Why Can't Israel Just Get Along With the Arabs?

Tom: Thanks, Gary. You’re listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a program in which we encourage everyone who desires to know God’s truth to look to God’s Word for all that is essential for salvation and living one’s life in a way that is pleasing to Him.

We’re going through Dave Hunt’s book A Cup of Trembling: Jerusalem and Bible Prophecy, and, Dave, we’re taking a while on this, but, as you mentioned before we started recording, it’s an important subject. It’s in the news every day, and I think it’s very helpful to give people some background information. And you know, there’re so many spins that you get through the news—through the news media—that it’s important to go back to some basic things, some basic historic facts about what’s taking place there and then challenge what we hear in the news media.

So last week, one of the things that we began to address was that for Israel, we said…and it’s right there for everyone to see…that the establishment of the state of Israel was miraculous by any stretch of the imagination. This was something that only God could do—and did do—and it was a fulfillment of prophecy. But although it’s a miracle of God, they’ve just created trouble. And, Dave, to stretch that out a little bit, every time Israel wins a war and they expand their territories—at first, they needed to do that because there’s no way that the territory that they have, except by, you know, the intervention of God—was that area defensible. You said last week, I think, there was one part of Israel that was only ten miles wide.

Dave: You could punch through that with a tank column very quickly.

Tom: Right. But each time that they get more territory, who’s living there? Well, the so-called Palestinians. And now they’ve got more land, but more people to deal with. And, in effect, for some of them, and maybe most of them, we’re talking about Israel has enemies within their own boundaries.

Dave: Okay, Tom, well, let’s talk about this a bit. First of all, it is their land. They are not occupying Arab land. It was given to them by God. And every piece of land they’ve taken, they’ve taken it in self-defense, fighting for their very survival against an enemy that has sworn to exterminate them. Let’s consider the Golan, for example. The Syrians were just shooting down on the Israelis. They couldn’t till the soil; they couldn’t be in their fields. You couldn’t be fishing out in the Galilee. They’re shooting at you from up there—they had this vantage point, and finally the Israelis have enough of it! Yom Kippur War—here they come, pouring down the Golan with hundreds of tanks—and we’ve talked about that.

So, Israel finally, in exasperation, takes the Golan—well, they’ve taken it before but they’ve always given it back. This time they kept it. They put radar stations up on top of the Golan. They have a buffer up there. So at least they know when the Syrians are going to attack them, and at least the Syrians don’t begin with this advantage of shooting down on top of the Israelis. Now I think that’s reasonable. They have only done this in self-defense.

Time magazine—and I don’t like everything that Time says by a long shot, but back in 1988—this is what Time said, and it’s quite obvious: “Had Egypt, Syria, and the other Arab nations accepted Israel’s right to exist in 1947, the Palestinians could have been living for the past 40 years in a state of their own.” In other words, it wasn’t Israel that attacked them. We’ve mentioned it—they got 18 percent of what they were supposed to have, what the Declaration of Principle in 1922, the Balfour Declaration in 1917, had said and the world had agreed to, that Israel got 18 percent. Okay, well, they weren’t happy, but they weren’t going to make trouble over it.

But the Arabs wanted everything. Okay, so first of all, they could have had their Palestinian state so-called back there, and they could have been living in peace all this time, if they had not attacked Israel and had not wanted everything, all right? Secondly, nobody talked about a Palestinian state back then. In fact, I could give you quote after quote of Arab leaders who were standing before commissions who were dealing with the issue of the Middle East, they said repeatedly, “We are not Palestinians. There never was a Palestinian people, state, economy,” and so forth. These are the Arabs talking now! They said, “If anybody’s a Palestinian, it’s the Jews.” Okay? So it wasn’t until much later that they decided “Oh, yeah, wait a minute! We’re the Palestinians and we’ve been here since time immemorial, and we go back all the way to the Philistines,” you know, that Palestine was named after. This is what Arafat claims.

