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Yavo Prayer Partner Tape
Dr. Roy Blizzard

March - April 1991
(but just as pertinent in 2023 as it was in 1991!)

As we all know, recent events in the Middle East have led to some very interesting situations historically, economically, and politically, and there is in the wind today, as perhaps there has not been in recent time, much talk about peace in the Middle East.  I think all men of good will desire peace and are searching after peace.  The real question before us is, is peace in the Middle East imminent?  What's going on in the Middle East?  Why will peace in the Middle East be most difficult if, in fact, not impossible to achieve?  Why are there so many problems?  Why is it so difficult for people to sit down and negotiate together?  Why can't two intelligent, logical-thinking individuals or nations sit down and arrive at some kind of agreement that will be to the benefit of all concerned?  What makes the Middle East unique?  What make the situation in the Middle East unique?  What makes, even more specifically, the search for peace between Israel and the Arab world so unique, so difficult?

In answer to these questions, I would like to share with you some information.  Much of the information I am borrowing from my good friend Mr. Clarence Wagner and from his excellent publication The Dispatch from Jerusalem.  In one of the recent editions, he shared some very important information about the situation in the Middle East, and, in particular, the causative factor behind the situation.  And further, I want to go beyond that and further enforce some of the things that I will be sharing with you with exact quotes from the Palestinian National Covenant that set forth the policies toward which the Palestinian world has directed and focused its attention since 1968.  Maybe, after sharing with you this information, you'll understand more about the unique problems confronting Israel in its search for lasting peace.

In order to understand why peace in the Middle East, and especially peace for Israel, is so difficult, one must first understand some very important facts about the Moslem religion, the Moslem mentality, the Moslem mind.  In sharing with you these facts, I think that, as we progress in our study, it will become self-explanatory why peace in the Middle East is such an elusive thing.

Worldwide Islamic population is now approaching one billion.  Roughly one in every five people on the earth today is a Moslem.  By far, the largest national Islamic population is in, of all places, Indonesia where approximately ninety percent of the 175 million people are Moslems.  Following this is Pakistan with 91 million.  Third is India with 87.6 million, and fourth is Bangladesh with 83.5 million.  Other large Muslim populations exist in the Soviet Union, around 50 million, and China, estimated to be as high as 100 million.

One principal object of our study is to illustrate how very wide-spread and how numerous Moslems are throughout the world, in Asia and other parts of the world well outside the Arab Middle East.  By the year 2020, the Islamic population is projected to explode to 1.9 billion.  Among the fastest growing nations in the world, eleven out of twenty-five have majority Muslim populations.  The birth rate in Islamic countries is another factor--forty-two per one thousand--while in the western world it is only thirteen per one thousand.

In 1974, at a meeting of the World Moslem League, an Islamic world missions board was formed.  It was also decided that all Islamic universities would train missionaries to systemically spread Islamic doctrine.  At the International Islamic Conference in 1976, it was said, if we can win London for Islam it won't be hard to win the whole western world.  Now London is the site of the largest mosque in western Europe.  It is situated in Regent's Park along with an Islamic university.  In 1945, there was only one mosque in England.  By 1950, there were twenty-five; in 1960, 80; in 1976, 200; and in 1989, over 1000.  In England, as well as France and Sweden, Moslems are already the second largest religious body.  Christianity Today reports that there are now more Moslems than Methodists, both in Britain and in the United States.  It is estimated that within three years, there will be more Moslems than Jews in the United States.  In North America in 1990, there are five million Moslems and seven million Jews.  In Mecca, a powerful international radio station called the Voice of Islam has as one of its objectives the scrambling and drowning out of Christian stations spreading the Gospel throughout Africa.  There are over twenty-five Islamic radio corporations involved in this particular project.  Since Islam is a major religious, political, and economic force in the world today in active conflict with Christianity, Judaism, Israel, and the west, it is incumbent on us all to learn as much as we possibly can of its background, as well as its triumphalist goals.

The religion of Islam was founded in Arabia by Muhammad between 610 and 632 of the present era.  It has about one billion adherents today, found mainly in countries stretching from Morocco in the west to Indonesia in the east.  However, as previously mentioned, growing Moslem communities are emerging in western nations through migration, as well as active missionary activity.

The prophet Muhammad was born in 570 A.D. at Mecca and belonged to the Kuresh tribe, which was active at that time in caravan trade.  At the age of twenty-five, he joined the caravan trade from Mecca to Syria in the employment of a rich widow, Kadiji, whom he later married.  Muhammad was critical of the idolatry of the inhabitants of Mecca, which was a cultic center of pre-Islamic religious worship in his day, and he began to lead a contemplative life out in the desert.  There he claimed to have received a series of revelations, and, encouraged by Kadiji, he gradually became convinced that he was given a god-appointed task to devote himself to the reform of religion and society.  Idolatry was to be abandoned.  Mecca was to be the focus of his reformation and his religion.  However, to his dismay, the Meccans rejected his revelations.  The beginning of what we know today as the Moslem era began in 622 with the Hijrah (migration) of Muhammad from Mecca, where he was not received or honored, to Medina where he was very well received.

