Israel is constantly being bombarded with accusations of apartheid and occupation. So, I interviewed three people from around the world about those claims.
You will hear from people in England, America, and finally, Judea, Israel.
Susan Coughlan,
62 years old, receptionist, United Kingdom
I support Israel because being a Christian, I believe it is the Jewish homeland given by God to His chosen people and because of the oppression and anti-Semitic attacks that the Jewish people endure. I want Jewish people to know I stand with them in support against their enemies.
I am against the BDS movement and against the UN or any nation dictating to Israel in any shape or form, what they can or can’t do.
Israel deserves to flourish and build in their God given land which belongs to Israel, not Palestine. The Jewish people rightfully own the land from the North, East, South and West called Israel, the land that God created, the land of the Bible. The place where many miracles happened. A beautiful land with many scenic views and historic ruins. A land with a strong Jewish heritage.
Israel is a tiny, but powerful nation that possesses special knowledge given to them. That knowledge, which leads to innovations, enables them to be a blessing to the whole world. The Jewish nation is one of the first to step in and send a team to help in any disaster area worldwide. God has chosen Israel to bring forth hope to the world, to bring forth light into the darkness, to bring forth truth and love.
I support Israel in remembrance of the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust. Today, Jews are still killed simply for being Jewish. This is encouraged by Hamas and the PA leadership; their pay for slay program is horrendous. It pays terrorists tons of money for killing Jews. Where is the outrage from the EU, UN, and world leaders?
I pray for Israel every single day and I had the pleasure of visiting Israel in 2017 and 2019.
I had an interest in seeing the places mentioned in the Bible and to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. Israel gave us the patriarchs and the prophets. To be in that ancient land where they once lived and where everything took place that we read about in the Bible is just amazing beyond words.
People from every nation want to visit Israel. It has so much significance when you believe in God. Walking around in Israel is like walking through history and seeing it come true in this mighty land.
In 2017, I joined a tour group to Israel with people from America, Canada, China, and Australia, among others. After that first trip, I couldn’t get Israel out of my system. I needed to go again. In 2019, the Salvation Army in my local area were arranging a trip to the Holy Land and I couldn’t resist joining them. Both trips are experiences that I will never forget. Reading about places in the Bible that I visited now have more of a meaning. Israel leaves a lasting impression on you.
There is no other country in the world that I would rather visit again than Israel.
There was no evidence of apartheid during my trips to Israel. In fact, it was the other way around. On my first trip, our Jewish tour guide was not allowed into Bethlehem and had to be replaced by an Arab tour guide. On the second trip, an Arab decided to have a go at our Israeli tour guide on the Temple Mount. He told her that she was telling us lies about there ever being a first and second temple there.
Israel is not an apartheid state. There are Jews, Christians, and Muslims working and living alongside each other in all walks of life. Only for Jewish people are there signs erected warning them not to enter certain areas for their protection. So if any apartheid exists, it is emanating from the Palestinians, not Israel. So-called Palestinians are the ones calling for segregation, not Israel.
Israel is definitely not occupying Palestinian land. You can’t occupy that which you own. Evidence to this fact is found in the Bible, in an eternal covenant God made with Abraham in the book of Genesis 15 V 18. For over 3,000 years Israel has been in the hands of the Jewish people. No one has the authority to break the covenant that God made with them.
Israel has been given the power and ability to defeat her enemies in battle by God, who watches over Israel. The enemies of Israel are falsely claiming something which does not belong to them. They believe the lie that has been fed to them. They have no rightful claim to Israeli land.
David Wang.
47 years old, pharmacist, USA & Republic of China (Taiwan)
As a Christian, I support Israel because it’s the land of the Bible. Israel is where all the history and stories of the Bible took place. It is where Jesus walked, preached, and performed miracles.
Israel is the only Jewish nation in the world, and as such, Israel has the absolute right to defend herself, just as any country in the world. Israel is the only democratic country in the Middle East. God stated in the Bible that He will bless those who bless Israel and will curse those who curse Israel. Israel is an innovative, scientific, and advanced country, and her successes ultimately improve the world we live in.