Wait a minute! The Philistines were not Semitic people. They invaded Canaan—the land of Canaan—from across the Mediterranean. Arafat claims he’s descended from them. He was born in Cairo, okay? But he’s not a Palestinian—there never was such thing. So, anyway, this is what the big issue is. They claim, “Israel is occupying our land.” No, Israel is not occupying their land; they are occupying Israeli land. But every time they have had to take a little extra territory, they have taken strategic defense positions to protect themselves from an enemy that has sworn to exterminate them and could attack at any moment. Any time they think the Israelis are not ready, as in the Yom Kippur War of ’73, they are going to attack—and they’ve done it!

Tom: But Dave, with that, as I mentioned earlier, they have more land, but now they have the so-called Palestinians—or actually, the Arabs, who were living in the land that they had…they now occupy. That’s a problem. And now these people in the occupied lands, they want citizenship—not the conditions for giving them citizenship, they won’t honor it.

Dave: Well, they want citizenship in what they call their own Palestinian state. Israel has offered them their Palestinian state many times—on one condition: “Just acknowledge our right to exist.” They will not acknowledge Israel’s right to exist. There is not an Arab map in the world, as we’ve said several times, that even shows the existence of Israel. You look at the logos for…Go on the internet and look up the logo for the PLO or Hamas, or Hezbollah, or anybody else. They have Palestine, and it doesn’t show Israel. There is no such place as Israel. So this is the problem.

But, as you mentioned, every time they expand their borders they take in more people, more enemies, who hate them. Well, what…there’s not too much difference, Tom…

Tom: Dave, you have a quote here from a former Chief of Israeli Military Intelligence, Yehoshafat Harkabi. He writes: “Our choice is not between good and bad. That is easy. Our choice is between bad and worse. Israel cannot defend itself if half its population is the enemy. The Arabs understand that if there is no settlement, then there will be hell, for them and for us…. We must learn to think internationally, to distinguish between grand design and policy. The Arabs’ grand design may still be to destroy Israel, but their policy is different. We must deal not with the Arabs’ vicious dreams, but with their policies…. We need a Zionism of quality, not of acreage.”

Dave: Yeah, but, Tom, the problem is that those people who now call themselves Palestinians—they never did before—who are in these camps…. By the way, Israel did not put them in the camps. Israel absorbed about 800,000 refugees—Jewish refugees—who fled from Arab countries, from Muslim countries, where they had been brutalized for 1,300 years, okay? And the Arabs, who have about 700 times the landmass, will not allow these people to become citizens of their country. They still keep them in these camps—that’s the Arabs themselves have done this. And the reason for this is they demand that these so-called refugees, who Israel didn’t chase out—the Arab High Command told them to “Get out, we’re coming in!” Okay? They demand that now they be allowed to go back and have their homes and get land inside of Israel.

Well, that’s the problem. Are we going to let into America, for example—unfortunately we’re doing it! We’re letting in Muslims who are determined to destroy America and to establish it as a Muslim country, but very few people realize this. The INS certainly doesn’t seem to care about it. They’ve allowed in about 50,000 or more young Muslims of military age since September 11. But would we allow into America an enemy that doesn’t stealthily plan your destruction—blatantly, on television, in their newspapers, in their mosques, says, “We are going to destroy this country! We are going to wipe them out—annihilate them.” They have said that over and over and over. So this is the problem.

Now Israel is going to let these people come back into the land of Israel? Now there’s a distinction. Make a distinction between the so-called Palestinian territories and the land of Israel. In the 1948 War of Independence, Jordan took the…I think we’ve probably mentioned…Jordan took East Jerusalem and what’s called the West Bank, and Egypt took Gaza Strip, okay? And they kept it for 19 years. They put them in the camps, they never said a word about a Palestinian state.

What did they do? They used these as launching pads for terrorism, which they’re still doing today. Well, what does Israel do? “Look, we can’t bear with this, and you are threatening now to destroy us…” so the Six-Day War—they wiped out the Air Force of Egypt and Syria on the ground, and it took them six days. They took the Sinai, which they later gave back—they’ve given back 95 percent of the land they’ve taken. But they took control of West Bank and Gaza. Israel would rather not be involved. That’s why they’re building a fence now. These are terrorists. They have used this for terrorism all this time! What is Israel going to do? How can they best control this?