In 624, Muhammad and a small band of his Moslem followers achieved a small victory against a Meccan army protecting a caravan.  However, Muhammad was defeated in two subsequent battles with the Meccans and did not achieve his desired conquest of Mecca.  The Moslem community continued to grow and thrive, and in 628, Muhammad and his followers wanted to attack Mecca, but instead, they planned a pilgrimage to Mecca.  At Mecca, he signed a 10-year peace treaty with the Meccans to gain access into the city.  Two years later, however, the treaty was broken and the Moslems conquered Mecca in 630.

Muhammad died at Medina in 632, and his grave, located there until today, has since been a place of pilgrimage.  Before Muhammad, the Arabs had worshipped some 360 idols, representing the spirits and divinities found in Hijaz, or Arabia.  One of the high gods of the 360 idols was a god called Allah, known as a creator god.  Interestingly, there were three goddesses known as daughters of Allah who were also worshipped, called Allat, Manat, and Usa.  The pre-Islamic conception of Allah was significantly different from the notion of Allah in Islam, which Muhammad redefined and developed as the focus of a monotheistic movement.  Nevertheless, the nature and character of Allah have caused some to question whether the Allah of Islam is the same as Elohim of the Bible.

While at the university, I was asked that question on numerous occasions by some of my students.  Instinctively I knew the answer and responded, no.  But it was only later, a year or two after I had first been asked the question, that we had a new professor join the faculty in the Hebrew Studies Department or program at the university.  His name was Aryeh Loyah, the former ambassador from Israel to the African state of Chad.  Aryeh had been born in Baghdad.  Arabic was his native language, and yet he was a Jew.  He was an authority in Islam and Islamic literature.  One day, when another student came and asked me this question, "Is Allah of Islam the same as Elohim of the Bible?", (that is, when the Moslem prays to Allah, is it the same as when the child of God prays to Elohim?), I said, let's go ask Aryeh, as his office was right next to mine.  He didn't even pause, and responded in the negative, just as I had, no.  When asked, why do you say that?, he said that although there is a linguistic affinity from Arabic to Hebrew between Allah and Elohim, the nature of the god of Islam is totally foreign and contrary to that of Elohim of the Bible.

Long before Muhammad, an important element of the pagan worship of the ancient Arabs was the pilgrimage to Mecca to walk around a sacred black stone known as the Ka'ba.  In this sacred site, the 360 pre-Islamic deities were worshipped.  When Muhammad eventually conquered Mecca, he proceeded to destroy the idols and to rededicate the sacred black stone to Islam, teaching that it was originally dedicated to Allah by Abraham.  Muhammad maintained all the other remnants of ancient worship at the Ka'ba, keeping it as a focus of Islamic worship.  To this day, one of the five pillars of Moslem faith is making the pilgrimage to Mecca to walk around the holy Ka'ba.

Muhammad's followers are called Muslims or Moslems.  The word Muslim or Moslem means "one who submits."  His followers revered him as the prophet of Allah, beside whom, Muhammad said, "There is no other god."  Although Muhammad had no intimate knowledge of either Judaism or Christianity, he considered himself as succeeding, completing, and even superseding them as the seal of the prophets.  Under Muhammad, Islam succeeded in uniting an Arab world that had disintegrated into nothing more than tribes and castes.  Disagreements concerning the succession of the prophet caused a great division into two main groups, the Sunnis and the Shiites.  Doctrinal issues also led to the rise of different schools of thought and theology, and other sects as well arose within the two main groups.  Nevertheless, since Arab armies turned against Syria and Palestine in 635, Islam has expanded successfully under Muhammad's successors.  Its rapid conquests in Asia and Africa are unsurpassed in all of human history.  Turning against Europe, the Moslems conquered Spain in 713.  In 1453, Constantinople fell into their hands.  In 1529, Moslem armies besieged Vienna  Since then, Islam has lost its foothold in Europe, but has made, as I previously mentioned, great gains in Africa and Asia until today.  Islam is one of the fastest-growing religions in the world with an aggressive missionary program.

But what is all of that to us?  Remember, the word Moslem means one who submits.  Islam, the religion, means submission, surrendering all to Allah.  A Moslem practices Islam; that is, submitting to the will of Allah.  The Moslem clergy cannot talk or write about the faith to non-Moslems nor question the teachings of the prophet Muhammad.

It is going to be in the understanding of the principal points of Islam that we will learn why peace in the Middle East is so elusive.

First, Islam teaches that it is superior to all other religions, and a Moslem is superior to all others.  Islam cannot be influenced by outside sources.  Allah is the all-powerful whose will is supreme and determines man's fate.  Muhammad taught that God first gave the revelation of truth to the Jews who perverted it.  Then He gave it to the Christians who also perverted it.  Finally, He gave it to Muhammad, the last of the prophets, who refined it, purified it, and who supersedes all others.  Muhammad went on to state that Allah had spoken before to Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and other prophets known in the biblical record of Judaism and Christianity, but that Allah had given to him the one true and superior revelation unto which all others must submit.  Christianity and Judaism are considered nothing more than altered forms of Islam.  While Christians and Jews are called people of the book, they are, nonetheless, inferior and therefore second-class citizens in an Islamic state, and further, must submit to Islamic law.

