Land For Peace

While Christianity says that most people in the world will eventually be saved from their sins, Islam speaks about ruling the world. As the Quran says, “Allah sent Mohammed with the true religion so that it should rule over all the religions.” The whole world will be subdued under the rule of Islam. Jews and Christians have no rights for an independent existence; they can live under Islamic rule, provided they keep to the rules that Islam promulgates for them, such as special tax on non-Muslims. If Jews and Christians don’t want to live under Islamic rule, Islam must fight them, and this fighting is called Jihad. The Koran (Quran) sees the world as divided into two parts. As Osama bin Laden says, “These events have divided the whole world into two sides. The side of the believers and the side of infidels.” On the one side is the Islamic world, Dar al-Islam (the House of Islam), where Islam rules. On the other side is Dar al-Harb, the house of war, the part of the world which must be conquered by any means until it comes under Islamic rule. In Dar al-Harb, Muslims fight to extend the territory of Dar al-Islam.

Land to a Muslim is everything. Any territory that comes under Islamic rule cannot be de-Islamized. That is why whenever you hear about the Arab/Israeli conflict, you constantly hear about territory, territory, territory. Muslims can never accept Israel occupying a single inch of formerly Islamic territory. Peace in Islam can only exist between Muslim and Muslim. With the non-Muslim world, there can be only a ceasefire until Muslims gain more power. It is an eternal war until the end of days. Peace can only come when the Islamic side wins.

Islamic law demands that at the first instance you are able, you must renew the jihad, thus breaking the “peace” agreement. There is no permanent peace with Muslims. Wherever you have Islam, you will have war. Often, the Islamic world fights it war in Dar al-Harb territory by infiltration. Muslims have migrated by the millions to Europe and America, and have gained tremendous political and religious power in the West.

It is highly important to understand how religions see the last days. In Christianity and Judaism, the last days will be as in Isaiah 2, peace between all nations, the Kingdom of God on earth. Christianity goes further and sees the day when Satan himself is obliterated, and there is no more evil. Islam’s view of the end of time is a world that is totally Muslim, totally under Muslim law, where Christians and Jews will not exist.

We have a war between civilizations, but most people in the Judeo-Christian culture do not even realize the war is going on.

“Land for Peace” can never work.

Few realize that “Land for Peace” is not new. Gullible Israelites of the past made the same mistake that modern-day Israelites are making. A prime example is Solomon, reputed to be the wisest person who ever lived.

In building the Temple, Solomon needed the cedar timber of the mountains of Lebanon. He had the power to pay for, or take by force, the necessary building materials for the Eternal’s House. Instead, he made a pact with the Devil, and gave away a portion of the Land of Israel, which the Eternal had given to Israel forever.

Hiram, the King of Tyre, was a friend of David, I Kings 5:1-18, II Samuel 5:11-12. The Bible often reports actions of His people without judgment. David was a friend of Hiram, but in the next verses, he took more wives. God’s Word does not label these acts as sin, but we can know they were so. Judges 2:1-23 shows that Israel was not to make a league with the inhabitants of the land, but instead throw down their altars. See also Deuteronomy 7:1-5, and Exodus 23:32. From day one, Israel refused to get rid of the pagans in Canaan, and instead they were left as a thorn in the side of Israel. Solomon made a league with Hiram of Tyre, I Kings 5:12, in direct opposition to God’s command.

Even the chief architect and engineer for the Temple, Hiram (Huram), not the King of Tyre, but another man, was half from the tribe of Naphtali and half from Tyre, I Kings 7:13-18; II Chronicles 2:11-18. Solomon’s navy was in league with Hiram’s, I Kings 9:26-28, 10:21-24.

Tyre and its sister city Sidon (Zidon), twenty miles north of Tyre, were the chief cities of Phoenicia, northwest of Israel. Sitting on an island off the coast, Tyre for hundreds of years was the chief city of the seafaring Phoenician empire. Peloubet says the Phoenicians were of the same race as the Canaanites. The Phoenician religion was pernicious, worshipping the sun, moon, and five known planets, and a constant temptation for the Hebrews to lapse into polytheism and idolatry. Phoenician feasts were accompanied by prostitution, licentiousness, and even human sacrifice. Solomon, nevertheless, was closely allied with Hiram, King of Tyre. In I Kings 9:10-14, Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee. Hiram, like Yasser Arafat, did not like the land offered to him. He probably wanted it all. Hiram derisively referred to the territory ceded by Solomon as “Cabul” (displeasing, dirty). The city of Cabul (Kabul) is about 9-10 miles east of Accho (Acre), and thirty miles south of Tyre.

Joshua 19:24-31 describes Cabul as part of the land of Asher. Tyre and Sidon were also part of Asher’s allotted territory, which included Accho, the most important seaport town on the Syrian coast, called in the New Testament Ptolemais, Acts 21:7. In spite of Hiram’s disdain, the territory of Asher, the maritime portion of the rich plain of Esdraelon, contained some of the richest soil in all Palestine (see Peloubet’s Bible Dictionary, article “Asher”). The territory of Asher extended on the coast inland about 15-20 miles, from Dor on the south, through Carmel and the Kishon River, to north of Tyre.

Tyre was part of Asher territory, but the island fortress was apparently never conquered by the Israelites. During the reign of Solomon, Cabul, Accho and Tyre, almost all the land of Asher, were ruled by the Phoenicians of Tyre and Sidon. The Phoenicians ruled Asher territory through the time of Christ. Today, although Acre (Accho) is part of Israel, Tyre and Sidon are still part of Lebanon, having been lost to Israel for the last three thousand years. Solomon’s illegal league with Hiram, to this day, has ceded land belonging to Israel to non-Israelites.

The effect of Israel’s long-term league with the Phoenicians contributed toward their ruin. During the time of the Houses of Israel and Judah, a Zidonian princess became Queen of Israel. She was to be arguably the most wicked person in the Bible. “And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him. And it came to pass, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshipped him. . . . and Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him,” I Kings 16:30-33. Jezebel killed many of God’s prophets, I Kings 18:4, 13, 19:1-2. Truly, “there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up,” I Kings 21:25. With her whoredoms and witchcraft, Jezebel took peace from Israel, but finally met her inglorious end, II Kings 9:22, 30-37. Jezebel’s daughter Athaliah continued in her mother’s iniquity, II Kings 8:18, 26, 11:1, 20. Jezebel was a type of the great false church, Revelation 2:20.

During His time on earth, Jesus toured the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. He perhaps was referring to this land as belonging to Israel when he said, “. . . it is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs,” Matthew 15:21-28. Solomon had taken land given by the Almighty to Israel, and cast it to dogs (Gentiles). However, there is a caveat. Cities of Galilee who were witness to many miracles of Jesus, nevertheless refused to repent. Jesus said that it would be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment, than for Bethsaida and Chorazin, Matthew 11:20-22.

So we see that Israel has long been ceding land for peace. This did not work in 1000 B.C., and it does not work in A.D. 2000. Making leagues, peace agreements, ceding portions of the land of Israel, is in defiance of the Almighty, and will not prevail. The Gentile spirit does not rest until it completely overwhelms Israel. Just as Lucifer and the fallen angels were not content with their first estate, Jude 6, and wanted more than what God gave them, so it is that Gentiles are eternally hostile towards Israel. Land for Peace is a cruel joke into which Israel is continually suckered. May the Kingdom of God bring the world real peace, which neither Israel nor the Gentiles can achieve.

— written by Richard C. Nickels W