So they’ve been in the process of making peace. They’ve given these lands back to Arafat. The Palestinian Authority, as it’s called, and so forth, is now is charge. Oslo agreed to this. But they still attack Israel, send in suicide bombers. What are they going to do, Tom?

Tom: Dave, let me go back to…you just said The Palestinian Authority—they’re in charge. How do they get to be in charge? Is this the voice of the Arab people living in that land?

Dave: Well, Tom, to begin with, it certainly wasn’t. The PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization)—by the way, people say, “Oh, move the borders back to ’67…” Well, the PLO was formed in 1964, so what were they going to liberate back then, okay?

It was founded by Gamal Abdul Nasser, who was the dictator of Egypt when we were there—our family—in 1967. We saw this firsthand. And he was going to unite this great Arab nation. We probably haven’t talked about that. Tom, it’s not the Arab nation, believe me. The Moroccans, Algerians, Tunisians, are Berbers; the Libyans are…well, there are some Arabs who’ve gotten in there and taken control, but they were originally not Arabs. The Egyptians are Egyptians, the Syrians are Syrians, the Iranians are Persians, the Iraqis are Babylonians! We could go on and on. What do you mean, Great Arab Nation? They speak Arabic. Why do they speak Arabic? Because Islam was forced upon them at the point of a sword centuries ago, and with the teaching that you can’t understand the Qur’an unless you read it Arabic. So they had to learn Arabic, okay? This is not the great Arab Nation. They are Arabic-speaking peoples.

But Nasser was going to unite them all. This was his big dream, his big ambition. Well, they don’t get along with one another! They couldn’t get along with Saudi Arabia and so forth. But that’s a whole other picture.

But Nasser, he just went into a mental depression, a nervous breakdown, when he failed. He was the big guy. I can remember him, like Mussolini, sticking out his chin—you remember the pictures? Or like Hitler…. He was riding the crest of the wave, and we drove through Egypt just before that war, and we heard them saying, “Oh yeah, we’re going to take them. We’re going to wipe them out.” And “The strong people are going to win.”

I’m sorry, Tom, as you know, it wasn’t even a contest. Well, a contest—it cost a lot of lives on both sides, but nevertheless, there was no way that they were going to defeat Israel. Well, that just finished Nasser. He died of…embarrassment, broken heart, whatever you want to say it a few years later. But anyway, the point you’re trying to make, Tom…

Tom: He’s the first head of the PLO.

Dave: (Chuckling) Right. You’re having a tough time keeping me on the subject because there’s so many rabbit trails to go down. So the PLO—the point you’re trying to make—is it was not founded by Palestinians. It was founded by some ambitious leaders who weren’t even Palestinians, who wanted now to use the Palestinians as a battering ram against Israel, okay? That’s the point you’re trying to make.

Tom: And again, we’re really talking about Israel’s dilemmas here. They have these people within their territory, and who are they going to negotiate with? Who are they going to talk to? Who are they going to deal with? There’s no democratic form there, for them to…”Oh, let’s have a vote.” And…

Dave: Let me tell our listeners how it came about, Tom. September 9, ’93. This is a letter from Yasser Arafat to Prime Minister Rabin. Now this guy’s the worst terrorist the world has ever seen.

Tom: Arafat.

Dave: Arafat. The PLO. Yeah, thank you. The PLO— (and if they get our video, Israel, Islam, and Armageddon, we show the whole thing)—the most vicious terrorist organization the world has ever known. They hold all the records—I won’t go back into that. And what happens? It’s like a mass murderer stands before the judge and…. Well, let’s say we arrest Osama bin Laden, and we’ve got him before a tribunal over there in the Hague, or somewhere, okay? And he says, “I promise you guys I will be a good boy from now on. I’m not going to do any more bad stuff.”

“Oh! Wonderful! We’ll forgive you! We’ll even give you the Nobel Peace Prize. We’ll make a great statesman out of you. And Israel is going to have to negotiate with you.”

That’s what happened to Arafat. I mean, the guy—we’ve talked about it—he left hundreds…he killed hundreds of thousands of people in Lebanon. They dragged them off the streets, strapped them to hospital beds, commanded the nurses to drain every drop of blood from their veins for blood transfusions for his wounded soldiers and stacked the dead bodies like cordwood in the hall, okay?