May 2017, my mother and I joined a pilgrimage tour to the Holy Land consisting of Chinese Christians from both Los Angeles, USA and the Republic of China (Taiwan). We visited both Israel and Jordan to see most of the biblical sites. En route to each site on the bus or at each of the sites, as well as at our hotels, our tour pastor gave sermons about each location based on biblical passages. Oftentimes we also prayed. It enriched my understanding of the Bible while making the Bible come more alive for me, while also strengthening my love for the Jewish people. It cemented my belief of Israeli sovereignty over her biblical and historic homeland.
Israel is a democracy, and all of her citizens have rights and representation in the government whether they are Jews, Arabs, or Druze.
There are many accounts in the Bible about provision, justice, and grace for foreigners/sojourners living among the Israelites. Ruth the Moabite is an example. She returned to Bethlehem with her mother-in-law, Naomi, after both were widowed and she gleaned in Boaz’s wheat field for sustenance.
God is a God of open arms. He looks after the poor, widowed, orphaned, and foreigners/sojourners living among His chosen people in their land. However, during the portion of my tour in Israel when we entered villages or areas under PA (Palestinian Authority) control such as Bethlehem, we saw warning signs posted on the side of the road telling Jews not to enter for the sake of their safety.
I never saw any signs carrying the opposite message at any places throughout Israel warning Arabs not to enter for fear of their safety. In Israel, any citizen can reside wherever they choose, but in the so-called “West Bank,” only Arabs are allowed; Jews are warned not to enter at all for fear of their safety. I have often read and watched news in which Jewish cab drivers, or even Jewish IDF members, mistakenly entered PA controlled areas and were stoned, attacked, or killed by Arabs. If anything, I would say the PA is hypocritical and is the one practicing apartheid in areas it controls.
The PA glorifies the slaying of Jews and even pays the family of terrorists who commit murder. I have never seen or heard of such behavior from any other country. Arab and Druze citizens of Israel have freedom to practice any profession they want. Many serve in the IDF or work in the healthcare sector. Arab citizens, and even PA members, receive medical treatment in Israeli hospitals.
The Roman Empire changed Israel’s name to Palestine after Jewish revolts in the first century in an attempt to erase Jewish identity from the land. But the reality is that the land of Israel always belonged to the Jewish people, whether or not the name changed. The so-called Palestinians have been hijacked by the PA, a terrorist organization/entity that operates to delegitimize Israel’s existence in order to steal the land and ultimately to eliminate the presence of the Jewish people from their historical and biblical homeland.
Israel has time and time again displayed her willingness to forge a peaceful co-existence with Arabs within her land, but the PA does not. Unfortunately, in order for Israel to protect herself and the Jewish people (as well as other peace loving Arab and Druze citizens), she has no choice but to build a wall around Judea & Samaria (the so-called “West Bank”) to better control and reduce Palestinian terrorist movements and activities.
Other such walls also exist on the U.S. southern border with Mexico to keep out illegal aliens/criminals and the Great Wall in China as a barrier to foreign invaders from the north.
Ellen Margrete van der Hoeven
72 years old, Co-director International Christian Zionist Center , Judea, Israel
Clearly the situation in Israel cannot be compared to the former situation in South Africa, where the government had laws in place to ensure segregation between white and black people.
I’ve lived almost thirty years in Israel as a Dutch Christian. In this country all people are equal, whether they are Jews, Muslim Arabs, Christians, blacks or whites. I find it such a pity that the status quo of Israel is regarded by many as a political or social problem. I think this is not the correct way to look at things here.
We must not forget that in 1948 both Israel and the Arabs were offered a state of their own.
Israel accepted that offer, but the Arabs, backed by many Muslims, rejected it and started a war against the Jews and the Jewish State.
For many years, Yasser Arafat was their leader, even though he, as a world renowned terrorist, was responsible for the cold blooded killing of so many people around the world and in Israel.
