V RaptureChrist Newsletter
July 15, 2003

During the Turkish rule of Palestine, the "dhimmah" was maintained for all non-Muslims.  What was the "dhimmah?"

The word "dhimmah" means "protection."  Protection from what?  When Muslims started their jihad in the 7th century, as they conquered nearby lands, they gave "special treatment" to the people of the book (Christians and Jews) who fell under their rule.  Instead of slaughtering them all as they did with other religious groups, they allowed them to live and work under certain conditions.  Similar to a mafia.  So what did this "protection" entail?  Well, protection from complete extermination by the Muslims!

If the leaders of conquered Christians and Jews signed the "dhimma,"  the enslaved people would be "protected."   If the leader would not sign, the Muslims would then kill everybody.  So the "dhimma" was a surrender agreement.   As long as Jews and Christians would keep the conditions of the "dhimma," they would be spared.  These were some of the conditions:

Dhimmis  had to cede the right of way to Muslims and pass a Muslim on the left side (the side of Satan).
Dhimmis had to wear distinctive clothing in public, intentionally designed to be humiliating.
They could not testify against a Muslim in court; they could not bear arms or defend themselves if physically assaulted by a Muslim.
A dhimmi man could not so much as touch a Muslim woman, but a Muslim man could take Jewish or Christian women as wives.
They could not build new places of worship;  they had to pray quietly so as not to offend the ears of Muslims passing by. 
Dhimmis had to pay a special tax every year and were treated in humiliating fashion when paying it.

Over the centuries, in the Muslim-conquered lands, Christians and Jews lived as "dhimmi" people, and their lives had to reflect inferiority to Islam.  Muslims therefore treated "dhimmis" with contempt and perceived "dhimmitude" as a confirmation of their own worth.  In  Muslim-conquered lands, the Jews were treated  with more contempt than the Christians due to the fact that there was no Jewish state.

As a Muslim in Hebron retorted when he was confronted with his theft and vandalism of Jews in 1858, "his right derived from time immemorial in his family, to enter Jewish houses, and take toll or contributions at any time without giving account."   From "Muslim in Hebron," by James Finn, British Consul in Jerusalem, 1858.

The prevalence of this attitude in Palestinian Muslims is a reason behind the recent intifada.  

Since the Israeli War of Independence, all Arab wars against Israel have been fought with only one purpose in mind -- to get rid of all the Jews.  The expression "to drive the Jews into the sea" is a well known Arab promise.

Israel is perceived by the Arabs as a group of people who have stolen rulership from the Muslims.  According to the "dhimmah" code of law, the State of Israel has no right to exist.

The negotiations with Israel are therefore part of a process to liberate Palestine from the "infidels."  In this context, agreements are just a stage to gain a foothold. 

"Our fate from Allah is to be the vanguard in the war against the Jews until the resurrection of the dead, as the Prophet Mohammed said:  The resurrection of the dead will not come until you do battle with the Jews and kill them… We the Palestinians, are the vanguard in this issue, in this battle, whether we want to or whether we refuse.  All the agreements being made are temporary."

In this war against the permanence of a Jewish State, Muslims are training their children to participate.  The Palestinian Authority (PA) broadcasts television programs that teach young children to become suicide bombers.  The parents are also paid a lucrative sum for every child who becomes a Shahid (one who gives his life for Allah) because children make the best martyrs.

These are the words of Dr. Muhammad Ibrahim Madi, on a Friday sermon from PATV, August 3, 2001:

All weapons must be aimed at the Jews, Allah’s enemies, the cursed nation in the Koran, whom Allah describes as monkeys and pigs, worshippers of the calf and idol worshippers… Nothing will deter them except the color of blood in their filthy nation… unless we blow ourselves up, willingly and as our duty, in their midst…’ May Allah make the Moslem rule over the Jew. We will blow them up in Hadera, we will blow them up in Tel-Aviv and in Netanya so that Allah will make us masters over this riff-raff. We will fight against them and rule over them until the Jew will hide behind the trees and stones and the tree and stone will say: ’Moslem! Servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, kill him.’ We shall enter Jerusalem as conquerors, and Jaffa as conquerors, and Haifa as conquerors and Ashkelon as conquerors.… Blessings upon he who educates his sons in the path of Jihad and Shahada [death for Allah]; blessed be he who shoots a bullet into the head of a Jew."

