The Muslim threat to Israel and Assyria

Two countries in the Middle East have been shamefully treated, first by the British and then by the Muslims. And then by the world. These are countries with ancient claims to their land, reaffirmed by the League of Nations on numerous occasions. Today they are still being persecuted by the Arabs and Muslims of the region. Because these Arabs have set out to achieve their objectives through terrorist activities, they have captured the attention of the world media. The latter in turn has aroused world sympathy for the so-called 'Palestinian cause', and condemned Israel for its 'oppression and aggression'.

Now for the other country mentioned: Who are the Assyrians? No, not the Syrians. The Assyrians conquered and ruled the Middle East centuries B.C. We simply have never heard of them today because the world media has ignored their cause. They are Christians who have not resorted to terrorist activities, but instead have patiently petitioned the League of Nations for the return of their land.

Let us quickly explore the histories of Israel and Assyria.

History of Israel

In 1000 BC King David of the ancient Israelites conquered Jerusalem and made it his capital city. Israeli territory extended from the Mediterranean Sea and through beyond the Jordan river, where two and a half of the twelve tribes settled in what came to be known as Trans-Jordan (present-day Jordan). Northwards the territory extended beyond Damascus (capital of present-day Syria).

After being overrun by the successive empires of the Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks and Romans, Jerusalem was finally reduced to rubble in 135 AD by the Emperor Hadrian of Rome. He hated the Jews of the province of Judea so much that he banished the survivors and changed the name to Palestine, i.e. the land of the Philistines, who in ancient times had lived in present-day Gaza until the Babylonians destroyed them.

History of Assyria

Since the 21st century BC the Assyrians had ruled the area which is today southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq and eastern Syria. In 722 BC they conquered the northern half of Israel and extended their rule over most of the present day Middle East, but were in turn defeated by the Babylonians. During the successive empires that ruled in the Middle East, they were able to maintain their Assyrian province with its capital of Nineveh. They became Christians between the 1st and 3rd centuries and formed an important centre of the Church of the East (Byzantine Empire with Constantinople as its capital).

During the first World War, Britain obtained the help of the Assyrians against the Ottomans, promising independence for their province after the war. The British reneged on this promise and today the once-proud and ancient Assyrians are landless and being persecuted by the Turks and other Muslims that surround them.

The Middle East today

The Middle East is dominated by Muslim Arabs, Turks and Iranians. The goal of Islam is world domination and the Muslims of the region cannot tolerate the Jewish Israelis and the Christian Assyrians in what they regard as 'their' land. The president of Iran has on numerous occasions declared his intention to be "to wipe Israel off the face of the earth." Terrorist organisations, such as the Palestine Liberation, Hamas and Hezbollah, refuse to recognize Israel as the national land of the Jews.

At the same time the Turks, Arabs and Kurds have been committing genocide on the Assyrians through massacres, starvation and disease. Just on the opposite bank of the Tigris river from the ruins of ancient Nineveh, the modern city of Mosul has arisen. Since rich deposits of oil have been discovered in the region, both the Turks and the Iraqis have laid claim to it. The Assyrian population of the Middle East has been decimated through forced emigration to the West.

In order to understand the development of this situation, we have to go back and look at the history of the Middle East.

EVENTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST BEFORE WW I

In the 7th century AD the Arabs of Arabia set forth to conquer the world for Islam. After initial successes in northern Africa, they swept through the Middle East. They were the first to unify the entire Middle East as a distinct region, and to create the dominant ethnic identity that persists today.

In the 11th century the Seljuk Turks migrated south and conquered parts of the Middle East. They were followed by the Crusaders and Mongols.

The Ottomans captured Constantinople in the 15th century, and by the next century had conquered the whole of the Arab-held Middle East and northern Africa, as well as parts of Europe. They divided the Middle East into provinces and allowed the local inhabitants to govern themselves. Thus there were the provinces of Palestine (Jews and Arabs) and Assyria (Assyrians and Arabs), amongst others.

In the 19th century the European countries asserted themselves against the Ottomans and regained independence. The Ottomans were fearful of insurrection among the Christians in the eastern part of their domain, and did not interfere in the attempted extermination of the Assyrians and Armenians by the Kurds and Young Turks. In 1908 the Young Turks seized power in the Ottoman empire and tried to modernize the Middle East in order to compete with Europe. The Turkish language and centralized government were imposed, giving rise to Arab nationalism.

WW I

When Germany declared war on Britain and France in 1914, the Ottomans took the fatal step of joining Germany. Britain saw the Ottomans as the weak link and determined to knock them out. They encouraged Arab nationalism and fomented revolt. Sayyid Hussein bin Ali, the Sharif and Emir of Mecca, orchestrated the uprising in exchange for a promise of Arab independence. The Armenians and Assyrians (persecuted Christian minorities) and the Palestinian Jews allied themselves with the British because they also were promised independent states.