To the Moslem, all that is relevant in life is Islamic.  All Old and New testament Bible characters and events are a part of Moslem history--Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, even Jesus were all good Moslems.  Hence, mosques, the Islamic places of prayer, have been placed at all Jewish and Christian holy places throughout Israel and the lands of the Bible.  For example, during the Jordanian occupation of the west bank from 1948 to 1967, a mosque was built in Manger Square in Bethlehem which, as you know, is a Christian town.  But beyond that, the minaret on the mosque was built intentionally higher than the bell tower of the Church of the Nativity to once again express the superiority of Islam over Christianity.

The scripture bases of the Islamic faith are the Qur'an, which means recitations, regarded as the uncreated, eternal word of God, or Allah, and the Hadit, or traditions, containing the Sunnah, the way or path, exemplified in the sayings and deeds of the prophet Muhammad.  The Qur'an, however, in fact is nothing more than a mixture of desert folklore and customs, along with the revelations of Muhammad and numerous elements and teachings from both Judaism and Christianity.

The most important unit in Islam, it is taught, is the Ummah, or the community of fate, that is sustained by faithful adherence and practice of the words written in the Qur'an and Sunnah.  All of this can be very disconcerting to the non-Moslem when we consider the exclusivity and the militancy of many of these teachings.  For example, Muhammad said, "Swords are the keys of Paradise.  A sword is a sufficient witness.  Expel the Jews and the Christians from the Arabian peninsula.  The unbeliever and the one who kills him will never meet in hell.  A day and a night of fighting on the frontier is better than a month of fasting and prayer."  All quotes from no less than Muhammad himself.

Islam is based upon what are known as the five principles or pillars of faith.  Perhaps you have seen a piece of jewelry that looks like a hand, frequently worn especially by women around the neck.  Or you'll see that hand on the back of Arab vehicles, especially taxicabs in Arab lands, as well as Israel.  Very few people know what this particular piece of jewelry represents.  It's known in Arabic as the chamsah, which means five, and it refers to the five basic tenets or pillars of Islamic faith.

These five pillars of Islamic faith are:

1.  Witness--confessing, "There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet.
2.  Prayer--to be performed five times a day facing Mecca and the sacred Ka'ba.
3.  Zakat--almsgiving to the poor and to the mosque.
4.  Fasting--during the daylight hours in the month of Ramadan.
5.  The Haj--the pilgrimage to Mecca to be undertaken at least once in one's lifetime.

Most sources today add a sixth pillar, which is jihad, meaning exertion in the way of God, or holy war.  When one hears the word jihad, what comes to mind is war, but the meaning is actually exertion in carrying out this holy war.  Jihad has a personal connotation in the continuing inner exertion against the straying tendencies of individual Moslems from the tenets of Islam.  Also, a more global connotation where jihad is an ongoing warfare against evil and the enemies of Islam and the struggle in the world to spread Islamic truth.  With jihad, Islam is to spread the "dar al Islam," the household of submission, meaning the territories governed by Moslems under the shari'a, or Moslem law in the place of the "dar el harb," or the household of warfare in those lands lacking the security and guidance of Allah.

Another very interesting point of Islamic faith that would help us understand some of the suicide missions undertaken in Israel against Jews is that any Moslem killed in a jihad immediately ascends to Paradise and to the presence of Muhammad.  The concept of Paradise in Islam is quite different from that of Heaven or the world to come in either Judaism or Christianity.  In this world, the Moslem is not allowed to indulge in many things.  For example, no alcohol.  And the relationship with women is quite unlike that in the western world.  There are many things that the Moslem in this life in this world is deprived of.  But when he enters into Paradise and receives his eternal reward, all of the things that were not allowed to him in this world will be free for his indulgence in the world to come--wine, women, and song.  So it's quite attractive and appealing, especially to the poor young Moslem adolescent who is languishing away in some refugee camp to know that, simply through carrying out this deed of eliminating many of the infidels from the face of the earth, he can be ushered immediately into the presence of Muhammad in Paradise.

Predestination is another major tenet of Islamic faith.  Everything that happens, according to Islam, is the predestined will of Allah.  Of course, that kind of theology quite naturally leads to fatalism.  Inshallah, God willing, is the byword of the Arab world.  Submission is demanded.  Prayer is submission, and a Moslem must pray five times a day.  However, the prayer is not created by the individual, but is nothing more than rote memory from the Qur'an, even with preset gestures.

Another feature of Islamic faith is their concept of sin.  There is no sin concept in Islam.  Only the concept of shame, the loss of face, honor versus dishonor to the Ummah or to the community.  That's the reason one will go to great lengths to save face, to keep from losing face.  It's also one reason that those of us in the western world must learn how to negotiate with those of the Islamic faith in such a way as to allow them a way to save face.  Sin, according to Islam, doesn't change man's inner nature, nor does it affect God.  God's not a savior in Islam because man is not a sinner.  Therefore, there is no absolute right or wrong, but situation ethics, and no need for divine forgiveness; no doctrine or need of salvation or redemption.  The situation determines the action, not a standard of absolute right or wrong.

