CAST A WARY EYE ON THE TALES spun by the news, for every voice, however learned, carries the hue of human bias. No nation bears the weight of falsehoods and scorn as heavily as Israel, her name entangled in a ceaseless web of myths, woven with threads of deceit. No other people face the International Community’s relentless tide of condemnation, as seen in the United Nations’ countless resolutions that brand her unjustly. Like a lone star assailed by clouds, Israel stands maligned, her truth obscured by a storm of lies.
At the heart of this enmity lies a deeper shadow: the devil’s fervent hatred for the Jewish people, who gifted the world the sacred pages of the Bible and the Savior, Jesus Christ. Is it any wonder, then, that nations swayed by dark whispers echo this ancient grudge? Yet, truth is a flame that will not be quenched. Below unravels a net of myths that shroud Israel, countered by facts that shine like beacons, cutting through the fog of falsehood.
Myth:
"The land of Israel is really the land of Palestine."
Fact:
The term “Palestine” is derived from the Philistines, an Aegean (Greek) people who, in the 12th Century B.C., settled along the Mediterranean coastal plain of what is now Israel and the Gaza Strip. In the 2nd Century A.D., after crushing the last Jewish revolt, the Romans first applied the name Palaestina to Judea (the southern portion of what is now called the West Bank) in an attempt to minimize Jewish identification with the land of Israel. The Arabic word Filastin is derived from Latin.
Truth be told: there is no language known as Palestinian. There is no distinct Palestinian culture. There has never been a land known as Palestine governed by ‘Palestinians’. ‘Palestinians’ are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians (another recent invention), Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, et al. Furthermore, in the 1960s the Arabs co-opted the term after the fact. The so-called ‘Palestinians’ lived mostly in Jordan and Syria. Yasser Arafat, the late leader of the so-called ‘Palestinians’, was actually an Egyptian.
Myth:
"The Jews have no historical claim to Israel."
Fact:
Only one group of people have continuously lived in Israel for the past 3,700 years – the Jews. Jerusalem, in particular, has had a Jewish majority since the 1840s, 40 years prior to the beginnings of Zionism. Seventy-five percent of the land in east Jerusalem, which the press calls “historically Arab East Jerusalem” has been owned by Jews since 1947. The nations that inhabited the land prior to the Jews are no longer in existence, for they have been absorbed into various other peoples throughout the millennia. The Arabs of Israel only came to the land in 632 with the Muslim invasion.
Myth:
"The creation of the state of Israel in 1948 changed political and border arrangements
between independent states that had existed for centuries."
Fact:
The boundaries of most Middle East countries were arbitrarily fixed by the Western powers after Turkey was defeated in World War I and the French and British mandates were set up. The areas allotted to Israel under the U.N. Partition Plan had all been under the control of the Ottomans, who had ruled ‘Palestine’ from 1517 until 1917. When Turkey was defeated in World War I, the French took over the area now known as Lebanon and Syria. The British assumed control of ‘Palestine’ and Iraq. In 1926, the borders were redrawn and Lebanon was separated from Syria. Britain installed the Emir Faisal, who had been deposed by the French in Syria, as ruler of the new kingdom of Iraq. In 1922, the British created the emirate of Transjordan, which incorporated all of ‘Palestine’ east of the Jordan River. This was done so that the Emir Abdullah, whose family had been defeated in tribal warfare in the Arabian peninsula, would have a kingdom to rule. None of the countries that border Israel became independent until this century. Many other Arab nations became independent after Israel.
Myth:
"Israel violates the human rights of the 'Palestinian' Arabs."
Fact:
The facts are different. Israel granted full citizenship to all of the ‘Palestinian’ Arabs who fell within its borders after the War of Independence. Arabic is an official language in Israel. Israel remains to this day one of the few countries in the Middle East where Arabs can legitimately vote — and it is the only one where women can vote.
Myth:
"The Arab states have had to keep pace with an Israeli-led arms race."
Fact:
In most cases, the reverse has been true. Egypt received the Soviet IL-28 bomber in 1955. It was not until 1958 that France provided Israel with a squadron of comparable Sud Vautour twin-jet, tactical bombers. In 1957, Egypt obtained MiG-17 fighter planes. Israel received the comparable Super Mystere in 1959. Egypt had submarines in 1957, Israel in 1959. After the Egyptians obtained the MiG-21, the Israelis ordered the Dassault Mirage III supersonic interceptor and fighter-bomber. Egypt received ground-to-air missiles — the SA-2 — two years before Israel obtained HAWK missiles from the United States. Later, Washington reluctantly agreed to sell Israel Patton tanks.
Myth:
"The West Bank is part of Jordan."
