The roots of Muslim hatred for Israel

'"Come," they say, "let us destroy them as a nation, that the name of Israel may be remembered no more."' [1]

Does that sound familiar? Actually these words were written about 3000 years ago by David, king of Israel, calling on God to destroy His enemies who thus conspired against His people.    Ahmadinijad's recent remark,  "....to wipe Israel off the map..." is therefore not very original.
And all the Middle Eastern terrorist organizations, like Hamas, Hezbollah and the PLO, have given vent to the same hatred by declaring their main objective to be the destruction of Israel.

This obsessive hatred of the Muslims for Israel started about 4000 years ago as a family feud. Abraham disinherited his firstborn son, Ishmael, in favour of Isaac. Isaac in turn, did the same to Esau and Jacob. Ishmael and Esau felt cheated and wanted revenge on their brothers. Their descendants, the Arabs, were nurtured on this hatred, and it was later enshrined in their holy book, the Koran. Today all Muslims feel it their 'holy' duty to wage war on the Jews who have been cursed by Allah in the Koran.

With war clouds looming over the Middle East, the West has reluctantly become involved and is now also being threatened by this same fanatical hatred. Unfortunately the West does not understand the strategies of warfare instituted by Mohammad and is constantly being deceived concerning Muslim intentions. To negotiate peace treaties with them is a complete waste of time, because they will follow Mohammad's example and violate the treaty as soon as they are strong enough to attack and conquer. In the words of Mohammad, "war is deceit."   To impose democracy on them is preposterous, as they prefer to subject themselves to Islamic rule and not the rule of the 'infidel' or unbelievers.

Let us return to 4000 years ago and investigate the family feud and the reasons for it.

GOD'S CALL TO ABRAHAM AND THE EVERLASTING COVENANT

Because mankind was so wicked, God chose one man to be the father of a special nation to fulfill a specific purpose, namely, to preserve a true revelation of Himself and ultimately to provide salvation for the world. God called  Abram, whom he later renamed Abraham, from an advanced civilization known as Ur of the Chaldeans, and made a special covenant with him:

"Leave your country, your people and your father's household
and go to the land I will show you.
I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you;
I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth wil be blessed through you." [2]

After Abraham arrived in Canaan God again appeared to him and said, "To your offspring I will give this land." [3]

Before Abraham could be made into a great nation, he had to have a son. Yet he and his wife were childless at their respective ages of 75 and 65. So Abraham asked if a servant of his household would receive the blessing, but God assured him that "a son coming from your own body  will be your heir." [4] After they had been living in Canaan for 10 years and there was still no heir, Sarah gave her Egyptian maidservant to Abraham as wife. When she conceived she began to despise Sarah, and she in turn treated Hagar so harshly that she fled into the desert.

There the angel of the Lord appeared to her and said:
"You are now with child and will have a son. You shall name him Ishmael (meaning 'God hears'), for the Lord has heard of your misery. He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers." [5]

When Abraham was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, "I am God Almighty ... You will be the father of many nations ... I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you. The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you." [6]

The Lord also said to Abraham, "As for Sarah your wife ... I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her." [7] Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, "Will a son be born to a man a 100 years old? Will Sarah bear a child ...?"  Then he spoke aloud and said to God, "If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!" [8]

Then God said, "Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac" (meaning 'he laughs'). "I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants ... And as for Ishmail, I have heard you ... I will surely bless him ... But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year." [9]

As a sign of the covenant, Abraham  had to circumcise every male of his household, and every newborn male baby on his 8th birthday.  So Abraham and Ishmael were circumcised the same day, the latter being about 13 years old. After the birth of Isaac the next year, he was circumcised on the 8th day. On the day Isaac was weaned, Abraham held a great feast. Sarah saw Ishmael mocking, and persuaded Abraham to send him and his mother away. Abraham was reluctant to do that, but God again reassured him that "through Isaac ... your offspring will be reckoned." [10]

JACOB AND ESAU

After the death of Sarah, Abraham married another woman, Keturah, who bore him 6 sons. Ishmael married an Egyptian girl [11] but Abraham provided Isaac with the granddaughter of his brother, Nahor, as wife. [12] While he was alive, he gave gifts to the 7 sons of his concubines, and sent them away from Isaac to the land of the east. When he died at the age of 175, he left everything he owned to Isaac. His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him with his wife Sarah in the cave at Hebron. [13]