I could go on and on about that! All right, but this guy is bad. And listen. September 9, ’93, he writes a letter to Prime Minister [Rabin]. “Dear Mr. Prime Minister,” (and I’m quoting from a letter now), “The PLO recognizes the right of the state of Israel to exist…”  Whoo! But the PLO does not say that in their charter. Their charter still says, you know, “We’re going to exterminate them.” [continuing] “…to exist in peace and security.” [It was just a lie!] “The PLO commits itself to a peaceful resolution of the conflict between the two sides through negotiation. The PLO renounces the use of terrorism and other acts of violence and affirms that those articles of the Palestinian Covenant which deny Israel’s right to exist are now inoperative, and no longer valid, and undertakes to submit to the Palestinian National Council for formal approval the necessary changes in regard to the Palestinian Covenant.—Sincerely, Yasser Arafat.”

Well, but he didn’t intend any of this! It was a ploy. But Israel said, “Well…” You know, you’re pointing out, who are they going to negotiate with? “Okay, we’ll recognize the PLO as representing the Palestinian people, [even though they didn’t vote them in—the so-called Palestinian people], and you want peace and you promise you’ve renounced terrorism, we’ll go ahead and we’ll deal with you.”

And out of this came Oslo—the Oslo Accords—and Yasser Arafat has not kept one provision. He has broken everything that he was supposed to do and yet Israel is blamed! Tom, I get frustrated.

Tom: Well, it’s more than that. You point out a book in your book, Politics in the Middle East. This is a textbook for our university students. Let me give you one quote from the book: “Egyptian-Syrian rivalry and attempts by each to outbid the other’s radicalism, although neither had the intention of waging war, paved the way for the Israeli attack of June 1967.”

Dave: Oh my goodness. Tom, I was there! I saw Gamal Abdul Nasser on television over and over. I talked to the people, and we have given quotes, I think in our video Israel, Islam, and Armageddon. We give you quote after…and in our newsletter. Anyone wants them? Call us. We will freely send you quotations by these people who, over and over and over, in 1967 said, “We are going to exterminate Israel. We are going to wipe Israel off the map.” They said, “We have surrounding Israel the armies of Egypt and Syria and Jordan and Lebanon. And beside that, we have the backing of Iran and Iraq and Saudi Arabia…” and on and on they went. “And we are going to wipe out the ignominy that has been with us since the 1948 defeat, and we are going to exterminate these people!”

Tom:  Yeah, but Dave, this book says…I’ll give you another quote from it, it says: “The Palestinian Arabs have much more of the ancient Hebrews’ blood than do present-day Jews.”

Dave: Oh my gracious.

Tom: What do you do with blatant lies like that, which now are in our educational system?

Dave: Right. And are repeated on radio and television and…. Well, Tom, we’ve talked about it in the past: anti-Semitism—God warned, “You will be hated, persecuted, and killed like no other people,” and when you study the hundreds of times the UN has condemned Israel for defending itself—never once condemning anyone for attacking them—the prejudice, Tom, is scandalous! It is satanic, because Satan must wipe out the Jews in order to win his battle with God. Because God has made promises to Israel.

Tom: Dave, next week we want to get into chapter 8, and there’s another book that you address. It’s Voices from a Promised Land. Now, you just mentioned prejudice and bias, and outright lies—at least this is demonstrating the mindset of a people that Israel has to negotiate with. It’s impossible. It’s an impossible situation. And only God can work it out.

Dave: Well, Tom, there will be, the Bible says, a false peace. That’s where we’re heading. It will be established under the anti-Christ. And then that will be what he intends, the final destruction of Israel, and Christ himself will have to intervene at Armageddon. Only then will there be real peace. But the Israelis don’t believe that. The European Union doesn’t believe it. The United States doesn’t believe it. The Arabs don’t believe it. So, in the meantime, they’re trying to work something out, and, as you said, it is an impossible situation so long as the Muslims determine to exterminate the Jews. And that is part of their religion.