Gaz'ali, a Moslem theologian, once wrote that a lie is not wrong in itself.  If a lie is the only way of obtaining a good result, it is permissible.  We must lie when truth leads to unpleasant results (just to give you some idea of situational ethics).

Islam believes that all humans have a fitrah, or sound constitution or conscience, and that Allah and the Qur'an will bring men back to truth, and that man, even non-Moslems, inherently thirsts for justice and balance.  Islam teaches that Allah sends prophets to guide man, and if he follows, he will ultimately end up in Paradise.  If he doesn't, his end will be fire.

The major theme of the Qur'an, and this is one of the principal differences between the Qur'an and the Bible, is not love.  Allah is not a god of love, but a god of strict justice.

Another very important point is that Islam is nonprogressive.  Christianity and Judaism are progressive.  They are always moving forward to express and encourage that which is good.  Islam is circular.  It always seeks to return to the pure Islam practiced by Muhammad.  There is a resistance to anything progressive called bid'ah, or heresy, particularly if it is perceived as detracting from pure Islamic practice.  This was the perception which led to the ouster of the Shah of Iran, for example, who introduced the 20th century to Iran.  Also, the brutal murder of Anwar Sadat who dared to make peace with Israel.

In Islam, there is no such thing as individualism.  The good of the Ummah, the community, is the main interest in Islam, not the individual.  Personal initiative is not good, not encouraged.  A non-Moslem can live in a Moslem country as a second- or third-class citizen, but must submit and not offend Islam or a Moslem.  Nothing can be superior to Islam.  A church steeple cannot be higher than a mosque minaret.  A Christian cannot rise in overall rank above a Moslem.  For example, the principal of a school, a head of state, or, as more recently, the general of an army.

In Islam, all truth is measured by the Qur'an, Muhammad, and his Sunnah, or way or path.  The average Moslem believes the Bible has been corrupted to hide the predictions of the coming of Muhammad.  The Qur'an mentions the names of some of the Bible prophets and even given interpretations of some Bible events, including the birth of Jesus.  But most Moslems do not know the historical context of Bible events, or even pre-Islamic history in general.  All history and truth, for the Moslem, is placed in some kind of an Islamic time warp.  History is unimportant for the Moslem because Muhammad is the seal of the prophets, and the Qur'an contains all the revelations that the Moslem needs to satisfy God.  The Qur'an is the constitution of a Moslem nation, the basis of government policy and law.  The government and theology are the same.  There can be no true democracy, nor the idea of separation of church and state.  Governments become dictatorial and theocratic as expressed by the leader who is the servant of Muhammad.  For example, even though Iraq is called a democratic republic, it is nothing more than pure despotism, and its president for life, Saddam Hussein, happened to have gained power by personally shooting his predecessor in the head, and unfortunately continues to rule by the bullet, not the ballot.  The United States made a terrible, terrible mistake in not finishing the job that it set out to do, seeing that Saddam Hussein was removed from power one way or another.

Islam seeks to have the shari'a, or Moslem law based on the Qur'an and the Sunnah, enforced in every Islamic nation.  Moslem law has not been revised since the Dark Ages when it was written.  It's meant to keep the people in fear and subjection by including punishments still practiced in many Islamic countries, such as public beheading, chopping off hands, whippings in the town square.  Slavery is even considered legal in Islam.  That's why many young western women are kidnapped in their travels throughout Europe, and carried off into Moslem countries and sold into slavery.  Even non-Moslems in Islamic lands are forced to abide by Moslem law.

Another interesting point of Moslem theology is their attitude toward territory and conquest.  The spreading of Islam is through territorial conquest.  Once Islam has controlled an area, it is regarded as always being Islamic.  What I am about to tell you is of the utmost importance in understanding the problem of any kind of a meaningful solution to the problems in the Middle East between Israel and the Arab world.  If the territory is lost to non-Moslems, it is believed that the nature of Allah has been diminished.  In order to be revived, the territory must be regained.  In relations between nations, there is the concept of the house of peace, a Moslem nation to a Moslem nation, and the house of war, a Moslem nation to a non-Moslem nation.  You can never get out of the house of war unless you become a Moslem nation.  A nation is considered to be Moslem when its leader is a Moslem.  True peace can never be achieved between Moslems and non-Moslems.  The concept of jihad is always in force to spread Islam through territorial conquest, or to reclaim Islamic territory that has been lost.  Of course, that relates directly to Israel, as well as Lebanon.  Christianity and Judaism both hold the view that "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord."  But in Islam, it is the duty of the Moslem community to avenge Allah.  Therefore, there can be no peace with non-Moslems, in the western understanding of peace, as coexistence between societies or even pluralism in a society, because in Islam, everything is inferior to Islam and never equal.  Islam cannot and will never accept Israel.  First and foremost, Israel is governed by Jews, making it a Jewish state, thus non-Moslem, which places Israel into the house of war.  Second, Israel became a modern state in the post-Ottoman period, the Ottoman empire having been Islamic.  In fact, Moslems conquered the land presently called Israel as far back as 638 of the present era, and therefore Allah was diminished when his territory was taken by non-Moslems and must be reclaimed by the Moslem community.  It is immaterial that the land of Israel was given to the Jews in a covenant with God, or that the Jews have a prior historical or religious claim, because the Moslems are in a historical time warp.  For them, history is unimportant.  And remember, Jews and Christians were the ones who perverted Allah's word and therefore have no authority over the Moslem.

