GENTLE BREEZE By Nelly Favis Villafuerte (Part V) Who owns the Promised Land? From the Biblical account, the Jewish people own the Promised Land, sometimes referred to as the Land of Canaan. It is a mystery indeed that of all the nations in the world, it is only the Jews that are blessed by our God with a title deed to land. God spoke to the three Jewish patriarchs, namely, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and told them that He was giving the land to their descendants forever. However, God imposed one condition –  that the Jewish people obey God’s commands, laws, and judgment. In other words, the continued peace and prosperity on the land was dependent upon the obedience of the Jewish people to God’s command. If at any time, the Jewish people disobeyed God and worshipped other gods, the Jews, though they still own the land, were punished by God by scattering and dispersing them to other places. If the Jews returned to worshipping God, He  would restore them to the land. The Jews went through this cycle of obedience and disobedience many times. In my article last week (Part IV), I started sharing seven reasons advanced by US Senator James M. Inhofe in a speech delivered on the US Senate floor on March 4, 2002 – as to why Israel is entitled to the so-called Promise Land. (Reference: http://www.internationalwallofprayer.org/A-007-Senator-Inhofe-Peace-In-Middle-East.html) Continuation of No. 2: “The homeland that Britain said it would set aside (for the Jews) consisted of all of what is now Israel and all of what was then the nation of Jordan – the whole thing. That was what Britain promised to give the Jews in 1917. “In the beginning, there was some Arab support for this action. There was not a huge Arab population in the land at that time, and there is a reason for that. The land was not able to sustain a large population of people. It just did not have the development it needed to handle those people, and the land was not really wanted by anybody. Nobody really wanted this land. It was considered to be worthless land. “I want the Presiding Officer to hear what Mark Twain said. And, of course, you may have read ‘Huckleberry Finn’ and ‘Tom Sawyer.’ Mark Twain  –  Samuel Clemens – took a tour of Palestine in 1867. This is how he described the land. We are talking about Israel now. He said: ‘A desolate country whose soil is rich enough but is given over wholly to weeds. A silent, mournful expanse. We never saw a human being on the whole route. There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country.’ “Where was this great Palestinian nation? It did not exist. It was not there. Palestinians were not there. Palestine was a region named by the Romans, but at that time it was under the control of Turkey, and there was no large mass of people there because the land would not support them. “This is the report that the Palestinian Royal Commission, created by the British, made. It quotes an account of the conditions on the coastal plain along the Mediterranean Sea in 1913. This is the Palestinian Royal Commission. They said: ‘The road leading from Gaza to the north was only a summer track, suitable for transport by camels or carts. No orange groves, orchards , or vineyards were to be seen until one reached the Yavnev village. Houses were mud. Schools did not exist. The western part toward the sea was almost a desert. The villages in this area were few and thinly populated. Many villages were deserted by their inhabitants.’ That was 1913. “The French author Voltaire described Palestine as ‘a hopeless, dreary place.’ “In short, under the Turks, the land suffered from neglect and low population. That is a historic fact. The nation became populated by both Jews and Arabs because the land came to prosper when Jews came back and began to reclaim it. Historically, they began to reclaim it. If there had never been any archaeological evidence to support the rights of the Israelis to the territory, it is also important to recognize that other nations in the area have no longstanding claim to the country either. “Did you know that Saudi Arabia was not created until 1913, Lebanon until 1920? Iraq did not exist as a nation until 1932, Syria until 1941. The borders of Jordan were established in 1946 and Kuwait in 1961. Any of these nations that would say Israel is only a recent arrival would have to deny their own rights as recent arrivals as well. They did not exist as countries. They were all under the control of the Turks. Historically, Israel gained its independence in 1948. 3. “The third reason that land belongs to Israel is the practical value of the Israelis being there. Israel today is a modern marvel of agriculture. Israel is able to bring more food out of a desert environment than any other country in the world. The Arab nations ought to make Israel their friend and import technology from Israel that would allow all the Middle East, not just Israel, to become an exporter of food. Israel has unarguable success in its agriculture. 4. “The fourth reason I believe Israel has the right to the land is on the grounds of humanitarian concern. You see, there were six million Jews slaughtered in Europe in WWII. The persecution against the Jews had been very strong in Russia since the advent of communism. It was against them even before then under the czars. “These people have a right to their homeland. If we are not going to allow them a homeland in the Middle East; then where? What other nation on earth is going to cede territory, is going to give up land? “The whole nation of Israel is very small. It is a nation that, up until the time that claims started coming in, was not desired by anybody.” (To be continued) *** This column continues to give out copies of the Holy Bible for free to those who cannot afford to buy t heir own copies. If interested, please send your letter-request to Ms. Nelly Favis Villafuerte, 5233 LRV Building, Fahrenheit St., Palanan, Makati City. Kindly mention if it is the Tagalog, English, Cebuano, or Ilocano Bible that is preferred. Be joyful and forgiving! (Comments may be sent to Ms. Villafuerte’s email: [email protected])