Noah is the father of Ham. Ham is the father of Mizraim. Mizraim is Egypt. Philistine is a son of Mizraim, a warlike and violent people who settled directly north of Egypt in the land of Canaan. He is the younger brother of Mizraim of the same father, Ham. God decided to give the land inhabited by Canaan (the most fertile of all lands) as a gift to Israel forever, when there was as yet no nation by that name.

Hagar, an Egyptian, is the mother of Ishmael. Ishmael is the father of the Arabs, a violent nomadic people inhabiting the inhospitable Arabian Peninsula. Ishmael and his mother were uprooted and expelled from Beersheba to live in that unforgiving wilderness because of Isaac the father of Israel.

Many centuries later, by God’s foreknowledge and plan, Israel became a nation in Egypt and Egypt enslaved Israel for four hundred years. To free Israel, Jehovah had to destroy the economy and power of Egypt and drown its army in the Red Sea.  Egypt has never again risen to its former glory. You can see how the seed of the current family feud was sown by Abraham’s attempt to help God.

One more word about this Ishmael. In Gen 16:11-12, the angel of the Lord said to Hagar, “Behold, thou art with child, and shall bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael, because the Lord hath heard thy affliction. And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.”  In the NIV, verse 12 is rendered thus, “He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.”  I dare say that the angel’s prognosis of the nature of Ishmael and his posterity is not far from the truth at all. The apple has indeed not fallen far from the tree. Violence, oppression, belligerence, terror, massacre are the stock in trade of Arab extremism everywhere they are found in the world. Few countries, particularly in the western world, can now go to bed with both eyes closed because of them. Of course, every Arab nation is ruled by autocratic despots. Not one of them is ruled by the will of its people. They are all ruled by violence.

In all this, can you see the setting of a family feud that has remained intractable for 4,000 years? What is happening between Israel and the Arabs in Gaza, who were originally called Philistines but now Palestinians, is a symptom of that old family animosity. To trace the stories of various wars in antiquity between the Israelites and the mingled peoples now called Arabs in the Middle East will be too extensive an assignment for this write-up, but suffice it to say there has never been any love lost between the two belligerent peoples even before the advent of Islam in AD 632. The coming of Islam has exacerbated the situation. We shall return to that point presently.

There is no doubt Ishmael informed his children of his expulsion from his father’s house on Isaac’s account and that infraction has certainly not been forgiven. Added to that, when Israel entered the promised land of Canaan under Joshua and subsequently under the kings, war after war and battle after battle resulted in the decimation of the local population of the Canaanites, Jebusites, Girgashites, Hittites, Gibeonites, Amalekites and Philistines - the descendants of whom are generally called Arabs or Palestinians today. The bad blood never went away. You would recall that when the Israelites returned from the Babylonian captivity and were permitted by Ahasuerus to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem under the leadership of Nehemiah, the following persons resisted the work:  Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite and Geshem the Arabian. They laughed the weak Israelites to scorn, despised them and accused them of rebelling against the king. They weakened the hands of the builders and planned to attack them and stop the construction work by force. The workers had to hold their tools in one hand and a weapon in the other, at some point a petition was written against the exiles who returned, and the work was halted for some time. The Horonites and Ammonites were not descendants of Abraham, but the Arabians were of kin to the Israelites. They were so bitterly opposed to the rebuilding of Jerusalem that they did everything in their power to hinder the work. Pro. 18:19 says, “A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city: and their contentions are like the bars of a castle. “So it is with these two brothers pummeling each other with rockets, missiles and 2000 pound bunker-bursting bombs right now.

The immediate cause of the blood-letting that started in the 1920s which culminated in the Arab/Israeli wars of 1948, 1967 1973 and now 2023-24 had its origins in the crushing of the Jewish rebellion against the Romans and the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. There was the subsequent second defeat and expulsion of the remaining Jews from their homeland and their dispersal all over the world in AD 135 following the Bar Khokhar rebellion. This is how the land of Israel was emptied of Jews by the Romans, and their Arab brothers decided to migrate from the surrounding territories into the land of Israel then renamed Syria Palestina by the Romans. Thus, Israel never existed as the national homeland of the Jews again until 14th of May 1948.

The defeat of the Axis Powers during WW 1 led to the overthrow of the Ottoman hegemony, which held sway over the entire Middle East for 400 years until 1918. The League of Nations granted the mandate over Trans-Jordan (as the land of Israel was then known) to Britain. As a result of the Balfour Declaration of November 2,1917, Britain allowed the Jews to emigrate to their homeland early in the 1920s but this favor was soon withdrawn because of Arab opposition to the return of the Jews. Intermittent terrorist violence between the Arabs and the Jews which also engulfed the British mandate army was the result. The land called Trans-Jordan was divided into two territories by the League of Nations on November 29, 1947- one portion for the Arabs and the other for the Jews - but the Arabs rejected the arrangement and opted for more violence against the Jews who also retaliated in kind - both against the Arabs and the British army which Israel now perceived as siding with the Arabs. It was bloody. Britain’s mandate came to an end on the 14th of May 1948. By 4 pm that same day, Israel declared its independence as a sovereign state. The following day seven Arab countries namely Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Trans-Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen invaded Israel, vowing to drive the Jews into the sea. Miraculously, Israel a mini- nation of only 499,000 people defeated the seven armies representing over 120 million Arabs. The bloodletting has not stopped till date after three major wars. Israel’s survival is nothing short of a miracle.

