Suitcases or Coffins

Speaking at the UN last week, Mahmoud Abbas said that, “If there is an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, we won’t agree to the presence of one Israeli in it.” Abbas is the leader of the terrorist Palestinian Liberation Organization and its political arm, the Palestinian Authority. He is attempting, with slow, but apparently successful steps to have the West Bank declared a Palestinian state.

The West Bank is the colloquial terminology for the hill country of Judea and Samaria, which Israel claimed in the aftermath of the 1967 Six Day War. In the years following the war, Arabs and Muslims have made countless attempts, either by terrorism or negotiations, to “take back” land that was never theirs in the first place – before or after the war. They have referred to the West Bank as “occupied territory” for so long, the world has come to accept their lie that the Jews took their land from them.

For now, let’s set aside the issues and arguments of how the current situation came to be and consider a much greater problem, i.e., What happens to the Israeli citizens who have settled cities and towns in Judea and Samaria if and when the Palestinian Authority is able to gain control over the land? Abbas has already told us: “We won’t agree to the presence of one Israeli in it.”

His statement describes “a state would be the first to officially prohibit Jews or any other faith since Nazi Germany, which sought a country that was “jüdenrein”, or ‘cleansed of Jews’.” The outcome of Palestinian Authority rule was described well by Giulio Meotti in the Israeli National News. The problem is going to be the potential expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Jews who live there now. They would face a choice. Suitcases or coffins. Being subjected to Sharia law, they would have to emigrate as refugees or attempt to remain and eventually be slaughtered.

Now let’s take a reality break. Let’s admit that there are tensions for both Jews and Arabs living in the West Bank. But let’s also admit that Israel has never sought to drive the Arabs out. Despite their leaders’ allegations to the contrary, these Arab people live in relative peace. They are supplied with the necessary infrastructures of modern life. They even have employment in Jewish businesses. From an entirely pragmatic perspective, the current situation is probably as good as it is going to get without people suffering the atrocities that would be permitted, indeed, directed under Sharia law.

There is no possible “Two-State Solution.” Israel knows that. The Arabs know that too, but they have been persistent enough in presenting their case to a largely liberal-minded, anti-Semitic world, the grass roots to the halls of international government, that they are inching toward achieving their ultimate goal.

Israel lives in days like those of Lamentations 1:17 where “Zion stretches out her hands, but there is no one to comfort her. The Lord has decreed for Jacob that his neighbors become his foes; Jerusalem has become an unclean thing among them.” Remember, as you pray with us for the peace of Jerusalem, that it is already a divided city. It needs to be free from the grip of Islam, the dark power of its presence, and the potential of its domination.

For more information see “Abbas Slanders Israel at the UNGA” and “Could Israel Abandon Jews to the Arabs’ Mercies.”