When Rebekah, the wife of Isaac, became pregnant the Lord said to her,
"Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated;
one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger." [14]

Rebekah was delivered of twin sons, the firstborn was named Esau (meaning hairy or red) and the second Jacob (meaning he deceives). Jacob bought Esau's birthright from him [15] but then through deceit also obtained Esau's blessing from Isaac:

"May God give you of heaven's dew and of earth's richness -
an abundance of grain and new wine.
May nations serve you and peoples bow down to you.
Be lord over your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you.
May those who curse you be cursed and those who bless you be blessed." [16]

When Esau went in to ask his father's blessing, Isaac could only say,

"Your dwelling will be away from the earth's richness, and from the dew of heaven above.
You will live by the sword and you will serve your brother.
But when you grow restless, you will throw his yoke from off your neck." [17]

Esau vowed to kill Jacob after the death of their father. When Rebekah heard of it, she implored Isaac to send Jacob to her family for a wife because Esau had already married some Canaanite women. [18] So Isaac called for Jacob (later renamed Israel) and blessed him and commanded him:
"Do not marry a Canaanite woman. Go at once to Paddan Aram ... Take a wife for yourself there, from among the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother. May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful ... May he give you and your descendants the blessing given to Abraham, so that you may take possession of the land where you now live as an alien, the land God gave to Abraham. [19]

When Esau learned these facts, he realized how displeasing the Canaanite women were to Isaac, and so he went to Ishmael and married his daughter, Mahalath, in addition to the wives he already had. [20] So Esau's descendants became united with Ishmael's. Both felt that they had been robbed of their birthright as firstborn sons, and that therefore God's covenants and blessings belonged to them.

THE FULFILLMENT OF THE PROPHECIES CONCERNING ISHMAEL AND ESAU

God told Hagar that Ishmael would be, "... a wild donkey of a man; ... and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers." [5]

Isaac told Esau, "You will live by the sword and you will serve your brother." [17]

Both Biblical and secular history point to Ishmael as the father of the Arabs of Arabia. However, Esau and the sons of Ketura also settled in the same territory, therefore their descendants became intermingled. They first settled in the northwestern part of the Arabian Peninsula, and then expanded southward and eastward. They began as nomadic tribes or clans in the deserts and were known as Bedouins. Each clan was made up of several families and led by a supreme chief called a sheik, whose rule over his subjects was absolute.

Historical accounts of the violent culture of the Arabs testify to the fulfillment of the prophecies concerning Ishmael and Esau and their descendants. The economic and social conditions of desert life promoted raiding to the rank of a national institution. In the words of an early Arab poet: 'Our business is to make raids on the enemy, on our neighbour and on our own brother, in case we find none to raid but a brother.' Even the pilgrims to Mecca were attacked and robbed.

The knowledge of God that these sons of Abraham must once have had, was soon replaced by polytheism where 'holy' rocks and trees were worshipped. Mecca became the most important religious centre for several reasons: it contained the Ka'aba with its 'sacred' Black Stone and 360 idols; it was a major oasis on the main caravan route, and it had the 'sacred' Zamzam well.

MOHAMMAD, THE KORAN AND ISLAM

Then Mohammad arrived on the scene, proclaiming that there is no god but Allah and Mohammad is his prophet, superior to Jesus. When both the Jews and Christians rejected his claims, he declared them to be 'infidel' or unbelievers. He roused his followers to take up the sword in defense of Islam and to conduct a holy war or 'jihad' against them. This appealed to the Arab mentality which now felt sanctioned to raid, kill, destroy and steal in the name of their religion.

Mohammad was expelled from Mecca for his monotheism and moved to Medina where he assaulted and killed all the Jews. Here he established his first Islamic theocracy, which became the model for all future Islamic rules of law and government. When a large army from Mecca arrived to challenge him, he offered them a 10 year peace treaty. However, within a year, he had built up a strong enough army to defeat the Meccans, and attacked them without warning despite the peace treaty. This deception became known in Muslim history as the 'Quraysh model' strategy, because at that time Mecca was ruled by the Quraysh tribe.

