Solomon inspired the titular saying, when he compared spoiled ointment to the lack of wisdom and honor [Eccl 10:1]. I have been on Facebook for about 15 years now, and now have about 7,300 ‘followers’, but in all that time I have never gotten the response like I did when I posted the above picture.
I am happy!
The post had elicited about 2,600 responses, most of which are positive.
I posted this early yesterday, I think, or late on Friday night. We spent the day with family yesterday, so I was not near my devices for most of the day. So, I did not see the melee this picture caused.
There were some very vitriolic and insulting responses, all of which I overlooked, and some of which I deleted. There were only 15 ‘angry’ faces, versus the many thumbs ups and hearts. There were 88 laughs, which could go either way: laughing at the ‘fecal’ foundation of the one flag, or sadly laughing at the truth that Israel owns that land, evidenced by the deepest, consistent roots. I choose to consider all 88 for the former!
What I did not know, that I found out this morning when I was greeted by a joyful message from our friends in Israel, is that yesterday 12 people, including children, were massacred in Israel by a rocket from nearby Lebanon that landed in the Golan Heights of Israel in the village of Majdal Shams. Our friends sometimes take their children to the ‘soccer field’ [what Americans would call it] where the rocket landed. This event, therefore, embittered what should have been a most joyous day: our friend finally became a citizen of Israel!
All governments are human, and thus imperfect. There is corruption in them all. I do not overlook Israeli error. However, the notion that there is such a thing as a “Palestinian” is just another case of men choosing to believe lies. Is it any wonder that yesterday the Olympics put on such a foul display as men dressed as women, and expected all the world to believe them, such that they want to force all of us to call them women? People today are obsessed with believing lies.
There is a verse in the scriptures which spoke to me very plainly very long ago, and in it, the words “deceive themselves” are used. Up to that point in my life, in my early twenties, I had not realized that a person could actually lie to themselves. Since then, I have realized not only that, but also that a whole population can lie to themselves. The whole of mankind lives in self delusion.
The whole world is lying to itself, telling itself that there is such a thing as “Palestine”; that there is a people indigenous to the land of Israel called “Palestinian”. That is a deceit. That alone should make thinking people realize that something is wrong with the “palestinian” ‘movement’.
Anti-semitism is very real. I experience it frequently. I have explained and taught people that the root of that human appellation of a real phenomenon is actually the notion of “anti-Messiah”.
Yeshua, the Son of God, a man from Nazareth, a village in northern Israel, is the Messiah. He is Jewish. He was labeled the “King of the Jews” in mockery, but his mockers did not realize how true their taunt was.
The ‘spirit’ of anti-Messiah, what most call the antichrist, is the modus operandi of those who deny that Yeshua is the Messiah, the Son of God. That is a case also of the whole world LYING to itself. Most are aware that Yeshua rose from the dead. They simply choose not to believe it. That is opposition to the Word of God itself. That does include many in the land of Israel. However, what most people cannot seem to work out in their heads is that God still loves the people of Israel, the sons of Jacob. He gave the land back to Israel, I submit, shortly after many Jews began to trust in Yeshua in the latter 19th century. He did it for that remnant. Our Jewish people today owe it to their believing, “Messianic” loved ones for the gift of returning to the land! He did it for them! Natural Israel is reaping the benefit of that, and persecuting the Messianic Jews who garnered that favor from God. They will figure it out soon, however.
There are many who claim to be ‘christians’, which is the greek notion of one who follows ‘christ’, the anointed one of Israel, who are anti-Semitic, hating all things Jewish. They do not realize how much their “Messiah” still LOVES the Jewish people [if He really is their Messiah].
When Yeshua hung on the tree, surrounded by the leaders of the Jewish religion, and some few of His own followers and a handful of Roman soldiers, He uttered some of the most compelling words: “O, Abba, forgive them. They do not know what they are doing.” In similar fashion, the first ‘martyr’, a word that should be perhaps rooted in Stephen’s name and not in Justin’s, forgave the Jews, also his own kinsmen, for killing him because he followed Yeshua the Messiah: “Adoneinu, do not hold this sin against them.” [Acts 7:60]
Anyone who denies that Yeshua is the Messiah of Israel and the Son of God is following a ‘spirit’, a ‘wind of doctrine’, a spiritual ‘force’ that is actually fighting against God. Gamaliel, a first century Rabbi and the teacher of Paul, understood this. Perhaps he later came to trust in Yeshua? He is still honored among Jews today, however, cited in their earliest writings of Talmud, and he said of the Way of the Nazarene:
“Men of Yisra’el, take heed to yourselves, and find out what is the best for you to do about these men. 36For before these days, Theudas rose up, boasting himself to be a great man; and about four hundred men followed him; but he was slain; and those who followed him were scattered and nothing came of them; 37after him rose up Yehudah the Gelili, in the days when people were registering for the head tax, and he misled many people into following him. He died; and all of those who followed him were dispersed. 38So now I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone; for if this thought and this work is of men, it will fail and pass away. 39But if it is of God, you cannot suppress it, lest perchance you find yourself standing in opposition to God.”
