Reviews by Hubie Goode: Ignoring Israel Part 9

Ignoring Israel


Part 9: Israel and Land

It’s nothing new to tell of the controversy surrounding the land of Israel. The conflict over this is a major sticking point in every political center on Earth. Which, if you consider it, says something about the place Israel takes world wide; is there any nation like this, anywhere? People like Osama Bin Laden and other terrorists have made a point of keeping the struggle for land in the public eye in a way that doesn’t exist on the national stage in any other area of the world. According to the Bible, the land we’re talking about  begins at the river of Egypt and goes all the way to the Euphrates. This is the land promised the seed of Abraham. It was reaffirmed time and again with Isaac, then Jacob and his twelve sons, the patriarchs of Israel.

However, if you don’t have any respect for the Bible, if you don’t take it to be the Word of God, then for you this isn’t the case. There are a great many people all over the world who want to see the spiritual situation solved with political moves. The Muslim world believes that Israel is an occupier of their land. “Occupier” being used here in the sense that Hitler “occupied” France and Poland.

Their position is that ever since 1948, their land has been given to those with whom they have struggled for centuries, by a “cow towing” and sympathetic western world. Extremists make sure that the world is aware of the Temple Mount, Jerusalem and Israel in a way that goes contrary to much of everything else in the world. If you are not a person who watches the world news, you would know little of much of the politics of inland China, or perhaps what goes on in the every day streets of Australia, and certainly the Polynesian world of island people don’t come up until there is a destructive storm or some such thing. But EVERYONE knows about the middle east and the struggles that go on there.

In most Muslim mosques around the world, and there are increasing numbers if you pay attention to the world news, it is common to speak of Israel as enemy occupiers of Arab lands. And not just any Muslim lands, but HOLY lands. Israel is an invader who is squatting in the lap of the almighty as far as they are concerned. Quite the situation when one considers that it is the western world’s involvement with Israel that helps to maintain this situation and yet it is the Arab world that feeds the fuel supplies of the western world with it’s over dependence on oil from the UAE.

But here’s the thing, even in the Koran there are verses that teach that the Jews would come back into their land, and that they are also entitled to it.

Sura 5:20-21

"‘O my people, call in remembrance the favor of God unto you, when he produced prophets among you, made you kings, and gave to you what He had not given to any other among the people. O my people, enter the Holy Land which God has assigned unto you, and then turn not back ignominiously, for then will ye be overthrown, to your own ruin.”

According to the Koran, the speaker here is Moses.

If the Koran is inspired by Allah, then why ignore Israel? Why look past what is in their own book? Could it be that they don’t even read their own book? Could it be that they instead listen to the selective preachings in their own mosques at the risk of being mislead by their own radical leaders? It would seem that if the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock were not in Jerusalem, this little slip of land would be of little interest to the comparatively huge land of the oil rich Arab world. So how did this happen?

In 638 A.D., the Islamic caliph, Omar, entered Jerusalem on a white camel in order to accept the surrender of Aelia, the name it had at this time. His chief magistrate, Sophronius, read from the prophecy of Christ, “When you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel....”. Omar cleared the area and built a modest mosque on the Temple Mount. He did, however, build this on the southern part of the mount, over what he believed to be a Christian church foundation. Until this day that mosque still stands.

The golden Dome of the Rock was built in 691 A. D. , and was copied from the plans of a 4th century Christian shrine that stood on the Mount of Olives. It is believed that the Dome sits upon the Foundation Stone, where the Temple of God once stood. And yet it is still taught in the Muslim world that the Jews NEVER had control of the mount and the temple never existed. The name of Jerusalem is never even mentioned in the Koran, but the story of Muhammad’s night journey to the farthest mosque on his winged horse, Barak, (who left an impression in the mosque from one of his hooves) guided by the angel Gabriel, is always included in teachings.

The journey from Mecca to the mosque is said to have brought Mohammed in touch with Moses, Jesus and other prophets before his return to Mecca. Despite his dying in 632 A.D., and the Al-Aqsa mosque being built in 638 A.D., this is held as truth. Of course, the interpretation is bantered about by those who scholar such things. Did the “farthest mosque” really mean the one built on the site in Jerusalem? Scholars say the mosque being mentioned is near the city of Medina, in the time of Muhammad, of course. But if that is true, then Jerusalem is NOT the third holiest site in all of Islam. Neither is Israel,  Islamic land. Why is their still an argument over all of this? Perhaps it has more to do with deep generational family feuding, more so than anyone realizes.

In the Biblical record, King David purchased the mountain from Araunah the Jebusite, making payment in Gold and Silver. Solomon later built the First Temple on the mountain, with complete descriptions in the Bible record of the measurements and how it was built and how much it cost to build it. Some nine hundred years later Jesus was at the site with his Jewish apostles and even the historian Josephus describes the building and its destruction by the Romans.

Muslim authorities to this date refuse to allow excavations that would prove the existence of the temple on this site. It would seem that when they took care of excavations themselves, they were very careful to remove any evidence found. This, despite photos that were taken of remnants of the temple in 1967.

Was there a Jewish Temple or was it all a lie? With all this conflict it is obvious that the Muslim world is worried that the Jews will seize the Mountain once again and rebuilt their Temple over the site where the Muslim mosque now stands. Considering the turmoil in the Muslim world in just this year alone, with all the rebellion and dismounting of the leadership throughout the region, it’s hard to see how things won’t develop in the direction of a single leadership in the Arab world. Once that single leadership is established, it will be easy to surround Jerusalem  with the combined might of the Muslim military, and what would motivate them to attack in this way? This is, of course, conjecture at this point, but that concept of Israel being surrounded is directly related in prophecy.

Since the destruction of the Temple, Mount Moriah has become a hot spot for warring factions. The Romans ran rough shod over it twice, and the Byzantines built churches there, then the Muslims, the Crusaders, and so on and so forth over and over again. Muslims under the Ottoman Turks ruled the area for 400 years or so until World War I when the British pushed them out, and they began three decades of British rule. 

Today there is even a publicized planning for an attempt to rebuilt the Temple of Solomon. If you do an internet search, you can see the plans coming to realization, even with designs of the clothing and such. This has the Muslim world worried, and big time. Though many don’t want Jews in Jerusalem, or even in Israel, the Muslim world may have to live with the fact. But a Jewish temple built on the “noble sanctuary” is out of the question for the majority. Scripture,  however, says something quite different about the third Temple, and its future place directly in the spot of the last two temples. Considering that Islam would never permit its mosques to be removed, or that a Jewish presence would be allowed to take root there... how would another temple be built on this spot? How indeed.

More to come on this, unless you are a schlemiel. ;-)  

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