Mohammad rejected the Biblical account of Genesis as given above, claiming that the Jews  had falsified God's revelation in order to usurp the covenants, blessings and promises. According to the Koran, Abraham went to Mecca, where he raised all eight sons together. Because Ishmael was the firstborn, he was God's chosen and not Isaac. Therefore Abraham went to Mt Moriah to sacrifice Ishmael, not Isaac. For this reason Muslims claim Jerusalem and all the land of Israel as theirs.

The original hatred of the Arabs for the Jews is constantly fueled by the denunciations of the Koran, which explains why Muslims all over the world hate the Jews:

"Certainly you will find the most violent of people in enmity for those who believe to be the Jews and those who are polytheists (Christians)." [21]

"So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolators wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush." [22]

"And when there came to them [Jews] a Book from Allah [Koran} verifying that which they have ... they disbelieved in him; so Allah's curse is on the unbelievers." [23]

"Of those who are Jews [they are those who} alter words from their places ..." [24]

CONCLUSION

When, after the first world war, the League of Nations decided that 'Palestine' should become  a  homeland for the world's Jews, the Arabs and Muslims of the Middle East were up in arms. They exerted pressure on Britain, who was given a mandate to establish such a Jewish homeland, to give the largest part of Palestine, i.e. Trans-Jordan, to the Arabs. They also influenced Britian, in defiance of the Mandate, to severely limit Jewish immigration to Palestine, thereby abandoning them to their fate in the Nazi holocaust. As soon as the State of Israel was declared in 1948, the surrounding Muslim armies attacked. These comprised Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Egypt. They tried again in 1967 and 1973. After Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1978, the other countries resorted to diplomatic tactics to get rid of Israel.

Because the West does not inderstand this hatred, it continues to call for useless peace treaties. When Yasser Arafat was criticized by his own people for signing the 1993 Oslo Peace Accord, he reassured them by explaining that his action was in accordance with the Quraysh Model. He correctly assumed that the West would not understand. Prime minister Netanyahu keeps trying to tell America that it is not the size of Israel that the Arabs object to, but the fact of Israel. However, the West does not believe him, and instead is putting pressure on  Israel to give away more and more land.

Iran, an Islamic terrorist state, is secretly developing nuclear weapons. Although the fanatical religious leaders have openly declared Israel to be enemy number one, many see this looming threat of nuclear capability also as a threat to the world's security. After all, the Muslims have characterized Israel as "little Satan" and America as "big Satan". In addition,
Russia signed a treaty with Iran in February 1991, under the code name "the Grand Design." Under the terms of this treaty Iran undertook not to foment Islamist terror against Russia, while Russia promised to help Iran develop nuclear weapons and to defend them against the West.

The radicals ruling Iran believe the annihilation of Israel will trigger the coming of the last Islamic messiah, the imam Mahdi, who will defeat the world and establish universal Islamic rule. However, Israel has a carefully prepared and practised contingency plan known as the "Samson Option."  This plan provides that in the event Israel is hit by biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons, Israel will launch a massive nuclear strike against the cities of every enemy state attacking her.

At present there are warships and aircraft carriers of both Russia and America patrolling the seas around the Middle East. All we know for sure of the outcome of any hostilities is that God will protect Israel and defeat her enemies.

"I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them," says the Lord your God. [25]

References:
1.  Psalm 83:4
2.  Genesis 12:1-3
3.  Genesis 12:7
4.  Genesis 15:2-4
5.  Genesis 16:11-12
6.  Genesis 17:1-8
7.  Genesis 17:15-16
8.  Genesis 17:17-18
9.  Genesis 17:19-21
10. Genesis 21:12
11. Genesis 21:21
12. Genesis chapter 24
13. Genesis 25:1-10
14. Genesis 25:23
15. Genesis 25:27-34
16. Genesis 27:28-29
17. Genesis 27:39-40
18. Genesis 28:9
19. Genesis 28:1-4
20. Genesis 28:8-9
21. Surah 5.82
22. Surah 9.5
23. Surah 2.89
24. Surah 4.46
25. Amos 9:15

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Posted in: Bible by LeopoortRose on February 8, 2012 @ 6:55 pm

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