That may raise the question: Why, then, did Anwar Sadat of Egypt sign an accord with Israel?  Why is Egypt today still in some kind of peace agreement with Israel?  The answer is quite simple.  Under Islam, you can make an armistice while your enemy is stronger than you, and if the armistice is good for the Ummah.  However, when the enemy is perceived to be weaker, war is imperative and demanded by the Qur'an.  Hence, the wars with Israel in 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973.  It's only when we know all of these facts regarding Islam and the Moslem mind that we are able to understand how truly difficult, if not nigh impossible, any kind of lasting peace in the Middle East is.  Only when your enemy is stronger than you.  So, you see, it is imperative that the United States of America take a strong stance for Israel and allow them to take a strong stance.  Were it not, quite frankly, for the United States, Israel would have been able to solve this problem quite some time ago.  Had it not been for the interference of the United States in Lebanon, Israel would have taken care of the Palestinian problem back then.  We would not have lost close to three hundred of our young men in Lebanon at the hands of Arab extremists.  Israel would not be expending much of her annual budget on military equipment and preparations for war.  She would not be having problems with such things as the intifadah, the uprising that is continuing into its second or third year, were it not for the interference of the United States.

Why do we interfere?  Because we have this naive, Pollyanna philosophy that somehow, in some way, the Arab world is going to be able to sit down and in a rational, reasonable, intelligent, logical way work out some kind of mutual agreement that will lead to peace.

Keep in mind the house of war and the house of peace.  They can never coexist!  There can never be peaceful coexistence!  There can never be pluralism.  The only thing they understand is power.  So only when Israel is strong and we allow them to be strong and to take a strong stance and to have a strong military posture, and even though, at times, it might seem to be even, shall we say, cruel, then and only then can there be any semblance of peace in the Middle East.  You can make an armistice only when your enemy is stronger than you and if an armistice is good for the Ummah, but if the enemy is ever perceived to be weaker, then war is imperative and demanded by the Qur'an.

All of this is further reinforced in what is known as the Palestinian National Covenant.  This covenant was agreed upon by the Arab world in 1968 and is basically the bill of rights, so to speak, of the Palestinian world.

Quoting from the Palestinian National Covenant, Al Mit'aq Al Watani Al Palestine:

ARTICLE 1 -- Palestine is the homeland of the Palestinian-Arab people and an integral part of the great Arab homeland.  The people of Palestine are a part of the Arab nation.
ARTICLE 2 -- Palestine with the boundaries that existed at the time of the British mandate is an integral regional unit.
ARTICLE 3 -- The Palestinian-Arab people possess the legal right to its homeland, and when the liberation of its homeland is completed, it will exercise self-determination solely to its own will and choice.
ARTICLE 4 -- The Palestinian personality is an innate persistent characteristic that does not disappear, and it is transferred from father to son.  The Zionist occupation and the dispersal of the Palestinian-Arab people as a result of the disasters which came over it do not deprive it of its Palestinian personality and affiliation and do not nullify them.

(I remember a number of years ago sitting in a hotel in Amman, Jordan, with a gentleman who was a member of the PLO and one of the sidekicks of George Habash, one of the principal leaders of the Palestinian terrorist movement.  He told me face to face about himself and his family, and about his association with the terrorist movement.  He didn't know who I was.  He told me that he had been born in what he called Palestine in a little city close to Bethlehem.  He said, "I'm teaching my little 5-year-old girl that that is her home.  That's where she's from; she's not a Jordanian.  And when anyone asks her where her home is, she knows the name of her city, and she knows that one day they will regain the land and that will be her home.  I asked what if that's not accomplished in her time.  He said, we'll teach it to our children's children and to their children after them.  That's the mentality, and it carries over into many other areas and aspects of life as well.

The last time I was in Israel, talking to one of my very good friends in Bethlehem who is an Arab-Christian merchant, he was talking about the Palestinians and the intifadah and the uprising, how afraid they all were, and I said, why don't you rise up against them?  Why don't you just do what you want to do?  Why do you follow their directives?  He said, because we don't know who they are.  If we don't follow their directives, we'll be burned out.  Our houses, our stores will be burned.  I said, why don't you post guards, take some kind of action?  He said, it doesn't make any difference.  If you cross them, they may not get you this week, they may not get you this moth, but eventually they'll get you.  So we have no alternative but to go along with them because we don't know who they are, and if they don't get us now, they'll get us sometime in the future.