“These men” that Gamli’el mentioned were the Apostles. They had just very plainly stated to the leaders of Israel,
30The God of our fathers has raised up Yeshua whom you killed when you nailed Him on the tree. 31This very One, God has appointed a Prince and a Savior, and has lifted Him up to His right hand so that He may grant repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel. 32And we are the witnesses of these words; so also is The Ru’akh HaKodesh [the sacred breath of God], which God has given to those who obey Him.” 33When they heard these words, they were enraged and thought to kill the Apostles. 34Then one of the P’rushim whose name was Gamli’el, a teacher of the Torah and honored by all the people, rose up and ordered them to take the Shlikhim outside for a little while; 35then he said to them… [the above citation] Acts 5
So many people who profess to believe in Yeshua, whom they call Jesus, also decry the right of Israel to exist. That is a betrayal that they probably do not know Yeshua the Messiah, and thus follow anti-Messiah. They deceive themselves into thinking they are ‘saved’. [and that was the point of those ‘deceive themselves’ words cited at the start].
It is hard to find a concise history of the name of the land of Israel that is unbiased and fact based. I attempt to offer one here. As I am limited on time, I do not have the luxury of citing sources outside the Bible. But, a diligent researcher would easily find these facts in reliable sources:
The word “Palestine” first represented a people group in the early biblical age, all the way back to Genesis 10, the origin of the nations.
13And Mitzrayim begot Ludim, and Anamim, and Lehavim, and Naftukhim, 14and Patrusim, and Kaslukhim, from where the Pilishtim came forth, and Kaftorim.
Mitzrayim is the Biblical name of “Egypt”, and this man is thus the father of Egypt. He fathered the Patrusim and the Kaslukhim, and from them the “Philistines” came forth. The original Palestinians were thus Egyptian!
The word Philistines actually means “Invaders”. They invaded the land of Canaan and established several city-states in an area that is roughly what is today called “The Gaza Strip”. This was not a ‘nation’, it was a small group of invaders of the land of Kena’an/Canaan who settled there and became a thorn in everyone’s side. Those city-states were, the “Gazites, Ashdodites, Ashkelonites, Gittites, and Ekronites; and the Avvites,” and they were viewed as invaders and spoilers for centuries.
Joshua, a son of Jacob through Ephrayim, led the Israelites into the promised land to conquer it, and he encountered these ‘invaders’ in Joshua 13. He told Israel to allot those city-states and the other territories around it to the Children of Israel by conquering them. They did not finish the job.
The book of Judges tells us that God left the Philistines around, and a few other small nations, to ‘test’ the people of Israel, to see if they would follow Him and do what He says. Of course, like all men, Israel did not do what God said.
So, God allowed the “Philistines” to steal the very Ark of the Covenant, the seat of God’s presence on earth, and take in into the Temple of Dagon, a ‘fish’ god.
Saul was the first king of Israel, and he was king after that happened. Israel the people had chosen the wrong king, a man not chosen by God. David succeeded him, and when the Palestinians heard that David was anointed king, they went to hunt him down to kill him. David wrote a song about it, in Psalm 56. This was the very spirit of anti-Messiah. They were ‘against’ the anointed [Messianic] King of Israel.
After that, small bands of Philistines pestered Israel. During the age of the Prophets, most of the prophets foretold of their destruction and their disappearing from the earth. Ezekiel 25, Amos 1, and Zechariah 9 all prophecy the obliteration of “Palestine” and their absence from the earth.
That has happened. As God said it would.
The ancient Philistines gradually lost their identity as a distinct people. History proves that they no longer exist. Their decline can be traced through a combination of historical events and cultural shifts:
The Assyrian Conquest in the 8th and 7th centuries B.C. was the beginning of their disappearance as a legitimate culture or ethnic group. The Philistine cities faced pressure from the Assyrian Empire. Tiglath-Pileser III and Sargon II conducted campaigns in the region, leading to the subjugation and heavy tributes imposed on the Philistine city-states. Although the Philistines retained some degree of autonomy initially, the Assyrian influence marked the beginning of their decline.
Just like for Israel, right on the heels of that, the Babylonians invaded the whole area. Nebuchadnezzar II further undermined Philistine power by destroying the cities of Ashkelon and Gaza, which further diminished the Philistine presence.