The Hammas Charter states that the Muslims will continue jihad "until the enemies are defeated and Allah’s victory prevails."

If you still do not believe that the problem of Palestine is a fight between Allah and YHVH, read the Hammas charter:

  http://www.palestinecenter.org/cpap/documents/charter.html

Christian nations have been in favor for the creation of a Jewish state since the 1700's.   In 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte encouraged the return of the Jews to their land.  In the 1800's, the British foreign secretary, Lord Palmerston, asked the Turkish government, which then had control of the area of Palestine, to "hold out every just encouragement to the Jews of Europe to return to Palestine." 

The land of Palestine was part of Syria at the time and had become a wasteland over the years.  Inspired by the desolation of the land, in 1853 Lord Shaftesbury coined the phrase "A land without a people for a people without a land."   Many travelers attested to the fact that Palestine had become a wasteland:

There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent [valley of Jezreel] -- not for 30 miles in either direction... One may ride ten miles hereabouts and not see ten human beings. ... For the sort of solitude to make one dreary, come to Galilee ... Nazareth is forlorn ... Jericho lies a moldering ruin ... Bethlehem and Bethany, in their poverty and humiliation... untenanted by any living creature... A desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds ... a silent, mournful expanse ... a desolation ... We never saw a human being on the whole route ... Hardly a tree or shrub anywhere. Even the olive tree and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil had almost deserted the country ... Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery Palestine must be the prince. The hills barren and dull, the valleys unsightly deserts, swarms of beggars with ghastly sores and malformations. Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes ... desolate and unlovely,  Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad, 1867.

The United States favored the return of Jews to Palestine since the "Blackstone Memorial," a petition addressed to the President of the United Sates, Benjamin Harrison and the Secretary of State, James G. Blaine in 1891.  It was signed by 413 illustrious Americans, including the speaker of the house, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, important industrialists and merchants, and other famous figures of the time.

The Blackstone Memorial asked them to "secure the holding at an early date of an international conference to consider the condition of the Israelites and their claims to Palestine as their ancient home."

As England had taken control of the area of Palestine, it fell upon British shoulders to do something for the Jewish people.

In 1917 the British government signed the Balfour Declaration by which it expressed the desire for "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people."

During this period more Jews started to go back to the Land of Israel, to buy land, to drain marshes, to reclaim the desert and to build cities.

A significant shift of population took place at this time, as Arabs flocked from many surrounding nations into these Jewish-developed areas.

In 1925, the British High Commissioner in his report to the League of Nations on the Administration of Palestine and Transjordan wrote:

There are elements that always try to hide the truth.  In 1920, when Winston Churchill was British Colonial Secretary, anti-Semitic elements in the British government tried to convey that the Jews were not needed to develop Palestine. Churchill replied:

After the Arab riots in 1929, Elwood Mead, commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, wrote to the British High Commissioner that Jewish capital had produced "a marvelous transformation" in the land of Palestine.  "Jewish settlers in Palestine were not only reclaiming the land, they were elevating living standards for the Arab population and assisting the British government."

The construction of the State of Israel began since the beginning of the 20th century. It was the Jews that started to make that desolate land to become productive.  And it is the Jews who have more recently made the desert bloom and the cities to become inhabited.  It is the Jewish capital who has rebuilt the land of Israel and  made it productive and able to support the immigration of great numbers of Jews and Arabs in the past decades.  But behind it all there is YHVH.

Isaiah 43:19
Behold, I will do something new, Now it will spring forth; Will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.

Isaiah 43:20
The beasts of the field will glorify Me, The jackals and the ostriches, because I have given waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to give drink to My chosen people.