That very day, three businesses in his immediate area were burned to the ground by the leaders of the Palestinian uprising because the storekeepers had dared to go against the directives of the leaders of the intifadah, so in article 4 of the Palestinian covenant, we see how far-reaching this particular concept is.)

ARTICLE 5 -- The Palestinians are the Arab citizens who were living permanently in Palestine until 1947 whether they were expelled from there or remain.  Whoever is born to a Palestinian-Arab father after this date within Palestine or outside it is a Palestinian.
ARTICLE 6 -- Jews who were living permanently in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion will be considered Palestinians.

(Well, what do they consider to be the beginning of the Zionist invasion?  I suppose that that depends, because the Zionist movement began as early as the late 1800's, so all of this would be basically irrelevant in view of the fact that there are probably very few Jews living in Israel today who were there before what one could say was the beginning of the Zionist invasion.)

ARTICLE 7 -- The Palestinian affiliation and the material, spiritual, and historical ties with Palestine are permanent realities.  The upbringing of the Palestinian individual in an Arab and revolutionary fashion, the undertaking of all means of forging consciousness and training the Palestinian in order to acquaint him profoundly with his homeland, spiritually and materially, and preparing him for the conflict and the armed struggle, as well as for the sacrifice of his property and his life to restore his homeland until the liberation -- all of this is a national duty.

(Do you see the mentality of Islam coming through in this covenant?  This is word for word exactly as it is written.  Do you see the religion coming through, where, in Article 7, it is their duty to prepare themselves to forge their consciousness, to acquaint them with the homeland, to prepare them for armed struggle, as well as for the sacrifice of their very lives in order to restore the homeland?  It is this idea again that if one dies in the killing of an infidel, he is immediately ushered into the presence of Muhammad.)

ARTICLE 8 -- The phase in which the people of Palestine are living is that of the national struggle for the liberation of Palestine.  Therefore, the contradictions among the Palestinian national forces are of a secondary order which must be suspended in the interest of the fundamental contradiction between Zionism and colonialism on the one side and the Palestinian-Arab people on the other.  On this basis, the Palestinian masses, whether in the homeland or in places of exile, organizations and individuals comprise one national front which acts to restore Palestine and liberate it through armed struggle.

(Notice there is no mention of any kind of a peaceful negotiation, or even an attempt at negotiation.  But notice also that the masses, whether in the homeland or in places of exile are obligated to undertake this struggle.  Therefore, the intifadah, the present uprising.  That's why it's so easy for this uprising to be orchestrated from places outside of Israel.)

ARTICLE 9 -- Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine, and is therefore a strategy and not tactics.  The Palestinian-Arab people affirms its absolute resolution and abiding determination to pursue the armed struggle and to march forward toward the armed popular revolution, to liberate its homeland and return to it, to maintain its right to a natural life in it, and to exercise its right of self-determination in it and sovereignty over it.

(Once again, the armed struggle for liberation.)

ARTICLE 10 -- Fedayin action forms the nucleus of the popular Palestinian war of liberation.  This demands its promotion, extension, and protection, and the mobilization of all the mass and scientific capacity of the Palestinians, their organization and involvement in the armed Palestinian revolution, and cohesion in the national struggle among the various groups of the people of Palestine, and between them and the Arab masses to guarantee the continuation of the revolution, its advancement, and victory.
ARTICLE 11 -- The Palestinians will have three mottoes: National unity, national mobilization, and liberation.

(Remember, "national" means all Palestinians, whether in or out of the land.  They are united as one, mobilized as one, for the holy war of liberation.)

ARTICLE 12 -- The Palestinian-Arab people believes in Arab unity.  In order to fulfill its role in realizing this, it must preserve, in this phase of its national struggle, its Palestinian personality and the constituents thereof increase consciousness of its existence and resist any plan that tends to disintegrate or weaken.
ARTICLE 13 -- Arab unity and the liberation of Palestine are two complementary aims.  Each one paves the way for the realization of the other.  Arab unity leads to the liberation of Palestine, and the liberation of Palestine leads to Arab unity.  Working for both goes hand in hand.

(This explains why, in the recent war in the Middle East in Iraq, the Palestinians as a whole were behind Saddam of Iraq, because they felt that in being united as a people it would lead to the liberation of Palestine.  Saddam was smart enough, realizing the mentality of the Arab and the Palestinian, to play his hand to the hilt.  Television showed the masses of Palestinian people, both in Israel and Jordan, even King Hussein of Jordan, forced by the Palestinian population into a position of appeasement and even unity and sympathy with the country of Iraq and Saddam Hussein, because the Arab believes that unity and the liberation of Palestine go hand in hand.)

