In Genesis, God gave irrevocable title to the Holy Land to the Hebrews.
“On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘To your descendants I have given this land – from the river of Egypt to the great River Euphrates – the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.'” These are the spoken words of God recorded by the inerrant Word of God (Genesis 15:18-21).
God reconfirmed the promise in the form of a perpetual Deed of Trust in Genesis 17:7-8, saying, “I will establish My covenant as an everlasting covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. And to you and your descendants I will give the land where you are residing – all the land of Canaan – as an eternal possession; and I will be their God.”
In Numbers 34:1-12, God again spoke personally to Moses as the Hebrews were preparing to cross the Jordan into the promised land, establishing the specific legal boundaries of the deed:
“Your southern border will extend from the Wilderness of Zin along the border of Edom. On the east, your southern border will run from the end of the Salt Sea, cross south of the Ascent of Akrabbim, continue to Zin, and go south of Kadesh-barnea. Then it will go on to Hazar-addar and proceed to Azmon, where it will turn from Azmon, join the Brook of Egypt, and end at the Sea. Your western border will be the coastline of the Great Sea; this will be your boundary on the west. Your northern border will run from the Great Sea directly to Mount Hor, and from Mount Hor to Lebo-hamath, then extend to Zedad, continue to Ziphron, and end at Hazar-enan. This will be your boundary on the north. And your eastern border will run straight from Hazar-enan to Shepham, then go down from Shepham to Riblah on the east side of Ain and continue along the slopes east of the Sea of Chinnereth. Then the border will go down along the Jordan and end at the Salt Sea.”
There is no ambiguity in this matter. God made a binding, perpetual covenant with the Hebrews giving them eternal title to the Holy Land. That covenant was not broken by the Assyrian or Babylonian conquests and mass deportations from the land, nor by the Roman Empire’s “permanent,” enforced banishment of the Hebrews in A.D. 135 when they renamed it “Palestine.” No human power can rescind or nullify a deed granted by God.
Importantly, the deed was to all the Hebrews collectively, not the Jews alone. The modern world has forgotten that “Jew” is a nickname for “Judean,” first used in the Bible when the Judeans of the Southern Kingdom and the Israelites of the Northern Kingdom were at war. The word Hebrew was introduced in Genesis 14:13 in the phrase “Abram the Hebrew,” and later became synonymous with the phase “children of Israel.” Remembering that is essential to properly interpreting the historical restoration of the Jews to the Holy Land by the British Empire in 1917.
While I have never seen the case presented as such in debates about the Jewish/Palestinian conflict, the Christian British liberation of the Holy Land from the Muslim Ottoman Turks in World War I clearly falls under the ancient universal law of war and conquest: to the victor go the spoils. Indeed, this law was well-established in Abram’s day when (again in Genesis 14) he chased down and conquered the Elamite-led forces who had plundered Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim and Zoar and taken many captives, including his nephew Lot. Upon his return in victory he famously divided the spoils and paid the Bible’s first tithe – to Melchizedek.
When the British defeated the Turks they held the universal right of the conqueror and they exercised that right by restoring the Jews to their inheritance via the Balfour Declaration. Notwithstanding modern international law among the world powers and the claims of the conquered Palestinians, both biblically and traditionally the Holy Land became again morally and legally the rightful possession of the Hebrews.
It being the Brits in charge of this land transfer, however, the deal was crafted in such a way as to retain de facto control in furtherance of granting them an advantage in the never-ending geopolitical contest for world domination. Essentially, the British Monarchy cut a deal with Jewish hyper-nationalists (who had formed the political movement known as Zionism in 1893) to let them have Israel on the condition that the country serve as a military outpost representing Western interests on the Muslim frontier. Cut out of that deal were the Christian millennialists who had partnered with the Jews since the 1500s in the extremely influential movement called “British Israelism” and shared the biblical vision of a restoration of the two Hebrew houses (defined by Judaism and Christianity) per such prophecies as Hosea 1-3 and Ezekiel 37. For more on this theme go here.
From the biblical perspective, the Jews have every right to “occupy Palestine” because it has always belonged to them by right, and the failure of the Palestinians to capitulate to Jewish rule makes them responsible for all the natural consequences rebels must face in war – because war is exactly what they have been waging since the Jewish rightful owners of the land returned. And it is to the great shame of the Anglo-American powers that they have given credence to Palestinian ownership clams instead of backing the Jews and forcing the Palestinians to submit to realities or relocate elsewhere. We Americans would never have tolerated in Germany or Japan after WWIII what the Jews have been forced by our geopolitical games to endure since WWI.
And to those misguided Christians who deny the Jewish right to the Holy Land on the grounds that they are not ethnic Hebrews but Khazars (which is true of many but by no means all of them), be aware that the current “right-wing” government fighting for Israel’s survival represents the interests of the Sephardic Jewish minority whose Hebrew heritage has never been in question. (While it is the “Kazarian” dominated Ashkenazi Jews of the hard left Soros and Singer type who invited the current war by taking all the guns away from the people while they were in power and viciously sabotaging the new conservative regime.)
As unacknowledged owners of the other half of the “two house” inheritance, Christians have an equal biblical stake in the Holy Land we will one day share with our spiritual cousins the Jews. We should do all we can to preserve it in Jewish hands until that day.
