The UN General Assembly Says “Yes” to a Palestinian State

Yesterday, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly that Palestinians should have full-member status at the UN, an upgrade to its “observer status” granted in 1974. But four nations also announced yesterday that in a few days, on May 21, they are going to announce their recognition of a Palestinian state despite the fact that there is none. Those four nations are Ireland, Spain, Slovenia, and Malta. Actually, back in March they first indicated their intentions to do so. It will be no more than a symbolic act, but it will be meaningful. Others nations may join them. If it happens, I believe it will contribute further to making the US look bad about this, which I think it deserves.

Also yesterday, the US abstained in this vote. White House spokesperson John Kirby then explained that only Middle Eastern nations should determine resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I object strenuously to that, which basically leaves it in Israel’s hands. That’s the road the US has been on all these decades, and the situation is farther from being settled than ever before. Israel’s leaders, especially long-time Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have always been against creating a Palestinian state.

For over fifty years, I have been a keen observer of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I believe it will never be solved without there being two states, thus the creation of a Palestinian state. It has been so unfair that Jews have had their own state for over 75 years, and Palestinians are still wanting. And the US has contributed to this unfairness.

However, I also have maintained for over forty years that Palestinians advocate the wrong two-state solution because it is a non-starter. Everyone ought to agree that the traditional two-state solution is part of the reason why Israel has been so intransigent in settling this conflict. That is, Israel has always rightly said that a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be a threat to Israel’s security. That is why I think there needs to be discussion about an alternative two-state solution. But there never is!

That is what my book, Palestine Is Coming: The Revival of Ancient Philistia, is all about. It proposes a land swap in which Israel would forfeit much of its coastal plain so that a Palestinian state would be created only in the coastal plain as a very expanded Gaza Strip, and Israel would annex all of the West Bank. This arrangement would be similar to ancient Israel and Philistia lying side-by-side, as the map on the front cover of my book shows. Even though this book was published 34 years ago, in 1990, it was a book ahead of its time. Events since then have slowly, but steadily, been moving toward what I am proposing.

But this proposal of mine is not original with me. Yet my book continues to be, as far as I know, the only book ever published with this alternative proposal for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I got the idea from the Bible.

I have been a serious student of biblical prophecy since my teens. (I am now writing a ten-book series on Bible prophecy, with four books published.) In 1973, I first became interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict due to OPEC boycotting its sale of oil to the US. That resulted in long lines at gas stations and the price of oil quadrupling within six months. That upsurge in price surprised everyone, including all OPEC members.

Then, in about 1980, I discovered from Isaiah 11 that at the end of the age, when Israel’s promised Messiah (whom, as a Christian, I believe is Jesus) will come in glory as a Warrior-King to deliver Israel from its enemies (see v. 4 and my book Warrior from Heaven), there will be a nation of people existing in the Mediterranean, coastal plain next to Israel, a people whom the Bible calls “Philistines” (v. 14). The text says Israelis “shall swoop down on the backs of the Philistines in the west.”

If you believe the Bible, as I do, then you believe there is a God who created this world, and thus this universe, and that he is the God of the Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Thus, the prophet Isaiah, who was one of the greatest prophets in the history of Israel, was inspired by God in writing his book. (I won’t get into scholarly views of this book being three joined sources.) Therefore, I believe God knew what he was doing in inspiring Isaiah to write that “Philistines” will exist as a nation in the Mediterranean coastal plain, where they used to exist, at the end of the age. Who else could they be than today’s Palestinians, who derive their name from the Philistines.

Of course, I get a lot of pushback for this interpretation. Why? People always say there are no Philistines and that they have not existed since at least the 5th century BCE. I think that is a misunderstanding. Moreover, it is not an argument with me but with God who inspired Isaiah the prophet to write it. How can this be? I suspect that today’s Palestinian people–at least those who descend from families that have a long heritage of living in the Mediterranean coastal plain, called The Levant–have a stronger genetic link to the ancient Philistines than to any other people group. (See my post, “The Report about Present-Day Lebanese Being 93% Canaanite.”)

This could be proved, but Israel will not allow it. Israeli leaders would not want the world to know that Palestinians are genetically linked to ancient Philistines more than to any other people group. Why? Palestinians could then do what the Jews did in 1948 with their Declaration of Independence. In this three-page document, they claim a right to their “ancestral land,” identifying it as Eretz Yisrael–“the land of Israel.” Palestinians likewise could claim “the land of the Philistines” as their “ancestral land.”

Interestingly, much of today’s nation of Israel does not exist on the Jews’ ancestral land, since some of it exists on “the land of the Philistines,” most of which the ancient Israelites never possessed. (See this history in chapter 2 of my book.)

Today, Israel has control of over 200 Philistine skeletons discovered a few years ago in a graveyard in ancient Ashkelon. I think the world should object to this. Those are not Jewish skeletons and thus they don’t belong to Jews. Those skeletons are about 3,000 years old, and many of them contain uncorrupted DNA. A comparison could be made between that DNA and the DNA of modern Palestinians. If that was done, there may be enough of a comparable match that would verify what I am claiming.

But I don’t rely only on Isaiah 11.14 for what I’m saying. I believe there are about ten prophecies in the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible=Old Testament) that indicate there will be a Palestinian state only in the coastal plain at the end of the age. One of those extra texts is Zechariah 9.5-8. All of this is in my book.

Back to that UN vote yesterday, now it is up to the UN Security Council “to reconsider the matter favourably” in verifying this General Assembly vote. Will the US again cast its constant vote against Palestinians and for Israeli leaders by refusing to accept Palestinian full membership? If so, IMO it will be another mishap of the US as the main power broker of the now non-existent peace process.