Sid: We want everyone everywhere to be on God’s side in the last days. That’s why I’m so excited about probably the most unique and fresh approach covering the end times in reference to the Jew, Israel and the church. The book is called “I Still Care About Israel.” And Israel if you haven’t noticed that tiny little country that’s about the size of Rhode Island. You can’t open a newspaper anywhere in the world without that nation being addressed. And just as Israel was front and center stage at the first coming of Jesus well we’re in the footsteps of Messiah according to the Orthodox Jewish Community. The Messiah’s ready to return according to the Christian Community just as Israel was front and center at the first coming of Jesus, Israel is front and center at the return of Jesus. Now I have on the telephone a messianic Jewish believer Sandy Teplinski; she’s an Israeli American. She is an attorney and Sandy I have to tell you you have documented every statement that you make in this book “Why Still Care About Israel.” You went almost overboard on the documentation so no one will think that it’s just opinion. One of the most important questions I believe to God right now is “Who owns the land of Israel; the Jewish people; the Palestinians; who?
Susan: Well, according to God’s Word Psalm 105 “He remembers His covenant forever; the word which He commanded for a thousand generations. The covenant which He made with Abraham and his oath to Isaac. He confirmed it to Jacob for a statue to Israel as an everlasting covenant saying to you that I will give the land of Canaan verses 8-11. According to the scriptures God has given Israel covenantal stewardship of the land of Israel forever. Now if we want to look to non-Biblical sources historically the Jewish people of all other people groups in the world according to the principals of customary international law the Jewish people have a legal right to the land of Israel. Why do I say that? Well, according to customary international law people who have best claim to any given piece of land are the people that last legally exercised sovereign control over that land. The last legal owners of the land of Israel were the Jewish people; in fact there has been a continuous Jewish presence in the land of Israel for 1,000’s of years. Now not only do we have customary international law but back in the early 20th century after World War 1 European nations came together and formed international agreements which established a future Jewish homeland in what was then called Palestine.
Sid: By the way “Where did the name Palestine come from?” Do they have a traceable ancient tie to the land of Israel?
Susan: You read my mind [laughing] even though the land was called Palestine that has nothing to do with the Palestinians of today. The Roman’s renamed Israel Palestine as an insult in mocking remembrance of the Jews ancient enemy the Philistines who were already extinct by the time the Roman’s renamed Israel Palestine. The Palestinians of today…
Sid: So what you’re saying is “The Jews and any Arabs that might have been there were called Palestinians at that time.
Susan: Exactly, exactly. There were Palestinian Jew; there were Palestinian Arabs. Israel was created as a Palestinian state so as you know Israel has a large significant Arab population. Israel’s a democracy; Arab Israel’s have the same rights as Jewish Israeli’s and those Arab Israelis’ are the descendants of the Palestinian Arabs who lived in the country before Israel was created as a modern day state. The key here is that there were very few other occupants of the land when Israel became a nation and during the processes of Israel becoming independent-sovereign state. There were approximately 300,000 individuals in the entire land of Israel which actually included actually about twice as much territory as it does now. And there were very, very few populations centers and so during the time that the Jewish people who were the last legal owners of the land were present and to live and inhabit the land the land had remained mostly barren and a wasteland. Yes there were some Arab villages but those villages had not really become bustling thriving hubs of any kind until after the early Jewish pioneers came back to Israel began to work the land. I believe God anointed them to do so; it seemed that nobody else had been able to cause the deserts and the swamplands to turn into blossoming fields and cites. But as the Jewish people came back and rolled up their sleeves and began to recreate a state by God’s grace that attracted many Bedouin type Arabs in order to get better jobs. In order to get better medical care; in order to get their children educated. And that continues to this day; and I see that even as an Israeli where many Arab Bedouins…
Sid: Is that equal to many people from South of the border come to the United States because we made a great country here just as Israel made a great country?
Susan: Well, certainly there’s a parallel certainly there’s a parallel. And there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that if people come in peace desiring to contribute to a country. (Laughing)
Sid: So what you’re saying is that this huge Palestinian population their ancestors weren’t even there in what was called Palestine. Like for instance Arafat he came from Egypt.
Susan: He did. It’s estimated that about 650,000 Arabs fled when the Jewish state was created into what are called refugee areas now. But even among that number probably the majority came from outside the land of Israel only after the Jewish Zionist pioneers had made headway in bringing modern up to date western civilization type of infrastructure to what was essentially a desert wasteland and swampland.
Sid: And you know what I find fascinating Sandy is that when the Jewish people who lived in the Arab lands were uprooted they left with clothing on their back, nothing. And Israel made them as we Jewish people say a mensch; real human they took care of their own. Now when the Arabs fled the land that they had they weren’t reestablished in the Arab countries who had so much more money. How come? Why did they leave them in squalor like that?
Susan: No Arab state would take in the refugees specifically in order to leave them in place as a local population that could be used in the political, the diplomatic and the military realm to help destroy Israel. The Palestinians have always operated in connection with the larger pan-Arab plan which remains to this day to destroy the state of Israel.
Sid: Answer this question, it looks like there will be a Palestinian state; if there is a Palestinian state how in the world can they exist if their goal is to wipe Israel off the face of the map? I don’t understand the longer term thinking.
Susan: Well, they don’t operate in isolation they gain their weapon supplies and their personnel from all over the Arab Islamist world. The Palestinian’s have historically did not at the forefront but they have been the ones that sadly been manipulated by the ones surrounding Arab nations to their bidding. To serve again as a local platform from which an all-out war against Israel can be launched. But you’re right without out building a state; without having a goal in life other than destruction of another state a people group languishes and doesn’t prosper. And that’s exactly what we see happening in spite the fact the United States for example spends approximately 400 million dollars a year to build infrastructure within the Palestinian Authority in Gaza. Yet there’s poverty and squalor and corruption within both realms that have prevented most Palestinians from having any kind of decent life other than having as their goal the destruction of Israel.
Sid: It’s so sad and so outrages it proves there’s a devil. And as a matter of fact Joel chapter 3 states that the single sin that will cause God’s judgment on a nation and I quote this specifically “Is dividing up the land of Israel that God gave to the Jewish people forever lasting and a thousand generations.”
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth