Hello, this is Nick Barnes with this week’s Bible in the News.

Some of these reports have now been retracted, it now being acknowledged that there are no dams in southern Israel, which could be opened to cause these flood.  The reality is that the floods occurred because it rained, and money and building materials that could have been used to improve Gaza’s water management infrastructure, was instead used to build tunnels intended for attacking both Israeli civilians and soldiers.

Original Mail Online Headline

Likewise the power cuts did not “compound” the flooding, because Gaza does not have any “West Bank cities”, because the “West Bank” is a separate geographical entity to Gaza, and the towns being referred to are more than 100 miles away.

Such reporting is not just poor; nor is it simply the result of a mistake.  Such inaccuracies are repeated because these media outlets willingly accept Palestinian fantasies which fit the narrative that it’s all Israel’s fault, and they are eager to include irrelevant and misleading details, which contribute to this end.

This flood libel is repeated year after year – as the Mail Online said “this is not the first time Israel has been accused of opening dams along river” – so why is western media still willing to repeat the story?  If there weren’t any dams last year, why repeat the same lies this year

And why is it that even after retractions by the Mail Online and Al Jazeera acknowledging the inaccuracy of their reports, other sites still include statements which imply the issue is in doubt, while Russia Today still retains its headline “Palestine accuses Israel of opening dams, flooding Gaza, forcing evacuations” and others (such as AFP) have quietly taken their erroneous reports down without any apology or correction.

As for the Gazan humanitarian crisis; this has been grossly exaggerated, for political reasons, over many years.  Peace-time living conditions in Gaza are probably no worse than in many Arab cities across the Middle East.  Adequate supplies of food and other essentials are maintained – even during the wars.  And while the war, of last summer, inevitably produced acute suffering amongst the inhabitants of the strip, blaming Israel is wholly unjustified.  It is a simple and unavoidable fact that wars kill and maim people, they destroy homes and they cause suffering that may last for decades; the only way to avoid such consequences is to avoid war.  And last year’s war began with sustained and intense rocket fire from Hamas; it continued, after each cease-fire, with Hamas renewing the barrage, and it continued until Hamas was willing to stop.  And yet, no matter what the facts are, Israel always gets the blame.

HaAretz reports retraction

And the method is simple; Arab sources, such as the Hamas de facto government and its ministries, produce patently distorted propaganda, and often this is eagerly repeated in the west.  Sometimes the reports are subsequently retracted; sometimes quietly removed; but the first headline is what is remembered by most people, and the continuous stream of such material amounts to a campaign, sustained for decades, to demonize Israel.

Israel, it seems, should be blamed for most of the world’s problems.  Israel is the biggest threat to world peace.  Israel is apartheid.  Israel is a war criminal.  Israel is a human rights abuser.  Israeli products should be boycotted.  Israeli universities should be ostracised.

And the irony is that everything that Israel is accused of, her enemies are actually guilty of.  For example Israel is accused of apartheid, yet Israeli Arabs have same “rights” as Jews; they can

-         vote, and they can (and do) send Arab members to Israel’s parliament (the Kenneset)

-         share the same schools, medical facilities and public amenities

-         enjoy the same legal rights and can appeal to the same impartial judicial system

-         practice their religions freely as is seen in the vast numbers of mosques and churches throughout the land of Israel.

Yet where Israel’s enemies rule, apartheid is the best that a Jew could hope for: he could never expect fair treatment in the Gaza strip, even though there was a Jewish quarter in Gaza city from Roman times until recently.  Not a single Jew is permitted to live in Gaza, Ramallah, Jenin or Nablus (and they’d be lucky to escape with their lives if they entered), and even other Arab countries such as Jordan or Saudi Arabia explicitly prohibit, in law, Jews from being citizens; and Jews and “Christians” who live in Egypt or Iran or Syria or Iraq or Yemen live as 2^nd or 3^rd class citizens.

Israel is blamed for not making peace with their neighbours.  If only Israel would return to the pre 67 lines, it is said, there would be peace.  Yet if this was true, why was there not peace before 1967?  Why did Israel suffer regular attacks between 1949 and 1967 and why were Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon prepared to go to war against Israel at that time, when Israel lived within the pre 67 lines? 

And so as this week Israel is blamed for making the rain fall on the Palestinians, we are being reminded that the Jews have been blamed for thousands of years.  During the centuries of exile, the Jews were blamed for evils such as the Black Death.  They were blamed for sacrificing “Christian” children whose blood was required to make Matsa.  They were blamed when “Christians” borrowed too much.  They were blamed when the economy was bad.  They were blamed for Germany’s defeat in WW1.  They were blamed, not because they were at fault, but because of anti-Semitism.

And this evil of anti-Semitism demonstrates that God is, and that His word stands.  God said in Isa 43

[Isa 43:10 KJV] 10 Ye [are] my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I [am] he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.

And Israel were warned that

…if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee: (Deu 28:15 KJV)

And these curses which would come upon disobedient Israel included

And the LORD shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other;( Deu 28:64)

…and that they would…

…become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations whither the LORD shall lead thee. Deu 28:37

In Jer 24v9 God says

I will deliver them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth for [their] hurt, [to be] a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places whither I shall drive them.

And in Eze 5v12 Israel was warned that…

12 A third part of thee shall die with the pestilence, and with famine shall they be consumed in the midst of thee: and a third part shall fall by the sword round about thee; and I will scatter a third part into all the winds, and I will draw out a sword after them.

So that surviving third part would be scattered, and even there the sword would follow them.  Deut 28 expands on this, and warns that their persecutions would be such that

65 …among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the LORD shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind: 66 And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life: 67 In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see. (Deu 28:65-67 KJV)

But today the western nations need a justification for their anti-Semitism; and they rationalize their hatred with a narrative of Palestinian victimisation.  They describe Israel’s control over the “West Bank” as “illegal occupation” and support Palestinian demands for the removal of all Jews.

And yet this is a policy of ethnically cleansing Jews from land where they have lived almost continuously for thousands of years.  This is a plan to make judenrein the Biblical land of Judea-Samaria, where Abraham walked and where Jews lived until their expulsion or slaughter by the invading forces of Jordan in 1948.

And this anti-Semitism will ultimately lead to the great invasion, described in Eze 38, when the nations' hatred of the Jews will bring them up to, what the Bible calls, “the Mountains of Israel”; the hill country known in modern time as “the West Bank” or by Israelis as Judea-Samaria.

And when this happens, God tells us in Eze 38v18, that…      

18 …it shall come to pass at the same time when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord GOD, [that] my fury shall come up in my face. 19 For in my jealousy [and] in the fire of my wrath have I spoken, Surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel; (Eze 38:18-19 KJV)

In our days we have seen the Israelites restored to their land (as described in Eze 38) and we know that the day will come when God will save His people from the hands of their enemies; when those who have persecuted them will finally be judged for their lies and their hatred, and when Israel’s king, the Lord Jesus Christ will rule the earth from Jerusalem.

Until then we will continue to watch Bible prophecy fulfilling, so join us again next week (God Willing) for another Bible in the News.