Pretend Palestine

“Palestine” is a word that we hear a lot lately.  Recently, I did a search for “Palestine” on the internet and it yielded 457 million results.  Many of those results were stories of suffering and conflict. Although “Palestine” is apparently ubiquitous on the internet and in the news, one word you will never find in the Bible is “Palestine”.  Admittedly, some theological writers have referred to Deuteronomy 30:1-10 as the Palestinian Covenant.  These 10 verses are God’s promise to return Israel to the Land He had promised to them.  A land bound by the Euphrates River, the Jordan  River, the Mediterranean Sea and the River of Egypt, which I understand to be a reference to the Wadi el-Arish.  But “Palestine” is never mentioned in these verses.  Why? Because it is a made up word for a made up country.

Referring to the land bound by these rivers and seas as Palestine is unbiblical, inaccurate, plays into a Satanic subversion, and does not reflect reality. It is inaccurate in that Palestine is not a geographic or political entity that is reflected in the Bible.  Instead, Palestine is a term originating in approximately 135 AD when the Roman Emperor Hadrian attempted to eradicate Judea.  He renamed this area from Judea (a Latinized form of the name Judah) to Palestine as an affront to the Jews.  So, to that extent, we can even say that the word Palestine is an anti-Semitic term.

After the fall of the Ottoman empire at the end of WWI, the name Palestine was used with reference to the area incorporating the region from the Jordan to the Mediterranean sea and from Galilee south to the Negev which fell under the British mandate.  So the designation of this area as Palestine began as an insult and was perpetuated by those who were occupiers and administrators but not inhabitants.  Obviously, as my internet search showed, the inaccurate and unbiblical designation of the land that God gave to Israel as Palestine continues to today.

It has been subverted in that Palestine as a political entity and people did not come into existence until 1964 with the original Palestine National Charter.  This charter continued Hadrian’s insult to Israel.  If you look up the charter it explicitly declares Israel to be an illegal nation (Article 17), with no right to a homeland (Article 18), and an agent of fascism (Article 19). The term Palestine, therefore, has been subverted to refer to pseudo-state and pseudo-nationality and a de jure nation with an anti-Israel agenda.

It is Satanic because this renaming of the land is directly contrary to what God has said.  From Hadrian’s decree, through the British mandate, through the Palestinian National Charter, to today’s news the substitution of the word “Palestine” for “Israel” opposes what God has both decreed and guaranteed by covenant and oath.

Finally, the term “Palestine” attempts to mask the reality that God has sovereignly given the land to the nation of Israel.  Not only did God give them this land by He pledged it to them by both unconditional covenant (Gn. 12:1-3, 15:7-21, 17:6) and oath (Gn. 26:3).

When will their be peace in the mid-east? When the people who reside there and the nations that try to have an influence there yield to God’s sovereignty over the world He has created.  No matter how artful a deal for peace that may someday be struck, no peace will come until the rule of the true Sovereign is honored.