Gen. 12:3
By: Dr. Victoria Sarvadi
According to the Bible God made all things. He established all borders of each nation and set up angels to watch over every region, but He claimed Israel as His own.[1]
He chose a man named Abraham to cut a divine covenant with, promising him three things. [2]
- His descendants were to become a great nation
- That through Abraham’s seed one would come – the Seed of Redemption – blessing all nations and thus all who would trust in Him would be grafted into the commonwealth of Israel being beneficiaries of the blessings of the covenant by the Spirit of Adoption. [3]
- And He gave Him the land that is now called Israel.
God also promised King David that His Kingdom would be established in Jerusalem and that in the appointed time of the Age to Come, Messiah, Himself would come to sit on His throne in the Heavenly Jerusalem after it comes down to unite with the physical Jerusalem.[4]
Due to idolatry and disobedience the Kingdom of Judah was taken in captivity by the Neo-Babylonian Empire. From that point the Land of Israel/Judea has been governed by various rulers including Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Assyrian, Roman, Ottoman and British Empires.
In 136 AD The Roman Empire expulsed most of the Jews from Judea and Jerusalem and mockingly called this region of the Roman Empire, “Philistia” even though at the time all the ancient, giant Philistians had been irradicated from the land. Later Philistia was called Palestia and the people still living in the region were known as Palestians whether they were Arab or Jewish. There was never a sovereign ruler or sultan over the land of Palestine nor was it ever recognized as an independent state.
In 1917 Great Britain deeded the land called Palestia back over to the Jews by a document called the Balfour Declaration. The concept of a National Jewish Homeland set forth in the Balfour Declaration was approved by the League of Nations Council on July 24, 1922. It was also endorsed by a joint resolution of the United States Congress on June 30, 1922. The “Mandate for Palestine” was then issued by the League of Nations.
In 1947, the United Nations Special Commission recommended the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. On November 29, 1947 the United Nations adopted Resolution 181 (also known as the Partition Resolution) that would divide Great Britain’s former Palestinian mandate into the Jewish state of Israel and the Arab state of the Trans-Jordon.
On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel. U.S. President Harry S. Truman recognized the new nation on the same day.
It is therefore, unequivocally right that Israel be known as a sovereign state and has the right to defend its borders and its people.
[1] Deuteronomy 32:8,9
[2] Genesis 12:1-3
[3] Ephesians 2:11-13
[4] 1 Kings 11:34-36
