At 4:00PM on May 14, 1948 the modern State of Israel was born, and that obviously makes May 14, 2013 her 65th birthday. Bible students who for centuries believed that the ancient Hebrew prophets wrote of a literal rebirth of Israel during the last days were finally vindicated. A number of Christians of that day were both astonished and quickened in their spirits as the news gradually filtered down to main-street America and to small churches along the dusty roads of rural communities. No amount of condescending secular/political explanations from prophecy-rejecting, high-brow scholars could temper the excitement in the hearts of those who knew the scriptures and simply believed them.

News soon came that the combined armies of five Arab nations invaded Israel with the stated purpose of annihilating every Jew. Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League said, “It will be a war of annihilation. It will be a momentous massacre in history that will be talked about like the massacres of the Mongols or the Crusades.” [“Interview with Abd al-Rahman Azzam Pasha”, Akhbar al-Yom (Egypt), (October 11, 1947); translated by R. Green]

The combined military power of Egypt, Transjordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Syria was defeated by a relatively small group of rag-tag Jews who, in addition to having very limited supplies of small weapons and not even one tank, had just come from the death camps of Nazi Europe. That they prevailed can solely be attributed to God’s hand in the affairs of men and states.

The reaction in the Muslim world, however, was quite different. They, too, were astonished, but for a different reason. For centuries prior to 1948 Muslims had been instilled with the unquestionable and non-debatable Islamic teaching that the land of Palestine belonged to Muslims only. Using the most virulent of speeches the Imams had been assuring the faithful that the Jews would never possess the land itself much less Jerusalem, the 3rd holiest city in Islam following Mecca and Medina. But the Jews did, and this was the deepest of humiliations for the Arab Muslim world. As a result they refer to Israel’s Independence Day as Yawm an-Nakba, “Day of the Catastrophe”.

There are several reasons the Muslim world calls the rebirth of Israel a catastrophe, and they are important. But, before those reasons can be briefly listed something else must be clearly understood. The fact is this: the Muslim world is being used as a powerful tool by Satan in his go-for-broke effort to annihilate the Jewish State and the Jewish people. That is at the crux of the entire conflict that keeps the Middle East, and the entire world, on the precipice of a heated war.

This has been stated often in these pages, but it cannot be overstated. If the Jews can be obliterated then God has been lying for millennia, and if He is a liar then He has no moral authority to judge Satan. Thus the destruction of the Jews is obviously advantageous to him — he escapes hell and gets the world; that is the way he sees it.

Now, back to the Islamic humiliation. Defeat in battle is often more than mere embarrassment for the vanquished. It fuels the fire of rabid vindication. Germany’s loss in WWI was one of the driving forces behind Hitler’s diabolical plan to rid the world of Jews; he blamed them for the Fatherland’s defeat. A similar situation has developed for Islam, but this time the mandate for the annihilation of the Jews is not from Mein Kampf, but from the Quran. Islam’s embarrassing defeat in 1948 must be paid for, and the only way to atone for the embarrassment is to totally destroy the Jews.

One reason for such embarrassment had to do with the fact that the Islamic armies met defeat at the hands of people whom they considered to be descendants of monkeys and pigs, and thus an enemy that was intellectually and militarily inferior to the Arab Muslims. Secretary-General Azzam was as self-deceived in 1947 as Egyptian President Nasser was in 1967 just days before the Six Day War when he said, “The Jews threaten to make war. My reply: Welcome! We’re ready for war.” (Abba Eban; Abba Eban . NY: Random House, 1977, p. 358). That is known as “eating crow”.

Actually, the account of Israel’s 9-month War of Independence is similar to some of the great biblical battles where God delivered victory for His people when it was humanly impossible. As Gideon was with few men and weapons, so was the situation in Israel in 1948. The Arab enemies were incensed that the Jews actually would make a run for the creation of their own state in “Palestine”. Did the lowly Jews not understand what, or who, they were going to fight? After all, the Arabs had the men, the weapons and the leadership. The Jews had virtually nothing. In fact, Jordan’s Arab Legion, the most powerful of the Arab armies in the 1948 war, was led by none other than Lt. General Sir John Bagot Glubb, a British officer!

Israel’s War of Independence was a very humiliating embarrassment to the entire Arab Muslim coalition. That an axis of such prominent nations could be beaten by the likes of death-camp mentality Jews was beyond belief. In the annals of modern warfare such paradoxes have been seldom seen. It is noteworthy that this whole scenario will be repeated — twice more, in fact. If Psalm 83 describes a specific war (as many believe) instead of a general prayer, those same nations will get their united noses bloodied again. And, it will happen again with the fulfillment of Ezekiel 38-39, though the coalition will be somewhat different, and at that time God will do the delivering instead of Israel’s army. The Arab Muslim world, and the world in general for that matter, refuses to accept the fact that God will not allow Israel’s land to be lost again, and He will not allow the Jewish people to be annihilated.

However, in the collective mind of Islam the fallout from the 1948 defeat went far beyond the dishonour the commanders felt, and even beyond the humiliation the individual nations suffered. It went right to the person of Allah, their pagan god. Muslims fight for the glory of Allah, and anything that brings reproach upon that effort is an abomination to them because it strikes at the very heart of his person and being. In defeat Allah is shown to be weaker than his enemies, the very thought of which is intolerable.