ARTICLE 14 -- The destiny of the Arab nation, indeed, the very Arab existence, depends on the destiny of the Palestinian issue.  The endeavor and effort of the Arab nation to liberate Palestine follows from this connection.  The people of Palestine assumes its vanguard role in realizing this sacred national aim.
ARTICLE 15 -- The liberation of Palestine, from an Arab viewpoint, is a national duty to repulse the Zionist imperialist invasion from the great Arab homeland and to purge the Zionist presence from Palestine.  Its full responsibilities fall upon the Arab nation, peoples, and governments, with the Palestinian-Arab people at their head.  For this purpose, the Arab nation must mobilize its military, human, material, and spiritual capabilities to participate actively with the people of Palestine.  They must, especially in the present stage of armed Palestinian revolution, grant and offer the people of Palestine all possible help and every material and human support, and afford it every sure means and opportunity enabling it to continue to assume its vanguard role in pursuing its armed revolution until the liberation of its homeland.

(Liberation is not the only goal, but the actual driving or purging of the Zionist presence from Palestine.  Remember the words of Nasser of Egypt in 1967 when he said we're going to drive the Jews into the sea.  There is no pluralism.  It's not both/and; it's either/or.  We're talking in this context once again about the house of war and the house of peace.)

ARTICLE 16 -- The liberation of Palestine from a spiritual viewpoint will prepare an atmosphere of tranquility and peace for the Holy Land, in the shade of which all the holy places will be safeguarded and freedom of worship and visitation to all will be guaranteed without distinction or discrimination of race, color, language, or religion.  For this reason, the people of Palestine looks to the support of all the spiritual forces in the world.

(What a contradiction!  Remember, in Islam the Moslem is superior to all others.  Even to this day in Israel, one cannot visit the Moslem holy sites on the Moslem holy day, which happens to be Friday, unless he is a Moslem.  There is already religious discrimination.  A non-Moslem cannot enter the holy sites during the five daily times for prayer.)

ARTICLE 17 -- The liberation of Palestine, from a human viewpoint, will restore to the Palestinian man his dignity, glory, and freedom.  For this, the Palestinian-Arab people looks to the support of those in the world who believe in the dignity and freedom of man.
ARTICLE 18 -- The liberation of Palestine, from an international viewpoint, is a defensive act, necessitated by the requirements of self-defense.  For this reason, the people of Palestine, desiring to befriend all peoples, looks to the support of the states which love freedom, justice and peace in restoring the legal situation to Palestine, establishing security and peace in its territory, and enabling its people to exercise national sovereignty and national freedom.

(What baloney!  What a contradiction!  Desiring to befriend all peoples!  What about the Christian?  What about the Jew who loves freedom and justice and peace?  To restore the legal situation to Palestine?  What was the legal situation of Palestine before the British mandate?  Before the establishment of a Palestinian state?  Before the establishment of the state of Jordan?  Again, we have this historical time warp that causes them to separate themselves from reality and from the facts of history.)

ARTICLE 19 -- The partitioning of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of Israel is fundamentally null and void, whatever time has elapsed, because it was contrary to the wish of the people of Palestine and its natural right to its homeland and contradicts the principles embodied in the charter of the United Nations, the first of which is the right of self-determination.

(Again, what kind of a mentality is this with which we are dealing?)

ARTICLE 20 -- The Balfour Declaration, the mandate document, and what has been based upon them are considered null and void.  The claim of a historical or spiritual tie between Jews and Palestine does not tally with historical reality, nor with the constituents of statehood in their true sense.  Judaism in its character, as a religion of revelation, is not a nationality with an independent existence.  Likewise, the Jews are not one people with an independent personality.  They are, rather, citizens of the states to which they belong.

(As if the Arabs were different.)

ARTICLE 21 -- The Palestinian-Arab people, in expressing itself through the armed Palestinian revolution rejects, every solution that is a substitute for a complete liberation of Palestine, and rejects all plans that aim at the settlement of the Palestinian issue or its internationalization.

(Mr. Baker, wherever you are, how long has it been since you read the Palestinian National Covenant?  Do yo not know that, according to the Arab mind, there can be no peaceful coexistence?  There can be no solution that is a substitute for the complete liberation of Palestine and the purging of the land of Palestine from Zionist presence.)

ARTICLE 22 -- Zionism is a political movement organically related to world imperialism and hostile to all movements of liberation and progress in the world.  It is a racist and fanatical movement in its formation, aggressive, expansionist and colonialist in its aims, and fascist and nazi in its means.  Israel is the tool of the Zionist movement and a human and geographical base for world imperialism.  It is a concentration and jumping-off point for imperialism in the heart of the Arab homeland to strike at the hopes of the Arab nation for liberation, unity, and progress.  Israel is a constant threat to peace in the Middle East and the entire world.  Since the liberation of Palestine will liquidate the Zionist and imperialist presence and bring about the stabilization of peace in the Middle East, the people of Palestine looks to the support of all liberal men of the world and all the good forces of progress and peace and implores all of them, regardless of their different learnings and orientations, to offer all help and support to the people of Palestine in its just and legal struggle to liberate its homeland.

[HERE is how "expansionist" Israel is taking over the Arab world!] (Again, what nonsense!  Expansionism!  Contrast this with the restraint that Israel displayed in the conflict, and yet was the target and focus of anger.  Why?  Again, because Arab unity and the liberation of Palestine go hand in hand.)

