, the order was given to take back the Old City of Jerusalem.
Israeli
paratroopers stormed the city and secured it. Defence Minister Moshe
Dayan arrived with Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin to formally mark the
Jews' return to their historic capital and their holiest site. At
the Western Wall, the IDF's chaplain, Rabbi Shlomo Goren, blew a
shofar to celebrate the event.
In total, 21,000
of Israel's enemies were killed during the Six-Day War; Israel lost
779 soldiers. Jerusalem became the capital of the Jewish people once
again. David Ben-Gurion was right when he declared, “In
Israel, in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.”
Oh, that salvation
for Israel would come out of Zion! When the Lord restores his
people, let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad!
(Psalm 14:7 NIV)
CHAPTER
8
ANTI-SEMITISM
Foundation
for the Holocaust
Roman
Catholicism's centuries-long persecution of the Jews laid the
foundation for the Nazi Holocaust. The Catholic Church bears a large
responsibility for that horrendous crime. Most of the overseers of
the massacre of the Jews were Catholics. The longtime persecution
and slaughter of Jews by the Church undoubtedly helped Catholic
persecutors to justify their actions.
Approval
of Hitler by Catholics
The approval of
Hitler by Catholic prelates and their statements about “freeing
the world from the Jews” seems shocking, yet they only reflect
Roman Catholics historic treatment of the Jews. Hitler justified his
Final Solution by pointing out that the Church had oppressed and
killed Jews for centuries. Roman Catholics were taught they had
replaced the Jews as God's chosen people. The land of Israel,
promised to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob now belonged
to “Christian” Rome. She became the “new Zion”,
the “Eternal City”, and the “Holy City”,
titles which God had given to Jerusalem alone. Papal armies fought
to expand “the kingdom of God”. The Roman Catholics have
brought great reproach upon the name of Christ by their treatment of
the Jews. The latter mistakenly equate Roman Catholicism with
Christianity, and didn't realise there were millions of Christians
outside that Church – Christians who did not persecute God's
chosen people and were them-selves persecuted and killed by Roman
Catholics in far greater numbers than were the Jews.
For Hitler, the
Holocaust was a highly spiritual undertaking. In line with his
conviction that he was doing God's will in exterminating the Jews,
Hitler ordered that the Final Solution be executed “as humanely
as possible”. In spite of his persecution of the Church
whenever he perceived that it it stood in his way, Hitler insisted to
the very end, “I am now, as before, a Catholic and will always
remain so.” He was convinced that the plan he had conceived as
a good Catholic would complete the massacre of “those Christ
killers” which the Catholic Church had begun during the Middle
Ages but had executed so poorly.
U.S.
and U.K. Caused More Holocaust Victims
Documents
recently uncovered prove that both the U.S. and U.K. were
unwilling to take Jews in, and obstructed their emigration. Far from
pressurising Hitler to stop the killings, England and America feared
that the Fuehrer, if unduly pressed, might dump thousands of Jews on
the Americans and British. It was the last thing those hypocritical
governments wanted, in spite of their public hand-wringing about Nazi
atrocities. The Western powers, like the Vatican, and in partnership
with it, were actually accomplices in the Holocaust. The truth is
almost too terrible to face.
No less
significant is the fact that the Roman Catholic Church never
ex-communicated Hitler, Mussolini, Himmler, or any of the other key
players in the Holocaust. They remained Catholics to the end under
the shelter of Mother Church. Moreover, the Church deliberately lied
about its role, spreading “a legend of resistance” to the
Nazis that needs to be corrected. Except in rare instances of a few
individuals, there was collaboration, not resistance. Furthermore,
those who worked with the Nazis, far from being reprimanded, were
rewarded by Rome.
If Pius II had
given a directive to his Church members, the chances are that he
could have brought down Hitler at the very beginning. The sequence
of events, with the Roman Catholic Church literally putting Hitler in
power and supporting him thereafter, disproves the claim by the popes
that they are Christ's Vicars and led of the Holy Spirit.
Anti-Semitism on
the Rise
In Russia,
Fascists in black shirts march. Synagogues go up in flames. The
Jews know they have to get out before it is too late, but lack the
finance to do so. Operation Exodus helped 500,000 Jews escape to
Israel, 69,132 in 1993 alone. Yet a million plus still remain.
Anti-Semitism is on the rise everywhere, including U.S.A.
In 1986, Pope John
Paul II deplored the crimes of the past committed against the Jews
“by anyone” - no admission of exactly what the Roman
Catholic Church had done to the Jews, from confinement in ghettos,
and slaughter throughout history, to its partnership in the
Holocaust.
On
30th
December 1993, after 18 months of intensive negotiations, a
14-article “Fundamental Agreement” establishing full
diplomatic relations between the Vatican and Israel was signed. How
can a meaningful reconciliation take place unless the party which has
so horribly abused the other is willing to make a full confession, a
sincere apology, and serious restitution?
Since the
establishment of the Jewish state in 1948, Rome has for 67 years
refused to even acknowledge Israel's existence. It is dangerous to
trust those whose past words and consistent deeds for centuries give
the lie to the “agreement” now being reached, especially
as they hold Allah to being equal to Jahweh, the God of the Bible.