Concerted efforts have been made by the international community, mainly the United States of America and European nations to bring peace to the war-torn region since 1949 without success. Apart from Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994, real peace has never been achieved between Middle Eastern nations and Israel, particularly the Palestinians. The 1949 Armistice Agreements, the 1993 Madrid Conference, The 1993- 2001 Oslo Accords, The 2002-03 Arab Peace Initiative, The 2007- 2008 Israeli- Palestinian Talks, The 2010 Direct Talks, The 2013-14 Peace Talks and The 2017 Trump Plan, all failed because the Palestinians rejected every offer Israel and the international community bent over backwards to make to them. The Oslo Accords in which Israel offered them everything they demanded held real prospects for peace but the radical elements mainly on the Palestinian side trashed the agreements. It is now obvious to see no outsiders are trying any mediation efforts anymore. No one has time to waste for nothing.

The coming of Islam into the fray in 632 AD has extraordinarily complicated the family feud which was at first over land and inheritance.

Now, the Quran and its radical adherents do not believe Israel should exist. Both Hamas and Hezbollah together with Iran exist only for the elimination of Israel from the face of the earth. “From the River to The Sea” mantra of the student activists on American and European university campuses demands nothing more than the annihilation of all Jews between River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea. The Quran in 5. 33 says, “ The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His apostle, (the Jews) and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned…5.41, “They shall have disgrace in this world, and they shall have grievous chastisement in the hereafter “... 5.51 “Do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends…”5.60, “… whom Allah has cursed and brought His wrath upon, and of whom He made apes and swine…”.  These and worse things written of Jews and Christians in the Hadiths is the reason the average Muslim sees Jews and Christians as apes and pigs meaning they are subhuman and enemies of Allah and should be eliminated from the earth. The Quran has thus forbidden Muslims from entering agreements with Jews and Christians and honoring those agreements. It is therefore unislamic for there to be peace between the Palestinians and Jews. This is the real reason why there can never be peace in the land of Israel with the Palestinians.

However, we know very well how it will all end. There are very many Biblical prophesies that show clearly when, how and by who the eternal family feud between the Jews and the Arabs will be resolved permanently. We will refer to just one passage in Jer 25:19-33 which (NLT) which says:

“19 I gave the cup to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, his attendants, his officials, and all his people,

20 along with all the foreigners living in that land. I also gave it to all the kings of the land of Uz and the kings of the Philistine cities of Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and what remains of Ashdod.

21 Then I gave the cup to the nations of Edom, Moab, and Ammon,

22 and the kings of Tyre and Sidon, and the kings of the regions across the sea.

23 I gave it to Dedan, Tema, and Buz, and to the people who live in distant places.

24 I gave it to the kings of Arabia, the kings of the nomadic tribes of the desert,

25 and to the kings of Zimri, Elam, and Media.

26 And I gave it to the kings of the northern countries, far and near, one after the other—all the kingdoms of the world. And finally, the king of Babylon himself drank from the cup of the LORD ’s anger.

27 Then the LORD said to me, “Now tell them, ‘This is what the LORD of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says: Drink from this cup of my anger. Get drunk and vomit; fall to rise no more, for I am sending terrible wars against you.’

28 And if they refuse to accept the cup, tell them, The LORD of Heaven’s Armies says: You have no choice but to drink from it.

29 I have begun to punish Jerusalem, the city that bears my name. Now should I let you go unpunished? No, you will not escape disaster. I will call for war against all the nations of the earth. I, the LORD of Heaven’s Armies, have spoken!’

30 “Now prophesy all these things, and say to them, “‘The LORD will roar against his own land from his holy dwelling in heaven. He will shout like those who tread grapes; he will shout against everyone on earth.

31 His cry of judgment will reach the ends of the earth, for the LORD will bring his case against all nations. He will judge all the people of the earth, slaughtering the wicked with the sword. I, the LORD, have spoken!’”

32 This is what the LORD of Heaven’s Armies says: “Look! Disaster will fall upon nation after nation! A great whirlwind of fury is rising from the most distant corners of the earth!”

33 In that day those the LORD has slaughtered will fill the earth from one end to the other. No one will mourn for them or gather up their bodies to bury them. They will be scattered on the ground like manure.”

Basically, this means, Israel will survive God’s chastisement for unbelief but the nations of the world that come against her will fall - never to rise again. The individual nations mentioned in this passage are the nations in the Middle East warring against Israel today, but Israel will see their end and not the other way round. (By the way Elam is Iran). World opinion is turning against Israel on all sides for fighting those who are sworn to its annihilation, but Israel will survive and see their fall never to rise again.

Yes, Israel will defeat Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, the axis of evil in Syria and Iraq and Iran their paymaster. God Almighty will defend Israel. God will fight the world for Israel’s sake. The entire world including America may desert Israel, but Israel will survive and one day become the greatest, strongest, richest and most delightsome of all nations on earth because Jehovah has decreed it so and there is absolutely nothing the world can do about it.

By:Isaac Okpanachi