However, in 1916 Britain and France signed the Sykes-Picot Agreement to partition the Middle East between them: France to get the northern province of Syria, and Britain to get the southern three provinces of Mesopotamia and two of Palestine (comprising modern Israel, the West Bank, Gaza and Trans-Jordan). In 1917 the Balfour Declaration stated the support of Britain for the international Zionist Organization to create a homeland for the Jews in Palestine. This incensed the Arabs because there was a large Arab population, especially in Trans-Jordan and Mesopotamia, who had ruled themselves during the Ottoman empire.

During the war in 1915-16 the Turks, Kurds and Arabs turned on the Christians of Assyria and Armenia, massacring thousands of them and causing them to flee their ancestral lands.

The Allies occupied Istanbul (Constantinople renamed) and the Ottomans were defeated in 1918. The Treaty of Sevres, designed by the Allies to dismember the remaining Ottoman territories, triggered a nationalist movement and the revolutionaries led by the Young Turks were able to reclaim Istanbul and force the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) on the Allies. This Treaty formally ended all hostilities and created the modern Republic of Turkey. The new League of Nations also gave the Mandate of Syria to the French and the Mandates of Mesopotamia and Palestine to the British.

THE AFTERMATH OF THE WAR AND THE CARVING UP OF THE MIDDLE EAST

When the hostilities ended Prince Abdullah, the second son of Hussein of Mecca, was a ruler of Trans-Jordan. His third son, Prince Faisal, was the ruler of Syria and parts of Mesopotamia. When Abdul Aziz al Saud defeated Hussein of Mecca in 1924, the latter abdicated his Hashemite Kingdom and other titles to his eldest son, Prince Ali. However, both had to flee Arabia.

The British had decided not to help defend the old King of Arabia, but instead helped his two sons to establish their kingdoms in the Middle East. When the French expelled Faisal from Syria, the British welcomed him in Mesopotamia and granted him the provinces of Baghdad and Basra to form Iraq. In 1926 they added the province of Assyria (Mosul) to the territory of Faisal, and he became known as the Hashemite King Faisal 1 of Iraq. Although early in 1922 the British and the League of Nations had determined to give the whole of Palestine as a homeland to the Jews, by the end of the same year Britain had obtained permission to exclude Trans-Jordan from the deal and rather to establish the Hashemite kingdom under Prince Abdullah there.

Under pressure from the Arabs, the British government withdrew from its commitment to the region under its Mandate. The White Papers of 1930 and 1939 severely restricted Jewish immigration to Palestine, but the growing menace of Adolf Hitler in Germany made it more imperative for the Jews of Europe to escape to their homeland. Throughout all the persecution and extermination in the death camps of Hitler, the British refused to allow the Jews into Palestine. When they defied the British and attempted 'illegal' entry from the sea, the British hunted them down like criminals and incarcerated them behind barbed wire on Cyprus.

Another important fact was the discovery of oil, first in Persia (1908) and later in the whole of the Middle East (1920s-1930s). The West was hungry for oil to feed the expansion of their industries. Since the British granted most of the Middle East to the Arabs after the war, they now became the newly rich and could dictate their wishes to the rest of the world.

The Assyrians in 1918 found themselves in a unique position - after fighting for the British and surviving the persecution of the Muslims, they had gained nothing but instead had lost their land. The Treaty of Sevres in 1920 determined safeguards for the protection of the Assyrians, but Mosul (Nineveh, Assyria) was given to Iraq while France was guaranteed 25% of Mosul's oil production.The Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 refused Turkey's demand to have Mosul returned to them, ostensibly because Britain planned to reserve the region for the future settlement of the Assyrians and Kurds. At the same time the USA was awarded 20% of the oil industry profits.

The Assyrians continued to protest about their mistreatment and continued to send letters to the League of Nations, which requested a report from both the governments of Britain and Iraq about the situation. The Permanent Court of International Justice in The Hague (1927) did not accept the reports of Britain and Iraq and demanded that both countries fulfill their obligations towards the Assyrians.

Even though Britain, Turkey and Iraq admitted to the legitimacy of the Assyrian claim over the region, none were prepared to give justice to their cause. Turkey consistently refused to allow any Assyrian onto their soil, and Iraq continued to persecute those on 'their' soil. Moreover, Britain stood by and washed its hands in innocence after causing this gross travesty of justice. Because the Assyrians are Christians and have not resorted to terrorist activities but instead have followed the legal means at their disposal, the world media have ignored their plight and today they are still landless.

