Israel And The Arab World

By Sunday O. Ajai

A few weeks ago, the President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. His statement shook the whole world especially the Arab league. As expected the Arab nations rejected President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

The Arab league recognised a division of Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine state. Not only do they think Israel has no right to exist as a state, but they think the Jewish people have no right to survive. 

The resistance of the Arab countries to Israel’s national aspiration has always been tied to the Muslim world’s ultimate resistance to the right of the Jewish people to exist at all.

Peaceful co-existence has never been the goal of the Arabs nor even have Jews living dispersed in other lands without a country. The real goals have been the abnegation and in its worst extermination of the Jewish race itself.

This is why Palestine children are taught to hate and kill Jews from the first breath and why the Islamic world throws parties in the streets every time Jewish blood is shed. This is why in radical Islamic theology the successful homicidal maiming and murder of Jews represents the highest aspiration many Palestinian mothers have for their children.

Anti-Israeli sentiment has in fact, become the new anti-Semitism, it makes Israel the new “Collective Jew” which justifies assault on individual Jews as the extension of the state. This hatred – not any other issues – is the true source of murder and terrorism.

It seemed inconceivable to me that Arab countries are 650 times the size of Israel and that by comparison, Israel is the size of Ogun State in Nigeria or Sierra Leone.

The Arab countries are the size of the entire United States, all of Mexico and Central America combined. 

Arab dictators control 13, 486, 861 square kilometers in the Middle East, and Israel controls 20, 770 (Palestinefacts.org).

The population of Israel is roughly 7.8 million, compared to the population of 300 million living in the surrounding Arab countries. The Arab nations are represented by 21 separate countries.

In a publication of the Egyptian state information service, it claimed that Jerusalem is an Arab city. It was printed by Al-Ahram press in Cairo. The book stated on page eight, Jerusalem was invaded by Christian Arab in the year 90 B.C and remained under their domination until it was occupied by the Romans in the first century A.D.

Of course, Arab world’s claim to Jerusalem was based on misinformation. How could a state publication declare a right to Jerusalem based on the presumption that Christian Arabs had invaded Jerusalem 90 years before the birth of Christ? It is the type of propaganda and lies that flood the Arab and Muslim world feeding and fueling the hatred for the Jewish people.

Being a student of the Bible, I know that almost 3, 000 years ago, King David united the Kingdoms of Judea and Israel. He transferred the seat of power from Hebron to Jerusalem, where he ruled for 33 years.

Since then, Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish state, one of the oldest capital cities in the world.

The Jewish people have always maintained Jerusalem as the sole centre of its national and spiritual life.

For thousands of years, Jews have prayed daily for their return to Jerusalem, and for the past century and a half, Jerusalem has had a continuous and uninterrupted Jewish majority.

Jerusalem is the symbol of all that Israel represents in our world. Teddy Kollek, Jerusalem’s first mayor wrote, ‘Jerusalem, this beautiful, golden city, is the heart and soul of the Jewish people’.

The spiritual attachment of the Jews to Jerusalem has remained unbroken; it is a unique attachment. Should one doubt that statement, he would have to look long and hard to find another relationship in history where a people, even in captivity, remained so passionately attached to a city for 3, 000 years. The answer can be found in its spiritual significance. 

Jerusalem is the home of two of the world’s monotheistic faiths – Judaism and Christianity, and is claimed by a third – Islam. When viewing the history of Jerusalem as a whole, no other city has suffered as has David’s City. At times, the city was overrun by violent assailants.

While Christians’ and Muslims’ claims to Jerusalem came much later, the story of the Jews in Jerusalem began three millennia ago and has never ceased. The link of the Jewish people has been historical, religious, cultural, physical, and fundamental. It has never been voluntarily broken; any absence of the Jews from their beloved city has been the result of foreign persecution and expulsion. To the Jews alone belongs David’s City, the City of God.

In 691 A.D, Islamic adherents of the Umayyad dynasty began a campaign to exalt and glorify the city of Jerusalem. Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik built the Dome of the Rock over the Foundation Stone, The Holy of Holies. It was thought to have been erected in direct competition with Christianity. The edifice still stands today. Islam later attributed another event to the Foundation Stone: the binding of the son of Abraham the “Hanif”, the first Monotheist. As the Quran does not explicitly mention the name of Isaac, commentators on the Quran have identified the Son bound by Abraham as Ishmael.

This Islam teaches that the title deed to Jerusalem and temple site and all of Israel belong to the Arabs – not the Jews.

In fact, Mohammed never set foot in Jerusalem nor is the city mentioned by name in the Quran. His only connection to Jerusalem is through his dream or vision where he found himself in a ‘temple that is most remote.’ It was not until the seventh century that Muslim adherents identified the ‘temple most remote’ as a mosque in Jerusalem. I see that as a way of spiritual expansion of Islam. The truth remains that at this site on which now stands the Dome of the Rock, and is sacred to Jews as the Temple site, will be the basis for the battle of ages that will be fought.

Heaven and Earth met in Jerusalem, and will meet there again. The destiny of America and the world is linked to Jerusalem. It is the epicentre of spiritual warfare and it affects the entire world.