Fact:
The West Bank was never legally part of Jordan. Under the U.N.’s 1947 Partition Plan — which the Jews accepted and the Arabs rejected — it was to have been part of an independent Arab state in western ‘Palestine’. But the Jordanian army invaded and occupied it during the 1948 war. In 1950, Jordan annexed the West Bank. Only two governments — Great Britain and Pakistan — formally recognized the Jordanian takeover. The rest of the world, including the United States, never did. During the 1950-1967 period of its occupation, Jordan permitted terrorists to launch raids into Israel. Amman lost the West Bank after the Jordanian army entered the 1967 war.
Myth:
"Under Israeli rule, religious freedom has been curbed in Jerusalem."
Fact:
After the 1967 war, Israel abolished all the discriminatory laws promulgated by Jordan and adopted its own tough standard for safeguarding access to religious shrines. “Whoever does anything that is likely to violate the freedom of access of the members of the various religions to the places sacred to them,” Israeli law stipulates, “is liable to imprisonment for a term of five years.”
Israel also entrusted administration of the holy places to their respective religious authorities. Thus, for example, the Muslim Waqf has responsibility for the mosques on the Temple Mount.
Myth:
"Israel has been an expansionist state since its creation."
Fact:
Israel’s boundaries were determined by the United Nations when it adopted the partition resolution in 1947. In a series of defensive wars, Israel captured additional territory. On numerous occasions, Israel had withdrawn from these areas. As part of the 1974 disengagement agreement, Israel returned territories captured in the 1967 and 1973 wars to Syria. Under the terms of the 1979, Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, Israel withdrew from the Sinai peninsula for the third time. It had already withdrawn from large parts of the desert area it captured in its War of Independence. After capturing the entire Sinai in the 1956 Suez conflict, Israel relinquished the peninsula to Egypt a year later. In September 1983, Israel withdrew from large areas of Lebanon to positions south of the Awali River. In 1985, it completed its withdrawal from Lebanon, except for a narrow security zone just north of the Israeli border. That too was abandoned, unilaterally, in 2000.
After signing peace agreements with the ‘Palestinians’ and a treaty with Jordan, Israel agreed to withdraw from most of the territory in the West Bank captured from Jordan in 1967. A small area was returned to Jordan and the rest was ceded to the Palestinian Authority. The agreement with the ‘Palestinians’ also involved Israel’s withdrawal, in 1994, from most of the Gaza Strip, which had been captured from Egypt in 1973.
Myth:
"Israel is the aggressor in the current Mideast conflict."
Facts:
One: The ‘Palestinians’ are the aggressors; they started the conflict, and they purposely drive it forward with fresh killing on an almost-daily basis.
Two: The ‘Palestinians’ regarded the second intifada not as a sporadically violent protest movement, but as a war, with the clear strategic aim of forcing a scared and emotionally exhausted Israel to surrender on terms that would threaten Israel’s viability.
Three: As a tactic in this continued strategy, the ‘Palestinians’ will not fight Israeli forces directly but instead have concentrated their efforts on murdering Israeli civilians. The greater the number, the more pathetically vulnerable the victims — disco-goers, women and children in a pizza restaurant — the better.
Four: Israel has acted defensively in this conflict; and while Israeli forces accidentally killed ‘Palestinian’ civilians, their planned lethal attacks have all been aimed only at ‘Palestinian’ military and terror-group leaders.
Myth:
"Jerusalem is Islam's third most holy city."
Fact:
Muslims try to connect Jerusalem to Islam by using a vague passage in the Koran, the seventeenth Sura, entitled, The Night Journey. It relates that in a dream or a vision, Mohammed was carried by night “from the sacred temple to the temple that is most remote, whose precinct we have blessed, that we might show him our signs.” In the 7th Century, some Muslims identified the two temples mentioned in this verse as being in Mecca and Jerusalem. And that is as close as Islam’s connection with Jerusalem gets — myth, fantasy, wishful thinking. Meanwhile, Jews can trace their roots in Jerusalem back to the days of Abraham.
Myth:
"The Temple Mount has always been a Muslim holy place and Judaism has no connection to the
site."
Fact:
The area of Solomon’s Stables is believed to date as far back as the construction of Solomon’s Temple. According to Josephus, it was in existence and was used as a place of refuge by the Jews at the time of the conquest of Jerusalem by Titus in the year 70 A.D. More authoritatively, the Koran — the holy book of Islam — describes Solomon’s construction of the First Temple (34:13) and recounts the destruction of the First and Second Temples (17:7). Jewish connection to the Temple Mount dates back more than 3000 years and is rooted in tradition and history. When Abraham bound his son, Isaac, upon an altar as a sacrifice to God, he did so atop Mount Moriah, today’s Temple Mount.