WW II AND ITS EFFECT ON THE MIDDLE EAST

When the war started in 1939, Hitler quickly defeated a few European countries and then proceeded to round up the Jews for his 'final solution' of the Jewish problem. When news of the death camps filtered out to the world, no-one believed these 'preposterous' reports. All countries firmly closed their doors to Jewish immigration. Britain became more adamant to placate the Arabs, and land acquisition became very difficult for the Jews after the 1940 Land Transfer Regulations.

During and after WW II, the British and French departed many parts of the Middle East. The following states had independence restored or became independent: Persia (1941), Lebanon (1943), Syria (1944), Jordan (1946) and Iraq (1947).

When the war ended in 1945 and the atrocities of the holocaust could no longer be denied, the United Nations agreed that the Jews must have a homeland in Palestine (1947). After Britain gave away most of Palestine to the Arabs, only the narrow strip of land between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean Sea was left. Most of the 700,000 non-Jews living in that area were Muslim Arabs from the surrounding states. Nevertheless, the Muslims were bitterly opposed to any Jewish presence in the region. The United Nations proposed to partition this piece of land and create independent Arab and Jewish states. This plan was accepted by the Jewish leaders, but rejected by the Arab leaders.

When on 14 May 1948 the British Mandate expired, the Zionist leadership declared the State of Israel. The troops of the surrounding Muslim states were poised in readiness for the attack. They ordered the Arabs out of Palestine, thereby themselves creating the so-called 'Palestinian problem.' They fully expected to annihilate the Jews, but were defeated by Israel to the surprise of the whole world. They tried again in 1967, and this time Israel was so victorious that it conquered additional territory: the 'Golan Heights' of Syria (ancient land of the tribe of Naphtali) from where Syrian snipers had been harassing Israeli farmers on the shores of the Lake of Galilee; the ancient provinces of Samaria and Judea (now referred to as the 'West bank') as well as the whole of the ancient city of Jerusalem, including the sacred Temple Mount; and lastly the 'Gaza Strip' which also used to be part of Judea.

After the third Muslim defeat of 1973, they realized that they could not achieve their ends through the medium of war and had to design another plan. Yasser Arafat of the Palestine Liberation Organization tried political diplomacy: he invented the 'Palestinian people' as an excuse for his terrorist war against Israel. As there is no language known as Palestinian, no distinct Palestinian culture and there has never been a land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians, there are no historic Palestinians. With the help of the world media, Arafat sold his fantasy to the rest of the world so that sympathy lies with the 'poor, downtrodden' Palestinians and Israel is condemned as the aggressor and accused of unlawful 'settlement activity' on 'legal' Palestinian land.

Conclusion

The two most maligned peoples in the Middle east are the Assyrians who have lost all of their land, and the Israelis who have not even received a quarter of what was originally promised. Furthermore, they are expected to give away more land for the sake of a hollow 'peace accord' with their arch enemies who are still intent on "wiping them off the face of the earth". The one group who has profited the most is the Arab nation, who has acquired most of the Middle East on top of their homeland of Arabia. Yet they are the most vociferous in their complaints against injustice.

The God of the Bible has declared the land of Israel to be His land, [1] the people of Israel to be His people, [2] and the city of Jerusalem to be His holy city. [3] He has pronounced condemnation on anyone who divides His land [4] and divine vengeance on any nation that attacks His people. [5] At the battle of Armageddon He will finally defeat His enemies [6] and establish the reign of the Messiah over the whole world, from His throne in Jerusalem. [7] And every knee shall bow before the Messiah, who is Jesus Christ the Lord God. [8]

"In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria.... The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. In that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing on the earth. The Lord Almighty will bless them, saying, 'Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance.'" [9]

"So shall My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it." [10]

References:

1. 2 Chronicles 7:20; Ezekiel 36:5
2. Deuteronomy 7:6
3. 2 Chronicles 6:6; Ezra 7:15,19; Nehemiah 11:1,18; Psalm 122:1-4; Matthew 4:5
4. Joel 3:1-2
5. Ezekiel 38:18-23; Zechariah 2:8-9, 12:3
6. Revelation 16:16, 19:11,15,21
7. Isaiah 24:23; Jeremiah 23:5-6; Daniel 2:44; Zechariah 14:8-9; Revelation 11:15
8. Psalm 2:7-9; Psalm 72:11; Isaiah 11:4; John 1:1-3, 14
9. Isaiah 19:23-25
10. Isaiah 55:11

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Posted in: Bible by LeopoortRose on January 14, 2012 @ 4:57 pm

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