Islamic routs are most often accompanied by hyper-emotional oaths to regain any land lost in defeat. Since the land of Israel was once conquered by Islam it is of utmost importance in the minds of Muslims to recapture it. That the land was promised by God to Abraham’s descendants through Isaac means nothing. That there was a Jewish presence in the land 2400 years before Mohammed and Islam also means nothing. Since Israel became an independent state in 1948 the Arab Muslims have been determined to win the land back in war, and that they have repeatedly been unsuccessful is a continuing reality very difficult to accept. The question they must answer for the world, and even for themselves, has to do with the power and prestige of Allah. This is a very uncomfortable position for them to be in, and their only option is to take the land back, including Jerusalem, and to kill every Jew in the process. Then Allah will be honoured and vindicated.

But, there is more to the story than what is commonly discussed on news programs. The fact is that there was little interest in Jerusalem by Muslims even going back prior to 1948. Consider a few facts. There is nothing in the Quran about Jerusalem; it is not even mentioned. After the Israeli victory in 1967 some Muslim leaders spoke of wanting to pray in Jerusalem, but they realistically paid little attention to the city between 1948 and 1967 before Israel liberated it from Muslim occupation in The Six Day War. Further, Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian National Covenant of 1964 does not mention Jerusalem. As long as the old city of Jerusalem was under Jordanian control (1948-1967) the Islamic world was ho-hum about it. But, once the Jews recaptured it as their rightful capital it suddenly became important to the Arab Muslims.

From the secularist’s view, including that of the U.S. Government, that means the present-day issue regarding Jerusalem is not so much about religion as it is about politics—wrong! However, looking at the fight for so-called “Palestine” and Jerusalem from a purely political perspective allows America and Europe to colour their unreasonable constraints upon Israel as genuine efforts toward political equity in the Middle East, while at the same time camouflaging their not-so-subtle allowances for Islam. Western civilization knows there is great risk in trying this due to Islam’s bloody history. But, they believe it is worth it if they can just appease the Muslim world long enough for it to become stable and satisfied. That won’t happen. Though the West will not say it publicly, what it really wants is a world that is secure and productive and void of Israel. It is the same old sigh and refrain, “If Israel just did not exist things would be so much better.”

So, what are Muslim children being taught about this dispute? They are being taught it is a religious matter! "‘Whoever studies the nature of the conflict between the Muslims and the Jews understands an important fact, [namely that] this is a religious conflict, not a dispute about politics or nationality, or a conflict between races or tribes, or a fight over land or country, as some describe it,’ states a Saudi high school textbook, Studies from the Muslim World. The book says that the conflict will not end unless one side vanquishes the other…” (https://www.answering-islam.org/authors/roark/hate_jews.html)

The Muslim world, obviously, wants nothing to do with equity in the Middle East, or anywhere else for that matter. It wants vengeance in the name of Allah and his religion. Reclamation of “Palestine”, north Africa, Spain and much of Europe are all part of the objective. The Islamic defeat at Tours in 732 stopped the Islamic conquest of Europe, and that, too, must be avenged. Any wonder why Muslims are migrating in such numbers to Europe, and why they are violently incorrigible?

It seems clear there is an entity (as in Daniel 10:13) whispering into the ear of European leadership with advice on how to deal with the 21st Century Islamic invasion of Europe. Advice that is destroying Europe, of course, while giving birth to chaos that will play into the hands of Antichrist.

As an example, on May 22, 2013 a British soldier was butchered on a public street in London in broad daylight with bystanders watching but doing nothing. The civilized world was in shock as one of the Muslims gave an interview at the scene and virtually bragged that the West cannot win the fight with Islam.

Two things jump out from the incident. First, the Muslim butcher did not have in mind that the West cannot win the fight against "terrorism"; he clearly meant Islam. Second, in British Prime Minister David Cameron's response he emphasized, "...there is nothing in Islam that justifies this truly dreadful act...", and that the attack was solely the fault of the "sickening individuals".

Mr. Cameron, like most leadership in the West, is so hyper-concerned that he and the UK not be labelled as being anti-Islam that he would actually make a statement so asinine and nonsensical. Similarly the Islamic attack at Ft. Hood where the Muslim attacker screamed "Allahu Akbar" while murdering U.S. soldiers, is called "workplace violence" instead of an Islamic attack.

If the free world insists that such attacks on its own soil against its own people are political in nature and not religious, then there is no wonder that the on-going effort by Muslims to annihilate the Jews is also considered to be political and not religious.

Why have the Oslo Accords failed? Why did Yasser Arafat refuse Ehud Barak’s generous offer at President Clinton’s Camp David Summit? Why did the Gaza Arabs reward Israel’s pull-out with the launching of multiple rocket attacks and cross-border murders of innocents by Muslim assassins? It is because they do not define their hatred for Israel in political terms that have international protocols and solutions by compromise, but in Islamic terms in which there are no rules, no compromises and no solutions except full Islamic victory. Their religion demands that Allah’s name be defended and avenged by any means available and at any cost, and that every inch of land once ruled by Islam be reclaimed.

There is no wonder that the world of Islam cringes every year on May 14th. Israel’s independence was an embarrassment to all Muslim nations involved in the fight and to Allah personally. All of which, of course, must be avenged.