ARTICLE 23 -- The demands of security and peace and the requirements of truth and justice oblige all states that preserve friendly relations among peoples and maintain the loyalty of citizens to their homelands to consider Zionism an illegitimate movement, and to prohibit its existence and activity.
ARTICLE 24 -- The Palestinian-Arab peoples believe in the principles of justice, freedom, sovereignty, self-determination, human dignity, and the rights of people to exercise them.

(What about the rights of the Jews?  It is a historical fact that the Palestinian problem is an Arab-created and Arab-promulgated problem, one that could have been solved years ago if the Arab world had wanted to solve the problem.  But there is a complicated issue involved here, and that is the loss of territory once occupied by Islam, thereby the lessening of the nature of Allah and the demand that this territory be reclaimed in order that Allah might be uplifted, that his stature and position might be restored.  Yet at the same time, while it talks about principles of justice and freedom of human dignity and human rights, the nation of Israel has gone into countries such as Ethiopia, Arab countries such as Yemen and Syria, and now Soviet Russia, and not just allowed but brought back at great cost to the country tens of thousands of refugees, the black Jews, the Felashas, Soviet Jews, whose number may exceed one million before the emigration has come to an end, with all kinds of problems with which the country is faced.  During that period of time, they have assimilated into the economic and political structure of the country all of these peoples and made them viable parts of the economy, while the Arab world has continued to perpetuate the problems of the Palestinian people when they could quite easily have been absorbed into the economy of the Arab world, and in particular into Jordan which represents seventy percent of everything that Palestine ever wants.)

ARTICLE 25 -- To realize the aims of this covenant and its principles, the Palestine Liberation Organization will undertake its full role in liberating Palestine.
ARTICLE 26 -- The PLO, which represents the forces of the Palestinian revolution, is responsible for the movement of the Palestinian-Arab people in its struggle to restore its homeland, liberate it, return to it, and exercise the right of self-determination in it.  This responsibility extends to all military, political, and financial matters and all else that the Palestine issue requires in the Arab and international spheres.
ARTICLE 27 -- The PLO will cooperate with all Arab states, each according to its capacity, and will maintain neutrality in their mutual relations in light of and on the basis of the requirements of the battle of liberation which will not interfere in the internal affairs of any Arab states.

(That wasn't true in the recent war in Iraq when the PLO and the Palestinian peoples sided with Iraq against the rest of the Arab world, because they saw Iraq and Saddam Hussein as being the liberator of the Palestinians and the conqueror of Israel.)

ARTICLE 28 -- The Palestinian-Arab people insists upon the originality and independence of its national revolution, and rejects every manner of interference, guardianship, and subordination.
ARTICLE 29 -- The Palestinian people possesses the prior and original right in liberating and restoring its homeland, and will define its position with reference to all states and powers on the basis of their positions with reference to the issue of Palestine and to the extent of their support for the Palestinian-Arab people in its revolution to realize its aims.
ARTICLE 30 -- The fighters and bearers of arms in the battle of liberation are the nucleus of the popular army which will be the protecting arm of the Palestinian-Arab people.
ARTICLE 31 -- This organization shall have a flag, oath, and anthem, all of which will be determined in accordance with a special system.
ARTICLE 32 -- To this covenant is attached a law known as the fundamental law of the PLO, in which is determined the manner of the organization's formation, its committees and institutions, the special functions of every one of them, and all the requisite duties associated with them in accordance with the covenant.
ARTICLE 33 -- This covenant cannot be amended except by a two-thirds majority of all the members of the National Council of the Palestine Liberation Organization in a special session called for that purpose.

Now you see what an impossible situation Israel is facing in the Middle East.  Impossible because of the nature of the Moslem religion, and the nature of the Arab mind.  Therefore, there is really no solution except that we stand firmly behind Israel and declare Israel's right of existence, right of self-determination, and right of protection, both of its peoples and its properties, and the maintenance of a strong military.  Unfortunately, as we've previously mentioned, there is only one way in which this is going to be accomplished, and that is through power, through might.  When your enemies are stronger than you, it is acceptable to enter into an armistice with them, but when the enemy is perceived to be weaker, it is imperative, demanded by the Qur'an, to enter into war with them for the liberation of the lands that were at one time a part of the Moslem Ummah.

What is the solution?  Perhaps we find it in the book of Psalms:  Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.  Pray for the people of God.  Pray for men and women of good will here in this country, as well as in Israel, that they will inform themselves, educate themselves to these unique and peculiar problems that confront us in the Middle East, and that we will take a firm stand as a country ourselves with and for Israel to ensure that she, as a country, can remain a strong presence for freedom, for stability, and, if you will, for truth in the Middle East.  It's our responsibility to our fellow man.  It's our responsibility to God.

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Comment: There have been some attempts over the years to reduce tensions with Israel by amending the Covenant, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_National_Covenant as of 29 April 2020.  This is not significantly evident in day-to-day activities in the region.
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Bible Scholars: Question the Answers

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Last update 26 December 2023.