Concluding Thoughts
The time has come to unravel the tangled myths that cloak Israel, myths whispered in casual talk and blazoned across newsreels. Truth, like a clear stream, must wash away the fog of falsehood. Here, we offer our final reflections, a lantern to guide through the shadows of misunderstanding.
1) Pawn Scums
Time and again, the people called ‘Palestinians’ have been offered land for peace, in 1937, 1947, 1949, 1967, and 2000, yet each overture has been turned away, like a tide refusing the shore. The notion that they burn for statehood is perhaps the greatest myth, a mirage amid a desert of obscured truths about Israel. The dwellers of Gaza and the West Bank have been cast as pawns by their leaders, their lives painting a portrait of hostility toward Israel. Through a ceaseless campaign of propaganda, veiled in deceit, they cry, “Israel is an apartheid state! Israel seeks the ethnic cleansing of Arabs!” These accusations, flung in bad faith, drift like poisoned arrows, despite Israel’s every effort to placate both them and the watching world.
Such myths kindle a fire of anger in young hearts, in ‘Palestine’ and beyond, where history’s lessons lie unlearned. Ignorant of facts, they rally against Israel, their voices swelling a chorus of war. This deception endures, fed by leaders once tied to Fatah and now the Palestinian Authority, figures like Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, who have turned a cause into a grift. Billions in foreign aid, meant to ease suffering, have too often lined the coffers of the powerful, while the Military Industrial Complex reaps its own harvest, profiting as arms flow to Israel and her foes alike. The people, caught in this shadowed game, deserve a clearer light to see the truth of their plight and Israel’s enduring hope for peace.
2) A Fool’s Errand
Israel’s foes, like shadows cast by a relentless storm, vow no rest until the last Jew fades from the earth and Israel’s name is but a whisper on the wind. Yet, their pursuit is a fool’s errand, driven by the devil’s vain ambition to erase God’s chosen and thwart the Second Coming of Messiah Yahushua. Without the Jews and their nation, he imagines the Messiah’s return undone, a futile dream to seize a throne not his. But the Lord Jesus, speaking to Jerusalem’s heart, unveiled a truth unshakable: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate; for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’” (Matthew 23:37-39).
In these words, Christ foretold a day when Israel, with one voice, will cry, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!” Then, Mashiach-Nagid will descend upon Jerusalem, His glory a blazing dawn, to judge her enemies and a wayward world. From that moment, the Messianic era will unfold, His thousand-year reign a tapestry of peace and justice. This prophecy, yet to bloom, is the very one the devil seeks to uproot, believing he might rule in Yeshua’s stead. But God’s promises are as certain as the stars. Jesus has already triumphed, and Satan’s schemes will crumble like dust. After the seven-year Great Tribulation, Messiah Yeshua will return to reign in His Millennial Kingdom, wielding His scepter of iron from Jerusalem’s eternal heart (Revelation 2:27). As prophecy declares, when the earth quakes and nations falter, Jerusalem will stand unmoved: “Now the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell” (Revelation 16: 19a). At the seventh Bowl Judgment, when creation trembles, Israel’s city will shine as a beacon, anchored by divine decree.
3) A Landed Estate
On a day heavy with destiny, Christ Jesus stood within Jerusalem’s Temple, its stones aglow with ancient reverence. As He departed, His disciples marveled at its grandeur, but He spoke a solemn prophecy: “Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said to them, ‘Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down’” (Matthew 24:1-2). His words, sharp as a divine chisel, foretold the Temple’s ruin, a fate sealed in 70 A.D. when its walls crumbled to dust.
This Temple, standing proud in the first century, and the Jewish people who called Eretz Yisrael home, bear witness to a truth etched in time: the Jews dwelt in the Land of Israel long before any were named ‘Palestinians.’ Their bond to this sacred soil, unbroken through centuries, is no fleeting claim but a legacy woven by God’s own hand. Here, the Jewish people have rooted their belonging, a heritage as enduring as the hills. Scripture sings of this divine gift in Amos: “‘I will plant them in their land, and no longer shall they be pulled up from the land I have given them,’ says the Lord your God” (Amos 9:15).
When God forged His covenant with Abraham, promising the expanse of Eretz Yisrael, it was a vow extended to the heirs of Jacob, renamed Israel, whose descendants would carry his name. The full flowering of this promise, Israel’s complete embrace of the Promised Land, awaits a radiant future. When that day dawns, the Jews will stand unyielding, never again torn from their God-given home. This prophecy, like a star fixed in heaven’s vault, will shine forth, fulfilled by the One whose word never fails.