I believe it is far more correct to say that the problem we face in Israel is based on “religious narratives” rather than “just” a political or social system. In Islam, Arabs are taught that the land of Palestine – many centuries ago – was conquered by Muhammad’s men. Therefore, it is their belief that the land of Israel belongs to them and needs to return to Muslim control. Usama’s expedition in May/June 632 was successful and his army was the first Muslim force to successfully invade and raid Byzantine territory. Muhammad died in June 632.
Even if one is not a believer, by history we all know that Israel was inhabited by the Jews thousands of years before the birth of Christ, which can be seen by excavations and historic findings in many places in Israel. Jews have always lived in the Land of Israel.
After the Holocaust, many Jews returned to the Land of Israel. There was an influx of both Jews and Arabs to the land, and the reality is that the only way to solve this issue is to see these two peoples live in peace and respect side by side.
Christians do not require a land of their own, even though they also have strong ties to the land. But we acknowledge that this land was clearly given by God to His Jewish people and the Bible says that by doing so, God Himself will show Himself God to all the world.
So, fighting against the nation of Israel is, in the end, fighting against the Creator of heaven and earth.
From a practical point of view, I can say that I know of wonderful Muslims who would much rather live under Jewish / Israeli rule than under their current self-rule regime. I have met heartwarming Arabs who state that their lives in Israel were so much better before the Oslo Accords.
In Israel, Jews and Arabs can make use of the same public transportation, toilets, shops, markets, concerts, and so on. There is no separation!
There are Arab groups that do not wish to live in peace with Israel and believe they have to be “freedom fighters.” The government of Israel has the difficult task of protecting its citizens from these terrorists who use bombs, guns, fire, explosions on buses and at public events. The hatred against Jews is so deeply rooted that it is forbidden for Jews to enter into areas under Palestinian Authority control as it may endanger their lives. This is Apartheid against Jews!
I would never say that no mistakes are ever made in Israel, but in general, I can say that the media does not portray all the terrorism that Israel faces on a daily basis. Anti-Semitism is not over. In fact, it has become the Anti-Zionism of today. The hatred against Jews is deeply rooted in many people around the world, and if one does not understand the spiritual backgrounds, one will never be able to see the solution.
One of the problems derives from the fact that Israel never annexed the so-called West Bank, which would be fully right according to war-laws as they won back this territory during the 67 war in the Middle East. Israel was then brutally attacked by several nations and liberated Judea and Samaria, which had been illegally occupied by Jordan for many years.. So, Israel actually has the full legal right to annex the Biblical heartland.
Apartheid is a political system executed by a government on parts of its citizens. So, apartheid is not based on individual interactions between two groups of people, but is based on formal policy of the rulers of a nation.
For Amnesty International to accuse the Jewish State of apartheid is a grave crime against the people of Israel.
For apartheid to become part of this nation, Zionism would have to cease to exist!
Even non-religious Jews would consider racism a crime against humanity and this is the last thing I find true to say about Israel.
Terrorists get medical treatment in the hospitals just the same as Jewish citizens.
Jews and Arabs can freely walk in the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, even though the Arabs refuse to pay taxes to the government and even though many refuse to serve in the army of Israel to defend the nation against enemies. And what is most important is that Arab citizens of Israel have the full right to be represented in the Knesset. Today there are twelve Arabs in the Israeli Parliament.
I wish more people would pray and truly seek God for Israel, both Jews and Arabs, rather than judging the Jews for social abuses. It seems the more the Israeli people do for peace the more they are criticized.
Thank you very much to Susan, David and Ellen for speaking their minds and hearts about these important issues.
Let me end by sharing a very important quote:
Zuhair Mushin, member of the PLO Military Council in an interview with the Dutch paper, Trouw, March 1977:
There are no differences between Jordanians, Syrians and Lebanese. We are all part of one nation. It is only for political reasons that we carefully underline our ”Palestinian ” identity
Yes the existence of a separate Palestinian identity serves only tactical purposes. The founding of a Palestinian state is a new tool in the continuing battle against Israel.