When Persia became a power in the 4th and 5th centuries B.C., after the Babylonian Empire fell to the Persian Empire, the Philistine cities continued to decline. While the Persians did not target the Philistines as aggressively as those before, the region’s strategic importance diminished, and the Philistines lost their status as a prominent group.
Greeks then conquered the area in the 4th century BC, and remained in control until the 1st Century B.C. The conquest of the region by Alexander the Great and the subsequent Hellenistic influence further integrated the area into broader regional cultures. The Philistine cities were absorbed into the larger Greco-Macedonian cultural and political spheres. Israel won its independence back from the Greeks because Jews insisted on maintaining their own culture and language, and a group of ragtag farmers who were zealous for the Torah raised an army and miraculously defeated the Greeks. This is very nearly the final straw of anything called a “Palestinian” having any identity of its own, as the land came to be called “Judea” at this point.
Under Roman rule, which began in the latter half of the 1st century B.C., the region was more formally incorporated into Roman administrative structures of the Empire and named “Judea” officially. The name “Philistia” persisted in some contexts, but the distinct identity of the Philistines had utterly vanished. The local population became more integrated into the Roman and later Byzantine administrative and cultural systems.
After the Jewish people rebelled against Rome in about 135 A.D., many of the Jewish people, all twelve tribes that had reunified, were scattered to the four winds in what is commonly called “The Diaspora.” Not all Jews left Israel. But, the ones who stayed were ruled by Rome. Many cultures moved in, both Christian and Arab. And Rome, augmenting their knowledge of Jewish history from Josephus and other sources, began to formally call the land “Palestine” as an insult to the Jewish people, to begin to rob Israel of any claim to the land. There were no longer ANY “palestinians” with any ethnic or cultural identity living in the land. Naming it Palestine was a political, propaganda tool. This is mere fact.
That name stuck. After Rome, the Byzantine Christian empire ruled the land. They continued the Roman policy of calling the area Palestine, actually dividing it into Palestine the First and Palestine the Second. Then, the Ottoman muslim empire conquered the Byzantines, and they perpetuated the name as well, although it was officially a small region in the territory they called Syria. They held it the longest. All the way to WWI, when the British took it over and created the “British Mandate” for “Palestine”, borrowing the Roman name. Great Britain held it from 1920 until 1948, when the Jews in the land of Israel were finally granted their own land back.
At that time, there was already a ‘two-state’ solution to resolve the issue of where ARABS and MUSLIMS who lived with JEWS in the land called ISRAEL could go: the nation of JORDAN was created. What is today Jordan was actually part of the British “Palestine”, and it was given to the Muslims that lived in Israel as the original “Two State” solution.
The problem is, Muslims do not want Jews to exist. The word “Muslim” means “Submitted Ones”, and “Islam” is their religion, which means “Submit”. They think that Jews and Judaism are a threat to their existence. They project their sins onto Israel, much like democrats project their sins onto their opponents. Those Arabs, Egyptians, Lebanese, and Syrian muslims who lived in the new land of Israel simply did not move out. Even after the Muslim nations around Israel immediately started a war to try to destroy Israel the nation in 1948, those nations would not allow ‘refugees’, Muslims within the new boundaries of Israel who did not want to live there, to go to Jordan or any of the other nations. They left them there, hanging them out to dry.
So, the image that garnered so much emotion on my fb page yesterday tells this story in one image. The dung at the bottom of the Palestinian flag means exactly what it says: there is no such thing as a ‘historical Palestine’ for a people called “Palestinians”. They are not fighting to preserve an ethnic or cultural heritage rich in history in the geographical bounds of modern Israel: they are fighting for the destruction of the Jewish people. Period.
They set out on this latest warpath on a High Holy Day, back on October 7th, because Jews were promising to bless the Temple Mount with the requisite offering in the spring. They do not want Israel to build their Temple. It has nothing to do with ‘their’ history.
What many people are not aware of is that many who are called “Palestinians” today, and many other Muslims who live in Israel, actually are quite content being Israeli citizens, enjoying the rights of citizenship, holding office in the Knesset, living as “Israelis” of non-Jewish descent and fighting in the IDF. I met them both times I was in Israel.
The Druz village that was hit yesterday was not “Jewish”, but primarily a non-Jewish village, but my Jewish friends near there enjoy the soccer field where children were killed. It is heart-wrenching. It shows that this war is not about culture or history, but about hatred and annihilation. Merciless killing.
As we spoke this morning, I told my friends I was going to write this, and that I wanted them to tell me how to represent the heart of Israelis right now. They sent me this song, and said that it expresses their heart perfectly:
